Those were the first words I read, contained within my horoscope, on the morning of Sunday, July 12, 2015. While I am not superstitious by nature, I have always told myself to never rule anything out. Furthermore, the reading of my daily horoscope has become a habit since my Middle School years, an essential part of my routine as I get myself prepared for the day ahead. With that being said, the words displayed above were really not the words that I had wished to read on this particular morning as I was soon to head back to the beautiful WSUM-FM studios to participate in the 3rd Annual WLHA Resurrection/Reunion Weekend alongside my friends and co-conspirators Lisa Grueneberg (otherwise known as "The Grue"), Kelly Klaschus and Sue Grass, all of whom joined me last year for much hilarity, warmth, music and camaraderie.
Unlike last year, where our specific radio shows were short due to the amount of returning DJs and available time slots, this year, and with endless gratitude given to the reunion weekend's organizers Kevin Peckham and Kevin Ruppert, all of us were given even more on-air time to play with. My show, on which I would be joined again by The Grue, would run a full three hours, the longest stretch I have had since these reunion weekends began and incidentally, the same length as my actual college radio show. As for Kelly and Sue, who would immediately follow me, their program would run two full hours, also an increase from the year before. As a bonus for me, and possibly to give Peckham and Ruppert a bit of a break, they allowed me to "engineer" Kelly and Sue's show, meaning I would have five full hours of running the boards, pushing the buttons and so on. Needless to say, I am certain that for all of you who happen to be reading this posting, my anticipation and excitement was palpable to say the least. Trust me, I was truly walking on air!!
But then, there remained the issue of that horoscope. I tried to put it out of my mind, but it just continued to linger, like remnants of a dream that will not quite fade away. And as the day began in earnest, the immortal words of the artist forever known as Prince from his iconic track "Little Red Corvette" echoed in my brain, "Guess I shoulda known..."
Uh oh.
The technical issues that delayed the scheduled 8 a.m. show, Lee Harris' pre-recorded 60 minute ode to the hit songs of the '70's, '80's and '90's (that is, if you didn't hear the show, the 1870's and so on), were fully resolved by 8:15 a.m., therefore meaning that my show, which was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., would be pushed back a little bit. Keeping within the spirit of the day, I knew this was indeed par for the course within the realm of college radio where some sort of snafu happens quite frequently. But even still, it felt as if those words from the horoscope were already beginning to come to fruition and because of that, I had to admit that I was also already beginning to feel a little bit off of my game.
I arrived at the studio with my crate of CDs, called Nivek, who then let me into WSUM and I just immediately felt at home. We entered the main studio to find Kevin Peckham also known as "Casey," who greeted me with the same grand, inviting smile and fully affable spirit with which he first greeted me three years ago. The three of us spoke, joked and talked all about the current reunion weekend and everything felt as if a year had not passed at all.
I returned to the airwaves while Lisa flagged down Nivek who quickly deduced our cue-ing issue, making it possible for us to move along smoothly, which we did do for quite some time afterwards. Songs were flowing into the next as seamlessly as I wished them to. Our banter felt just right and after the next set of songs and banter, we decided to give our first vinyl selection and my turntable skills, such as they are, a shot.
The song was "Grass" by XTC, played from a vinyl single version in Lisa's collection. We had finished our banter and the record began playing beautifully. The studio phone rang, which I answered, to happily discover Kelly and Sue were waiting downstairs to be granted entrance. As Lisa exited to let them inside, I realized that I was not hearing the music as clearly as I thought that I should have been hearing it on the studio speakers. That when I realized that I had made mistake #2! I was talking on the phone and my studio microphone was still on!!! Hoping that my voice was not going over the airwaves while XTC was playing, I quickly clicked the correct button and the studio speakers produced the sound as I thought they should have done.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I also mentally kicked myself. I felt terrible that I had made such a "rookie mistake" as leaving my mic on. If I had screwed up one of my own song selections, I guess I could have moved onwards from that but this XTC song was Lisa's and I didn't want to screw up anything that she wished to have of herself on the air. I was indeed off my game alright and once Kelly ad Sue entered the studio, I have to admit my emotions were playing pinball. I was thrilled to see my friends, but was beginning to feel like I was losing some sort of confidence on-air. But the show indeed had to go on...
Kelly and Sue's program flowed much more smoothly than my own thankfully as I didn't want to screw them up in any conceivable way. Even so, mistake #3 happened when I cued the wrong song on the turntable...but we seemed to purposefully play it off comically while the song choice was corrected. But, then, I felt terrible that technical difficulty #3 occurred with their final song of their show, The Swanky Modes' "Ordinary Man" as featured in Director Bill Fishman's music video industry satire "Tapeheads" (1988) starring John Cusack and Tim Robbins. In fact, this song was their official final song each week from their college radio show so it had a very special significance to be aired. So, when their own homemade CD not only did not load or cue but found itself stuck within the player, forcing them to quickly improvise and play Wall Of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio" instead...well...
After we cleared out of the studios, we headed won State Street on this sweltering Sunday afternoon for a most delicious celebratory lunch at Ian's Pizza (an event which in itself had more obstacles due to a misplaced wallet on my part--could anything go well today?).
