Some Final Thoughts on 2020

I write this at the end of an indescribable year. In about a decade or so, I’ll probably have the perspective and the vocabulary to properly articulate the effects that this year had on me and our collective psyche, but for now, I can’t see the forest for the trees. Aside from that, I think those types of conclusions will take a long time to unravel, and the effects haven’t even been fully-experienced yet. 

I write this at the end of a year of panic, death, and worldwide misery. Things happened this year that were universal and affected us all. Things happened this year that touched all of our lives. Things happened this year that have changed the course of history. Whether you were rich or poor, you were impacted by 2020. Whether you lived down the hall from me or across the world, you were impacted by the events of this year. Whether you are adolescent or elderly, your life was touched by the events of the last 365 days. No matter who you were, where you live, or what you do, you will look back on this year and never. be able. to forget. 

If it weren’t for the love of my partner, the support of my family, or the help of my friends, I would not have made it through this year. A secondary yet even more consistent form of support throughout this year was music. After all, I run this blog on top of a seasonal Sufjan Christmas music blog. I have music playing from virtually the moment I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. I am insane. But my point is that music has helped me make it through the year. Music has helped me escape reality, amplify love, and affirm my existence. 

Aside from music, which is obviously a vastly important part of my day to day life, my other escape is podcasts. I’m not a big “podcast guy,” I used to be (back when I had the time in high school and college), but now I just listen to one podcast: Comedy Bang Bang. This show’s abject absurdity proves to be the farthest escape from reality I can possibly achieve through the medium, and that is what I go to podcasts for; to distract my mind entirely from the world around me. No podcast does that better than Comedy Bang Bang, where Scott Aukerman’s deadpan interviews and pop culture dad jokes bounce off characters like a cowboy poet Laureate, a put-upon carpet saleswoman, a perilously thin intern, and Santa Claus himself. It’s the furthest thing from reality, and that has never been more of a blessing than this year. 

As much as I love it, I was also a year or two behind on Comedy Bang Bang (as I said, I don’t have a ton of time). Despite how far behind I was, Comedy Bang Bang has proved to be a much-needed escape this year. As I listened nervously throughout 2020, I realized I was getting closer, week by week, to the outbreak of the Coronavirus. Being a year behind meant I had a few dozen hours of comforting pre-Corona comfort at my disposal. Yet the paradox was each time I ventured to this well of distraction, I was also using up a finite supply of entertainment before the sharp pain of reality injected itself into my sacred space.

Sure enough, I made it to an episode in March, and the reality of the podcast was broken. Even the shroud of improv couldn’t keep out the harsh, deadly reality of the world outside. The pandemic struck, and suddenly, without warning, my favorite podcast was in March of 2020, just like everyone else. Suddenly the members of my one artificial safe space were all trying their best to adapt to this new life of home recordings and deadly viruses. It felt, in a word, violating. Not necessarily the show’s fault, but it felt weird to see reality so wholly inflict itself upon my mental playspace. 

It became symbolic, a microcosm of the year that I got to re-experience months after the fact while catching up on the podcast this fall. I got to hear them joke about Tiger King for the first time. I got to listen to all sorts of (now trite) Zoom jokes. I got to experience both the host and guests struggle with the change a deadly pandemic brings in real-time. I got to hear insight from these people I’d been listening to for years as I watched them face their own mortality and possible death as we all did at some point in the early weeks of quarantine. Not only that, I got to see them struggle with all the same things we collectively did back in March and April. 

Some of those early episodes were… rough. There were technological issues galore, unfunny moments, and awkward interruptions of every size. It made me realize how much this year was unshakably universal.

Then the end of the year rolled around. The cold weather swept in, the snow started falling, and my Christmas spirit started to emerge. As my hectic year at work wrapped up, I decided to skip ahead in the CBB timeline to the annual Christmas episode. Listening to this episode and playing video games has become a time-honored tradition that I look forward to every holiday break. I fired my console up, threw the episode on, and, much to my surprise… it sounded like a classic episode of Comedy Bang Bang. The audio quality had gotten better, and the guests weren’t wrestling with Zoom anymore. It sounded like the episode could have been recorded in a studio last year. It sounded like good ol’ CBB.

