Back before I was born, my dad served in the Air Force as a television and electronics repairman. During the day I assume he fixed whatever electronics were broken and needed fixing, but at night he became “DJ the DJ,” the nightly disc jockey on the base’s local radio station. As a little kid I remember hearing his stories about different radio programs he had put together, and how a local jam band had sold him one of their songs for a penny so that he could it as his theme song. I suppose it’s pretty normal for a kid to look up to his dad, and at a very early age I decided that being a DJ must be the coolest job in the world.
As a youngster I spent the majority of my allowance buying 45’s (vinyl records, kids) from Wal-Mart. Using those records, a Radio Shack cassette recorder and a white plastic turntable, I’d close my bedroom door and record my own radio shows. On these tapes I’d introduce each song, talk about the bands (what I didn’t know I’d make up), and even shout out song dedications. It was kind of like making mix-tapes at the age of six or seven, except that all my tapes pretty much used the same dozen or so records I owned, and no one but me ever listened to them. Even thought I was only a DJ in my bedroom, it was good enough for me.
For a while, anyway.
The first time I was ever really on the radio was in seventh grade. KJ-103, a local pop radio station, used to do a nightly bit called The Party Line. During the Party Line, people could call in and do a variety of things like tell jokes and whatnot. Although it was insanely difficult to actually get through the long line of busy signals, in the spring of 1986 I finally made it through. While on the air I did two things. One, I told a dumb joke, and two, I gave Mrs. Whittenberg the “Royal Flush.” After announcing her name on the air, the DJ played a snip of royal trumpets, followed by the sound of a toilet flushing. The Royal Flush turned me into a mini-celebrity around school for a couple of days, and the joke, apparently being less dumb than any other joke told in that night, won me two movie tickets to see the flop SpaceCamp.
I was hooked.
In ninth grade, as a project for gifted class, we were allowed to shadow a working professional for an entire workday. My friends picked lawyers, doctors, and such; I chose Mark Shannon, KJ-103 morning disc jockey and leader of “The Breakfast Flakes,” his morning radio show. I got to spend an entire morning on the air, hanging out with the DJs and occasionally being brave enough to speak on the air. It was an awesome experience, one I still remember to this day.
Years later in 1994, when I relocated to Weatherford and moved in with Susan, I discovered that she volunteered Sunday nights on a local radio program which was sponsored by the college’s Wesley Foundation. She offered to let me come up to the studio and help out, but regardless of how much I wanted to be on the radio, playing church music Sunday night at midnight wouldn’t quite quench my thirst. The connection did lead to some inside information, however; a position opened up at the radio station. It paid practically nothing and involved little more than reading on air weather reports and news updates right off the wire, but I applied anyway. The interview consisted of pulling AP news reports directly off a printer reading them live on the air. The manager’s only advice to me was, “use your natural voice.” This story is much funnier in person, because when I tried to read the feed two things happened. Number one, for some unknown reason I broke into my “game show announcer” voice. I don’t know where it came from, I didn’t intend on doing it, it just came out. I sounded like the guy from the Price is Right. “Come on down! Today is partly cloudy!” The second thing that happened was I immediately heard my own voice through the station’s speakers, which sounded so terrible to me that I instantly froze up. Was I that nasal? Did I really sound that stupid? Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.
Years passed, life moved on, and my dreams of becoming a disc jockey eventually faded. Through the Internet and other chance encounters I’ve ended up meeting several local disc jockeys. Each time I meet one, I can see something within me in them as well; their love of music, support of local bands, and general repository of random music-related facts all seem very familiar to me.
To all the DJs out there, especially Kev Zeppelin, Paisley, Tony Z, Bladerunner, Lea Underwood and even Mark Shannon, thanks for keeping the dream alive for those of us still spinning records in our bedrooms. Rock on, guys, rock on.