Jon Glaser has slowly begun his plans of domination to use his absurd characters and premises to invade the mainstream. Glaser has made a reputation for himself off of radical fringe series like Delocated and Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter, but with Jon Glaser Loves Gear, the genius might have found his best project yet. Surprisingly, fantastical monsters or hackneyed premises take a backseat this time in favor of reality, and surprisingly, it’s the biggest shift for Jon yet.

In celebration of Glaser’s radical new reality series/genius experiment, we got the opportunity to talk to Jon Glaser himself about the glory of gear, the slow dissolution of his fake family, and where this unique passion project heads through its inaugural season.

DEN OF GEEK: In spite of how different a show Jon Glaser Loves Gear is, everyone has their specific gear niche in life and a show like this ends up becoming surprisingly relatable. Talk a little about tapping into that area and why a show like this works.

JON GLASER: Well I guess you sort of just summed it up: Everyone has their thing–whatever activity that is—it can be athletic, it can be outdoorsy, or it can be something else where there’s “gear” involved. I think people can relate to the sense of obsessing over the details of something. For example, I told a friend of mine about this show a while back and her immediate response was, “Oh my God! I’m so into these Japanese pens right now. It’s really cool to see all the different shapes that they come in. And just the way that the cartridge goes into the pen. And I’ve got this case that organizes them all perfectly and accommodates the cartridges…”