For 20 years, I've known Joel, Mike and
Pat. We've been through a lot, even if we haven't all kept in touch
as often as we'd like. We met through performing on stage and playing
D&D and Shadowrun in college, and lived in the same dorms and
later apartments for years before marriage, moving away and the rest
of it meant our respective paths diverged for a bit. In those years,
at one time or another, we've all worked as comedians – stand-up,
improv, internet radio, etc. We just never collaborated the way our
friends and spouses always hoped we would. Until now.
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| From "A Midsummer Night's Dream," I'm far left holding a brick, Pat is dressed as a Lion next to me, and Joel is the blonde with the goatee on the far right. I have strange friends. |
It is no secret here that when I am
gainfully employed, I don't post nearly as often as I'd like to on
this blog, or even to my Twitch/YouTube channels. I'm still out there
experiencing geek culture, and still feeling the effects of my months
being unemployed, but I post when I want to, not because I need to
anymore. I've come to terms with that. I like these outlets to be a
labor of love, not one purely of obligation, because the content is
always better when I'm inspired, rather than required to create it.
The collaboration I've found in this podcast, called 40 going on14... well, it is inspiring.
A few words to talk about the other
folks on the podcast - Longtime readers already know Joel from his
guest blogging here, but unless you already follow his own blog,
where I have had the privilege of writing for myself, you might not
know about his podcasting history. He was a part of The Awful Show,
and is now one of the Undercover Unitards, bringing comedy and music
to the internet weekly. He also does a more personal show, The Sunshine Happy
kPants Hour (the "k" in kPants is silent.) Mike and Pat
have influenced a lot of the events that inspired me to write here
about movies, games and comics. Since college, we've shared trips to
Gen Con, various roleplaying campaigns, and done comedy together
whether on-stage or off. Pat has recently been doing stand-up back in
his home state of Texas, and Mike was at the helm of another show not
so very long ago called "TikiGeeks."
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| Mike and I at Ed Debevic's, back in our college days. |
The podcast takes on elements of pop
culture that we remember from when we were growing up, and seeing
those things repeating themselves now that we are approaching middle
age. For our first show, we all watched both Conan The Barbarian
films (1982 and 2011) and ran them through the paces of what we all
thought about them. It was a hell of a lot of fun to create, and I'm
pretty proud of the finished product, especially for a first try. If
you haven't tried podcasts before, but have a 30-minute or more
commute when you might listen to talk radio... give us a shot one day
out of your week. I think you'll be glad you did. I know I'm happy
helping make it.