Happy Katemas & Night Flight

[WretchAwry <vickie@pilot.njin.net>]

Hi, Happy Katemas to one and all!

Chris would say Happy Katemas too, except that the poor guy is
stuck in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida...watching TV and reading
SIGGRAPH brochures while all his friends (who have money) are at
Epcot Center. If anyone sees this and sees it in their hearts to
give him a "happy katemas" call, his number is (407) 396-8040, room
#320. He's kindof at the mercy of those he rode down there with,
and they wanted to stay a couple extra days. He's not only bored
to tears, he doesn't even have e-mail access now that SIGGRAPH
is over. He does send mental Happy Katemas wishes to ever'body.

Night Flight..ha! It is halarious, isn't it? I agree with Peter
Manchester, it's interesting to see the very big difference
between the Profiles In Rock and Night Flight interviews. There's
a visible door that's been closed. But yet, Kate opens it for a
few shining minutes when she's asked about "Cloudbusting" and
her answer is open, revealing and from the heart. Unfortunately,
the technical problems (her bow scratching the microphone) cause
the whole bit to be scrubbed and Kate has to do it over again.

That's the most fascinating part of the whole interview, because
it's obvious (to us) that Kate is upset, yet, save for a "why didn't
you stop me" (paraphrased, I can't remember) she is the model of
politeness and grace. The second version of the Cloudbusting story
is clipped and curt and no where near as good as the first one. It
makes you wonder what goes on behind the scenes of all interviews,
and made me very sympathetic to what Kate has to put up with. It's
more than just ditzy interviewers (love that bit where she *tells*
Kate that other people sang on "The Big Sky" as if Kate wouldn't 
know who was in the studio for the recording) and clueless questions.
Technical problems cause problems too. In this case though, the NF
people were still at fault. How many times did they try to fix that
bow of Kate's? All they do is push it out of the way for a few seconds.
I would have asked Kate to please take the darn thing off, or tape it
out of the way before the interview started. At least, I would have 
after the first time it caused problems.

Chris and I, along with Del, John Bush, Mike Weaver, John Reimers and
a few other people, were actually in the control room as the interview
was taking place. We had been invited by the producer of Night Flight
(Cynthia Friedland-sp?) to be there. We couldn't see the interview going
on directly, but the control room had a bank of TV screens so we could
see it as it was being recorded live. Of course, we could hear it as 
well, and it took a *lot* of willpower to avoid groaning at all the
stupidity we were seeing. Imagine watching it being recorded live!
After each stupid bit Chris, John, Mike and I would glance at each other
and roll our eyes. There were times when we had to supress snorts of 
laughter! We had to keep quiet to avoid getting thrown out, but it
wasn't easy :-).

There's one point in the interview where Kate accidentally said "prat"
and Del and Jay and a couple of other people started laughing, but it
went completely over our heads until years later when we watched the
interview at Krys & Peter's place (Homeground Central) and they all
burst out laughing. I guess "prat" (or is it "pratt"?) is a slang word
for a silly or stupid person (anyone can correct me if I'm wrong) so
it seemed to be a Freudian slip on Kate's part, toward this interviewer.
Once we knew, we all thought "good for Kate!!" that consiously or sub-
consciously, Kate did get some digs in :-)

Vickie

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Vickie Mapes                It lives!       "My ears are lucky to hear
vickie@pilot.njin.net     alt.music.ecto      these glorious songs" HR
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"Imagination sets in, then    |_  _ | _   The Happy Rhodes mailing list
  all the voices begin" KB    |__|_ ||_|  ecto-request@ns1.rutgers.edu
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