In December of 1999 I got a call out of the blue from the producer of LesBiGayRadio, a local radio show, to do something about A Straight Person's Guide to Gay Etiquette. The producer was a little vague about what I would actually be doing, but it worked out all right in the end. They never did send me a tape, and I don't know if anyone ever actually heard this show or not; but this is as much as I remember about what happened, as summarized the day after for the ACIDICians.
Otherwise, it went pretty well. It was over faster than I expected because there was a lot of extraneous stuff. First they were on a news break, and then they were on commercial, and then Alexandra Billings and Alan Amberg, the two hosts, were just bantering their little hearts out before they introduced me. It was cute enough banter, but I was sitting there on the phone thinking, "Enough about you--let's talk about me!"
Then they spent about a minute on the name:
ALAN: "What in the world is a Plaid Adder?"
ME: "It's me, and there's only one."
ALEXANDRA: "So should we just call you Plaid?"
ME: "Call me Plaidder, everyone else does."
Then I went into a little digression about how it's just like on Sesame Street where you run the words together. Alexandra asked me what advice I would have for our straight listeners. I said, "They should read the book," and then went into a semi-prepared spiel about how it was important to get a theoretical grounding before practicing on human subjects. I also ran through the difference between novice and experienced outcomers. That went pretty well, although I didn't get to cover the whole section because they interrupted to ask about my own coming out. I told the story about how everyone knew even though I wasn't "out" because of my being so smitten with Liza, and how my college roommate responded to the News with, "Of course I know! What kind of moron do you think I am?" "So I got a lot of that," I said.
Then they asked how the family coming-out went, and I went, "Eurgggh." Alan asked me how many of the Top Ten Downright Offensive responses I got during that converstaion, mentioning his personal preference for, "That's all right son, God loves even perverted fornicating demon spawn like yourself." I kind of got into a digression about the difference between Catholic and Protestant bigotry on the issue, and eventually got back to the list. I said, "Well, I didn't get 'No you're not'--no, actually, I did because my mother told me I was just doing this to be different." Alexandra scoffed loudly, but Alan said he got the same thing, and we had a brief commisseration about the idiocy of that as a response. Alexandra then mentioned that she gets people asking her "Why did you decide to become transgendered," and she says, "It was either that or get my nails done." (I hadn't realized Alexandra was transgendered, but since we'd just done the Casual Coming-out I was able to take it in stride.)
Then, if I'm remembering the sequence right, they said that their producer, who is apparently straight, is actually using this manual as a serious instructional tool for his wife Erika about how to deal with the LesBiGay Radio staff. They asked whether he was going to get himself in trouble doing this. I said, "You mean, if he doesn't realize that this is partly a joke?" and they went on about how they're "not sure Charles understands humor." I said, "Well, there's a passage in the introduction that addresses this very issue..." and read the paragraph beginning with, "Of course, no volume of this size and scope can hope to encompass the depth and breadth" yada yada yada. They then sort of apologized for dissing their producer and asked me if I had one particular word of wisdom for their listeners to take into the Millennium. What I should have said, now that I have time to think about it, was "Don't Panic!" but instead I led into the section on how it's important to remember that not all gay people are interested in jumping the entire straight population, finishing up with, "It does not follow therefrom that every gay man in town is ogling your sorry heterosexual behind," and saying, "And I think those are words to live by." They agreed, although I think if I'd had warning I could have picked something better. Then they asked me what my follow up book was. It was at this point about 6:59 and I thought, "I'll never be able to explain Women On Fire," so I mentioned the Homo For The Holidays segment. I didn't hear 'em laugh; I hope that wasn't because they thought it was a dog. They said goodbye to me, and I said I had had a blast, and then before they hung up on me I heard one saying to the other, "Yeah, don't you hate that when you're coming out to a straight man..." and then I was off.
So that's my, what, about 13 minutes of fame. They didn't mention the URL but they mentioned my email address. I'm hoping people realize they can just search under Plaid Adder and it'll pop up. That is, if they have listeners; the station doesn't seem to emit a very strong signal.
It was fun, and I think I did a good job although the format was very different from what Charles led me to expect--I think basically the hosts just decided they were going to treat it like a regular author interview, as opposed to what Charles said when I talked to him earlier today about setting it up as a kind of parody of the "ask the experts" thing--he seemed to envision a much more elaborate setup that would probably have involved more planning on the hosts' part than they were willing to invest. Or maybe they just listen to him, say, "Yeah, whatever, Charles," and do what they want. Which I guess is probably good.
So, there you have it--my triumphant storming of AM radio.
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