In the winter of 2016, I bought a brand new Chevy Equinox. The car came with all sorts of appointments and accessories I’d never had in a vehicle, including a three month trial subscription for Sirius XM Radio. I was very excited about this perk. As someone who drove 40,000 miles a year, I was thrilled at the idea of always being able to get a Tiger game or NPR on the radio no matter how remote my locale might have been Not long after I began driving my new whip every day, I discovered something called Stand Up With Pete Dominick. It was a three hour news and pop culture show with great guests and a funny, smart host. Pete and his producers/co-hosts became a fixture in my daily driving. After a time, I began to think of them as something like friends despite the fact they had no idea of my existence in the world. My daughter Hannah would often listen with me in the car while we drove to one school or another as I ran my cap and gown business. She too began to know some of the folks from the show and even a few of the inside jokes. We’d often talk about the guests that were on, or mention something smart we’d remembered from an interview a few days earlier. Pete and his show had become a small part of my family. One morning in the Fall of 2019, I tuned into Pete’s show just in time to catch a very important message. That day, would be the last day on the air for Stand Up With Pete Dominick at Sirius XM. I felt as though I had been punched in the abdomen, and unable to catch my breath. The loss of this show as part of my daily routine felt like a sort of death. When I told Hannah she was furious and then we were both just plain sad. I was losing my friends. What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Looking at it objectively, it was ridiculous. I was emotionally vexed at the cancellation of a radio show. I didn't know those people and they didn't know me. Still, I felt bad for the team, and especially for Pete. It was obvious in his sign-off message he was crushed. Again, the pallor of death kept filling the room despite the fact it was “only a radio show”. A few weeks after the final show, I got an email spelling out Pete’s idea for a new podcast. It began as a semi-regular show with two or three episodes a week right at first. Pete struggled with the new technology of hosting, recording, editing and sharing a podcast. He worked through a steep learning curve without the producers that he used to rely upon at his side. Within a matter of weeks, Pete was back to hosting a new show every weekday. The format shifted and evolved over time, but interviews of Pete’s esteemed and brilliant guests were always the focus. These days, Pete’s show begins with a news section of fifteen to twenty minutes followed by a long-form interview with guests on topics ranging from world news to climate change, parenting, philosophy, and more. With each successive show, Pete has honed his interviewing skills, his logistical chops, and continued to grow his audience. When the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, Pete and the Stand Up community began convening for weekly hangout sessions on Zoom. A group of listeners would show up to chat with Pete on the topics from the week’s show, and to share things from each other’s personal lives. For weeks after the hangouts began, I kept thinking, “I really should jump on one of these”, but my procrastination or calendar would keep me from joining in on one. Eventually, I sent Pete an email telling him how much I appreciated the show. I also expressed my admiration for the way he had persevered after losing his high profile gig at Sirius. Not only did Pete respond to the email, but he sent me his number and offered to chat over the phone so we could get to know each other better. During the chat, I was quite nervous. This was someone that I’d admired for years and had thought of as a friend. Now, we were talking to each one on one. The call prompted to me to join the hangout the following week. Pete welcomed me and even made a point to introduce me to the group. The hangouts were always informative, hilarious, and insightful. Some weeks they would focus on the topics of the day, and then shift the next to week to deeply personal stories about racism, sexism, trauma, ADHD, and so much more. Almost immediately, Thursday nights became reserved for my new set of internet friends. So many members of the Stand Up community were key to my 2023 tour. I was hosted by five different folks from the community and more than a dozen others made a point to come out and see me on the road. On my jaunts this coming summer, these numbers are sure to grow exponentially. Since I began the Substack, Pete has been a guest on the show and so have many of the members of the community who do their own great creative work. For more than three years now, these folks have been a regular part of my routine, week in and week out. Many have become friends in the real world. The SUPD community has been a true blessing in so many ways. After months of planning, the Stand Up With Pete Dominick Crew recently got together in Las Vegas for a weekend long event called PODJAM. The two day event would feature live podcast tapings, stand up comedy, live music and a chance for our community to get together in person. Here is the story of a wild weekend in Vegas that was awe-inspiring, rejuvenating, nerve-wracking, and just plain incredible. I arrived in Las Vegas - my first time, thank you very much - around 7:30 on a Thursday night and was fortunate to have a ride waiting for me in the pickup lot. It took some doing for me to get to the spot where my ride was waiting, but I eventually found Gareth Sever, a friend from the community and Becca, the son of Cassie Rice, a community member who organized this entire event. More on Cassie later. We were, of course, very excited to see each other, and as Becca drove us to the hotel where Gareth would be staying, and to pick up our friend and musician Jon Carroll. Both Jon and Gareth would be performing during the musical section of the main show and I was pumped to chat with them about their plans, arrangements, song choices and more. They’re both tremendous performers and I was so excited to be able to watch them do their thing. After whisking Jon out of the hotel, we made our way to the Air BnB where I would be staying. There was a meet and greet put together by a couple of my housemates and things had already kicked off by the time we arrived. The sensation of walking into a party where I knew everyone and had met almost no one was surreal and profound. I stopped in my tracks for just a moment to take in everything going on around me. I could feel myself smiling. Slowly, I made my way around the party to dole out big hugs, and introductions, and get to know my virtual friends in real life. Nearly instantly I found myself with a beer in hand and we were off and running. Each time a new guest arrived there were hoots and hollers and more hugs. We caroused late into the evening and I cavorted with the best of them. Despite missing my dinner completely due to flight times and my childlike excitement, and living on East Coast time, I managed to see 2:00 am before I hit the sheets. I awoke just after 7:00 the next morning with a pounding headache. The lack of a meal on Thursday night had not been an issue at the time, but in retrospect was a terrible idea. Like a true rookie, I found myself hungover on my first morning in Las Vegas. The nausea ebbed and flowed with irregularity and I found myself sweating profusely despite the exterior temperature being quite mild. I chugged down a few ibuprofen, cleaned myself up a bit, and headed down to find coffee. My housemate Cindy from the Southside of Chicago was already in the kitchen making coffee and cleaning a bit from the night before. We talked at length about her autistic children and the life that she has built around that. While we chatted, Cindy and I discovered that the refrigerator was no longer working. Two other housemates Sandy and Frances came down to that news and we laughed at the luck and enjoyed coffee while shared our lives with each other. By mid-morning, our last housemate Vikki arrived, and the day began to really move forward. Vikki is a resilient and remarkable woman who has lived a very interesting, but not always easy life. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and is a part-time caregiver for two small granddaughters with Sickle Cell Anemia. Vikki is nothing short of amazing. I had assumed that was the case, but it took just a cup of coffee with Vikki to get the true sense of her strength and resolve. But oh, what love she radiates. Everything lights up around Vikki. Despite my wonderful morning with these wonderful people I had discovered an issue with my phone. While I could feel alerts vibrating as I got texts and emails, there was nothing visible on the screen but a dark grey background. Despite several attempts at a reset, I was unable to get it to function. Eventually it was time to hit the road. I would have to deal with the phone thing later in the day. Our first stop of the day was Planet 13, the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. I am sure my mother will recoil at the thought of me going weed shopping in Vegas, but I was with Vikki, so it’s okay. The place is a freaking shopping mall. There is a full-on laboratory, a chocolate making operation that is publicly visible, and starter plants for all types of cannabis. The shop was packed with customers and set up in very Vegas fashion. Light shows, gadgetry, games, and more gave the place the feel of an amusement park more than “drug store”. Still, it was fun to people watch and take in the absolute circus of it all. The sensory overload was so very Las Vegas. After leaving the weed shop, we hopped into Vikki’s
