Hey, everybody. I've got something a little embarrassing to admit.

When I began the Al Franken podcast four years ago, I very quickly adopted my opening hook.

We've got a great one today, you know, for a change.

I was almost always lying because for the first three and a half seasons, this podcast

was just uniformly dreadful.

And I knew I had to add for a change just to buy some credibility,

because people would think, well, not one of these has been good,

but maybe finally this time he's got something worth listening to.

And that carried me for almost three and a half seasons.

But, and I have to be honest with you here,

a number of the shows started to be good. But for a change still seemed fair. I said to myself, as long as I don't do two in a row

that are good, I can hold my head up and say, we got a good one today,

you know, for a change and still feel like I'm being honest with you. Then it happened.

I did two good shows in a row. Two weeks ago, I had Dahlia Lithwick on her fabulous new book,

Lady Justice, now a New York Times bestseller, thanks to me.

And then Sarah Silverman last week does an amazing show.

These shows weren't just good.

They were, well, great.

Both, both of them.

So now I'm thinking, well, at least the next one is going to be bad and for a

change we'll still achieve uh its purpose which is for you the listeners to think yes they're

usually not worth listening to but this one might be good for a change.

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