Yo!
Welcome to My Summer Lair. My name is Sammy “I don’t have Gerard Butler’s abs, but this is 300” Younan. Yeah, Gerard Butler. And 300. This is…this is kind of, um, this is surreal.
My witty (witty-ish?) introduction for the 300th episode of My Summer Lair.
The 300th episode is attached and delivered via this here 300th My Pal Sammy (a weekly companion newsletter) to My Summer Lair.
Indeed.
I was given the rare and blessed opportunity to simultaneously celebrate the 300th My Summer Lair episode and the 300th My Pal Sammy; which is also now at 300 issues or newsletters or dispatches or whatever they’re called.
300 episodes: wow.
All these different guests,
All these different interviews,
It’s been a remarkable run.
For my episodes since I usually interview a prominent guest and ask them about their accomplishments; I figured I should be the guest.
For the 300th episode I asked Chat GPT…how do you as an active citizen and consumer of the online world see me?
I prompted the SkyNet AI to ask me 10 questions about this remarkable feat of 300 My Summer Lair episodes and 300 My Pal Sammy dispatches.
That’s the choppy voice you’ll hear on this recording following my standard long-winded introduction. (Can we pretend that’s become my endearing signature slash trademark?)
So Yeah & So Yo: 300.
I don’t know if the audience would agree, but for me, personally, like, it’s just been surreal. “Surreal but nice” to quote Hugh Grant in Notting Hill.
When you start a podcast you’re basically just throwing something online. Like cooked spaghetti on the wall: does it stick? You have no idea where it’s going to go or how it’s going to connect.
When you start a podcast you don’t have an audience. All you have is a thin hope that the guest can pull web traffic, right?
Hope is not a strategy.
Nobody knows who I am. Nobody cares who I am. (Hopefully, things have changed since then but we all tend to overvalue our worth and undervalue our contributions.)
And in the last few years as I’ve become established, I’ve scored traffic from locales like Australia and France. Those are surreal locations. Like what are you people Googling that like, these My Summer Lair interviews come up?
If it was steady Estonia traffic, I would firmly believe it’s bots but Australia and France? I’m going out on a limb with the conviction they’re humans. Thank you far away humans for pushing play. (Should I thank the far away bots for pushing play, too?)
When you start a podcast you just don’t have any way to understand what’s going to happen to you and where it’s going to go.
A podcast is a road trip without a destination.
I’ve been to the Magic Castle twice simply because I interviewed magicians. After interviewing one of them, David Minkin, he said: “Yo man, why don’t you come down to The Magic Castle next time you’re in LA?”
(Not an exact quote or even an accurate an impression of David. Super charming, one of my favourite magicians…just a good dude.)
And so I did!
You have to know a magician to get into The Magic Castle. It’s an invite only place: you can’t pay to be on the guest list. There’s no tickets or bribery, there’s none of that jazz.
It doesn’t matter how big or how small your podcast is. The only way in is to know a magician. And that I was able to connect with a magician via My Summer Lair―not just one magician, but several magicians — is stunning to me.
I didn’t think or expect any of that was possible. (Which is the whole point of magic, I suppose.)
This isn’t humblebragging; rather the opposite.
I’m still in awe I’ve visited The Magic Castle twice. To be in such a sacred space, all because I hit record once a week and I talk to cool people doing cool things and I hobo ramble with these cool people doing cool things―kinda like I am right now―is a dreamlike payoff.
That’s why the only word I keep coming back to is surreal.
It is surreal.
How did I end up here?
Another how did I end up here? moment unfolded after I interviewed Krys Blackwood at NASA.
She works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and again she graciously offered anytime you’re in California (they’re out in Pasadena) come by and visit and you can see Mission Control.
Well, I can confirm Mission Control is totally worth pants. I went and I stood in Mission Control. This incredible and astonishing teether to outer space and to Mars. It’s just…right there.
There’s no other word for it other than surreal.
Like, how am I here?
What am I doing?
Just because I record a podcast, I end up in Mission Control and I’m hanging out in this place where I do not belong seeing all the screens and all this data flowing in and out from outer space.. It’s…uh, it’s overwhelming.
During the tour of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Krys took me to a place called The Left Field Office.
And the basic idea was that if you have these really wild and crazy ideas that come out of left field i.e. how to vertically land a shuttle on Mars or what to do when there’s like no rocket fuel, can you somehow use the rocks on Mars to make rocket fuel? Anything wild or weird like that you can submit it to The Left Field Office.
It’s an idea completely out of left field. Maybe it doesn’t even make sense…that’s not how physics works. It’s up to The Left Field Office to hear the pitch and investigate the possibilities and realities.
That feels like a viable podcast analogy because it comes out of left field. It doesn’t make sense.
A podcast is a digital Left Field Office.
