An Open Love Letter to The Nerdist Podcast
I’ve never enjoyed radio. I find the ads annoying, the selection of music isn’t for me, and talk radio in northeast Ohio too conservative/Glenn Beck-y for my tastes. Ever since I started driving, I plug my iPod in rather than listen to FM radio. And, because of this decision, late last year I discovered the joys of podcasting.
I discovered podcasts last September. It was a very dark time in my life. I was up against a deadline to get a Magento web store done for a very demanding client. To meet this deadline, I was on a 48 hour programming marathon and vowed not to sleep until it was completed. At hour 36, when I was at my lowest, I checked my RSS feeds to distract myself from the misery that was my life. It was there that a came across SplitSider’s ‘A Seriously Comprehensive Guide to Comedy Podcasts’ and discovered the Nerdist Podcast.
Radio for Comedy Nerds
The Nerdist Podcast is hosted by fellow nerds Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray, and Matt Mira. The started the podcast in February of 2010. By the time I discovered them, they were already thirty some episodes in.
After scrolling through the catalog of back episodes, I settled on podcast #31, with David Koechner, Fred Willard, and Tom Kenny. I was immediately transported to the Land of Comedy Nerdom, which most people will know as Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles. Because of my sleep deprivation, I don’t remember much of what I heard, but I remember being the happiest I’d been in a long time and getting odd looks from my boss when I started singing along, at the top of my lungs and off key, to the live preformance of the SpongeBob SquarePants’ theme song.
At this point in my life, I was working two jobs, going to school full time, and having panic attacks all the time because their never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get all my work done. The Nerdist podcast was the one thing in my life that made me happy. It literally saved my life. Read the rest of this entry »