About
Hey folks, welcome to the GalaxyCast Blog. It has quite a history, so I thought I would take a moment to tell you a little bit about myself and then tell you a little bit about this blog and my podcast.
My name is Robert Crissman (known as Bob to my friends) and I grew up in Webster, NY. As a child, I showed some serious aptitude in music and eventually decided to become a music teacher. While in Middle School and High School, I went to the Webster Central School District and was part of several award winning organizations, including The Webster Marching Band, Webster Show Choir, Webster Jazz Choir, and the Patriot Drum and Bugle Corps. I also participated in All County, Area All State, and attended All State Music Festival once. After a very successful childhood, I decided to stay in the area and attend Roberts Wesleyan College.
At Roberts, I studied under the direction of Dr. Paul Shewan who showed me how to become a well rounded trumpet player. During the summer of my Freshman year, I joined “The Cadets” Drum and Bugle Corps and toured with them for one year. After working with “The Cadets”, I was then hired by The Hilton Marching Band as a show designer and coordinator and stayed at that post for two years amongs going to college and working at Tops Friendly Markets. After graduating from Roberts Wesleyan College, I was unable to secure an educational job, so I worked for Coca Cola Bottling, Inc. in Rochester, NY for about a year, rising to one of their top sales positions before leaving Coca Cola.
In 1999, I was offered a job as the Music Director of a small school in the town of Terry, Montana. I moved to Terry in 1999 and stayed there for two years and directed the chorus, show choir, band, pep band, and marching band. We became an award winning band and were the first school in Montana state history to win the State Pep Band Award two years in a row. While there, we scored a I at State Festival which had not been done since 1975. After two years away from family and friends in NY, my family and I finally moved back to NY after I got a job at the Binghamton City School District.
I have been working for the Binghamton City School District for about ten years now. I had directed the marching band for four years and stepped down two years prior to the band being disbanded. I continue to work in the school district as a Classroom Music teacher, teaching Music Theory and History to middle school students. I am also the Technical Director at East Middle School helping to produce a middle school musical every spring. I am also the Chapter Rep for the Binghamton FanForce, a local Star Wars fan club, and the Clan Administration Officer of the Mandalorian Mercs.
History of the Podcast and Blog: On June 5th, 2005 I started a blog dedicated to Star Wars because of my ever-growing faith in the Star Wars fandom. I was turned onto blogging by my friend Scott Miller who runs his own blog and a short lived podcast known as “The Sheep Guarding Llama”. While at my best friend’s wedding, we called Scott’s blog/podcast an left a recording and I asked Scott more about the idea and my blog was born. I titled the blog “The Jedi Council Speaks” and soon after started a podcast with the same title. The blog and podcast became vastly popular in a rather short amount of time. The first milestone for both the blog and podcast were being invited to be a member of the Star Wars Fanworks community. After becoming a part of the community, Bob hosted several interviews with community members on the boards that also became popular episodes. After two years of running “The Jedi Council Speaks”, several spin-off shows emerged. Those included “Jedi Babies” (a derivative of “The Muppet Babies” starring my own children), “Hovering Rocks” (a review of Star Wars music), and “Novel Ideas” (an audio extension of the blog). After enjoying another year of succes, problems emerged.
In the spring of 2008, several problems began to plague the podcast and blog “The Jedi Council Speaks”. First, blog.com (because of a change in format) was forced to shut the blog down because of too much traffic. So, the search began and so did the move to wordpress.com. Later that year, after several problems with podomatic.com, “The Jedi Council Speaks” and it’s subsidieries were forced to leave the Podomatic website and found a new home at mypodcast.com. At this point, Bob picked up a sponosor in “Fat Cat Books” and not too long after, picked up a new sidekick in Ian Palmer. Ian and Bob then ran “The Jedi Council Speaks” together for about another year. In the spring of 2009, “The Jedi Council Speaks” ran into more issues. They were excommunicated from the Star Wars Fanworks website and community after some complaints about the Podcast awards held there every year by Bob Crissman. In an effort to leave on a positive note, Ian and Bob volunteered to leave the web-community behind and strike out on their own. After having left, Bob was threatened with a lawsuit by Nathan Butler for using a personally provided logo on the blog and podcast. More lawsuits were threatened by both Butler and Mary Franklin (of Lucasfilm, Ltd. fame) about marketing the name “The Jedi Council Speaks”. More changes occured.
For about two months, the podcast was dead and the blog was being threatened with lawsuits and Bob and Ian feared they would have to shut it all down. That was until they came upon Mike Wilkerson of the “2 Guys Talking Podcast Network”. After being mentored by a “great” among podcasters, Bob and Ian decided that change had to occur and they started a brand new podcast and moved the blog again. This time around, we started the podcast now known as “GalaxyCast” and made our first recording on April 1st, 2009. The blog was moved over later within two months and now all of them have a home at the GalaxyCast Website.
