You don't always hear the laughter.

One of my favorite things to do on the radio is a two to three minute vignette about a weird news story.  In fact, the segment is called "The Weird Story."  To begin the segment, I have my co-host read a strange news item and then, using different voices to depict each character, I perform an embellished, dramatic reenactment of whatever my twisted mind imagines really happened at the scene.  The reenactment borders on lunacy.  Although I'm fairly sure I won't be receiving a life time achievement award in drama, I do enjoy the occasional responses I receive from listeners.

I still have one such written response.  It is a letter from a mother letting me know what a difficult time she was having with her then teenage son; which, if you have teenagers, it's like complaining that fire does indeed burn.  She wrote that the only time she and her son bonded was in the car, on the way to school, while listening to "The Weird Story".  Once at school, her son would wait to get out of the car just to finish listening to it with her.  She wrote they laughed together and would talk about it later during dinner.  She felt she had found a way in.  "The Weird Story" had become a common thread that she used to open the lines of communication with an otherwise silent teenager.

At times in my life, I have had an exaggerated sense of self-importance.  But, in actuality, that sense of self-importance may be what any performer needs in order to get on a stage or broadcast a live radio show, at least initially.  When I'm on the radio, I never hear the laughter of the audience, so I don't know if what I'm doing is funny, relevant or even meaningful to anyone else.  Sure, radio stations receive ratings on a periodic basis, but those are only numbers on a piece of paper.

About two months before she sent me the letter, her son had died in a car accident.  Even after he died, she continued to listen every morning to "The Weird Story" because, as she wrote, "I can still hear his laughter."  In her letter, she thanked me for bringing the two of them closer together.  I still choke up, after all of these years, re-reading the letter.  In my mind, it is the most profound and rewarding gift I have ever received for radio entertainment.  That letter still drives me to be better everyday.

Sleepless in El Paso

I fell asleep momentarily in the middle of the night.  Normally, that wouldn't be a concern except that I had a microphone in front of me and was broadcasting to at least seven listeners.

I was working the overnight shift at a rock station in El Paso and I was actually making money.  Granted, I could have made more money by picking up dog poop and, certainly, the work would have been more consistent; but that wasn't really the point.  I was raking in well over six dollars an hour and that wasn't even counting the occasional free albums and T-shirts.  Twice in one month, a gift certificate for a large pizza was bestowed upon me.  My wife, at the time, had concerns about my career choice.  She was more practical and I was a dreamer--literally.

By the third week of overnights, sleep deprivation had begun to take its toll.  Pumping caffeine directly into my veins while doing jumping jacks during a long song, eventually had no affect and my mind yielded to the Sandman.  I will never forget waking up, looking down at the live microphone and realizing that there was an audible sound coming from my mouth.  I woke up hearing myself saying the word, "donkey."  Donkey?!!  What the hell had I just said?  How long had I been talking about donkeys?  So, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind which was "who doesn't love donkeys?"  Of course, I followed that up with "and thanks for listening."  To this day, I have no idea what I was saying.  Since no one complained, I can only assume that the subject matter went well with the Pink Floyd I was playing at 3:15 in morning.

A less than perfect view.

One of the many lessons I learned late in my radio career is that you should always see where you're going to work before you take the job.  The station, located 50 miles from our target audience, sat smack in the middle of a horse pasture.  I was convinced the surrounding dark woods were occupied by squatting moonshiners, toothless serial killers, and walk-ons from the movie,  “Deliverance.”

One morning, while driving to the station, I narrowly missed hitting a sow.  That’s right, a sow, as in female pig.  The sow was so large that two grown adults could have easily ridden on its back.  Hitting the sow was not an option, so, I slammed on the brakes causing everything on the front seat to crash against the glove compartment then spill onto the floorboard below.  The sow must have heard or sensed the commotion, because it stopped, glared at me and ever so slowly moseyed on its way across the dirt road.

When I got off the air that morning, I wanted to call and congratulate a fellow broadcaster who had recently landed a job at a very prestigious radio station in Chicago.  Looking for privacy, I went into the production room.  In most radio stations, the production room is extremely important and no expense is spared in assuring it is soundproof.  The floor is carpeted, the walls are covered with sound absorbing materials and the door seals so tight a whooshing noise is heard as it opens. This particular production room was converted from a narrow, walk-in closet that had a picture window at the far end covered with an old, discolored blanket.  It was about as soundproof as the campfire scene in "Blazing Saddles."  Seriously, one time someone walked by while I was recording a commercial, broke wind outside the room and I had to start over. 

