RUSH: Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mike, hello, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. How are you today?
RUSH: Thank you very much. Very well, sir.
CALLER: I got a little bit of a problem hearing you when you’re bouncing your hand on the desk.
RUSH: Yeah, I wanted to take your call here to provide a proper transition for discussing this, because I’ve been overloaded with e-mails today from people who say that when I pound the desk (pounding desk) that it is echoing all across the country and very thumping-like, it’s very distracting and so forth.
CALLER: Extremely.
RUSH: Yeah. And I don’t want to distract from me, my content, my brilliance but yet I gesticulate widely when I’m passionately explaining something and sometimes I do pound the table. (pounding desk) So we’re going to try to find a shock absorber to put on the microphone at some point to limit it somehow, because I’m going to do my best out there, Mike, to discipline myself not to pound the table.
CALLER: Well, I appreciate that, Rush.
RUSH: I knew you would. That’s why I took the call, and I wanted to address this personally with a listener who personifies the anger and rage that I am experiencing in my e-mail over this. My friends, this is a professional program. This is broadcast excellence. But I have to tell you, if you’ve ever been to a pancake breakfast, if you’ve ever gone into a polling place and the people sitting there — I’m sitting here at a folding table with a black tablecloth on it. It is not a built in desk. If it were a built in desk and I did that (pounding desk) you would not hear it. If it was granite you wouldn’t hear it, but I am working on a — what is this, plaster board? Particle board, it’s not even Formica. I didn’t even know this ’til I just — (interruption) kind of like the old days in radio? No, I must say this is a first. I’ve never worked on a particle board desk, but it’s things like this, Mike, it’s things like this that keep me grounded, take me back to my roots and understand that even under the most cheap conditions, I can thrive and prosper, because this is broadcast excellence. So Mike, thanks for the call and I’m going to do my best. Are we working on that shock absorber thing for this program or are we going to get it done for the next trip to LA? At the top of the hour. So theoretically I’ll be able to pound the desk for the last two hours of the program. I’ve gotta discipline myself and not do it now.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, we have now put the shock mounts on the microphone boom and we’re now ready to conduct the thump test. So let me move some papers so I have a direct hit on the particle board table serving as my studio desk. (pounding desk) Still hear it, right? It’s better? (pounding desk) How is that? I mean, if I really pound it. (pounding desk) Okay, now how about rest my arms on the table. Are you hearing that? Okay, good. Well, that’s a marked improvement. All right, so we’re making progress here.