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Sparkle (1)
Pull up a chair, friends, because I have to tell you a social media fairy tale before I launch into the interview. This post is long, but the interview is packed with tips on television, promotion, fame and old stuff found in barns.
My sister has a problem. She's enamored with Michael Wolfe from American Pickers. It's a reality show on the History Channel about this guy from Le Claire, Iowa, who goes around and tries to find treasures in people's trash, which he then sells for fun and profit. While I do love the show, I think I'm also just over the moon that they gave a reality show to someone in my native Iowa. A very, very popular reality show. That doesn't make you want to brush your teeth after you watch it.
My sister, however, swears her relationship with Mike goes far beyond the viewing area. She says he's in love with her, and it's really got to stop. I don't know, what do you think? Judge for yourself from her open letter:
I'm sorry to have to give up on you in such a public forum, but I really needed to get this off my chest. (My Iowa, sun-kissed, freckled chest that could have your head resting upon it right now while we fish together on a bank somewhere on this lovely day--were it not for all of the above bulleted points and the ones I can't think of that I will remember later and then be really mad I didn't mention.) And don't try showing up at my little farmhouse with a white-gold/ruby (emerald- or cushion-cut; size 7) engagement ring and your camera crew and get down on one knee to try to make up for it. For reals.
After I read her post and finished laughing, I did what any self-respecting big sister would do: I made fun of her on Twitter.
And then ... there was a social media miracle. Mike Wolfe tweeted me back.
The skies opened and angels sang, and I believe I snorted chardonnay out my nose. My husband spent some time trying to figure out why I was choking before I could belt out an explanation.
Of course, I immediately called my sister, who was also home doing absolutely nothing on a Friday night, and we laughed until she snorted and every cat in my extended family ran for the hills.
The next day, my sister wrote another post, again trying to break off their unproductive and imaginary relationship:
Don't let him fool you. He's NOT sorry things didn't work out. He's just being all casual about it because he still has a master plan to infiltrate my family and make them all love him, too. It's not going to be hard. My parents LOVE the show. And it turns out my sister and BIL are watching it as well. It's going to be harder than I thought to extract myself from this relationship.
So I call up my sister. She's at home on a Friday night (also a loser) watching a movie with her husband. I tell her that Mike Wolfe is apparently in New York picking things (winner) and actually responded to her. We LAUGH and LAUGH--I mean talk seriously about whether or not I should get a restraining order.
After the hilarity died down, I decided to ask Mike if I could, like, really interview him, about important stuff like the show and the great state of Iowa. (Which produces amazing bloggers as well as reality show television stars.)(Ahem.)
And he said yes!
Rita Arens: How ever did you get the word out to The History Channel about what you were doing? Did you go to them or did they come to you?
Mike Wolfe: I pitched the show for four and a half years and learned a lot in that time frame. It started out because I traveled a lot by myself, having all these amazing experiences with people and their collections. I wanted a way to share that, so I bought a video camera and put it on my dash and started talking into it.
I would approach people just like I would without the camera. After I'd been on the property for a while, I'd ask them if they'd mind filming me while I was picking through their stuff. They'd be kind of laughing about it, and I'd have to
