The Drop-By Executed
[NOTE: this is a sanitized version of the original blog I posted on 24 March, cleaned up to make my friends at Putnam happier about my tendency to share too much. Since they’ve paid me a nice advance for the book and are footing the bill on the PR, I am more than happy to accede to this request. So, while still trying to give you a sense of what we did across these three days, I make a point of blanking out names and details. Consider it a blogger’s version of Dragnet, where all the names have been changed to protect the innocent . . ..]
Dateline Washington DC, 24 March, 5pm, near end of first of two (possibly three) days of my Premeditated Media Tour. Not quite the real media tour scheduled for 26 April through 5 May in Boston, DC and NYC, but a pre-media media tour of DC to conduct drop-bys with producers of various TV and radio shows, plus some prominent think tanks and newspapers.
Steve Oppenheim (VP and director of PR at Putnam) and I finally meet F2F. We have spoken by phone dozens of times already, sometimes several times in a day, but this is our first meeting (actually last night for a drink around midnight). Steve has a “media contact” person on call for this trip, who will take us around as required in his car. Nice fellow who does this for a living. Just the right mix of discretion and friendliness and knows all the ins and outs of studios, restaurants, hotels, etc. A real encyclopedia who’s good at this job, as are his two compadres who switch off with us over the following three days. Thanks to these guys, it’s curb-to-curb service all day and night long.
We bug out as a trio at 11:30 this morning. I get up and practice speaking to myself in my room for about an hour, have breakfast, and then read sections from the book (Preface, Chapter 7 on The Myths We Make, and Conclusion: Hope Without Guarantees—where all my soon-to-be infamous predictions are found [watch out Mexico!]). Then I scan the front sections of USA Today, NYT, Wash Post, and Wall Street Journal. Steve tells me to be prepared on current events, and have answers ready that link back to the book. He also has lots of good advice on how to stay focused on our task: promoting the book and selling me as a reasonable/exciting person to interview.
Our first stop is national news radio studio. While a national name is broadcasting in one booth (I spot him through the glass), I am given a small booth with a big mike and have to listen to my interviewer through a telephone. This guy has got a very high idle, I notice when we meet beforehand, so I can tell the pace of the interview will be blistering. Fortunately for both of us, that is my preferred speed of delivery as well.
It is odd to just jump into an interview on radio like that. It’s being taped to run in late April (although a clip will make the network’s news round-up this weekend, I am told), and yet it was all done as though live, so I had to play it straight up. Good questions, smart interruptions, and good pushes to harder points from my host, so the interview was both fun and very productive in terms of promoting the book. It is over in a flash, even at 8 minutes. It’s hard to hold every muscle group tight across your body that long.
I speak with the radio anchor for about 15 after that F2F. He is very knowledgeable about international affairs and the DC political scene, so we bounce around at high speed. I feel like I leave a good impression and Steve seems delighted. He knew this guy and I would get along. So we are in and out in about 30 minutes.
Then we drive off to the DC studios of a major network. All the pictures of top stars are in the lobby. Up to spend about 30-to-40 minutes with producers of a Sunday news show and a late-night news show. Four other staffers sit in on it. It’s an interview really, like for a job, so they lob reasonably big questions at me and let me riff on for 5-to-6 minutes at a crack, writing down my best lines. It’s something to feel yourself so sized up like that, six pairs of eyes all staring at you, and I haven’t felt that since I looked for my first job in DC years ago, but overall a very nice experience. Again, Steve is pleased.
Then a quick drop-by at Washington bureau of a national newspaper for a chat with two defense reporters, one of whom I know well and describe in my book. Exchange the usual Pentagon sort of gossip, talk current events a bit, and then I take some of their questions, feeding material back from the book. They, like everyone else we meet today, get a hard-cover publication edition of the book.
After that, we retreat to a café and camp out, while Steve makes loads of phone calls trying to arrange more drop-bys and scouting out possible articles by me in various publications, etc. I feel somewhat exhausted by the pace and the requirement to do so much talking. The trees are already in bloom here, so I’m feeling the allergies, but it seems like a very productive day, and it’s generally a lot of fun.
Back in the hotel room now at dinner time, but we’re holding off. Steve and I need to get into our tuxes and head down to meet our driver and the car at 6:30. Then it’s off to the Radio and Broadcast Correspondents dinner bash, which is a big DC event. This is the one where Bush created some controversy by joking about “Where is that WMD” while humorous photos were flashed showing him seemingly searching around the Oval Office and the like. While all that was interesting, our main focus was moving around the parties to interact with people.
As a professional visionary (I actually prefer the phrase stand-up philosopher), I am used to traveling alone and working largely alone, so even this tiny two-person entourage seems strange and new. It sometimes scares me to think what significant machinery I have surrounded myself with in this book quest, but it’s too late to back out now. I’ve let the wave pick me up and I’m heading to shore whether I like it or not.
