Ric Says Farewell & The Show Goes On....For A While

After an inconsistent start to the new year through the first few months, I began to sense that Ric was going to quit the show. It was nothing about how he behaved towards us, or even his enthusiasm for the show, but rather the mounting real-world bullshit that the show had been causing.....mostly because of me. Ric was always level-headed about everything, even when he was on the warpath on a particular show topic. He was always no-nonsense, and I think it was getting to the point where the show's repercussions were becoming more of a nuisance for him than it was worth. I didn't say anything to Bridge because it was just a hunch.

After a tumultuous day at TESSA 2011, which resembled nothing of the fun, party atmosphere of the 2010 version, we did a show that night. Things that had spilled over from the show into the real world was the topic, and Ric attacked them with rare form. He was as lively and inspired as I'd ever seen him on a show, so much in fact, he put doubt in my mind that he would quit. However, a few weeks later we received an email from him, telling us that he was leaving the show. I never asked him, but I think he knew that night of the post-TESSA show he was leaving, and decided to go out with a bang. In either case, it was one of our most memorable broadcasts.

This left Bridget and I with a couple of questions. First off, would we continue doing the show? Ric had been with us for a year, longer than anyone, and had firmly established himself as a major cog in the overall personality and vibe of the show. Neither of us really wanted to quit, so we decided to make a plan and move forward. The second question was, what were we going to do to fill the void left by Ric? We were never going to replace him, as there was no one who could've. He was a unique personality and talent, and trying to supplant him would've been a huge failure for the show. Nope, we felt the only thing left to do at that point, was to just bring the show back around full-circle, and just do it by ourselves like we'd done to start with.

We were optimistic, because despite the fact we'd gone back to just the two of us, Bridget was now entrenched as a show personality, not just the producer. So in reality, we still had two distinct voices on the show. Our natural dynamic as a couple, we felt, would translate nicely to our live broadcasts. We soldiered on, but issues within our own lives began to take their toll mentally on us. We were under a ton of stress, and it became so much that we were having trouble disguising it during shows. Our friend Adam Reagan came out in late May to chase with us, and we had him on as a special guest. That night, unfortunately, the stress finally broke us, as Bridget and I had a mild on-air argument that had resulted from a conversation we had during the break. I didn't say or do anything to address the viewers, I just reached over and stopped the broadcast. And that was it. The end of the show. There was simply too much going on in the real world to even begin to concentrate on doing a webshow worthy of people's time. So the Debris Show was dead in the water.