I've kept a lot of seats warm at NPR when the real hosts are sick or on vacation. It's fun to do other people's jobs for a few days -- it satisfies my dilettante instincts, and I get to leave while it's all still exciting and new. It's kind of like renting a beach house for a week. You get to enjoy the sunshine and the novelty of a new place, but leave before the hot water heater explodes.

Not to beat a tortured analogy into the ground, but Neal Conan has a really nice beach house here at Talk of the Nation. In the first place, he has by far the neatest office I've borrowed here at NPR. Neal's many books are actually on his bookcase. And there are whole square feet of desktop visible between the stacks of paper. I don't think I can adequately describe how unusual this is. With the staggering volume of mail that comes in for a show like Talk of the Nation, most offices look like a recycling bin just exploded close by.

This beach house/radio program (okay, now even I have lost the thread of this analogy -- what were we talking about exactly?) also has a pretty amazing team of people who are capable of conjuring a radio show out of thin air. Seriously -- there have been mornings when we have no guests and no prospects at 9am, and a kick-ass show with rock star guests at 2pm. It's impressive. I don't know if the folks here just pretend they have nothing booked, when really the whole show has been set for weeks, or whether they know some radio jujitsu they're not sharing with the guest host. I suspect the latter.

Whatever they're doing (leaving crackers and little tiny shoes out for the radio production elves at night? It wouldn't shock me) they're doing it well. And it's been a joy and a treat to participate for a few days. I hope you all have had half as much fun as I have.

10:45 - April 26, 2007

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