Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
US Ambassador to the UK who pioneered small-donor fundraising for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
On the island
Eight records
And in the summertimes, my wife and children go back to the United States in Kentucky, and I am here alone. I mean, it's sort of fun for like a day, and then it gets quite lonely. And so I listen to this song a lot. It's about remembering.
So I won tickets at age 11 to go see Aerosmith. And my parents had just gotten divorced, which was sort of disruptive, uh to say the least. So I invited my friend Craig to come along, and my dad uh volunteered to take us to the concert. So that reminds me of being eleven.
This is Galaxy 500 covering the great Joy Division New Order song Ceremony. And I played this song over and over and over again. I left halfway through university and went to South Africa, took time away, which I know made a big difference.
I wanted to pick a song that reminded me of my time working for President Obama, especially on his two campaigns. But because President Obama was here in London in April, and he arrived the day that Prince died, and I had a chance to play Prince's 1999 album with the President at our place in London, I felt that retroactively I would declare that a campaign song.
This is Johnny Cash covering a song called I See a Darkness written by Will Oldham, who is an amazing musician from Louisville, Kentucky.
I'm picking it because my life partner, my wife Brooke, I met on a blind date in San Francisco... I made her a mixtape. And the name of my first mixtape for my now wife was The State I Am In. And I thought this was kind of a cute way of saying the state I am in is in love with you.
Every Grain of SandFavourite
Every Understand actually survived because it's a Bob Dylan song covered by Emmy Lou Harris. And this is a song that my wife and I listened to when we drove for what we thought would be a holiday right before she gave birth to twins, except the twins came early at 28 weeks while we were on vacation.
So this is what I am playing the most right now. It's a really cool story about this wonderful musician and producer, T-Bone Burnett, working with Bob Dylan, found old songs that Bob Dylan had written at that time, but the music had never been written. And this is one that Marcus Mumford did. And there's a great line in it that I think will be very important as I miss my wife on this desert island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:05You've been visiting hundreds of British school children – what have you been talking to them about?
I guess I've been to 142 six-form colleges all around the UK. But I basically just give them a blank A5 card and a pencil and ask them to draw me a picture or write a word of something that frustrates or concerns or confuses them about the United States and what we're up to. So they do that. And the biggest single word is guns.
Presenter asks
3:42When you heard about the Orlando shooting, did you also feel very far from home?
I did, in the immediate aftermath of that tragedy, I did feel far away. And then I felt the opposite of far away because I went sort of at the last moment to the Admiral Duncan in Soho, and I didn't know what to expect, but we had, there were 20,000 people just overflowing with love and solidarity for the tragedy that we had been through as a country.
Presenter asks
7:24Is the special relationship still special after the Brexit vote?
It sure is still special. And I think we are best friends, as it were, as countries. And I think we did what best friends do. So before the referendum, when we were asked, President Obama said it probably most forcefully. Of course, it's up to you. But if you ask us as friends, we will tell you what we think, which was we valued a strong UK in a strong EU.
The keepsakes
The book
Jacques Barzun
It traces Western civilization from 1500 to the present.
Presenter asks
9:38As ambassador, do you sometimes have your head in your hands when President Obama 'shoots from the lip'?
Well, shoot from the lip makes it sound like he's just saying the first thing that crosses his mind. And President Obama is very thoughtful about what he says. This is what friends should do to each other, is to be honest.
Presenter asks
16:36What did you learn in business that you were able to translate to politics and fundraising?
I had this wonderful experience. I got hired out of university to be the fourth employee at this company called CNET... we did things like we asked people who actually bought the laptop what they thought of it. Not letters to the editor, which is how a magazine did it. We're like, well, you own the thing. Did the battery last from San Francisco to Boston when you flew? I mean, now user reviews are ubiquitous... But those early learnings of opening up and asking others was really powerful, especially if you have no other choice.
Presenter asks
17:49What did you think of Barack Obama when you heard his 2004 convention speech?
My distinct memory of that speech, I was there with my wife, Brooke, wasn't thinking at all. It was feeling. I mean, there were tears streaming down my cheeks and hers and everyone we could see in that hall that day. So it's really a feeling more than a thought.
“I didn't experience racism at home … it was when I left that it came into focus.”
“Until a group of people mobilizes and makes this issue number one, two, and three for them, and they mobilize against it, we will remain stuck.”
“Building bridges is actually hard. Building walls is actually kind of easy. And President Obama is a very good bridge builder. And it requires you to know yourself, to see the other shore, and then do that third thing, which is to see yourself in the other, empathy, maybe, and then build a bridge.”
“Be predisposed to see the power in other people. That's how he reflected on his success, and he was encouraging all these young British future leaders to do the same. And I love that because it's humble and it's hard and it accounts for lots of why he's been successful.”
“And I imagine on the island I will want to turn and imagine my wife, my kids there with me and they won't be and it really will be lonely.”