Radio Gaga

So, I was on the radio on Friday morning.

Every morning, I listen to Shaun Keaveney on 6 Music. I love him. I actually love him. It is a constant source of sadness to me that he's already shacked up and has a kid and so will never be mine. He plays Prince and Morrissey and hip hop! He loves Christmas and snow! He hates Lenny Kravitz and the Levellers! He and I are cut from the same cloth. Whenever I'm feeling depressed, mornings are always the hardest time of the day, but his radio show never fails to make me laugh and cheer me up by playing me some classic tune I'd forgotten that I love or some new diamond that I will come to love, and that's often what gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me carry on. I set my radio alarm for an hour and a half before I need to get up so I can listen to as much of the show as possible. Am I coming across obsessive? No? I'll have to try harder.

I've been mentioned on the show twice already. Once, he was doing a segment on what you were getting people for Christmas and I texted in to say I was getting the then-boyfriend a melodica (a weird instrument) and he read it out on air. The second time was only this January... he was asking for reasons to be cheerful (1, 2, 3) as of course everyone knows January is the worst time of year. I was very down having just ended it with the most recent ex two days before. However, I'd been promised a gift from my DJ life partner, so I texted in to say that despite all my woes, that was my reason to be cheerful. He didn't read the whole message out, but instead dedicated a Stone Roses song to me as my year had got off to such a bad start. I was so happy! (in between the blubbering tears, you understand) ;-)

So they do a segment on the show called My Morning Racket, where they wake up a listener with a noisy song (of the listener's choice) and talk to them about their day etc. On Wednesday, Shaun said that if you wanted to be on MMR (ha ha) you should get in contact, so I did - and about two hours later I had an email saying I'd be Friday's guest, which really surprised me as I assumed it would be a really long wait!

I suggested Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails, Death on Two Legs by Queen or Open your Heart by Madonna - all songs that make me jump in the air.

The producer called me on Thursday afternoon and asked me lots of questions about where I live and what I would be getting up to do. I told him about uni and my PhD and stuff, and started thinking of witty and insightful things I could say to make Shaun (and the adoring hoardes of 6 Music listeners) fall in love with me. I was told I'd be called between at about 8.05 on Friday morning. The nerves started to take hold... I was going to talk to Shaun!!! My idol!! (aside from Prince, Morrissey or Madonna, of course...) (and I think I'd probably have an aneurysm of some sort if I actually got to talk to one of them...)

I woke up, hungover and a bit bleary, around 7.45 on Friday morning, which is quite late for me, but I'd had a late night. To my horror, I discovered I'd left my phone on silent (despite my good friend Polly telling me not too, lol - never go to bed drunk the night before a meeeeja appearance, blog-fans!), but although I'd had two text messages wishing me luck, there was no phone call. Phew-phers, as I used to say when I was a nipper.

Then began the wait for the phone call. It got to be 8.05. No call. Then 8.07... no call... by 8.10, I was sweating a little. Of course, being me, and feeling the need to live out my life in full via the medium of the internet, I had advertised my impending fame on Facebook and the bulletin board I post on daily. 8.15... no call... but instead, a weirdly unfunny segment featuring a pretend old man. I'm really not sure what that was about, but by 8.20 I'm realising that I've advertised my radio appearance to some 400 people altogether, plus my dad, and it looks like, as 8.30 dawns and the news starts, and Shaun tells us what's coming up in the next half hour and doesn't mention me, I've been forgotten! Oh, the shame!! The humiliation! Will people think I just dreamt the whole thing, like some poor deluded stalker? It got to 8.35 and I wanted to crawl under my duvet and die. I'm getting 4 texts a second from friends asking where I am and saying they've had to give up and go to work. The reggae, the reggae. :-(

Then, finally, just as I'd given up hope... the phone rings! It's a totally different producer... she tells me they're going to play the NIN track and then leaves me listening to the radio through my phone, with nervous butterflies crawling up from my stomach into my neck and threatening to choke me so that I can't speak. Suddenly, Shaun's voice is coming down my phone. MY PHONE! I'm going to have it bronzed!! He's saying it's time for My Morning Racket... that's me!

Shaun... "So, on the phone we have... a person... can you identify yourself please!"

Oh dear - it very quickly becomes apparent that he hasn't been given any of the notes on me and that we only have about 4 seconds instead of the usual 5 minutes or so. I tell him my name, gush and giggle a lot, and stupidly mention that I'm DJing at a party this weekend, which leads to a conversation about DJing, rather than about all my oh-so-clever psychology stuff... not that I'm thinking he knew about that anyway.

And then he asks me the question - the question I have dreamt of being asked live on air since I was a teenager listening to A-Ha records in my bedroom. No, not that question... he asks me which tune I'm going to play to make everyone dance.

WHY, WHY, WHY couldn't I have had some preparation for that??? There are a million answers I could have given which would have made me look cool and clever and interesting and generally brilliant. But I was blind-sided! I couldn't think straight! All thoughts of, say, Carolina Chocolate Box's version of Hit Em Up Style, or Somersault by Zero 7 and Dangermouse, or Anotherloverholeinoyhead by Prince, or Such Great Heights by the Postal Service, or even bloody Boom! Shake the Room flee from my teeny, tiny brane like rats from a sinking ship. I stutter over my words for a moment or two, and then go, 'erm, probably some Madonna,' in a most unconvincing manner.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Madonna with all my heart and anyone who doesn't dance to one of her tunes while Twisted Kitten are at the decks gets struck off the Christmas card list quick smart. But it's not even like I said one of her tunes!! (I could have said Jump! I could have said Nobody Knows Me! I could have said any number of actual things, but I didn't!) And the one flaw with Shaun is that he's not the biggest Madonna fan. In fact they sometimes do sketches about her and Jesus that are slightly on the mocking side, one could say. And my mad passionate love for Madonna really doesn't make me look pale and interesting, in the way I had hoped, now does it.

After that, he couldn't get me off the phone quick enough. But I did get to hear Nine Inch Nails, so it wasn't a total loss. I trembled with adrenaline for about an hour afterwards.

Oh Shaun... will you give me another chance?