Radio days

The radio interview went well. I'm looking for a link to it and if it's archived somewhere online, I'll be sure and put it on here.

It was kinda funny, though. See, I was meeting up with a friend and his family at Chuck E Cheese today. I woke up early and wrote my Press-Enterprise column early to make sure that I'd have enough time to take my daughters to Chuck E Cheese. It was about 9 or so when I got a call about the radio show and I figured I could squeeze it in so I jumped at the chance.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I was supposed to go on at either 11:25 or 11:45 a.m. PT but the show producer said he'd call me at about 11 to check in. It was 11:15 and I'm headed to Chuck E Cheese and I hadn't heard from him. I figured he'd slotted me in the 11:45 time slot and that would give me enough time to have my friend watch my girls while I went outside to do the radio interview.

Yeah, well, it's 11:23 or something and I'm pulling up at Chuck E Cheese and the producer calls.

"Hey Luis, can you go on right now?"

"Uh, like in how long?"

"About a minute."

Crap. I was driving around in the parking lot. In order to find parking, get the girls and go inside, look for my friend, ask him to watch the girls and go back outside, I'd need about five minutes. So I had to decide right then and there what to do.

"Sure."

"Are you alright, man?"

"Yeah, I'm just looking for a parking spot." (I wasn't about to tell him where!)

"Okay, we'll put you on hold."

I parked and told my daughters that they had to sit in the car for a little bit while I made a phone call. They complied. I left the truck and the AC running, opened the driver's side door and prayed that there would be no loud noises. The last thing I needed was some gangsta crusing by with loud music blaring from his car. I was right by the 91 freeway so there was some background noise but nothing too bad.

I was patched through to Dave Smith, the show host, and we talked about the US and Mexico. I don't recall what we first talked about because I was a bit worried about my daughters so that part is sort of blurry. But once we got going it went by pretty smoothly.

He asked me about how much it must hurt Mexicans to continue to lose to the U.S. in soccer and then he brought up some of the bad parts of the rivalry - the sometimes-hostile environments and the Osama chants. I tried my best to make him understand that the Osama chants, while inexcusable, were really an isolated incident and as far as I've heard don't happen here. We had a little back-and-forth about that and why fans act the way they act (tossing drinks, fights, etc.). I told him that I thought it just happened when you get 60,000-80,000 fans together who are passionate about soccer and few/many/most of them drink beer and with the nationalistic pride that sort of unwanted behavior comes out. I said it was sort of a mob mentality gone bad. I told him how Landon Donovan has told me before that when he encounters Mexicans in restaurants, stores or anywhere outside of soccer, they all tend to be pretty nice and friendly to him.

He asked me about Copa America and I was a but surprised he did. I thought he wouldn't really care too much about it but it seemed like he did so I told him a bit about the makeup of both rosters (US and Mexico) and that the US was using this tournament to build depth and there were some talented players there and such. We ended the interview and I immediately turned off the truck and got my girls out. They had spent the time playing in their car seats and grabbing stuff from each other and having a good old time.

I enjoyed it. I just hope next time I'm able to talk on the radio from a much more quieter location.