This is it, People!
I’m on my porch. The weather is perfect. It’s the first Sunday in many, many years I haven’t had to think about what I have to do on the mics and with who. It’s peaceful. I’m a little edgy. I guess that’s not going away.
I want to make clear that I am not ‘retiring.’ Some people seem to think that. I am changing my life. This is a transition. I am moving on from something that defined my life for a long time.
I know there’s been a lot of speculation about the final episode. To be honest, we settled on it being me. We didn’t make a list of people. There was only one person that would be right for it and we assumed that would be a long shot. It turns out it wasn’t.
I flew to Washington, DC last week to have a second conversation with President Barack Obama. We had gone back and forth with his people a bit over the past few weeks. The terms were much like the first one. There really weren’t any. He was open to talk about whatever.
We had terms though. We made it clear to them that this was an important episode for us. It is the conclusion of years of work, the end of a story. A story that he was an important part of. They understood the gravity of that, as did he.
I felt it was fair that I go to him this time. He came to my house last time. The conversation took place in his office. It was actually a bit cluttered, like my old garage.
I think it’s important to tell you how Brendan and I approached and prepared for the talk. It speaks to how we have worked since the beginning.
We had a few general conversations about what we wanted out of the talk but initially we were focused on the task. It was a remote recording with a former president. There was no room for tech issues or glitches. Over the years there have been a few problems when I record remotely. Lost files, clicks and buzzes, equipment crapping out. Because we are very anal about all this type of stuff you wouldn’t have noticed it.
There could be no issues with this talk.
We needed a backup recording that would be as good as the main recording if something were to go wrong.
Now, most shows would hire an audio team to meet them at the location. We don’t do that. Neither me nor Brendan are audio engineers but we know how we want it to sound.
The plan was to bring two Zoom recorders. I use Shure Beta 58 mics on the road. We decided to plug lavalier mics into the back up Zoom. I thought I had the lavs. I bought them years ago and never used them. Days before I was going to leave, I dug them out. I had two but only one XLR preamp. The mics were different. They were both outdated. I scrambled to find another preamp. They don’t make the one that I needed so I bought a similar one. We then tested all of our mics and cords with the recorders we were going to use. The sound didn’t match. The two lavs didn’t sound the same. It was a disaster. It was also the day before I was going to leave. I scrambled around town trying to find the discontinued preamp. No go. Late in the afternoon I decided I’d go to an audio rental outfit for movies and television and I rented two top tier lavs with XLR preamps and they came with two 25 foot cables. I traveled to DC with two Zooms, three Beta 58 mics, four six-foot XLR cables and the two 25-footers. That’s how we roll. We couldn’t leave anything to chance.
I got to DC two days early. I had lunch with an old college roommate which was great. Brendan came in the day before and we checked the equipment again and spent a few hours talking about the talk I wanted to have with the President.
It wasn’t a journalistic interview in the sense that I was digging for facts. I wanted to talk about the significance of my podcast, as did he. I then wanted to talk about the world we all find ourselves living in and how he sees it. I wanted to talk about how he’s doing and what he’s been up to since he hasn’t been around much. I wanted to end my show with the guest who was probably the most significant for us in terms of what we do and what the medium of podcasting has become.
So, that’s what we did.
I wasn’t nervous. I felt like we knew each other. It was casual, loose and deep. He’s thoughtful and deliberate and candid simultaneously. There was always a fundamentally moral and human core to his leadership and a belief in decency and democracy as a person.
Enjoy this last talk.
I know I have made a lot of you feel less alone for a long time. I appreciate that. It goes both ways. Now you’re going to have to be on your own for a while.
I’ll be around though.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
