My dogs are barking
Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 22 December 2004
No pretense at processing news today, and this is a precursor of the Black Hole to come. Much to be done in my spare hours between now and 2 January, when I start writing the sequel. My reach will grow smaller, my comments shorter, and my posts more cryptic.
And then I'll enter the Black Hole of non-stop writing, giving only impressions of passing news and a daily diary of what it's like to write the book.
No pretense at news today because I've experienced the weird joy that is answering several hundred emails in an XX hour period (thank God a quarter of them come to my college email so I can justify answering them at work--then again, I've got a lot of government readers, so that only seems both polite and legitimate).
Right now I just hurt, and I don't want to go on TV for quite some time.
So it was probably a bad idea to accept an invitation to go on "Fox & Friends" next Tuesday morning. I hate the drive all the way to Watertown MA to the satellite studio there, but Fox said they'd send a car for the round trip, so I said yes, even though I don't love remotes per se. I'll be on during either the 7am or 8am hour.
Went on a radio talk program today in Tampa, speaking from my office, at 8am for one hour. Host was Henry Raines on WDCF 1350 AM and WWPR 1490 AM. Show started nice but then got a bit testy with the callers. One guy said he hoped the next terrorist attack involved my home and family, which was nice since I opened the show with a very sweet question from Mr. Raines' spouse about our adoption of Vonne Mei. The show ended with another caller refering to the dangers of the Core's "mongrelization" if too many Gap people came here. Hmm, as the father of a mongrel family, I didn't care for that one either.
Raines was fine throughout, and both he and his in-studio compadre apologized on air for the comments from callers, which didn't bug me so much as I felt it marred the quality of the show, something Mr. Raines obviously values.
Suffice it to say, "globalization" tends to send many people into strong emotional territory.
Got this nice email from Mr. Raines following the taping:
Dr. Barnett,
Thank you for such a thought provoking edition of American AM this morning. I apologize for the over the top comments you suffered from the callers.
I must tell you on WDCF 1350 AM the show that followed us, another talk show, was fielding spillover calls about your appearance for the next hour. On WWPR 1490 AM the show that follows us, a music show, did not play a song for twenty minutes because the host and his callers were fired up over your interview.
I hope you will consider a return appearance in the future. Now that the audience is becoming familiar with your work we could open the discussion to how it plays out in real events that they see in the news. Is there any chance of this after the holidays in a few weeks? Maybe you could discuss the role of a publicly held asset like the Green Bay Packers in an increasingly privatized and globalized world.
May you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year,
Henry Raines
Hah! You see the man trying to make peace with the Packer reference. Very slick. He's done his homework.
We'll see if he wants me back after the Black Hole passes and I emerge, blinking in the harsh sunlight that is whatever follows this expectedly life-altering experience (Why so? Why bother writing a book if not so?).
My dogs are barking, callers are incensed, emails are answered, night has fallen, and my best memory of this day is seeing my angelic four-year-old Jerome play "the boy" in his pre-school's holiday-show rendition of "The Polar Express."
And both Amazon (43) and B&N (53) have me in double digits.
Who could ask for anything more?