Everybody has a secret these days. If nothing else, they have at least one computer password. We went through several at the "liberry" for our patron computers, mostly because our patrons kept hacking them. And, sure, we didn't always make this as difficult as we should, but people having the patron computer password wasn't exactly the end of the world. It was just irritating. And who among our patrons tended to be the ones who tried to hack us most frequently? Why the Rogue Patrons, of course. ...
Dec 05, 2011•28 min
On this Thanksgiving holiday, I am thankful for family and friends willing to travel great distances to my home only to have to sleep on inflatabeds. I'm also thankful that I once wrote a handful of Tales from the "Liberry" entries in which Thanksgiving played a part. That's cause they were readily available for me to adapt for this week's podcast. Hope you and yours are having a festive turkey season. (And that you don't live in Missouri or Kentucky, cause I shit on those states pretty heavily ...
Nov 27, 2011•27 min
There are many irritating patron archetypes, but among the most irritating of them are the Geneal0gy People. Yes, those patrons who are so fervid about their own ancestry that they simply must spend at least six hours a day diligently researching the shit out of it. And, really, if you're gonna put that kind of time and labor into something you're so passionate about, are you gonna keep your discoveries to yourself? Hell no, you're going to tell simply EVERYONE about it all. And who better to st...
Nov 20, 2011•34 min
While not the stinkiest patron we ever had to deal with, the man who became known as Crusty the Patron was still counted among the worst of the stinky patron lot due to his tenacity in inflicting his stench on us for hours at a time. Crusty suffered from a number of other hygienic ailments that made working at my "liberry" downright unappetizing. And while I was not allowed to kick him out directly, I was able to find at least a temporary solution to the basic problems he caused for us without a...
Nov 13, 2011•34 min
There were only a handful of patrons I truly hated, most with good reason. However, one who pressed all my hatred buttons within seconds of meeting him was a guy I called Billy the Brainchild--well, him and a remarkably similar patron called The Expert). Billy was a guy out to make a name for himself in a variety of half-assed media business ventures of a pornographic nature. His ultimate goal was to become Appalachia's version of Larry Flynt, minus the wheel chair and, presumably, the inflatabl...
Nov 06, 2011•29 min
The major problem with patron access computers are the patrons. They don't have computers at home, so they have to come use ours. And that's great, until it's not. Such was the case with a Rogue Patron I came to call The Dufus. He was a guy from the area who'd gone out into the world for, to hear him tell it, a storied career as a minor deity on the West Coast, where he hobnobbed with rich and powerful celebrities all of whom adored him. Again, to hear him tell it. And tell it he was more than w...
Oct 31, 2011•24 min
In the past, I've chronicled small tales of Mr. B-Natural and Mr. Smiley, the first and second grumpiest old men in all the world respectively. However, the third grumpiest old man in all the world actually proved to be one of the more active antagonists in the history of the Tales from the "Liberry" blog. As I said <a href="http://www.liberrycast.com/2011/10/episode-32-132-blue-hair-group.html">last week</a>, he's an honorary old white lady and for good reason; not only is he on par...
Oct 24, 2011•32 min
Customer service people, back me up here. When it comes to the ability of customers/patrons to deliver huge consignments of shit during the course of a basic transaction, the group of human beings most likely to be making that delivery are Old White Ladies. Yessir. More than any other group on the planet, they are the least easy to please. Maybe it's a southern thing. I dunno. But that has been my experience over the course of 20 years of dealing with the public, and four such tales are presente...
Oct 16, 2011•33 min
Children are not angels. Sometimes they break bad and have to be sent away for a while to a place where they can be broken of the badness, or simply be removed from a bad situation. (I know, I know, that's a huge over simplification, but that's how it seems.) We had a couple of homes for troubled youth in Tri-Metro and they were frequent visitors to the "liberry" along with their usual hulking, pro-wrestler style Troubled Youth Wranglers. Getting materials back from them was often a problem. Get...
Oct 10, 2011•14 min
Libraries are supposed to be places of quiet study. Mine, not so much. Our patrons were very louLinkd. Sometimes they suffered from no-inside-voice syndrome, a sad condition in which their parents never taught them proper indoor voice technique. Other times they used blood curdling screams as their only form of communication. And, on the rare occasions when they were quiet, they were excessively quiet and were in danger of having their voices drowned out by the sounds of typing. Presented for yo...
