15 years ago, Joshua Lapin-Bertone and I released our very first podcast together. It was a last minute thing, something we were discussing when putting the show together and realized that there was a LOT of context to what we were going to talk about once the MAIN show started. Basically, we knew that we needed to discuss the original 1970s clone saga, and Josh was right.
But I’m going to freely admit, that I wasn’t as prepared as I should’ve been. I had forgotten certain parts of the saga and Josh spent half the episode embarrassingly correcting my mis-remembering parts of the original saga. In the intervening years, I have strived to not ever allow myself to be caught with my pants down like that ever again. Of course, you’d probably never known if you hadn’t been told just now that I wasn’t prepared, but that’s how it works sometimes. 15 years ago, I was using a crappy headset with a crappy internet connection with books that may have been found in some of the seeder parts of the internet, prior to the release of the trades we spent begging and asking for during that original pilot episode that would someday come, to now, where I am using a computer that has the processing power that is 20X greater than the computing power of that laptop I had back then. Several laptops ago. Back then we were using Skype and a software that was called Pamela to record our shows, which was always a fickle software to use. Netflix was still shipping DVDs, YouTube was barely acquired by Google, Facebook was just becoming the top social network, Twitter was barely a thing, and well, we were hosted on something called PodOMatic.
In October of 2009 I was living in an apartment, with no kid, no ex-wives (yes, plural) and I still had living grandparents. Trying to get the 4 or 5 of us together was a chore and wasn’t easy, while editing was such that we were giving poor Josh nightmares, because he wanted to keep it fairly PG-13, and we liked to cuss like sailors. Then again, we did have a couple of New Yorkers on the show, so that would’ve been a tall task anyway.
In so many ways, it seems like it was so long ago. In others, it was like it was a mere blink of an eye, a snapshot of what was. Much like how ‘On this Day’ or Timehop shows us the embarrassing times we acted like fools on the internet, CSC is a time capsule to the past of what was, and in many ways the growing up of all of us over the years. Listening back I cringe, but I then think of the time it was made, released and still exists, warts and all. I suppose that is the blessing and gift of working on something for so long, that it shows how far you’ve come in the amount of time it took to get here. I wonder how I will feel 5 years form this moment, and showing my kid what her dad did before she was thought in my mind, or a distant dream that I never thought would come. Still, we accomplished alot in the years since. We launched 8 shows, Rebuilt our website twice, survived malware attacks and more. Still. There are people who say that they are fans of me, and it’s strange to hear even now. I feel I am not always worthy of such praise, but regardless I am humbled by it.
Since that first episode:
We’ve produced over:
100 episodes of SDE
61 of Make Mine Mayday
77 of Clone Saga Chonicles
52 of Spectacular Radio
21 of Mayday Mondays
50 of Voices from the Eyrie
47 of ASM Classics
5 of Slott Sympoisum
44 of Sal Buscema
To Josh, Don, Gerard, Jason, Brandon, Greg, Jon, Jen, Ashley, Canadian Josh, Neil, Kelly, Javi, Paul, Adam, Big Al, Brad, Greg W, Chris, and so many others… thank you. I can never repay you for the amount of joy you’ve given me over these past 15 years. I can never thank you all enough for putting up with me too.
To Gabi: You’re my heart and soul. Daddy loves you big time.
To Dad: You’re the greatest, and this is all your fault.
To Mom: Thanks for being there, always.
