Radio, Radio

Hello everyone! I am happy to report that your humble blogstress is writing this on the very first evening of her vacation - yea!!!

My plan is to do some serious writing next week while I am off; we shall see how that goes. :c)

In the meantime, though, I thought I would do a catch-up post about my recent radio miss-adventure, since it was, you know, nearly two weeks ago at this point. It even resulted in some good news - and totally unexpected good news at that!

But before I do, and at the risk of ruining the suspense of whether I did, in fact, single-handedly bring down an entire radio station… I want to mention that I will be on the air again with Mike on the Mic, this time from 9:00-11:00 AM Eastern here in the States. You can listen online at www.wmfo.org; I will also post a link to the archived version (as a comment to this post) once it’s available.

With that bit of business out of the way, I invite you to follow along below the fold! :D



The show itself was a LOT of fun, just as I knew it would be. All I had to do was sit there and try not to break too many things in the studio; Mike did all of the hard stuff, such as running the board, cueing up the songs, reading PSAs, and so on.

He graciously allowed me to pick all of the songs we played during the two-hour show. As I think I mentioned in my last post, he was filling in for the show that follows his usual 9:00-11:00 AM Saturday morning shift. The show is called Something About The Women, so, needless to say, I focused on female performers.

WMFO is free-form; that is, it has no playlist, so DJs have total freedom to play whatever they want. That made it a lot of fun to pick what we played. We would play 3-5 songs, then run it down for the listeners.

Mike would ask me to share whatever I might happen to know about a particular artist or song, and because; he is such a pro, it was exactly like the conversations we have off the air. Putting people at ease on the air is no small feat, and is a tribute to how good Mike is. (Please don't tell him I said so, of course.)

There were a few funny moments along the way, needless to say.

The station is a professional studio, with a state-of-the-art board and top-of-the-line speakers, mics, and headphones. It was the latter that led to the first moment of levity.

After playing the final song of his previous show and taking care of the mandatory station ID (radio stations in the United States are required by law to identify themselves at the top of every hour), Mike introduced his co-hosts: his friend Alison, who had sat in on his first two hours and provided the previous hour's stellar playlist), and yours truly.

He suggested I mention how the two of us met, both for the audience at home and for Alison, who had just asked seconds before we went back on the air. So I did.

Well. :c)

I've been full-time for over nine months now. Up until now, however, I had NOT yet experienced the sound of my own voice. There is a slight delay while wearing the headphones, so I was able to hear myself through the phones as I spoke.

It was surreal, to put it mildly. I haven't taken any formal lessons to change my voice. I do some exercises, but mostly I just don't think about it, for better or worse.

My verdict? I sounded like a girl. Amazingly so, quite honestly. Who woulda thunk it, as the song goes?

Mike must have thunk it, actually, because he was grinning as we took off our headphones as the first song played.

"So.... first time hearing yourself, huh?” he asked.

"Yes," I said, shaking my head. "Was it that obvious?"

He and Alison laughed.

“The look on your face was priceless. So… *now* do you believe what we’ve all been telling you about your voice?”

I do. :D

***

The second story I thought I would share also involves the headphones and illustrates the unseen hazards of long hair, which I seem to be learning (painfully) on a regular basis. (For instance: when you inadvertently chew on your own hair while eating? That hurts, as it turns out.)

That day’s lesson involved the significant challenge of both putting on and taking off my headphones. As it turns out, I have a heretofore unknown talent for tangling my hair in the headphone cord, as well as catching it between the earpiece and the headset.

I joked that a successful shift would entail me not strangling or decapitating myself before it was over, but I soon grew weary of the battle and decided enough was enough.

As soon as I took off my headphones after our second between-songs chat, I grabbed a scrunchie from my pocketbook and put my hair into a ponytail.

After putting my pocketbook back on the floor, I looked up to see Mike staring at me in amazement.

"You can put your hair back!" he said, genuinely surprised.

"Well, yes,” I said. “I *have* been growing it for a year now, you know.”

"I know, but... wow, you have a *lot* of hair!!! I guess I had no idea until just now!" lol

“Hey, join the club!” I replied. “I say that every time I try to blow it dry!”

After asking how long I planned to let it grow (as long as it can) and how fast hair in general grows (half an inch per month seems to be the consensus), Mike said he had one more question.

"Shoot," I replied.

"How on earth did you *do* that, anyway?" he said, referring to using the scrunchie. He was totally serious.

After joking initially that it’s covered in the transsexual handbook we all receive after disposing of our boy clothes, I told him the truth: I don’t really know. lol

Like most things trans-related, it took me a while to figure it out. (“A while" meaning multiple hours and innumerable rewinds of assorted YouTube videos. :D) As I've learned, much of transitioning is simply persistence and patience. This proved to be no different.

I suppose there's a lesson there, eh? :c)

Overall, it was a great deal of fun. We managed not to say anything libelous, nor did we spill coffee or drop a grilled cheese sandwich into the board. Not that I ever did either of those things in my college DJ-ing days. [coughcough] And as I mentioned at the top, I’ll be back on the air again tomorrow.

But that’s not all. :D

***

"So," I hear you asking,"what's this news you promised us then, missie???"

Well, here it is!

Late last week, Mike forwarded an email he had just had with Sue, the host of Something About The Women, the show we guested on. He was pretty excited.

Sue was on vacation, but had finally had a chance to listen to the show earlier that day. And - wonder of wonders - she loved the job we did!

She was impressed with how we sounded on the air, particularly our between-song banter. (As I pointed out to Mike, “Decades of utter social ineptness and resulting solitude are finally paying off; who could have predicted?!?”)

And as if that alone wasn't exciting enough (and it was, since both Mike and I wanted to do the best show we could for them), she said he had a question for Mike:

Did he think I might be interested in becoming part of Something About The Women?

The answer, needless to say, was a resounding YES!!! :D

I was, and am, incredibly flattered. Something About The Women has been on WMFO since the mid-Seventies; it's an institution, and I am honored to be invited to be part of it. Sue also said that as far as she knew, I would be the first trans member of the show - again, something I find humbling.

I will be meeting with Sue for the first time two weeks from tomorrow, the 13th, to discuss this further. I am looking forward to it very much!

On a related note, I recently had made a vow to myself, as I've noted, to rearrange my priorities and start to do things for myself. (Much more on that in a forthcoming post - for real, this time!)

One piece of that was expanding my horizons and starting to actually enjoy life, and meet new people, and have new experiences. I do not think Sue's offer was a coincidence in light of that decision. I'm looking forward to hopefully making some new friends and, hopefully, learning some new skills.

So stay tuned - literally, in this case - for more!

***

Who better than Mr. McClanus to provide this post's soundtrack? Here he is from 1978's classic This Year's Model album:

And from 1979, a track from the late, great Donna Summer:

She simply radiated class, did she not? And what an amazing, amazing voice.