Oct 02, 2011•24 min
In honor of National Banned Books Week, we present an expanded version of an Actual Conversation Heard in an Actual Library on that very topic. Directly interwoven with this tale is the story of my abiding love of the Walter the Farting Dog series and how my "liberry" self-banned it for several months to avoid the nonexistent wrath of coddling parents. All in all, four different Tales from the "Liberry", each involving Walter to some degree, are covered in today's podcast, yet none of them are i...
Sep 25, 2011•13 min
Libraries are places full of dreams. (Just ask Lucien.) Sometimes they can be literal, such as a nightmare I once had regarding a particular problem patron discovering the blog, or my dream of revenge on Joss Whedon for... well, Firefly fans know what Joss did. Other times, in title alone. And other times, it can be the dreams of a patron, dashed by a surly "liberry" ass. such as myself. They can all be found in today's DreamCAST.Link...
Sep 19, 2011•15 min
Today's 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks brings to mind where I was during that time a decade ago and how it coincided with my hiring at the Tri-Metro "liberry." Today's podcast presents an adaptation of that portion of Secret Origins of Tales from the "Liberry" as well as a commentary bit containing the actual never-before-revealed secret origin of the blog.
Sep 11, 2011•14 min
As you might have noticed, I'm an enormous nerd. Maybe not quite as nerdy as the Nerdist Podcast, but nerdy all the same. As such, I'm fond of heading out to nerd gatherings such as the infamous Dragon Con in Atlanta. In honor of this being Dragon Con weekend for 2011, I present some non-"liberry" tales of my D-Con experiences of the past decade. Included are dealer's room encounters with gerbil-cleavaged sci-fi heroines; Annoying Brit Track Boy's near-death-experience at the hands of both the p...
Sep 04, 2011•35 min
Libraries always have their odd bird patrons. Flocks of them, usually. Ours was no exception. Presented for your consideration today are five tales of such in-the-wild encounters with odd bird patrons, and/or tales featuring some cussin'. That's right, it's the All Cussin' Episode (#$%& yeah!) with nary a censor tone to be found and Explicit right on the Tag. Fire it up for Grandma!...
Aug 26, 2011•21 min
For most of my "liberry" career, I was a part time employee. Once in a while, though, when EVERYONE else was out of town, I was called upon to take on not only a full 8 hour day, but sometimes a full 10 hour day, almost entirely by myself. This is when my experiments with real time blogging began to take shape. It's not all funny material, but it was often surprising. Guest stars include: Mr. Smiley, Parka, Kanji the Kid, Brent & Brice the New Devil Twins, Chester the (Potential) Moletster, ...
Aug 21, 2011•25 min
One of the most astounding figures I encountered during my time at the "liberry" was our board president, Mr. Kreskin (not his real name). He was a very nice and capable human being, tirelessly juggling multiple complicated projects on the library's behalf. And from those projects arose many questions, only our two librarians were capable of answering for him. Unfortunately the ONLY time he was ever known to phone us at all were on the rare days when both librarians were out of town and unavaila...
Aug 14, 2011•21 min
Summer Reading, oh how it burns! Yes, it's the time of year when snot-nosed crumb-crunchers descend upon the "liberry" to craft crafts, hear stories, fill out reading logs and create chaos. That is, if their parents can manage to get them signed up to begin with. And who is the queen of Summer Reading Chaos? Why our old nemesis, Little Kayla, of course. (This episode also includes a cameo by Parka as well as one by his shag carpet of torso hair.)...
Aug 07, 2011•23 min
An odd tale of an odd bird encountered in the wild, AWAY from the "liberry" proper. Doc Ock Fetishist Woman was never a patron, but she was about as nutty as any of our patrons ever got. Not a bad human being in the slightest, just exasperating. In fact, if she has committed any crime, it's probably that she cares too much... about inanimate objects. Also included in this tale is the story of the first time I was busted as a "liberry" blogger. Having your secret identity revealed to you is alway...
Jul 31, 2011•21 min
Just when we thought we had it bad enough with frequent visits from Chester the (Potential) Molester, another seeming sicko fell into our midst. And, unlike Chester, this one actually had computer skills. He also had a habit of exclusively wearing a puffy white Michelin man winter parka in the warmth of April, so his nickname officially became Parka. While I didn't know it at the time, he would become the MOST chronicled member of the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery by proving himself to be the MOST ir...