To skip from these episodes in April that took me back to such a dark place in the quarantine timeline to the present day where they’ve ironed out nearly every conceivable aspect of remote recording was affirming. Aside from meaning I had good episodes to look forward to, it also meant that this podcast, like the rest of us, was able to adjust over time. It meant there was hope. I only had that perspective because I made such a drastic jump forward in the podcast’s timeline, but now looking back on my own year, I realize how much I’ve adapted to change as well. I look back at where I was back in March and where I am now. I’m a little bit heavier, but I also feel like I’ve adjusted to this frightening time quite nicely. I feel fulfilled at work, I feel fulfilled creatively, and I feel fulfilled in my relationships. I am making it work. And sometimes, just “making it work” is the best you can do.

I’m not going to pretend we are in a better spot right now. I’m not going to pretend Joe Biden’s win is a good thing… but it was at least the better thing. I’m not going to expect the COVID vaccine to solve every problem we’re currently facing… but that’s at least better than another nine months of this. I’m not going to pretend that all of our issues are solved because a few good things happened at the end of the year… but that’s better than how things have been going for a long time. 

The word is still deeply fucked, and we are still deeply fucked with it if we don’t do something. People need your help. Your friends, neighbors, brothers, and sisters need your help. If you have the ability, the time, and the resources, it’s time to do something. We need to use what little momentum we have to change things for the better. Our current path is unsustainable, and, if nothing else, 2020 has made that abundantly clear.

I’m not going to pretend that we’re in a better place than we were one year ago, but we have to imagine that ideal world and work towards it actively. Right now, it feels like things might be changing for the better, so let’s use our voices and make sure of it. 

Thanks for reading along this year. I’ll see you all in 2021.

Invite The Neighbors Podcast Interview

Ever wondered what my voice sounds like? Ever wanted to know the origins of Swim Into The Sound? Do you want to know what my favorite thing I’ve ever written was? Well, the answers to those questions and more will all be revealed in the newest episode of Invite The Neighbors.

Bryan Porter of In A Daydream invited me on to his DIY podcast to discuss this very blog. We covered the first posts I ever wrote, the (questionable) first concert I was ever paid to review, and why I love doing this despite how much time, effort, and money it consumes.

So please give it a listen, and check out some of the other interviews. Thank you Bryan for the awesome chat, and for being such a gracious host. 

Give the podcast a listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or through this link.

TalkRadar or: That Time A Podcast Changed My Life

On May 19th of 2008 a file was uploaded to the internet that changed my life forever.

The decade-old file in question was a 49-minute MP3 that belonged to a video game podcast called TalkRadar. To describe something as innocuous as a video game podcast as “life-changing” probably reads worryingly-melodramatic, yet, as overwrought as it sounds, that’s what this site was built upon.

Despite the semi-recent addition of monthly new music roundups, Swim Into The Sound has always been, and will always be a nostalgia-based music blog. The mission statement for this site is to share the things that I love with other people, and that can take many different forms.  

While this blog was a little listless for a while there for a while there at the beginning, I’ve come to view Swim Into The Sound as a way to crystalize my own experiences into something that I can share. Truth be told, it’s as much for me to revisit and remember as it is for other people to read and understand. So it’s not like this is some selfless act, rather it’s me bottling up these experiences of enjoyment into something that’s (hopefully) palatable to a total stranger. 

Given this focus on nostalgia, I tend to write about things that have impacted me profoundly. Most of the time it’s easier to focus on smaller bite-sized pieces of content like reviews, but when I have the time, focus, and energy, I really do prefer to go deep and expel every thought in my head surrounding a formative experience. 

Sometimes in the past I’ve even used the phrase “life-changing,” but this write-up is different. I don’t want to lessen the impact of those other posts, because I stand by every word of them, but they’re life-changing in a way that provided me solace or comfort. The phrase “life-changing” isn’t a stretch, but it’s more that those albums helped me through tough times. They’re pieces of art that mean something to me on a personal level and have lingered with me for years. They’re life-changing in a less-drastic, more-reserved way. However, when I use the phrase life-changing in this post, I truly mean being-shifting. 

This podcast changed practically everything about me. It changed the way I write and the way I talk. It changed what I wanted to do with my life, and who I wanted to be. It changed the music I listened to, and what I found funny. It changed the way I held myself and behaved. It changed my philosophy and approach to the self. It has gone on to inform nearly every facet of my being down to the way that my brain is wired. There is no me without it. It’s absolutely embarrassing to admit, but this silly, stupid, vulgar video game podcast is foundational to my existence.

