Posted October 2002

Wanted: People with Head Injuries

 “Good Morning Valdosta!  Its 88 degrees and I feel great!”

Most Disk Jockeys are enthusiastic on the air.  They are paid to be that way.  In reality they look like they slept in their clothes and they croak a weary good morning to you while their eyes plead for your sympathy.

“Oh poor me,” say those eyes, “I got up at 4:45 this morning and don’t have a real life."

Suddenly a switch is tossed and another being takes possession of their body, but instead of projectile vomiting or screaming profanity and blasphemy they twitter happily into a microphone about nothing in particular. They slump forward into their normal posture after the switch is tossed back.  Do they remember what they just said?  Not likely.

I was used to shouts of enthusiasm from the glass fishbowl in the center of the lobby that served as our studio, however; there was something maniacal about the chattering on the air that day.  I took a second look at this guy and saw that his entire back was covered in hay.  There were also flecks of hay in his hair.

“Ben go on a hay ride last night?”, I asked.

“I think he slept in a field," replied the receptionist.

Indeed, he had. He was forced to walk to work because he had lost his license many DUI’s ago.  Sometimes he would walk to the station and sleep under a desk until it was time to go on the air.  This particular night, he was on LSD so he decided to lie down in a field close to the station and watch the stars instead.  He had a great show that morning, by the way.

Yeah, I know.  Workplaces are supposed to be drug-free.  This is show biz.

There was one guy who worked for me who adjusted his mood with a Technicolor assortment of psychoactive pills he kept in a shaving kit under the front seat of his car.  Need an alternative rocker laid back kind of guy?  He could do it.  Need a screaming rocker? He could do that, too.  Try as he might, he couldn’t take a pill that would turn him into Paul Harvey.

We would have put in a drug screen for new employees, but we were unable to find a laboratory in town that would barter drug screens for advertising.  I always wanted to write an ad about tinkling in a cup.

If it was a guy who was good on the air and a charming devil to boot, the station book keeper would take him under her wing.  She would feed him, take him to church, feed him anabuse pills that would make him deathly ill if he had one drink, and he would be very good – for a little while.  Then he would start palming the pills.

We found one missing DJ one morning asleep at the wheel of his car.  The driver side door was open and he had one foot out of the vehicle.  He reeked.   We woke him up and drove him to work.  His show was fine.

Meanwhile, all the good employees wondered what it took to get fired.

It took a lot.

Rock and roll on-air talent is hard to find in a small town.  You either get the ego-tripper on the way up or the busted ego on the way down. These guys and gals will work for minimum wage and all the records and free food coupons they can beg or steal.

I would like to say a word about country station DJ’s.  They tend to have wives, dogs, kids, and pickup trucks with guns in the back.  I love you, guys.  Please don’t hurt me.

Craziness is not limited to the on air side of the house.  There was the sales woman who used her key to get into the station one night, used the phone to call a guy, got mad, and shot the place up.  No, the owner did not fire her.  Are you kidding? She was hitting quota that month.  Besides, who wants to fire someone who is packing heat?   She left under her own steam not soon after.

This brings up another point. Employees at a radio station are like the weather in England.  If you don’t like someone, just be patient because they will leave soon.   At one station, we counted up all the W-2’s at the end of the year and came up with 70 of them -- a 700% turnover.   People in the house with one year under their belt were considered permanent.

Do you have to be brain damaged to work at a radio station?  It helps.   One day, I walked around the office asking people if they had ever had a bad fall or hurt their head when they were a child.  Unsurprisingly, everyone answered yes.

Wanna see my scar?