Friday Question

Making it easy this week (complex questions possibly returning next week).

Who or what are you on to?

I'm on to you, processed fruit snacks.
I'm on to you, Bill Bavasi.
I'm on to you, CBS dramas.

Highly Observant Commenting

This from kbow on the post about Margaret's big premiere:

Also, whaaa!? You instigated a life-altering household move when your wife was eleventy months pregnant? Mrs. Moe is a ROCK STAR!

Yes. She is. Like Queen of the rock stars. Atop her throne in Rockstasylvania.

And also, yes we did move while beset with pregnancy. We found out about what would eventually be Margaret late last August. So everything written on this blog since then was written with the knowledge of our knocked-upatudedness. That means deciding to move to St Paul, getting ready to sell our house, selling our house, packing up, moving across the country, the I'm On To You phenomenon, watching Mr. Megnorium's Munger Penorium. Everything. And it also colors the sort of multiple nervous breakdowns I had along the way. The baby was actually part of our decision to move out here. We could afford a 4-bedroom house in St Paul and could have three kids there. Seattle is more a place for the one child wrapped in plastic sheeting inside a $400 stroller. We were becoming a Midwestern family; better get our asses to the Midwest. The baby that would be Margaret made only indirect appearances here.

I was excited and delighted about the baby, of course, but I've been around enough to know that things can happen in the pregnancy process and it doesn't always go according to plan. It's stressful, as is moving. But you look forward to the brighter tomorrow you're arranging for yourself even as it all seems like great big truckloads of madness.

I remember last December, my arms covered in paint and my head full of hassles trying to get our home gussied up to attract suitors, thinking how in May I would be living in a different part of the country in some house taking some baby for a walk. It did not seem real. It wasn't going from point A to point B. More like going from point A to point 672JKLH991.rr3. And actually that daydream of that walk really sustained me. It was the happy place I went to even though it seemed about as likely as walking into a movie.

And once again, kbow, yes, Mrs. Moe. Holy Toledo. Give it up for the woman. Everyone up on your feet. While I was psychically weighed down with this existential blah de blah, she had a person in her uterus and all the attendant STUFF that goes with it. So while we planned this whole thing and made eleventy billion phone calls she was going through all that. And she was tired and couldn't lift things, which is kind of a big part of, uh, moving. On the plus side, repeatedly lifting most things we owned did wonders for my upper body strength. First rule of Move Club: don't talk about Move Club.

But we got through it in two ways: first, we had sort of sealed our own fates on this one. We had set things in motion that were pretty much irreversible. Secondly, we knew that time passes. We would get there, the temperature would rise above -4, the baby would arrive, that walk would take place. And a couple of days ago after Margaret returned from the hospital and experienced direct sunlight for the first time ever, that walk DID take place. It also featured Kate clinging to the side of the stroller and repeatedly poking Margaret, which was not part of the plan but whatever.
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Granted...

Margaret's first attempt at impersonating Joe Pesci playing Popeye flipping someone off wasn't perfect. But she was only a day old. We'll keep practicing.

Yogurt Monkey Sylvia Poggioli

So I've been in public radio full time for almost seven years now. And I get asked all the time how I got involved in something like that (people always add that emphasis because public radio = you so crazy). And it's kind of screwy, really. See, first I was an actor in Seattle. Then I was a frustrated bored actor who felt like he was wasting his time on dumb projects. Then I was that same actor who wrote plays.

Then Rewind came on the air. First local, then national, news satire on NPR, produced at KUOW, hosted by Bill Radke. Jill heard it, thought I should write for it. I said meh and did nothing about it. Andy Jensen heard it, was directing a play I wrote, thought the play could use some publicity, cold called Bill Radke pushing me as a comedy sketch writer, Bill called me, I started writing for the show. The reason: the money. Make no mistake. For every 3-5 minute sketch they bought, Rewind would send me $200. I could not believe it. So I wrote as many as I could and got a pretty good track record.

Later, I went to work for the show full time as a writer, then elbowed my way on to the air as a sort of correspondent and later a back up host. Then Rewind got canceled so I elbowed my way into the rest of KUOW as a producer and later on the air. Meanwhile, Bill decamped Seattle and went to LA to host what was to become Weekend America. I started freelancing for them, elbowing my way on to their airways and was later offered a full time job.

