It was the summer of 2001 which basically started when I turned 30 on June 5th. Two weeks later I got riffed from a dot.com that was at its 4th location using its 4th name. Ventured into online dating via nerve.com, did a pitch for creating John Grisham’s website with some friends, did the occasional court summons service for cash (including one at the projects by the United Center, on my bike!), and saw Radiohead in Grant Park. Good times and plenty of good stories. Somehow along the way I got the romantic notion that maybe I could be “my own boss” if I drove a cab. In between fares I perhaps could catch ordinary moments of Chicago with my digital camera and find happiness being professionally aloof.

How does one officially become a cab driver you ask? For me at the time, it started with attending a two week program at the Harold Washington Community College downtown. I’d ride my bike down from the Gold Coast and spend all day with folks who were there for real classes, not just going through some bureaucratic hoop. Think of a Food Handler’s permit type class but for two weeks along with mandatory bus tours on the Saturdays.

I was the only white guy in our class, which apparently was even more of a rarity than just this particular sample size, that it prompted one instructor to ask me why I was doing it. Because in her mind she wondered why I couldn’t get a job doing anything else other than this. Half were African, the other half Middle Eastern including one Israeli who suffered a few hisses from time to time. Yes, grown men hissing like school kids because of their affiliations. Not unlike the kid who dared to wear an Oklahoma shirt at my grade school in Nebraska. I ascertained this demographic breakdown when we went around the room and stated our name and where we were from. A Pakistani named Danish, an Iraqi with the surname Hussain (with an ‘a ‘ not an ‘e ‘ like Saddam), and a Nigerian named Owomoyela whose name I could pronounce with ease, thanks to having a film professor of the same name at UNL. A diverse group, but not really. When it was my turn to share I decided to ham it up a bit and say my name but changed my land of origin to Pakistan. Dead silence. I quickly fessed up that I was from Nebraska. Laughter. Later that day I asked Danish, who I became friends with, why nobody blinked when I said ‘Pakistan’. He explained that there are folks as light as me in Karachi. OK, fair enough, but why did ‘Nebraska’ get such a laugh. “Because it’s funny” he said, which provided me with no additional insight whatsoever. Worth noting but not really surprising is that there were no women. I know there are a handful of female cab drivers in Chicago but a far lower percentage than other cities I’ve visited, like say Las Vegas.

Topics varied from day to day so that kept things interesting. Guests included a blind advocate who spoke about dealing with service dogs and the handling of money. A former cop shared stories and discussed legal issues. For me the biggest takeaway from him was his advising against having a gun, or any weapon really, in the cab with you because you’ll only lose it to the attacker and things will end much worse than it otherwise would. Diversity training, dealing with variances of different cultures. How to work with cab companies and knowing the rules to protect yourself.  Learning the insanity that is picking up a fare from the airports. But the main topic that was covered was the streets themselves. The numbering, the quirks of vanity addresses, and anything else you could think about, like which streets are one way downtown and shortcuts on Lower Wacker. A majority of the questions on the license exam dealt with geography so this was a huge component to understand. I had an advantage because when I first moved to Chicago four years earlier, I studied the CTA maps and learned the main streets mostly from their connection with the subway stops. One thing I didn’t know was the trick “OddSE”– if the street number you’re looking for is an odd number, then it will either be on the south side or east side of the street; even numbers being on the north or west. (You’re welcome!)

The Saturday bus tours were just bizarre. Our class was combined with the night session to fill a large bus. Brilliant August afternoons being taken around by old white Southsiders, entertaining a full load of immigrants. The first Saturday we drove around downtown to show how best to navigate around the hotels, identify spots to avoid, and where some of the more popular tourist spots were. Again, it was a Southsider talking into the mic using colloquialisms that did not make any sense to my classmates. He would sprinkle in the Blue-eyed Devil comment from time to time for levity or disdain, I really could never tell. For the record, my eyes are brown. The second Saturday was a tour of the South Side to show how safe it was and not to fear going south. Mind you, we were traveling to Beverly, not Bronzeville. This time it was the former cop narrating the tour and continued the trend of using phrases that a person new to Chicago would never understand. I enjoyed seeing the city from a different perspective but I felt bad for my fellow passengers who I think only got 20% of the intended value out of the tour and that was just simply from seeing the area.

Course complete, now to take the exam. You could only get 4 or 5 wrong out of 50 and again, it was heavily focused on geography. I passed and got my picture taken right then and there. Yeah, look at me, I have a license to drive a cab in Chicago! I was later notified that I made the Honor Roll at Harold Washington for that session, so my academic record remained exemplary.

Obviously I wanted to work with a known cab company so I went to Yellow. Now, I’m not a morning person and figured I’d drive at night anyway, so I arrived at 11am asking about leasing a cab. There were none available and I was informed that I would have to get there earlier if you wanted a cab. Ugh, fine,whatever. Though unemployed, my schedule was filled with random acts of laziness and holidays and birthdays. After all it was summer in Chicago and I had the freedom that unemployment afforded me. This all ended after that second Tuesday in September.

To be continued…

What follows is a condensed version of steps gleaned from the wonderful series on c|net called “How to podcast” by Iyaz Akhtar @iyaz, the links for which are available at the end of this post. I added a few of my own suggestions to address some challenges I came across when following the series myself.

Phase 1 Getting Started

a. Figure out a preliminary plan of content. I say preliminary because this may change several times over the course of your podcasting.

b. Come up with a name and make sure you can use it. Go to NameChk.com to see how available the name is across several platforms.