This write-up is Swim Into The Sound’s endgame. The thing I’ve wanted to write about since day one. The thing that I’ve been inspired by. The thing I’m still worried I don’t have the language to articulate properly. The thing that’s most important to me in the world. 

This is TalkRadar. 

I’m sure you’re reading this and thinking that this all sounds like hyperbole, but I can assure you it’s not. I’m choosing my words very carefully, and I want this to come across as calm, collected, measured, and thoughtful. My ideal outcome would be for the podcast’s creators to read this and have some idea of the impact they’ve had on just one of their listeners, but at the very least, this is something that I feel must come out of me for the sake of my own mind… but before we get to that, I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Back in the 90’s and early-2000’s I had scant access to video games. My family owned an NES and (eventually) a Nintendo 64, but the consoles themselves were never in the house. Video games were practically a foreign concept to me, a delicacy. Something sacred that I enjoyed on the weekends, or in very concentrated doses. 

Whenever I got the chance to go over to a friend's house, I’d relish the opportunity to try out their newer, fancier games on consoles I’d never even heard of. Sony? How exotic. Dreamcast? What does that even mean? Super NES? My NES lacks descriptors all-together. 

New games and shiny consoles aside, when one of my childhood friends first introduced me to the concept of “cheats” it blew my mind. Not only do these “next-gen” games exist, but the idea that you can break them and turn the characters into bobble-headed freaks? That was quite the realization for an adolescent Taylor. My friend showed me a website called cheatplanet.com, a haven for game breakers that collected the cheat codes of (seemingly) every game in existence, and that’s where it all began. 

A bastion of early-2000's web design.

Eventually, my siblings and I wore down our parents and games became more of a regular thing in our house. Even with this newfound access, there were still limits on how much we could play, and as a result, Cheat Planet became a loophole that I exploited on a regular basis. I’d print out the codes I wanted to try, memorize paths to hidden collectibles, and study screenshots from games that I didn’t even own. It was digital window shopping and the only way for a video game-starved kid to scratch that itch in a time before smartphones, Let’s Plays, and decent internet. 

One day a few years later I pulled up my browser, typed in cheatplanet.com, loaded up the site and everything changed… literally. Cheat Planet was gone, and something called “GamesRadar” was in its place. The cheats were still there, just pushed off to the side, so I didn’t care much at the time. In fact, GamesRadar grew on me and eventually became a destination all its own; a website with funny writing, wacky images, and topics that I found compelling as a young internet surfer. The website became my first bookmark and quickly grew to be even more of a destination than some rinky-dink cheat site. 

When I visited GamesRadar on May 19th, 2008 the most recent post at the top of the website was a small rectangle bearing a crudely-photoshopped image announcing the website’s inaugural podcast. Interested to hear the voices of the people I’d been reading for so long, I downloaded the episode and synched it onto my click wheel iPod. I didn’t know it then, but that one decision would go on to impact every day of my life from that point on.

TalkRadar was life-changing in the (very literal) sense that my life would not be the same without it. There's a clear point demarcating my life before it and my life after it. I would not recognize myself if it weren’t for this podcast. Lots of those albums I’ve described as life-changing helped me through tough times, but TalkRadar helped me through life. 

It was the first podcast I’d ever heard; a low-quality, crass, and juvenile 49-minutes that left me wanting more. It was the most candid I’d ever heard anyone. It was the funniest I’d ever heard anyone. They were discussing things that I cared about, and joking around with each other in a way that I’d never heard before in my life. I suppose I don’t have to explain the appeal of a podcast in 2018, but a decade ago, this felt like a revelation.

As the weeks ticked by, the episode count grew and grew. I was a high schooler who didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, so I had nothing but time on my hands. I listened to each podcast attentively, and then relistened to them because I truly had nothing better to do. Plus by 2008, not only did we finally have video games in my house, I had a console in my room. I was living out my own childhood dream, and with a little bit of experimentation, I quickly discovered there’s no pairing more intoxicating than sitting down with a good video game and a long podcast. 

After listening to the first 20-some episodes dozens of times, the content began to seep into my brain and embed itself. I had stolen phrases that the hosts used, adopted their mannerisms, even memorized long stretches of episodes. If you’re thinking this all sounds borderline-obsessive, you’re probably right, but this was a level of time, dedication, and interest that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to attain again.

