Episode 141 features Ken Sweeney, host of The Comfortable Spot podcast. We discuss being curious, podcasting, creating and momentum, starting in music, success and replication, the voice as an instrument, Star Trek, old television, keeping it classy, Dick Cavett and much much more.
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
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00:00:00:03 – 00:00:20:35
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com intimate biography of David Letterman should make your top ten list of Late night. The catcher Was a Spy isn’t just for baseball and espionage fans. And have you tried or checked out any of Alex in my shared fandoms from last episode? This is The Palmer Files episode 142 with Ken Sweeney, host of The Comfortable Spot podcast.
00:00:20:46 – 00:01:07:01
Agent Palmer
We discussed being curious, podcasting, creating and momentum, starting in music success and replication. The voice as an instrument. Star Trek, old television, keeping it classy, Dick Cavett and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:07:06 – 00:01:08:01
Unknown
Hello, and welcome.
00:01:08:01 – 00:01:31:53
Agent Palmer
To the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 142nd episode is Ken Sweeney, host of The Comfortable Spot podcast and producer and editor of many more. We discuss podcasting, which happens whenever two podcasters get together. It’s really just something that happens, and then we get to talking about music and the momentum of creating, as well as success and replication.
00:01:31:55 – 00:02:02:29
Agent Palmer
Star Trek Old television, keeping things classy and the eternally underrated Dick Cavett. All of that and more is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all related ways to contact Ken and myself in the show notes. You can visit Ken’s website. The Comfortable Spot podcast.com where on the about page, you’ll also find links to the Moldovan coffee break and Lydia’s book tastic podcast shows he mentions during this episode.
00:02:02:34 – 00:02:16:56
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Jim palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:17:01 – 00:02:37:03
Agent Palmer
Can you host the Comfortable Spot podcast? And I just want to start with this. That podcast seems like someone who is curious. Have you been curious forever? Like, was this a, you know, just an inevitability?
00:02:37:07 – 00:02:59:51
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah. Kind of, I suppose so. I mean, it’s kind of curious, but it’s also, an opportunity to kind of talk to my heroes in a sense. It kind of started off like that. I had this list of people that I said, okay, the only way I’m actually going to get to talk to these people is through the medium podcasting.
00:02:59:56 – 00:03:28:13
Ken Sweeney
And I found that podcasting is incredibly good for that. You know, like you, you managed to get where BBC or NBC can only guess. You know, ten years ago this would have been impossible to talk to a pop star or, you know, a well-known writer and, you know, to be honest, a lot of the people that I interview on my podcast are kind of heroes of mine, even if it’s kind of somebody that I’ve only discovered maybe in the last couple of years, it doesn’t really matter.
00:03:28:13 – 00:03:46:27
Ken Sweeney
I kind of get into that groove when I’m reading their book or following them on Twitter or, you know, listening to their music. And that’s where it kind of goes. You know? And it’s like it’s been through a lot of episodes. Mostly my series are about ten episodes. Okay. So that kind of gives me time to kind of have a break and then reassess what I want to do.
00:03:46:32 – 00:03:51:40
Ken Sweeney
So it kind of it’s not been a kind of continuous thing like your podcasts say.
00:03:51:50 – 00:04:13:47
Agent Palmer
Well, but I’m also every other week. So like, I’m. Yeah, I’ve built in that time to like if I record two in a week, I have a month to kind of recuperate. But I it does. I do want to ask you this question. You started with a list. Yeah. But obviously you’ve you’ve covered as much of that list as you can.
00:04:13:48 – 00:04:42:53
Agent Palmer
You’re. Well, yeah. You know, you’ve been doing this for years now. You’ve done many, many years of episodes. Yeah. Like, do you and I have this problem? Do you now look at the world in that way where it’s like, I just finished reading this great book. Wow. That’s a probably. He’d probably be a good podcast guest. Or, like, I listen to this album and she’d be an amazing, like, do you look at the world now as like, well, I’d love to talk to them.
00:04:42:53 – 00:04:44:23
Agent Palmer
I’m going to invite them on the show.
00:04:44:28 – 00:05:02:18
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I just kind of have a few rules where I don’t get involved with guests, and that’s kind of like, I don’t the guests don’t want to know what I am, who I am. They don’t want to know my opinions or are my, you know, goals or anything like that in life. So it’s not really a kind of one on one conversation where you’re talking and throwing.
00:05:02:29 – 00:05:21:32
Ken Sweeney
I generally does long pauses, you know, like where they get a lot of things to say. And, you know, I kind of come in then with not with a question based on their answer, but it’s not kind of very quickfire, like what you would hear nowadays in modern radio. And I think modern radio actually has lost that wonderful essence of the long conversation.
00:05:21:32 – 00:05:41:44
Ken Sweeney
You know, they tend to dig deep. You always get the impression that the present is on a time clock, and he’s kind of getting as many questions in as he can, you know, stopping the guest halfway through a point. And that’s one thing that I wanted to make sure that the contour spot was never going to be. So you might listen to an episode where you might have a guest talking for ten minutes nonstop, and they love to do it.
00:05:41:44 – 00:05:44:32
Ken Sweeney
So I’m not the type of person who jumps in and goes to.
00:05:44:37 – 00:06:08:12
Agent Palmer
If I am, but that’s also because that’s the way I am in real life. Like if you tell a story, I’m still going to interrupt you. Because like there are pieces of any story that will fascinate me as we go through. Right. Like maybe you’re five minutes into a 20 minute story. I’m going to interrupt you and be like, hey, but what about that thing?
00:06:08:21 – 00:06:38:22
Agent Palmer
Because I feel like we’re going to go past it and move on, and I want to know about that thing, and then we’ll get back to the story. And that that’s the way I am in real life. But I also I agree with you that some of it’s the medium, and that podcasting allows for that. But the other part is because we’re not on a clock, we don’t have to go to the weather in five minutes or traffic in 20, and we don’t have to, like, get out of here for the next show.
00:06:38:27 – 00:07:10:18
Agent Palmer
I it it always seems like it’s not just that they’re in a hurry. There’s also the lack of, listening. I think it’s the listening, I think hosts not not not across the board. It’s not categorical, but I think a lot of that, like terrestrial radio. The hosts don’t listen. They’re not listening to you say that like you started your podcast by getting a list of your heroes that you wanted to talk to.
00:07:10:25 – 00:07:14:18
Agent Palmer
They’re going to go, well, he’s got a podcast. I’ll just let him talk about that for a bit.
00:07:14:23 – 00:07:37:24
Ken Sweeney
Sure. And I agree with you. And the other thing is, like with podcasting, I think a lot of people are using it to just kind of air their views and talk about themselves or whatever they’re interested in, and that’s absolutely fine, you know? But I just didn’t want that podcast that I’m doing to be like that. I guess there was a little bit of kind of asterisk as well with some of them, you know.
00:07:37:24 – 00:07:56:15
Ken Sweeney
So here I am talking to somebody who I’ve been very fond of. You know, I think their writings are excellent or maybe whatever movie they’ve starred in. I really loved. So I’m kind of like, in a little sense, I’m sitting back and just kind of been a bit awestruck. So that was kind of the theme in the first, maybe the first or second seasons.
00:07:56:20 – 00:08:14:50
Ken Sweeney
After that, I kind of started to bring in people who had maybe approached me with a concept or book or whatever, and then it was kind of changing a little bit different. So, I think now it’s going to be in its sixth season. I’m going to be starting off now. I’ve kind of a different targets for guests.
00:08:14:52 – 00:08:34:36
Ken Sweeney
I’m kind of looking at guests who can bring something to the podcast that can kind of enhance it and maybe bring it up to a different intellectual level. And also kind of I know this sounds very cliched, but they kind of helped me grow a little bit as well, you know, kind of understand things that maybe I wasn’t that interested in and kind of exploring it that way.
00:08:34:51 – 00:08:49:46
Ken Sweeney
Whereas before the previous five series had been my interests. So it might have been about ancient history or could have been about, you know, soccer in the 1970s in America, you know, but now I’ve kind of done all that big bucket list. I’m kind of open now to new ideas, you know?
00:08:49:59 – 00:09:17:16
Agent Palmer
Well, I, I like that because it feels like you, you, you, you did the one thing I tell everybody to do, I you’re a podcaster. And you, you’ve been in and around audio. I mean, a short look at your bio says that you are, a man who’s not uncomfortable with the microphone, the wires, the knobs and the sliders.
00:09:17:21 – 00:09:29:17
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I always tell people, keep your show as open ended as possible, because if you’re going to do a thing about one thing, you’re going to get sick of that one thing.
00:09:29:22 – 00:09:30:01
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, that’s true.
00:09:30:12 – 00:09:51:11
Agent Palmer
And I love the idea that you don’t have to start a new show or rebrand in order to start going after things that will teach you instead of, deepening your existing knowledge. It will give you new knowledge, and you don’t have to rebrand to do that. I I’m in love with that. That’s that’s why I started this show.
00:09:51:11 – 00:09:57:29
Agent Palmer
Because I don’t yeah, I don’t I want to just talk to people. I think everybody’s got a story. Everybody’s interesting.
