From humor to women's health, podcasters give the download

Jul. 23--Yikes, the things women talk about when they think no one's listening.

No, wait, these women know you're listening. In fact, they're inviting you to.

They are Carolyn Alfvin, Kit Behling and Mel Miskimen, hosts of the weekly podcast "Single Married Widowed Divorced," an audio exploration of all things marital status that is produced most weeks in Alfvin's Shorewood home.

Part "The View," part "This American Life," the show lacks the raunchiness of another Wisconsin-based podcast, the wildly successful "The Dawn & Drew Show." Instead, it's an insightful, often funny, take on issues ranging from online dating and the distribution of household labor to widow-burning in India.

"What we're trying to do is highlight as many women's voices as possible," said Behling, 46, of Shorewood, a self-employed corporate writer and writing trainer who joined the group as a creative outlet.

The three are convinced they've found an untapped niche in the podisphere, where anyone with an Internet connection and a mic can share her -- or his -views and interests with listeners around the world. Almost no one, they say, is targeting the middle-aged woman demographic. And they might be right.

"They may actually have something there," said Rob Walch, host of the podcast for podcasters known as -- what else? -- "Podcast 411."

According to Walch, women make up less than 15% of podcasters, compared with 42% of bloggers, and listeners are overwhelmingly male, ages 30 to 35.

The trio, he says, is in the vanguard of a medium still in its infancy but growing exponentially and morphing fast (think video). The first podcasts -- audio files accessible over the Internet; you don't need an iPod or MP3 player to listen, Walch is quick to point out -- debuted in 2004 and have grown to about 50,000 today.

The SMWD shows are an entertaining mix of interviews, essays and tabletop banter by the hosts and outside contributors, including regular telephone visits by retired therapist Mary Olen of Madison. In various episodes, the women:

-- Follow a 38-year-old perennial bridesmaid as she registers at a Target bridal registry, using her cats' names in place of a spouse.

-- Validate the findings in a new book that says, among other things, that men who share equitably in housework get better and more frequent sex than those who don't.

-- And call unsuspecting friends and acquaintances to ask that all-important question: Do you Kegel?

(In the interest of full disclosure, this reporter's voice can be heard in the episode titled "Kegel Rhymes with Bagel" and may be heard in future podcasts. In defense of her vocabulary, kegleris another word for bowler, and beer is stored in kegs. But really, who's thinking about their pubococcygeus muscles when she answers the telephone? But we digress . . . )

The women cover the marital spectrum: Alfvin is divorced; Behling and Miskimen are married; and Olen is widowed and remarried. All have children, either grown or getting there.

There are dissertations on the merging of marital furniture, the importance of spelling and punctuation in personal ads, and the dreaded onset of middle-age incontinence, a time when women are forced to confront "both the glass ceiling and the pelvic floor."

There's not much in the way of man-bashing, contrary to the expectation many have when they first hear the title, Alfvin said.

The podcasts are the outgrowth of a playwriting venture Alfvin started two years ago after a conversation with a fellow dog-walker at Lake Park on Milwaukee's east side.

The middle-aged woman told of a recent doctor's visit when she was asked to declare her marital status: Single, Married, Widowed or Divorced.

"She started laughing and crying at the same time, realizing that, at some time, she'd been all of these," Alfvin said.

An accomplished freelance writer and fledgling author who pays the bills as director of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's College of Nursing, Alfvin saw a story in that. So, she began soliciting submissions from women about their marital status or lack thereof.

The result is the play "Single Married Widowed Divorced," which has piqued the interest of local playwright and entertainer John McGivern and is expected to have its first public reading later this fall at Cardinal Stritch University.

It was the leftovers that gave rise to the podcasts.

"There were all these great stories that didn't make the cut, and we were saying, 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was another medium we could put them in?' " said Miskimen, 50, a south side Milwaukee writer, former Wisconsin Public Radio regular and sometime standup comic, whose book "Cop's Kid: A Milwaukee Memoir" was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2003.

It might have been a book of essays had Alfvin not dragged them along on a digital odyssey, a copy of "Podcasting for Dummies" in one hand and "Podcast Solutions" in the other.

"We were going off in all these directions," said Miskimen, "And Carolyn blurts out -- like 'plastics' in 'The Graduate' -- 'I've got one word for you: podcasting.'

"I don't know about anyone else," Miskimen said, "but I thought, 'Eeewww, I don't know what that is.' "

She's come a long way; they all have -- teaching themselves Apple Garage Band recording software and clearing technical hurdles with help from Podcast 411 and Andy Nyman, a Swedish graphic artist who hosts the popular "Polarbear" podcast from a world away.

"I was so astounded by how much he was willing to help us," Alfvin said.

They know they've piqued interest: There have been 14,000 hits on the Web site since it debuted in March. But listenership remains modest -- the average show gets about 70, and some have cracked 100 -- compared with the potential out there. In the United States alone, there are more than 42 million women ages 35 to 55.

They've done some marketing, both in the podisphere and mainstream media. But the quandary, they say, is that many of the women they hope to reach don't really know how to listen in.

"That's the rub," said Alfvin. "Often the demographic we're trying to reach isn't plugged in to the technology."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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