It turns out that I love radio. This is a bit of a surprise to me. I haven't really listened to the radio since I left St. Louis. For me, radio was always something that you listened to in the car, and once I moved to the East Coast, I stopped driving and stopped listening to the radio except for 1010 WINS, whose jingle warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart. (And, by the way, inspired one of the greatest NYC-centric pick-up lines I've ever heard: "Give me twenty-two minutes, and I'll give you the world.")
Exactly how unfamiliar am I with radio? This unfamiliar: on Tuesday, when I went to KWMU, the St. Louis NPR affiliate, I walked through a hallway that was filled with photos of NPR's most famous radio hosts. And it was the first time that I realized that Terry Gross was a woman. I actually did a double-take.
So, being new to the whole public-radio scene, I was more than a little nervous about the prospect of doing an hour-long interview for KWMU. But I ended up having a wonderful time, chatting about language, complaining about my ruthless rejection from the CIA, and talking to listeners who called in to tell stories or ask questions. I even learned a few things - who knew that there were spelling bees in Belgium?
In any case, the complete interview is available here, on KWMU's website. Many of the callers have some great anecdotes, and one in particular (about a mistranslation involving the Pope) is truly unmissable. Also: I sing. Briefly. Consider yourselves forewarned.
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radio days
fear factor
So: my book is now available for purchase. Today was originally the official on-pub date, but as of last week it started showing up in a few stores, and Amazon is now shipping copies (to everyone but my mother, it seems). Which means that for the next few weeks, I will cease to be a writer and instead become something absolutely terrifying: a talker.
I'm under no illusions. I am absurdly, insanely lucky. I have, pretty much, my dream job. (Well, the writing part is, anyway. The freelance editing I do to keep me in text messages and crappy health insurance is rather less than dreamy.) But one of the things I love best about writing is that I get to do it in my apartment, by myself, in silence. Or near-silence, depending on how frustrated I am with a given passage.
In print, I am open and outgoing - probably too outgoing, actually. In person, though, I am painfully shy. I can hide it sometimes. Or I can dampen it with the magic of sweet, sweet alcohol. But I can never completely get rid of it. And there's not much that scares me more than having to stand in front of a crowd of people and entertain them. (In one of my masochistic periods, I contemplated trying my hand at stand-up comedy as a way to cure myself. Then I realized that any comedy set I would do would basically be a combination of Andrew Dice Clay, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jay Leno - that is: profane, obvious, and unfunny.)
But today I have to just get the fuck over myself. Because I have my first radio interview in like a half an hour, and although I gazed longingly at the Negro Modello in the fridge when I woke up, it's a little too early for liquid courage. Then, later this afternoon, I have my first newspaper phone interview. The real crunch starts next week, when I leave for St. Louis to do a bunch of local publicity. I'll be doing readings, more interviews, and even an event at my old high school.
However, as much as I dread the prospect of putting myself on display, this is one thing I am not worried about: being entertaining. Because these early interviews and readings are going to be rocky, rocky things. You know all that dead air during the TBS baseball broadcasts? Yeah, like that. Except instead of being able to watch a ball fly out, you'll be able to hear me quietly wanting to die. And if reality TV has taught me anything, it's that there's little else that's more entertaining than watching somebody squirm.
So if you're in St. Louis, Boston, or New York for one of my upcoming readings, all I can say is stop on by. It's sure to be a treat.
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