Saturday's Storyteller: "Did you know the velociraptor's prey of choice is the dingo?"
by Belinda Roddie
"Did you know the velociraptor's prey of choice is the dingo?" asked the pseudo-wacky host of the pseudo-satirical documentary, just before my thumb scraped at the channel button and made his goofy face disappear.
"Hey!" my little brother protested, but I didn't listen. Instead, I went to Channel 2, because it was eight o'clock in the evening and I had my bowl of pretzels and can of coke ready to go. To Larry, not being able to see a manic-browed man dressed up like a psychedelic safari leader wasn't suitable for a TV viewing, so instead he trotted sulking out of the room in order to play with his giant blue bucket of legos.
I was happy to have the space to myself. My parents were out for the night, and I could watch my favorite show in peace. I waited for the straight-forward title cards to flash by before the person I wanted to see strolled onscreen, dressed in the token collared white shirt with the three-quarter sleeves, the unbuttoned color, and the open red vest. This was "Casual Formal," an episodic series of interviews with various celebrities and politicians eager to first talk in a fun environment before getting into a more-authentic-than-Oprah-style serious conversation.
The interviewer in question was none other than Therese Liebacht, though she was known colloquially as Terry. She was most likely thirty-two now, having started the show four years prior when I was thirteen. She was also my biggest celebrity crush.
As Terry talked in her delightfully fluid accent - deceivingly sounding far from her original hometown's dialect - I was drawn in to her face once more. She had a new haircut, the strands cropped closer to her chin this time around. The cuffs of her sleeves were unbuttoned, too, and jauntily angled compared to the sharp arrows of her elbows. She was set to interview the newest child TV star - starting in Disneyland and ending in the actress's brand new house in Malibu.
My coke was already getting warm by the time I remembered to sip it, and as I felt my face melt into a sticky daze, I heard my brother's squeal beside me.
"Can we watch something else?"
"No!" I heard myself barking, and Larry quickly darted from the room in a flurry of terror.
***
Terry Liebacht, presumably, was from a suburb in Sonoma County, California, a county I had never been to. Her father had his own wine cellar, where various tourists eager to sample the taste of the state's chardonnay and sauvignon blanc flocked, and he did well until his death. As various sources told it, she had first gone into journalism before starting her own freelance series of interviews with various local musicians and colleagues. By the time she turned twenty-four, she was interviewing Huey Lewis, members of Metallica, and other North Bay-localized musicians that had spent their time in the spotlight.
"Casual Formal" was the new bait for producers who were seeing Oprah depart from her royal throne and Ellen DeGeneres become the staple of daytime talk shows. It was a refreshing counter to Access Hollywood and Extra!, even getting people working at E! a little jealous. The reason for that was Terry Liebacht knew how to talk to celebrities well, without threading too many sticky webs of sap, goo, and drama into the mix. Unlike the "True Hollywood Stories," she was down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, and to the point.
Of course the producers had fought and clawed for a more glamorized, over-the-top show, but Liebacht's personality alone was the shining spot of gold. So was her interviewing technique. For one thing, she never asked "Yes" or "No" questions. She claimed in interviews of her own (the interviewer being interviewed was always an amusing concept to me) that to ask those was to lead the interviewee down a misguided path to a misguided answer. It was like pulling them on a leash to say what the audience wanted them to say.
"My job is not to entertain," she once told Piers Morgan, after a rather tense confrontation with John McCain about same-sex marriage during the Formal segment of the show. "My job is to let them tell the truth."
One might wonder why someone like Liebacht would catch my eye over the bombshells that were the models, the movie stars, the singers, or the dancers. She was far from stunning - built a bit like a man, long and lean, squarish shoulders and boxy hips, broad set chest and waist. One hand in her pocket and the other waving large, log-like fingers while a silver watch gleamed on the wrong wrist (she claimed that even though she was primarily right-handed, to have the watch on the left wrist felt off-kilter to her). But it was her presence - in her casual garb or in the suit with the silver vest for the formal interview - that caught me most. And what was even more exciting was that she was planning to do something entirely different.
