MO 108: The Final Episode

I made the decision earlier today to officially end the Marble Operator podcast. It’s a decision that I’ve been pontificating for months now.

I’ve been unable to record podcasts since last August, and it seems doubtful that I’ll regain that capacity any time soon, if ever, so this played a large role in my making this decision.

Another major factor is the status of THAC. Some months ago, Joseph and Tim left the group, leaving just Troy and relative newcomer Noah behind. I don’t know the full details of their leaving and I don’t know that I want to know. All that matters is that the trio behind Marble Hornets had disbanded, leaving a still-new series in the lurch.

I’ve had mixed feelings on Clear Lakes 44. It’s taken a long time for it to even have any sense of an ongoing story, to let us know what its story might even be. This is largely due to how the story is being told, but it was slow going. Two of the creative minds behind their previous effort leaving just told me the series was losing what little momentum it had in the first place.

Let’s back up a bit. Marble Operator was a podcast that I started in August of 2011 in order to discuss the YouTube series Marble Hornets. I eventually included other series, at the behest of cohosts. These series included Dark Harvest, Tribe Twelve, and Andersen Journals. The common thread among the series was the Slender Man. I had lots of requests to cover EverymanHYBRID, but this was something I could never figure out how to do, given how many different websites and YouTube channels that story spans.

Marble Hornets finally ended, and with it went all other Slender Man series. The three others we covered just died. We had nothing more to cover. Eventually, Clear Lakes 44, the series that followed Marble Hornets, began, and I made an effort to continue the podcast in its honor.

It didn’t last.

I’ve lost interest in Clear Lakes 44. Broadcast 11 brought back a totheark-esque character and it just felt like I’ve been there before. There was nothing new. I had no way of recording new episodes, let alone do the conference calls co-hosts wanted. That may never happen again for any podcast I might do, at the rate my real life is going.

It’s been a fun run, Marble Operator. I met some great people, made some great friends, lost all but one of those friends. Rion, Erica, Abby, John, Katie, and Logan. The only one of those I still even sometimes speak with is Rion. I’m thankful for their contributions to the podcast. They made the podcast what it was, not me. I did nothing. It was all them. I owe it all to them. Thank you.

Thank you to the listeners for listening. I started the podcast because I wanted to hear people discuss, in an audio format, the Marble Hornets story. There were a lot of you who also wanted to hear that, and you continue to download the back catalog. Thank you.

Thank you as well to Adam Rosner, creator and writer of TribeTwelve, for appearing on an episode of MO for an interview. Likewise thank you to Chris of Dark Harvest. Both interviews were fun.

I also got to guest on an episode of the Around the Campfire podcast, where I was interviewed as host of Marble Operator.

So this is the end. Four years later, and it’s all over, the road has ended. It’s been fun, but now is when I bow out. Thank you and goodbye.

I am officially clearing out the Radio Free Caemlyn podcast feed.

It’s time for the older stuff to fade silently into the night, whispering a goodbye that no one ever hears, walking away into the forest, away from street lights. Watch them go, which no one does.

Which is to say I’m moving the older Radio Free Caemlyn episodes over to the Internet Archive. You can find the episodes here. Once archived, the episodes will be removed from the official Radio Free Caemlyn podcast feed.

Radio Free Caemlyn officially began on 10 January, 2010. I was a different person back then, we were all different people back then. The original name for the podcast was Radio Rand al’Thor, and it was to be a series of live radio broadcasts where I would play music and talk about random topics. The majority of the music I played was from OverCloked ReMix, a site dedicated to amateur remixes of video game music.

The podcast had a different feel in those early days, when I broadcast from my old Pentium 4 Dell machine at my parents’ house, alone in my room, talking into a Logitech USB mic (which is no longer manufactured). I would talk into the night, into the darkness, imagining myself as some radio disc jockey speaking to people asleep or driving alone along roads after a long day. Listening to these again makes me want to do this again, but in my current situation I can’t. It’s inspiring me to work harder in finding my own place to live.

It’s my own way of letting go of the past, setting it out into the world, a small part of me, how I was, who I was, way back then.