I reached my friend and said, "I almost hit a huge pig driving to work this morning."  After he stopped chuckling, he said, "I almost hit a BMW."  After we hung up, I started to record a commercial.  I had to stop and start over several times because I kept hearing a rubbing or bumping noise coming from what I thought was the direction of the door.  I got up and opened the door, fully prepared to see a toothless moonshiner wearing a “Deliverance” t-shirt grinning back at me.  But, no one was there.  I heard it again and realized it was coming from behind the blanket.  Pulling back the blanket, it took me more than a few seconds to comprehend the sight I was beholding.  Right there, pressed up against the glass, was an enormous horse’s ass rubbing back and forth attempting to relieve a severe itch it just could not scratch.  I didn't even bother calling Chicago. 

No dead air. Ever.

Larry was such a pain.  He broadcasted the overnight shift--midnight to six and at this moment in our friendship, I was his boss.  The only reason I mention this is because Larry was a terrible employee.  He consistently made mistakes,  forgot to do his duties, and never followed instructions.  One time, he left a beer in the station freezer, which blew up after he left.   But, I’ve never known anyone that made me laugh more.

One morning, I arrived slightly after 5 a.m. and opened the control room door to check on Larry.  The first thing I noticed was that his t-shirt and jeans were shredded to pieces and he was covered in blood.  The second thing was the putrid smell in the room.  He smiled, breathing hard, and said, "Hey, boss!  How's it going?"  "Fine, how about you?"  In spite of the wounds all over his body, and the small trickle of blood moving down his forehead, he made small talk for a full minute. It was hard for me to understand how he could carry on a conversation as if everything was copacetic. 

Finally, the real story emerged.  Larry, needing a cigarette break, decided to go out the back door to smoke.  The back door to the radio station only opened from the inside and would immediately lock when closed.  So, he propped something against the door and as he lit up, he thought he heard a slow dragging sound, and then, realizing what the noise was, turned and watched as the knob less door picked up speed and slammed shut.  Immediately, he panicked realizing he had less than three minutes before the cued song would run out and there would be the deafening silence of dead air.  To people in broadcasting, dead air is equivalent to seeing a cigarette rolling towards an overturned big rig leaking gasoline. 

The area behind the station was fully enclosed by a 7-foot chain link fence topped with razor wire.  (That may very well be where the first injuries were realized.)  By the time he made it to the front of the building, he was running on adrenaline.  In his state of panic, he most likely believed that he could just grab the top of the next chain link fence and lob himself over into the front parking lot.  Granted, this fence was only 4-1/2 feet tall, but Larry wasn't the athletic type.  He wasn't even close.  It was during this daring lob, that the front pocket of his jeans got caught at the top of the fence.  This sudden stop increased his body’s forward momentum; whipping him over so fast he did a “face plant” into the fence.  (That explained the odd marks on his face.)  The way he put it, "I was upside down looking back in the direction I came from.  It was trippy."  Then, the front of his pants ripped off and, when he dropped to the ground, he landed in a big pile of dog excrement.  A really, really big pile.  (That explained the smell.)

Before he left the station that morning, he repeatedly told me that in spite of all the events that had occurred, he had made it back to the control room in time.  There had been no dead air. 

Truth be told, I really loved that guy.

Not always moving on up.

It used to be said that you could judge the success of a disc jockey by the size of his moving van.  You thought I was going to say microphone, didn't you? 

I've moved all over the country and, on rare occasions, it has been for the better.  Sometimes, I’ve worked in environments where the pain and suffering I encountered should have been reserved for the punishment of the most heinous sinners in the afterlife.  This particular hellhole was 70 miles from the nearest Starbucks, down a dirt road, in the middle of a horse pasture.  It was peaceful and usually quiet, except when large field rats would discover the gaping hole in the building wall and scurry through the office looking for the nearest exit. 

One day, while I was on the air, a saleswoman foolishly attempted to use the “indoor outhouse.”  I'm not exaggerating about the comparison.  It resembled a gas station restroom; only it was smaller, slimier, and a yellow bulb to detract insects illuminated the grimy wood paneling.   Even with "Betty Davis Eyes" blasting over the airwaves, I heard the screaming coming from the restroom.  I stepped out of the control room, and tried to communicate with her through the closed door and over the unintelligible shrieking.  I could tell she was trying to form a word or words, but her vocal cords were simply not cooperating. 

