This was it. This was the week were the big day finally arrived, and it did not disappoint. Let's get straight to it.
On Saturday, July 9th, I drove to St. Petersburg, Florida, to host a podcast interview with Dr. Mormino. This was a culmination moment, not just for the internship obviously, but for me personally, as ever since I committed to the history career path, I have always dreamed of doing historical podcasts, and to finally have my first one under my belt, especially with the historian I was able to meet and interview, feels rewarding and motivating and I will never forget the experience. Before making my almost 2 hour and a half drive to St. Petersburg, I woke up early and got all my materials ready to go. This included my computer, two podcast microphones, a backup microphone (courtesy of the UCF History Department), a tripod to record a bit of the pod with visual (and also serving as a "worst case" backup to the backup), all his books (for reference, but mainly for him to autograph), and my typed notes that I took as I read his books. In these typed notes, I also included questions I wanted to ask him, but I made a mental note to myself to not be so bound to these questions, and be more fluid, bouncing off from what he's saying to achieve that natural conversational tone.
I left my apartment earlier to accommodate anything delaying my drive over there, and thank goodness. I knew Interstate-4 was going to have some pockets of traffic throughout the drive because honestly when is there not traffic in that highway. However, what caught me off-guard, was that the 408 had traffic. Usually this highway runs smooth, but of course, the one day it doesn't had to be one of the most important days of my life. Apparently what happened (I found out later in the local news), there was a garbage truck that got on fire on the 408 that caused the heavy traffic disturbance. It closed 3 out of the 5 available lanes. I guessed when I passed by the truck the fire was put out and there were trying to remove it from the highway because I did not see any fire. Regardless, that entire situation delayed by time of arrival by almost 30 minutes, officially making me late, despite me leaving my apartment on time. I freaked out. Luckily, the day before I had sent Dr. Mormino a reminder email of our podcast interview, and in that email I included my phone number, just in case I had to call him the day of for whatever reason. I called him 2 times, but he didn't answer, causing me to freak out even more. In those two times I called (spaced out about 30 minutes apart), I left him voicemails telling him the situation that happened and my delayed time of arrival, and apologizing for it. He returned my calls when I was nearing the halfway point of my drive (had about an hour left, this was like around 12:35 or so), and like he has been throughout this entire process, he was extremely kind and told me to not rush through the traffic, that he is not going anywhere. That gave me more peace of my mind, but I was still annoyed at the situation because I did not want to arrive late to my first ever podcast interview, even if was not my fault. The rest of the drive was fine, and I arrived to his residence at approximately 1:27 pm.
He greeted me outside as I walked towards the house, and we shook hands, apologizing about the delay again, and telling him I was excited and thankful for the interview. I setup all the equipment in his dinner table, and while I was doing that we talked about podcast and non-podcast related things. I practiced several times the days before setting up the equipment, but I felt like I was taking longer than usual because I was a bit of nervous. Here I was, in the home of one of the most acclaimed and illustrious historians in the state of Florida about to do my first ever podcast interview. Was I starstruck? Yes. Was I excited? Yes. Was I nervous? Extremely. So it makes sense why I was taking long setting up, I just wanted everything to go right. I was so nervous that I didn't even set up my phone camera properly on the tripod (it was suppose to me horizontal, ended up being vertical, as seen in this week's blog photo). He told me that when he did interviews back in the day, the setup was just a recorder and that's it, as he was astonish to see me have this entire setup. I joked back saying that I miss that simplicity at times. Before officially starting, I asked him two "audio check" questions, and when I played it back, it sounded beautiful and ready to go. At approximately 2:01 pm, I asked the first official question, "Can you explain the origins of Ybor City, and how intimate was that origin with the broader immigration experiences occurring in the 1880s and 1890s?", and by that point we were off and running.