On this Christmas Day, 2015, I created and posted my 34th sound collage. What follows is a playlist of all the samples and tracks used.

Direct Download

Satellite of Love ambient noise (Mystery Science Theater 3000)
Tori Amos – Frog on My Toe
“In a Prominent Bar in Syracuse One Day”, a poem by X. J. Kennedy
“Seeing Color For the First Time”, audio sample of kids in ’70s seeing color TV for the first time
Clint Mansell – Summer Overture
“I really wish there was some kind of plan,” Marble Operator co-host Erica S.
“I don’t really believe in standard sexualized pigeonholes” – unknown
Alan Watts talking about desire and Buddhism
“The Parade”, a poem by Billy Collins
“I am the hero,” Marble Operator co-host Logan
“Call in…” from Friday Night Trivia intro recordings
“Wrecking Ball stuck in my head…” Marble Operator co-host Erica
“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret…” Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks
“Needle in the Hay” – Elliott Smith
Marble Operator calls After the Tone
“I have seen the face of god” – Network
“Dave’s not here” – Cheech and Chong
Recording from the local scanner
“With You” – I Fight Dragons (loop courtesy of RBCP of the Phone Losers)
“All my lights when wiggly” DaveAC
“Belle Isle 1949”, a poem by Phillip Levine
“These things, they take time” Gabe Newell
“I don’t believe in god” – unknown
“Mould” – Aphex Twin
“Radiator” – Aphex Twin
“Let Down” – Radiohead
“Together We Will Live Forever” – Clint Mansell
“YES!” – RBCP congratulation message for joining PLA’s Patreon
“UVB 76 Forever” – Unknown
Recorded ham operator chatter from K8QED
Art Bell quitting his radio show
“Into the Night” by Julee Cruise, from Twin Peaks
“Night Life in Twin Peaks”
“Sunshine Recorder” – Boards of Canada
“Transmissions Ferox” – Boards of Canada
“Collapse” – Boards of Canada
“An Ending (Ascent)” – Brian Eno
“Farewell Fire” – Boards of Canada

Direct Download

The 29th episode of Super Awesome Fun Time With Rand is a collection of Aphex Twins tracks from their Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2 album, with some rain and thunder, courtesy of the BBC Sound Effects Library, mixed in.

I’ve been a voice on the Cultdom Collective Commentaries for five years. Early on in Cultdom’s run, Ian and Dave started doing commentaries in addition to the weekly live shows. They did commentaries on some Chris Eccleston episodes of Doctor Who, then I expressed interest in joining them. My first episode was “The Eleventh Hour”, which was also the first episode of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who. I wanted to be more involved with the Cultdom Collective. (Although, looking through the Cultdom archives, the first studio episode I was on was was an episode discussing the idea of “spin-off TV series”, along with Ian, Dave, and Merlin.

The Commentaries were fun. Our staple was Doctor Who, as that was the show that tied all of Cultdom Collective together. We did commentaries on new episodes the same weekend they aired, recording the commentaries that Sunday night. When Doctor Who wasn’t on the air, we’d turn to other shows. Sometimes we’d work on filling in the back catalog of BBC Wales-era Doctor Who, carrying on from the end of series one. In the years since I joined, we’ve done commentaries on the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, all of Better Call Saul’s first season, the entirety of the BBC series “Jekyll” (although I did not appear on those commentaries), all of the original BBC series “Life On Mars” (as opposed to the American iteration of the show), all episodes of the BBC series “Luther”, the pilot episode of the failed “Mockingbird Lane” show, all episodes of BBC’s “Sherlock”, one episode of the original Star Trek (“This Side of Paradise”, done in honor of Leonard Nimoy), and a collection of episodes of Doctor Who’s original run (mainly done to follow BBC America’s “Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited” series to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary). We’ve done a lot of commentaries. I even invited Ian and Dave on to a special episode of Marble Operator on which we commented over the first “season” of Marble Hornets.

