follow up to K&C

A few quick thoughts re my first K&C appearence:

First off, what you see on TV and how people are in real life are totally different; Larry Kudlow is an utterly charming man. He stopped into the green room before the show, chatted us up. On the tube, he’s comes across as this bombastic, conservative uber-bull — but its mostly TV persona. He’s a pussycat in person, very gracious and friendly.

Liz Ann Sonders is a pro. She’s this extremely handsome women, very bright and so articulate. A friend said that if you get nervous, find something else to focus on — anything other than your own nerves. So I locked onto her smile . . . She has absolutely the most beautiful teeth I’ve ever seen, just perfect. Made me want to floss in the car on the way home. But my friend was correct — once I started marvelling over that enamel, I kinda forgot that I had to pee the whole show.

As to the show: I think I mostly got my points across — I did get cut off a few times — but not too bad. Despite feeling like I was gonna throw up on the table (which I’m told is prefered on Fox, not CNBC), once I started yapping, the nervousness rapidly faded away (thanks to the teeth!).

Except for the hand gestures, which were a dead give away as to the nerves. It looked like I was conducting an orchestra. And my voice — when your nervous, the vocal cords tighten up — so I sounded 2 octaves higher than usual nasal twang (by the end of the show, I was almost back to normal).

LK disagreed with me that white collar jobs have been exported is a new phenomena — in the past, its been blue collar manufacturing jobs. I also forgot to mention IT, call centers, software programming jobs, but I did mention accounting, law, and medical moving overseas.

After the show, we chatted a little politics — it was surprising to learn that Kudlow’s next book is on — get this — JFK. He’s a big fan, called Kennedy the original supply sider. Larry’s theory is that JFK wouldn’t be able to get elected today as a Dem, due to his politics. Interesting stuff. He also had some very good things to say about Bill Clinton. (Really!) Very interesting.

Its funny how off your self perception is. My first thought after the show was relief that I didn’t totally blow it. Hey, maybe not great, but at least I didn’t embarrass (or piss) myself.

When I watched the show, I was surprised to see that I actually made some sense. During the taping (its live to tape) I felt like a babbling idiot. Waiting for the big hook to come from stage left, cartoon style, and just yank me off stage.

All in all, a fun night.