This Sunday, my digsmate and I came to the conclusion that as women with
bigger busts, we have the upper hand. When buying shirts, we are able to fill
out the shirt quite well and this essentially makes sure that it looks even
better than it did on the coat hanger lookalike mannequin in the shop window!
In a strange and yet fully logical manner, the analogy can also be applied to
Upstart and the show we produced this week and are trying to plan for future
shows. Let me explain: like the running order that I referred to in my blog
post last week, and to the shirt that I refer to this week, these two are the
structures that hold or arrange the show or the mentioned body parts. And the
‘filler’, be it boobs or programming content
is what counts in the end. I think our show this week was in the ‘C-cup’ range
of bra sizes, resting in a medium sized shirt: a good fit but more could have
been added to make it that much of a better fit.
Freedom Day was the decided theme for this week and a good theme it
proved to be. We had two guests in
studio- Mr. Maqanda, a history teacher at Ziphozihle’s school and Mr. Richard
Pithouse, the Politics
lecturer here at Rhodes. Both were led into discussion by Anesipho who at times
nearly got overtaken by the passion with which Maqanda and Pithouse spoke about
Freedom Day, the country’s 18th birthday and how the youth can come
to appreciate a day that they didn’t experience (the first democratic voting).
The content of the interview was well guided by Anesipho’s questions which were
sculpted by BK well before hand. I think this is quite an important aspect of
the show prepration that BK has picked
up on; that is, making sure that the
questions used by the Upstarters when conducting live and recorded interviews, are
structured and focused. I was so grateful for BK at that point because Anesipho
had no worries what-so-ever while sitting next to these two well-spoken men.
(Girl Power!)
During the debriefing session after the show, Ziphozihle and Thobani
spoke about the interviews they conducted this week with regards to Freedom
Day. Ziphozihle had experienced technical difficulties and her interview
couldn’t be aired, but it was clear that for her, the experience of talking to
her interviewees had nevertheless been positive. She explained that the general reaction of the people she spoke to in
her community to Freedom Day was quite good. Something she said about spending
her Freedom Day at home and talking to her family about the holiday struck me.
The mere fact that she was discussing this holiday with her family was amazing
to me because my family and I don’t do that at all! I enjoyed listening to her
retelling some of these stories and the experiences her family had for them to
appreciate Freedom Day.
Thobani’s interview which we edited and could air, had me (and hopefully
people at home and in studio) thinking quite seriously about what Freedom Day
means to him and his community. Norman, the elderly man he had interviewed,
retold a story about the days of Apartheid. I found his descriptions really
contributed to the meaning of the show:
“There was a
certain siren that would cry… each and every black man must move out from town
because there was a time when if you were in town, you had to produce a certain
paper, where are you coming from- to and from, the paper… it was so
embarrassing that time…”
This was a man who has lived
through Apartheid and who can appreciate a day like Freedom Day because he now
has the freedom to walk the streets without that piece of paper. Listening to him made me reconsider this public holiday and
its worth. I think I may ask my family about their Freedom Day experiences now
and try make it more important than a day of sleeping and movies. But in my
defense for this year, I did help with the creation of the Upstart show on
Freedom Day, so I think that counts :).
I would say that currently, even though we still have glitches such as
transport, no presenters being in studio (long story which I don’t feel like
talking about really) and having to bring Steve in as anchor this week, our
show went as smoothly as it could. We still had laughs towards the end, people
listening at home (as we saw on twitter but still not Mxit as I had hoped). And
there was an email from Masi, the Rhodes music Radio station manager, saying
that he tuned in and thought it was really good content. So all in all, we’re
getting there. Next week we talk Worker’s Day! Watch this space as our Upstart
Radio bra size hopefully gets that well deserved boob lift and goes to a perky D-cup!
Nadia
