Don't want a conscience, give me a reason the people cry

Let's run through some of the peanut gallery in the Introduction to Broadcasting course, shall we?

I've already mentioned Lanna Sexton, one who I liked to refer to as "the loud one" as she frequently announced her presence, her abilities, and her opinion. She was a short, dumpy troll-like girl that really caked on the makeup in those gaudy hues no one had ever seen before. Now that I'm committing her vague memory to text I sort of wish I had paid more attention to what she yammered about all those years ago. She was a bit older than most of us and had worked as a receptionist at a television station "back home." Somewhere along the road of that profession she decided she had what it took to work in front of the camera, though I can only assume this idea was not mutually shared by those in charge of programming. Perhaps she came to college to prove she had what it took? Her overall goal was to get on television and not sit through these classes but while she had "heard" about some of the things discussed in class, she couldn't explain them no matter how hard – or how loud – she tried.

Keith Holland was another person who looked a bit older than most the rest of the class, but not by much. His most recognizable feature was his voice, evidently having picked up a nicotine habit earlier in his life. Like Lanna, he too had worked in the "industry" though his background was actual radio work – he was a weekend DJ at some backwater pop station. While that hands-on experience did give him a certain edge over the rest of us, Keith's major hurdle was unlearning some of the murkier traits he had picked up from his paying job. Instructors such as Dr. Propel and Dr. Schapp tended to teach the fundamentals in the lab practicum courses and they wanted to make sure everyone – even Keith – understood the concept behind a procedure before attempting short cuts.

For most of the year I sat next to the attractive but clinically dense Ivy Rovers. With a pleasant, wide-eyed face that was looked perpetually amazed at every mundane thing that happened, Ivy assumedly signed up for this major because she thought it would be easy. I got the impression on more than one occasion she found herself wrong for that initial thought and was now in way over her head with radio wave diagrams and lighting technique theories. However she had nothing to fear: her sorority sisters would be bailing her out of any mishap.

There was also Stephen Cornell, a sort-of flamboyant kid with a flair for dramatics and who looked like singer Rick Astley's twin brother. Sitting in class, listening, Cornell would nod slowly with exaggerated motions at whatever was being said. More often than not this would then be followed by what I think Stephen perceived as questions, but were usually smart-ass reinterpretations of what Dr. Propel had just said.

(This conversation didn't happen but it gives you the idea of those that did.)
Propel lectures about the cardioid pickup pattern of a type of microphone.
Cornell raises his arm, extending his index finger to signal he requests the chance to speak.
Cornell: So you're saying the microphone picks up sound in a heart-shape pattern?
Propel answers yes without much fanfare, presumably masking his disdain.

I've never cared much for people who act over-interested in what's being said. It comes across as fake, or being sincerely insincere. Even with this penchant for overacting, Cornell never seemed to me to grasp a lot of what was going on – or he convincingly played dumb a lot during the practicum lab.

Finally, th’ Faith Healers were a underground pop act out of England in the early 1990s that featured musicians Tom Cullinan, Joe Dilworth, Ben Hopkin, and Roxanne Stephen. While they had class, none were in the class with me or the other four people I’ve mentioned above. The only real similarity is that, like the group of not so-imaginary people (none really friends), we’ve all broken up and gone our separate ways.

And what weird, wonderful journey it’s been.

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The People
(Tom Cullinan)
Th' Faith Healers
From the album Imaginary Friend
1994

Mother cries
when the people dies
I understand
I hold her hand

The puppet cries
when the people dies
I understand
I hold his hand

The people cries
when the people dies
I understand
I hold their hands

The people cry
when the people die
I understand
I hold their hands

Don't want a conscience, give me a reason
Don't want a conscience, give me a reason
Don't want a conscience, give me a reason
Don't want a conscience, give me a reason

The colors all weave with life as we move into the wind

Troy Meadows, the easy-going news director my freshman year, encouraged his news staff to just not sit for an hour preparing and reading news, but to actually get out and find news on the campus and in the community. To do this he wanted us to take the initiative and find these stories ourselves. If we did one a month that amounted to about three a semester, and with a staff of about 15 that could add up to an impressive-sounding news department, Troy opined. Troy, however, was too nice a guy and would "help" many of the news staff find these stories – usually by bringing you the topic and a list of ideas on how to cover the story. All people had to do was gather the sound and edit together. If they ever did, that is. (Some people don’t put forth a lot of effort in college.)

Since I was in the Introduction to Broadcasting class, and not really receiving credit for my work that semester, I was given the ol' "it would be good experience for later" speech by Troy. And, thus, with his "help" I pulled off a decent story midway through the semester.

Fast-forward to the end of November: Troy calls me into the newsroom one morning after my seven o’clock newscast and begins the ol' "you did such a good job the last time" speech (sort of based on the first ol’ speech), buttering me up for my acceptance of another project. Yes, he has another story idea that someone needed to take, and since I just happened to be on site at that very moment.... This time, however, he wants me to do the legwork on my own: that is, find the people to interview, devise a story, and then edit it together. There weren't usually any hard-and-fast requirements to these stories, though Troy preferred something at least 90 seconds.