00:09:57:34 – 00:10:15:28
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be kind of somebody who’s well known. I mean, like some of the guests that I’ve had, you know, for example, my last guest there in the previous series would have been Steven Zao, who was a young lad 17 years of age, an incredibly good photographer based in Los Angeles. Now, I would never have found him, only that he got in touch with me.
00:10:15:33 – 00:10:29:15
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, I kind of said, okay, I had a look at what he was doing and I just became a fan, you know? So even though he was only new to me and to be honest, I mean, I would have done photography, but it would have been kind of now standard that lines down over there and I’ll take a picture, that kind of thing.
00:10:29:15 – 00:10:52:55
Ken Sweeney
So I wasn’t looking for abstract viewers, but, you know, as a, as a kind of a, you know, in my caveman appreciation, I thought some of his images were amazing. But what I really appreciated about it was that he was 17 and he sounded very mature because what I generally do, Jay, is I talk to people beforehand to get a kind of a lay of the land and what way they talk, what are their tactics, what are their, you know, there’s nuances and that kind of thing.
00:10:52:55 – 00:11:10:04
Ken Sweeney
So I can get a good idea. It’s not kind of fresh to me when I’m just about to record. Yeah. And what I, what I did find was he was incredibly mature. So that’s what really won me over. So I kind of learning a little bit this one time with the last series, it was a little bit more like people I didn’t know, but I kind of got newly interested in or people I’ve known for a while.
00:11:10:04 – 00:11:25:44
Ken Sweeney
They might have been close friends, and that’s the way it was going. So yeah, I’m I’m really happy with that. I think I’ve done a huge amount of episodes and you know yourself, it’s difficult to keep the momentum going. Sometimes you just get tired and you just go, oh, I don’t know. I have to do that now. I have to get it done.
00:11:25:46 – 00:11:38:49
Ken Sweeney
I have to get it ready for Monday. Sometimes that can happen. So I always advise people to take even a kind of like I’ve taken a seven month break from now with this. So, you know, it’s kind of something. And, and going back to what is kind of fresh, so jealous.
00:11:38:54 – 00:12:15:58
Agent Palmer
Like, I mean, because I didn’t think about seasonality. Like when I tell people, keep your show as open as possible, if you get bored most of the time it’s because you want to do something else. And the idea of creating one show and not having to relaunch and rebrand every time is great. The other thing I always tell people is, do seasons, because every other a week releases gives me a break in, in in production, because I can like batch record to punch and then save them and release them and like, oh, I don’t have to record for the next two months, you know that.
00:12:15:58 – 00:12:38:18
Agent Palmer
Yeah, and I’m covered. But it also means I’m still always on the lookout for the next thing. I don’t have a break. And at this point, some of it is that momentum. Like, you don’t want to break it. There’s a part of it that’s just like that. This is this is what I. It’s time. Let’s go. And my production schedule, to go behind the scenes a bit.
00:12:38:18 – 00:13:03:35
Agent Palmer
Is that I release on a Tuesday and on the off Tuesday, the next Tuesday when I don’t release, I’m usually finalizing the next episode. Right. So it’s like, yeah, it’s there. You’re always in a thing. I could probably work a little bit further ahead, but I usually don’t, because I like to remember things. And I’ve been a blogger for longer than I’ve been a podcaster.
00:13:03:35 – 00:13:15:28
Agent Palmer
And that that’s that’s over a decade at this point. And what astounds me about myself is that I will forget the things I’ve written.
00:13:15:33 – 00:13:16:03
Ken Sweeney
Oh, yeah.
00:13:16:18 – 00:13:20:58
Agent Palmer
And I know that I will also forget the people that have been on the show. Like I have to.
00:13:21:13 – 00:13:21:49
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
00:13:21:54 – 00:13:33:25
Agent Palmer
Casually go back and like, look at like, oh, okay. That’s okay. All right. That was whatever episode 73. Like it’s just you, you get in these rhythms.
00:13:33:30 – 00:13:34:24
Ken Sweeney
00:13:34:29 – 00:13:58:25
Agent Palmer
And I’m addicted to the process. And I, it’s kind of one of the reasons that I’m slightly jealous of you being able to be seasonal, or seasons having seasons and taking a break even of seven weeks, much less seven months. But I also don’t know, because I have friends that have done similar.
00:13:58:30 – 00:14:23:10
Agent Palmer
I’ve have friends that have stopped podcasting for their break and just never came back because they, they lost the momentum. So yeah, I will ask you. Yeah, you’re, you know, you’re in the middle of or getting you’re launching this new season now. What was it like? Let’s go back to last year, the end of last year. You’re thinking about launching the new season, but you’ve been off for so long.
00:14:23:10 – 00:14:30:43
Agent Palmer
Like do you is it easy to just shake off the dust? Were you how do you build the momentum back up again?
00:14:30:48 – 00:15:03:35
Ken Sweeney
Well, to be honest, the contours part kind of was it’s kind of my, you know, it’s it’s my public persona for work that I might do elsewhere in podcasting. Okay. So for example, I’ve been involved with four podcast series since then. I did what was one there throughout the year called the left Bank podcast, and it was basically just a, you know, a production them job doing, a political podcast for a political party here in Ireland, a very small, social democracy party here in Ireland.
00:15:03:35 – 00:15:25:05
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, it’s kind of near my politics, but I didn’t want to get involved in the production. Sorry. I want to get involved in the presentation part of it. Okay. So, it came it was kind of the idea came about and I was approached and I said, I’ll do the production for you because, you know, everyone has great ideas and and as you know, they get to the production side and it kind of puts them off, you know, doing the work.
00:15:25:10 – 00:15:43:22
Ken Sweeney
So I said, I’ll do a production job in that one. So that was one. And then I’ve worked with two other podcast, which, I can’t say because some of them aren’t even released yet, but, yeah. So a been busy for the last seven months, you know, working on podcasting and, you know, they did some of those podcasts.
00:15:43:27 – 00:16:03:37
Ken Sweeney
They were final. So one is a ten series one and one is seven episodes, sorry, ten episodes. And then the other one, seven episodes. And then the political one was kind of, you know, it wasn’t sat down on a particular, day or anything like that because it was running, in concurrence with the European elections, which were happening here in Ireland and the rest of Europe.
00:16:03:37 – 00:16:31:05
Ken Sweeney
If you remember the European Union. Yeah, there is a European election. So it ran around that. So, you know, it wasn’t kind of set to a date or anything like that, but it was quite extensive, you know, because you didn’t, you know, work for other people. So you kind of have to introduce your style into it from a production element, but you also have to cater for their style and the presentation element, which can be very, very different to what I would be kind of comfortable with, excuse the pun.
00:16:31:10 – 00:16:46:03
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, I did learn a fair bit from that. And that’s the goal. That’s actually my goal. I mean, my goal is to produce podcasts that have my stamp on it and, and for people to come to me and say to me, we’d like you to produce a podcast for us and then kind of go, you know, their stamp on it.
00:16:46:12 – 00:17:07:31
Ken Sweeney
And I think that’s, you know, you can become look, you notice yourself, you can become a really good, producer if you kind of put your own instincts into your into your pocket and just kind of, you know, allow them to be the influencing factor and it can turn out okay a little bit, like, you know, if you’re if you’re producing, say, for a, an artist or a band, you know, you can’t give all of your style to that band.
00:17:07:31 – 00:17:14:24
Ken Sweeney
Otherwise they’re going to lose their individualism. So I do the same with podcasts. And it’s a huge learning curve as well.
00:17:14:26 – 00:17:44:12
Agent Palmer
I, I don’t talk about a lot on this show, but like, I, I have, credit and my one paid consulting gig as a producer and editor on The Good Government Show. And right as, as a podcast, I, I, I, a lot of the guys behind the scenes, especially the executive producers, that I talk to on a regular basis, they’re guys from old media.
00:17:44:12 – 00:18:12:35
Agent Palmer
They’re from television. Yeah. You know, they’re from a different thing. And I’m trying to be malleable to what they want. But I’m also, aware that they’re coming from television, which, let’s be real. And in the in, in the grand scheme of things, television is still relatively new. Podcasting is just radio on demand. So I don’t look at podcasting.
00:18:12:35 – 00:18:49:03
Agent Palmer
Is that new, with the exception that it doesn’t have the constraints that, as we talked about earlier, radio does. And so I have these conversations that change the way I look at podcasting with these guys who are coming from successful, a success in a different medium where there is of, of a formula of sorts for success. If you’re going to put on a news program on television or, a news, or a features program or, you know, a documentary on TV, there are certain ways you do it.
00:18:49:18 – 00:19:14:35
Agent Palmer
And then the those guys come to me as the producer and they go, hey, can we do this or can we? You know, how about this or that? And I’m like, well, we can try any of it. Like I it’s there are no there are no rules I and I, I like that kind of but I think it’s also, a bit, unbearable in that there are no right answers.
00:19:14:35 – 00:19:52:01
Agent Palmer
And I think I’ve, we’re on season four of The Good Government Show, and I think that my working relationship with them is now that they’re aware there are no concrete right answers we’re able to cut through, and get to like, this is what we’re really talking about. Yeah, but it’s such, it’s still such a wild, wild west because the goalposts keep changing, everything keeps moving, and nothing in the landscape of media at all says stayed the same even over the last five years.
