The TV & radio interviews are going like gang-busters. Some interviews have been serious, talking about additiction and vampire mythology and the need some regular mortals who call themselves "real vampires" have for actual human blood; other interviews have been a little like sparring matches - and those tend to be the most fun for both the DJ and me, I think.
For example, Ed Flynn, an interviewer in Waterbury, CT and a self-described foaming-at-the-mouth rabid-Republican, said he was afraid of me -- because I am a graduate of that bastion of liberal so-called thought, the New School for Social Research. To which I replied, "your fears are well-founded, my friend. Everything you've heard is true!" And then I laughed sinisterly.
But then he said he read that I went to the high school in Queens, NY, St. Francis Prep -- and his high school in Manhattan, La Salle, had a football team that played us and mopped the floor with us. I told him I had been the captain of the football team so that it's entirely possible (that was just self-depreciation at play there; in real life, I wasn't even a spectator).
The next time he brought up how La Salle beat us, I replied, "You want a rematch, Flynn? Let's go - bring it on!"
What did any of this have to do with vampires? I don't know. Maybe that joshing each other is "in our blood"...?
But then there are the interviews that go really well I think -- until I hear the audioclip.
I was also on WINS, 1010 am in NY - 4 times over the weekend, 4 different interviews! This was huge because 1010 WINS is a powerhouse station here, and about a gagillion people listen to it.
So I'm playing the clip and I hear" "Andrew Valentine author of the book Bitter Sweet..." (not Bitter Things).
Four times - 4 different interviews...!
This was just like the time the St. Francis Prep Alumni newsletter said the name of my first novel was "Stinks on Ice" when it was "Death by Hairspray." Everyone's a critic -- even when they don't mean to be.
So it was the same thing. Only worse.