It’s Christmas Day today and 2010 is just around the corner. Last year at this time I was working in a completely different industry doing completely different things with completely different people. I was making a lot more money, to say the least, but I was also learning that life doesn’t really revolve around money and material things because, for all I had, I was absolutely miserable. 2009 has been a life-changing year for me and I owe a lot of that to several of the people I work with, or have met, this past year. So, I decided that I’m going to write my “Holiday Cards” in the form of a series of blog posts – one each day for three days – as my small way of saying “thank you”.
Regularly scheduled sarcasm and cynicism will resume on Monday…
Let’s start with the obvious
When I approached Sabrina Miller last February about bailing my punk ass out of solo-podcast-host-mediocrity, she was already hosting a corporate sponsored, moneymaking entertainment tech podcast that was getting nearly 100,000 downloads a week worldwide (they were giving away brand new 17″ Mac laptops for chrissake) and she couldn’t read more than half the fan mail because it was in languages she didn’t speak. I, on the other hand, was just starting Portland Sucks as a live show/podcast and had a whoppin’ two dozen live listeners and 200 downloads of my first show. It was just me for several episodes and while I can talk by myself for quite awhile, the show came off as a little too intense to listen to – too mean, too cynical, too imbalanced. Sabrina changed all of that.
It’s a little bit like a popular sitcom…
We make jokes around here every so often that Portland Sucks is like the show Seinfeld. In my opinion, the genius of Seinfeld wasn’t Jerry Seinfeld at all, it was the rest of the cast. Sure, most of the show took place in Jerry’s apartment or was centered around him in some way, but it was the interaction between the characters that made the show work. As time went on, Seinfeld relied less on stand-up comedy monologues and more on the entire cast. Sabrina, to those that know her well enough, is like Kramer, George, and Elaine all rolled up into one person – the best parts of each character. I’ve told her more than once that she’s the real star of the show, though she doesn’t believe me to this day. Nearly anyone could do what I do, but it takes that someone special to translate the garbage that comes out of my mouth into something palatable that the listener can relate to. Since Portland Sucks has been a daily show I’ve received three job offers in “real radio” and I’ve turned all three of them down. Why? Because none of the offers included Sabrina. Leave it to common modern day radio dicks to completely miss the point.
Bottom line: I might be the host of Portland Sucks, Sabrina makes it work.
And then there was iPhoneSlutz…
Last Spring I had an idea. Both Sabrina and I had iPhones and loved them. For my part, whenever I find anything that I’m really interested in, I start combing through podcasts about it and I managed to convince Sabrina to do the same. Bored and a little bit put-off, we came back after that weekend and I asked her, “What do all of these podcasts have in common?”
“They’re boring?” Sabrina asked (that’s her way you see, she won’t give you an opinion directly – not ever. Instead she’ll dig for yours, process it, decide whether or not it’s agreeable, and then proceed accordingly – hence the term “waffler“)
“They’re all recorded by a bunch of smug wannabe brainiacs who talk over each other using shitty USB microphones and a faulty Skype connection. It’s about as much fun to listen to as a dental procedure” – and they were. Here’s the Mythical App Store – a place of wonder, adventure and often times unintentional humor, being dissected on a semi-regular basis by the same blowhard douche heads that claim “expertise” at every other fucking nerdy thing in the word. Yawn. The App Store is cheap – most of the crap is 99 cents or free, so why the hell would I give two shits about a 30 minute seminar on the validity or usefulness of a 99 cent app? Unless I made $2 an hour that’s a complete waste of my time. We decided that the world needed a different perspective on iPhone apps, a FEMALE perspective, because every dumb white male dicknerd in the world fancies himself an expert on tech – screw that – I want to be entertained. And who do I trust to host it and pull it off? Sabrina Effing Miller.
It worked. iPhoneSlutz generates income without even trying because developers come to iPhoneSlutz to advertise. It holds the record for the single most downloaded PDX.FM podcast. It’s listened to every week around the world. And it pisses off the worst of the dull conventional tech podcast people because it “isn’t serious enough”. They have apps to track farts you idiots, what’s serious about that?
And the rest…
Sabrina is a patron/advocate of the local arts (Oregon Ballet Theatre Radio), endlessly inquisitive (The Nerd Report), and has an unabashed love for male vocalists with big hair (Hair By Sabrina). She’s the proverbial PDX.FM workhorse. If you need something done, done right, done yesterday – she’s your man. She’s the glue that holds our weird and crazy little world together here at PDX.FM and I’m not ashamed to admit that, without her, we wouldn’t be here today.
So thank you Sabrina Miller, for all that you do and for all that you bring to the table. It’s a pleasure working with you and I’d share my chocolate dick with you any day.
Stay tuned. There’s two more days of butt-kissing yet to come…
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Beautifully written! You surprise me once a week Mr. Wagner. Merry Christmas to you both.
Love this. And this, “They’re boring?” Sabrina asked (that’s her way you see, she won’t give you an opinion directly – not ever. Instead she’ll dig for yours, process it, decide whether or not it’s agreeable, and then proceed accordingly – hence the term “waffler“)
Robert,
I am completely touched by your post, it was the best gift I’ve ever received. Thank you for allowing me to share in this extraordinary endeavor with you, it’s an absolute pleasure with work with you every day. I’ve said it more than once, I have the best job in the world and I have you to thank for allowing me to share it with others. Thank you my friend, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you do.
Sheesh get a room!
Just kidding. Happy Christmas R.W. and Sabrina.
I’m all verklepmt over here…
Seriously – well-deserved, well-written. What else is there to say?
kind words for sabrina but you are both better at live radio than anybody in portland right now. you both are so quick and nothing gets dull. it takes two to tango.
This is super sweet.