The music exposed me to more bands than I can count. 
The crass sense of humor single-handedly formed what I find funny.
The verbose speaking patterns of the hosts gave me a voice to write in.
The (often drunk) banter replayed in my head so much that I began to think in their voices. 

It’s impossible to quantify the impact that TalkRadar had on me because I’m still coming to terms with it myself, but hopefully it’s starting to become clear how much this means to me. Perhaps most importantly, TalkRadar presented itself at the perfect time in my life. I was an impressionable fourteen-year-old kid, this was the first podcast I’d ever heard, and my first interaction with this type of format on a weekly basis. This came before the great “Serialization” of podcasts in 2014, and it was new enough that it felt exciting. Up until 2008 I’d only ever listened to music, and the idea that I could sit in on a multi-hour conversation about video games once a week was a godsend. It was solace. It was comfort. It was a warm blanket that I could descend into and find reliable serenity in.

They are the ones that made me want to be a writer. They are the ones who gave me, an aimless high school student, something to give a shit about. They are the ones who gave me the voice that you’re reading right now. They gave me myself. 

Years later I went to college for journalism (because that’s what they did) and the podcast moved on. Hosts came and went, but the podcast remained. Eventually rebranded as its own self-contained entity called Laser Time, the show that began a decade ago as a drunken post-work chat has now ballooned into a fully-fledged podcast network with over a half-dozen shows to its name. 

In 2015 the hosts joined Patreon, a subscription-based crowdfunding service, and I was first in line. Happily supporting them at anywhere from $5 to $15 a month (depending on my economic situation), I’ve been a devout supporter of theirs from the instant that they allowed it. I was happy to repay the hosts for the invaluable gift that they had given me. A true sense of self. A true source of joy. Something to aspire to, and something that will forever motivate me. It’s the closest to a “Thank you” I was able to get. I would have been lost without TalkRadar, and I would be lost without Laser Time.

Now a near-daily tradition, I find myself happily listening to the 6+ hours of content that the network produces each week and wondering where I would be without it. What kind of person I would have turned out to be, or what I would have been doing for all those long podcast-less nights back in high school. Maybe I would have turned out better, but who’s to say?

Unlike most posts here, this write-up doesn’t have a point. If I could get a reader to check out one of their many shows, that would be great, but I’m willing to admit that this post is mostly for me. I started writing this so many times that I finally just gave up and let it all come out, and that’s what you’re reading now. This feels like the most accurate way for me to explain the impact this group has had on me, and I still feel like it’s not enough.

Whether I like it or not, TalkRadar, it’s hosts, and the decade of material that’s come after, have all gone on to become the single most important, formative, and being-affirming thing that’s ever happened in my life. 

As I look back now, I can’t believe how lucky I am to have stumbled upon that first episode ten years ago. I’ve improved as a writer, grown as a pop-culture nerd, and changed as a person. There’s really nothing else left for me to do but say thanks. So to Chris, Brett, Mikel, Shane, Charlie, Tyler, Henry, Lizzie, and every guest, host, collaborator, and community member, I would like to say from the bottom of my heart:

Thank You.

U Talkin' U2 To Me? – An Album-by-album Descent into Insanity

U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is a podcast that wades the listener into the warm embrace of insanity over the course of multiple hours. Billed as a “comprehensive and encyclopedic” look at U2, the podcast is an epic album-by-album exploration of the Irish rock band’s discography and decades-long history. It’s a deep dive into the bleeding emotion behind artistry and the raw humanity that it takes to create a lasting piece of culture. Just kidding. While UTU2TM may not be that serious, it still manages to be one of the most hilarious, endearing, and (occasionally) earnest podcasts that I’ve ever listened to.

Hosted by Scott Aukerman (Comedy Bang! Bang!) and Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is a spiritual successor to Analyze Phish, a show taking place in the same “podcast universe” in which comedian Harris Wittels tries to convince Scott Aukerman why he should like the band Phish. The conceit of UTU2TM is similarly simple: Scott likes U2. So does Adam. Together, they combine comedic powers to systematically walk the listener through the band’s discography in an effort to expel all of the U2-related information in their heads.