"Casual Formal" was doing well, but Liebacht had always wanted to branch out beyond the individual interviews. She always claimed in her magazine shoots and newspaper segments that she wanted to go back to her first structure of work - true journalism. And what could be more appropriate, she said, then to return to her home state to talk closely with the youth she cared so much about?
Specifically, LGBT youth. It would be an enormous exposé, the caramel center of a topic that Liebacht cared very much about. She had wanted to do it jointly with Ellen DeGeneres at first, Liebacht taking the west coast and DeGeneres taking the east, allowing them to move in a similar direction towards the midwest where they would meet in Chicago. But when DeGeneres backed out from the alleged "tour," Liebacht took matters into her own hands: She asked for letters.
Letters from LGBT youth who wanted to be interviewed. LGBT youth who wanted to be on her special.
I wasn't able to resist. I wrote a letter in cursive and dropped a photo into the envelope. It was a wallet-sized shot of me and my ex-girlfriend, Lucy, as we waved at the presumed camera. Neither of us had wanted to break up.
Three weeks had gone by since the call for mail, and we still hadn't heard a thing. Until tonight. That's why I was watching the show more intently than usual.
The shot suddenly transitioned to Terry Liebacht's "living room," where she sat on the couch with a stack of envelopes flanking both sides of her. As she stared deeply into the lens in front of her, I felt as if she were scanning my soul like an office copier.
"While I will be doing short conversations with dozens of LGBT youth," she was explaining, "I have chosen only a few select people to exclusively interview. Their names, read out with their permission, are as follows."
I had forgotten about my pretzels. The salty snacks weren't top priority anymore. Liebacht was reading off a thin, papyrus-like sheet of paper.
"Scott Diamond."
Person I didn't know. I sipped from my can.
"Virginia Ferris."
What a name.
"Camille Simon."
I froze. What.
Camille Simon.
Say it again, Terry! I begged. Say it again!
She didn't. She smiled, waved, and the screen faded out. I remained stiff on my couch. My hand brushed against the bowl and sent pretzels tumbling to the gray, stained carpet.
I waited for a phone call. I got it.
Interview.
This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.
"Did you know the velociraptor's prey of choice is the dingo?" asked the pseudo-wacky host of the pseudo-satirical documentary, just before my thumb scraped at the channel button and made his goofy face disappear.
"Hey!" my little brother protested, but I didn't listen. Instead, I went to Channel 2, because it was eight o'clock in the evening and I had my bowl of pretzels and can of coke ready to go. To Larry, not being able to see a manic-browed man dressed up like a psychedelic safari leader wasn't suitable for a TV viewing, so instead he trotted sulking out of the room in order to play with his giant blue bucket of legos.
I was happy to have the space to myself. My parents were out for the night, and I could watch my favorite show in peace. I waited for the straight-forward title cards to flash by before the person I wanted to see strolled onscreen, dressed in the token collared white shirt with the three-quarter sleeves, the unbuttoned color, and the open red vest. This was "Casual Formal," an episodic series of interviews with various celebrities and politicians eager to first talk in a fun environment before getting into a more-authentic-than-Oprah-style serious conversation.
The interviewer in question was none other than Therese Liebacht, though she was known colloquially as Terry. She was most likely thirty-two now, having started the show four years prior when I was thirteen. She was also my biggest celebrity crush.
As Terry talked in her delightfully fluid accent - deceivingly sounding far from her original hometown's dialect - I was drawn in to her face once more. She had a new haircut, the strands cropped closer to her chin this time around. The cuffs of her sleeves were unbuttoned, too, and jauntily angled compared to the sharp arrows of her elbows. She was set to interview the newest child TV star - starting in Disneyland and ending in the actress's brand new house in Malibu.
My coke was already getting warm by the time I remembered to sip it, and as I felt my face melt into a sticky daze, I heard my brother's squeal beside me.
"Can we watch something else?"
"No!" I heard myself barking, and Larry quickly darted from the room in a flurry of terror.