00:19:52:16 – 00:20:19:58
Agent Palmer
And so I the the what? For me, the one constant is this show. Because with them I’ve tried new things and we’ve tried new things here. I’m just like, I’m just going to keep doing this like this. This works out well, but I, I, I want to know, where did you get into radio? Like, you could have picked I mean, you I don’t know if you wanted to, but you could have picked any other medium at all.
00:20:20:02 – 00:20:23:41
Agent Palmer
So why podcasting? Why audio?
00:20:23:45 – 00:20:45:09
Ken Sweeney
Well, you see, I had I had a long, experience been in bands and in Ireland. I grew up with U2. That kind of rock element, U2 and other bands, like, there would have been an Irish band here called the, our continue. Our names actually demoed, I’ll Cry Before Dawn were a local band where I was and they were all very U2 orientated, you know, four piece band live set.
00:20:45:13 – 00:21:16:48
Ken Sweeney
Okay. And, you know, four track analog, usual stuff, you know, and then so as the kind of 80s drew into the 90s, I kind of moved away from the kind of live rock sort of thing and started to go into more down to music orientated, and it was kind of like a crossover sort of thing. And, you know, kind of listeners of bands like clef and stuff like that and finding that, you know, you can use electric guitar, in a dance song, you know, so I kind of got that experience of working in a studio, and I was the front man in the, in my early days as a band
00:21:16:48 – 00:21:36:35
Ken Sweeney
in the band. So I kind of got a lot of work as a session musician, because what was happening in Ireland was pop scene was beginning to take off. It was going into that kind of boy band element towards the late 90s, and I had that voice that could do a lot of demos, you know, because as you know, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the United States or whether it’s Ireland, you know, they always have the songs before they have the boy band members.
00:21:36:44 – 00:21:51:34
Ken Sweeney
That’s true. So yeah, so you need somebody decent to sing the song so you can sell it to the record company. And I was not marketable, you know, for somebody to be in a boy band, although it might be the right age, I didn’t have the right temperament. So I mean, I was kind of, you know, I came from the Sex Pistols, you know, do it yourself sort of thing.
00:21:51:34 – 00:22:05:57
Ken Sweeney
And the last thing I wanted, some lad telling me how to sing an Osmond song, so, you know, so I just kind of went, no, that’s not for me. But I got paid for doing the basically the session demo work, and I kind of that’s where I had my experience. And then in, in the early 2000s, I kind of got into politics.
00:22:05:57 – 00:22:27:18
Ken Sweeney
I studied a bit on journalism and so on, and I really became heavy into politics because that was around the 19, you know, sorry, bound 2005, 2006. And, you know, Ireland was, you know, progressing as a country in terms of economically and also culturally and, and, and so on. So, you know, everybody had an opinion and it wasn’t about, you know, unemployment or emigration, which was always our issue.
00:22:27:23 – 00:22:44:59
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, I kind of got into Europe and I set up a European blog down around 2010, and that’s what happened. We started to do what you did. We started to produce and media media. We we started producing articles and so on and, you know, interviews with people and publishing those interviews. And then I discovered this art of podcasting around 2015.
00:22:45:04 – 00:23:07:49
Ken Sweeney
Okay. And I slowly began to introduce that into the media project that we were doing. And I found out then that, you know, I produced a couple of em series for us, basically, you know, around kind of European issues. And that’s when I kind of started to move a little bit away. And the first one I started to do, which was kind of more of, you know, just for myself, was my it was with my daughter Lydia.
00:23:07:54 – 00:23:30:52
Ken Sweeney
She was seven years of age and a compulsive reader. And I decided to do a podcast with her because I’m sure you kind of you’re going to nod your head when you hear this, like you listened to Annie, book review for kids books. And it’s either by teachers or parents. There’s no book reviews by kids. So we decided to do this around 2017, 2018, and it took off pretty well.
00:23:30:52 – 00:23:48:16
Ken Sweeney
We had like over a thousand people listening to each episode. And, you know, back then it was quite good. So, you know, we still do it. The other time my my other daughter’s involved there. Lucy announced, Lucy and Lydia Bush, you know, that’s where it got me into social type to them podcasts. And then I did a really good podcast with them.
00:23:48:16 – 00:24:07:06
Ken Sweeney
I, I’m have to plug because I was very proud of this podcast. What we did was we were looking at, we’re looking at countries in Europe that were still in the progressive stage, you know, mainly countries that are in Eastern Europe and so on. And we we focused on Moldova, which is a small European country, not just on the borderline with Ukraine.
00:24:07:11 – 00:24:24:33
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. So, this was before obviously the war in Ukraine. So we want we met up with this young girl who basically wanted to interview young people in Moldova and, you know, get their opinion about life in Moldova. And, you know, we said this could be sort of articles. And that’s when I said, no, I actually think we should do it as a podcast.
00:24:24:38 – 00:24:39:44
Ken Sweeney
So we she interviewed them, in Moldova and then the tapes. Sorry. The tapes. Do you hear me? Show my age. It’s all there were recordings came back to me, and then we turned it into a podcast where she would be a co-host at me. I would be the idiot in the room, if you know what I mean.
00:24:39:44 – 00:24:59:48
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. And then she would be the expert on a country. So we’d play the interview and they were very specific. Like, for example, one person was a young doctor, another person was a young journalist, or someone was another chap was a young musician, a classical musician. So, you know, I basically just quizzed Laura, Donna, which you are name after the interview, which was only about ten minutes.
00:24:59:52 – 00:25:20:28
Ken Sweeney
So we turned it into this lovely podcast called The Moldovan Copy Coffee Break, and it was massive. I mean, obviously it did well in Moldova, but it did very well, you know, around Europe as well. And actually, this was the year just before, Ukraine was involved. So I’m sure if you remember, when Ukraine was invaded by Russia, there was a fear that Moldova would go as well.
00:25:20:37 – 00:25:41:59
Ken Sweeney
So naturally, a lot of people were asking in Google, you know, what is Moldova? Where’s my home? Hopefully, you know, so that’s where a podcast took off for a second time, because it was actually giving a really good, insight into a country that maybe had a bad rep, you know, and a little bit like, I mean, in the example probably would be somewhere like, yeah, Haiti or Costa Rica on your side if.
00:25:41:59 – 00:26:08:12
Agent Palmer
You, if they even have a rep. I mean, that’s the other piece to this. And you know, as, as the European Union was and as the United States is like, there is a lot to be desired when we talk about education, to the of the world and like of the actual world, like everybody wants to.
00:26:08:17 – 00:26:19:27
Agent Palmer
And I don’t say they want to, but we hear a lot about globalization. But, you know, ask anybody to start naming countries that aren’t in the top 15.
00:26:19:32 – 00:26:20:05
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
00:26:20:10 – 00:26:44:21
Agent Palmer
And, and, and, you know, I don’t know where Moldova would fit, but I don’t think it would be in the top 15. So I think even if you went by popularity. Yeah. Those countries that like for anything below the top 20 and it’s like that they’re part of globalization too, right? Like, we, we we always find this way to ignore them.
00:26:44:30 – 00:27:08:46
Agent Palmer
And I don’t you live in a much smaller country than I do in the United States. We have, communities that are like that. We have communities that basically don’t exist to everybody, like, you know, New York and LA and and so do I. But like there are other places in between that even people in America don’t know it yet.
00:27:08:48 – 00:27:25:08
Ken Sweeney
But I think I think Americans get a bad rap about this. You know, you see this on Instagram a lot where, you know, some smartass from the UK is interviewing American college students in Europe and, you know, they ask him like, you know, where is France or where is Spain, you know, and they kind of, you know, rolling their eyes as the young people go, I don’t know.
00:27:25:08 – 00:27:42:25
Ken Sweeney
And she says, like, I’m watching these and I’m kind of saying I didn’t have a clue where any states in America was. When I was 17 or 18. Somebody asked me to name the capital of Arkansas today, I still would know, you know, somebody said, point Utah on the map without showing the actual state. I’m sure I would say somewhere in the middle.
00:27:42:29 – 00:27:59:24
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. So, you know, and I’m considered I would be considered pretty well versed, particularly in American affairs. I mean, my favorite podcast every single day is, Chris Hayes. And, you know, I could be a bit biased, of course. But the point is, I listen to it because, you know, just keeps me in touch with American time, American issues.
00:27:59:24 – 00:28:08:48
Ken Sweeney
But I still can’t, you know, do that. And I find American people get a bit of a bad rap for that. But, you know, that’s that’s kind of easy. They’re easy targets, you know. Yeah.
00:28:08:48 – 00:28:14:34
Agent Palmer
But I just feel like we, we we tend to ignore the little guy unless.
00:28:14:39 – 00:28:15:00
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
00:28:15:06 – 00:28:36:26
Agent Palmer
You know what I mean. Unless and unless he’s never good. There’s never like it’s never unless like, we found out Wakanda was real. And there really is vibranium. Then, of course, everybody knows about Wakanda now, but the unless is usually like Moldova is a threat from invasion. And so now we know about them, right? Like, yeah. Yeah.
