Geek Beat 1000!

Well, guess what? Just the luck of the draw, but I wound up with the 1,000th Episode today! I’m John P. and it would be my honor and privilege to welcome you to Geek Beat Episode 1,000.

I’m not gonna lie. I wrote today’s show three times before I decided I couldn’t possibly do it justice. In the first version I went through and picked out just a boatload of amazing stuff we’ve done over the years. Skydiving with the US Army Golden Knights, our trips to Japan, Germany, the UK, all over the US, crawling around an American Airlines plane to see how WiFi gets installed, taking a trip through GM’s wind tunnel, and so many more.

In fact, the first version of this show was just a walk down memory lane! But when I was done with it, somehow it just lacked emotion. I was relying on the fact I wrote it for Cali and I to co-host to make it special. But it just wasn’t gonna be genuine. And I wasn’t gonna do that – not for Episode 1,000.

My second attempt was worse. And so you get my third. It’s different. And I hope you’ll be able to bear with me. Here’s why. Today you’re gonna get the real me. Not John P. Just John.

I have the most amazing co-host, partner, and best friend in the world. Her name is Luria Petrucci, but you know her as Cali. She’s smart, she’s talented, and she makes everyone around her happy. And she’s always telling me to be myself. So let me tell you what Geek Beat really means to me.

First of all, 1,000 is a really big number. And I can’t believe it came so fast! Of course, it’s not the only thing we’ve produced. Because we’ve done over 150 episodes of our Live show, we produced over 150 episodes of WebBeat with Pelpina Trip back in the day, we’ve also produced other shows, and I’m not even counting the hundreds of hours of live broadcasting we’ve done from events.

But if I just focus on the 1,000 a bit. It’s actually bigger than it seems.

1,000 episodes. If they average just 6 minutes each, it means 6,000 minutes of curated content. 100 hours of actual show to watch.

Which made me wonder. How does that compare to other shows? So I googled it. The first show that came to mind was Seinfeld. That was a great show. It ran for 9 seasons and 180 episodes. But those were only a half hour each. So that would be a total of only 90 hours of content.

Of course, the actual show was only 22 minutes because of commercials. And 22 x 180 is really only 66 hours of content.

At the same time, 1,000 episodes, 100 hours… it’s also smaller than it seems. Because on average each episode takes 2-3 hours to write. So if we spent 2,500 hours just writing the shows, that means we spent 62.5 40 hour work weeks doing nothing but writing. That’s about 15 months worth of solid work, mostly divided between Cali and I on just writing the daily shows.

And that doesn’t include the 30-45 minutes we spend on average actually shooting every episode of the show. And it certainly doesn’t include the 5-6 hours of editing that goes into polishing them up every day, thanks mainly to Dave Curlee. Basically tag another 6,000 hours in there at a minimum to bring you those 1,000 episodes.

But that’s not all. Because for every episode there’s a blog post. And show notes. And social promotion. And for the most part we owe all of that to Dave Peterson. Hours per episode.

So I see episode 1,000 roll through, and I know it’s 100 hours of content, which is more than Seinfeld put out, but I’m also keenly aware of the 10,000 hours of work that went into creating it. And sometimes I do think, wow – the world only sees 1%. Is it worth it?

I know that’s a bunch of math. And John P’s the guy who lights shit on fire! But John does math. I’m a human calculator. I’m always computing everything, weighing the odds, worrying about stuff. And keeping it all to myself. So lets ignore the math, and lets talk about Love.

When Cali and I, and the team, started all of this I was just… well, I don’t know. I was just doing it. It was something to do with your best friend. And the calculation engine in me thought we could build something cool. I was having fun, but I really didn’t understand what was going on around me. It took a while, and it took a lot of feedback and support from YOU before I began to understand what Geek Beat really meant.

WE are a real community!

If you’re sitting through this horrible monologue, I’m guessing you’re one of the people who just knows Geek Beat is a product of Love. In the very truest sense of the word. Those of us on this end of the camera Love what we’re doing. We love who we’re doing it with. And we love YOU for watching and supporting us for all these years.

What we do is hard. It’s been harder than… harder than you think. But it’s been worth it. Geek Beat has quite literally altered the course of my life, changed how I view myself and others, enabled me to do and see things I’ve only ever dreamed of, and most importantly helped me make new friends all over this beautiful world. I wish everyone could be part of our community.

So here’s to 1,000 episodes! And 1,000 more. And to YOU, from all of us – for making this possible. I can’t tell you how much it would mean to all of us here if you’d share your thoughts in the comments. I told you what Geek Beat means to me. So it’s your turn…

I’m John. Thanks for watching.