Tag: radio
-
Night game
I knew professional radio was a brutal business. But when Chip, who hired me into my first on-air job, whose blunt critiques of my work made me minimally competent, was fired, I was deeply angry just the same. The station’s owner awaited trial on felony sex-crime charges. Yes, you read that right. It was obvious that he was trimming…
-
An early morning New Year’s wish
I write my blog early in the morning: up at 5, at the keyboard by 5:30, off to work shortly after 7. Another thing I used to do early, 20 years ago, was get up on New Year’s morning to do a morning radio show. I worked for a station part time, normally pulling weekend shifts. But for…
-
It’s a shame what’s happened to radio
I signed off the air for the last time 20 years ago tomorrow, capping a nine-year side career on the radio. People still sometimes ask me if I miss being a disk jockey, and for a long time I always wistfully answered yes. But not anymore. It’s not that I would be rusty as heck after all these…
-
A radio station that lost its will
Last November I shared with you that my alma mater’s radio station, WHMD at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, had shut off its transmitter and gone Internet-only. Last week’s Indiana Radio Watch, a weekly e-mail digest of statewide radio happenings, reports that Rose-Hulman is selling WMHD to crosstown Indiana State University for $16,465, to be a companion…
-
In a heck of a spot
A classic from 2010. When I grew up on Rabbit Hill, not only could I never have imagined that I’d still be in touch with some of the kids I knew then, but I would never have guessed how they would turn out as adults. One neighborhood boy, my brother’s best friend since 1972, grew…
-
Death of a radio station
Word reached me the other day that my college alma mater’s radio station, WMHD at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, is permanently shutting down its transmitter and will only stream on the Internet from now on. I guess it was inevitable. I don’t think college kids really listen to the radio anymore. That…
-
New Paul McCartney music is always a big event in my life
For as long as I can remember, new Paul McCartney music has been a big event for me. It started with the Beatles music my mother played around the house when I was very small. But McCartney’s post-Beatles work really formed the soundtrack of my life. Aged four, I sat at the breakfast table waiting…
-
The Electric Breakfast
My great reward and motivation in blogging is that I hear from you in the comments. My new posts get more visits now than ever, but fewer comments now than just a year or two ago. I’ve noticed the same on other blogs I follow. I’ve even found myself commenting less often on the blogs…
-
Playing by radio’s rules
I’ve found that after I write a story from my life here, I tend to retell the story in person in much the same way – to the story’s benefit, as writing it makes me work out its structure. I told this story in a gathering not long ago, which reminded me that I wrote it…
-
Everybody wants to know where Jimmy has gone
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.…
-
On the small screen
It’s Down the Road’s fifth blogiversary!All month I’m reposting favorite stories from the blog’s early days. I debuted on TV in 1976, back when stay-at-home moms were still called homemakers. There were enough of them then that locally produced homemaker shows aired in the morning on TV stations across the country. My hometown of South Bend…
-
The fastest way to irritate a radio disk jockey at Christmastime
Call and request “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” Every disk jockey in America is sick of that song. It’s not just because the song is so kitschy, but because the phones at every radio station in the nation ring off the hook for it throughout the holiday season. As a public service to…