00:28:36:37 – 00:28:53:53
Agent Palmer
And so I, I, you know, I, I will say I applaud the, the, the idea and, and the follow through on the Moldovan coffee break because it shines a spotlight where a spotlight is needed.
00:28:53:58 – 00:29:11:19
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. No that’s true. And like, you know, I tell you, I can, I can I have a few minutes to tell you another story where I went with the same concept and a completely blew up in my face, like, because I had this project, where this was really successful. And the thing was, I. This is the key to it, right?
00:29:11:32 – 00:29:37:13
Ken Sweeney
The key wasn’t me. Because anybody can edit, you know, this, you know, if you know what you’re doing, you have your same kind of setup. It becomes like you could do it. You blindfolded. But the key was Laura. Donna, because she was not only very intelligent. Right. So she was really, really excellent at, you know, going beyond the interview and delving on hate using this phrase, but delving into the interview and kind of breaking it down for idiots like me to understand, I gotcha.
00:29:37:13 – 00:29:57:11
Ken Sweeney
And she was young as well, so she was fresh. She was always she was always able to do it. She was always on time. She had that Eastern European kind of commitment because my wife’s Polish and she’s exactly the same, completely committed. When when they decide on a project they decide to do it. So, you know, I had all of those things that were really, really cool that made that podcast work so well.
00:29:57:16 – 00:30:13:56
Ken Sweeney
What I tried to do was I tried to duplicate it. So I had this idea where I said, okay, I’ve got this fantastic idea, and believe me, I still have all these ideas rolling around in my head. I said, what I’m going to do is I’m going to put together a six episode podcast where I interview a woman from Greenland, okay?
00:30:13:59 – 00:30:29:22
Ken Sweeney
And I said, you know, no, you got me going with me. Now. Trump was talking about buying Greenland. You know, it kind of said, Jesus, like the ignorance that, you know, people in in Europe were saying he can buy it. It’s your opinion. And I was going, yeah, that’s a nuance because, you know, it’s right in the middle.
00:30:29:22 – 00:30:49:54
Ken Sweeney
It’s a little bit like Ireland. You know, sometimes we’re more American than we are European here. And it’s the same with Greenland. So I thought, what better interview local people who live are, you know, native to Greenland. Yeah. Done all the interviews, lined them all up. You know, one was a politician. Another person was working for a actually an oil company, you know, so that’s kind of, you know, a touchy subject when it comes to Greenland.
00:30:49:55 – 00:31:12:17
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. And then another person was a conservationist and so on. I had all these six people, different backgrounds, different ages, all lined up. And then I came across these, these two young girls and I said, these are, you know, media students here in Ireland. One, I mean, you couldn’t have got a better on paper. One was Danish. So, you know, Denmark has close connections with, with, with Greenland, it’s still, you know, under the governance of Denmark.
00:31:12:17 – 00:31:25:24
Ken Sweeney
Anyway. Yeah. So I said, this is going to be perfect. You know, she had one side of her family. We’re Irish, not a side of a family were Danish. And then I had a little girl who was going to present the show. So it was going to be one girl was going to replace me. Okay. That’s the way the model and coffee break.
00:31:25:24 – 00:31:53:44
Ken Sweeney
And then this Danish Irish girl was going to do the interviews and then talk about the interviews afterwards. Sure. Well, it was an absolutely complete disaster because they were just not good enough. They just didn’t cut the mustard. They didn’t have the standard that I had with my previous co-host. Yeah. So while the interviewees were perfect, I watched in horror as each interview just went, you know, down 7 or 8 levels of just kind of non professionalism.
00:31:53:49 – 00:32:22:05
Ken Sweeney
And I think what have a point to make to here and I get into a doubt now, is that I think the problem with podcasting is you can get this happening to you. So, you know, when you go into radio you have a certain level that you know is going to happen. So even if you go in local radio and I know local radio in America, huge, you know, talk radio in particular, and the same here in Ireland and around Europe, you know, that if you even go to a local radio station, the person you’re going to be working with on a project like this, it’s going to be fairly good.
00:32:22:05 – 00:32:38:21
Ken Sweeney
You know, you don’t have to you don’t have to struggle with it. And I think this is the problem. And I realized that on two things I learned from it. First, trust nobody. You know. And then the second thing, autonomy. If you’re going into it into a cold partnership or, or you’re teaming up with somebody else to do a podcast, you got to practice with them first.
00:32:38:21 – 00:32:47:21
Ken Sweeney
Don’t go in blindly on their resume, you know, don’t think that they’ve done it before. They’ll do it again. They don’t. And then the other thing is work alone.
00:32:47:26 – 00:32:48:39
Agent Palmer
So I.
00:32:48:43 – 00:32:49:21
Ken Sweeney
I see.
00:32:49:27 – 00:33:08:24
Agent Palmer
Well here. So here’s my question. But before I, follow that up, what I do, editing, producing, scheduling and then hosting with our guest right today to you. But our guest, would you consider that a solo project?
00:33:08:28 – 00:33:27:03
Ken Sweeney
I’d consider it me kind of. In a sense, when I was listening to your episode, I got that impression. It definitely wasn’t like me. For example, just sitting back and letting you know the guests do all the talking. I think there is a bit of a banter, as we call it, here in Ireland, between each other. So it’s still kind of, you know, you kind of controlled and, you know, you kind of you’re the boss, so to speak.
00:33:27:03 – 00:33:44:28
Ken Sweeney
I’m not, you know, I’m not going to say, hey, come on, maybe we should do this, you know. But so, you know, that’s fine. Yeah, but but yeah, you don’t. But I know what you’re saying. I mean, you have to have a kind of certain level. Guess you can get away with, because sometimes you can, you know, you can run with them and whatever.
00:33:44:28 – 00:33:49:14
Ken Sweeney
Well, I if you have a co-host, you’re damned. You know, if, if they, if they, if they’re not clicking.
00:33:49:14 – 00:34:25:59
Agent Palmer
So that’s that’s why so, so the the cliff notes of my origin story in podcasting is I started listening to, like a Geek podcast, talking movies, TV, other books, comic books, whatever. And you know, as you do, we we interacted on Twitter, and then I, became a guest and, eventually I became a producer behind the scenes, helping them, like, pick the stories for this week and just being on the call and making clips and helping with promo and stuff.
00:34:26:04 – 00:34:49:52
Agent Palmer
And I did that for a not not just that show, but a few other shows. So I got to watch behind the scenes, as two different podcasts that I was behind the scenes on. One had for Coke was for guys, and the other was a collective of one guy and usually one, 2 or 3 other people.
00:34:49:57 – 00:34:50:22
Ken Sweeney
00:34:50:37 – 00:35:16:12
Agent Palmer
The thing that sold me on doing this as a guest podcast was the everybody was friends, and there was still respect for everybody, but, for the most part, Jason, if you’re listening, is Jason the angry Ginger? If you’re listening, I still love you. But like it was his show. But he had five other co-hosts that all wanted to take it in a different direction.
00:35:16:18 – 00:35:16:46
Ken Sweeney
Right?
00:35:16:46 – 00:35:41:32
Agent Palmer
Right. And it was watching that from behind the scenes and being like, I don’t know how you know, like I don’t want to deal with that. Meanwhile, one of his co-hosts started, another show that I helped a little bit with called The Stranger Conversations. And I wanted to bring this converse, this, this concept to you because I feel like it’s something maybe it would be worth you trying once or twice.
00:35:41:37 – 00:35:50:32
Agent Palmer
And the bid on the Stranger conversations was simply that Grant, as the host, was going to call you up on a Skype.
00:35:50:37 – 00:35:51:15
Ken Sweeney
00:35:51:20 – 00:36:03:25
Agent Palmer
And they were going to where you were going to record. And the only thing he knew about you was, as little as possible to set up the podcast.
00:36:03:30 – 00:36:04:06
Ken Sweeney
Right.
00:36:04:11 – 00:36:45:24
Agent Palmer
So he knows, like I, I do a little bit of homework. So I have a general idea of where our conversation can go. But he wanted to go in as completely unknowing as possible, which is why I was called to Stranger Conversations and I think that my happy medium of where this show currently sits, not just because of the evolution of having done it for years, is because I got in at a time and got to watch those shows and those co-hosts and this other show and this concept, and I went somewhere in here is something I can do that I am comfortable with.
00:36:45:29 – 00:36:46:34
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, I get it.
00:36:46:36 – 00:36:49:58
Agent Palmer
But there’s all these other things that could go wrong.
00:36:50:02 – 00:37:08:43
Ken Sweeney
No, that’s that would be a worry for me, you know. But also that concept’s gone anyway is, you know, you’re talking about, say, Ireland, being a small country, we have a TV show that does that. There’s a very famous Irish comedian called Tommy Tiernan. And what he does is he hosts the Tommy Tiernan Show, and basically two people are think it’s three come on as guests and he doesn’t know who they are.
