Thursday, June 22, 2017

Media Babe #2

A year ago, my colleague Jeff and I were interviewed for Capital Public Radio's "Insight," a program about local "stuff."  The host, Beth Ruyak, was interviewing us about the 2016 season of Music Circus.  

It was a fun segment and she said she enjoyed it and would like to have us back again sometime.  Today was that day and we were there to talk about the 2017 season of Music Circus, so it was handy that we had just seen Beauty and the Beast, the season opener, the night before.

As before, we were ushered into the green room, where I was given an enormous cup of coffee and they brought in gluten-free peanut butter brownies (way too sweet) and granola bars and told us to just ask if we wanted anything else.

There was another interviewee there, a writer named Raheem F. Hosseini, there to talk about his late mother's decision, after years of fighting and suffering to choose to end her life, shortly after assisted suicide became legal in California...and the difficulties they had finding someone who would help her, even though it was legal.  He was a very nice, positive, upbeat guy, and his interview was prompted by a wonderful article he wrote for Sacramento News and Review.

The walls of the green room (which was really grey) were lined with posters, many of them autographed, by people whom Beth had interviewed over the years.


I was amused to see the collection of toys on the coffee table, things for people to do with themselves while waiting for their segments.


(Last year I signed that guest book with "omigod you guys" because we were about to see Legally Blonde.  I didn't sign it this year because I couldn't think of anything clever.  It wasn't until I got home that I realized I should have written "Thank you for letting us be your guest."  Owell)

The show is an hour long and each segment is scheduled for 15 minutes. The first interview was a telephone interview with a guy in Washington, DC taking about the latest congressional elections and then comparisons between Senator Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris; then Raheem; then us; and finally a jazz band from Sacramento State College.

While Raheem was in the interview room, the band came in and the young men spent a lot of time playing with each of the toys on the coffee table, concentrating on trying to work the puzzle that was that little box next to the guest book.  I don't think they ever figured it out.

Our segment seemed to end almost as soon as it began.  Beth played two recordings that Jeff had made for his own radio show later this week.  Then I talked about how comfortable the theater is and how blessed we are to have air conditioning.  Jeff went through the remaining shows in the season.  We both talked about the new projection system that Music Circus has just installed.  Beth asked how I felt about young children seeing the show, and would it be too scary for them.  I thought that 4+ year olds (under 4 can't come) would be fine; Jeff disagreed and cautioned to know your child before bringing them.

And then it was over.  Beth said that she'd have us back to talk about fall "movies" (she misspoke) and by the time we got to the car, Walt had texted "fall MOVIES" ?  Beth took a picture of Jeff and me, and I took a picture of her.  Her schedule was too crammed today to do the picture of the 3 of us we did last year.

It was painless, I don't feel I did as good a job as I did last year, but I enjoyed the experience and whether she has us back this fall or not until next summer, I'd love to do it again.
I'll keep at it until I get it right!  (Though I just listened to the recording and it didn't sound all that bad)

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