What is a 'Thunderbucket'?
Before we get into that - how about a brief history lesson? The year was 2000. Tips were frosted and the music was loud. Which, explains the ringing in my ears. Unbeknownst to me, broadcasting school would be the backdrop for one of the most inspirational conversations with one of my instructors, Twin Cities broadcast veteran, Roy Finden. Roy was a witty old fella with pants as high as they would go and a couple of inches more. He knew his audience and catered to them. Mostly blue hairs, I suspect. A rebel by their standards. Pushing their proverbial envelope by mentioning he might like to put some Irish cream on his ice cream. But in reality, who doesn't?
I remember doing my scheduled college radio show one morning. The mic was hot and content was king that day. Other students outside the fishbowl and in the halls were engaged and eating it up. We signed off and I walked out of 'Scott Studio' to a smattering of applause and peer admiration. I was riding high until Roy brought me back down. Or, tried.
Roy: "Mike, let's talk about your show. How do you think you did?"
Me: "I think it went really well. We were having fun, on-time, great flow, and everyone listening seemed entertained."
Roy: "I was listening, and I wasn't entertained. I thought it was toilet humor."
Me: "Well, sir. You're not in my demographic."
He just smiled and gave me an A- for the course. LONG story short, we developed a mutual respect for each other. I think.
"Toilet humor." Those words bounced around in my head for a few years before I embraced them.
In the later of the 2000s, MySpace was on top and blogging started to become a thing. Ask anyone for career advice and they'll tell you to, 'do what you know'. Mind you, I am a bottomless pit of useless knowledge. Useless to everyone but me. At least, that's what I tell myself. Some things that I know, I'm not sure how or why I know them. But I digress.
Between broadcasting school and this point, I had been an on-air talent/radio DJ/rock jock, whatever you want to call it, for 93X in Minneapolis and moonlit as a professional wrestling referee and manager in the region. So, two blogs were formed. Rock n' Talk and Pro Wrestling Buzz. They killed the time in between technical support calls. Oh, yeah. I had another full-time gig too.
Anyway, life happens and I wanted to consolidate everything into one blog. But, what would this cornucopia of entertainment be called? My humor was and still is (to some), an acquired taste. What did Roy say back in the day? OH, something about "toilet humor"! That's a dumb name for a site. What's a syno...synonon, syno- something that means the same. Enter, Urban Dictionary.
Thunderbucket:
A bucket (usually kept under the bed) used to defecate in before the use of indoor plumbing.
Beautiful.
You're now probably asking yourself, "Why am I still reading this, and what's with the 3.0?"
Both are valid questions. But, I can only help you with the latter. You see, the first version was 1.0. Then I abandoned it and went back into radio, only to turn it into a short lived podcast (2.0 for those keeping score) and now back to a blog that will feature my ramblings in many forms(3.0).
So,...What kind of content can you expect? My guess would be mostly ramblings. Stories. Maybe some video content. Maybe some old audio. Dated references. Oh, and toilet humor.