The Real Details

I know that everybody is waiting with bated breath to hear about my television interview....so....here goes:

The whole thing started when the television people contacted the Israel iscouts, who sponsor the Garin, to request an interview with a couple members of the Garin. The woman in charge of the scouts sent over profiles of about ten different people, and from the list they selected me and one other guy, Royi, to come in for an interview.

The night before the interview I had a "pre-interview" of sorts with someone from the show. We spoke for about a half hour about a range of topics ranging from why my family moved to and from Israel 11 years ago, to why I am here now, to what I studied in school, to my Crohn's disease. We also talked about what I like most about Israel and what I miss from the States. Later that night I drove with Royi to Tel-Aviv as a cab was picking us up to take us to the studio at 6:30 the next morning.

The reason we had to arrive to the studio so early was because they wanted to use some video clips that we brought with us and needed time to edit them appropriately. While the editing was taking place, Royi and I had a chance to have makeup put on and see the other celebrities that were being interviewed on the program. These celebrities included the guy who sings the song "v'eich sh'lo," which is very popular in the Garin, and Ronnie Superstar (Israel's Britney Spears). We went on the show at about 8:40. The show was on a commercial break, so we had a chance to chat a little bit with the hosts before we actually went on the air. The set was nice, with a couple of cushy chairs for the hosts and an adjacent couch for the guests. There was a flat screen TV in the corner between the chairs and the couch for showing clips in the background. Pretty simple, but all you need for a morning talk show program. There were two cameras on the set. One with a teleprompter aimed at the hosts and another shooting at our direction. I admit it was a little difficult not to steal glances at the cameras, but the hosts did a good job of engaging us in conversation. The actual interview was relatively short - about 5 minutes. We touched on only a tiny fraction of what we had discussed the previous night, and the hosts kept us pretty on subject - Zionism, the difference between Israel and America, and the army. Interestingly though, it turns out that the male host is a huge sports fan, so we also spoke about how the Red Sox finally won the world series when I wasn't able to be there for it. Towards the beginning of the interview I suffered a microphone malfunction and had to be passed a new mic from offset. I coolly and calmly attached the new mic to my collar while the camera was on the hosts. I'm slick like that.

All in all the interview was a very cool experience. I got to be on TV and see the inner workings of a talk show, so I'm happy. The program got some good publicity, so the sponsors and administrators are happy. And now that I'm famous and have to beat women off with a stick, so my mom is happy. It would have been nice if we had been given more time to talk about the Garin and thank various people and organizations, buy hey, what can you do? Maybe next time I'm interviewed on TV they will cut me a little more slack.