Brooklyn, NY. The new voice of young America. Aug. 2015
Kyle had wanted to be #84 on the list due to the fact that he was born in 1984. But that ship sailed 4 months ago when I met Michael Pagan and his snakes on the beach in Coney Island. So he'll have to settle for being a slightly off #85 on the 2 Degrees of Bob parade of faces—which is only fitting since things have been ever so slightly off since I started working on a podcast with Kyle several months ago. He's no doubt throwing me the stink eye somewhere in Brooklyn as he reads this, since we've agreed not to discuss our technical difficulties anymore with our adoring fan(s). Kyle and I met at our friend Jo's house in Connecticut back in February and immediately discovered that: a) we were both big fans of Marc Maron's WTF podcast, b) we both lived in Brooklyn and c) each of us has been wanting to do our own podcast. When we realized Kyle turned 30 on the day Molly and I got married last year—October 3rd, the same day my dad and stepmom celebrated their 44th anniversary—it seemed like destiny. We had to do a podcast together. Never mind that he's a 31-year-old waiter from Indiana and I'm a 54-year-old writer from California. Today I posted our 11th episode of Hi Neighbors!, which began with the expressed goal of getting out in Brooklyn and meeting our neighbors. Our first guest, Jamien, even created this Facebook page for us. No less an impartial critic than my brother surprised me last week by confessing he'd listened to every episode. (I haven't told many people in my world about it due to...well, you'll figure it out.) Brother Deke said he'd become addicted to our "obscure and meandering conversations. You are stretching my imagination and leaving me wanting more." Can't ask for a better review than that, family or no family. If YOU decide to dive in, you might want to skip the episode titled: "Edibles." Unless you're interested in listening to a pair of novice podcasters slip into a ganja candy haze for 2 hours. For the sake of science and podcasting history, of course. Thanks, Kyle.