***
Terry Liebacht, presumably, was from a suburb in Sonoma County, California, a county I had never been to. Her father had his own wine cellar, where various tourists eager to sample the taste of the state's chardonnay and sauvignon blanc flocked, and he did well until his death. As various sources told it, she had first gone into journalism before starting her own freelance series of interviews with various local musicians and colleagues. By the time she turned twenty-four, she was interviewing Huey Lewis, members of Metallica, and other North Bay-localized musicians that had spent their time in the spotlight.
"Casual Formal" was the new bait for producers who were seeing Oprah depart from her royal throne and Ellen DeGeneres become the staple of daytime talk shows. It was a refreshing counter to Access Hollywood and Extra!, even getting people working at E! a little jealous. The reason for that was Terry Liebacht knew how to talk to celebrities well, without threading too many sticky webs of sap, goo, and drama into the mix. Unlike the "True Hollywood Stories," she was down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, and to the point.
Of course the producers had fought and clawed for a more glamorized, over-the-top show, but Liebacht's personality alone was the shining spot of gold. So was her interviewing technique. For one thing, she never asked "Yes" or "No" questions. She claimed in interviews of her own (the interviewer being interviewed was always an amusing concept to me) that to ask those was to lead the interviewee down a misguided path to a misguided answer. It was like pulling them on a leash to say what the audience wanted them to say.
"My job is not to entertain," she once told Piers Morgan, after a rather tense confrontation with John McCain about same-sex marriage during the Formal segment of the show. "My job is to let them tell the truth."
One might wonder why someone like Liebacht would catch my eye over the bombshells that were the models, the movie stars, the singers, or the dancers. She was far from stunning - built a bit like a man, long and lean, squarish shoulders and boxy hips, broad set chest and waist. One hand in her pocket and the other waving large, log-like fingers while a silver watch gleamed on the wrong wrist (she claimed that even though she was primarily right-handed, to have the watch on the left wrist felt off-kilter to her). But it was her presence - in her casual garb or in the suit with the silver vest for the formal interview - that caught me most. And what was even more exciting was that she was planning to do something entirely different.
"Casual Formal" was doing well, but Liebacht had always wanted to branch out beyond the individual interviews. She always claimed in her magazine shoots and newspaper segments that she wanted to go back to her first structure of work - true journalism. And what could be more appropriate, she said, then to return to her home state to talk closely with the youth she cared so much about?
Specifically, LGBT youth. It would be an enormous exposé, the caramel center of a topic that Liebacht cared very much about. She had wanted to do it jointly with Ellen DeGeneres at first, Liebacht taking the west coast and DeGeneres taking the east, allowing them to move in a similar direction towards the midwest where they would meet in Chicago. But when DeGeneres backed out from the alleged "tour," Liebacht took matters into her own hands: She asked for letters.
Letters from LGBT youth who wanted to be interviewed. LGBT youth who wanted to be on her special.
I wasn't able to resist. I wrote a letter in cursive and dropped a photo into the envelope. It was a wallet-sized shot of me and my ex-girlfriend, Lucy, as we waved at the presumed camera. Neither of us had wanted to break up.
Three weeks had gone by since the call for mail, and we still hadn't heard a thing. Until tonight. That's why I was watching the show more intently than usual.
The shot suddenly transitioned to Terry Liebacht's "living room," where she sat on the couch with a stack of envelopes flanking both sides of her. As she stared deeply into the lens in front of her, I felt as if she were scanning my soul like an office copier.
"While I will be doing short conversations with dozens of LGBT youth," she was explaining, "I have chosen only a few select people to exclusively interview. Their names, read out with their permission, are as follows."
I had forgotten about my pretzels. The salty snacks weren't top priority anymore. Liebacht was reading off a thin, papyrus-like sheet of paper.
"Scott Diamond."
Person I didn't know. I sipped from my can.
"Virginia Ferris."
What a name.
"Camille Simon."
I froze. What.
Camille Simon.
Say it again, Terry! I begged. Say it again!
She didn't. She smiled, waved, and the screen faded out. I remained stiff on my couch. My hand brushed against the bowl and sent pretzels tumbling to the gray, stained carpet.
I waited for a phone call. I got it.
Interview.
This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.
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