For 300 episodes you make these connections. And some of these guests are like friends or they’re acquaintances. Or a bit more than acquaintances.
(What’s a word between friend and acquaintance? Maybe we wouldn’t be so lonely in North America if we had better descriptive words for love and friendships at all levels. We need a word for a professional relationship where an established individual knows you yet isn’t comfortable to ask you to help them move.)
Truly, It all comes out of left field. And it’s surprising.
And so for this episode, because it’s the 300th MSL episode and because of the 300th dispatch of My Pal Sammy, I’m taking a few minutes―well, probably more than a few minutes cause I do hobo ramble (can we pretend that’s become my endearing signature slash trademark?)―to acknowledge the surreal journey that I’ve been on.
Hopefully, you as a listener have been on with me for part — or even all of it.
Thank for to everyone who has ever pushed play. When somebody pushes play on a MSL episode that’s exactly what it’s all about: it’s play. Play is fun. As we head into 2025 hopefully all of us dedicate more play time.
It used to irk me―kinda still does―when active bands would put out a greatest hits. A band like R.E.M. well (sadly) they’re done. They’re not releasing any new material. If they want to put out a greatest hits and say, look, this is what we did over decades of work. I’m cool with that. I can Stand for that. (#RimShot)
Here’s Drive and It’s the End of the World As We Know It, So. Central Rain…all those R.E.M. classics. If they assemble their best on a greatest hits package, that makes sense. You can look back at their impressive career. And those greatest hits are special signifiers back to the freshtastic albums.
But it would irk me when active bands say the Red Hot Chili Peppers or U2 bands still making noise; would release a greatest hits.
I’m like nah man:
Keep writing new music.
Keep recording.
Keep releasing new material.
This is not the time for Greatest Hits.
(Granted this is a bit dramatic but releasing a Greatest Hits when there are more hits coming comes across like releasing The Best of TV 2024 in July. Umm, like what about the rest of the year? Picture that as a silly visual and you’ll get my position about active bands releasing a Greatest Hits album mid-career.)
And yet I accepted this divine opportunity with 300 My Pal Sammy…s and 300 My Summer Lair…s and I was like, alright, let’s slow down and I guess for lack of a better term talk about My Greatest Hits.
Because as much as surreal is the word that I keep coming back too, there’s also overflowing gratitude.
I’m surprised (as much as you are?) that I got to 300.
I’m thankful I got to 300.
I’m thankful for all the PR agents that graciously granted me opportunities to talk to their filmmakers and their writers and their magicians and music makers. Every MSL episode is a surprise party. I’m shocked and elated at who I’ve been able to talk to and who wants to sit down with me.
I’m thankful for all the talented living souls that said yes and made time to hang out with me at My Summer Lair.
Expressing gratitude has lessened my annoyance with The Greatest Hits release because it can be a beautiful acknowledgment of gratitude.
Like yo, look at this: here’s the nifty songs that we wrote. We done good!
It’s dope to pause and to say this is what we did. And so this is a pause to say: yo, this is what I did.
And honestly, honestly, sometimes it does feel like it took forever. Like waiting for a bus to come and it’s raining and you’re at the bus stop and you’re cold and you’re wet and you just want to go home.
And other times getting to 300 feels like it’s only been a couple of weeks.
300 episodes, yo:
There’s a distressing concept called podfade, where people get hyper excited and they start a podcast. And then two or three episodes in…maybe even six or seven episodes in…they stop making the podcast.
Because it’s hard. That’s podfade.
iTunes is a graveyard of podcasts that were boldly started but eventually abandoned because it was too hard.
Everything is hard.
It’s hard to make a movie.
It’s hard to write a book.
It’s hard to make a podcast.
It’s hard to write a weekly newsletter.
It’s all hard.
It’s hard to stay married.
It’s hard to love.
It’s hard to hate…when it comes to pop culture.
Hate is not easy. And it shouldn’t be easy. Hate well and hate accurately, you know? Don’t just complain about Star Wars or tell me that movie sucked…hate well. Even though hate is hard. It’s easy to say that movie sucked and go take a nap.
It’s all hard.
But there’s a but. And it’s a magnificent but.
But…it’s worth it.
It’s fantastic.
It’s worth it.
Recording this episode and reflecting on the 299 MSL episodes and reviewing 299 My Pal Sammy newsletters, what stand out is this journey is not something that I would have expected.
Thank you again for subscribing for the podcast and/or the newsletter.
This has been the 300th episode of My Summer Lair.
I prompted ChatGPT for 10 questions about My Summer Lair, the podcast and My Pal Sammy, the newsletter and about me and about pop culture.
I look forward to making another 300 episodes.
Anyways.
That’s enough feelings and enough emotions.
I’m going back to normal after this: no more hugs and lots of sarcasm: man hugs and fist bumps, yo.
300 Is The Magic Number…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
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