Not only has it been 18 years since I moved to Indianapolis, but it’s also been 18 years since I’ve been on the radio.
I’ve written about my brief broadcasting career many times because it remains a proud, fond memory. As a boy, I wanted to be the voice coming out of the radio speaker. I got my chance in college, and parlayed that experience into two part-time gigs on commercial stations.
After I moved here, I sent an audition tape to every station in town that advertised for part-time talent. None of them bit. Only one station bothered to send me a rejection letter, which kindly said that I might have been fine for Terre Haute, but I wasn’t ready for Indianapolis. I decided to let that end my radio career.
But I still remember the fun I had. And I have lots of aircheck tapes, all of which I digitized a few years ago so I can enjoy those memories anytime.
For my last show, I asked the program director to schedule a certain song coming out of my last break, a song new that year from The Allman Brothers Band. Its first two lines seemed appropriate:
Everybody wants to know where Jimmy has gone
He left town, I doubt if he’s coming back home
Here’s the audio I recorded of that last break. You’ll hear me talk after a song and start the first commercial. Then you’ll hear the end of the last commercial in that break – and then you’ll hear me sign off for good.
I walked out of the building and out of radio forever. I listened to the rest of the song in my car as I drove home.
And then there was the time I was humiliated live on the air. Read that story.
