As soon as I typed that headline,  I realized that it sounds like the title of a video that one might find in the unlit back corner of a video store, or better yet behind the counter, with an Adults Only sticker pasted on it. That’s not what this blog entry is about, I promise!  I’m using those two monikers to describe myself and a well-known on-air personality from Wisconsin Public Radio named Jim Fleming, who is my guest for tomorrow’s  (Tuesday’s)  morning show.  Jim is heard every weekday morning hosting the state’s classical music programming between 8 and 10, which means that WGTD listeners don’t get to hear him then because we pre-empt him for our own Morning Show and Music Potpourri.   But our listeners have enjoyed his beautiful, soothing voice as one of the readers for “Chapter a Day” – and as the host for an award-winning, nationally-syndicated documentary series called “To the Best of our Knowledge.”  It was in regards to the latter that I arranged to record a phone interview because WGTD has just begun to carry both hours of the program, and that change in our schedule seemed like a nice excuse to learn more about this fascinating program and how it’s put together.

I have actually met Jim Fleming once before-  back in 2000 when I began a seven-month stint as host of the state network’s Saturday classical music request program.  (They were in desperate need of a temporary replacement host, and since I was already hosting a similar program on WGTD on Saturdays, I was a logical candidate.)  Anyway,  the day I came to Madison for orientation,  I got to meet a bunch of network staffers – and Jim was by far the friendliest of the whole lot.  (Some of his colleagues struck me as just a bit full of themselves,  as though Wisconsin Public Radio were a Hall of Enlightened Angels while WGTD was located in a trailer park in Jersey.)  Like I said,  Jim was a true class act and that was especially gratifying because I had long appreciated his assured, elegant on-air presence.

I had also interviewed him once before-  for some sort of anniversary of “Chapter a Day” – so this second interview should not have been especially scary.  But it was.  Jim Fleming speaks for hours on end without so much as a single “um” or ‘uh” – and with a voice that is sheer velvet.  As I began the interview,  I felt like a stammering 13-year-old whose voice was still changing – and then something inside my head clicked and I managed to settle down into something close to my customary confidence.  But for the entire interview,  I found myself working SO hard to sound intelligent and articulate – – – which is what it’s like whenever I interview President Campbell or any of my faculty colleagues.  (I wish there were a means to measure sweat because I’m sure these high-pressure interviews have me sweating buckets.)  I’m not sure how long the Fleming interview lasted – maybe 15 minutes or so – but it felt like 115 and I only started breathing normally again once I had hung up the phone and turned off the tape recorder.

If you get to listen to the Tuesday morning show,  either live or via the website archive (at wgtd.org)  you can hear for yourself whether this was an intelligent conversation between equals . . .  or a case of a cool, confident professional tolerating the nonsensical questions of a bumbling idiot . . .  or something between the two.