Making (air)waves

In the past several days, as I’ve been contemplating my apparent need to spice up my daily routine, I’ve been noticing cool things in my life that I seem to have been taking for granted. Things that are already there that are pretty “extraordinary” (to borrow from my last blog), but that I’ve stopped noticing because they’re so … well, there. I had an experience like this just the other day when my partner and I teamed up to do an interview for a this week's rendition of the radio program we’ve been working on for about a year and a half—“Outsources,” KGNU’s weekly prime-time LGBTQ feature show (FM 88.5, Mondays at 6:30, or anytime at kgnu.org/outsources, just in case you were wondering how you could hear it. Soon, we'll have podcasts).

Sometimes, doing this show feels more like a chore than like fun, and in my doldrums, I believe I’ve been a bit caught in that view of it. It’s not hard to get there if I focus just on the tasks it requires. Our radio station, KGNU, is scrappy, low-budget community radio, and our little team, the “Outsources Collective,” has to do everything for ourselves. Unlike Terry Gross and company, we have no station staff who will produce or run the show so that we can just chat with the guests. Nope. We, radio novices all, are responsible for every step in making a show happen. That includes coming up with ideas, discussing those with the group in our bi-weekly meetings, tracking down potential guests, developing a “script” for the show in collaboration with the guest(s), creating a “promo” to attract listeners, and then producing the actual show by recording and editing it or by hosting it live—including running the recording and/or broadcast equipment, doing all necessary editing, and being sure that it all gets to the right place for it to air at the right time. In all, each show typically represents several hours’ worth of work, so it’s no minuscule undertaking. 

But that’s just one way of looking at it—the way I’m prone to think of it when I’m feeling bored. But the other day, perhaps energized by my attention to livening up my life, I slipped into a very different perspective on this project. Instead of the show-as-chore story I just wrote above, I was hearing a different tale as we produced this show. In this version of my life as a radio show host, I marvel at the amazing circumstances that grant a handful of local LGBTQ folks—with no particular qualifications for or even prior interest in radio broadcasting—half an hour every week to explore topics that matter to the LGBTQ community and our allies and to share those explorations with whoever wants to listen. Half an hour of public broadcast time, ours to do with as we wish. Well, within reason—there are those seven words we can’t say.

Although we’ve been doing this show for a while now, we haven’t even come close to running out of topics. Over this time, we’ve had shows on topics like an “out” grade school principal, Denver and Boulder Pride celebrations, a play written by a straight man based on his gay uncle’s journals, conversion therapy, a local queer musical group, allies in middle school, LGBTQ aging, community choruses, AIDS, interviews with authors of queer-related books, dance in the queer community, a national queer activist conference, immigration issues, Grindr and other social media, a critique of same-sex marriage, future directions for PFLAG, queer philanthropy ... the list just keeps growing.

It’s a cool setup, actually—individual members of our small collective are variously interested in a variety of domains: local community agencies and organizations, the arts, social media, trans issues, LGBT history, public policy, queer psychology, local politics, diversity within the queer community, and on and on. Collectively,we’re all interested in giving voice to people and issues that folks might not hear much about otherwise, topics found outside the scope of mainstream coverage.

So I was thinking about this on Monday as we interviewed a local attorney about the recent Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage. Maybe surprisingly, we’ve barely mentioned marriage on the show, largely because there are already plenty of people talking about it. In fact, our one show on the topic was a critique of marriage. But the Supreme Court hearings were all over the news last week and this really is a huge case (or cases, actually) that could have profound implications for couples in Colorado. So it seemed right to give it some thoughtful—even thought-provoking, we hope—coverage.

We wanted something more nuanced and more particular than the mainstream presentations. We wanted to do a hyper-local discussion—just two members of the radio collective and a local attorney who is really smart and thoughtful about such issues—not to mention clear in her explanation of them. We got to talk, the three of us, about the comfortable but questionable certainty that the Court will rule in our favor. About our curiosity around the unexpected questions raised by Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts. About whether the “swing vote” will rest with Kennedy (as has been the case in other recent LGBT rights cases). About what sort of confusion might ensue if the court now rules that state prohibitions against same-sex marriage are constitutional—after thousands of couples married under the Circuit Court rulings saying they’re not constitutional. And especially, about what all of this means specifically to Colorado couples and their families. (If you’re curious about what we said about all these things, you can listen here.)

The whole thing is astonishing, really. What a gift to have this time set aside—the only such show in the state—for a topic that’s rarely addressed with much depth or texture in the outlets that most of us rely on for our daily dose of information. And what a privilege to be involved in it. True, the demand to create new shows sometimes feels daunting. But when I’m actually in the middle of one, like this week, it seems well worth the hassles and headaches. It even seems extraordinary.

