illusionofjoy | My radio dream (Reply)

During the weekends I like to sleep in. In fact, I like to sleep in very late. Usually what happens is that I will roll over, look at the clock, see that the time is something like 10:30 and think, "well, it's not noon so I can stay in bed a little while longer." I then roll over and resume being oblivious to the outside world. The next thing I know, it'll be 1:00 in the afternoon and I'll be barely awake and cranky because: 1.) I've yet to shower or have any coffee and 2.) I just wasted half of a potentially productive day of not having to go to work.

During the time I'm sleeping in these little lapses in between "not noon yet's," I tend to have my more interesting dreams. It was in one of these where I found my subconscious had placed me in WAIH's studio. It was a little before 7:00AM, when my show there was supposed to begin. I was sitting behind the microphone, with only seconds until I had to do my broadcast when I suddenly realised that I hadn't any copy printed for the news and weather reports. Furthermore, someone had wandered into the station and was trying to get my attention by repeatedly saying, "excuse me...exCUSE me!" This was no good.

I quickly queue up a CD, turn on the microphone, spit out a station ID and, glancing out the window say, "today's forecast...sunny! Okay, here's some music!" Throughout my spiel Ms. "Excuse me" continued to blather. Once I killed the mic, I looked at her and snarled, "What?"

"Fine," she snapped back, "I'll just ask for directions somewhere else!" I woke up as she walked out.

The sad part about this dream was that crap like that actually happened to me at WAIH. The unpreparedness was usually because the printer in the station office was out of ink, or worse, some moron had entered the wrong password three times, locking the computer out of the internet (before they finally installed a T-1 line in the station). The idiocy of people who would just wander up to the station, however, was an exception contained within itself, owing to no external circumstances. Why people thought they were entitled to bother a DJ who was obviously on the air at the time was - and is - something I still don't understand. Thankfully, my regular show time prevented too many people from wandering in.

Aside from the quirks of working at WAIH, this dream did remind me of how much I actually miss working in radio. I remember being driven at my college radio station, snapping at anyone who wanted to wank off on the air because, "it's just college radio and it doesn't matter." To me, it really did matter, because here was a chance to really shine. Commercial and public radio were constricting, pre-formatted places where one had to conform to the rules of the organisation. College radio stations, however, are like embryonic stem-cells in that they have the ability to become anything. People just need to put forth some effort.

Since my departure from WAIH, I have this dream of owning my own radio station. Doubtless it will never come to fruition, but it remains despite the fact. Getting the basic capital and past the licensing process would be easy, compared to retaining sponsors for the format I'd wish to pursue. Pittsburgh is a very Clear Channel-oriented town. I can only imagine businesses asking me time and again, "where are the hits?"

I can still dream, though. Signing off now...