Jami started, "Tell us what happened at the meeting."
She looked at Sean, and he nodded to her, "Well, they want a public apology from me, and they want to reduce my television time from a weekly show to a bi-monthly show."
Axel leaned forward. "That's bullshit."
Sean nodded, "That's what I said."
Jami responded, "What are you going to do?"
Mina leaned forward. "Here's what I'd like to do. And Mom." Mina glanced at her, then looked away to speak to the group at large.
"I was doing some research on my way here, and something I've been thinking about for a while now is I think we can leave the network and start a podcast." Mina glanced at her. "Mom, we can do just what we did on Friday without the drama, hopefully."
Everyone chuckled.
"We can do a podcast. Actually, I think it would be fun if you and Dad did the podcast together. You could interview music stars. You could talk about music industry news. I can produce it, and we can put it on the Internet. We can start our own channel on YouTube if we want. We can do a Patreon. There's all kinds of blog/podcast type places where we can blast it out. I think with the recent news, it will be easy to find followers. The more followers you get, the more apt you are to be picked up by someone like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and then the money starts rolling in. I think people would want to hear from you and Dad, and you both have, obviously, music industry knowledge. If Dad's on the road, we can travel with him, do the podcast from wherever."
Gloria sat quietly for a few moments, staring at her daughter. She realized her mouth had dropped open, so she closed it. She looked at Sean. He had a smile a mile wide.
Axel clapped his hands together and jumped up. "That's an excellent idea, Mina! That is an excellent idea! Let me send you some podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis. I'll be honest, I listen to music industry stuff, but just so we don't copy this same thing, check some of them out. But I know there isn't anything like that out there."
Mina laughed. "We?"
He said, "Well, we're all involved in this, right?"
42
Sean laughed and clapped his hands. "Mina, girl, that is brilliant. That is brilliant. Not sure how good I'll be as a podcaster."
She smiled at him. "Dad, you're used to playing before an audience. You know how it all works, and the way I see it, if we're going to have a music show, having a musician on it seems to lend a lot of credibility. Plus, where you might be a little rougher around the edges, Mom softens you up, and vice versa."
She looked over at her mom. "Sometimes you can be a little stiff and unbending, Mom."
Gloria looked at her daughter, her brows furrowed. "Excuse me!"
Mina shrugged. "Sorry, just kind of telling it like it is from my producer's hat."
Mina turned back to the group. "So I think we can do just like we did Friday. And actually, as I'm thinking of it, if we do the editing ourselves, we can publish, release, and submit Friday’s interview. And we would own the rights to the interview. None of it has gone to editing yet because I haven't sent it over. I wanted to look at it first. As a matter-of-fact, we could even redo that interview with you and Dad. We could do it for the podcast. That could be our first installment. And it would be perfect timing for it. And then the concert, the Crossroads concert with Chris Stapleton, that can be added to the podcast as well. And actually, we can record that. I'll work with Chris Stapleton's people on it. And we'll own that. And then in the future, we could have guests on. And Dad, you could do Crossroads things with everybody." Her excitement bubbled over.
"Or..." she looked at Jami. "Or you could, Jami. Or all of you could. We can really make this a big thing."
Jami laughed. "Well, we'll see how our schedules all go. I don't want to commit myself to a podcast if I can't follow through with it. But if we're available, I'll be there. I'll help out in any way I can. And actually, we can have our PR people promote the podcast, also."
Sean's heart was so full. His friends were here with him. And he was so proud of Mina. So proud of her. He turned and looked at Gloria. She even had a little grin on her face. "You did good with her."
Gloria smiled. "She's a smart girl. She can run circles around me."
They chatted a little while longer. Mina's headache was gone. She was in action mode. She was taking notes. Rifling off emails. She asked if she could take a few minutes to get her notes in order so she could get some things out of her head. And he had to laugh. That's exactly how he was. When he had songs in his head or things that he needed to work on, he just needed to get that out of his head so that he would be good company afterwards.
Jami stood. "If you'd like to hear the songs we wrote yesterday, we can head into the studio."
Mina said, "I do. I want to hear."
He helped her get up from the sofa. Still a little painful. She wore a brace around her ribs.
Then she had a pillow behind her back. He carried that for her into the studio. Tony picked up a barrel chair they had in the lounge and carried that into the studio for Mina. He situated her chair, so she was facing the band. He brought another chair for Gloria. Tony sat next to Gloria up front and Sean excitedly picked his guitar off the stand and slipped the sling around his neck. Jami turned and nodded and they each nodded in return or gave a thumbs-up.
"One, two, three."