The Berlin Bathtub Races were improved upon this year by several minor tweaks to the program, the most interesting of which was the adoption of Todd Dehart, my co-host, getting the call to emcee the event.
A bit of history:
I’ve been working on one podcast or another for something close to 6 years now. When The Tom and Tony Show, my pre-Todcast podcast, fell apart I reached out to Todd who had been one of our guests to see if he was interested. Todd wasn’t our most engaging guest nor our funniest. He was, however, the most self-possessed and, more importantly, the only guest we ever had who was excited rather than confused by the notion of an Internet radio show.
Also, he’s probably the only person on the Peninsula who is as loud as I am.
After taking the bullhorn to emcee the dunking booth at May Day Play Day in Berlin earlier this year, the hundreds of people in Berlin who totally don’t listen to the Todcast got a taste of how well he works a crowd and so he seemed a natural to host the Berlin Bathtub Races. He was, of course, the perfect choice.
Make a list of everyone you know who can both engage a crowd and is self-possessed enough to do-si-do with the mayor in the middle of Main Street. Cut from that list anyone who doesn’t wear an “I HEART Berlin” shirt seriously and also with total and perfect irony and you’ll be left with Todd.
Pressed by one of his new fans about how he got the gig, he told the person asking: “I am Berlin’s mistress.” This is true in ways I don’t think Todd even understands.
It was a Bathtub-Race-heavy Todcast but we also got to break a little news. I’m now contributing content for a digital periodical called Sea Level Magazine and I posted my first news-y blog for it. The blog was an analysis of a study that breaks the country down, by county, into places that Tweet mostly about “church” and those that tweet mostly about “beer”.
We also broke the name of an upcoming beer from Burley Oak but you’re going to have to listen if you wanna know what it is.