The experience was very nerve-wracking but I loved it--definitely going to do more of them, so if you know anyone in the radio business at your school/neighborhood contact me and I will write something.
I timed myself at about 5:30 when I ran through the ideas before I went on the air. I tend to mumble and speak very fast, so in practice I went through slowly. I ended up taking 10 minutes and was cut off about 30 seconds before I finished. I thought they'd already taken me off the air when I said "i'm almost done!" and "you cut me off!" The DJ seemed to not understand how to handle the situation, I didn't realize I had gone for ten minutes until someone told me afterwords. I'm sorry for any trouble I caused at the station.
When I went on the air I made an intro joke about a little known fact that Nirvana was the son of Led from Led Zeppelin (they had just finished playing Nirvana) and started "on the bluehill". I have a near-transcription of the radio show that I put some thought into and I hope it's enjoyable. I'm told the audio quality was bad and a lot of things were missed, hopefully I can get a copy of the audio one day.
Hello, welcome to the bluehill. I’m Tony Bluehill. We’re going to have a lot of fun. Before I begin, I’d like to say thanks to ----, the ----, and ------, who’s support and dedication to the Bluehill makes this possible. Since it’s our first time on the bluehill, my intentions are directed but susceptible to change, so if there’s something you particularly enjoy or dont, let me know. If I think you’ve got the right idea we’ll work with it. Or I’ll ignore you.
What I want to do, above all, is to entertain. To do this I’ve got a plan—to bring you into a world that I live in on a daily basis. I hope that you’ll enjoy this world. I want to make you laugh, while proposing philosophical dilemmas and ideas that I face in my life. Ok, so let’s get to it.
I was at a party the other night talking to a girl I’d just met. We were sitting at a table. I looked to the other side of the table and saw a large book on female anatomy. On the cover was the title of the book, the author, and a surprisingly large picture of a vagina. I asked if the book was for a class. She asked if my mother drank while she was pregnant with me.
I was in math class and a freshman girl sat next to me. She kept looking over at me, smiling too. Seemed alright. I did my best smile. She asked me what my major was, I said, “hamburger logistics”. She asked me what that was and I said, “any logistics relating to hamburgers.” She told me her friend was minoring in condiments and would do well to be on top of me.
What both of these stories have in common is that they didn’t happen. They didn’t happen in the way I described, but the things that I said happened; I lied about the responses. Did you think they were funny? There’s other things involved in them that we might get to today, probably not. First lets talk about what was actually said. In response to my question about whether the textbook was for a class or not, she said, “uh, ya” and looked like she wanted to be somewhere that I wasn’t. In response to my hamburger logistics answer she said “oh” and decided to stop speaking.
What happened in these two cases, that the type of response I sought to elicit was so different from the outcome? Before I go into that, lets make it very clear what my intentions were: I’m not a predator, I didn’t pick these stories because of a prejudice towards women or math students—that would be foolish.
My intentions were to be funny; and in the words of Larry David, to “elevate small talk to medium talk.” In one case: a suggestion at an obsession with female anatomy (the vaginal sort), and another, avoiding another boring conversation about majors.
So either I’m doing it wrong, or they didn’t want to hear it. I’m more inclined to think they didn’t want to hear it. A statement I’ve heard from people in an attempt to answer this kind of question is: “those people weren’t the right audience for the joke.” Effectively saying, “those people want the same conversations and pre-composed sentences with words like “chill” and “nice”. I think that statement is arrogant. Maybe even unfairly arrogant.
I believe these women were put-off because I wasn’t playing by the rules of how someone usually speaks the first time they meet—I was violating this social contract of conversation in a math class, or at a party in the earlier hours before everyone’s drunk. I don’t know what a social contract is, but it seems I have violated it in both cases. So, is that why it is funny? Because they are absurd things to say? Maybe it is my ignorance regarding the contract in those particular moments? If so, why didn’t I remember signing a contract in the first place? I think that in order to have gotten the responses I sought, I would’ve had to approach these people more delicately. Maybe tell my actual major and that I liked her shirt, and after things had settled down I could pull out a hamburger joke. The problem, in addition to having to waste more time talking about nothing, is that the time may never come: you may never get your hamburger joke. You’d have wasted your time with a person who knows you as well as a doorknob does. That person will never know about the individual things you’ve got to say, hopefully interesting things you’ve got to say, and you won’t know if they’ve got some hamburger jokes of their own.
I’ll leave you with a one last story and a thought. A few days ago I was at a market buying some lunch. It was one of those places where they’ve got food from all around the world. I go to buy a gyro from the greek section. I’m at the cashier and I’m curious about the proper pronunciation of the word so I ask her, “Do I say hee-row and preserve the etymology and pronunciation of the word and the possible cultural and societal ideas that the word communicates, which I have no idea about frankly. OR, do I just say “gyro”, after all I’m probably pronouncing it wrong anyway, I doubt any of these ingredients are authentically greek, so this thing might be a different food item all together, and maybe calling it hee-row would be offensive to the greeks. The cashier says, “that’ll be five dollars” and reaches for my money.
I’m not mad, I’m not upset, at the time I laughed. In life…so far as I can tell, there are people who don’t want to deal with those things, and rightly so. The point is, you have to know when to make the call, when to make your hamburger joke. Not everyone is going to be interested in what you have to say, so use your instincts. Whatever those are. So the cashier doesn’t care, the girl in your math class might. The guy at the bar might. And don’t lose hope either, sometimes things will come up, and you’ll see the world is just as insane as you are. Think about this: a group of people in a boardroom, successful people, people with more money than most people will ever have, decided together that the sequel to sex and the city, Sex and the city 2, the feature film about sex and the city, HAD to be 2 and a half hours long. That was it, “if we’re gonna make this movie guys,” they said, “it’s gotta be 2 and a half hours long.” I’m not sure it had to be two and a half hours long, and I’m not sure any explanation would make me believe otherwise.
So what do you think? How does one deal with these issues in conversation? I’m testing the waters here. Should I tell more stories and analyze less? These are decisions I plan to make, and hopefully you’ll all have some helpful words. Things will only get better on the bluehill: Especially since i’ve decided that the subject for every show will be hamburgers and reproductive organs. I’m Tony bluehill, and I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with me here on the broadcast. Have a good night.
-FR
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