I was somewhat confused then when I was given my assignment: covering the opening ceremony of the university's annual Giving Tree ceremony. I don't know if Troy purposely gave me this assignment because no one else wanted it, or if it was some sort of test to see if I could pull it off. I was hardly an expert in writing or editing at this point but my obvious concerns were figuring out how to convey a lit Christmas tree on the radio. I remember jokingly making the case that of all the lights, red doesn't translate well on radio. The comment blew over like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.

Whatever I came up with was to be used for the station’s semi-regular holiday special, a sort of audio scrapbook of Christmas on campus (which, not surprisingly, was the name of the special when it aired shortly before winter break). That said, what I was really doing was not as much reporting the news of the Giving Tree’s impending lighting, but rather covering the event for a feature story, one that would be played well after the fact.

While I was in over my head, I felt, I still went about the story with the same prep-work I would have had I been covering the item as a news story. Somewhat interested in the campus grounds, I went the historic direction in my research. For years, a real tree outside one of the original buildings on campus had been involved in the decades-old tradition; both the tree and building were long destroyed by my time. Since then, it had been anchored out front another building on the quadrangle. This year, I learned, would be the first time it would be lit in another location – essentially, its third location.

I got the impression it wasn’t a real tree that year, rather a large imitation one secured behind the Administration Building in a hexagon-shaped planter box. The tree appeared mysteriously the week before Thanksgiving and was decorated but remained dark in the evening until the official ceremony. On the designated evening in question, students, staff, faculty, and townspeople (and whoever else wanted a free show) would gather ‘round and bring canned goods or other useful donations for area charities (hence “Giving Tree”). The University President spoke, the cheerleaders danced, choirs sang, a guy wandered around in a red suit, and Santa Claus made an appearance in an elaborate stage show on top of the Administration Building. (The other guy in the red suit was a retired faculty member who was introduced as having attended the most Giving Tree lighting ceremonies, something like forty or so.)

Anyway, about the only thing I did right in my approach was interviewing people. While I was keen enough to think to use nat sound – natural sound, the sounds of people talking, people singing, music playing, wind blowing, and so on – most of my piece involved after-the-fact interviews about how people felt this time of year. Troy said, and he was right, that more people discussed how they felt this time of the year, rather than anything about the tree. But, he did point out, there was a real sense of generosity and sharing hanging in the air that night and I managed to capture that. I guess that was good.

In the end, the piece turned out fine. It wasn’t for a grade – thankfully – and I don’t recall any comments on it, but it wasn’t something I put much thought into after the semester was over.

Little did I know what lay in store next year....

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Tree
(Liz Berlin/Michael Glabicki/Rusted Root/Jenn Wertz)
Rusted Root
From the album Cruel Sun
1992

Ever see the tree, ever feel yourself
Wrapped around the wind Let go of your desire

Desire will suffer in the send suffer the will,
will of the child the child will born on our death
Child will be born on our death

Oh let the child be born and be brought to the sun

As desire will come and suffer the will,
will will of the child (repeat 2 Times)

Everything is so beautiful
Everything is so simple now

Colors weave into symbols of life
symbols of life they weave into the wind
Oh weary child rest your head
Very soon the colors come alive

And the child will be born born on our death
child will be born on our death

Oh let the child be born and be brought to the sun
As the symbols of life weave into the wind (Repeat 1 time)

Because everything is simple now
Nothing has ever changed
The colors all weave with life
Let the weary child be born

Because everything is simple now
Nothing has ever changed
The colors all weave with life as we move into the wind

Matter of the Heart

While I still have some fleeing memories of my freshmen year, I feel something must be said about a silly little radio program called "A Matter of Heart" that ran weekdays during the mid-morning hours.

Not every aspect of college-operated radio stations was always student-created. While most programming elements will have had student involvement, there are going to be some public service announcements (PSAs) from the Ad Council or some syndicated public affairs programs airing alongside similar student fare.

"A Matter of Heart" was one such syndicated program: a boring, sixty-second, thinly disguised show about better health and heart issues that was underwritten by some medico group. It was the exact type of program that most college-aged student would find interesting in no way at all. An announcer with doubtful medical credentials spoke at length on issues involving the heart in a way that seemed to only drive home the medico company line. Nothing about the program was inviting by any stretch of the imagination, and all these years later I have to wonder why station management bothered using it in the first place, much less why it ran as long as it did. But I suppose it was part of our rumored responsibility to broadcast material that was beneficial to the listening public.

What stands out about "A Matter of Heart" was the theme music. I got the impression upperclassmen students had heard the music for a number of semesters prior to my arrival; those of us who were new would soon recognize it, too. It was a piece of music that everyone seemed to know by...well...heart, a miserable combination of generic production music plus a lethargic pulsation that sounded vaguely like an electronic Morse code message that looped itself continuously. Someone joked it was the announcer's electrocardiogram set to "closet music" (a term to describe generic music found in a production room the size of a closet). There was a short burst of this music at both the start and end of the program, each thankfully fading out to silence after six or seven seconds.