Phase 2 Recording

Get a mic. Yes you can use your laptop’s built-in mic, or a pair of headphones that include a mic, but come on now. I tested out a Cyber Acoustics USB microphone (CVL-1084 $18 on Amazon) over Skype with a friend who recorded our session in Adobe Audition and it sounded great. For a long time I coveted the Blue Yeti ($120 on Amazon) for all the rave reviews it got. The one shortcoming that it has for me personally is that I don’t have a laptop so I would have to do all my recording from my desktop. So, I upped my game and went with the Zoom H2n Handy Recorder ($160 Amazon) because of portability (uses 2 AA batteries) in addition to some extra bells and whistles. I’ll do a review on this device later when I get the chance. You can do more research on mics and many other topics on the International Association of Internet Broadcasters website which you can find here.

Software: my friend and I both have Adobe Audition but I have absolutely no clue how to use it. There is also Audacity which is free to download and I know of other semi-pro podcasters who have great success using that. Skype is a big help for those “not in the same room” interviews. Again, my friend and I used Skype + Audition with success. A lot of folks use Skype to do the talking and then record the call using Pamela for Windows users, or ecamm for Macs

Phase 3 Edit that show!

Level it off using the Levelator

Intro/Outro music – don’t steal! Create something using Garage Band or find something that is free to use.

Take out the “ummms” and other noises using Audacity or Audition (or whatever).

Then export the final product.

Phase 4 Tagging and Posting

-To properly tag the file, import using iTunes (File>Add to Library and select the final product).
-Right click on the file in iTunes and select Get Info and then proceed to fill in all the fields with all the right info.
-For Genre, type in Podcast and if you have some artwork ready, drag and drop that in as well [Cover art must be in the JPEG or PNG file formats and in the RGB color space with a minimum size of 1400 x 1400 pixels and a maximum size of 2048 x 2048 pixels.]

Compressing the file; the following has been copied directly from the article-
-“Under the General tab, click Import Settings near the bottom of the dialog window.
-Under Import Using, select MP3 encoder.
-Under Settings, select Custom. If your show is pretty much just talking (and not a lot of music), you can compress the file a lot. I suggest selecting 64Kbps for spoken word.
-Then select Mono under Channels. Leave the rest of the settings alone, then hit OK.
-In the iTunes window, right click your tagged show and select Create MP3 version. All the tags and art will carry over to your new MP3 file. iTunes will automatically place your new file in its library. To find it on your PC, right click the MP3 and select Show in Finder if you’re on a Mac or Show in Windows Explorer.”

Now go to https://archive.org/ and create an account. Here is where you will host the compressed file for FREE!
-Upload the audio file.  Its worth noting that you can also host the artwork for your podcast on archive.org as well.

-Copied directly from the article “Now, we need to get a link to our show.
1. Under the Individual Files section, look for VBR MP3 and you should see a link with text that tells you the file size below.
2. Right click that link and choose Copy Link Address.
3. Paste that information somewhere like Notepad or Evernote. You’ll need it in a bit.”

Next step is to create a blog on WordPress as this will play an intermediary role between archive.org and iTunes.  What follows has also been copied directly from the article-
1. “Once you’ve set up your blog, add a new post.
a. Fill in your title and description.
2. Get the link you saved before.
3. To use the built-in audio player in WordPress write ”

” (without the quotes). This will allow your audience to stream your show from your site without needing to download it.
4. Archive.org links often start with an ‘s’ after the http, so do yourself a favor and remove that “s” or it will break something important down the line. Also, at the end of your post, add a download link to your show. Make sure you remove the “s” from the link you’re pasting in.” (end article quoted portion)
5. My addition – Important: be sure to categorize your post as a Podcast in WordPress otherwise iTunes won’t find the link.

Phase 5 Submitting it to iTunes

Go to FeedBurner.com and create an account.  What follows has also been copied directly from the article-
1. Under “Burn a feed right this instant,” type in your WordPress URL and type in “/feed” after it. Then click the “I am a podcaster” radio button, then click Next.
2. Give your feed a name under Feed Title and select a feed address.
3. Click Next on the bottom of the page to set up your podcast feed.
4. You’ll be taken to a new page to configure settings for iTunes.
5. Under “Create podcast enclosures from links,” select “audio files only” so only your new audio files trigger iTunes into thinking you put out a new episode of your show.
6. Continue filling out the info, selecting a category.

Log into iTunes and then go to the Store homepage, find the Podcast section and then look for the link along the right side for “Submit a Podcast”
Then enter the FeedBurner link you created above into the “Podcast Feed URL” entry and hit Submit.
Note: It may take a couple of days for you to get an email confirmation and then after that a couple days more to see it listed in the store when searching for the podcast.

So now, in theory, when you want to submit a new episode, post it to your WordPress blog and then that should generate a link for the new post, which then goes on to iTunes. Rinse and repeat.

Again, this was just a cheat sheet of sorts. I highly recommend that you read the entire series, the links are listed at the end of this post.  If you have any issues or found better ways of doing things, by all means share with the class.  I’m all about sharing knowledge because I would not be where I’m at without the generous sharing of genius over the years.  Teamwork makes the dream work, or some such platitude.

Best of luck and as always, rock on!

How to podcast, Part 1: Getting started

How to podcast, Part 2: Recording your show

How to podcast, Part 3: Editing your show

How to podcast, Part 4: Tagging and posting your show online

How to podcast, Part 5: Submitting your show to iTunes and promotion

Nothing to see here – move along.