Recent circumstances, however, are forcing me to take a break from recording commentaries. It was unfortunately timed, though, as my final episode, for now, is the first episode of the Doctor Who three-parter, “The Two Doctors”. Even if circumstances hadn’t changed, though, I’d be taking a break, as the new series of Doctor Who is scheduled to start on 19 September. After participating on the commentary for the last episode of series 8 (whose title I can’t remember (“Death in Heaven”, Wikipedia tells me)), I’ve lost all interest in even watching any more of the utter shit that passes as Doctor Who under Steven Moffat, as I’ve well documented in the past. I’d love to still participate in commentaries, but that would require me to watch these upcoming episodes, and I just have no interest in doing that. Another reason I planned on not participating on these episodes was that I am perhaps too critical and too negative of the Moffat era. I hate what he’s done to the once-brilliant show. I hate his style of writing. I hate how he repeats ideas (and for people who argue against that, River Song is returning on this year’s Xmas special). A good commentary can’t have too much negativity. I feel that all my bitching would just drag our commentaries too far down. My criticisms would make the commentaries terrible to listen to. (Although now I wish I could participate, so I could present some criticisms to balance out the probably praises of the new episodes)

This means the commentaries will be down to Ian and Dave. Thing is, they prefer having a three-person format for the commentaries, with the occasional fourth person. There is now an open seat for the commentaries, if any Cultdom regulars would like to join in. I’ve been invited back on whenever I want, since I’m part of the Cultdom Commentary Trio, though.

Anyway, this blog post is just to say that, since I have no quiet space in which to do Skype calls for the commentaries, I have to sit out for now. If not for that, I would be out for a while anyway due to my lack of interest in Doctor Who series nine. Either way, I look forward to when I can once again be part of the Cultdom Commentaries.

Here’s a playlist for my 27th sound collage. I should make these playlists more often, so I can keep track of what I’ve used in a particular collage.

“Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“The World Spins” by Julee Cruise
Excerpt from “The Sound of Rain Needs No Translation”, Alan Watts
“Chase” Instrumental, by Giorgio Moroder, from Midnight Express soundtrack (also the Coast to Coast AM intro theme)
“Eight Doing the Dishes”, poem by Jeane Lohman
“An Ending (Ascent)” from “Apollo”, by Brian Eno
“Funky Chimes” from Sesame Street
“Mothersbaugh’s Canon” by Mark Mothersbaugh from The Royal Tenenbaums
“Weathered Stone” by Aphex Twin
“You’re So Cool” clip from True Romance, and You’re So Cool theme by Hans Zimmerman
Local amateur radio net recording, 31 May, 2015
“Back on the Chain Gang” by the Pretenders
“Radioactivity” by Kraftwerk
“Your Hand in Mine” by Explosions in the Sky
“Ghosts of Future Lost” by Clint Mansell, from Requiem For a Dream soundtrack
Clear Lakes 44 theme, from Broadcast #1
“White Blur” by Aphex Twin
“The Smallest Weird Number” by Boards of Canada
“Games People Play” by Joe South
“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” a poem by William Butler Yeats
“A Lotta Love” by Nicolette Larson

Title for this episode was suggested by @aedaily on Twitter.

The THAC guys have started their new series, which will be posted to the Marble Hornets YouTube channel. The series, which has been mentioned as following the events of Marble Hornets but not necessarily involving the previous series, now has an official name: Clear Lakes 44. The YouTube channel has been renamed to reflect this. The THAC guys have stressed that Clear Lakes 44 is its own series and doesn’t require any knowledge of Marble Hornets in order to enjoy, and that they are posting it to the Marble Hornets channel in order to reach and maintain the audience from their original series.

Marble Operator is a podcast that I started in mid-2011 to discuss the Marble Hornets series. Back then there were no on-going Marble Hornets fan podcasts, and I wanted to hear discussion in an audio format, having been a reader and somewhat-active member of the UnFiction Forums’ Marble Hornets section. I had found one podcast, Slender Nation, but that podcast had been discontinued (indeed, as I type this, the last episode posted was from March of 2011, many months before I even had the idea for my own podcast). Marble Operator was a weekly live discussion about Marble Hornets, in which we analyzed new Entries, new totheark videos, and theorized about the plot and characters. We covered new Entries and totheark videos as they were released, but also carried on an ongoing discussion of previous videos in order, starting with Introduction.

