If you’ve ever peeped a weekday t.v. morning news program, you’re probably not aware of the ginormous behind-the-scenes energy that goes into the planning, running, and airing of the show.
In the case of the CW11 Morning News, where I appeared as a guest on Tuesday, 9/18, the fuel that drives the broadcast is content, and the content beast’s appetite is HUGE: it feeds from 5AM to 9AM, five days per week, devouring a never-ending stream of
local news, national news, weather, sports, and features (health, lifestyle, show biz, nightlife, fashion, etc.) that have been carefully scheduled, organized, written, prepared, and edited.
That’s one hella beast to feed – and it’s not just insatiable, it also wakes up really, really early…
Details of my experience:
GETTING THERE
- Smacked the alarm at 5AM, shuffled onto the 6:05 bus to midtown, got to the studio at 6:50. (Sky was still dark, streets were just barely populated.)
- Arrived backstage, walked past a long table covered with a commingled mass of bagels, coffee, cream cheese, coffee, butter, water, and coffee. (The production staff begins setting up at 3AM, so geysers of joe are essential to stay awake, and by extension, employed.)
- Taken to my “green room” where I cooled out as a parade of guests took their turns to be the (fleeting) centers of attention:
Dennis Haysbert, star of CBS’ “The Unit”
Adorable, available puppies from Adopt-A-Pet
Child actors Dylan and Cole Sprouse, stars of Disney Channel’s
“The Suite Life of Zack And Cody”
Also filling the airtime of the show’s morning mix were interviews, demonstrations, tips/recommendations, and reports, but unfortunately my nod factor* was massive and I wasn’t able to pay total attention. (R.G. mental note: next time you have an appearance on a morning news show, QUAFF THE JAVA, SON!)
GETTING READY
In between light doze mode and drooling quasi-coherence, I confabbed with the show’s tech fella, who connected my gear and percussion kit; the audio dood, who checked that everything was sweet sounding; the camera cat, who showed me where to stand, smile, and spin; and the senior producer, who gave me periodic countdowns to my segment, and made sure that the details about me + The Groove Boutique + stuff that I was planning to plug was correct before she posted it on the teleprompter.
At 8:50, I entered the on-air studio. My wireless mic was connected, I took my place behind the digital wheels of steel, and was given the countdown to camera. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, we’re live!”
ON THE AIR
The first part of my appearance featured me in the b.g., providing a quick melange of music for a fashion show of new denim creations that were modeled by gaggle of multi-sized gals.
Here what I sliced as the chix did their strut thang:
The denim demo wrapped, we cut to commercial, and at 8:58 we were back on the air – but not before I was surrounded by the entire CW11 squad, including Chris Knowles (weather), Jill Nicolini (traffic), Dr. Steve (medical reporter), Julie Chang (reporter), Sukanya “Suki” Krishnan (co-anchor), John Muller (co-anchor) and Tiffany McElroy (co-anchor).
The cool, smooth, and super pro Suki kicked some chattage with me about The Groove Boutique as well as my participation in the upcoming CD101.9 Singles Mixer Cruise, but our flow was trampled a tad by Jill, who was fascinated by my electronic percussion kit and began smack smack smacking on the conga pads. Suki got our A to B parlez back on track by quickly nixing J Nic’s solo, and the show ended over the breezy flow of my bossa-flavored jam “Icy”.
At 9:00:00 AM, the cameras’ “on” beacons clicked off, the overhead spots dimmed, and by 9:00:20, the set was completely deserted and dark. I packed up my stuff, grabbed a decaf off of the chow table (I was eager to enter the zzz zone on the bus back to the crib), and hit the sidewalk – which by now was ridick thick with human traffic (Uh,Jill, would’ve been nice if ya could’ve warned me about this pedestrian pile-up – that is, if you weren’t so busy with the Sheila E.-isms!!!).
RECOVERY
Back at home, I required continuous infusions of Rafe-o-cinos, my self-devised coffee drink (boiling water over Ovaltine and instant espresso, topped with ½ and ½), to survive the rest of the day - but the chance to bring the Groove Boutique vibe to eyes and ears across the tri-state and enjoy four minutes and ten seconds of fame (okay, make that “fame-lite”) made the exhaustion posolutley worth it.
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So the next time the morning news show content beast beckons, I’ll prepare appropriately by sporting multiple caffeine patches on my person, beginning a day (or two or three) before my skedded appearance…
*5AM is SICK early for yours truly – I usually don’t get vertical until the sun is nice and toasty…
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