00:37:08:45 – 00:37:23:11
Ken Sweeney
Okay. So if I was to try it as a podcast noted, everyone in Ireland would go, you’re just ripping off Tommy Tune. And so, you see, this is the problem of being in a small country, okay? It’s a great idea. But then if you try and do it, someone else is gonna go back to Tommy Tune and your cup and Tommy thing.
00:37:23:11 – 00:37:36:35
Ken Sweeney
So, yeah, I like the idea, but, I think it’s too small. We would. You wouldn’t get away with that. Somebody would be bound to pull you up on it. But it’s still a very brave idea. I don’t think I’d be. I don’t think I’d be 100% onboard of that now, to be honest, I.
00:37:36:35 – 00:37:55:29
Agent Palmer
I yeah, I don’t, I mean, I’ve, I’ve had, I mean a lot of the people I have on our strangers, I do a little bit of homework like I said, but I don’t know them very well. But I did. I want to go back with you for a second. You talked about music.
00:37:55:33 – 00:37:55:50
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
00:37:56:00 – 00:38:11:23
Agent Palmer
And in my limited experience, a lot of people who are comfortable with the microphone and the knobs and the dials and the sliders were musicians at some point in their past.
00:38:11:28 – 00:38:15:15
Ken Sweeney
I think. So, yeah. I have seen the early days of podcasting. Yeah, absolutely.
00:38:15:18 – 00:38:33:48
Agent Palmer
I, I, I am with you as far as like I was I was in a bunch of cover bands, and I played in a bunch of bands and I was very comfortable with the, but when you talk about tapes from before, like, I think about the Tascam Porta studio.
00:38:33:48 – 00:38:36:55
Ken Sweeney
And yeah, that sort of thing, and I couldn’t go on the name Tascam four track.
00:38:37:00 – 00:38:46:02
Agent Palmer
Because I had a, I had the four track and the eight track, which if you rendered everything down, you get additional tracks and it worked out well, but it just.
00:38:46:12 – 00:38:52:05
Ken Sweeney
It was just taken at a time you spend do like. Yeah, right.
00:38:52:10 – 00:39:07:33
Agent Palmer
But like, do you still play music now, like, where is that fall in? Can I still pick up an instrument? I don’t play with anybody, but I still pick up an instrument, you know, at least a couple times a week just to, you know, mess around with the bass or the guitar or something, like. Do you still play?
00:39:07:38 – 00:39:19:52
Ken Sweeney
No. And I physically, I’m not able for it, you know what I mean? I’m kind of just I what happened was I stood in for a guy in a band about three years ago. It was about eight gigs, across Ireland, nationwide.
00:39:19:54 – 00:39:20:43
Agent Palmer
Or you playing?
00:39:20:47 – 00:39:42:28
Ken Sweeney
I was singer, lead singer. Okay. It was, you know, it’s the worst kind of scenario, you know, because you got to be like him and you’re still trying to kind of, it’s. I felt like, you know, taking over from, you know, somehow Dave Lee Roth and Van Halen, you know, it’s just like it’s so impossible to try and do, but you just kind of have to do it anyway.
00:39:42:42 – 00:40:03:50
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, I cannot. It’s nasty looks from the fans going back at you, you know, like it’s like, I’m standing here, I’m three feet smaller than this guy. And it’s just it was kind of a nightmare. And then physically I was exhausted. So I kind of said things up. Right. That’s it. Because I was tempted. At one point, I had a couple of friends of mine who were saying, you know, let’s do something kind of off the wall.
00:40:03:50 – 00:40:13:18
Ken Sweeney
Let’s do a kind of a yacht rock covers band for a laugh. And I was kind of go, oh, that’s brilliant. And I said, nah, physically, I just wouldn’t be able to do, you know, sorry. Do you.
00:40:13:18 – 00:40:17:30
Agent Palmer
Miss it? Like, do you miss the performing or whatever.
00:40:17:30 – 00:40:33:50
Ken Sweeney
Sometimes like, I mean, I would sometimes, but I’d still sing a lot. I mean, the way I kind of know, I guess you’ll have a lot of musicians nodding their head when I say this, but I treat my voice like the way it would treat, you know, as a part of my body. So it needs exercise. Yeah. So I do sing a fair bit every week.
00:40:33:50 – 00:40:55:50
Ken Sweeney
I’d kind of pull out, go 20 tracks off my favorite list or whatever and go through it. You know, my daughters are driven insane, you know, listen to me singing Toto. You know, I but like, the thing is, I do that because it helps me with my own talking voice as well. And what I’ve found that as I get into my my 50s, I’m kind of having I’m realizing that, you know, I’m having the 50 mark breathing problems.
00:40:56:04 – 00:41:15:33
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, I have to kind of slow down. Whereas when I was a lot younger, I would have talked a lot quicker. But at the same time, you know, I still practice that. So I don’t but I don’t miss it because I had a wild time, you know, we would we would say like, for example, this is the 1990s and we would go on to a gig in the north of Ireland, you know, during the troubles here.
00:41:15:47 – 00:41:33:08
Ken Sweeney
And we’d play in a town called Tandragee, you know, you just don’t get any more orange than that. And, you know, we’re Catholic, Dublin Republican band going into the, you know, the kind of the heart of of unionist loyalist Northern Ireland during the troubles. And we’d have to get up there and sing and do our own stuff or whatever.
00:41:33:08 – 00:41:49:45
Ken Sweeney
And then the surprise of my is, you know, after the first gig I ever did like that, where people would just forget about the fact that you’re, you know, from Dublin or whatever, and they just kind of love your forehead and it I kind of that’s I enjoyed a lot of that. But it goes to try and do that now stress would kill me just.
00:41:49:59 – 00:42:08:45
Agent Palmer
All right so I, I, I admit that I well I, I’m a decade younger than you in my 40s. Yeah. I, I need to treat my voice better. Right now I treat my voice well by not talking like,
00:42:08:50 – 00:42:09:08
Ken Sweeney
Like.
00:42:09:19 – 00:42:34:20
Agent Palmer
As an example, like because of time zones, you know, we’re recording in the middle of the day for me and at night for you. Usually I record at night for me. And my usual bit would be if I’m recording at night, I try and keep talking meetings to a minimum during the day and phone calls to a medium during the day, just to basically save the voice.
00:42:34:33 – 00:42:49:09
Agent Palmer
I’m not saying I couldn’t talk all day, I’m just saying like I try to save it. So I’m as fresh talking as possible when I do record. This is something brand new to like late 30s 40 year old me.
00:42:49:09 – 00:42:50:01
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:50:15 – 00:43:08:34
Agent Palmer
This is not the way it used to be. Like in my early 30s when I was just kind of getting involved in podcasting. I would talk at work all day. I’d get on a couple phone calls with friends, and then I’d hop on a mic at like 11:00 at night with, like, a West Coast friend and talk for another three hours and not think anything of it.
00:43:08:34 – 00:43:32:24
Agent Palmer
And now, if I have a recording tomorrow after this, I don’t. But like if I did, I’m thinking about like, all right, like, so I don’t have to talk to anybody again. Like I can just save it. Right. And so yeah, it’s I need to treat it better. I almost need to start doing exercises because I. Yeah, I all my only thing now is to just hold it.
00:43:32:29 – 00:43:56:18
Ken Sweeney
No, I can’t compliment it more. I mean, I would have gone to, you know, a singer singing coach when I was quite young. But, you know, I kind of kept to, you know, the, the routines and I think it’s just for me. You’re exactly right. You know, there are people who don’t talk all day, and they want to have that, you know, that crackling sort of, voice that you love, you know, especially this kind of thing.
00:43:56:18 – 00:44:22:43
Ken Sweeney
It seems to be out now, at the moment where women kind of do it last and it does my head in. But but my point is that I think for me, I have a kind of a squeaky Irish voice and it helps me to keep the singing going, because I would be very I’d very I had a very high range, you know, I would have been doing Whitesnake covers and stuff like, and, you know, like, I’d be a kind of like, you know, they used to call me in the key of can, you know, because, like, it was obviously a guy who would do it in the K.D. original key, you know.
00:44:22:53 – 00:44:39:31
Ken Sweeney
And it does. He’s sure you want to try it out. So yeah, of course I want to try. Come on. It’s only journey. Who cares, you know? And then I realized, like as I got on a little bit later, I wasn’t able to do that. So it’s. But it’s still the one thing that does it still ensures that I can at least sing and tune is that I do the exercises.
00:44:39:31 – 00:44:42:55
Ken Sweeney
Okay. Do sing a lot. So yeah, it’s really important. You know.
00:44:43:04 – 00:44:52:32
Agent Palmer
I, I think it’s very important. So when you’re not in the audio space and you’re not singing, what are you doing for fun?
00:44:52:37 – 00:45:18:20
Ken Sweeney
That’s a good question. I but you see, the thing is, I kind of it it’s so involved. It kind of. It’s this, portal to for me to, learn so much more about my hobbies. So, like, for example, I was doing some, some work, with, with a musician there recently, and, you know, he found out that I was doing podcasting, so he contacted me, you know, about some tips sort of thing.
