The Debris Show: Return To Form

After several shows as "The Core", I kept getting the urge to unlock during broadcasts, and just go with the moment. When we'd created 'core' the object was to make the show more mature, more intelligent, and subsequently, attract more viewers. So far it hadn't worked, but even if it had, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just going through the motions on the air, to keep the show (and myself) within the bounds we'd set when we came back with the new show/title. I was enjoying the camaraderie with Bridge and Ric as always, but the shows themselves, for my part, became little more than an exercise in restraint. We'd adopted a "low swear" policy in our attempt to push out the low-brow element of the old Debris shows, and that in itself was about to kill me.

One night, while doing a show from our place, we were getting ready to go into the break between the first and second hour. Bridget had excused herself a few minutes early to go out on the patio and have a smoke. Ric and I were just kinda throwing stuff out there to wind down the last few minutes, when suddenly I accidentally said "Debris" instead of "The Core" as we were signing off for the break. I stopped, and then Ric and I looked at each other. He then said (to me as well as the audience), smiling, and in a way that seemed to indicate he'd seen this coming for a while now, "this is the Debris Show ladies and gentlemen." We went to break, and the three of us decided to let the viewers choose. We came back on after the break, announced there would be a vote for the rest of the show to see what the show would be called, and within minutes everyone was unanimously in favor of "The Debris Show". We were finally back.

The reason the "Core" idea didn't work, was we tried to overhaul the entire show. But Ric had always been the level-headed one who was a little more sophisticated and little less inclined to fly off the handle. He'd always established that personality on the show, which nicely balanced with my tendency to go apeshit at the drop of a hat. Bridget had always been, IMO, a nice mix of both. When I had wrecked the show the previous Summer because I'd been too drunk, I felt really guilty and was trying too hard to make up for that mistake by re-inventing my show persona into a "kinder, gentler" Shane. But what happened was, I became a less-talented and less-intelligent version of Ric's show persona. I was dull and aloof, and really didn't know what to add in that particular role. After a few months of that, I simply had to burst out of the shell I'd created for "Core".

Once we were "The Debris Show" again, things started coming naturally. I was no longer tethered to scripts or topics or trying to be somebody I'm not. Let's face it: professionalism is just not in my DNA. I'm too raw, too real, too emotional. And probably too stubborn as well. The show continued on, and not long after we'd gone back to being "The Debris Show", our numbers began to grow again. By the end of the year, we were setting all-time records on a nearly week-to-week basis, topping the 100-viewer mark for just the second time in show history. We tackled serious and "mature" topics, but we did it in our own styles. All three of us were just being ourselves again, and it was working wonderfully. Maybe that was the answer to the big mystery of why "The Core" wasn't as successful....people simply wanted "The Debris Show."

We were rolling week after week, never missing a show for a couple months. The viewer counts were way up, the highest average we'd enjoyed in over a year. The topics and phone calls were top-notch. We rolled this very successful stretch right through the Holiday Season and into the New Year. But as mid-January came around, we started having schedule clashes that kept us from having shows on our regular night, kept us from having shows with all three members, or canceled shows altogether. Ric would have plans one weekend, and the following weekend we'd have plans. It seemed as though we all needed a bit of a break, and were just taking turns on our mini-vacations. The viewer count reflected our inconsistency, as they dropped dramatically during January and February. It became obvious that to sustain the success we'd just started to enjoy, we'd have to keep the train rolling week to week. It started to feel a little more like work and a little less like fun, and the idea that our Saturdays were taken up for the foreseeable future suddenly seemed crappy. I loved doing the show, but I also didn't like the thought that it was costing us half our weekend each week. I had the feeling Ric felt the same way, if not even stronger.