The National Podcast of Texas

As the only American without a podcast, I have decided to start one of my own.

Was AlanScaia.com a nice jumping-off point? Sure. It just turns out no one knows how to pronounce, "Scaia," or spell "Alan" or "Scaia."

So I felt I might have missed a fairly important piece of the marketing aspect.

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my work was growing stale, and I missed telling stories that were interesting.

I'm joining a crowded landscape. In fact, I'm learning now there's already a "National Podcast of Texas." So while a podcast tab will soon be filled with the real stories of Texas, the search for a catchy name continues. But among all the podcasts about Texas politics or true crime, I haven't seen one that goes deep into interesting things happening around the state. I haven't seen an audio version of my blog, if you will.

So naturally, my first dispatch involves true crime. I talked to the organizers of the "It Came From Texas" Film Festival this weekend in Garland.

In the first part, you'll hear how Jonathan Winters flying a helicopter over the Alamo led to some changes in how movies can be shot there. Matthew McConaughey also talked about how incentives would bring more productions here.

Then SMU had me come over to see the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, a "cavalcade of Texas," if you will.

In #ScaiaPod (I'm still workshopping the best hashtags if anyone has suggestions), they talk about how Dallas has been a hub for filmmaking for decades. Plus, when JFK was assassinated, the networks were all set up for his speech in Dallas, so only local stations were actually covering his motorcade.

The vault has thousands of reels from all kinds of events. The Smithsonian even called and asked for an episode of Captain Kangaroo. They talked about how each clip can capture a moment in time, like this Dallas Cowboys' game against the Philadelphia Eagles in 1964.

The curator of the collection, Jeremy Spracklin, says you might notice how calm everyone looks and how few people have painted their chest.

They're uploading clips daily to their YouTube page.

Then, naturally, I moved on to a true crime story.

But I feel like my true-crime podcast is a bit different. They'll be showing 1967's Bonnie and Clyde at the festival. Bonnie Parker's niece had some things she wanted to talk about, so she suggested we meet at Clyde Barrow's grave west of Downtown Dallas.

People still leave flowers there. In fact a few people stopped by while we were there.

Rhea Leen Linder hopes continued attention will ultimately lead to Bonnie and Clyde being buried together. The spot next to Clyde is still open.

The debate coach at Wiley University will host a discussion about The Great Debaters. The movie features the debate team at Wiley College in the 1930s. Melvin Tolson led Wiley to victory against reigning champion USC; in the film, Denzel Washington leads Wiley to victory against Harvard. Apparently, we, the audience, would rather see Harvard bested than USC.

But Wiley's current debate coach, Ernest Mack, will speak at the festival, and in #PodcastDelScaia, he explains the movie brought attention to the school and the work Tolson did. He also says Washington donated a lot of money to bring the debate program back.

I was discussing the podcast with my first boss on a visit to SuperOregon. He says my interviews sound good, but I still sound too "newsy" when I'm narrating.

He also explained I should not tell people, "I'm on a very fixed income!" while I try to build an audience. Instead, I should confidently explain I am self-employed.

Next week, we'll discuss new food at the State Fair of Texas. You can join the coalition here.

Maybe I don't have this all figured out just yet. But you know what? Maybe none of us has completely figured out life, so we can grow together. In podcast form.