So how did I achieve this weekly national air time? Not journalism school, not internships: funny writing, stubborn persistence, and lots of sharp elbowing. And Bill Radke more or less.

So I knew baby was on the way this week and I knew my work week would be short. No time to report and file a story. So I pitched the idea, which was then accepted, of me writing a comedy sketch based on current events that Bill and I could do together. If you listen to this sketch and never had a chance to hear Rewind, well, you're listening to Rewind on Weekend America.

(whoever is the first to explain what the title of this posting has to do with the subject matter wins a free invisible theoretical Monkey Disaster t-shirt.)

Friday Question

All I can come up with for the Friday Question is:

Hey guess what?!

Not much of a question but I've been a little occupied.

Please welcome to the world Margaret Eleanor Joy Moe. We'll call her Margaret. We might even call her Maggie. So far: Margaret.

Name etymology:

Margaret - a name we've always loved. We think it's smart, kind of sophisticated, classical, and fun. Also, if she's Maggie, that makes her the baby sister with an older brother and a middle sister, just like The Simpsons, a program I've always enjoyed (but wait a minute, if Charlie's Bart and Kate's Lisa, that makes me...d'oh!)

Eleanor - (music geek alert! beware!)
We wanted to involve music in this child's name in some way since music is such a beautiful part of life. One of my favorite songs is "Eleanor Put Your Boots On" by Franz Ferdinand. It's this slow dreamy song about how Eleanor can do all these wonderful things and leap from the Coney Island Roller Coaster and the Statue of Liberty and have air streams gently set her down and how "I could be there when you land". It's just magical and beautiful. Better still, it was written about the lead singer's girlfriend Eleanor Friedberger, who is in the band The Fiery Furnaces, a band SHE started with her brother. So you have beauty, magic, love, and family all in the one name. And it's kind of classy besides.
(music geek alert complete)

Joy - Two middle names! Because why not! This is Charlie's. He says it was the feeling he got when he thought about the baby. Come to find out he also heard it in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "and Pokemon!" Kate pointed out. But he insists it came from his heart first, not a cartoon.

Moe - Well, yeah, Moe.

Doppelsota

When you live somewhere for a long time you get used to seeing the same people over and over. So when you move somewhere new, I think you instinctively look for those same people. They're not there, of course. So you start to find people like them. Last night I went with my friend Michael to the Town Talk Diner and I'll be darned if the waiter wasn't Minnesota Matthew Baldwin. It's turned into a whole thing around here. Jill and I will be out somewhere and she'll say, "Hey look, there goes Minnesota John Smersh!"
"Yep, he's talking to Minnesota Steve Scher," I'll reply.
It's like my whole life has been recast and staged like they do on America's Most Wanted. Still murder-free for the moment.

“I, a CD-ROM?!” ribbed a bearded Mordcai.

A blog dedicated to Falindromes or failed palindromes. (found via Andrew Sullivan).

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Me and my impossible to avoidedness

Ways you can load up on more me than you'll ever need.
1. I hosted Weekend America today. I talked to the 2007 Mr. Irrelevant and chronicled a cross country drive with my hamster.
2. I was recently a guest on The Sound of Young America, talking to both Jesse Thorn the host and also to young america. It's in the archives. Hunt. If you want. If you don't know about this radio program, please learn.
3. Twitter. I twitter. When I remember. And I keep getting new subscribers. These are people who want access to brief things I say. You can evidently be one of these people. Although honestly between the blog, Facebook, various freelance writing and, well, MY RADIO JOB, I'm running out of things to say. Like a while ago.
4. The Seattle Times asked me to write a breakup letter to Seattle. I did. I've never been paid to break up with someone before.
5. We're home most nights. Come by!

UPDATE: My breakup letter to Seattle is presently the #1 most e-mailed and #3 most read article at SeattleTimes.com. This means that torrents of hate mail and angry letters to the editor are about to come gushing forth. And yes, it bears some resemblance to a blog posting of a while back.

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