You know that person in your life that you’ve known forever, perhaps it’s your sister or dad or grandma, that person that just instantly puts you at ease with their presence? Maybe they’re always there with a joke when it’s needed most or maybe they just get you. Maybe their voice has colored the ambient background of your life for since you first came online while drinking apple juice out of a sippy cup at the dinner table. It’s these people that form the bedrock of our lives and we go back to them again and again when things get tough or even when things are good! Life’s just richer with them there.
What I’m getting to is that for me, two of the people I can set my emotional watch to, well, I’ve never even met them. I stared at them on a London stage a few years ago, fidgeting nervously after the show as I debated whether to introduce myself at the after show bar. (I went home, whomp whomp.) These two men who have been the soundtrack to countless days of mine in the last nine or so years: Tim and Tom, hosts of The Complete Guide to Everything podcast.
I stumbled upon this podcast while surfing iTunes in high school, an activity that sounds honestly insane in retrospect. They were featured on the Main page or something and I saw an episode about Beer, a substance I had a GREAT many questions about at that time (Now I’m an expert xP!!!!) and downloaded it. Boy was I disappointed when some deep-voiced weirdo came on and started talking about his local Starbucks for ten minutes while a more-regular pitched voice began complaining about parking by his apartment. After thirty minutes of an hour-long podcast, they hadn’t even begun to broach the mystery subject of beer. It was all tangents and jokes about New York City and insults that sounded too fantastical to be real. (Wait, Tom is married to Tim’s ex-wife, what??) But in those Wild West Days of podcasts, there were only like six channels so I kept listening.
Nine years later, Tim and Tom are my closest friends. Every Monday I put on their newest episode and the week Officially Starts. Talking about everything and nothing, TCGTE (as we Guide-Heads call it) is hardly a complete guide to anything as Tim and Tom weave between real-life stories of ordering the biggest burrito possible for delivery and improv, which is where Tim’s ex-wife and Tom’s secret second family that steals all his jewels come in. It’s so hard to describe because like all great conversations with friends, it’s really about nothing but it means so much more.
You get to sit in on two best friends just shoot the shit for an hour each week. In our Golden Age of podcasting, each podcast has to have that insane premise or be so tightly produced that it practically shines in your Podcast Queue. To have a show with one word titles (Beer. Meat. Laundry.) about the absolute most mundane things that may not feature a joke for the first fifteen minutes, it’s insanity. Sometimes the two will have a is-this-a-bit-or-is-this-real fight that’s so uncomfortable, I feel like I should leave the room and stop listening. Luckily, those feuds are few and far between.
When people ask me what my favorite podcast is, I have to preface it with a condescending “Well, I’m not sure you’d like it…” Which is not to say that TCGTE isn’t good of course, just that I’ve know these two voices for so long that the subject of each episode hardly matters. I just need to hear Tim complain about Tom’s dog shaking her collar or Tom to gasp in frustration for each and every X-Men movie Tim hasn’t seen. At this point, it’s long past entertainment value, even as the most regular nonjokes and show tropes (Tim doesn’t think astronauts are heroes) will still make me laugh out loud.
It’s really about checking in on my two good buddies each week. Sure as the sun rises and sets, Tim and Tom will be there to blather about house plants for twenty minutes before briefly explaining Printers until, apropos of nothing, Tim brings up Tom’s hot apartment and the episode subject of Printers is lost to the wind. I love being a fly on the wall for that deep, close friendship of ours that doesn’t even exist.
What I’m getting to is that for me, two of the people I can set my emotional watch to, well, I’ve never even met them. I stared at them on a London stage a few years ago, fidgeting nervously after the show as I debated whether to introduce myself at the after show bar. (I went home, whomp whomp.) These two men who have been the soundtrack to countless days of mine in the last nine or so years: Tim and Tom, hosts of The Complete Guide to Everything podcast.
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| my two confidantes, tim and tom |
I stumbled upon this podcast while surfing iTunes in high school, an activity that sounds honestly insane in retrospect. They were featured on the Main page or something and I saw an episode about Beer, a substance I had a GREAT many questions about at that time (Now I’m an expert xP!!!!) and downloaded it. Boy was I disappointed when some deep-voiced weirdo came on and started talking about his local Starbucks for ten minutes while a more-regular pitched voice began complaining about parking by his apartment. After thirty minutes of an hour-long podcast, they hadn’t even begun to broach the mystery subject of beer. It was all tangents and jokes about New York City and insults that sounded too fantastical to be real. (Wait, Tom is married to Tim’s ex-wife, what??) But in those Wild West Days of podcasts, there were only like six channels so I kept listening.
Nine years later, Tim and Tom are my closest friends. Every Monday I put on their newest episode and the week Officially Starts. Talking about everything and nothing, TCGTE (as we Guide-Heads call it) is hardly a complete guide to anything as Tim and Tom weave between real-life stories of ordering the biggest burrito possible for delivery and improv, which is where Tim’s ex-wife and Tom’s secret second family that steals all his jewels come in. It’s so hard to describe because like all great conversations with friends, it’s really about nothing but it means so much more.
You get to sit in on two best friends just shoot the shit for an hour each week. In our Golden Age of podcasting, each podcast has to have that insane premise or be so tightly produced that it practically shines in your Podcast Queue. To have a show with one word titles (Beer. Meat. Laundry.) about the absolute most mundane things that may not feature a joke for the first fifteen minutes, it’s insanity. Sometimes the two will have a is-this-a-bit-or-is-this-real fight that’s so uncomfortable, I feel like I should leave the room and stop listening. Luckily, those feuds are few and far between.
 |
When people ask me what my favorite podcast is, I have to preface it with a condescending “Well, I’m not sure you’d like it…” Which is not to say that TCGTE isn’t good of course, just that I’ve know these two voices for so long that the subject of each episode hardly matters. I just need to hear Tim complain about Tom’s dog shaking her collar or Tom to gasp in frustration for each and every X-Men movie Tim hasn’t seen. At this point, it’s long past entertainment value, even as the most regular nonjokes and show tropes (Tim doesn’t think astronauts are heroes) will still make me laugh out loud.
It’s really about checking in on my two good buddies each week. Sure as the sun rises and sets, Tim and Tom will be there to blather about house plants for twenty minutes before briefly explaining Printers until, apropos of nothing, Tim brings up Tom’s hot apartment and the episode subject of Printers is lost to the wind. I love being a fly on the wall for that deep, close friendship of ours that doesn’t even exist.
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