If I go through every question, and subtopic we talked about throughout the interview, this blog would be just as long as the entire interview itself, which was approximately 1 hour and 51 minutes. A significantly long podcast interview, and I absolutely love it. Does that end up leaving more work on the postproduction side of things (more on that later)? Yes. Do I care? No. Like I said earlier in the blog, this was a culmination moment for me, and I was not going to cut it short because of my concerns of how long it can take in editing and picking out the best parts for the aired segment on Florida Frontiers. I wanted to let the man talk to me for as long as he wanted. I barely interrupted him, and naturally by talking about the history of Ybor City and that immigrant world, he answered most of my questions before I even asked him. Some questions that I wanted to really make sure I get a great soundbite from, I would tell him to expand on it a little bit more, especially when he had mentioned it earlier in a response to another question. Throughout the interview I made sure all the equipment was recording properly and that everything was running smoothly. I also crossed questions we had gone through. We spent about 1 hour and 20 minutes talking about The Immigrant World of Ybor City. The last 30 minutes or so we talked about more modern instances of immigration in Florida, by specifically talking about his two newer books Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams (2005) and Dreams in the New Century: Instant Cities, Shattered Hopes, and Florida's Turning Point (2022). That part of the interview was more fluid, as I did not have as many questions I had for the Ybor City book, thus I let the author himself talk about it and direct the conversation. I felt so lucky to be in that position of interviewing him, and I expressed this to him once we ended, of how grateful I am that he allowed me to interview him. As I mentioned earlier, this entire interview was highly rewarding for me, "a dream come true" moment for me, but also highly motivating, as I want to continue to experience what I felt that day for the entirety of my career. Just being next to the author and historian that I have been preparing all these weeks to meet and talk to felt so surreal, and I will never forget it. The interview was so enriching, the way he answered my questions and interwove it with other important themes and topics, felt like an artist at work. Scratch that. It was an artist at work, and I am highly appreciative of that. Once we ended, he told me I did great for it being my first time ever, told me I was a "natural", and my god was I so flattered. Like most things, I took some mental notes of how I can approve for next time, even though I got the best feedback possible. As I packed up, I kindly asked if he can sign my books, and he did, writing inspiring messages in each book. We continued to talk, as he walked me out back to my car, and he told me my "future is bright", as to which I response with the utmost gratitude and appreciation for this entire experience with him. I told him I hope to see him again in the near future, possibly for second interview with him, since he talks about a plethora of subjects in the vast history of Florida, especially in his more recent books, or just in general. It was approximately 4:05 when I left, and I called my whole family and my girlfriend on my way back to Orlando, to talk to them about a lifetime experience I will never forget.
I took Holly's recommendation of removing oneself from working on the interview the day of or even the day after, as she said, its best to let it marinate in your head for a while before editing. So Saturday evening (when I got back) through Sunday, I did not work on editing the interview. Unfortunately, this was a hectic week for the class I am currently taking, and as I expressed to Holly in long thread of emails we sent to each other throughout the week, I had to cancel my visit to the Florida Historical Society that was suppose to be on Thursday (yesterday). I canceled it because the purpose of that meeting was for me to have edited the entire interview, selecting the 3-4 potential soundbites for my segment in the episode, and to record my narration. I was not able to do that Monday or Tuesday, and by Wednesday I emailed her stating:
"My ultimate goal is still getting the episode segment aired before August 5th (the presentation date changed from the 1st to the 5th now, at 10 am), but not at the expense of degrading the quality of the post-production process. Will the FHS location be absolutely closed on Monday, 7/18? I know that's the week you guys are on break, but if I can have this weekend to work on the audio fully, that way on Monday it's just coming in with you to review the segments I selected, the script (with my narration written), and doing the narration, and amend anything else that you deemed necessary, would that still give you guys enough time to air it before the 5th?"
She responded by saying that Dr. Brotemarkle will be there on Monday, 7/18, and he can assist me in setting up the podcast booth they have there to do my narration and review the script and soundbites I would have selected. Since this could potentially happen during their off-week, I insisted that if its possible to achieve my "ultimate goal" by just coming in the following week, when everyone is back at the FHS, I can do that as well. Holly responded honestly, stating that, "If you come in the week after we are closed to do narration, it would be too late for your segment to air before August 5th." In this same email, she also emphasized that it is not a requirement to have my segment aired before my internship ends, however, I personally want to meet that goal. Therefore, the plan moving forward in this Act III, is to edit the audio of the interview this weekend, selecting the best soundbites possible from the interview (a mammoth of a task, since in my eyes they are all worthy), write my script and narration, send it to Holly and John (FHS editor), go to the FHS this Monday, do the narration, and be all set. My goal when editing is to focus on Ybor City as a "case study" of how vibrant the history of immigration in Florida is, as this entire world was built in the state and in an era where it seemed so unlikely, and transition the end of the segment to more of the modern history of immigration in Florida, and using my narration to piece the soundbites together, especially where there can be confusion. Ultimately, as I told him on Saturday, Dr. Mormino is the star of the show, and my narration serves to make a coherent and shorter version of the amazing long interview I had with him on Saturday. I truly cannot wait for this episode to be published because it is going to be incredible. Also, as Holly and I mentioned previously, the other segments that do not make the cut are not throw-away pieces, rather they can serve to make a whole other podcast episode within itself, which is the beauty of the long interviews. So hopefully that can come to fruition as well. We will see soon.
Before I say my farewell, I know I have said this to him in writing, in person, and more, but I want to etch it in this blog as well. I want to thank you, Dr. Mormino, for being so generous and welcoming to me throughout this entire experience. I appreciate you, and will always remember this experience and take it with me for the rest of my career and life. I will do my best to have even the slightest impact you have had in the history profession.
As always thank you for reading, and see you next week with most likely an almost finished product.
SG