Seeing as catholicguyshow.com is in fact where Lino Rulli is #1, I've saved the best interview for last.
Yep, I sat down with Lino to maybe learn a thing or two the fans might not know. As always, I edited very little of these answers.
Krista the Intern: So first, what is your full name?
Lino Rulli: Angelo Gino Armando Rulli. I'm not spelling it, you're on your own.
KTI: Describe yourself in three words.
LR: Funny, passionate and tired.
KTI: Okay, give me one word to describe Maureen and one word to describe Lou.
LR: Maureen...optimistic. Lou, thoughtful.
KTI: What's the best part of working on this show?
LR: The best part is making people laugh while we're talking about God. Giving people obviously a different impression of Catholicism and getting people, who might not be interested in God, interested in God and laughing. That's the best part, is just getting to do that.
KTI: What is the worst part?
LR: The worst part is when it's not funny, or when we don't hear from people telling us that they got closer to God because of the show. So then it's just people talking on the radio and then we might as well just be one of the horrible channels that exist at this company. Which there are plenty.
KTI: If you had no rules, an unlimited budget, and no bosses or anything, what would you want to do with the show?
LR: I don't really feel like we have that many rules or bosses? I have a thousand things I want to do, but we just need more people to do it. What would we do specifically? I don't want to say cause then people reading this blog are going to steal my ideas and then put it on their radio shows. What do I want to do? We would do a ton more song parodies, we'd have a lot more bigger name guests that take a while to get, we'd have a lot more segments. We'd probably do a few more shows on the road...yeah we would do a LOT more shows on the road. A lot more travel, a lot more listener stuff in person, and we'd have a lot more bits that we just don't have time to do right now.
KTI: What is your favorite memory from the show?
LR: I think it probably has to be going to Rome that first time, cause it was one of those bonding experiences we had so much fun doing. It was so different, we were at Vatican radio we were all together having so much fun. That's probably my favorite just because -- Vegas was fun, New Orleans was fun, all these other things have been fun, but that first time was a blast. This time might even be better.
(KTI note: It's worth mentioning that Lou Maureen and Lino all picked their first Italy trip as their favorite show memory. Aw.)
KTI: What, either now or when you were a child, is/was your dream job?
LR: TV. Having a TV show, that's all it's ever been is TV. I have to say, radio has definitely been a lot better than I thought it'd be...it's just been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. So my dream job was always TV, but I don't know if I would leave radio to go back to TV at this point. Just maybe a late night talk show, but other than that, I wouldn't go back to regular TV.
KTI: Really, why?
LR: It's a lot more fake than it is on radio. Radio has to be a lot more real because you're talking for three hours...you're not setting somebody up, editing their words, changing what they really said, and putting audio and editing to make your emotions go one way or the other. On TV it's your best self, and on radio it's your worst self. There is something kind of interesting about having your worst self on the air every day that when I do TV now it definitely feels staged and fake because you can manipulate it so much. So the dream was always TV but I don't really think about TV as much anymore.
KTI: Was there anything specific in TV that you wanted to do that you never got to do?
LR: Eh, no? My buddies and I, we'd like to do more documentaries, we had fun doing documentaries because that's the one thing, unlike radio, it's nice to have something that lasts. It's nice to have something that you can put on your shelf, look five years later and go, "Man that was good work we did." Radio is completely fleeting, it's just, "I was in my car and heard you for 15 minutes." It's like, I'm not going to go back and listen to my three hour show. So that's what sucks is you don't have anything that lasts. It's tough to even make appointment radio, nobody has three hours a day five days a week that they can listen usually. So it's tough because I'd much prefer to have something that, five years from now, you can see. That's what you have with TV that I miss having...having that ability to make something perfect and the ability to have something last. Instead radio is imperfections that never last. Yay.
KTI: Okay, last one. This will be hard since you're so open on the radio but what is one thing about you that the audience doesn't know? One story, one thing they haven't heard yet...
LR: I'm saving it for the book so there's no way I'm telling! And it's not even going to be in the first book, you're going to have to wait until the second book. Otherwise I say everything else on the air, you're going to have to wait.
KTI: Pleeeease? Anything at all?
LR: What can I say? It's like, the only things that come to mind are stories that you may have heard but you don't have the details on. So you didn't hear the details of what I did on spring break.
KTI: Well, what did you do on spring break?
LR: Wait for the book.
KTI: Sigh.
LR: What can I do? I'm trying to think...okay, I really wish this place had ratings so I could know if I was a success or a failure. I hate the fact that I don't know. Have I said that on the air? I don't think so. That's something that drives me every day, I would love to know how many listeners we have and it drives me insane to not have any idea. There, I think that's about it.
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A big thanks to Lino for making time for this interview! He's the reason I'm here in New York City after all, and I really owe him. So thank you, Lino. I hope you know how much I've appreciated this internship and everything I'm learning. :)
With that said, stay tuned for next post. You never know what might turn up.
Krista the Intern
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