My degree is in communications, specifically radio broadcasting. There were two reasons I wanted to work in that field. One: WKRP in Cincinnati. I know it's a totally fictional radio station, and not a terribly realistic portrayal of one, and I know that when Program Director Andy Travis made the controversial decision to switch format to rock, Johnny Fever opened it with Ted Nugent's Queen of the Forest. (But the late Howard Hesseman is a fucking legend, so I'm gonna let that go.)
It was the environment that appealed to me. Reason number two was a movie: Oliver Stone's absolutely electric Eric Bogosian piece Talk Radio cemented my want to be in the field. More environment. Totally different. In one, you're rockin' the free world (or at least 5000 watts of an Ohio metropolitan area), the other, letting people know what idiots they are as you discuss how the world is really, for all intents and purposes, playing out the string.
Yes, I was eventually disappointed. I started in a newstalk/oldies station, and despite my part time status, I guided Kenosha, WI through a tornado touchdown, and was on the air when the ground war in Iraq broke out in 1991 and made a seamless switch to national coverage. The second gig was a brand new oldies station in the center of the state, where my Program Director decided my last name HAD to have two syllables.
World, I introduce you to Rob WillSON. Hear the sound of the insides of my skull as my eyes roll.
I pulled the worst shift of my life there. Christmas Eve, Midnight to 6. A program, not on disc or tape mind you, but a series of vinyl records that guided you through the history of Christmas and golden oldies. It needed to be played on a turntable in Studio B as the main studio didn't have one. The total program was 3 hours long, so I had to repeat it. All night, running back and forth from A to B, flipping albums in B, then broadcasting from A.
Happy Holidays.
Right out the higher education door, the pay was crap. So I, with great disdain, changed fields. The rest is history. I worked about 2 part time years in the radio biz.
Anyways. That's a lot of digression. Thanksgiving always reminds me of that legendary WKRP episode where Les Nessman broadcasts from downtown Cincinnati as turkeys are dropped from a helicopter onto the multitudes. It's a poorly thought out turkey-giveaway promotion thought up by the station manager as he's having an existential crisis about his lack of anything to do since hiring a program director to run things. (I always wondered what the "lucky recipients" of the birds were supposed to do with them since they were live).
Nessman's play-by-play is reminiscent of the Hindenburg disaster's broadcast of panic, and the description of the aftermath back at the station is comedy gold. This never gets old, and I will always recommend this episode be sprinkled in any family's holiday viewing (It's only 23 minutes after all). It may not warm the cockles of your heart, but it will certainly warm up the funny bone.
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