My 15 minutes of Fame!

Yesterday, I called into our local morning show, The Break Room, to dispel the idea that Tommy Mule, one of the members of the Break Room, put out about Italians being stupid. Being Italian, and being far from stupid, I couldn't miss the opportunity to irradicate that notion post haste.

So, I call in and say my name is Connie, which isn't may real name, because really, who cares what my name is right? So, in the course of the conversation, they ask me what I do, and I say Chainmaille. They think I mean chain mail, like spam, so I have to explain that I make jewelry out of little jump rings and mention the chain maille bra I recently made, which of course they are intrigued by.

So, Billy and Tommy (the main hosts of the show) want to know if I'm making a living off this. Unfortunately I'm not, so I say that I'm unemployed and that it's a side business. Currently, the Break Room is trying to help people find new jobs, so they bring listeners in to 'pitch' themselves and invite me in.

Of course I accept. But, my name isn't really Connie so when I sent the thank you note to them and shore up the appearance, I mention this and give them my real name, which of course turns into fodder for a fun radio show.

So, the Connie thing comes back to haunt me at 5:15 when my phone rings and my sister Karyn says "Were you on '96 this morning?" I'm thinking she means Route 96, and I say no. She says "You weren't Connie on The Break Room this morning?" Apprently my voice is rather distinct lol.

So this morning, I show up with the bra, and some small gifts for everyone, the men got Chain Maille keychains woven in Full Persian, I brought Billy's wife a Olivia Byzantine bracelet in AB and Green AA and for Sally, I made some byzantine earrings with a little star and moon charm.

I got there, and they were all super nice to me. At first I was really nervous, and the room felt really really hot. Of course it wasn't but it was just my nerves. So, they sit me in a nice leather chair, hook me up with headphones and a mic and say "Now, were back with Connie...or is that her real name..." which I was totally prepared for.

And they were really nice to me, even Tommy, who I expected a hard time from, as that's his job. He suggested that he could have made the keychains in an afternoon and that he could outweave me any time. I suggested that he put his money where his mouth is and he really didn't bite - which was unfortunate as I thought it would be great to see him go down.

They asked me about my skills, and I told them that I'd been a political consultant for many years, having rounded my career out in 2004 on the Kerry Campaign in Cleveland Ohio, having a staff of over 100 for a canvass operation to collect voter data. From there, I'd been an office manager, and most recently in customer service and promoted to sales. Hopefully, someone in the community will need someone with analytical skills and call the station about me.

We also talked about the YMCA, as Tommy and I have been in the same water aerobics classes. We talked about the interesting bathing suits and whether or not we thought anyone had ever 'pee'd' in the pool, to which both of us said no. I razzed Tommy a little about how stoic and focused and kind of unfriendly he seems in class and the rest of the show got a kick out of that.

All in all, it was really fun, and hopefully people will look at my website and buy some things. That would be so awesome.

I loved being on the radio - several friends called me and told me how great I did, which is reassuring - things move really fast when you are talking like that and it gets really comfortable really quickly and you could get too comfortable and forget that 10,000 people are listening. Greatfully, I didn't and I think it went really well and now my local community knows that there are great chainmaillers all over who are artists and crafts people and hopefully that awareness will increase all of our sales.

Honestly, I'd love another 15 minutes of fame. It was really really fun.