Hmm….I know I already did a daily report of my adventures in Salt Lake, but I just want to get the whole thing in one place. I’ll probably be reiterating a lot of the same things, but hopefully I’ll hit on some things that I didn’t talk about. My time there went by so quickly, it’s just a blur of taking pictures, running around with the mike, meeting people, trying to remember names, trying to be cool when I’m really in awe of the people I’m interviewing and trying to catch a couple hours of sleep a night. So this is gonna be a REALLY long post, I can feel it already! So let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start…
Prologue: What the Hell Am I Doing Out There?
Well, I guess it all started with the Olympics. Sports Illustrated and NBC did a great job of promoting a little known sport called short track, and crowned Apolo Anton Ohno as the posterboy for the SLC games. For those of you that watched, he certainly lived up to the hype, producing some of the most memorable moments of the games. That, and the guy is pretty easy on the eyes. So yeah, I was intrigued by the guy. Maybe just a tiny bit obsessed - if you call sitting in Dave and Busters with a homemade Apolo pin on, making friends with the bartender so he could switch the big screen from hockey to short track obsessed, then so be it. Note: I didn’t make the pin. It was a great sport to watch. Apolo didn’t win 4 medals like people had wanted him to, but he did win a lot of hearts. And Apolo wasn’t the only one to take home a medal, his teammate Rusty Smith also took home a bronze.
Time goes by. I meet Rusty at the Milwaukee Worlds, we become friends. I meet Rod online, the guy who works on his website, we become even better friends. Rod and Rusty come to Chicago, we have a dinner, we hang out, we keep in touch. I’m on the Rusty forums all the time. I become an assistant webmaster on Rusty’s site. Etc. Etc. Etc. Sorry, that’s the super short version…
And the SLC World Cup looms in the distance. Tons of fans are planning to go. Short track is still amazingly popular, even one year after the Olympics. Rod gets an idea to make a documentary on what happens behind the scenes at a competition like that. Everyone SEES what happens on the ice, but what happens off the ice? What kind of preparations do they go through? What do they do with their free time? Who are the people behind the scenes? What are these skaters really like? Have they been affected by the sports new found popularity? So he gets started on the project. I get asked to do the interviewing, thanks to some great on the spot interviewing I did to some American Idol fans outside of the Kodak Theater after one too many Jack and Cokes. Rusty’s cool with being followed around with the camera. Emails are sent out to various people within US Speedskating, the Utah Oval and NBC. Interviews are scheduled. Production meetings are planned. Lists and schedules are being made. What seemed like a simple easy project turned out to be a production. But I was excited. And I knew the Rod and Rick (the silent webmaster for the site) were a little stressed, having to find out and rent all the equipment that would be needed. And we only had one chance to get it right.
Chapter 1: The Arrival and THE Interview
So I pack all my things and head out to Salt Lake. My plane comes in at noon, and my friend Denise comes to pick me up. We haven’t really met in person before, so of course there’s that weirdness when you meet for the first time. But it didn’t last long. We’ve been writing so many marathon emails that I feel like I know her, and we got along instantly. I call up Rod and Rick to tell them I’m in town. The US Team practice started at 10 that morning, so I wasn’t with the guys while they were filming. Of course, I was a bit sad that I couldn’t make it to practice, but there was nothing I could do. Me and Denise headed over the Homestead, which would be my home for the next 6 days.
Upon arrival, I notice that there was no free shampoo sample, giving the Homestead a very low score on my hotel rating scale. What can I say? I travel all the time, I’ve become a hotel snob. I also realize that the room isn’t that huge. Rod had informed me that they had a LOT of equipment, and I was hoping that the closet space would be adequate enough. I called up the guys, and they said they’d meet me at the hotel. I sat and watched TV in anticipation.
So finally the guys come in, and they weren’t kidding about how much stuff they had. There were 2 high quality cameras, lighting, mikes, tripods, tapes, batteries, a laptop and a lot of clothes. They brought more clothes than I did! They were exhausted from their ride in (they drove 10 hours from Long Beach) and from covering practice. But as soon as they came in, Rod says, ‘We’ve got gold’. I didn’t understand him at first, but then he explained to me that they were able to get access to a lot of things during practice, and they got some great footage. Rod gave me a brief view of the footage he got, and I was excited. It was just practice, but they got a lot of footage of everyone interacting. Rusty wore a wireless mike so you could hear their conversations. There was one point where Apolo was stretching, and Rusty came up behind him and was helping him out, and then, I got confused…’Rod? What are they doing? Are they wrestling?’ Rod nods his head. My jaw drops. Here’s Rusty and Apolo, just behaving like normal guys, messing around during team practice. It’s nothing, but when you think about it, WOW! Yes, this is gonna be GOOD!
