Last night I dreamed that Tom was gracious enough to let me host The Best Show with my dad, but I choked.
The idea was that we could emcee as a parent-child duo, like with Gail Bennington. But when I arrived at the wood-paneled halls of the studio, not only had we forgotten to prepare material, I had failed to bring recording equipment. So we would be forced to record everything into the tinny mic of a scratched-up iBook.
And my dad was turning out to be less of a powerhouse behind the mic than I had promised. After 10 minutes of me and my old man having a boring and low-key discussion of old family stories, he got as impatient as if he were stuck in a long line at In-N-Out. "I think that's enough," he said. "Whaddya say we just get out of here."
So I tweeted "Sorry we're having technical difficulties! #bestshow," and without thinking, we drove off with the 3 hours still ticking. But on the way home I realized that this was no small thing. That listeners would already be up in arms, comparing us unfavorably to Dave Hill and others.
The next day, the full consequences having hit me, I was due to return to school and face the music. I didn't know whose criticism was going to be more scorching -- Tom's or his whole classroom full of offended podcast listeners. I loitered in the hall outside but I could only buy so much time...
(In real life, my dad was alluded to years ago on the Best Show when listener Suzi phoned up asking Tom to give him a shout out when he was in the hospital...Thanks Tom!)
