WEBVTT - Alisyn Camerota 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.159 I don't know if it's train wreck watching or pity 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:05.800 watching or thank God I'm not out in the elements 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.360 watching or Jess Anderson in a wet t shirt washing. 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.720 I don't know, but I know that it's successful. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:12.719 It's successful. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:21.439 Okay, Hi, I'm Alison Camarata and you may know me 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.520 from CNN, but you're about to hear my deepest secrets. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.000 Hi, everybody, thanks for joining me. Welcome to Off the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.920 Beat with Me your host Brian Baumgartner. We have a 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:46.400 breaking news story today out of Westport, Connecticut. Renowned journalist 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:51.240 and television personality, Allison Camarata is making waves once again, 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.080 this time as a guest on this podcast. Yes, Alison 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.640 is a stalwart figure in the world of broadcastournalism, a 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.640 reporter who has seen pretty much everything. Her career has 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:10.120 spanned multiple decades and ideologies. She worked for many years 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.640 at Fox News and is now an anchor with CNN, 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.160 not to mention a stint at America's most wanted and 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.440 local channels in Boston and Washington, d C. But no 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:26.280 matter where she's reporting from or for whom, she's always 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:31.679 fair and reasoned. She has a real journalistic integrity and ethics, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.920 and that's exactly what we need in the world of news. Today, 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.560 we're going to talk about how she bridged the gap, 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.800 how she copes with the twenty four hour news cycle, 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:46.760 and her early days in the downtown New York punk scene. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.880 I really enjoyed this conversation with Alison. You can catch 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.520 her on the Whole Story with Anderson Cooper these days, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.680 and you can also learn all about her fascinating life 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.480 in her new book, Combat Life of a Jersey Girls 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.800 Search for Home. Now over to you, Allison. 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:16.720 Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeakna Bubble 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:21.000 and Squeak could get every mo lift over from the nub. 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:36.040 Hi Allison, Hey, Brian, what's up. How are you doing? 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:37.600 I'm doing well. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.520 It's such an honor to be on with you. A 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:41.560 national hero. 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:47.120 Oh oh please, I'm serious. No, I'm not a head 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.880 of state. I'm not I'm not an ambassador or a 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.480 congressman or a president or a senator. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:55.640 Uh. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.600 But it's very very I've been a fan of your 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.560 work for a long time and it's so nice nice 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.639 to talk to you. Well like yours. Where are you? 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.519 I'm in my home in Westport, Connecticut. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:16.240 Oh, Connecticut, Fancy, Martin Fancy, that's where that's where the well, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.400 I'm on the other coast, so, but that's where the 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.400 New York fancy people live. I want to launch into 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.760 your career and your life. But it feels like I 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.880 have to say that we have an official I guess 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.000 raised for the president coming up this year. Biden and Trump? 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:36.840 Are you so excited about this? 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:38.920 Beyond beyond? 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.040 I mean, do you know who's excited about this? Therapists, 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.680 That's who's excited about this. The amount of money that 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.640 they'll make over the next couple of years, So psychiatrists 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:52.640 and psychologists very excited. 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.360 Oh my god, when you said the last next couple 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.600 of years, that's a horrible, horrible thought. I mean, we 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:04.040 have but we have six months until election day ish. 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:06.720 And it does feel as though there'll be some like 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:12.040 act of God or like force majure as they say, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.680 that will keep it from happening. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:16.600 I mean that's just election. 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:22.280 Yeah, oh God, feels like it, maybe like aliens will invade. 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.000 It's just we don't have the imagination to actually I 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.600 think imagine election day as is. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.000 Yeah, well, it'll be interesting. I don't know if it'll 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.799 be fun. I was I was listening to some sports 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.159 radio yesterday who said, this is the place that you 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.800 can come and not not hear about all of that, 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.240 But then you would be out of a job. I guess, So, 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:45.880 I mean, we gotta we gotta watch some. 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.040 Sort well, I mean, I guess I feel like, you know, 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.000 one of the things that I really really bums me 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.000 out is that there's a lot of news, and I 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.880 think that we've gotten so heavy on political news and 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.720 certainly partisan news, that there's all sorts of other human 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.080 story worries to be told. And I'm grateful when I 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.920 get assignments to tell those other stories, because it's only 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.320 in the past, I don't know any more, fifteen years 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.920 that you know, politics has become the sports of our era. 