JOE McGINNISS

Last Friday, I did a radio satellite tour of the USA.

For two hours, nonstop, I did a series of six to ten-minute interviews with radio shows, either live or taped, on thirteen different stations.

It was like the old country music song “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

I was on in:

Tampa
Las Vegas
Pittsburgh
New York (Sirius, which means nationwide)
Cleveland
Chicago
Miami
Washington
Minneapolis/St. Paul
Denver
St. Louis
Grand Rapids
Davenport

On Tuesday morning, I did it again, for two and a half hours, appearing on fifteen different shows in:

Asheville
Baltimore
San Francisco
Miami
Dallas
Houston
Kansas City
Tucson
Philadelphia
Charlotte
Norfolk
Salt Lake City
Billings
Grand Rapids
Detroit

And on Wednesday morning, I’ll do it yet again, for two hours, on at least a dozen different shows.

As soon as I finish, I run outside, jump in a car, travel to Boston and fly to Toronto, where on Thursday I’ll do interviews from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. before flying back to either Boston, New York, or Los Angeles, depending on arrangements and scheduling still not finalized.

Radio satellite is crazy: instead of visiting forty different cities for interviews and signings, I sit at home and do interviews in forty cities by telephone.

What’s wild is that each different show in each different city presents a different format and different
hosts. I never know if I’ll be facing someone who’s read THE ROGUE and has intelligent questions, or, to go to the opposite extreme, the host at WLAV-WMMQ in Grand Rapids today, who had no questions for me, but who said, “I’d love to put you in a boxing ring with Sarah Palin. She’d kick your ass.”

And then he kept repeating it, as some strange mantra of sick fantasy: “She’d kick your ass…She’d kick your ass…She’d kick your ass…”

I finally said, “Do you have a question to ask me about my book?”

He said, “No. But she’d kick your ass…she’d kick your ass…And I hope Todd kicks your ass…”

I said, “So you don’t have any questions to ask me? You just want to blather on like that?”

He said, “I have a question: ‘How could you write in your book that Todd Palin had sex with prostitutes?”

“I didn’t,” I said. “That’s not in my book.”

“You wrote that Todd Palin slept with prostitutes! I hope he kicks your ass. And Sarah Palin could kick your ass.”

“I didn’t write that. Apparently, you haven’t read my book.”

“No! I haven’t! And I don’t intend to!”

At that point, I ended the call.

Sixty seconds later, I was talking to a delightful woman in Little Rock, or Louisville, or Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Radio Satellite is like playing poker: you never know what cards you’ll be dealt, but you’ve got to play them as well as you can.

I don’t know where I’ll be between 9 and 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

But I look forward to being in Toronto, one of my favorite cites, Wednesday night and all day Thursday.

Oh, yes: in regard to Sarah’s lawyer writing a letter to my publisher threatening a lawsuit, Random House/Crown issued a statement this afternoon:

“ We are confident that the reporting in THE ROGUE is solid, reliable, and well-substantiated. We stand by our publication and our author.”