Hard Starboard Radio  

I'll admit that I'm new at blogcasting, and will never be in the ranks of superstars of the art like Limbaugh, Hannity, Hewitt, et al, or even on BTR itself like Ed Morrissey or the other esteemed hosts on the Political Conservative channel.  And that's okay, because Ed's audience comes from his blog, which has over thirty MILLION hits in four-plus years, which exceeds my own humble little establisment's traffic by a factor of approximately seven hundred and fifty to one in only about a year's additional time.  I'll admit I'm jealous of his traffic, as I consider myself to be just as good a writer (in my own inimitable style), and at least as good a blogcaster as well.  But as Ron White once said, "If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.  Then find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party."  Aside from the vodka part, I can endorse that.  The same is even more true of catching lightning in a bottle, and I don't begrudge Ed any of it for a moment.

Hard Starboard Radio, however, is, much like the blog that gave birth to it, a premee in an incubator, the latter being in this case my own stubbornness.  I joke to myself that I write a blog hardly anybody reads (which is a bit of an exaggeration; what it really is is a blog nobody will link to anymore, for heaven only knows what reason, as it's the same stuff that's been disgorged daily for the last three years) and do a BTR show nobody listens to (which is also an exaggeration as the podcast gets hundreds of downloads a week).  I also realize that mid-day on Saturday is not the best time to try to attract a sizeable live audience.  I knew all of this going in, and my expectations were set accordingly.  I'm nothing if not the realist I claim to be.

All that being said, today's show had no live listeners.  Z-E-R-O.  Which means not even my Republican Forum colleagues were online as they had been the previous four editions.  I even tuned in my other PC, whether or not my kids would actually be attentive listeners.  They must have turned it off.

I've said and will freely admit here that talking is not my forte, though through sheer repetition each week I am getting better at it.  But I also freely admit that I signed up for this gig to promote my blog, and if HSR has already hit its peak....

Well, is bloviating into a literal vacuum worth staying up half the night before doing show prep?  And might it actually be turning off what readership I do have left?

My first attempt at a website back in the '90s was dismissed by an online enemy as "a vanity site".  Looking back on it, I suppose that was true, though that could have been said of any homepage.  I suppose that can also be said of blogs today.  But part of what feeds the vanity is the expectation that one has a readership that will follow them over to an endeavor like BTR.  It would appear I have nothing left but the empty shell of conceit.

Hence my stubborness.

But even muleheadedness can only last for so long, even with ego riding shotgun.