I’ll never forget the first time I heard of blogging. Mike Cernovich called. I think he was a law student at Pepperdine at the time. Did I want to join him on a blog site he had created called Crime and Federalism? The year was 2005.
“What’s a blog?” I asked.
Soon enough, I was hooked. The habit of writing was long-ingrained in me. I wrote editorials for five years for daily newspapers before law school, and I had, once graduating law school, written a weekly column for legal newspapers for years. I signed on immediately.
It was fun for a while. Legal blogging, or blawging, was new then. There weren’t many people doing it. And Mike was, and remains, wicked smart. All I had to do was follow his instructions. We blogged together for a couple of years. Then the marketplace exploded, and folks boasted of their metrics, followers, etc. It was a little off-putting. A pastime not quite rising to the level of an avocation became an obsession for some folks.
It ran me off the reservation.
That and the fact that my ego outran my talent and I started a blog of my own. I still write for it from time to time, sometimes going long periods without a post at all. I cranked out a few books, too, trying to show that I was bad, and that I knew how to write.
My vocation remained, and remains, the practice of law. After decades of practice and years of writing, there is a weary sense that there is nothing new under the Sun. I used to tell folks I’d grown weary of the sound of my own voice.
But then someone told me about podcasting. I tried to do it a few times, but speaking is a lot more work than writing. I put it aside. I spend most of my waking hours in court or grappling with folks about one controversy or another. I'm old dog; new tricks are for pups.
Or I spent most of my time doing that.
Then came the pandemic. It took the better part of a year to catch up on all the briefing and odds and ends that had stacked up. With courts closed, I was old dog pacing his cage; I had time to learn a few new tricks.
So I’ve started a podcast. It’s called “Law and Legitimacy.” I’ve done three episodes so far, brief pieces of 22 to 25 minutes each. For reasons I do not understand, that seems to me the time I use without planning. I pick a topic, and roll. The broadcasts to date are raw, rough and unedited. I’ve got a lot to learn. I am hoping to learn how to link a phone caller in for interviews. My podcasting hero? Lex Fridman at MIT, an artificial intelligence researcher.
A new friend directed me to purchase the right equipment, a Roacaster Pro mixer and a hefty microphone; I'm on the market for video production stuff.
I’ve got the audio equipment connected to one another, and with my Mac. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to edit the material I produce. So I have been using Garageband on Mac. I’ve someone ready to sponsor and assist, and I soon suspect the quality of production will improve.
So check it out. Here is a link to the site on Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/show/0AhtIg7SHElT6VqWudWTrJ
How long will I podcast? It seems like there is plenty to talk about. And there is no drug like the learning curve. I still recall what a revelation it was to learn about blogging from Cernovich. Of course, he’s a star of social media now. I hope I can get him to give me a listen.
I hope I can get you to stop by and listen.