I used to have a bad habit of thinking something was ‘over’ when it was actually just getting started. In 2006 I thought “Everybody’s doing improv,” so I never did improv. In 2008 I thought “Everyone’s watching Breaking Bad,” so I never watched Breaking Bad. In 2010 I thought “Everyone’s got a podcast,” so I never started a podcast. And in 2014 when my mom emailed to ask “what’s a podcast?”, I could only laugh and laugh and laugh and think “Ohhhh Mom you are sooooo behind the times. It’s 2014! Podcasts have been ‘over’ for yeeeeeears!”
Which brings us today. It’s 2024 and I’m thinking “Everyone has a newsletter.” But I’ve broken my habit. I’ve started a newsletter anyway. And now I’m finally starting that podcast, too. What the hell, maybe I’ll even sign up for an improv class. Not sure I’ll find time for Breaking Bad with all these new endeavors… can I just skip straight to Better Call Saul? Is that legal?
It’s not as if I hadn’t thought about starting a podcast. I’ve mulled multitudinous concepts and conceits over the past decade. I’ve created pitch decks and gone down the development path with producers. I was even hired to host someone else’s podcast: Morning Brew’s Business Casual, the nearly 100 episodes of which have been mysteriously wiped from the internet.
One of my procrastinated podcast ideas was a show I imagined being called 12/4/84, where I would interview random people from around the world who happened to share my exact same birthday: December 4, 1984. I’ve always been curious about other people’s lives, especially the roughly 250,000 of us who began life’s journey from the same starting line.
Making this idea extra compelling was that looming midlife milestone: our 40th birthday. Now that we were halfway to the end of the course, where do we find ourselves? How did we end up here? How are we feeling about all of it?
I really tried to execute on this one. I tweeted to ask if anyone knew anyone who was born on 12/4/84. I made a bunch of Craigslist ads in various cities recruiting 12/4/84ers, offering to pay a finder’s fee if someone could connect me to a guest. I even joined a bunch of truly bizarre Sagittarius-focused Facebook groups to solicit interview subjects. It didn’t matter who you were, where you lived, what you did for a living, how many followers or face tattoos or felonies you had… The only criteria for appearing on the show was BEING BORN ON DECEMBER 4, 1984. How hard could it be to find my fellow birthday boys and girls?
Turned out to be prettttty, pretty hard. I heard from three people who fit the birthday bill and were willing to record with me. I recorded the “pilot episode” in June, but held back on releasing it, because the plan was to bank a few episodes before rolling out a grand launch with consistent releases. I also needed to mock up artwork, commission an original theme song, record intros and outros, write up show notes, prepare a press release, make it go VIRAL… not to mention I had to figure out how to get the episodes fed into Spotify and Apple Podcasts, which in and of itself seemed daunting as hell.
But now I have this Substack, which amazingly comes equipped with this very simple podcast publication tool WHICH I’M USING RIGHT HERE. Alas, there’s no grand launch, no original theme song, no intros or outros or press releases. I’m not even calling it 12/4/84, because I might turn this into an audio amalgam of all my podcast ideas.
Yesterday was my 40th birthday, so I’m throwing this up into the wind to see if it sticks with any of you listening. Maybe getting this out there will help me track down more 12/4/84ers to record future episodes. Maybe I’ll start planning a grand re-launch in advance of our 50th birthdays…
In the meantime, enjoy this inaugural episode of what I’m calling The 40 Year-Old Podcaster, featuring a very nice man named Jeremy Claud who just happens to have been born on December 4, 1984. Jeremy lives in Paris and works for Chanel — very different from where I ended up at 40 — but as you’ll hear, we seem to share more than a birthdate…
And stay tuned for an upcoming SEQUEL EPISODE with Jeremy to hear the absolutely improbably bonkers story of how we ultimately met in person.
Many thanks to Jordan Katz for his producing & editing. You should hire him, he’s great.
Pod bless,
Rogo
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