00:45:18:20 – 00:45:38:52
Ken Sweeney
And then I ended up going to gigs and sort of, you know, following him along a little bit on his journey. And, so, yeah, it really works. You know, I, I, I find, I this is kind of really my hobby. Okay. But if, if for downtime, if you mean for downtime. Yeah, actually, I, I do enjoy I think streaming is the greatest invention that’s ever happened.
00:45:38:52 – 00:45:55:15
Ken Sweeney
You know, I love going back to programs and TV shows that I really enjoyed. And to be able to see them in this incredible HD, you know, quality, it’s just amazing. You know, I’m kind of addicted to Star Trek Enterprise, you know, and it wasn’t the most liked star.
00:45:55:15 – 00:46:19:18
Agent Palmer
Okay, so you’re speaking my language because I. Yeah, I have I am undertaking a Star Trek journey. I didn’t know any. I only kind of knew of Trek. Right. And so, yeah, I’m, I’m, let’s do some math real quick. Two, seven, nine. I’m nine and a half seasons away from enterprise because I’m. Oh, wow. I’m five seasons into Deep Space Nine.
00:46:19:18 – 00:46:23:05
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Next, all my journey would be Voyager, and then I’ll get to enterprise.
00:46:23:10 – 00:46:29:42
Ken Sweeney
Hey, that’s cool, because I actually started the opposite way. My little daughter’s watching enterprise with me now because it’s kind of the first in the timeline. Yeah.
00:46:29:42 – 00:46:30:56
Agent Palmer
So I,
00:46:31:01 – 00:46:32:25
Ken Sweeney
I has it kind of went that way.
00:46:32:27 – 00:46:52:32
Agent Palmer
I, I have an appreciation for the fact that this stuff exists. I also went back further. I don’t know if you’ve done this, but, like, a few years ago, maybe at the height of the pandemic, my now wife and I went back and started watching, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, which was,
00:46:52:43 – 00:46:56:58
Ken Sweeney
Oh, wow, that’s really old. But we were battling RTA back in the 80s.
00:46:56:58 – 00:47:09:31
Agent Palmer
Like, yeah, but we I, I wanted to go back as far as possible. And while it’s wow, it’s not been redone in HD, so it’s just kind of in standard. But it’s, it’s amazing to go back to it. And I was.
00:47:09:31 – 00:47:16:48
Ken Sweeney
Trying to do an in psychedelic D, wasn’t it really. Let me lots of really garish colors and Goldie Hawn bouncing around a bit.
00:47:16:52 – 00:47:32:43
Agent Palmer
But I love the idea that we can just go back like it’s, it’s not as throw away, I think, as maybe it once was. Is there a reason you’ve gone straight back to enterprise and not, like, just back to Star Trek in general?
00:47:32:43 – 00:47:52:43
Ken Sweeney
Oh yeah. Good question. No, I really like enterprise. I enjoy enterprise a lot. Even when it came out and 1999, 2000, I was, I was very into it. It was kind of couldn’t wait for it, you know, because I used to, I used to read a lot of Star Trek novels. And obviously with Star Trek novels, you can get a bit more of a historical scope.
00:47:52:43 – 00:48:09:15
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. And I remember reading some of the earlier novels about, you know, the beginning of the Federation, all this stuff getting very nerdy here. But anyway, that’s that that really excited me, you know, because I wanted to see what the ships look like. And the only kind of clue we had was the date of the ship. And in Cisco’s, you know, desk on his desk.
00:48:09:17 – 00:48:24:34
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. And I remember thinking it looked crap. And I said, I really hope they don’t go with that one. And it didn’t, thankfully. But, you know, I have a lot of complaints about, enterprise. There’s lots of stuff that I if I, if I was in charge of it, I change. But and I’m very I’m a real stick of canon.
00:48:24:34 – 00:48:43:26
Ken Sweeney
I don’t like the way these modern TV Star Trek ones are kind of just taking canon and just dumping it in the bin. You know, I’m very strict on canon, so I thought enterprise did. Okay. I give it like a seven out of ten. Okay, in terms of canon, but I just liked I liked it because, you know, it was kind of it was modern at the time.
00:48:43:30 – 00:48:58:30
Ken Sweeney
It talked about you know, diversity and and color and all that kind of thing. And it did it in a nice way. And I have to be honest, I really like Scott Bakula. I mean, I really liked him. Quantum leap. Okay. So when he became the captain on, I knew he was going to be the captain.
00:48:58:30 – 00:49:18:51
Ken Sweeney
I was really excited about that. So so he that’s a kind of like it kind of it’s a little bit. It’s my favorite, you know, it’s my, my my kind of them. It’s on my. Want to go back to do it I just quickly again a diverse just a little bit I like for example I watched what’s the name of that what was that show that was out a couple of years ago where they were kind of going around their solar system discovery?
00:49:18:56 – 00:49:26:42
Ken Sweeney
No, no, I was on Star Trek is the other kind of thing. The one that was on it was on, Netflix. And then it was kind of canceled about three times. I can’t think of the name.
00:49:26:49 – 00:49:29:21
Agent Palmer
Oh, the duck, not the Orville.
00:49:29:25 – 00:49:56:44
Ken Sweeney
No, not the all. That was kind of more darker. Okay. Anyway, I can’t remember, but I’ll come to you in a second. I was watching this on every second scene. Somebody was getting a bullet in the head or being, you know, spaced, as they call it. It was really hard to watch, you know, and, I go back to enterprise then because it was kind of like, it’s kind of optimistic, you know, and, you know, it was kind of like fresh and it kind of like a bomb.
00:49:56:49 – 00:50:18:42
Ken Sweeney
It’s not a man, you know, and like, you know, because I find Star Trek modern Star Trek is way too noisy in both sound and visuals. It’s too hard to watch. And whereas I find modern science fiction shows that are out are very violent, and I don’t always agree that science fiction nowadays has to be like all the other dramas on TV and be very, very violent.
00:50:18:47 – 00:50:24:18
Ken Sweeney
So, that’s what I like about Star Trek. It’s not unnecessarily violent, I don’t know. What do you think about that as well?
00:50:24:18 – 00:50:47:17
Agent Palmer
I mean, I, I go back to, I, I, I at the moment and obviously it’s very limited. I still think the original series is my favorite. And I think Jerry’s part is great, part of it is that same exact reason. Like it’s it’s not violent. They’re they’re talking it out there, you know. Yeah. Sometimes there’s fights. But like for the most part they’re talking it out.
00:50:47:17 – 00:51:14:45
Agent Palmer
And even NextGen for the most part it’s it’s never shoot first which I feel like is that’s that’s not just modern Trek necessarily. That’s all science fiction. Now the even, even the glory days of Battlestar Galactica is reboot on Sci-Fi. They didn’t shoot first, even though, like, now, you know, it’s so I think there is an opt in.
00:51:14:50 – 00:51:28:28
Agent Palmer
What I think in all media, when you are innocent, any, any life or death scenario where you can talk about it, talk it out first instead of shoot first, yeah, that’s optimistic.
00:51:28:33 – 00:51:46:05
Ken Sweeney
Now I agree on that show I was trying to remember was The Expanse okay? I found a lot. I did a lot of research into the actual story, and I found a lot of guys, you know, aged 25 to 45, really liked that show. And whereas I asked I, a couple of ladies I knew who were mod into sci fi, I asked them about it and they didn’t like it.
00:51:46:07 – 00:52:05:39
Ken Sweeney
Okay. Whereas they enjoyed something like say for example, tree body problem, which was a while back. And then a lot of girls I was talking to, they really enjoyed silo. I don’t know if you know, but scientist silo was an apple Apple production and they like that, you know. So I think I think it was just while The Expanse was was definitely very good in terms of visuals and so on.
00:52:05:39 – 00:52:27:22
Ken Sweeney
And, you know, the kind of politics in it was very interesting. It didn’t kind of bring something fresh to sci fi you as far as I was concerned. Now, I know, I know, I’m kind of in a, you know, less or less percentage than most people would. But I do like what you’re saying about Next generation, because it actually when you look back on the shows, some of them are a bit cheesy, but you know, when you’re trying to make 20 episodes in one season, then you will get cheesy ones.
00:52:27:27 – 00:52:49:37
Ken Sweeney
But the thing is, the show was never rushed, you know, so you never felt that you were. They were flying towards the end of a storyline. And as you say it, it zoomed class, didn’t it? You know, it was a very classy show. Like you don’t want to make a speech like one sticks out for me. I remember it was a trial, where a young chap who was a Vulcan Romulan being accused of being a spy and so on, and it was getting really out of hand.
00:52:49:37 – 00:53:07:31
Ken Sweeney
I think the show was called drumhead and Picard, you know, made this fantastic speech at the end. And I look back and I go, oh, bloody hell, that’s Star Trek. How you know, you can’t have speeches as good as that. And yes, it was all about class, I think. I think, you know, I think that’s that’s something that really means that it stands the test of time.
00:53:07:31 – 00:53:23:19
Ken Sweeney
And, you know, when they went back with, with Picard, I along with everyone else for it felt disappointed in the first couple of seasons because it didn’t seem to be what really what people wanted. And when they took towards series and went back with the Next Generation crew and, you know, it all went back and people just sat on their knees praising it.
