The Radio Interview

I always wondered what I would do if asked to work for Fox, or asked to do an interview on Fox News. I  thought I wouldn't do it. Then I got a call from Sunshine Wiles, one of the hosts of the morning talk show on our local Fox affiliate radio station, WAJR, owned by the same people who own our local newspaper, The Dominion-Post.

What people told me is "You have to do it . Everyone listens to them." So I agreed to do it, and we set up Monday, May 2 at 9:30 for a ten-minute interview, no phone calls. I could have called in the interview, but I really wanted to see the hosts, Sunshine Wiles and Kyle Wiggs, in person, in the studio. They interviewed two other candidates that morning before me: John Lucas and Barbara Evans Fleischauer, the only Democratic incumbent.

We were a bit late getting started. I was there early due to a leftover L.A. paranoia about being held up in traffic forever. That could happen here, too, even though Morgantown is tiny in comparison to Los Angeles.

I thought the interview went well. My voice sounded awful, as if I had asthma and acid reflux both destroying my vocal chords. Still, I felt confident about talking off the top of my head. The hosts asked good questions, and gave me time to answer. They were surprised that I would end up in West Virginia after living in so many other more interesting places. It said that I came here because Joe had a job here, and I said that I'm happy here. What I thought but didn't say, is that I was too old, poor and married to stay in L.A. We couldn't have bought a house there, we don't care about bars at this point in our lives, and the rapid gentrification of our old neighborhood in West Hollywood, including tearing down the Trader Joe's on our corner for million-dollar condos, was going to help make Los Angeles unliveable. We both miss our friendships of many years in San Francisco and L.A., I miss the film festivals and the good theaters. I've stopped going to movies at all, because when I read about a movie I like, it's not playing in Morgantown. I keep busy here, but we don't have the network of people and places we had. It was my choice to come here with Joe, and as I said in the interview, I insisted he apply for the job here. I don't regret moving.

I talked about diversity. There is a new Hindu temple in town, a mosque and a synagogue. It's not like the rest of West Virginia. I went so far as to say "People here should understand that everyone in Morgantown is not a straight, white Christian." That might have been over the top.

They interviewed three other Democratic candidates for legislature in our district Tuesday, and the last two Wednesday. I only listened to Barbara and John Lucas. I'm starting to appreciate Donald Trump, saying outrageous things to get attention and having his ratings go up. Last election, four of the five Democrats lost. I felt that people didn't vote for them because they were too cautious, afraid to stand up to the Obama-hating Republicans (which at that point included the United Mine Workers) and embrace liberal values like choice, LGBT rights and guns.

I'm clearly the odd man out, the one with the least experience and lacking any kind of organization. Stiill, I have my fans.

Last week, I told someone in my writing group about what happened in the senior center (see previous blog post). Someone else in the group overheard it, and, enraged, wrote me a note about how awful I was to say that. The gist of it was that he has been polite to me (against his real feelings, apparently) and knows enough people in town, being a descendant of one of the founders of the town in the 1700s and knowing everyone, to cause me real trouble.

I sent back a note apologizing for my rudeness and explaining that my ancestors were not in the United States before 1886, and that my European relatives were all murdered, which is why that guy's stupid comment got under my skin.

What I saw from the note writer is how white privilege works even against other (more-or-less) white people, and why my fellow candidates will talk about being an 11th generation West Virginian. Not important to me, but I guess it is to someone. I'm less important because my ancestry is not here, and if it  were, and they were slaves, we would still be less important than the White people here.

I got a note also from a prominent person in town, Jewish, but never seen at temple, who read last week's post and said that he has heard similar anti-Semitic remarks, and is still considered an outsider after more than forty years in Morgantown. Baltimore was a little like that, but in Los Angeles, someone called me "an old-timer" after three years there.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but attendance at my OLLI class Tuesday ( The Top 40 Hits of 1961) was down from twenty-four to fifteen.  Maybe they heard me on the radio.

I missed an event yeaterday for the State Auditor Democratic candidate who is the best of the three running. There was a shiva minyan for the mother of a congregant who died out of town, and I met Joe there and accompanied him to his class after. Being busy doesn't excuse one from observing mitzvot or supporting your spouse in his work.

 Tonight, I'm going to see Bernie Sanders here in Morgantown. The city has done nothing about parking, transit or or traffic for this event. The site only holds three thousand people. I'm betting many more come, despite this being finals week at WVU, with many students already gone. It will probably rain all day. Should be fun.

To hear the podcast of my interview, go to wajr.com, go to podcasts all the way down, morning talk May 2. My interview starts at 27:40, or, for comparison, you could listen to the other two candidates.

It wasn't a bad experience for me. I thought Sunshine (her real name, "it was the seventies", she explained) and Kyle were nice to me. They had good questions, and although it looked like it was easy, I know there was a lot of work for them to prepare. Maybe I'll even start listening to their show.