Friday, February 4, 2011

YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN AGING RADIO DJ WHEN...

I got this from a co-worker today and it made me laugh.


You were first hired by a GM who actually worked in radio before becoming GM.

Radio stations were no place for kids.

You got off on the sound of "dead air" on the competitor's station.

Sales guys wore Old Spice to cover the smell of liquor.

You were playing Elvis' #1 hits when he was alive.

Engineers could actually fix things without sending them back to the manufacturer.

You worked for only ONE station, and you could name the guy who owned it.

You remember when normal people listened to AM radio, and only"hippies" listened to FM.

Radio stations used to have enough on-air talent to field a softball team every summer.

You're at least 10 years older than the last two GMs who fired you.

You used to smoke in a radio station and nobody cared.

Engineers always had the worst body odor, not because they worked too hard, but because they just didn't shower that often.

You know the difference between good reel-to-reel tape and cheap reel-to-reel tape.

Religious radio stations were locally owned, run by an old Protestant minister and his wife, never had more than 20 listeners at any given time ... and still made money.

You have a white wax pencil, a razor blade, and a spool of 3M splicing tape in your desk drawer - - just in case.

You know people who actually listened to baseball games on the radio.

You can post a record, run down the hall, go to the bathroom, and be back in 2:50 for the segue.

The new guy you're training has never listened to an AM
station.

You knew exactly where to put the tone on the end of a carted song.

You spent most of the time on Friday nights giving out the high school football scores. And when they weren't phoned-in, you got really pissed off.

You only did "make-goods" if the client complained. Otherwise, who cares?

You can remember the name of the very first "girl" that was hired in your market as a DJ.

Somebody would say, "You have a face for radio," and it was still funny.

Sixty percent of your wardrobe has a station logo on it.

You always had a screwdriver in the studio so you could take a fouled-up cart apart at a moment's notice.

Agents were people like James Bond and the Man From Uncle.

You would spend hours splicing and editing a parody tape until it was "just right," but didn't give a damn how bad that commercial was you recorded.

You still refer to CDs as "records."

Dinner? Let's see what the last shift left for me in the refrigerator.

The only interaction between you and someone else prior to bedtime is, "Thank you. Please pull ahead to the second window."

Your family thinks you're successful, but you know better.

You played practical jokes on the air without fear of lawsuits.

You've been married at least three times, or never married at all.

You've answeed your home phone with the station call letters.

You used to fight with the news guy over air time. After all, what was more important: your joke about your ex-wife, or that tornado warning?

You knew how to change the ribbon on the teletype machine, but you hated to do it because "...that's the news guy's job."

You had listeners who only tuned in for the news ... and not you. You could never figure that out.

You know at least three people in sales who take credit for you keeping your job.

You have several old aircheck cassettes in a cardboard box in your closet that you wouldn't dream of letting anyone hear anymore, but you'll never throw them out or tape over them. Never!

You can still see scars on your finger when you got cut using a razor blade and cleaned out the cut with head-cleaning alcohol and an extra long cotton swab on a wooden stick.

You still have nightmares of a song running out and not being able to find the control room door.

You've ever told a listener, "Yeah. I'll get that right on for you."

You have a couple of old transistor radios around the house with corroded batteries inside them.

People who ride in your car exclaim, "Why is your radio so loud?"

You remember how upset people used to get about Richard Nixon.

You have at least 19 pictures of you with famous people whom you haven't seen since, and wouldn't know you today if you bit 'em on the ass.

You wish you could have been on "Name That Tune" because you would have won a million bucks.

You even REMEMBER "Name That Tune".

You were a half-hour late for an appearance and blamed it on the directions you received from the salesperson.

You've run a phone contest and nobody called, so you made up a name and gave the tickets to your cousin.

1 comment:

  1. The one about the pictures taken with famous people: Tell me you didn't think of Blakeley when you read that!

    ReplyDelete