By the time I returned home, I was not exactly floating upon the same highs that I had received from the first two Resurrection/Reunion weekends. I was more reflective and definitely more disappointed. Certainly, I had a blast of a time but somehow, I was unable to reconcile the shows and performance that I had envisioned with the actual reality of what occurred and furthermore, what did any of it possibly sound like to the listener? Was it all just a big mess or did it sound OK? Was it fun for everyone or just a self-indulgent private party that happened to be broadcast over radio airwaves? I was tired and I couldn't think straight. I had so much to do to get ready for Monday morning anyway and before 9 p.m., I had fallen asleep on the love seat in my home, with my beloved cat Jada at my side as always.
Dear readers and listeners, I do not tend to think of myself as a perfectionist. At least, I do not require or demand perfection from anyone else. But, over my life, I have realized that I do not tend to give myself much wiggle room with myself. I demand a lot of myself, and perhaps because of that, I do not forgive myself or let things go terribly well. It is very easy for me to linger over mistakes rather than see the entire picture for what it is or was and because of that, I am harder upon myself than I need to be, depending on the situation in question.
In college, if I were to flub on my own radio show, I could reconcile the mistakes by telling myself, "Well, there's always next week." With this weekend's event, you only have that one shot because there are no guarantees that the good people of WSUM will host this same event in a year's time. So, is this how I was to go out if this event were to be the last one? The thought made me sad as I just kept knocking myself and internally cursing that horoscope from the beginning of the day. I wished that I hadn't read it for maybe reading it, influenced my thinking, making the day a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or was I just over-thinking everything, as I also tend to do?
While I continued to ruminate over the day before, it dawned upon me that I was in fact being ridiculous and overly unforgiving of myself, especially considering the fact that I not only had the chance to re-live and continue to build great radio memories and with dear, cherished friends in the process, the fact that mistakes were made and technical difficulties occurred, they all happened in the very place that they are designed to happen: college radio!
21st century radio is truly not a very welcoming or warm place as it has grown to be increasingly robotic. With a small amount of corporations owning most of the stations within the country, playlists being overly pre-programmed and certainly having considerably less DJs radio stations have therefore become identical, inter-changeable and overtly plastic. Radio is rapidly becoming a medium where the human touch, the very element that has bound every listener to its magical, majestic world is being gradually snuffed out. Because of that, the veritable realness and overall humanity that exists within college (plus community and definitely satellite) radio becomes that much more important and needed to bind us together. And part of what helps to bind us together, in addition to the radio personalities and the music are indeed the mistakes!!!
I distinctly remember a time during my college years, when I was the Music Director/Station Manager of WLHA when I was in my Tripp Hall dorm room listening to a first time DJ performing one of her first shows. For a few moments, it was a disaster. A truly hilarious disaster. One where the poor girl began playing New Order's "Fine Time" on the wrong speed and in going to correct the mistake, she accidentally bumped the needle on the adjoining turntable, thus beginning to play Tone Loc's sowed down funk of "Loc'ed After Dark" at the exact same time!! The girl jumped on the air, with both turntables still playing, and she sounded mortified, horrified and ready to burst into tears by the cracks in her voice. Bus she soon regained herself, laughed it off and settled into a fine groove for the rest of her show. In the interim, I remember that I called her, told her who I was, that I was listening, that everything would be OK and that she was doing very well. DO NOT WORRY. It happens. The radio station is still on the air. You'll have a show next week. DON'T PANIC. All is well.
If only I could take my own advice sometimes.
Out of those five hours, the mistakes that were made were indeed very few and none of them pulled the plug on us, the weekend event or the station itself. In fact, the day went better than I gave it credit for being. We received a few very nice phone calls, one of which was from former WLHA DJ Ginger Alberts Goral, who performed her own show for the third time this weekend to great effect, and her kind words and encouraging nature was truly a bucket filler in a moment when I really needed to hear it.
Since the weekend, I have received some nice messages on Facebook and from some people in the real world as well. Even one of my wonderful co-teachers, a person who I figured would not tune in at all due to busy nature of her life, did indeed listen for a little bit and I was happy to know that she thought to do so. And in all of those good vibes, those continuous bucket fillers, my overall mood mood improved greatly, making me more appreciative of my extremely good fortune with being able to take part in a weekend like this at all. Let's see how I feel when I have the chance to listen back to things later but even so...this was indeed the college radio experience, part professionalism, part circus, all blissfully and beautifully human.
College radio does not need to sound overly slick and professional. That is demonstrably NOT what college radio is for. We want to hear those voices that don't sound like the standard radio voices playing music we would otherwise not normally hear. With regards to these Resurrection/Reunion weekends, it is also a joy to hear longtime radio professional let their collective hair down and just be goofy, silly, subversive and even more untamed than they would normally be in their "day jobs." The unpredictable nature of every show and everything that happens within those shows is what makes college radio, and WSUM in particular, the very best radio that I will ever hope to listen to and even more wonderfully, to have a continuing history with.
For all of the words that I spill on these digital pages, I do not believe that I could ever find the correct words or the right amount of words to fully convey the feelings I have when I step back into the WSUM studios. As I have expressed in the past, WSUM in the flesh is like stepping completely into the radio station that existed inside of my head as I sat four years spinning records in that musty smelling, damp basement room of the J.F. Friedrick Center, the place which held the WLHA studios during my college years.
Even moreso are the cherished friends I have made and with whom I still share an equally cherished history. If the powers-that-be of WSUM grant us a 4th edition of this weekend in 2016, all I can hope for is that these people pictured above will re-join me in music and hilarity, mistakes, flubs, technical difficulties and all.
There's no place I'd rather be!!
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