#uyd4l

Ten years ago today, two sober young men living in the City of Angels decided to take it upon themselves to start a podcast. It wasn’t flashy and it wasn’t complicated, but it was funny. It was funny in the way that your friends that you’ve known for years are funny: with a long string of inside jokes and shared experiences. And if you just took an hour every week to hang with them on their show, they’d feel like your friends too.

I first heard of Uhh Yeah Dude when hosts Seth and Jonathan were on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast. Maron’s then girlfriend was listening to them non-stop at home at the time so he brought them in for his customary interview. I was relatively new to podcasts and after the interview I decided to check them out. I listened to one episode and I’ll admit that I didn’t get it. The format didn’t make sense to me and I couldn’t really tell their voices apart. So I chalked it up to a mismatch between UYD and me. Months passed and I didn’t think about them, like you wouldn’t think about a girl you had a bad date with. But I realized one day that the show had been on for years and it was foolish for me to start so late in the game and hope to understand the story.

So I went back. Way back. To 2006.

Thanks to them and to Itunes I could. There it was: Episode 1. And so on and so on all the way until the current day. Every week they put out an episode. Every week these two guys got in a room and looked at America through the eyes of two American Americans. And you know what? I loved it. I loved their shit-talking attitudes, I loved their Los Angeles vernacular, and I loved that these guys were really just two best buds making each other laugh. Listening to them reminded me of what it was like to hang out with my best friends, making jokes only we would get. And the more I listened, the more jokes I got. And I got to know them. Because when you do a show every week parts of you slip out; even when you don’t plan on it happening. I got to know that they’re really good dudes.

I met Seth after a live taping of the podcast at the Improv in Hollywood in 2014. He was the most genuine, appreciative, nicest guy I could have ever hoped for. He gave me a stick of fruit-flavored gum from the tiniest Ziploc bag I’ve ever seen. And every time I’ve seen him since he’s been just as great.

Because I think these guys can’t believe that people would listen to a show that they put on themselves without sponsorships or revenue of any kind other than a little merch, week after week after week for ten years now. And I think they appreciate it so much. So after every live show they hang around to meet the fans and say thank you. And they have a voicemail (888-842-2357) where you can leave them a message about whatever you want and they’ll listen. And they come back, every week, and have new material and share themselves and make you laugh. And you can’t help but laugh; because the jokes go back so long at this point and there as so many that it’s almost like a photomosaic of their comedy every show now. Dozens of tiny jokes forming the larger structure of each new episode as a whole.

So I want to say thank you to Seth and Jonathan for all their hard work and for getting me through so many awful work days with laughter, and reminding me that there are still good people in the world. Please keep it up.

For life.