Forecasted by a teaser clip that found Adam Scott recounting a childhood memory of the 1983 US Festival, U Talkin’ U2 To Me? officially launched one week later in February of 2014. The first episode began humbly enough as the duo laid out their plan to discuss three albums per episode in the lead-up to U2’s then-unnamed thirteenth studio album. Within several minutes it became clear that things were destined to go off-track as Scott and Scott venture off on multiple tangents all while simply trying to describe the conceit of the podcast. Eventually, they settle on a rambling half-serious mission statement:

What we want this podcast to be is the definitive, comprehensive encyclopedic compendium of all things U2. In other words we are going to talk about it all. If you have never heard of U2, you will feel like you have heard of U2.

No less than a minute after outlining this semi-lasting objective, the two stumble across the podcast’s first great recurring bit: saying “Achtung Baby” over and over again for minutes on end. Sprang from a moment of improvisation while listing off the band’s discography, Aukerman goofily pronounced the name of the 1991 album with a full-throated bellow which prompted Adam Scott to respond similarly. Eventually, the two find themselves volleying increasingly-accented shouts of “ACHTUNG baby” back and forth at each other like a vocal tennis match. It’s absolutely absurd to behold.  

Eventually Scott and Scott emerge from their tears of laughter long enough to move the podcast forward, but this is the moment that (less than ten minutes into their inaugural episode) forever sets the tone of the show and gave the listener a glimpse of the beautiful insanity that was about to unfold on a weekly basis.

The Achtung Baby bit sounds so nonsensical to write out on paper (and it is nonsensical, even in the context of the show) because it’s a joke that defies logic. It’s abjectly stupid, yet somehow this string of cartoonish exclamations feels right at home on U Talkin’ U2 To Me? It’s so mind-bogglingly silly that you begin to crack up by proxy just witnessing to these two grown men entertain each other as they break down into complete hysteria.

The podcast’s initial plan of three-albums per episode quickly deteriorates to one album per episode (and eventually no album per episode) simply because the hosts end up going on so many diversions. Often recorded late at night after a full day of work, the recordings begin to sprawl into hilariously-rudderless, sleep-deprived ramblings. Even so, the most charming element of U Talkin’ U2 To Me? (and the thing that will keep you coming back) is the chemistry between the two hosts. As the episodes pile up, the Scotts quickly develop their own in-jokes, references, and everything short of a unique language.

Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott clearly enjoy each other’s company, and eventually, the podcast morphs into two friends recording multi-hour dick joke-laden podcasts only loosely centered around an album. This artificial extension ended up working in their favor because after several months of episodes U2’s album was still nowhere in sight. The show then became the podcast equivalent of a stalling tactic, killing time until the band released their highly-anticipated thirteenth album.

Over the course of several episodes, the show’s scope gradually expands into its own self-referential universe. The Scotts bring guests into the mix, record a segment in the white house, and create a punch-drunk 2-hour podcast based on a one-off joke from an earlier episode. Listening to the pair’s spiral into madness over the course of 20-some episodes is a thing of beauty and something that I’ve never seen accomplished in the medium of podcasting.

The show’s first act culminated in June with the sixteenth episode, a “commentary special” in which Scott and Scott host a new podcast laidover the top of their first episode. It’s a mind-bending experience that served as a conceptual high point to the show’s already-meta narrative. With the U2’s new album still an unknown, the podcast went on hiatus until the record’s release. This was the end. For now.

In September of 2014, Apple held their yearly press conference. The tech giant announced their new iPhone, unveiled the Apple Watch, and made wallets obsolete with Apple Pay. At the tail end of the presentation, after nearly two hours of incredible, amazing, awesome products, Tim Cook threw the audience for a loop and introduced U2.

The lights dimmed, and the band came out to play “The Miracle of Joey Ramone.” After the performance, Tim Cook joined the band on stage for one of the most awkward conference exchanges in recent memory and revealed that the band’s albumless five-year drought was about to come to an end. After some back and forth, the two parties announced that U2’s thirteenth album was out now. Not only that, it was free, and it was already on everyone’s iPhone.

I was at work during the conference, and as excited as I was about the prospect of upgrading my phone, my biggest takeaway was the fact that this meant we would have a new episode of U Talkin’ U2 To Me soon. I raced to the /r/earwolf subreddit and joined hundreds of other podcast nerds who all found themselves excited by-proxy at a new U2 album because it represented the payoff the entire podcast’s run.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that I don’t even like U2.

