The Middle's tracks: Recent Episodes
The Middle
We're arrived at the end of The Middle. This is the eleventh episode, and it is the finale. It's longer than normal, and vulgar language is used (in mostly fun taste!), and I really hope you like it. It's called "Pressing 'Go'."
I don't think I can adequately explain how much this show, and your listenership, has meant to me in the last seven months. I didn't expect to have an audience for an amateur, drifting podcast, but - surprise! - you listened. I am so grateful. Thank you. I hope you got something out of listening. I hope you know that my way is only one way to go through life. You can do whatever you want. Seriously! Do whatever it is that makes you happy. Just remember to be thoughtful and kind along the way.
I think this show has a longer shelf life than just these seven months. It's just a feeling I get when I listen back to the interviews in these 11 episodes. So, if you know someone who is getting interested in podcasts, please share The Middle with them. I've been so happy to hear from strangers and also from people who I haven't talked to in a while. I'd like that to continue.
The iTunes link is here, as always, and you can find the show on a myriad of other platforms - Stitcher, Soundcloud, and Overcast (my personal favorite).
Lastly, I need to thank everyone who has leant their voice and their heart to this show - John Wernecke, Tanner Smith, Lindsay Ratowsky, Annelyse Giovannitti, Matt Archibald, Matt Barnes, Ryan Hohman, Mike Bonner, Robbii Guliano, Anne Li, Maria Maggio, and my family, whose support is the electricity in my brain wiring and the blood running through my veins.
Thank you for being such a wonderful audience. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Thank you.
Anne Li is a talented, budding journalist and a great friend. I've seen her earn opportunities because of her work, including a wonderful internship this fall with NPR in Washington D.C and I'm very proud to know her.
I've visited her at Northwestern University in Evanston, where she's a senior and is a part of the Knight Lab. We've talked a lot about journalism and its place in the world, but in this episode, we chat about her, a history nerd, going back to D.C., how finding purpose is different as an adult, what she wants from this new internship, and plenty more.
This is one episode I've wanted to produce since I started the show six months ago. Robbii Guliano and I are travel partners and wildly great friends, driving and flying around the country at a moment's notice, sleeping on couches. The picture above is from our annual trip to the Ashland, Ohio, July 4 wiffleball tournament, in which we've only ever won one game.
In this episode, he picks the music and we - from the roof of his downtown Cleveland apartment - talk about his trek through law school, how he avoids taking himself too seriously, and, later on after we'd gone inside, the value of travel to a fulfilling life. Just in the past two years, we've gone to San Diego and Los Angeles, New York twice, Chicago many times, Newport, Rhode Island, and we embarked on an epic college football trip - five games in four states in five days. We've learned a lot and met many people and made many new experiences and new friends.
Mike Bonner covers Mississippi State University sports for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in Starkville, Mississippi, which is far from Boston, Massachusetts, his hometown. He and I haven't seen each other in more than two years since we worked together for a few months in Iowa, but we talk constantly because this is 2015 and managing that is increasingly easy.
But when we were both somehow invited to the same wedding, we wasted no time catching up. In this episode, one of my absolute favorites of the season so far, Mike and I talk about making peace with the past, how technology can sustain relationships, and how he became a groomsman at the aforementioned wedding without ever having met the groom.
Matt works as a TV sports reporter in Columbus, Ohio, telling stories about Olympians and national champion football teams and Super Bowls and plenty of others. Recently, he told the story of Zach Farmer, a 21-year-old Ohio State baseball pitcher who was given a terminal cancer diagnosis. It's a tough story, but it shows Matt's professionalism and talent, which he's had since far before he and I met.
He's been featured in national commercial campaigns, he's been on billboards, he's won plenty of awards...so, as I normally do, I asked, "what's next?" He told me he doesn't look at "next" the same way I do. He's good now, content, comfortable, and I admire the hell out of that. It's something I haven't yet figured out.
We talk about expectations and how he stays level, and then we make some jokes and meander through lots of topics. It's a fun one.
This is something different.
A few notes: There are some curse words in this episode. Enjoy them. Or don't. Your call.
Also, you might want to plug in some headphones for the best listening experience.
Thanks to Matt Barnes, Ryan Hohman, and the vulgar, hilarious Maria Maggio for lending their voices to the show this time.
Matt and I are part of a group that shares common characteristics. Those traits - we're always laughing, little things don't bother us, etc. - are what make us friends. No one embodies the "Fun Guy Spirit" more than Arch. He works as a video producer (while wearing many other hats) for the University of Oklahoma's athletic department, and when the Sooners came to Columbus for March Madness, we chatted in the stands before he went down to the sidelines.
He talked about what it's like to have an audience for his work and how he's finding work/life balance. It's a great conversation, so I got out of the way and let it breathe.
We all know people who just get us. No matter what's going on, you understand what's going on in the other person's brain, and what that person is feeling, and how they really are. For me, Annelyse Giovannitti is one of those people. We've been friends since seventh grade, and little has stood in our way since.
In the third full episode of the show, Annelyse gets me a little wine-tipsy, talks about a few years teaching at a primarily black school in Jacksonville, and then her and I swap stories about our grandparents. Finally, can men and women have meaningful friendships?