There was a significant amount of space between the door and the dingy carpeted floor.  That’s what made it so easy for the cottonmouth water moccasin to catch her with her pants literally down around her ankles.  There was only one advantage to being in that position while encountering an aggressive reptile that can strike with lightning speed and deliver hemotoxic venom. But from her shrieking, that fact did not seem to bring her any comfort. 

The snake would slither under the door into the hallway and the screams would subside.  On the other side of the door, I stood ready to hit the snake with a broom.  Obviously rattled by my bravery and chivalrous stance, it would retreat into the restroom and the shrieking would start again. The snake and I did this broom dance twice before the general manager came around the corner with a .44 magnum. 

I really don't remember the exact number of shots fired.  I do know he didn't reload, so at the most it was five or six. 

I couldn't hear for days.

Learning can be fun.

In radio, you work with some very creative people.  This creativeness can be a double-edged sword; often, it is used for good, but more frequently the greater tendency is to entertain oneself at the expense of  the unsuspecting!  It's similar to forcing your sibling to inadvertently spit food out of her mouth at the dinner table, knowing full well that your father, the retired Lt. Colonel, will not even remotely appreciate the humor in seeing a projectile of white chunks of buttery mashed potatoes flying towards him like shrapnel from an exploding missile.  In fact, that's the main reason to do it. 

When I changed the news copy that was to be read on the air by the new guy, a part of me hoped the boss would hear it.  What had irked me about 'newbie' was that he would print the news stories he was going to read and just leave them in a stack right out in the open.  This struck me as careless and I felt a certain responsibility to help rid him of this reckless behavior.  The story he had printed read,  "the New Mexico coroner's office performed autopsies on the three decomposed corpses."  I eagerly took the news copy, whited out the word "autopsies" and replaced it with the words "magic acts." 

I drove home as fast as I could and waited by the radio.  It was really just pure luck that his parents and brother were in the control room visiting and eagerly awaiting his broadcast.  He read the story out loud with all the power of a 1.21 gegawatt FM transmitter behind him.  About ten seconds later, he paused.  In the background, a faint audible snickering was building to a roar of hysterical laughter.  That's when he first shut off the microphone.  Intermittently, the mic would pop back on as he repeatedly tried to continue in a nonchalant manner.  It always ended the same way.  As the muted laughter would approach hysteria, his voice would rise to a pitch not normally heard in an adult male.  This went on for a good two minutes.  Two very good minutes.

What a hole.

During my second radio stint in the 1970's, the station where I worked was on two floors with the broadcast studio located on the second floor.  Across the hall from the studio, was a door which lead to what we referred to as "The Silver Room."  The room contained nothing but aluminum heating and air conditioning pipes covered with insulation.  The room had no floor, just 2 x 6 rafters and sheet rock.

One very sunny El Paso morning, I was scheduled for an air check session with my boss.  An air check is simply an evaluation of how you sound and how the station actually wants you to sound.  I entered my boss's office, directly beneath "The Silver Room, " and noticed his desk and floor covered in chunks of sheet rock.  He sat there, appearing as if an artery on his neck was fixing to blow.  I looked up at the ceiling and said, "What a hole!"

My boss never slept, so it really should not have come as a major surprise to the overnight disc jockey, when he pulled up to the station in the middle of the night.  Apparently, it was.  When my boss unlocked the door to his office, he witnessed something most people go their entire life without witnessing or even hearing about.  Jutting out of an  enormous hole in the ceiling of his office was a naked woman.  She was only visible from the rib cage down and according to him, she was thrashing about like a fish out of water.  Apparently sensing the light below, she suddenly became motionless.

Now, I admit that I can walk into a room several times and not see my car keys in plain sight on my desk.  It is, however, difficult to imagine how small her brain must have been in order for her to even momentarily believe she would not be noticed.

Needless to say, that same day, a memo was sent to all employees stating that no visitors would be allowed in the control room.  The memo also reminded everyone how dangerous "The Silver Room" was because if you didnt' stand on the rafters, you might descend rapidly through the ceiling and not have time to put your clothes back on.  

Radio

To say that this has been an interesting ride would be putting it mildly.  Summer of 75, I'm nineteen years old and on the air.  Granted it was a closed feed to the dorm rooms of The University of Texas at El Paso.  I still prefer to call it "Harvard on the Border." Never the less, I was on the air; damn it!  I tried to convince myself that there had to be at least one or perhaps even three members of the student body that shared my distaste for higher education.  Surely someone had to be enthralled with the fact that every Wednesday from three till three thirty in the afternoon you were going to hear James Taylor's, "Fire and Rain."