Even in my fanboyish excitement at new Apple devices, all I cared about was that a band I’m lukewarm on was releasing an album, just because it meant I’d get a new podcast. It’s probably the weirdest string of events that I’ve ever found myself excited at, but I was ecstatic nonetheless.

And sure enough, the UTU2TM hosts met up the following day and released their celebratory, 2.5-hour Songs of Innocence episode only two days after the album’s release. I was overjoyed.

The album’s release was a total surprise, a highly-publicized rollout, and it harkened back to an earlier collaboration that warmed my heart. The internet hated it. Eventually, the Scotts got back together several weeks later to discuss how the album was sitting with them, and the internet’s overwhelminglynegativereaction to the album showing up on their phones. The episode that came out after the album’s release was a (seemingly) single bright spot in a sea of negativity as people complained that a free album showed up on their phones.

From there the podcast seemed over. The band’s new album was released, and the duo had (more or less) achieved their goal of discussing each album. They surprised us a few more sporadic episodes including a Christmas special, a live podcast, and a concert review. Each of these came after month-long breaks, so they were all pleasant surprises that I devoured almost immediately once they manifested in my podcast feed.

Then, in August of 2015, it happened.

I refreshed my podcast app and saw a mysterious download titled “U2 Talk 2 U.” Initially thinking it was a typo or that I was misreading it. I scanned the episode’s description to make sure that I understood it correctly. My eyes started watering. Adam Scott and Scott Aukerman had interviewed U2.

It was the climax of the entire show. A podcast that started out nearly two years ago with a period joke in the first two minutes now somehow found itself talking to one of the biggest bands in the world. It’s a journey that has to be experienced from the beginning, and one that I’m not even spoiling by talking about here because it pays off so many of the shows different in-jokes. It’s the heart-warming culmination of a two-year journey. Something that started out as an unassuming gag between two friends instantly became legitimized. Every dick joke had led to this.

U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is abject stupidity, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. This podcast came out at a pivotal time in my life where nearly everything seemed to be falling into place and shifting for the better. I credit UTU2TM with not only entertaining me for hours upon hours, but for improving my outlook on life and giving me a formative crash course in this silly comedic tone.

It’s one of the few podcasts that I’ve listened to multiple times in its entirety, and it benefits from both its limited run nature and the 22nd episode’s payoff. I still can’t describe how elated I was when I saw that episode pop up in my iTunes. The podcast has more surprises, inside jokes, and humor than almost everything else out right now. And it’ interesting to see how the little things (like recording late at night) led to a memorable and impactful experience. It’s an unlikely pairing and an unlikely topic that I ended up caring about way more than I ever thought I would.

The real beauty of the podcast comes from how often and how abruptly the hosts can fluctuate between moments of genuine, unbridled fandom, and delirious, unhinged absurdity. It became a blueprint for my recent sense of humor and willingness to embrace the absurd and stupid. And, it’s a horrible segue, but I did end up coming out of the podcast liking U2, if for no other reason than the music’s association with dozens of jokes.

U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is a force for good. An impossibly-dense multi-hour dive into the depths of exponentially-increasing goofiness. And more importantly, an honest showcase of genuine fandom. It’s something to aspire to on an artistic level, and a journey that is worth embarking on whether you like U2 or not. It’s an achievement of the medium and should be required listening for any podcast, music, or comedy fans.

It’s something that must be heard to be believed.

It’s a good rock and roll uhh podcast.

Pop Culture Cannibalism

One of the fondest memories of my childhood is a simple one. It’s not a surprise trip to Disneyland, or my first kiss, or the unboxing of a brand new video game console at Christmas. No, in fact, it’s more banal than almost anything you could ever imagine. In reality, one of the most saccharine and amber-coated memories of my pre-teens involved sitting in my family’s living room with my best friend on a lazy summer day watching VH1’s I Love The… Series. We sat there lethargically sprawled out on my family’s couch, pacified by the television as we killed an entire bag of those cheap grocery store fudge pops and gleefully watched early 2000’s actors, comedians, and musicians warmly reflect on the pop culture events of yesteryear.

It feels like such a small thing. It wasn’t a “big” event, there was no defining moment, and if you asked me, I probably couldn’t even remember which season of the show we were watching at the time. If you asked my friend, he probably wouldn’t even remember this happening in the first place. It’s lost to time, one of the dozens of other nameless summer days that we all happily wasted enjoying our reprieve from of middle school.

