friends, if I asked you if conversation had changed your life, you'd probably say yes.

A conversation that set you down a career path or a new place to move to, an argument that went

haywire that ended your relationship or a flirtation that led to the great love of your life.

But we forget, too, that other people's conversations change

our lives. Of course, there are the conversations between political leaders, college

admission boards, our parents, our friends, but I mean the ones that we hear. Against everyone

with Conradiv is eight years old today.

Not many media projects last for eight years or make it up to nearly 300 episodes.

My very first episode, which I've included here as part of this, is clumsy, personal, filled

with insecurity and uncertainty.

And it's a solo episode.

My conversation is directly with the audience, not with my first guest who ended up being Abby Martin, the

journalist. I love podcasts, but was wary of calling myself a podcaster. It was, after all,

just another job that people could dismiss. They'd say it was stupid because they did an aspect of it in their own lives, because we all do something like podcasting. We talk with other people, we talk in front of other people, our conversations are witnessed, and sometimes have value to those who aren't speaking, but merely listening in.

And this was an echo of my other work.

I'd been a porn star and everyone, well, almost everyone has sex.

I wanted to be a writer and everyone, or almost everyone, writes.

Anyone can do those things, people think.

And they thought that about podcasts, too.

Unlike being a welder

or a plumber or an accountant or a pilot the substance of everything i've ever wanted to do is

substance that is shared by everyone conversation sex and then the youngest of these three writing

...