Community Corner

Podcast Helps Local Man Learn More About Baltimore

Geoffrey Welchman's Inverse Delirium comedy podcast helps creator get to know his city.

Geoffrey Welchman started his podcast Inverse Delirium—a comedy production that often takes a skewed look at Charm City—as kind of a lark.

“I just wanted to see if I could do it,” Welchman said between bites of a sandwich at Evergreen Café.

However, since the podcast started nearly a year ago it has become more of an educational opportunity than a lark. The Original Northwood resident, who previously lived in New York City and California, credits it with helping him to get to know Baltimore, even though he’s lived here for more than a decade.

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“It’s nice to discover the place I’ve lived a long time,” Welchman said.

Initially Welchman, who works doing voiceovers for online tutorials, wanted to produce a podcast once every two weeks, but has since realized that schedule is too ambitious. He has produced 19 podcasts, each lasting about a “bite-sized”12 minutes, since last April.

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Welchman, 46, grew up listening to comedy sketches on records. He was particularly fond of Monty Python's word play, which translates well to what he’s doing with the podcast.

“I’m a big stand-up comedy geek—stand-up comedy nerd, really,” Welchman said. 

The podcast is essentially an absurd version of a radio magazine, such as public radio’s This American Life. For example, one podcast involved Craig Boarman, co-owner of the Ottobar, and a clueless reporter investigating the origins of Otto in the bar’s title.

“The big inspiration was NPR,” he said.

Initially Welchman developed a script based on a spoof of a radio news magazine, and put together a podcast that he played for friends. They said his idea was good enough that he should start to produce the podcast regularly.

While putting together the project he enlisted his fiancée and friends to do voices of the characters. As he started to bring in friends, more and more of Baltimore began creeping into the podcast.

“When I started to have friends on, I started to think about Baltimore,” Welchman said.

As he began to incorporate more and more of the city into the podcast, he found himself reaching out to complete strangers such as Boarman and Karen Morley, president of the Baltimore Bird Club, to participate in the podcasts.

Welchman described himself as usually being a very private person and that reaching out to people to help with the podcast has helped him get to know the people that make up Baltimore. 

“I really feel more connected to the city now,” Welchman said.

He’s also been impressed with the willingness of people to help provide voices for Inverse Delirium.

“Everybody has been so cool about coming in and reading words,” Welchman said.

He credits a lot of the cooperation to the fact that his scripts aren’t mean-spirited or meant to embarrass anyone.

“I’ll take the brunt of the joke,” Welchman said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story used the wrong name for the radio program This American Life.


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