Flooring it
Faster, faster, faster until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.
-Hunter S. Thompson (supposedly)1
I feel the need address the lamentable one-week gap in Pull Request posts.
What happened is that I drew up a list of the top 10 people I wanted to talk to, asked them all, and they all said yes(!). Now I’m running around like a crazy person conducting interviews, while also being interviewed. It’s just interviews all the way down. Worse, I’m such a planning amateur it’s all happening at once.
Also, Monday is to blame.
On the plus side, Yours Truly has been a busy media bee.
I was on Andrew Sullivan’s DishCast, which was entirely as enjoyable as I imagined. His assistant sent me a list of potential topics, that ran from religion to Apple to Facebook’s leaked ‘Amplify’ marketing issue.
We didn’t get past the religion topic, and debated Christianity versus Judaism versus secularism for an hour and a half. Sullivan was, is, and likely forever will be, one of the most interesting intellects in the public discourse, with conversation resembling something between a graduate philosophy seminar and Oxford-style debate.
I was also on The Fifth Column podcast with Kmele Foster, Matt Welch, and Michael Moynihan, in which I was SHOCKED, SHOCKED by some of their politically-incorrect commentary. This cancellation cat only has so many lives, and I might have burned (another) one by associating with these desperadoes.
On the Pull Request side, I’ve got interviews dropping in the next couple of weeks with:
Christopher Rufo
Glenn Greenwald
Niall Ferguson
Ross Douthat
Kathryn Paige Harden (author of this book that caused this stir)
Ben Shapiro (I know, I know)
Speaking of Pull Request, I’m happy to announce a new show on Callin. If you’re not familiar, Callin is a new ‘social audio’ app, kind of like Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces. Unlike those two products, you can listen to Callin shows asynchronously after they’ve run. You can also share highlights from the shows on social media, as you do links. As many readers know, I’m fascinated by the intersection of textual and oral culture, and whoever figures this out will own the next iteration of the human/digital mashup. Callin will be the first stop for Pull Request conversations going forward.
As a teaser, listen to me interviewing Blake Masters, the COO of Thiel Capital and Senate candidate for AZ. Blake is one of the few techies who has the nerve to jump into politics, and also to be a ‘class traitor’ by opposing tech’s growing control of our media lives.
Which is a long way of saying lots of stuff is on the way! Just bear with me during this unexpectedly eventful week where everything is happening at once.
More soon…..
This is widely quoted, but I actually can’t find a source in any of HST’s books or papers.
Will the Callin podcasts be published anywhere else by any chance (for non-iOS users)?
Love the work - Not loving the Callin app. Sound quality issues aside, the app's functionality is ROUGH. I understand they're aiming at something different, but the archived conversations have got to work more like podcasts. I'm not the only use case, but I often pick up audio and put it back down, listening when I have free time driving, during chores, etc. Excited for your audio interviews, but I'm not sure I'd entrust your hard-earned goodwill if this app does not improve. Cheers.