Post-Show Recap

I had only one technical glitch (at the end when my close wouldn't play until two minutes too late), and I sounded just like I knew I would - deep but not quick, smooth, or nimble.

Rich Whaley called in and we had a nice conversation, which I thought he carried more than I did. Ted Hall called at the very tail end (evidently he didn't know I can have up to five callers on at the same time), but since I didn't know his number, and you said you'd try to call in toward the end of the hour, I thought it was you. So when he gets on I sound flat-footedly surprised. That probably threw off starting my close in enough time, but I couldn't very well blow him out, and besides, he provided the hook for the "anaconda tries to eat alligator and explodes" story. And I want him to call in next week and following, too.

Part of the uncertainty today was whether or not I'd have any callers. I was well prepared with a number of items on the issue of the undeclared war with Iran, but not prepared at all to moderate a general discussion. Next week I'll try to have two or three topical topics that we can all take one at a time so that the discussion will sound a bit more organized. And, given that there will be the aforementioned uncertainty pretty much EVERY week, I'll have to be sufficiently prepared to jaw-jaw on the aforementioned topical topics solo.

I'll also try and make sure they're topics I know more about; Rich and I spent a large chunk of the show discussing the McCain-Kennedy II immigration bill, but immigration has never been a hot button issue for me, and this week was way too hectic for me to dig into the specifics (like Hugh Hewitt did last weekend) so I wasn't all that conversant about its details. It's the political dynamic that interests me - how on no other issue I can think of do the American people feel overwhelmingly one way and the ruling elites, for their own respective purposes, can be so determinedly opposite.

Another factor working against me was that this past week was another of those nightmare work weeks I occasionally write about here. I was only able to blog at all by going on half-sleep rations; being fully prepared for an hour-long blogcast would have required me to not sleep all week. As it was, after the show I went back to bed and slept all afternoon, and barely made a dent in my fatigue. 'Tis a good thing Monday is a holiday.

One other fact I wish I hadn't learned: my audience today was not twenty million, not four million, not four thousand, not four hundred, not forty, but four. And one of them was my son on our other computer. It doesn't surprise me; I'm not a self-promoter, and never have been. I cherish my anonymity. And I'm the antithesis of a "people person". Thus I'm about as well equipped for attracting an audience as the fabled one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest. It shouldn't disappoint me, other than the fact that I sent out several dozen emails and was hoping at least for double-digits. But, to be honest, it does.

Ah, well. I guess that's why Mr. Spock once said that hope isn't logical. Besides, it's not as though anybody's reading my maunderings anymore either, if our plummeting TTLB ranking is any indication. Perhaps this BTR gig came too late to turn that around and get us back to Large Mammalhood. Maybe I should go back to getting full nights' sleep and spending my free time playing video games and watching TV - or going back to refereeing middle school-caliber pissing matches on the GOP Forum. For which this BTR gig may also be too little, too late, if the evaporating message traffic there is any indication.

Ah, well, again. I never did convince myself that my self-honesty and resulting misgivings about blogcasting were misguided; I just ignored them once I got onto Heading Right. To close the loop, my part of the show was exactly what I would have expected: proof that I have a voice for print.

But I'm committed now. And, heck, it's only once a week. With Jen's and Ted's and Rich's (and hopefully more) generous assistance, I may get used to it, and even get better at it.

Maybe that's the silver lining of blogcasting to the crickets: virtually nobody heard how bad I was. By the time I reach passibility, there might actually be an audience worthy of the term.

Hopefully....