4 Jan 2013

Hestia's...mid life crisis

Shock Jock - Howard Stern
We haz the same hair
I lovely friend bought me a book for Christmas 'The Stranger in the Mirror' byJane Shilling. It's about Middle Age.

I must say that it is beautifully written and I'm totally yomping through it, but of course, I don't think that I'm REALLY going through the change ..... that isn't going to happen to me.

But when I got to the part in Chapter 2 about the 'pathological creativity....interminable crochet, amateur watercolours book groups and other horrors' I recognised my self and conceded defeat:  I am that middle-aged woman.


But I intend to fight it all the bloody way.  And to this end, I have announcement to make:  I haz a radio show.

I *know*

Isn't it bonkers?

And even more bonkers is the fact that it's a Tarot radio show.  Here.  On the island.  I'm betting that I'll waken up the morning after my first show is broadcast to find a massive flaming cross embedded in the front lawn.
 
I bashed off an e-mail message to one of the guys that runs our local community radio station - would they be interested in a Tarot show? He bashed back a message to me - can you come down and we'll talk about it?

So it came to pass that I found myself in the cupboard studio for the community radio station with a gift of cup cakes (the way to a woman's radio show is through a man's stomach) and a fervent desire to do my community some Tarot service.

And they agreed.

Could I give them a sample of what I proposed?

Of course, I smiled.

I raced home and booted up the mac.  Garage band had a thing for podcasts.  Only snag was that I didn't know how to work Garage Band and I didn't know how to do a podcast.  Well, not knowing what I'm doing has never stopped me in the past :-)

Sonshine stood pensively at my shoulder: 'What ARE you doing?'

Me *banging away at buttons and talking to the bright - and frankly unresponsive screen*  'I'm doing a podcast.  Do you know how to make this bloody thing work?'

Sonshine shoos me out of the chair and expertly starts banging buttons.  Nothing happens.  'Do you know what you're doing?' I ask.

'Not really,' comes the reply.

I shoo him out of the chair and start banging the buttons again myself.  And lo!  I start recording my own voice.  And the telly.  But still, it's a start......

*does the wavy hands thing and we cut to many hours later*

'Well, that's it done,' I croak pathetically to Sonshine.

'Have you done a full one hour show then?' he asks, never taking his eyes off his DS.

I check the stopwatch. Twenty three minutes.  I have been talking for over 3 hours and I have only 23 minutes of work to show for it.  And 14 of them are Elvis Costello, Blondie and Del Amitri.

What the hell, I decide to hand it in anyway.  I manage - by some strange stroke of luck - to turn it from a .band file to an mp3 file and load it onto my usb stick.

I drop it off the following day at the studio.

That evening the radio chap phones 'Yeah, that's fine......you start on Monday 7th January.  Is that ok with you?'

And that, dear reader,  is how your mid life crisis takes wings.  You get a community radio show.






13 comments:

  1. Happy New Year Hestia! That is great news about your radio show, well done you, very impressed. Whenever I think of Tarot, I think of Jane Seymour as Solitaire in Live and Let Die. I so know what you mean about middle age, I have been spending too long on Pinterest and am getting all excited about putting foodstuffs in labelled containers, it's tragic...Bxx

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  2. Well, mea dear, it certainly beats fighting with the needles and wool! I am soooooo impressed! And just full of glee on your behalf. Is there anyway I could listen to it - even after the fact! If so please, please, do let me know. I just loves the way you got your audition together - so brilliantly creative! Wishing you every bit of Irish luck and, of course, the Irish gift of the gab! Yours in glittering admiration, Cat

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  3. Ali -

    You go, girlfriend! This is great news! Have fun with this!

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  4. I just love your blogs! And your new career is wonderfully appropriate. Being well past middle age, I don't have the energy to do something as wild and bold as this, but I certainly wish I did!

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  5. utterly brilliant......am uber impressed this is so exciting but you probably knew that all ready!! Lotslof love and luck x

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  6. Ali! This is brilliant! Are we on the msinland able to listen?

    Also by chapter two of your book's standards, I am also middle aged, age 30. But, I don't care!

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  7. What a hoot! Very impressed though I have no idea what you could say on a Tarot show - I know nothing? Will you be available as a podcast? I think I'd be a leetle bit terrified - Good luck for Monday.

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  8. Those self-help books are tripe: I've been crocheting & knitting since I was 8 :-P

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  9. I dunno, Ali, all that banging of buttons on Garageband and finding a new creative outlet sounds pretty much like "pathological creativity", just in a different medium ;) Have to say, I have felt more creative in the last six months than any other time I can remember. If that's Middle Age, bring it on!

    Can't wait to hear how it goes today *fingers and toes crossed* :D

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  10. That is brilliant! Hope it went well. Put up the link if it's available as a podcast - I'd love to listen to a Tarot based show.

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  11. Do you need any live callers to ask awkward questions?
    Fantastic Ali, I must get a podcast of it, or whatever they call recordings these days.

    xx

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