Well this time the latest exploits of The Magical Buffet didn’t even require us to leave the house! It is a shame, since it’s a good excuse for a meal outbut we saved a ton of money on gas for the car! Our latest Moveable Feast was The Lou Gentile radio show! That’s right, someone out there thought it would be a good idea to let me speak live to an audience. They don’t know me too well, do they?
So here’s the skinny, on Wednesday November 29, 2006 I was the featured guest on The Lou Gentile Radio Show. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Gentile and his show, it is an online radio show where he and his guests discuss the paranormal, religion, and other fun. Mr. Gentile sustained a serious back injury not too long ago and has been unable to host many of his current shows; he has been having Cari Stone fill in as host while he recuperates. Cari is an online radio celeb in her own right, being the co-host of her own daytime online radio show aptly titled, The Cari Stone & C.J. Sellers Show. Enough back ground, here’s the scoop!
The Lou Gentile Show, in my opinion, is most easily accessed through his website. What’s cool about the set up is that you can register for free and gain access to their neat chat room. I had signed up a while back and occasionally listened to previous shows and hung out briefly in the chat room. However, nothing prepared me for Wednesday night, when I logged in, clicked to listen to the previous night’s show that was re-airing, and bam! The chat window popped up with a photo of me next to it advertising that I was tonight’s featured guest! That is when the nerves started. Oh, and did I mention I got a flu shot that morning so I felt all achy and feverish? Well, I now I did.
There I was in the chat room with ESPecial. Needless to say, it did not take him long to figure out that RebeccaE was the Rebecca Elson of that night’s upcoming show. Despite the impression people may have gotten from smart alecky comments made, ESPecial and Lind who where both there well before my show did a great job of making me feel relaxed and welcomed. A lot of the fun I had came from knowing they were there. And speaking of people being there for me, once again proving he is my paranormal partner in crime, Merill of the NNYPRS showed up in the chat room and immediately set up a private message box to give me a steady stream of encouragement. (Don’t know what the deal is with the NNYPRS? Check our A Moveable Feast: NNYPRS.) The show starts at 8pm Eastern Time. At eight on the dot, the phone rang. My husband Jim was nice enough to inform me that it was for me.
That’s when I first spoke to the host Cari Stone. She was incredibly friendly as she asked who I was and what I did. When I told her that I personally didn’t do a whole lot, that’s when she had to have realized that she was screwed. But being the out going professional that she is, she didn’t let a little thing like lack of actual first hand knowledge on my part keep her from assuring me that we would have a lot of fun and that it would be a great show.
Then it started. And before I knew it, an hour had passed. I’m not sure if anyone else had a good time, but Cari and I quickly started derailing our own radio show to discuss issues that we found important, such as saying the word worm was fun. However, more fun than squeegee or kumquat? We just weren’t sure. She quickly realized that I was good for two sentence answers, and I tried encouraging listeners to only ask yes or no questions. I was surprised to learn from Jim, who was monitoring the chat room, that it seemed like people were enjoying themselves. A very interested listener named Danny posed all kinds of questions to the chat room about things that I liked or was learning about, making him a fave with me. People were asked to call in, and of course, Merrill did. Not only did he ask a question that he knew I could answer somewhat intelligently, he took the time to tell everyone listening how great I am. (It’s easy to see why he’s my partner in crime!) The next thing I knew, two hours had gone by and the show was over.
After we went off air, Cari assured me that I did fine and that she had a lot of fun. She was very funny and has a wicked sharp wit like myself causing me to adore her instantly and be sad to have to say good-bye. I made sure to stress to her that if she ever needed someone to fill airtime in the future, to let me know. Nevertheless, I have to say, although humorous, I’m not the ideal guest for a radio show so I wouldn’t look for me to be the next big thing in the online radio community.
To learn more about Lou Gentile and his show, visit: www.lougentile.com.