Scatman John Larkin - Guest "Appearance"

Where: Stuttering Chatroom for Teens
Date: February 1, 1998
Time: 7:00 - 8 PM Central Standard Time
(that's 8 EST, 6 MST, and 5 PST)

Scatman John will be in the Teen Chatroom to answer questions and visit from 7 to 8 CST on February 1, 1998. Please be patient with all of us as we make this first attempt to have a live chat with a guest. The chatroom accommodates many people, but if the room is full, we are sorry. Also, the visit will depend of course on both the MSU server functioning and Scatman being able to log in through AOL at the announced time. If it doesn't work, we apologize and we'll try again another time.

There are several websites with a lot of good information about Scatman John, an Amercian musician who is a person who stutters.

Here are suggested procedures to follow for the hour that Scatman John has agreed to meet in the Teen Stuttering Chat Room.

To keep it managable, the actual interviewing privileges with Scatman will be only for those in their teens and 20's, unless we have fewer than 5 that show up with those qualifications. That means, that group should feel free to ask questions and interact with Scatman this time. Anybody who wants (Scatman has LOTS of fans over 30, believe me!), is also free to simply "lurk" or watch the conversation, but for the first try, let's keep the actual "interviewers" to a smaller number. I hope he will be willing to return and do this again.

He will be his own moderator, which means, he will call on you to answer questions, rather than just hitting him with a barage of questions all at once. If you have a question, please enter ? in the message space and hit return/enter, and Scatman can call on you specifically to discuss your question before going on to others.

It will go something like this:

Judith Kuster: ?
John Larkin: Judy, do you have a question?
Judith Kuster: When are your CD's going to be available in MN!!
John Larkin: answers, if he knows;-)

John Smith: ?
John Larkin: John?
John Smith: I'm 17. What was your speech like when you were 17?
John Larkin: answers, if he wants to

Anyone with posting privileges is free to comment on Scatman's answers. You don't just need to ask questions. If you have something to offer in response to the current question, feel free. Doing it this way, I hope, will keep the "chat" from getting very confusing with all kinds of questions being addressed at the same time. When Scatman is ready, he will call on another person, by name, who has posted a ?. An hour goes by very quickly, so he may call on another person at any time he thinks it is time to move on to another question.

There will be no comments or concerns about typing or spelling mistakes. It is hard to type when you can't even see all of your response, and very easy to make mistakes.

Scatman has the right to say he doesn't care to respond to a particular question.

Scatman will probably have to leave after the hour is finished, but you are free to continue to visit in the Chat Room as long as you want, after he has left.