Wait! Did I actually say, just the other day, that my life was feeling boring? 

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2015. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------

To comment on this post:  

If you got this blog via email, go to the blog website by clicking on the title at the top of this particular post.

To comment on this post from the blog website, click on "No comments" (or "2 comments" etc.) below. Comments from "anonymous" welcome.

Editing the sandbox

I mentioned not long ago that I have signed on as a part of a group that will be responsible for KGNU's LGBTQ program, "Outsources." Well, last Friday, I got a sort of baptism by fire into this new gig.

The previous Monday, our group, which we have dubbed the "Outsources Collective," presented our first program. In this program, one member of our group interviewed author Molly Haskell about her book "My Brother, My Sister: Story of a Transformation." As you might gather from the title, Haskell's former sibling recently transitioned—at the age of 59—from a male to a female gender identity. A few of us in the Collective thought that some of Haskell's comments would evoke a degree of resistance from other members of the LGBTQIA community.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to bring to life one of the goals we hold for this program: to invite a variety of perspectives on complicated issues that affect the LGBTQ and ally community. We agreed that it would be good to do a program that would offer a different point of view on trans issues and, especially, on family members' responses to variations in gender identity. So we decided to do an interview with a local mom of a trans child. This would give us another perspective from a family member—this time a mom instead of a sister, and this time, a family member with years of learning about trans issues and years of involvement in trans communities.

And I got tapped (largely because I had the time ... ah, the risky benefits of retirement!) to do the interview. My conversation with the mom was energized and informative. She is so comfortable, so solid, so clear about her child's place in the world—the result of an open, loving heart and a life spent beside a child who transitioned early in elementary school and is now almost finished with high school. Along the way, this mom has spent much of her adult life working to convey her principled clarity and solidity to others.

As you might imagine, her experience and that of her daughter have been quite different from the experiences described by Molly Haskell the previous week. To get a feel for both, you can listen to the interview—which also includes excerpts from Molly Haskell's comments—by clicking right here and then playing the 10/21 show.

This mom has thought so much about these issues, has so many personal stories about the difficult path she and her daughter have traversed. Not to mention the challenges that lie ahead. Many of their experiences have been oppressive and arduous, as is clear from our discussion. Some encounters and some recurrent obstacles (bathrooms, legal records, medical personnel) have been extraordinarily—and unnecessarily—painful. Nonetheless, her comments convey strength and resolve instead of despair, and she seems satisfied about the trajectory of her life. 

And then our KGNU mentor notified me that the next step—editing the recording and turning it into a show—was up to me. He had given me a lesson in editing earlier, so this wasn't out of the blue. But I can't say that I felt ready to take in on alone. Still, KGNU is largely run by volunteers, and I'm one of them. So, as if I were an actual "producer," I spent 5 hours in front of the computer screen transforming a 36 minute interview into a 29 minute show. Basically, deleting 20% of the interview. I couldn't believe what time it was when I finished. Five hours! And I'd have been there much longer if I hadn't had an evening commitment. Still, I was as finished as time allowed, and we had a show. That I produced ... mostly.

What a great (if fiery) experience it was! I mean the interview, of course, but also the editing. I actually love fiddling with things techie. And I was delighted (if a bit daunted) to be set loose on a learning-by-doing project to convert the interview with this remarkable woman into a fragment of its former self while still maintaining the integrity of her comments. And in the process, resisting the temptation of what our mentor called "vanity editing," i.e., editing out all my own "uhs" and "ums."

When I was done and told our mentor how long it took, he assured me, chuckling, that 5 hours was actually not a record. He also said that in the first few efforts at editing, it's typical to spend about 20% of your time producing the show and 80% learning to edit. He meant these comments to be reassuring. Still, framed another way, this would suggest that of the 5 hours I spent, only about an hour was "productive." Actually, though, after many years teaching, I know better: time spent learning is productive time. In fact, those exciting moments of getting it, of mastering something—or even moving in that direction—are exactly what gave me such pleasure during this slow process. It's also what kept me returning to school in the fall every year for 50 years. (What a nice thought:  I've had a happy lifetime of 20% to 80% days.)

I've gotta say, this was like a day in the sandbox for me, a chocolate ice cream cone melting down my arm.

And now, the Outsources Collective moves on to the next show. It turns out that, in addition to being a lot of fun, this is a lot of work! No time to kick back and enjoy the sandbox. There's another show to be produced for next week. And then the next. With several of us working on it, at least that doesn't mean that any one of us has to do a full production every week. But we are all in it ... and it's always waiting to be tended to again. For now, it looks like I'll get to do a big part of another show in a couple of weeks. Including hours of editing.

I can hardly wait.