I remember this day because I remember the feeling. I remember appreciating it in the moment, and it’s something I think of often, especially during the summer. I spent the rest of that summer playing video games, running around with friends, and watching as much as of the “I Love The” series possibly could. Luckily my family had just set up our first DVR, so I was able to methodically record every episode of each season and watch them all sequentially.

It felt good. Actually, it felt incredible. It was like a self-imposed history lesson. I felt like I was doing homework that I actually enjoyed. In my mind, I this show was a comprehensive look at every year of pop culture before I was born. It was the first time I was ever “pop culture woke,” and I realized that a lot of important stuff happened before I was born. I made it my duty to study it. This was my first step toward becoming a pop culture historian.

A couple years later in 2008, I listened to my first podcast. That’s a topic deserving of its own post somewhere down the line (it’s something I’ve been working up to for years). But in 2011 that podcast spun-off into its own show and subsequent network: Laser Time. Laser Time is a topic-based podcast that covers the hyper-specific happenings of our pop-cultural landscape. The show has covered everything from bad Beatles covers, and dirty Christmas songs to surprisingly pervasive concepts like 80’s rap commercials and celebrity vanity projects. The network is also home to a comic book show, a video game podcast, a chronological exploration of The Simpsons, and much more.

Amongst the days and days worth of programming on the Laser Time Network, there is a slightly higher-concept show titled Thirty Twenty Ten. Thirty Twenty Ten is a “pop culture time machine” podcast that looks back at the music, movies, TV, and video games of this exact week 30, 20, and 10 years ago. It’s a blast to listen to, and it just recently clicked that I love this podcast for the same reason that I watched I Love The… series as a kid: it’s a fast-paced, unrelenting, and (relatively) comprehensive look back at our own pop culture history. It’s a carnivorous approach to media, one that doesn’t discriminate, and talks about these bits of the past with an absurd amount of reverence… well, as much reverence as you can have with a fart joke every episode.

I mean what other show would take the time to describe the beauty of the 1986 Transformers movie with an earnest and loving 30-minute discussion? And speaking of earnest, what podcast would care to break down the surprisingly-complicated history of Ernest P. Worrell? Hell, what other piece of media would jump from Predator, OK Computer, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and the finale of The Sopranos all within in the same episode?

Thirty Twenty Ten is a blitz of pop culture past. Like a train whizzing by at 50 miles an hour where each compartment is a great forgotten album or hilariously-shitty TV movie. The conflux of the host’s knowledge and anecdotes from the audience (like yours truly) combines into a beautiful listening experience that’s unlike anything else out on the digital airwaves right now.

When I sat down to start writing this it was a warm sunny summer afternoon that brought to mind that one day I spent with my friend watching low-budget VH1 programming. Now as the sun sets over the trees I’m grateful that I have a new weekly fix that emulates the same experience, improves upon it, and gives me a 90-minute trip down memory lane every week.

It’s a pop culture geek’s dream.

We’re blessed to live in a world where we can find anything we want in an instant. From childhood recipes to old commercials, to half-remembered lyrics of some distant song. The thing is, most of us don’t take advantage of that resource because these memories aren’t on the forefront of our consciousness. Both I Love The… and Thirty Twenty Ten are great because they capitalize on this information in a way that nobody else is. They’re diving into the rich mine of our shared cultural touch points, and emerging with something from the listener’s own memory. Something that reflects who we are.

Over a decade ago VH1 programmed me to be an absolute dork of a pop culture sponge. Someone who collects, categorizes, and memorizes obsessively. Someone who values the history of art both high and low. It changed my life and made me into the person I am today.

And now Thirty Twenty Ten is reinforcing that. Giving me weekly satiation for my pop cultural hunger. And as my life becomes busier and busier, I can’t be that kid anymore. I can no longer be that middle schooler who spends an entire summer day sitting on his couch downing half a bag of fudgsicles. And as I’ve felt my post-college life whirring into place over the past year I’m grateful to have something like Thirty Twenty Ten there for me when I’m too busy or too tired to do it myself. It’s an absolute joy to have this program and its hosts in my life, and I hope that they continue the show until its logical conclusion. Podcasts have changed my life, and Thirty Twenty Ten is proof that this is all worth it.