However, once we were caught up with Marble Hornets, we had empty weeks with nothing new to discuss. During these empty weeks, since we still wanted to do new episodes, we looked to other Slender Man-based YouTube serials to cover. We first went to TribeTwelve, another popular series. This coverage eventually led us to interviewing Adam Rosner, the creator of TribeTwelve (an interview I had to post in two parts due to TalkShoe’s file upload size limit).

There have been two other Slender Man series that we’ve picked up for the same reason, those being Dark Harvest and Andersen Journals. We’ve managed to interview Chris, the creator of Dark Harvest.

Throughout Marble Operator’s original run, I received numerous suggestions and requests to cover the YouTube series EverymanHYBRID. While I’m a fan of that series, I could never work out a way to easily cover everything involved, as that series spans numerous channels and accounts across many social media networks (such as YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, and so on).

However, the original run of Marble Operator came to a rather abrupt halt last July, when Marble Hornets ,the series that started the podcast in the first place, officially ended. With that series gone, it looked as though all motivation from other series’ creators to do new episodes of their own stuff dried up; we weren’t getting new content from TribeTwelve, Andersen Journals, or Dark Harvest, or even EverymanHYBRID. There was new content, it was just extremely rare. We had no new material to merit new Marble Operator episodes. The craze had ended, now that the series that inspired it all had ended.

Very shortly after Marble Hornets had ended, Troy Wagner of THAC told fans on the THAC posdcast to not unsubscribe from the Marble Hornets channel, that there would be new content posted at some point. While not our first hint of a new series (the original announcement had been as a stretch goal on their MH season 3 DVD Kickstarter), it was confirmation of where they would be posting the series. Speculation had begun about what this new series would be about, and what connection, if any, it would have to Marble Hornets.

The code-name for the new project would be revealed in February of 2015 on the Marble Hornets twitter page, with a tweet that read simply, “44”. That’s all we had to go on, but it was new activity on the MH twitter feed, which had been inactive since the series had ended. What did this 44 mean? Fan speculation continued at this, as people pored over old Entries, looking for instances of “44”. Alex Kralie, a central character in Marble Hornets, was born on April 4th, for instance. Entry 26 featured a timestamp of 4:04pm. A late-series Entry featured 44 as a channel logo on some TV news footage. There was an Entry #44.

There were other events that led up to the first new series video, which was posted in early August of 2015. These events included an official Marble Hornets website, which would gradually reveal new content and clues, including links to new videos posted to the Marble Hornets YouTube channel. Then in early August, it began, with Clear Lakes 44 Broadcast #1 uploaded. Broadcast #2 was posted later in the week, with Broadcast #3 uploaded that following weekend while the THAC guys were away at a convention. The new series had officially begun.

This led me to consider the Marble Operator podcast. The last episode I’d done was when Marble Hornets ended back in 2014. Since then, life had happened, my cohosts had gone their own ways, we no longer spoke, and so on. There was no way I’d get everyone back at the same time for a conference call to record new content. If I wanted to do new episodes, it would have to be on my own.

(On a side note: I’m fully aware that we never covered the “Always Watching” movie, which we really should have, given that the Marble Hornets guys wrote it. Maybe someday we’ll cover that)

Anyway, I started recording new episodes. I discussed events leading up to Clear Lakes 44 Broadcast #1. I discussed the ideas of the new series, and what we’ve been told to expect. I’d revived Marble Operator.

In the time since, I’ve heard from two cohosts, and talked about availability and if we could record new episodes together. Details are still being worked out, but it looks possible. I would like to have my co-hosts back to discuss Clear Lakes 44.

As I’ve been typing this, I’ve remembered that I’ve not done episodes to discuss the new content from TribeTwelve and DarkHarvest, both of which have updated since the end of Marble Hornets. I’ll work on that, as well.

More to come.