Things I Should Have Said: The Confessions of the Neurotic Obsessive

“Oh yeah, Reilly? Well, the jerk store called. They’re running out of you!”

— George Costanza

Adi sends over the new episodes to me just as soon as he's finished futzing about with them. Hot off the press.

And truth be told, I like listening to them. Not because I'm an egomaniac or anything, but mostly because I have little to no recollection of what we said. Taping the show is a bit of a whirlwind. A quick 60 minutes. We name the topics we're going to do, and then we are off to the races! 

And the whole thing is of course improvised, which is both liberating and a bit scary at the same time. At the end, I usually say something like "I have no idea what just happened", and Adi says something like "That's either the greatest episode we've ever recorded, or we're going to have to scrap the whole thing".

And so, each time I listen to the rough cuts with equal parts anticipation and trepidation. Ten recorded episodes in, I tend to have the same three reactions. 1) Adi is so effing clever.           2) Megan on the couch is comic gold. 3) WHY DID I SAY THAT?! I SHOULD HAVE SAID (fill in the blank)

I'm reminded of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, The Comeback. If you haven't seen it, the basic premise is this. A guy at George's work makes a snarky comment about the way he eats shrimp, and on the drive away, George comes up with a comeback and spends the rest of the episode trying to find a way to use it.

But...I don't want to be the George Costanza of Highly Unreasonable. Come to think of it, I don't want to be the George Costanza of anything! George Costanza doesn't want to be George Costanza!

And so, I'm almost a little ashamed to admit this, I've been practicing my comebacks. In real life. In all my every day situations. The people around me aren't aware of it, or at least I don't think they are, but lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'm going to get better. 

I must!

Listen in and see how I do. It might be a disaster. 

Either way, the effort alone relieves me of being the Costanza of HU.

Until  next time...

Brandon

You too can have a podcast! But not a sitcom.

“You have a podcast? Who in their right mind would listen to you on a podcast? What’s a podcast?””

— My Mother

Have you ever found yourself sitting around with your friends or perhaps your family and thought...or perhaps said, "This would make a great sitcom!" I don't want to dash your dreams or anything...but no. No it wouldn't.

Sitcoms are a tricky beast, and if you watch closely enough, you'd realize that you don't want your life to be a sitcom. Not by a long shot. In actuality, living a sitcom would be a fucking miserable existence. By definition, the characters can't be better. That's the point. Each week you tune in knowing exactly what to expect from the people you either love to hate or hate to love. They don't change. They can't change. Or rather, they shouldn't change, because that's called jumping the effing metaphorical (or in the case of HAPPY DAYS the literal) shark.

A podcast on the other hand...maybe.

Adi and I can tell you, what you hear on the podcast is what you'd get if you were having a beer with us at some not too crowded and not too loud or expensive bar. We were hanging out, shooting the shit, and we had the moment. The moment of no return. And the words were uttered..."This would make a good podcast". Adi already had the equipment, we were already spending too much time together, alas it was inevitable.

And so we started to kick around some ideas. I came up with the general premise and the title, Adi secured hosting sites and social media resources, I gathered our first selection of topics, Adi selected the artwork and intro music, we sat down and gave it the old college try. I love the opening moments of the first episode. Because we had no fucking clue what was going to happen. If you listen closely, you can hear our mild but existent uncertainty.

Adi - "You ready"

Me - "I'm ready enough"

Adi- "Moment of truth"

Me- "Okay. Let's see what happens"

And we were off! And to be perfectly honest...we just wanted to have a good time, which we do. We both needed a healthy distraction (maybe I will get into that a little later on a blog post for the future), and we love spending time together. We had no idea if people were going to listen much less find it funny.

But people did listen, and people are continuing to listen, which is mind-blowingly awesome. Here's a couple of quotes from our loyal listeners:

"As a highly unreasonable person, I'm hooked on HU"

"You guys crack me up. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time"

"Your podcast is awesome! Makes sitting in DC traffic bearable."

"It makes me feel like my husband and I might not fight as much as I thought"

And my favorite - "God help the District of Columbia if people are actually listening to this thing. I can't imagine sitting in the same room as you two buffoons. Megan is a saint. You are such a dork. I love it. Keep making it"

Thank you so much for making this little experiment work. Help us out by spreading the word. If you were doing a podcast, we'd do the same for you!

And finally...I went to college with Justin McElroy. Perhaps you've heard of him. He writes for Polygon, is one of the smartest and funniest people I know, and has two incredible podcasts (MY BROTHER MY BROTHER AND ME and SAWBONES). The thing I like most about his podcasts are this...he's having a good time. It seems like he's having a blast, in fact. MBMBAM is he and his two hysterical brothers giving advice. It seems like they are just hanging out and enjoying each other. And they let us in on the enjoyment. It works. They are touring the country! We have no allusions that we'll ever be as popular as them, but it is no surprise to me that they've taken off in the way they have. They're brilliant, and they let us in. What an incredible idea.

In some small way, we hope to do the same. If we make bearing DC traffic a little more bearable, that's good enough for us.

Until next time...

Brandon