Jul 27, 2011•25 min
Last week's podcast presented how Barbie Turdmurkle drove us nigh unto insanity in helping her log into one of her many online services that she doesn't have the necessary skillset to access by herself. One year later, she returned to do much the same thing, having learned no lessons on doing so from our previous encounter on the matter. As an added bonus, I have also recorded my heretofore unpodcasted first encounter with Barbie T. It was the first of many exasperating telephone conversations I...
Jul 24, 2011•18 min
This podcast marks a return appearance by previous podcast rogue patron Barbara Turdmurkle, a.k.a. the titular Barbie T. Barbie T has repeatedly proven herself to be incapable of using technology, especially computers, yet she continues to sign up for services that require internet access. This coupled with her constant fear that someone is trying to steal her identity and ruin her credit, coupled with some truly strange phone calls, meant someone at the "liberry" was going to have a bad day. To...
Jul 17, 2011•18 min
Just when we thought we had it bad enough with frequent visits from Chester the (Potential) Molester, another seeming sicko fell into our midst. And, unlike Chester, this one actually had computer skills. He also had a habit of exclusively wearing a puffy white Michelin man winter parka in the warmth of April, so his nickname officially became Parka. While I didn't know it at the time, he would become the MOST chronicled member of the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery by proving himself to be the MOST ir...
Jul 10, 2011•25 min
As much as I complain about nutty patrons, the vast majority of people I had to deal with on a daily basis were amazingly nice and appreciative folk, who would never think to question a fine, let alone whine about it and whose scant few complaints were limited to things like, "I wish the library was open even more often than every day, cause I love it so." Then, just when I was starting to think that humanity was basically decent, if occasionally misunderstood, and I should really look into shut...
Jul 03, 2011•21 min
Public service brings with it one constant: The Public. And not everyone among the public is an avid fan of bathing nor is capable of comprehending that noxious fumes are produced by their butts, nor the readily available ways to combat said fumes. This was a reoccurring problem at my "liberry" that drove me nigh unto insanity. Today's episode presents one of the simple and elegant remedies to our library's ass fume problems that I actually proposed to my bosses. As an added bonus, following tod...
Jun 26, 2011•27 min
One of the oddest tales in the entire "liberry" catalog has to be that of Mrs. Lying D. Sackashit, a lady who proved to have in her possession a never-ending fountain of horseshit which she turned in our direction whenever we encountered her. I don't know the true nature of her particular brand of mental flaw, but she had an impressive ability to calmly reinvent reality on the spot regardless of the MOUNTING evidence to the contrary staring her in the face. Why did she do this? To get what she w...
Jun 19, 2011•20 min
(NOTE FROM 2012: Okay, I don't know what happened but somehow half this episode vanished. No, the version that's been posted here, for who knows how long, had the theme music, then trailed off to silence for, like, 12 minutes, then came back in with the second and third stories and wrapped up. There was a massive gap where the first story had been and I don't know how this is even possible. It was just gone and was gone from my back up .wav copy, and the .mp3 copy, and the online copy, and the b...
Jun 12, 2011•23 min
Upgrades in technology often bring upgrades in hassle. So was the case when our "liberry" network upgraded our circulation software, requiring us to rebarcode not only our entire collection, but our patrons as well. And when it came to patrons freaking out on us in a super fashion about policy issues concerning their library card, no one won the race ahead of Paranoid Rick James. His apparent fear that the "gubmint" was trying to keep track of which Joan Medlicott books he read led him down corr...
Jun 05, 2011•24 min
Among existing "liberry" patron archetypes, Conspiracy Guy and Stoner Lad are probably two of the more universal ones. Every library has them, sometimes in multiples. We did as well, but there were two specific people that embodied these roles for me. Alas, by the time I began to write my blog, they had more or less moved on. But on one perfect night, they afforded me a glimpse of their combined powers of archetypical representation. (Now who sounds like they're on drugs?)...
May 30, 2011•15 min
Mondays. Who needs `em? Can't stand them. Wouldn't live next to them. Okay, so this attitude is pretty much a universal one. But I assure you that Mondays at the "liberry" sucked even more than most Mondays despite the fact that we didn't even open until 1 in the afternoon. No, Mondays at the "liberry" sucked even worse than Halle Berry's Catwoman and, as your average goat will tell you, that movie sucked A LOT. This episode is a prime example of why I hated Mondays at the "liberry" and the awfu...
May 22, 2011•18 min