00:53:23:19 – 00:53:25:52
Ken Sweeney
You know, I think that’s don’t ruin a good thing.
00:53:25:57 – 00:53:46:48
Agent Palmer
I think that’s what we want though, and that’s why we gravitate towards those things in any other shows, I’m sure we can mention that. Aren’t sci fi like we want to watch class, but it’s also like when you and I do this show, when you do your show, like we want to put it out classy as well. We don’t want it to be schlock.
00:53:46:48 – 00:53:54:24
Agent Palmer
We don’t want it to just be another thing for the heap or the playlist. Yeah. We want you to remember this.
00:53:54:29 – 00:54:13:56
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. No, you’re right. And you know, some of the feedback I get sometimes for my episodes, it really knocks me out because that’s exactly what people say. There was two words that I always had in my head that I never wanted to do. You know, I never wanted to have any gotcha moments in a in an interview. So I always kind of send people in advance the general questions I’d like to ask.
00:54:14:01 – 00:54:32:02
Ken Sweeney
And I kind of find that the feedback from that, from guests in particular, has been very positive, where people say, I really felt comfortable at the start of the at the interview because I knew what you were going to start with and I knew, you know, where we were going to go. And I think that’s important if you want to make your, your, make your guests kind of talk a little bit more.
00:54:32:07 – 00:54:50:55
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. You know, and then the other thing I always meant was me. It was never about me. And I’d never, ever said it’s rarely wrong, but it was really important not to talk over the guest or give them an opinion based on what they’ve said. I generally would kind of take what they’ve said and then kind of dwell on that or I, you know, kind of elaborate on it.
00:54:50:58 – 00:54:58:50
Ken Sweeney
And that’s I think that’s, you know, that’s looking at, say, do you know who’s a huge influence for me? You’re going to probably laughed is, you know, Dick Cavett.
00:54:58:55 – 00:55:01:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I love Dick Cavett.
00:55:01:24 – 00:55:12:37
Ken Sweeney
Yeah. He was he was amazing. When I was doing the the comfortable spot, I was kind of working up to it and sourcing it. I was in kind of storyline against norms. And since I watch tons of his interviews.
00:55:12:42 – 00:55:30:35
Agent Palmer
He is he might be the most underrated now. I mean, people of people of our age and older know Dick Cavett, but like, yeah, I don’t think enough young people know, like, have you heard the good interview of Dick Cavett?
00:55:30:50 – 00:55:48:47
Ken Sweeney
I know, and, and and, you know, he has that he had people on shows like, you know, he’d have somebody like, you know, pop star or whatever, but then he’d have gorvy dialog. Yeah. You know, and he’d be kind of gone. That’s like really, you know, that’s a good sign of somebody who’s very comfortable in their role. He never wanted to be the star.
00:55:48:47 – 00:56:08:52
Ken Sweeney
You know, he’d always just come in with a quick quip that would kind of, you know, defuze the situation between two aggravated guests. He’s brilliant like that. He had a class about him as well. You know, he had that real smooth, you know, talk radio, early talk radio, 60s kind of style. Never get excited, never raise his voice, never do things like that.
00:56:08:52 – 00:56:28:10
Ken Sweeney
And it wasn’t you know, I mean, I wouldn’t have put him down as visually great for TV. You know, he was kind of scrawny looking a little bit, you know, on the he wasn’t perfect television, but, you know, he was definitely perfect kind of interview. And he did a wonderful job of, as I said, controlling the interview but never being the, you know, never being the topic or the subject matter.
00:56:28:12 – 00:56:47:48
Ken Sweeney
That’s when I talked to people and they asked me about, like what? Anything I should watch if I want to learn how to do podcasting. And in doing interview, I always say to him, go online, just line up below. The Dick Cavett videos and just watch. Watch him. Don’t watch the guests, just watch him. Don’t don’t get taken away by the level or the gravity of who he’s interviewing.
00:56:47:48 – 00:56:59:20
Ken Sweeney
Just watch him. And when you compare him, say to Johnny Carson, it’s Scott. Carson was okay. He was good for that job, but he certainly wasn’t in the same league.
00:56:59:25 – 00:57:25:17
Agent Palmer
He he. There’s a lot to this conversation as there is to most, but often I always come back to something specific. And in this instance, I still can’t get over Ken from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Name dropping one of my favorite interviewers in Dick Cavett. It’s not that Cavett isn’t known the world over. For a time, he was arguably as big as any other television interviewer.
00:57:25:17 – 00:57:47:58
Agent Palmer
But there’s something about him that I find better than the rest. And with Ken and probably many others, I know I’m not alone. But it does prove one thing. We’re never truly aware of how connected our influences can be with others. Long before this show came into being, even before I was listening to podcasts, I bought my parents a box set of Dick Cavett.
00:57:47:58 – 00:58:07:26
Agent Palmer
And as you do, I watched all of my gift to them. And while Ken and I only briefly touched on music, I’m sure there would be at least some crossover there. And of course, there Star Trek. And so the deeper you go, the more you find out you have in common. This is the great thing about the meandering conversation.
00:58:07:31 – 00:58:35:17
Agent Palmer
You never know what you’ll discover or how connected you may be to somebody where philosophy or influences are concerned. So where do we go from here? I think we could start by acknowledging that our influences are not who we are or who we become, but they do say a great deal about us. Dick Cavett is one of my influences, as is Marc Maron, David Mitchell, Douglas Copeland, Chuck Klosterman, Len Deighton, David Letterman, and Duff McKagan.
00:58:35:21 – 00:58:58:48
Agent Palmer
These are not my only influences, but they are some that at this time seemed to guide me in some way. What are yours? Who is influencing you? And because I feel like asking the school teacher question, how is who is influencing you different from an influencer? I’ll accept all essays in written form with word counts between 1 and 2000 words.
00:58:58:53 – 00:59:17:26
Agent Palmer
Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 142. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact my guest, Ken and myself in the show notes. You can visit Ken’s website, the Comfortable Spot podcast.com.
00:59:17:26 – 00:59:48:17
Agent Palmer
We’re on the about page. You’ll also find links to the Moldovan Coffee break and Lydia’s book tastic podcast that he mentioned during this episode. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and essays can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember your home for all things Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:59:48:22 – 00:59:56:12
Unknown
You.
00:59:56:17 – 01:00:03:45
Unknown
See?
01:00:03:50 – 01:00:23:14
Unknown
Me?
01:00:23:19 – 01:00:25:32
Agent Palmer
All right. Ken, do you have one final question for me?
01:00:25:39 – 01:00:42:03
Ken Sweeney
Yes, I have a really good question. And I think it’s a question that a lot of people in Ireland and the UK and now in Europe kind of ask, why is it that people in the US are so hard for them to understand what socialism is?
01:00:42:08 – 01:01:08:22
Agent Palmer
It’s because, our look, I’ve, I’ve got a friend who’s a long time, Republican. Not like, not an extreme Republican. He’s like middle of the road Republican. And he and I used to have these wonderful 30, 52 hour minute coffee politic conversations.
01:01:08:27 – 01:01:09:12
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
01:01:09:17 – 01:01:17:03
Agent Palmer
And we always came back to the same thing, which is my answer to your question. We require better education.
01:01:17:08 – 01:01:17:33
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
01:01:17:44 – 01:01:23:08
Agent Palmer
And, it’s just, I like to think that I escaped to my high school.
01:01:23:13 – 01:01:23:50
Ken Sweeney
01:01:23:54 – 01:01:54:47
Agent Palmer
I didn’t graduate my high school. And I think if you want to know why people don’t understand what socialism is, it’s because they don’t learn anything. We aren’t taught in high school, like, I. I, you know, my father is, you know, and his brothers always talk about, you know, the way it was in the 50s, 60s, 70s when they were in high school and college.
01:01:54:52 – 01:01:56:03
Ken Sweeney
01:01:56:08 – 01:02:35:49
Agent Palmer
The education that they got was exponentially better than what I received in the 80s and 90s. Yeah. And even in college, in university in the, in the early aughts. And I think that, that degradation has been, a bit of, I think it’s been on purpose by some powers that be, and I think it’s to the detriment of, the US, but, but but there the average American may be too dumb to realize that it’s to the detriment of the US.
01:02:35:54 – 01:03:06:25
Agent Palmer
And so, you end up with, I’m going to teach my kid what I want, or you can’t teach my kid that torture. And so they’re not exposed to these things. So they’ll probably at some point in a government class or a, culture class, learn the definition of socialism along with the definition of fascism. But after that day where they have, you know, where they learned that definition, they never think about it again.
01:03:06:30 – 01:03:29:15
Agent Palmer
Oh, and when you think about the things that you learned, the concepts that you remember from elementary school, middle school, high school and college and university, it’s the things that you learn on a regular basis that aren’t word definition. Hopefully you get it on the test and then we’ll never touch it again.
01:03:29:20 – 01:03:29:49
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
01:03:30:03 – 01:03:50:46
Agent Palmer
The stuff that’s not that you remember. Yeah. And so I think that’s the reason that’s the reason we don’t know the definitions for all these things. And I think the other part is, there’s something we got very wrong. We have a loud nerd and geek to be cool.
