Is this thing on?

You know me. Gotta have a page about the things I do. Yadda etc. This page is about the week I co-hosted a radio show on Sirius Radio. OutQ Stream 149 with Romaine Patterson. People have always said that I have a voice made for radio, so this was my chance to see if they were correct. I've been told they were.

I've been doing radio interviews since 1982. The first one I did was at WFUV (I think.) I was in Carnivore at the time and what I remember most is mispronouncing the word "crucifixion." I remember the pressure of having to respond unrehearsed. After that one, WSOU, WSIA, WRTN and a slew of call-in shows. Then, in Primal Scream, more of the same. College radio was a lot of fun.

Then, after I became a body piercer, I was lucky enough to be the guy at Gauntlet NY who fielded most of the press. The visibility of those interviews was much, much higher than what I was doing previously and the pressure to discuss a controversial subject in a professional way taught me a lot about presentation and how the media operates. I was doing nationally syndicated television & radio shows and international print. And this was at the height of the piercing craze when the press was calling every day. By this time I'd become much more comfortable speaking off the cuff and started to really enjoy the interaction. I knew my subject matter very well and felt quite comfortable speaking to the public. I enjoyed the attention I guess, but I most enjoy the feeling I get when I get a point across.

The Internet has really changed everything. Now, all a producer needs to do is Google for the subject and with a little bit of clicking and discernment they wind up with the contact information of the subject matter expert they seek.

One day I got an email request for an interview regarding bodyarts. Nothing unusual there except it was for a satellite radio station named Sirius. Something I hadn't done yet and was into checking out. You can also listen to the show live on the internet. I went to Rockefeller Center and did a few hours on the air. It was the usual interview but the hosts Romaine Patterson and Derek Hartly were fun and seemed to enjoy my style. There were call-ins from around the country as well.

Sirius OutQ is the only nationally broadcast entertainment outlet for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the United States. The show takes a lighthearted look at sex, gay dating and pop culture. No, I'm not gay, but I've been involved in the piercing & tattooing, fetish and BDSM world for a while and have made many friends in the GLBT world. Straight eye for the queer guy.

I had such a good time on the show that I had a dream about hosting a radio show. I actually got out of bed and sent Romaine an email asking her to consider me if they ever needed a guest host. Damned if she didn't shoot me back an email asking if I was available to guest co-host one night on August 8th. That's the way my hooking up with Dee Snider happened too. One day in passing I said to him "by the way, I play guitar and if you ever need anyone, give me a call." He called the next day and I spent three years touring with him as one of his guitar players. The lesson is, don't be afraid to ask for something.

   

Anyway, I said of course I'd be available. I made my way over to the studios and was blown away by the technology involved. After the heavy security checks you take an elevator up to the 36th floor. When you walk into the studio the first thing you see is a large room encased in thick glass. James Bond-y looking in a way. That room is where the satellite engineers control the trajectory of three satellites in geo-synchronous orbit high above the planet. There is a huge screen with images depicting the earth with the satellites overhead and this rotates in real-time showing where the "birds" are. Two are always overhead. The effort to get those three units into space cost over one billion dollars. Sirius invented satellite radio, too. The view from the studio is amazing. You feel like you are at the center of the world and in a very real sense, you are.

I found Romaine and was handed a stack of papers and told to start researching the night's guests. I dug in and prepared for my first night on the other side of the microphone. I don't want to get into the specifics of the show, but it was an education. Interviewing guests and taking phone calls for three hours was not as easy as you'd think. Had a great time, they burned some CDs of the show for me and I went home.

I thought that was the end of that, but no. I received an email from Romaine asking if I could fill in for Derek again while he was on vacation the week of September 22, 2003. She asked if I could fill in for four nights. Yikes! She said she'd take the time to teach me the mechanics of the show. The intros, outros and resets. Of course I said I'd love to do it and we started trading guest ideas for three of the four nights. Four nights then turned in five and I was on for the entire week. September 22nd to the 27th. 15 hours of radio work. And, I got paid very well for it. That was a bonus.

I helped book the guests, some of which included photographer Charles Gatewood, Lori from NY Adorned, Jason from the Positive Health Project and a few more. I took phone calls from across the nation, "brought us back" from commercial and news breaks, read some promos and interviewed all the guests with Romaine. She let me lead the interviews with some of the people I was most familiar with. Charlie Dyer, the executive producer was patient and very helpful giving me some tips and tricks and explaining the finer points of the operations.

There are LCD monitors and broadband connections in front of the hosts so I was able to google while interviewing the guests, check email, pass IMs to Romaine and my friends and update my web pages. It's a very wired feeling to know you are broadcasting to the entire nation via satellite while you telnet and FTP. As you can tell by the images on this page, I also had my digital camera with me.

Funny enough, there was some tattooing going on in the studio of Hard Attack, the Sirius heavy metal show. Paul Booth was there tattooing the DJ. I stopped in and introduced myself, chatted for a while and then hit the subway for the ride home.

All in all, a great experience and one I hope I get to repeat soon.

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