After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

Okay, okay, okay, I'm here.

I'm here. Were you worried for a second there? Hey, I don't know if this matters, Producer J, but the computer in here is about to do its monthly Windows update, so not sure if we need that, but it's not going to be available coming up in, I don't know, a couple hours. Can we override it or it's just going for it? I don't know. I don't even care.

I'm over the equipment in here. It's not my responsibility. It's not my department, and so yeah, I guess if it disappears, oh well, I guess then we don't have access to calls, but that's all right. We don't take a lot of calls. I remember back when I first joined CBS Sports Radio in 2013 at its inception, my then boss used to get on my case for not taking more calls, and I don't mind calls if they're on point and if they're intelligent. I don't mind calls if they keep the conversation moving forward.

That's not always the case in sports radio, and so we don't take a lot of calls unless they're on point and they're part of what we're doing and they're at least close to remotely connected to the topic at hand, but I know a lot of you participate through social media when you listen, so that's all right too. A little bit behind the eight ball because generally I do not have a host in studio before I walk in here and I'm trying to clean up. Everything's still wet. I just did the whole quick cleaning process with the wipes and everything here in arms length within arms length is still wet, and so I haven't had an opportunity yet to get all my papers settled and my writing utensils pulled out, and I'm lucky I even found my headphones. It's funny.

I'm sure that you could come up with ways whether it's work or whether it's home. Maybe it's a particular time of the day where if you're out of your routine and you don't have an opportunity to get into your routine, it feels like everything else is off. I'm not meticulous so much about the show. I kind of go with the flow when it comes to the show. Oh, that is that was great.

We need to bring that back because then I gave it an oh on the end. I kind of go with the flow when it comes to the show. Oh, see what happens to me. These crazy phrases come out of my mouth and sometimes I make up words and sometimes I just get lucky and something super clever comes out. Right now the computer's doing something weird.

Don't ask me. This is what happens when I don't have a chance to get into the studio ahead of time. So maybe there's a particular part of your life or your routine that when it's not the normal steps that you typically take, well then kind of throws you off. I don't get thrown off by the show not working out the way I planned it, right? Because it's live radio.

It's like a living thing, an amoeba. It's constantly morphing and changing and that's the beauty of live radio. It's okay when you have to change on the fly or when there's another story or topic that takes flight or when people want to be part of the conversation. So that generally tends to push back some of your other topics and I don't get to everything that I want to get to. So yeah, there's a bazillion ways that a radio show cannot go according to plan and honestly I don't have a hard and fast plan when I come into the studio. I generally tend to have a list of topics and some audio that I like to use, maybe a couple different directions that I'd like to take.

This segment or that segment we might have some features that we want to do. I don't care when things don't line up the way I expected in the context of the show itself and the sports talk, but boy I'm a little bit anal retentive about my pre-show routine. I really am. I can set my watch by it if I were a watch and so now I wouldn't say I'm discombobulated, but I would say that I feel out of sorts as though my papers aren't where I need them to be. I don't have my writing utensils. Thank god I have my coffee.

That would be the worst. I suppose, Producer J, that we can manage anything else as long as the coffee has not been left at home. As long as there's coffee I think anything could be accomplished here, but never that one time recently where you did leave your coffee at home? Well right, but I was on the way to the beach so it wasn't like a dire situation, but yes it really threw me. I walked out of the house. It was one of those mornings where nothing seems to go right and so I walked out of the house and I left my coffee on my banister at the bottom of my staircase and for that reason I felt as though yeah the whole the whole morning was ruined right the whole everything just it was a total unmitigated disaster. Throws them all out of whack. Now it was still the beach and I did stop for another coffee, but yeah when I got home later that afternoon the coffee was still sitting on the banister and I'd had a friend who stopped by the house to let the dog out and she said she noticed my big giant mug of coffee sitting on the banister at the bottom of the stairs and thought huh I wonder if she left her coffee. Yes, yes I did. So it's not as bad as it could be because listen here's the coffee.