interview yay

I listened to the whole interview this morning. It sounds really good. Lots of material -- about 75 minutes! -- and a good mix of light, funny stories with more serious material. I was a little concerned that a show about the war would be depressing but I think the tone will be just right. And it was really nice to talk on the anniversary of V-E day.

I'm glad we did so much planning in advance. First, my dad wrote up his stories in a script and sent it to me. Then I wrote lead-ins and follow-up questions for each segment. Then we talked a week ago about some minor changes: adding a couple of things and moving one paragraph to another place. Last night on the call, we had some good extemporaneous conversations from the follow-up questions, and we still had the script to keep us from wandering too far afield. My dad was really good at not sounding like he was reading. At times I think he sounded more spontaneous than I did! And I'm supposed to be the radio person and all.

I want to start work on editing right! now! but I can't. I have the Irving Berlin tribute show on Sunday and I'm so deeply unprepared. I have a Berlin biography that I've only read a little bit of. I meant to read it during the slow times at the primary. That worked out so well! I guess I'll have to find shorter biographies online and then flip through the book the follow up on anything I want to know more about. Good thing Berlin wrote so many, many songs that I won't have to do much hunting to find two hours worth. On the contrary, it will be hard to narrow it down to two hours.

And then I have another radio related thing to do tomorrow: a coworker is introducing me to her father-in-law who was in the Navy during WWII, and might be willing to be interviewed on the air for Veteran's Day. I'm going to meet him tomorrow night and find out what he wants to talk about. I want to ask him if they were able to listen to music on the ship, and if he ever went to the Hollywood Canteen, which was founded by Bette Davis and which they made a movie about. The show won't be until November, but the father-in-law will be in town this weekend so we're meeting tomorrow.

I am seriously in awe of people who do weekly talk/interview shows. How do they do it?