My apologies for the tardiness in posting the final Amateur Hour podcast. I didn't get to use all the clips I had clipped for the show, and am planning on adding those in to the posted podcast after the end of the aired show, but haven't had a chance to put that together. I've recently lost my very close friendship with Emily (not sure what the future of that holds), so it's been rather painful to face anything that involves her, and as listeners know the final moments of that show were rather emotional......
Anyways......
I never wanted to give up shows. As anyone familiar with the history of this show knows, for a long time this show was a weekend show. It started at a time when the typical NHB show was on a weekday evening. To me it felt like the weekend slots were for new shows as the leftover time period, where a new show would typically transition to a weekday spot when something opened up. Not sure how accurate that really is, but that's how it felt to me. Stink tank and TIOLI had done that. Maybe some others, I forget at this point. But I know for me, I had resisted that, for a long time I didn't like the idea of doing a show on a weekday evening when I wouldn't drink and would have to be ready for work the next morning, I liked the weekend vibe. When I had to move the show to Sunday after Vamp "stole" my timeslot during my temporary move to Defcon, I was a bit bummed by that, but it did still work. The defcon period was where the late night end whenever we please format started, since there were no other Saturday night shows on Defcon, but I wasn't able to keep that format upon return to NHB. But that was fine, the NHB return worked out quite well. It was nice being part of a line up of shows once again, and being a lead in to Dune and Bob. I had also been very lucky at having a great team of people to do the show with. I had always planned on doing the show with Seth, but we found Dark Elf by chance when he started calling in to the shows regularly while on Defcon, and who could have ever predicted a 15 year old Australian girl calling in and becoming a part of the team?
But anyways, at some point the show transitioned back to Saturdays after the relocation to Oakland. The late night kitchen show drink fests were quite fun, and was also when the show really transitioned from one period to another. I do recall going through a period of frustration with not having a working set of hosts during all that. I lost Emily due to drama and difficult times, real life happened with the dark elf, and Seth wasn't always able to be there consistently. At times Damon and Forge helped out, and somewhere in there Pedge somehow surfaced on my show by chance. That was weird. I remember messaging him about something one night, and his response was typically "call me" followed by his number. Which resulted in a woman picking up the phone and telling me he's peeing right now, hold on a second. Anyways....at some point Mars and Venison showed up regularly, and invited Niio along, and my 2nd set of standard cast members kinda just happened like that.
And then the blackberry brandy show happened.
That show was a mistake. I'll leave it at that. I recall that Monday, still feeling the effects, feeling like, this has to stop. I can't keep drinking late into the night every Saturday. Also, at some point, while I was still having a lot of fun with my Saturday shows, it was a bit of a drag for my weekends to be so occupied by them. Every Saturday I had to be home by a certain time to be ready for the show, and then half my Sunday was occupied by sleeping in and recovering. My weekends really centered around the show. So, at that point, I really felt like it was time to move to a weekday evening. But despite that change, the Saturday shows never went away for good. And with the return of Emily, Saturdays became regular for a period of time. So when the weekday shows started becoming stale, I felt like.....maybe a return to Saturdays is what I need. It doesn't have to be every week, it doesn't have to be any format. Although, as we all know, I had stumbled onto a new idea for a regular weekly show by doing a show while gaming. Given the history of the show, with Mars and Emily and others typically showing up most Saturdays, moving back to Saturdays seemed to me like a valid option. But I didn't count on everything falling apart like it did. Emily hated the show concept, and then she shut me out of her life, so even if I give up the concept (which I have), she's not around. Mars has found himself busy these days and isn't interested in regular co-hosting anymore. Seth is still around, but I feel like he lost the interest in regular co-hosting long ago, our interaction on shows was never the same ever since we stopped being in the same room.
And so I find myself now without a show. Except Dune and Bob, which I love doing, don't get me wrong, but.....I don't have my own show anymore. Or my weekly interaction with a good group of friends. And as I've mentioned, losing my friendship with Emily has been very painful, and if I had any idea that would have happened, I would have never given up my weekly social interaction with a group of friends at this time.
I'm still excited at times by the gaming show idea, but I have no interest in doing even that solo. At times I've transitioned to a music show so that I'd have a format that works for me solo, but when friends showed up, the tunes would be less, and the talking would be more. And....I have no interest in doing something solo while waiting for friends to show up at this time. This past weekend, I dusted off the PS2, and with a new memory card, restarted some of my old favorites. And had lots of pleasant memories from playing these games when they were new, and stories to tell. And.....the idea of sharing that experience with others, and sharing stories of casual gaming over the years, still excites me. I'm not exactly a gamer, but I do love playing video games when I have the chance. And I just really feel like this past weekend was such a lost opportunity to share replaying State of Emergency and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 with others, and the stories I have that the replaying brought to mind. But.....I really need others to share the stories with, I have no interest in just talking to a (possible) audience. Or no one.
I'm not sure what exactly I want to do at this time. While I technically pulled the plug on Games, Tunes, & Brews, I've not turned away from the idea of doing it. I feel like I'd really like to do weekend shows when the vibe is there and people are around. I've brought back the quadcast, but I'm doing that monthly. If one Saturday Mars was like, hey I'm around, I wouldn't mind doing a music show with him, that might turn into more talking less music. But I don't have anything together right now that I can commit to weekly.
But.....I guess the real thought I'm getting to here is......maybe it's time to find a new host or hosts. And so, if you've stuck around this long reading this lengthy mess of word soup, and the idea of taking a trip down memory lane with your old video games interests you, and doing a bit of a show about that, let me know. I'm not sure how or what to do exactly, but would like to just try to do something and see what works. Maybe we all turn on our consoles, join a skype call or teamtalk room (if I can get teamtalk working again on my PC), and just talk while gaming. Maybe at some point we try to do something with network gaming. Or maybe we can take turns playing games and talking about our stories with them. If you have a capture card, maybe we can make it a google hang out on youtube thing and trade screens as we take turns. I'm not sure.....not even sure how frequent. But if this idea interests you send me an email so we can talk, and maybe try to start some kind of show. j_gatarz@yahoo.com