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.280 But there used to be a time when polite society 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.760 didn't talk politics, and I want to get back to that, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.080 and I'd like to get back to just human interest, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.320 other important stories to tell. 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.200 Well, I know you've been doing a lot more of 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.760 that recently, and I want to talk about that. But yes, 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:32.480 that was the rule, right, no politics, religion at the 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.480 dinner table, the rule. Yeah, I remember that. My grandmother 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:41.560 taught me that you're now in lovely Connecticut. You grew 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:47.760 up in the Jersey Shore there, Shrewsbury, New Jersey. What 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.960 were you interested in as a youngster there in the 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:51.840 Jersey Shore. 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.360 I was interested in the beach, of course, because it's 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.000 the Jersey Shore. I was an only child raised by, 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:01.440 you know, born to two intellectuals. So there were books 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.800 and a lot of music around my house when I 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.520 was growing up, and I would say that music is 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.120 the theme that kind of bond did my parents and 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.960 me together, as well as a lot of people in 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.360 Monmouth County, New Jersey, which are the short towns. Music 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:23.280 was a big motif through our young lives. There were 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.160 a lot. I don't exactly know what the special sauce 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.799 was of Mommoth County and why music was so important. 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.400 If it's because we were forty miles away from New 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.640 York City and we would go in and hear live music. 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.000 But there were just a lot of garage bands. My 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.400 high school had a ton of bands. Bruce Springsteen is 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.719 obviously from there, but I mean Bruce is just a product. 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.760 He wasn't the reason we were into music. He's just 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:50.320 another example of how Monmouth County breeds musicians, right, and 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.359 so that was a big theme through my life and 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.200 continues to be like music was a very powerful influence. 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.480 Were your parents at interests in their in their musical 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.120 choices or is this I mean you say intellectuals and 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:10.280 so I think like they've got Beethoven rocking on the stereo. 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.080 Well, they knew a lot about most Art and Beethoven. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.760 But I don't mean they were avant garde intellectuals. I 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.800 mean that they just under They too understood music. And 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.000 my mother, in fact, was the drama teacher at a 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.760 local high school, so she put on the musicals every year, 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.960 so it truly was in my dna. She was the 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.000 first one she ever directed was West Side Story, and 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.720 she was pregnant with me. So from in utero I 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.680 understood musicals and had memorized all the lyrics to musicals. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.280 So that was on in my house a lot different. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:46.000 You know, Man of La Mancha and Cabaret and even now, 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.880 I mean those are just they're spectacular, you know that kind. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.240 But anyway, my point is we weren't music snobs. We 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.000 liked all different kinds of genres. 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.040 Has that carried forward for you in your time at 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:09.560 Fox News and CNN just then like just a street battle. Now, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:11.320 every time I see you, I'm going to think that 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.520 you're thinking that, by the way, Well, I. 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.400 Mean, isn't it true that even the CNN and Fox 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.920 battle plays into the Sharks and the Jets. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.040 I mean that's what I mean. That's yes, that's exactly right. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.720 I'm not sure who is who at this point. I'm 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.040 going to stay away from that. But you talked about 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.760 in your new book. You have a new book coming out, 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:38.560 congratulations on that, Combat Love a Jersey Girls Search for Home. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:40.920 We're going to talk more about that a little bit later. 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.360 But you talk about being free range or kind of 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.920 unparented in your book. Does that mean you were given 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.920 a lot of space as a child to explore and 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:52.840 try things. 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:53.760 Yes. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.920 And I think that this is a kind of universal 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.920 feeling of gen xers. I think that a lot of 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.040 us were semi parents or unparented. We were the free 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.000 range generation. And it's strange, Brian, because there was never 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.520 a generation before us, I think that was so unparented, 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.959 and there certainly hasn't been one since. I mean, now 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:15.599 we've the pendulum has swung to helicopter parenting, which is overkill, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.360 may I add, So we were this very strange blip 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.240 in like the evolution of humans, where we were just 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.679 turned loose for some reason, as like marauding teenagers and 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.760 adolescents on the streets. I don't really know where parents 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.960 were in the eighties. I've tried to figure it out. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:33.480 I don't know. 