The Power Broker: A Special Sneak Peek

If you're a history buff or a fan of good podcasts, you should

check out 99% invisible.

I'm excited about it because they invited me to take part in a little mini series

they're doing about the power broker.

Of course, the famous book by Robert Caro that depicts the life of Robert Moses.

Anyway, I had an amazing conversation with them.

I really enjoyed talking to the hosts and this whole series,

they talked to Robert Caro.

They're going to be talking to a lot of other guests.

So check it out.

You should go to the 99% invisible feed.

They cover, I think, a hundred pages of the book in every episode.

You can read along.

It's a nerd fest all around, and I think you'll enjoy it.

In fact, here's a clip.

I have so much admiration for his process and I'm always trying to feel this, get

this sense of what, what is it about this guy that I like, I want to try and

emulate and obviously there's so in so many ways I can't emulate him.

But what I, but what I can emulate is it's important.

The importance of your work, taking your work seriously, even if it's very silly

work, taking it seriously and, and respecting the people who might see it or

appreciate it enough to try and put a little detail into it or a little thought or

feel how this is going to come across.

It's funny because when I finally did get to meet him and talk to him, there's a real

sweetness about him.

It's his enthusiasm.

Yeah.

Uh, so many of us are pleased with so much less, but he's a little like Ahab.

He has that same kind of, nope, I'm going to keep going and I'm going to keep going

and I'm going to keep going until I literally cannot stop.

And you see him in his books.

I mean, the, the story about, I still don't have it.

I still don't have the full sense of Lyndon Johnson's relationship with his dad as a

young man.

So, you know, he's talked to Lyndon Johnson's brother, Sam Houston, many times.

And he's Sam Houston's told all these stories and he's got it all.

And he's like, Nope, I gotta go back.

I gotta go back.

I gotta go back.

And then finally he gets this, this brother to say, you know, uh, yeah, those are all

stories I told.

Wasn't really what happened.

And then he gets him to go back into that room where they used to sit and have dinner.

And he pushes him and pushes him and pushes him and finally gets the brother to relive

that moment between Lyndon Johnson and his father.

And suddenly it's not this folksy, bullshit, tall Texas tale.

It's real.

And any of us, even if we consider ourselves perfectionists or people who care about our

work, we would have signed off long ago.

Absolutely.

Would have said like, you know, we've got a pretty good book here.

I mean, this is a pretty good book.

I think we're good.

And I really do want to go to Aruba and make that because I bought the tickets.

So I think I can submit this and no, he needs to keep going back and keep going back and

keep going back.

And I keep thinking about that old television classic, Columbo, you know, Peter Fawkes

Columbo just kept coming back.

You know, he's, he's talked to the bad guy 35 times and then it's like, just one more

thing.

There's just this one thing I want to ask you.

It's kind of confusing me.

And I think of that as Robert Caro's got a trench coat and he's already talked to, you

know, Governor Connolly 75 times or he's already talked to Sam Houston or he's already, you

know, he's already talked to the Texas oil guy 500 times.

And then the guy's getting dressed for the day and he wants to go out and he's got a

tennis match he's supposed to play and he opens the door and there's Robert Caro in a

trench coat. You know, this is one thing that kind of bothers me just a little bit.

Well, what is it, Caro?

You know, I'm just curious, you said, but, you know, I looked into it and they didn't

have a Buick's dealership in Fort Worth at the time.

OK, OK, it wasn't a Buick dealership.

It was a Pontiac, you know, and then he's got his chapter.

But there will not be another like him.

And he's on the planet right now.

I think about that sometimes.

Well, I'm going around doing whatever dumb podcasting or or whatever thing I'm doing.

I'm like, Robert Caro is sitting in his office right now.

Wow. While I'm doing this, working so hard, doing something so amazing.

There's a story in The Power Broker where Robert Moses's mom reads a newspaper article

that says he's been fined for breaking the law.

And she says, oh, he's never made a dollar in his life.

And now we're going to have to pay for this, too.

And his editor is like, well, how do you know she said that?

And he's like, oh, well, I talked to the guy who delivered the newspaper to her

at the camp she was staying at, the summer camp she was staying at.

Well, how did you talk to him?

Well, I talked to everybody I could find to work at that summer camp.

And as if that was just, well, why wouldn't you?

Why wouldn't you talk to every single person who ever worked at the place

where Moses's parents used to spend their summers?

Like, it's astounding. It's astounding.

we should all get together and try and convince him to do this.

But there should be a Robert Caro cam in his office

and it's set up in the corner of his office.

And it won't bother him because, you know, he's

but basically for people like us, we can

at any time that he's in his office from whenever from eight o'clock

in the morning till six o'clock at night, any of us at any time

can see him sitting there looking at his Smith Corona

or maybe typing and and then looking through some papers.

And then, well, it's time for him to walk up through Central Park South

back to his apartment.

I pay monthly for it.

My children have to yell at me to get off of it, as it is.

My kids are always annoyed that I'm talking about the power broker anyway

and carrying around with me like it's like a like a totem.

But what that's such a fantastic idea.

And we can point the camera so that you can't see his bulletin board

with his notes on it because he's very private about those.

Doesn't want to see those.

We would angle it. He would sign off.

Believe me, this is a man that would sign off on the shot.

Yeah. And then there'd just be a couple of thousand nerds

all across the world who'd be watching.

Of course, in other parts of the world, you'd have to get up

at three in the morning.

We like the world to

to watch an older gentleman think while looking at a typewriter.

what time he ate a sandwich at his desk. Right.