NHT Blog

First and foremost, please understand that I absolutely see the irony in someone who is a publicist, not to mention the host of a weekly (close to one-hour) podcast telling people, “The less said, the better.”  Yes, I get it.  I’m a professional communicator who, in a roundabout way, talks for a living, you could say, and yet here I am writing a blog under a headline that seems awfully contradictory.

Last Wednesday on the episode of my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast that was released (number 532), John Ellison – who wrote the R&B standard “Some Kind of Wonderful” – talked about a contest he participated in when he was young.

Alright, recording artists, podcasters, authors, and other creatives.  One week ago (in the U.S.) was Tax Day, and now it’s time for inventory.  Okay, maybe it’s not actually on the calendar, but go with me on this because it’s something you don’t want to file an extension for, to use an April 15th analogy.

Way back on Episode 200 of my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast, my guest was comedian Jim Florentine.  To this day, I still listen to his podcast, where he often will talk with great sarcasm about people taking pictures of their food (for social media).  His attitude is, just eat it, nobody cares.

There’s a monthly meetup that I attend and have been a part of for something like ten years now.  (Yes, really.)  I know when and where it happens and I attend regularly, so, not only do I know if anything changes, but, I’m quite familiar with what takes place during it as well as how many people usually show up, and, of course, I get to know a lot of people, whether regulars or first timers.

I’m back home in Tampa Bay now after arriving back here so late Saturday night that it was actually Sunday morning.  If you’ve been receiving the weekly e-newsletter or following on the official Instagram account for the weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast, I was gone for 15 days.  First I was in Las Vegas and then I went straight to Los Angeles from there.

Many years ago, someone once described me as, “Ask Bruce what time it is, and he’ll tell you how the watch was built.”  Kind of funny, I suppose, but yes, also very insightful as to my personality, meaning, very detail oriented.

The irony is the expression that’s often used, “The less said the better.”

From time to time on my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast I’ll allude to the fact that I can’t pretend to think that everyone listening to that particular episode will have heard all of the previously released interviews – especially given that Episode 527 is less than 48 hours away from release.

I recently heard someone say that they were unsure as to whether being interviewed on different podcasts was really helpful for them or not. This gave me pause both as a podcaster and as a publicist.

I’m trying not to be biased as the host of the weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast or as the founder and president of Now Hear This, Inc., but I had to immediately disagree with the thought that it might not be beneficial to get interviewed on podcasts.

Last week I wrote about how impressed I was with the drive, the commitment, the pitches, that I witnessed from the attendees of the 20th San Francisco Writers Conference at which I had just spoken.  I left that event and flew directly to Nashville and had some nice takeaways there that serve as teaching moments for all of you as well.