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Behind the scenes with Karen Michel, producer of Peggy Lee Appreciation
Interview conducted by Johanna Zorn
Editor's note: Karen Michel and I can date ourselves back to the early days of
NPR. I began my internship at Chicago Public Radio in 1980, the year Morning
Edition debuted on NPR. Karen started back in 1974. So while I created the
Third Coast Festival, in part, to encourage the next generation of audio
producers, I've wondered lately about what it takes to keep producing fresh and
creative programs over a long career. So I asked my friend and fellow
middle-ager Karen Michel to indulge me in an interview about "graying" in this
business.
--Johanna Zorn, Executive Director of the TCIAF
> When you began producing radio stories did you think of radio as a
life-long career? Are you kidding? I still don't. Maybe I'll become a
bartender, or a realtor, or a dog groomer. Or stay with my addiction: radio.
Now, a sidebar, or rather the first thing needs to be told: When I was 6 going
on 7 I remember lying in bed next to my mother while visiting her parents in
Erie, Pennsylvania (we'd taken a cross-country train journey from LA to get
there). I told her that I knew why I'd been born: it was to observe. That's
what I do in my work now. It's taken some time getting here; for years my
observations were in my photographs, sculptures, ceramics, then sound
compositions. Radio.
> Why have you stayed with it for so long?
There are many days when I wonder, given the frustrations (add to the usual,
the computer crashes). I guess I stay in it because deep down, or perhaps skin
deep, I'm a masochist. I also love the medium, even though as an independent
producer I'm constantly trying to learn while banging head and other body parts
against public radio management pooh-bahs. I'm also attracted to most of the
Medusa-tressed aspects of it (writing, engineering, schmoozing, etc.) and
haven't come up with anything more satisfying (and less lucrative) to do with
my life.
> Do you think the field is more suited to the young, or simply the
young-at-heart, and why?
I've always felt that journalism -- not specifically radio art or sound-making
or whatever -- is perfect for growing old. It's something that a person can
always do, however frail, unfit, unsound, or otherwise. If young-at-heart
implies constant curiousity, then YES! I'm basically a nosy, inquisitive,
wants-to-know person, and I feel fortunate and privileged to be in a field that
requires these attributes. And I get to tell other folks what I've found out,
and that's great.
> How many years did it take until you found your voice?
My voice? Hmm. I think I found it when I relaxed. And that was not so long into
doing this work. One day in Fairbanks, Alaska, while driving into the local
public radio station, KUAC-FM (where I got My Start), I realized that I had no
desire to interview Gary Snyder (Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet) -- I
really wanted to have a conversation. That was a eureka moment and led to a
totally different way of interviewing, producing, thinking, and hearing about
radio.
> Do you think your voice continued to evolve? Or is it a matter of
finding your sound and sticking with it?
I hope that once I'm stuck I can unstick. Without leaving a nasty residue
unremovable by any conceptual cleanser. Sure, it's changed, changes, and when I
feel like I haven't changed for some time and I am boring myself, I work on
figuring out a change. Literally. I've taken voice lessons, music lessons,
gotten more deeply into spiritual pursuits, whatever to shake me up and thus
sound different. Still, it's me.
> What is your advice to people who want to age gracefully and continue
to do meaningful work in radio over a long career?
Ask for, and insist on, edits! And don't just ask Official Editors, but others,
preferably:
- not radio people
- if radio, then younger/less experienced/less sure
- from one's own altered consciousness, which is also an "other"
Do I think it's possible to be old and do great work -- well, of course I do or
I'd kill myself. Since I just acquired a fine new eMac, MBox and PT LE I'm
planning to stick around for at least three more years before
auto-techno-obsolescence kicks in! And, hey, I've got PILES of ideas and would
love an opportunity (aka $) to do at least some of them.
> Do think you'll ever stop making radio stories?
I don't imagine I'll ever be financially able to retire. I'll hold a microphone
'til my hand shakes so badly that I'm micing a boob or armpit or waist -- and
then I'll just figure out another way to mic. I think I may never stop loving
sound: I am a sound junkie. Have been for a very long time. I nearly went deaf
at the age of seven, and it's had a bigtime impact on my appreciation for
hearing and listening.
But I have other plans too. I do think it's likely I'll do more print
journalism; I love to write, and print takes much less time to do. A few months
ago I did a video project for a New York City museum, and I am now doing
another for a cable channel. (I worked in video for several years in Alaska,
and I am enjoying re-entering the visual realm.) Future plans include
attempting to make art again; I've got ideas and miss the tactile.
> Any last words of wisdom?
Above and to the side of one of my computers, I keep a photo of Henry Miller
and the following quote, both a gift from a slightly older
actor/writer/director friend: "The thing is to become a master and in your old
age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing."
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