Prime Time in Tasmania!

Got an email from my friend Andrea Sutcliffe, who wrote a nifty book titled "Steam." It's a very steamy book. It's about steamboats and the steam era in early America. C-Span's BookTV recently taped us as we spoke on a panel in Charlottesville, moderated by Henry Wiencek, the author of "An Imperfect God," the best treatment anyone's ever done of G.W. and slavery. Anyway, Andrea was thrilled to pass along this news:

"Just checked this weekend's BookTV schedule, and our VABook panel is finally on. It airs at 4:45 pm (not a.m., thank goodness!) this Sunday, the 24th."

Soon thereafter I got a follow-up from Andrea:

"Strangely, I did read the schedule wrong. The program will air at 4:45 AM on Sunday. Your prediction on the mall in C'ville proved true. So much for more book sales."

Your heard it right: Four Forty-Five in the MORNING. That's not even a real time. That's like Prime Time in Fiji.

This raises the question: How awful do you have to be to earn that time slot? I mean were we gibbering and drooling and scratching ourselves rudely? Were we idiots? Maybe the microphones were turned off, leaving us inaudible, sounding kind of like: "...river...the boat that...and then he picked up a huge...Martha said that...what you would do if the lice were...and then my agent said...and to cure the self-loathing I decided....House of Pancakes....mixed the Tang with...terrible drug interaction...met with the Jamaican...referred to my attorney."

I feel so bad for all of you who must now get up early to watch.