Almost employed...

I thought I had found the perfect job for myself.  I was to just go to this place in kind of a seedy part of town and they take some blood out of my arm and give me $50 and a tuna sandwich.  And, I can do this twice a week.  Imagine, getting paid for something my body makes on a regular basis anyway AND getting free lunch.  Then I found out it was a blood bank, and I have absolutely no banking experience.  Another strike out!

I've also given some thought to putting an ad somewhere where I would interview prospective radio employers to see if they can live up to my exacting standards.  "WANTED, honest reliable radio operation.  Must be employee oriented, pay fare wage and provide benefits that are actually benefits.  Managers must be people oriented, must return all phone calls and e mails and always tell the truth.  Radio station must require quality work out of employees and reward them accordingly.  If someone fails to live up to their job description, managers must fire them and not someone else in their place.  If the manager fails at his or her job, they must fire themselves."

The more I thought about putting this ad in somewhere I remembered why great radio stations are so much like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.   You always hear about  them but have never actually seen one.  Radio is kinda like the blood bank...except no free lunch, just a blood letting.  But I'm not bitter.

That is all...Peters out!!!

 

Remind me...

To tell you about the "Dream Teams'" trip to Beaumont.  But in the meantime....Today I hit a milestone.  I applied for my 50th job.  Not just any job either.  This job only required that I have a GED.  I am so excited at the prospect of getting an interview.  Mainly because I have yet to get an interview for any job I have applied for.  Maybe I should have left college early and entered the NBA draft.  I just didn't look good in the tight gym shorts.

If you can no longer even get an interview in the field you have been in for over 30 years, should you consider yourself retired?  Over the Hill?  Whale s**t?  Washed up?  Yesterday's news?  I'm thinking yes to all of the above.

You've probably guessed by now that I didn't even get the pizza delivery job.  I finally got the gun metal taste out of my mouth, and now this.  I'm almost wishing Hillary gets elected so maybe she can come up with an "affirmative action" government program for for middle age disc jockeys.  I would think wishing Hillary were president is about as desperate as a person can get.

Maybe I should have told the Beaumont story after all.  At least I had a job.  Now, if you'll excuse me, CareerBuilder is expecting me.

That is all....Peters out!

 

 

Dream Team Part Dos...

I've got to get part two done pretty fast as I still have to file my unemployment for the week.  Anyway, first there was the sales team.  As many as I can remember, there was Mark (passed away in the nineties), we knew him as Hike, Cindy, Lisa, Ken, Dave and a couple others.  They set the standard for how you sold advertising in Wichita Kansas in the early eighties.  On air there was David Stone, Ron Eric Taylor, who replaced Lee Corey, the guy who hired me, Jay Walker in the evening and Greg Williams overnights.  I was the morning guy with Mark Elliot as my news guy.  Mark is now with the Weather Channel in Atlanta.  I'll have to write about all the successful people who worked with us on Salina Street sometime.

It was Jim Long's theory that a radio station was the end product of many peoples' efforts.  He believed that the radio station had to be entertaining ALL the time, even the commercials.  We had a great staff to ensure that happened.  Joe Myers was the commercial writer.  He wrote some of the most entertaining commercials ever.  He even won a CLIO, the highest award for a commercial writer.  David Stone produced those commercials in our state of the art recording studio.  We were multi-track before multi-track was cool.  We even produced jingles in our studio.  That was totally ahead of the curve.

So, we did well.  When I arrived at the station, it had a 12.1 share.  My first book dipped a tenth of a point and I heard they wanted to fire me, but the guy they had picked out, backed out.  I have his demo tape to this day.  The books come out every 6 month and at about my one year anniversery our second book came out and we were number one!  KEYN became a ratings behemoth.  I was lucky enough to be able to stay at number one for the next 5 1/2 years in the morning, on the radio in Wichita. 

The dream team slowly fell apart as our competition recognized the talent and started stealing them away.  For a brief snapshot in time, we were the "perfect storm" of radio stations.  I think back on my friends from that era and smile.  Everything was going our way, and it was special.

That is all....Peters out!!!

I know Joe, part 1...

It was way back in the early days of radio that I was fortunate enough to be teamed with what would turn out to be the "perfect storm" of talented radio people.  We all came together for a brief moment in time and created something that was very special.

I was reminded of this when I stopped by my MySpace page and found a message from one of those extraordinary people.  His name is Joe Myers.  I had often wondered where Joe ended up.  Last I had heard was Joe was at an ad agency in Kansas City.  I was close.  He didn't say what he was doing now but, it was good to hear from Joe.  More about him in a minute.

This extraordinary time in radio was 1981 when I was honored to join an infant team or professionals who were poised to gel into something great.  I know I will forget some but here's the lineup as I remember it.  Jim Long along with Charley Pride decided to drop some of their fortunes into some radio stations.  The stations were KEYN and KQAM in Wichita Kansas.  They hired an extraordinary leader, his name was Roger Dodson.  I had just started doing mornings on the legendary Top 40 station in Omaha, 1290 KOIL.  I had made the decision that if I was going to do anything in radio I would have to get into a morning show.  I was in mornings for 6 weeks when a fellow named Lee Corey called me and asked if I had any interest in going to Wichita to work on a fledgling FM station.  They offered to double my money to move to Wichita, so I went.  I was now making $28,000 a year!

I didn't realize at the time what I was walking into.  I was getting ready to join the most dynamic team of people I would ever work with in radio and together we would do amazing things with this radio station.  It would only last a couple of years at most, but it was going to be special, and innovative, and successful. 

We'll be right back after this short break.

That is all (for now)...Peters out!