Dealing with mainstreamish to mainstream media is a pain in the ass. And I’ll juxtapose that with the joy and ease of working with niche podcast entrepreneurs—where you’re treated like royalty and everything is easy and goes off without a hitch every time.

First, the HuffPo Live deal I FBd and Tweeted about earlier is off (it was to be at 12:30 PST today). That’s OK, I was on for their first foray, back some months ago. I guess the producer who contacted me this morning didn’t realize that (different producer than the first time), and they’re looking for lots of divergent voices or whatever. Now it seems to have morphed into a “no-shampoo” movement—if you examine their related links—which is mystifying to me. Given a choice, I’d go with no soap on the skin. I do neither soap nor shampoo—for like 5 years now (water only)—but the way people obsess over their hair, well….

I guess I’m blessed. My dad, at 75, has a full head. My maternal grandfather (the genetic trail for baldness in men) only lost his hair over chemo for leukemia in his 80s, and died with it having grown back. My paternal grandfather was bald by his 40s, but none of his 5 sons even have marked thinning, and the baby is in his 60s. I don’t know what it is about men and their hair insecurities. I told Bea the other night: at the first sign of baldness, I go full cue ball.

Is there a greater sign of male insecurity on Earth than a comb over? I don’t think so. It’s like an advertisement for a stereotype. …And don’t even get me started on those ridiculous hair plugs that make you look like one of those 60s-era dolls worse for wear.

Be a fucking man. If your lot is hair loss, then raise a middle finger, get out the razor, and then spend some time in the sun. Look at the bright side. your cue ball will tan and you don’t even have to do any basking. Just walk around. It’s brainless, which is curiously ironic. And if that’s not enough, 2 words: Walter White. At least make it Bad, if you feel Broken.

So, that’s that. A bit piqued over HuffPo—I loath spending my time and attention on losses—I began writing just a short quip over it on Facebook, my go-to place now for off the cuff musings (that get cross posted to Twitter, my go to place for debaucherous behavior).

So, I began just a side mention of my ordeal with the The Doctors, and them wanting to get me on the show over no soap and shampoo for months, now. Serious as a plate of roasted bone marrow with a fresh parsley garnish…my email dings, I look over, and who is it but the producer for The Doctors asking about coming on next Friday.

And that’s when this went from a Facebook quip to a blog post.

Nope, that’s not going to work out either. Here’s the pain in the ass deal over the whole sordid affair.

1. Get contacted shortly after that first HuffPo deal back when.
2. Cool.
3. All smiles.
4. My schedule is generally very flexible, but their air date is firm and I have a very serious conflict that was generally immovable. I move mountains to change it that required being no-shit insistent and white lying, getting in the car for a face-to-face, and including it costing real money to change it (delivered in cash).
5. Hours later, schedule seemingly set, they want me to take a shower on stage with soap and shampoo (it’s obvious they’re tossing production value ideas around). I don’t tell them to fuck off, in so many words. I actually don’t recall what I really said, but it was something like ‘I’m happy to come on to introduce the idea but if you’re looking for lafs on my dime, you’ve got the wrong guy.’
6. They drop it.
7. So they go to final pitch to the executives (the producer is calling me every 5 minutes at this point) and execs are smart about this shit, and I’d actually anticipated this. Put it this way, considering the show’s market: “guy doesn’t use soap or shampoo for 5 years” vs. “husband doesn’t use soap or shampoo for 5 years.”
8. Get it?
9. Yep, they wanted Beatrice on the show and that’s the one thing in continuing dialog that’s never changed. Perhaps she ought just go on: “AFTER THE BREAK. HUSBANDS WHO DON’T WASH WITH SOAP OR SHAMPOO!”
10. Beatrice is perfectly willing, but she will not take time off and get this: as part of a few minute segment, it’s 4 days of your life. They have to do all the backstory and photos and video of you walking on the beach and stuff you see on those sorts of deals. I actually love that production value TV does and it’s part of what makes it hard for Internet folks with a camera, YouTube and good audio splicing to measure up. Hell, even I can do cutaway stills in edit from a video Skype interview on my MacBook Air.
11. They insist. They want to talk to her school principle, even the district. Ha! They don’t know Beatrice. We always get along because we always mostly mind our own business. We’ve never even had a joint bank account. Bea sometimes loves, sometimes hates what I do, but it’s what I do and her money is her own.
12. You want to get someone to hate you? Easy. Make them regularly pay for what you do that they hate. Married couples do this unbelievably silly shit all the time. What’s the very first stupid thing they do? Pool all assets, cash, credit cards, etc. This is the chief cause of divorce in America. (I know, I’m going down rabbit hole tangents here. It’s Friday.)
13. It didn’t happen. A month or so ago, they ask again. Always on their specific tight schedule. Never: when is good for you?
14. And then today, again, I told them: look, Bea will be on a 2 month vacation in June. Her parents live in SoCal. Hit us up. We’ll wait. Answer back: ‘no, too long, this was a push already,’ as though they’re doing me some fucking favor in wasting my time over and over (that’s what set me off, actually).
15. And still, I’d do it if it worked out.

I’ve done a bunch of podcasts. jimmy moore, Angelo Coppola, both multiple times and a few others scattered here & there. Guess what? It’s always easy. And, Angelo has a show format and production value—not to mention a perfect voice for radio—that I believe is unmatched in anything I’ve heard in Paleoland. For me, he sets the paleo podcasting standard on a number of levels.

Jonathan Bailor and I had a podcast a while back. Fun & easy. Maybe one or two others I’ve forgotten. Sorry. Maybe y’all made it too easy for me.

And there are up and comers, too. Ameer Rosic is very energetic, does tons of short videos, and I recorded with him last week. Should be up soon and I always do a specific blogpost and promote it for every podcast I do. Ameer was super easy to coordinate with, as usual with all podacst entrepreneurs. I didn’t waste a second.

Just this morning was for sure my most raucous, potty mouth podcast ever, with CaveManning; he in Beunos Aires, over Skype, and without a single glitch. Shit’s getting’ good. He’s been fucking around all over the world, BTW, so that wide international perspective will hopefully be coming out in his podcasts. I know that we touched on it.

That should be out Monday, post immediately on heel. If you ever wanted to hear me f-bomb my way through righteous indignation about how low carbers are getting sold short (and we both traded options), you’ll want to listen.

OK, to wrap this post up, two more things of important import.

1. Tim “Tatertot” Steele and I will be on with Angelo Coppola tomorrow morning at 9am. We will of course be talking about resistant starch and maybe even why it has so grabbed attention all over Paleoland to the enormous frustration of some which, of course I find delightful.
2. We will announce what we’re doing in terms of our book collaboration. Trust me, it’ll blow your mind.

Angelo gets these things done fast, so I’m thinking you’ll be hearing it early in the next week.

…Alright, time to go spend another 4-6 hours getting 3-4 paragraphs just right (there’s a hint).