Happiest Blog on Earth - Quirks...

I thought I’d like to share with you some of my, well, quirkiest quirks in this installment! Joyce and I’ve been listening to the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson on audio book for the last couple of weeks, as we travel back and forth to work, and hearing some of the more intimate details of the Apple wunderkind has made me reflect on my own life and, well, quirks. I know, weird. But hey, that’s what massively, incredibly creative people do!

I started to think back to when Joyce and I started the Tales From The Mouse House – Disneyland podcast, almost two years ago now. Early on we decided that we wanted our podcast to be something special, not just a “product”. Please don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with folks who monetize their podcasts, blogs, websites, etc, but I felt that would not be right for what we wanted to accomplish. I feel that we shouldn’t be profiting off of the Happiest Place on Earth at all. Disneyland is the result of many hard working folks, and I have no right to make money off of someone else’s work.  In fact, the decision to seek a financial sponsor wasn’t easy! I was afraid that by having someone help us with the financial requirements of the podcast (web hosting costs, maintaining recording equipment, contest prize give away goodies, things like that), some people may get the idea that Joyce and I are profiting off the show. That couldn’t be farther from the truth! So, when Randy Crane answered our call for a sponsor,  and we found out what a true Disney spirit he is, we were elated to have him as our sponsor.

 Anyway, from the beginning, we’ve adopted this protective approach to the podcast and everything involved with it. We’re usually pretty careful with what we post out on the social networking sites, not because we have no opinions, but because we feel that by doing a Disneyland podcast, we in essence are representing Disney. That’s not to say that we’ll only post pro-Disney stuff. Nope. That’s not my style. BUT…I REFUSE to post anything, especially negative, unless it’s been fully confirmed, and then we present it in a non-partial way.

We also try to separate ourselves from those who claim to be true Disneyland and Disney fans, yet continually bash or admonish Disney for things that they (the “fans”) may not like or agree with. Of course, if someone doesn’t like something Disney does, (like say, a certain parade down Main Street U.S.A. that should have been thought through a little more…) they certainly have the right to discuss their dislike…but do it in a way that’s positive, not negative. I mean, be constructive in your criticism, don’t just bash.  If you’re going to call yourself a true Disney fan…be one.

That leads me to our podcast itself. Now, again, when we started planning out our podcast, we wanted it to be something special. At the time, there really weren’t many Disneyland Resort specific podcasts out there. There were many that encompassed the entire Disney Theme Park world, many dedicated to Disney in general but I think there were only two (if that many) that were dedicated solely to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. And, being that this was the only Park I had visited, we thought it best to concentrate on what we knew. A wise podcast mentor once told me, record what you’re passionate about. Well, I was passionate about Disneyland and my wife! What better to record than a podcast dedicated to all the wonderful, magical and HAPPY times I spent at Disneyland with my soul mate?

Now, there are a lot of Disneyland Resort podcasts out there for you to choose from, which means that what we attempted to get out there must have worked. Others took notice and decided to share THEIR love as well. So, our podcast may not have the best content in the podcasting world but it does have something all the others don’t: Al and Joyce’s view and passion! And bottom line, that’s why we started this podcast. Certainly not for the fame and fortune because really, there’s none of that. In fact, we put in just about as much time researching, writing, editing, recording, editing, more editing and publishing this podcast that we put in on our day jobs! But we wanted to share our love and our passion and our BELIEF in the Magic of Disneyland.  

So, that’s my semi-coherent entry for this blog! Hopefully I haven’t bored you to tears, or made you reach for the bottle of aspirin. If you haven’t already heard our podcast, why not hop on over to http://www.talescast.com or iTunes and check us out. We offer audio and video podcasts that help fill that gap between visits to the Happiest Place on Earth, and, if you’ve never been there…well, here’s your chance to experience the Magic! We’d love to hear from you too, you can send us an email to talespodcast@cox.net, and if you want to see if what I said about social media is true, you can follow us @talespodcast on Twitter, or “like” our FaceBook page at http://www.facebook.com/talespodcast.

~~~ Al