There are a couple of things I want to get straight right up front. First, I know I have this terrible tendency to meander around before I get to my story. I will probably keep doing it, but I will do my best to keep it to a minimum. With that in mind, I confess to using the picture of John Lennon to get you to read what I have to say. I know that my captivating photograph of Leonard Cohen, that I used last week, got a lot of you sucked in before you knew what the hell I was going to write about. This story has nothing to do with Lennon, but I’ll bet I tie him into the closing paragraph, because that’s what good writer is supposed to do and God knows, I am trying.

Around ten weeks ago, I decided I wanted to create a podcast. Honestly, I don’t know why, because it certainly has nothing to do with monetizing my efforts, either relating to my writing and now, this impromptu excuse for a radio show. I swear, it’s just what I do. When I took a bucket-list, motorcycle ride on the West Coast in 2015, I made a deal to call in to KONG radio, a promotion with our Harley dealer and a national RV park company. Trust me, I am no P.T. Barnum, but it just seems to be my nature to step outside myself. I sincerely hope it’s not some demented, ego driven mojo, rather than an innocent and simple way of sharing what I happen to be going through.

For as long as I can remember, it has always been my nature to have a decent idea what was going on in the world. I would know how the Dallas Cowboys were doing or what the Dalai Lama had to say in his most recent interview. I had just enough information to handle myself at any cocktail party, except I never went to them. It’s hard to recall a time before the computer and the ability to find out what has been going on anywhere in the world. I just like being well informed, plain and simple.

When I decided to do a podcast, I found it very challenging and still do. I initially started out thinking I could read from the library of the hundreds of stories I have on my blog, which ain’t half bad. I re-listened to the first few I recorded and realized it did not fit this medium, which was admittedly quite new to me. I quickly segued into realizing podcasting was like making a phone call to people I didn’t know and talking to them in an informal manner, exposing my own confusion and frailties. I still suck at it, but I am slowly, very slowly, becoming more comfortable at sharing myself in this medium.

As I have said, for years and years, all I have done is read the news, digesting it and putting it away. My recent podcast preparation has changed all of that for me. Now, I will read a news story and copy it, then print it out on to a growing number of pages, compiled for my next podcast. My mind has much more fun playing off things, like the wise guy in the audience. I decided the news was the perfect “heckler in the audience” to riff off of. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I decided to morph my podcast monologues into Real News Plus, but I did.

What I am about to say may sound egotistical and I swear I don’t mean it to be that way. Trust me, I don’t have any delusions about being a newscaster, like Walter Cronkite. He was the face of CBS News from 1962-1981. Year after year, he was the most trusted person anywhere in the world, no shit. Something has happened to me in terms of how I now relate to the news I read each day. It really matters to me how I present myself in my little podcast.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I have begun to appreciate how big this world of ours is. All of us, myself included, like to think our combined actions are going to have some dramatic effect on this deeply troubled planet. In my best Walter Cronkite, I grabbed some numbers I want to share with you. There are 198 countries. Our population is 7.8 billion people. 10% of the world’s population is living on less than $2 a day. For some context, twice the population of the US is pretty much starving to death every day. Something like 7,111 languages are spoken here, making communication next to impossible.

Now, when I look at the news, I try to give it some context, some way of communicating it to a very small audience of folks like you. I know for certain we have two huge challenges to address and they are global poverty and climate change and in my mind, they are inseparable and inescapable.

One of the well circulated tricks in this world of social media is to always end on a positive, up lifting note, because no one will be drawn to a funereal view of most anything. Communication and intention break into pieces when we are forced to embrace a global perspective, because it just seems to be outside our individual ability to fathom. From where I am sitting, we need some kind of science fiction scenario to envision a positive outcome for us and the generations to follow. All of the incredibly disparate pieces that make up the earth pie, have to come together in the oven of the impossible, overcoming more obstacles than one single session of Fortnite.

John Lennon was assassinated just about forty years ago. I was in my mid-thirties and something inside of me died. The gorgeous naïveté of my youth took a bullet that night and life has never been the same. Doing this podcast has further stripped away any illusion, “and that’s the way it is.”

I love you, John.

“You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one”