The Tour Begins Right - The Far Right!

It has begun.  I am now officially on my US Book Tour.  I flew into San Diego a few days earlier so that I could spend Passover with my family.  Then we got down to business.  My first interview was a radio talk show in San Diego.  When I went to check the web site to prepare, I had a feeling it might be a right Christian fundamentalist station.  I, of course, am a very liberal Jewish, feminist, lesbian.  But I didn't worry about it too much because it was booked by my publicist who knew these things about me.  I was  wrong not to worry.

My brother Sam drove me over to the radio station in the evening at the appointed time.  The door was locked and even though we knocked, nobody answered.  We waited and waited until just past the time I was supposed to be there, and as I was leaving a phone message for the host, he showed up in the hallway, and let us in.  His name was Rick Amato, a nice guy, but most definitely not a liberal.  Or a centrist. He was all the way over to the right side. He sat down with us before the interview to try to figure out the angles he would use; he was sensationalizing everything, and wanted to talk about the lesbian thing (I didn't mind - I'm just not sure how relevant it was to our conversation).  He somehow wanted to connect my story to the ACLU guys and the CIA investigators at Gitmo and kept trying to make things fit (which they really didn't).  When he went into his studio to tape something else (for some reason, this was pre-taped, yet we still had to wait a while because we were not first on the program), I started thinking of ways to respond to him.  He was bashing the liberal activists, actually all liberals including the President, to the extreme.  I was prepared to tell him that the liberal extremists at Gitmo were no different than the far right fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics and kill people; that it is the extremists on both sides who make things difficult for us, whether they be far right or far left.  Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

I was fairly nervous going in to the interview wondering if we were going to get into a shouting match.  However, in all fairness, it was a fine interview.  He did not bring up CIA, Gitmo, etc. He concentrated on my book.  He tended to sensationalize the epilepsy aspect, but that was okay.  He was going to do two segments, but extended it to three.  I think we had a good interview although I am aware of who his listeners are and hope that people don't show up at my reading picketing me because I am a lesbian (he did have to mention that, which was fine with me). He was great about promoting the book, and I actually liked him.  I don't agree with his politics, but then, he doesn't agree with mine either.  On the whole, the interview went much better than I had anticipated after talking with him pre-interview.  

At 5:30 this morning, my brother Sam drove me over to Fox 5 TV station for another interview.  This one was a little strange.  They had asked for photos of me, Chestnut Lodge, my family, which I had provided them.  During the interview, they showed the photos, but not in context and did not ask me about them.  So on the screen it said "Locked up in mental Institution" and it showed a picture of my three siblings, all under the age of ten.  It was pretty funny - they just rolled off the photos without any comment of who was in the photos, where they were taken, why they were on the screen...and the anchor and I just kept talking.  But this interview was good and they were truly interested in what I had to say.  The publicity again was very good.

I have another TV spot tomorrow and then my reading.  I will be very interested to see how many, if any, show up as a result of these interviews.  And why.