01:03:50:51 – 01:03:51:56
Ken Sweeney
01:03:52:01 – 01:04:20:25
Agent Palmer
But not anything more than superficially like, we’re all right that everybody likes Star Trek or Star Wars or Lord of the rings. That’s cool. We’re not really we’re not really 100% on board with the whole geek nerd stereotype of, yeah, but it’s not. It’s still cool to read. Yeah, right. And so while we’ve embraced some of the content, we’ve lost some of the context.
01:04:20:29 – 01:04:31:01
Agent Palmer
And so, that’s kind of the, that’s, that’s one of the pieces that we’ve left in, in the, in, in, in the background as.
01:04:31:11 – 01:04:52:14
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, yeah. And it’s just I just asked that question because I think, you know, some of the kind of left leaning politicians in the United States, you know, they’re getting a lot of exposure. Alexander. Kassandra Cortez or AOC, like, for example, like when we look at her in Ireland and in Europe, I have a lot of European friends.
01:04:52:28 – 01:04:58:18
Ken Sweeney
So she’s like considered a center left, whereas most people in America would consider her an extreme left.
01:04:58:22 – 01:04:59:24
Agent Palmer
Oh, yeah. No, it’s.
01:04:59:24 – 01:05:13:10
Ken Sweeney
Just weird that we kind of say, does no one actually kind of look up what a social democrat is? Really? Well, because if they did know it, they’d probably realize it was them anyway. They you know what most people are social democrats. They just don’t know us. And that’s not just in America.
01:05:13:13 – 01:05:30:28
Agent Palmer
You know, I think I think one of the problems is that she is extreme left by comparison. Yeah. You know, I mean, like on a, on a scale for how far right the far right can be.
01:05:30:43 – 01:05:32:18
Ken Sweeney
The whole line is moved.
01:05:32:23 – 01:05:38:31
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So that I think that’s part of it. The other thing is, you know,
01:05:38:36 – 01:05:47:24
Ken Sweeney
I need to get his spirit level low on that. Like, you know, that little bubble in there, right? And there you go, guys. Been reset. Everybody get off the ground.
01:05:47:26 – 01:06:14:07
Agent Palmer
But I think the other thing is, there there’s also a lack of, international politics, education where like, so we were talking off mic. But like, I watch British panel shows, and having watched British panel shows for two decades now, I have a general understanding of UK slash British politics.
01:06:14:12 – 01:06:15:42
Ken Sweeney
And yeah, Irish as well.
01:06:15:42 – 01:06:25:47
Agent Palmer
And and and show and Irish and Scottish and like I, I understand like I understood Brexit probably better than a lot of people around me.
01:06:25:51 – 01:06:28:24
Ken Sweeney
Because more than some of the English you voted for, if.
01:06:28:24 – 01:06:33:33
Agent Palmer
You if you because if you can understand the satire, you clearly understand the whole concept. Right?
01:06:33:33 – 01:06:34:27
Ken Sweeney
Yeah, absolutely.
01:06:34:27 – 01:06:38:54
Agent Palmer
But I think by comparison, because I understand what a liberal Democrat is.
01:06:38:59 – 01:06:39:32
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
01:06:39:37 – 01:06:47:12
Agent Palmer
And a social Democrat is I understand how to put that in the context of what a Republican or a Democrat in the United States would be.
01:06:47:12 – 01:06:47:37
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
01:06:47:48 – 01:06:48:27
Agent Palmer
And so I think.
01:06:48:27 – 01:06:49:00
Ken Sweeney
So.
01:06:49:05 – 01:07:26:06
Agent Palmer
Losing that context means that she could stay exactly where she is. You could take a middle of the road, like, let’s be honest for a moment, like, Biden is as middle of the road Democrat as he could be. But the problem is, he seems like an extreme leftist because the right keeps moving farther to the right. And so by comparison, and I think that’s where, so I think it’s I, I think if it was like a sport, like let’s say we’re talking about football and, you know, I’m not offside.
01:07:26:06 – 01:07:33:47
Agent Palmer
And you’re maybe going to think about kicking the ball to me, kick the ball to me so I can stay onside. Great. That’s situational awareness.
01:07:33:51 – 01:07:34:13
Ken Sweeney
Yeah.
01:07:34:18 – 01:07:49:27
Agent Palmer
We as I think Americans have very little situational awareness as a whole. And so like we always wait too long. So you will I will always be offsides when the ball is kicked by an American.
01:07:49:27 – 01:08:07:42
Ken Sweeney
That’s just like the political version of not being able to parallel park. It’s just, you know, but I get to, you know, like, I think the issue is, is, you know, we would consider Joe Biden center, right? Actually, you know, okay, he would be because. No, no, I don’t mean that as in, he’d have right wing leanings.
01:08:07:45 – 01:08:07:56
Ken Sweeney
No.
01:08:08:00 – 01:08:08:24
Agent Palmer
But look at.
01:08:08:37 – 01:08:26:13
Ken Sweeney
The very nature by the fact that he’s been in politics for 40 years means he’s a career politician. And most career politicians in the UK and Ireland would be center right. So in other words, they’d be okay for Lbgtq, laws being passed and all that kind of stuff, but they wouldn’t be so much in favor, say, of state nationalization.
01:08:26:13 – 01:08:54:45
Ken Sweeney
So, you know, they would be very soft conservatives. So that’s how we would see Biden. You know what kind of laugh when we say Biden’s mad lefty? It’s a lot. Come to Ireland and you’ll see what the lefties are about. You get an awful surprise. Anyway, I’m sorry you dump on that question on the I just might be an interesting question as particularly, you know, this year has been that I think in America, you know, even in Europe, as you look at yourselves and as we look at it, the question of, you know, there’s such a parallel, sorry to split.
01:08:54:45 – 01:09:03:17
Ken Sweeney
You know, it’s right down the middle. And, you know, people are just kind of polarized. And it’s not always been like that. I don’t remember like America like that. You know, it.
01:09:03:30 – 01:09:13:09
Agent Palmer
It it truly isn’t like that. But I think the, the, the downfall has been not only the lack of education, but there’s a lack of compassion now.
01:09:13:23 – 01:09:17:33
Ken Sweeney
Oh, I agree 100%. People just don’t care. You know, that’s the thing. And here as well.
01:09:17:33 – 01:09:31:17
Agent Palmer
And when they don’t care, they double down on not being wrong. This is no it’s so the my thing now is it’s not about being right anymore. It’s just about not being wrong.
01:09:31:22 – 01:09:45:09
Ken Sweeney
Yeah I agree. And you know that’s another big thing for me when I, when I, you know, interview somebody in, in my podcast and it’s, you know, sometimes I might get somebody and I won’t agree with them like but I’m mature enough to just let them say what they want to say.
01:09:45:18 – 01:09:49:27
Agent Palmer
I, you know, just stay away from politics or religion and politics.
01:09:49:27 – 01:10:06:08
Ken Sweeney
I just mean like, you know, say, for example, something culture based or oh, I haven’t. Yeah. You know, and I think that’s what I’m saying. Everything is kind of political now isn’t it? That’s the problem. Whereas I try and make my podcast not go down that road, I don’t make everything political. I sometimes they might say something and just go, yeah, just breezes over.
01:10:06:08 – 01:10:07:25
Ken Sweeney
I, you know, just leave it there.
01:10:07:38 – 01:10:25:45
Agent Palmer
I don’t know if this was for better or worse, but during the pandemic, when I had a guest on, I would say, we’re not going to talk about the pandemic. Okay. I would literally be like, you know, we’re going to talk about this, that and the other thing, and I know your work or your career or your hobbies, I know, I know, your life’s impacted by it.
01:10:25:50 – 01:10:47:39
Agent Palmer
Nobody’s tuning in the show for that reason. And so if you don’t really know, like, you know, if somebody mentions it offhand like, oh, I’ve got more free time now because of the, you know, that’s fine. I don’t I didn’t edit it out, but I also didn’t. If you go back during those things that were recorded and released at the height of it, like it just doesn’t happen.
01:10:47:39 – 01:11:07:16
Agent Palmer
And part of it is because I’m aware this is supposed to be an escape and I it was my reason for that. And so it’s kind of the other reason I stay away from politics usually is because this is supposed to be an escape. This is a cup of coffee with friends. Can.
01:11:07:16 – 01:11:23:35
Ken Sweeney
No, you’re absolutely right. And I agree 100%. Actually, I know you have a new series out at the moment, which is kind of like it’s periodical. It comes out every couple of weeks. It’s called to have points, and I discuss politics. So social, society and kind of, you know, older cultural things. So it does get a bit political.
01:11:23:35 – 01:11:41:30
Ken Sweeney
All right. But it’s only for laughs. And like, I never bring it into my other podcast because the comfortable spot is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s just a nice, comfy place where I don’t have to think about those things. So yeah, I think it’s okay to do that when you’re doing, you know, if you have different opinions on politics, like I would say, push it into a section that will work.
01:11:41:30 – 01:11:45:06
Ken Sweeney
Don’t bring it into other things because you’ll only end up spoiling the broth, you know? Yeah.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).