We all settle in for a little and grab some food. We call up Rusty to see what he’s up to and he mentions that he’s going to go for a jog. We head over to their hotel and go up to his room. Rod suggests that Rusty runs over the the Delta Center, which is a couple blocks away, so we can do a quick interview with Rusty at the place where he won his bronze. Rusty then gets a call and asks the caller if he wants to go for a run. He gets off the phone and says, ‘That was Chunks, he’s coming with’. I feel a little twinge of nervousness. Yeah, in a way, I’m here on business, but there’s still that little fan inside of me that’s like ‘Whoa!’ So we go to Apolo’s floor and Rusty gets him from his room. I’m a little nervous because I’m wondering if Apolo will recognize me from when I saw him in Chicago. I see him, we make brief eye contact and I walk into the elevator. I get a feeling that he just might recognize me as his one-time stalker from Chicago. But hey, I’m not a fan right now. I’m a filmaker.
So we follow them with cameras as they start jogging, and we run to the car to catch up. They’re quick little buggers, because once we got into the car we didn’t pick up on Rusty’s wireless mike. We drove around downtown trying to get the telltale static that notified us that we were getting closer to Rusty. We were pretending that we were crocodile hunters looking for our prey. Then Rick heard the static and we drove closer to where we thought he would be, but didn’t see him. So we just decided to go to the Delta Center to wait for them. Rick heard Rusty coming and we finally got them in our sights, jogging around the building. They came by the car and laughed when they realized we were there waiting and filming. They stopped for a bit and talked about what happened to them at the Delta Center last year, then they were off again jogging. Me and Rod were joking around in the car as we were driving back, pretending to be crazed fans, screaming at the top of our lungs, ‘WE SAW APOLO! OH MY GOD! WE SAW HIM! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! *girlish squeal of joy*’ Of course, we were just kidding. Well, at least I was. We had a great laugh over it.
Once we were back at the hotel, Rusty and Apolo did some stretches outside of Apolo’s room. Rusty then suggested that we do the Rusty/Apolo interview then. I was a little taken aback, because I was expecting that to be one of my last interviews to do. I told Rusty that I wasn’t ready and that I didn’t even have my questions on me. Apolo then said that he didn’t know if he’d have time the rest of the week to do it, so that moment would be the best time. So Rod and Rick set up the cameras and started rolling. I was a bit unprepared, so Rod started asking the questions first. After a while, I got into it and asked my own questions. It was really an incredible interview. The chemistry and the friendship between Rusty and Apolo was so incredible to see. These are two guys that have known each other for most of their lives. It was so fascinating to witness the two of them interacting, talking, and joking around. And of all the interviews I’ve seen of Apolo, this is the most comfortable I’ve seen him. I think it helped that Rusty was there, and that we were friends of Rusty, and that we were all just chillin’ on the floor of the hotel hallway while we were doing it. But they were so at ease, Rusty calling Apolo ‘Chunks’ and Apolo calling Rusty ‘Smitty’, and we had a couple good laughs. And even though this was the professional Christine on the floor leaning against the wall, Yano, the fan inside was screaming with delight. I can’t wait to share this interview with everyone! I did have one slip-up though. We talk talking about celebrities and going to celebrity parties when Rick asked Apolo, ‘Have you ever gone to the Playboy mansion?’ and the Yano fan inside immediately said ‘Yes’ about a second before Apolo did. He had his head down, but as soon as he realized that I answered for him, his head popped up and he had a look on his face that was like ‘WTF?’. And here comes Rusty to the rescue, who busts out laughing and embarrasses me more by saying, ‘Christine knows EVERYTHING that goes on!’ or something to that effect. Unfortunately, there was no hole for me to crawl into, so I just quipped, ‘It was on the internet…’ Or maybe I didn’t say anything. I kinda blanked out for a second there. Yeah. Major cool points there. Not.
But it was a great interview. It seriously lasted about 45 minutes or so, but a lot of it was just talking about whatever and chilling out. But it was definitely mindblowing. My head was reeling. The lasting impression I got from Apolo was that he reminded me of some of the guys I work with, by the words that he used and his slang and his body language. I could definitely tell that he was a shy guy, but pretty playful and outgoing with people he knows. He was really cool, and I loved watching the two of them interact together. It was a good time. Definitely!
OK…this is taking longer than I expected. Stay tuned for more later. I’m not even done with day 1 yet! I’ve got to go to a client site now. Work! These people expect me to work!!!
Tags: Short Track, Stories by Yano
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