Welcome to Liner Notes.

Recording audio has been a huge part of my life since I was a little kid. One of my first memories is of running around with a tape recorder taping everything I could find: The radio, my parents, my friends. Usually it was telling jokes or being silly.

My cousin came to visit my family in Southern California in the early 80s, and he first ignited the interest in what you could do with a tape recorder. After tiring of all the matchbox cars and other he toys, he found my dad’s office tape recorder. A black Sanyo device that looked like a black brick. He created a character named “Larry Larry,” probably inspired by someone like Larry King, and proceeded to create on the spot, a call-in talk show, doing all the voices while I could barely get a word in. To this day, I listen back to that tape. Not only because it has voices of my mom, my dad, my uncle and aunt who have all passed, but because it was such a formative part of my life. Something about that experience set off an interest in recording sounds, and I used to burn through cassette after cassette recording things.

When I faced a mid-career crisis, thinking about what I really wanted to do next. I thought back to all the things I did as a kid, and this was the first thing that really resonated with my soul. I had started a podcast at a previous job without pitching it to my boss. I started recording interviews with book authors who were sending me advance review copies of their work.

While the podcast really didn’t have enough promotion to get going, and my office co-workers didn’t exactly get the whole thing. I recalled that experience as something that I wanted to do, even if it wasn’t something that made money.

So podcasting more than anything was a calling than it was an assignment. Archiving my conversations with people also helped me recall interesting things that they said. Life lessons, wisdom, advice that would have passed my busy brain away had I not listened carefully as I did when cutting tape later.