The Charm

In November 2009, I was out with a bunch of friends, one of them Camilo Moreno of the long, curly, brown hair and Spanish drawl, and we got to talking about sound engineering. Camilo worked in film, and he knew a lot about microphones and recording sound.

At the time, I had been nursing this "brilliant" idea of recording short, fake interviews with random friends in Jeddah and then posting them online, because who wouldn't want to listen? Right? Who wouldn't want to listen to me ramble on and on? So I asked Camilo to help me with the sound.

A few weeks later, at Helmy's studio, they both designed a make-shift microphone stand with tape and a camera tripod, and we recorded our first fake interview, amidst a lot of nervous giggling and awkwardness, mostly from me as I was unsure of what I was doing. By then, it already started feeling like something I would be spending a lot of time and money on, and I wasn't so sure I wouldn't be wasting my time.

When November comes around and I mark another year the podcast is around, I am reminded of why it even exists. It is because of the people around me, my friends, who, for funzies, decided why not? Why not humor Nessreen and her illusions of grandeur? Helmy set up my first recording, Camilo agreed to be in the first episode even though he didn't much feel like it that day, Fayiz opened an iTunes account for me behind my back and emailed me the details so I had no excuse not to add the podcast to the iTunes directory. Sally offered to co-host with me for a whole year and took time out of her busy schedule to do so.

The podcast is nowhere near famous now, nowhere near excellent, nowhere near where I had hoped it would be that day when I first recorded for it. It could do with a lot of improvements, and a lot of work.

But it's still around. It's alive. It's 3 years old now, and it's still churning out episodes. I gave up on it so many times in the past 3 years, and yet here it still is.

Earlier this year, one night, I was in my room swimming in despair, self-pity, tears, and chips after an incident proved to me that this whole podcast thing wasn't worth all the trouble I go through for it. I had spent thousands of riyals on it by then, hours of (bad) work, I was getting canceled and/or ignored by the podcast guests I had been inviting, and I wasn't getting paid for any of it. The hate mail, although funny and kept me entertained for a while, was still way more in number than fan mail, and it had started getting to me.

Fayiz, who lives in the US, got online and chatted with me for what could have been a full hour, one that he certainly couldn't afford given his busy schedule and two small kids, just to pep-talk me into not shutting the podcast down.

I can't remember what it was exactly that he said, but it was then that I thought how unfair it would be for all my friends, like Fayiz, who got out of their way to help me get the podcast going. I owe it to them to keep doing the podcast.

I've met so many people through the podcast, many of them have become huge parts of my life. I've learned hard work, I've learned to LEARN about sound engineering and web designing, I've learned to commit to something, I've learned to listen.

Who knows if the podcast would still be around this time next year? It might, it might not be. Whatever the case, I do good to remember the people who continue to support it, who also happen to be my friends.

That Jeddah Podcast had a great birthday month. Maybe the 3rd time IS the charm.