My Evening with Tom Woods

by Ian Tartt

On September 30^th, 2017, I attended the recording of episode 1,000 of the Tom Woods Show. The event took place at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Florida. I’ll give a brief run-through of my experiences and talk about some of the amazing memories I made that night.

I got to the hotel around 5pm. Since I had a few hours to kill before the main event began, I walked around the hotel a bit and then talked to others who were also waiting for it to start. I got to see friends I hadn’t been around in a long time as well as meet some whom I’d previously only known online. Eventually, the appointed time arrived and we filed into the ballroom for a night of fun.

The podcast started off with a video of Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, Peter Schiff, and other prominent libertarians congratulating Tom on reaching 1,000 episodes. Eric July, the emcee for the evening, then came out and told us some of the things that’d be happening that night. He introduced Tom, who entered the stage to a thunderous standing ovation. Tom talked for a few minutes about how he got started in podcasting by sitting in for Peter Schiff’s radio show on occasion, some of the experiences he’s had in the liberty movement, and a couple other things that led up to this point. Thomas DiLorenzo then came out and talked for a bit; he was followed by Michael Malice.

From there, Tom and Michael talked a little about their past debate over Alexander Hamilton and whether or not political action is useful for advancing liberty. Michael also talked about the North Korean military uniform he was wearing that had actually been smuggled out of the country and given to him by someone from China. That led to some brief discussion on how bad things are over there and, despite the fact that things could be much better in the US, Americans still have it pretty good compared to many people in other countries. They then had an audience Q&A session followed by a short break to rest and reset for the rest of the show.

After the break, Michael Boldin (the first guest on the inaugural episode of Tom’s podcast) moderated a dad joke contest between Tom and Eric. This was followed by a game of “box of lies” and then a roast of Tom. Comedian Dave Smith, Michael Boldin, and Thomas DiLorenzo each got up and took their best shots at the man of the hour. As a fun surprise, four of Tom’s daughters went onto the stage and roasted their dad for a few minutes. Once they were finished, Tom got up and returned fire by roasting his guests.

Tom and his guests hung out for a while after the event. I got to meet Dave, Thomas, Eric, and Tom (I also got pictures with the latter two), and Tom signed my copy of his book “Meltdown”. While he did, I told him that I think he’s the Harry Browne of his generation and that he and Harry are the greatest libertarian communicators; he seemed genuinely touched by those compliments. Once I had finished everything I wanted to do there, I grabbed my stuff, walked to the parking garage, and headed home from an amazing and unforgettable night.