TGO Radio Production Notes (Part Three) / Columns

1) Clearly in need of some re-tooling, Jeff and I (minus show producer Doug Reacharound) took last week off from recording – meaning Wednesday, 27 August – to discuss tighter format ideas and a divvying up of research responsibilities. There was a lot of, “Well listen, man, if we’re going to do this, then we need to get serious about it and really do it for twelve weeks, not half-ass it.” And there was also a lot of, “We can absolutely do this and get an informative show out of it for twelve weeks at a time.”

Of course, all that dissolved into various other topics of discussion, absolutely none having to do with the radio show, and by the time I got around to telling about the time I saw a kid wipe out in front of Camp TGO a few summers ago, we were so completely off topic as to be hopeless. Finally, when we absolutely had no time left, we acted as though we were getting serious: I scribbled some things down (news and news analysis outlets I thought we needed to monitor for content), said to Jeff, “Okay, you do this, this, and this; and I’ll do this, this, and this.” I muttered something about taking care of the format.

The next test recording session was then scheduled for Tuesday (meaning yesterday), a day earlier than usual due to my having a very important previous commitment. (Okay, a local sports team is going to the playoffs, and I’m going to the opening game.) But last Friday morning I began losing my voice, wholly without the usual sickness or throat pain you would assume would accompany such a malady. It was so bad by Saturday morning that I feared a prolonged sickness of some sort.

I saw Jeff Saturday, in the midst of the mysterious ailment, and hardly any word of the show was spoken. Which was fine, because we had episodes of American Dad! to watch. As the new week dawned my voice regained strength, leading to the question Tuesday of whether we were going to record. Neither of us were prepared. I vetoed recording with no other comment, thinking maybe we could do it later this week, if not next Wednesday.

I can tell you that what little patience and faith I had for this project is just about spent. No one is at fault, we’re just not finding our stride. Two more test shows at an absolute maximum, and if we can’t find our footing, I’ll give TGO Radio its third Viking funeral.

2) Following "summer vacation," column production could begin anew this week.