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.079 If they were all a giant cocktail party somewhere, I 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.200 don't know, but they weren't around even like stay home 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.600 mothers were never hovering. And so yeah, it was a 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.040 very free range time, and I look back on it 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.120 fondly because I think that it instilled a lot of 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.360 grit and you know, self reliance that our kids now 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.760 don't have because we're helicopter parents. But as you'll read 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.760 the book, there were also many dangerous, dicey situations that 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.040 could have been avoided with a little supervision. 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.480 I think, right, yeah, yeah, I certainly see that. But 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.079 it's funny now, you know, I have younger kids. I 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.360 started late, and we have to know where they are 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.480 all the time now. And by the way, the phones 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.679 don't help, not that they have phones yet. I'm going 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.120 to hold off as long as I possibly can't do 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.439 that and the watches and all this stuff. And I 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.160 was just talking to somebody recently about like we would 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:34.120 get home from school or on a Saturday, like we 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.200 just checked out, Like we were just gone running through 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.960 you know, I'm from Georgia. There's woods. We were just 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.800 like running through the woods. And now it would be 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.600 like even if it was quote unquote safe from other 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.800 predators of one kind or another, it's like ticks or 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.680 snakes or like all of those things. Now would be like, 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:57.840 oh no, no, no, you need you need some tick 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:03.280 repellent on and on this gauze mask or whatever like 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.760 to protect you from I don't know, it's cract. I 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.280 mean we killed a cotton head, yeah, that's what you 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.120 call snake, like off our porch, and that the next 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.559 day we were running through the woods like not paying 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.840 any attention to anything. I just can't even imagine that 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:19.600 these days. 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.120 I'm me too. Our kids are totally bubble wrapped, and 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.520 I don't think that it's doing them any favors to 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.160 be bubble wrapped. I mean, I do think that there 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.760 is a happy There must be a happy medium. I 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.080 know we haven't found it yet because I don't think 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.640 that kids should have been in as many cars with 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.680 drunk drivers as I was. I don't think that's a 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.640 good idea, but we've really overcorrected that said. You know 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.720 my kids, I have two twins now who are in college, 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.400 and they're like shot out of a cannon because they're 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.000 having the experience in college for the first time, and 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.960 they're like, oh my god, what is this you know 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:57.400 that we had in high school. So I don't know, 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.040 maybe postponing it four or five years is for the best. 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:01.640 I don't know. 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.520 Yeah, it would be really hard now. I mean, I 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.560 assume it still happens, but to get away with like hey, 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.520 I'm going to Johnny's house to spend the night. I'll 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.280 see you tomorrow. Because there's no cell phones to text, 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.520 there's no there's not even any parents if the phone. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.000 If Johnny's parents are out of town and they just 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.840 don't answer the phone, they could just be not answering 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:31.040 the phone. Now it would be like text call alert totally. 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.000 And by the way, we did have sleepovers at people 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.640 whose houses whose parents were out of town. My design 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.680 that was the beauty parents were off and out of town. 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:41.959 That was what we did. 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.480 Well, as you said, they were not present as a teenager. 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.200 I find this so interesting. You got into punk rock, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.520 you talked about music is going to be a theme, 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.360 You started going into New York City to go to 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.960 a lot of the clubs there. Do you look back 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.680 fondly on those days, or do you look back and go, oh, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.040 my god, I can't believe that I was doing this, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.720 And yeah, I could have gotten myself into trouble. 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:14.960 Well, I did routinely get myself into trouble. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:17.440 But well, but you're still here. 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is the dividing line. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.240 I agree. I did survive, you know is important. I mean, 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.280 spoiler alert. I did survive, but I think back on 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.440 it very fondly, and I wasn't really I want to 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.040 be clear. I never was masquerading as a punk rocker. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:35.720 I didn't have a mohawk, I didn't have a safety 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.400 pin through my cheek. Okay, I myself couldn't really pull 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.600 off the punk rock aesthetic. But what happened was my 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:49.000 gateway drug into punk was a local punk band from Shrewsbury, 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:54.240 New Jersey called Shrapnel, and I loved Shrapnel so much, 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.800 and I loved those guys in it. They were so 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:02.600 charismatic and so cool and charming that that's who I loved, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.840 and so that's why I would follow them around. And 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.000 I ended up in this milieu of going to see 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.360 the Ramones and the Dead Boys and the Dictators and 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.000 like all of these bands. But I was really just 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.240 grinning and bearing it until I could get to Shrapnel 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.280 like that. I was there for Shrapnel and so but yes, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.600 I'm I'm honored that I was at CBGB's in the 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.680 heyday and that I was, you know, at all of 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.520 those front row shows like that. I look back on 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:29.280 it really fondly. 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.560 Oh that's really cool. I mean that that experience of 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:40.720 I think a perfect balance between like having a I mean, 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.400 it sounds like it wasn't so much of a bubble, 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.080 but having that smaller community where you could grow up, 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.800 you could explore safely certain things there, but having the 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:54.880 city so close to be able to have that as 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.240 a as an outlet. That must have been must have 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.000 been really fun. So this is it during high schoo 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:00.680 you're doing this? 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.280 Yeah, this was during high school restudents And to your point, Shrewsbury, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.200 New Jersey is basically one square mile maybe two square miles, 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.800 and it would have been Maybury had it not been 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.960 forty miles away from the city. But somehow because of 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.840 that link, that fathers got on the train there in 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.400 the morning and went off to work in Manhattan and 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.800 then came home. And I don't know what planted the 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.680 seed with all of us kids that we thought we 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.640 could do that as well, but we did. And so 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:34.160 Shrewsbury is this very strange little pocket or was in 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.640 the eighties where we were tethered to the city in 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.480 a way that small town suburbia isn't always And we 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.320 did use the city, and we did go see live 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:46.640 music in the city, and I did spend my prom 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.920 night at the Limelight in the city. Like we just were. 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:54.600 We did have that combination of small town Ocean Jersey 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.720 Shore and then that escape to have adventures in the city. 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.520 And so it was you know, if you survived it, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.080 it was measurable, right. 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.440 I promise you you won't know that this is true. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.920 I don't relate every conversation, so I spend a lot 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.160 of times not mentioning the office, but I do have 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.920 to say, part of what you just talked about is 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.720 something that our boss Greg Daniels talked about a lot 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.200 which was interesting to me, which was in terms of 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.320 like why Scranton, Pennsylvania, Like why choosing that? And what 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:31.960 he was looking for was an insular community but that 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:37.520 was close to the big city, and so what kept 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.600 those people there as opposed to being in the city 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.680 or you know, and part of it is distance and 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.080 so forth, But how often did they utilize the big 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.520 city or whatever and stayed where they were? So when 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.280 he was coming up with where the office was going 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.120 to take place, that was his requirements, Like he wanted 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.920 it to be near something large, but still insular in 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.880 its own way, with access to but not in that 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.480 larger community. So I don't I always find that fascinating. 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:07.360 I like that, Brian. And first of all, you can 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.560 relate everything back to the office. I'm here for it, 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.720 totally here for it. And I mean we can get 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.440 into how much my kids loved the office. 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:16.680 Oh that's nice. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.840 Yeah, it's so great. But I think that for me, 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.679 there was something really powerful about that combination because I 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.840 did like to have adventures, but mostly I was a provincial, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.400 small town girl, and I liked being able to drive 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.200 down the street or walk down the street and know 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.040 who lived in every house. I didn't have to like them, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.080 they'd never be my friend, but I knew their story 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.000 and that was very cool to me. So there it 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.600 was to me kind of a little nest, and you know, 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:49.679 God knows, again, it wasn't Maybury. There was definitely bad 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.879 behavior at times happening in Shrewsbury. But I liked that 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.200 familiarity of that kind of provincial town. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.479 You eventually you went on to because you're a smarty 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.199 pants American university there in d C. Now, were you 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:04.520 into the punk scene there? 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.760 No, But again because I was only into shratnel, no shrapnel, 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:13.159 no punk. They're completely entwined, intertwined for me. So but 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.199 I was always into music. I mean I did. I 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.280 went to see the Remote, Like you know, I was 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:18.760 definitely in the Ramones camp. I went to see the 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.240 Ramones a few times and live in d C. But 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.360 I always went to hear music always. But I did 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.760 cross all genres when I got to d C. That's 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:30.400 a kind of more Southern leaning city obviously than New York. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.320 So there was all like NRBQ, and there was Dave 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.760 Matthews and all these other kind of sounds and bands 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:37.760 that I was going to see live. 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.000 Yeah, I don't know. Actually that's a lie. I do. 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.040 I do know exactly how old you are, because I 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.359 have papers right here that tell me, so we're roughly 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:51.119 the same age. So yeah, that Dave Matthews band, you know, 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.520 coming out of Virginia. You know, that was sort of 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.280 you know, they were playing when I was in college. 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.879 They were playing there at the University of Virginia. I 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.360 had a friend there and that's how I got introduced 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.760 to him, and that was a really really good time there. 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.520 What's always curious that I like to talk to people 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:11.200 about who end up focusing on something and having success 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.520 and excellence in it. You know, you're in an intellectual family. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:19.800 You're interested in music culture clearly as well. When for 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.960 you did you start on the path of you know, 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.560 I know communications and broadcast journalism ended up being your focus. 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.879 Did you go to American for that or at what 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.200 point did you decide this was the direction you wanted 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:37.000 to go in. 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.880 So for me, there was an actual moment that there 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.840 was an actual moment where the epiphany, like the light 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.680 bulb went on. So it was I was fifteen years old, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.199 it was after school. I was sitting on the sofa 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:54.000 and I was watching Phil Donahue. Okay, and Phil Donahue 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:58.120 had this daily afternoon talk show that was the bomb. 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.720 I mean I loved the Field Donahue show as a teenager, 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.280 and I was watching it, and truly I had one 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.640 of those aha moments where I was like, what's that 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.080 job called? What do you call that? Because it wasn't 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.040 like TV star, it was something different. It wasn't an actor. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.480 It wasn't like, what is that that he's doing? And 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.360 I thought, what is that job called? And they pay 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.480 him to do that? And I found out that that 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.600 was called broadcast journalists. And from the moment I figured 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.720 out that broadcast journalism was a profession, I was like, Oh, 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.840 I'm doing that. That's what I want to do. Like 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.040 I saw him with his microphone like running around the studio, 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.080 you know, like asking people questions. Caller is the caller there? 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:44.000 Like it was all so fantastic. And so I only 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.000 applied to colleges that had TV stations, which now they're 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.880 like ubiquitous, but at the time there were truly only 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:51.320 a handful of them. I mean I could take them 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:57.159 off Syracuse, Ithaca, you know, American University, Northwestern and the 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.439 day I got to American walked into the team, I 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:02.800 was like, huh, I'd like to be a TV reporter 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.359 and they were like, uh yeah, you and two hundred 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.840 other freshmen you go back and get l so but 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.040 that was my north star from that moment A fifteen 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:13.080 that was it. 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.480 That is so interesting. I mean I remember watching Phil 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.760 Donahue as well, like with I don't know why, like 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.360 that's like a grandparent's memory. I don't know, like they 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.359 loved Phil Donahue. Yes, but in a way I would 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.960 argue that Phil Donahue, as great as he was and 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.879 as entertaining as that was, and he was legit, he 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:39.760 is a little bit of the gateway drug into where 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.719 we sit today. I don't know if any of these 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.800 people are your friends. But and then you start going 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:51.600 into like Heraldo or Maury Covid. Sure, yeah, word tu 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:52.120 you I. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.000 Actually agree with you. Phil Donahue, I would say, was 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:59.720 still on the you know better Angels side of that 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.399 of that continuum. And I do love her although and 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.399 he is a great in real life. He is a 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.520 great guy in of total mention, and I do love 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.000 him dearly. But yeah, Phil donaghu was the beginning of 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.760 that continuum that leads right to like a chair being 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.920 broken over somebody's head, right, or a paternity test on 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:21.120 the Mari Povid show. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:26.040 Yeah, exactly, that's very interesting. I mean he was much 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:31.960 more asking questions as opposed to telling you what the 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:34.880 thing should be, which I think in a weird way 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:36.359 that that's what we need more of. 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.520