It’s hard to explain how awkward it felt being on KS95 this afternoon. During the interviews for Beauty and the Geek, I’ve spoken in front of a group of people, I’ve done it with a video camera on, but talking to a couple DJs over the phone… it felt so unnatural.
At those other times, things would start off easy, the conversation would flow from one topic to the next, brief questions could branch off but generally not abandon what we’d been saying. Talking on the phone like that completely eliminated that, maybe because I was talking at them instead of with them. They’d ask me a question, I’d answer, they’d ask something else (that might or might not have been related), I’d say something, we’d jump back and forth, cutting each other off in the middle of sentences… it was all very strange. (Not surprisingly, they kept the reins really tight and the conversation really focused—if they didn’t have notes written down about what to ask me, I’d be really surprised.)
After a couple minutes of that, it was over: they made a plug for Beauty and the Geek, thanked me for being on the show, then hung up on me. Very abrupt, very sudden, very un-Minnesota nice. Still, I suppose they had a radio show to do and my part was done. At least I’m “the smartest man in Lakeville and possibly all of Dakota County.” Yeah, right… I just wish I’d had time to interject, “Stop it, I’m blushing.”