However this theme music also played the entirety of the thirty-second promotional spot that we had in rotation. Barking the benefits of listening, the announcer went on for about twenty-five seconds before finishing his generic promotion of his program. However, while he stopped talking, the music continued. Someone in charge of production was to tag the spot – that is, adding his or her voice to identify what day and time people could hear this wonderful program on our station. When I arrived, the spot was in rotation and tagged with Dr. Propel's voice, spoken in its trademark mock-important voice: "A Mah-tah...of HEART! Weekday mornings at 9 on FM 89.3." Or something like that.

It seemed Propel's vocal on the spot was just as memorable as the music (and for those who knew Propel, it was audible proof of his sheer goofiness). The following school year Propel was gone and teaching at another university in another state but his voice remained on the spot. For only a month or so, I’m afraid – the student Program Director my sophomore year (Frankie TNT) decided his voice needed to be heard and new version of the promo was debuted. That seemed to be the downfall for "A Matter of Heart," as the program seemed to soon fade from our station. Frankie TNT would soon fade away as well, but that’s another story.

I would assume "A Matter of Heart" aired during either classical (likely) or jazz (very likely) music shifts, and would also assume that the poor DJ who had to suffer through sixty seconds of health information would be redeemed by the music that made up his or her shift. And of that music, there’s as good a chance as any that there may have been some Joe McPhee in the mix. McPhee is the composer and instrumentalist who first made his name in the 1970s with a string of albums (led by Nation Time and Trinity) that were part of the improvisational jazz movement. After a series of albums in the 1980s and finding success overseas, McPhee later met up with fellow musicians Ken Vandermark and Kent Kessler (bass) to record a series of songs that resulted in the album, A Meeting in Chicago. McPhee continues to record and tour to wide acclaim, music never far from his heart.

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Matter of the Heart
(Kent Kessler/Joe McPhee/Ken Vandermark)
Joe McPhee with Ken Vandermark and Kent Kessler
From the album A Meeting in Chicago
1998

A patient game that I can't find my way to play

In its simplest terms, a play list is an ordered record of songs that have been scheduled for air during any given time period (usually, in our cases, for one hour). While play lists (be it on paper or an electronic list via a computer screen) were a necessary requirement in commercial radio, I discovered throughout my years that play lists could often be bane of some college stations.

Many university-run stations I was aware of a decade ago seemed to be set on this idea of a free form fun-for-all shift, where the host plays "whatever" for two or three hours, followed by someone else with the same “whatever” mentality. That's fine and I think it's wise to allow that freedom; however I always felt it was horrendously disorganized and had the potential to leave out mass quantities of music that DJs didn’t always enjoy.

Hourly play lists at my undergraduate station were generated by a specialized computer application, one that had been in use for a long time, I always assumed. Midway through my association with the station, the music office received a number computer and we tried to install the application and transfer all our data – neither task worked, meaning bought us some new software and we had to start over from scratch with entering music. And this transition period was hardly enjoyable.

For the play list application to do its thing, station management (mainly the music director with the assistance of the music format coordinators) had to enter every potential playable track into the system. Or, as it usually was, every potential playable track that fit the sound of the station (see A falling star that you cannot live without). That meant every compact disc (or playable media – like vinyl discs for the classic rock show) was assigned a unique, incremental number; e.g. classical discs might be in the 10000 range, rock in the 50000 range, hip-hop the 30000s, and so on. Tracks, or cuts, from each album (record, disc, media – whatever) were then entered into the system, including basic information such as the title, artist, and song length.

Let's use one of our weekly preview discs as an example: the next available album number was 30451, and we wanted to add the eighth track on the album (Fugazi's "Blueprint") into rotation. This album/cut number was added into the software and thusly appeared on the play list as 30451-08. Whoever the music director was usually had his or her hands full with ensuring music was 1) labeled correctly on the disc, and 2) entered correctly into the computer application. Another responsibility of the music director was to print play lists in advance of the DJ shift so that the student on duty could simply go down the list and easily pull their three hours of music from the shelves.

So, yes, it did serve as a blue print of the hour, as it were. Some students had input into the creation of their play list, and most everyone’s list was edited during their shift to accommodate listener requests.

I don’t recall many requests for Fugazi, as I don’t think the music director entered much, if any, of it back into the computer system after the software transition. There were occasional “finds” of such music that someone would have to have come across by accident, and occasionally a knowledgeable DJs would play such a find as their own request; “Waiting Room” was one such track.

Band members Brendan Canty, Joe Lally, Ian MacKaye, and Guy Picciotto released Fugazi’s most recent album in 2001 (The Argument).

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Blueprint
(Fugazi)
Fugazi
From the album Repeater + 3 Songs
1990

I'm not playing with you,
I'm not playing with you,
I'm not playing with you,
I clean forgot how to play.
But you can still come around,
In fact I invite you down,
Maybe together we can wipe that smile off your face.
'Cause what a difference, what a difference, what a difference
A little difference would make.
We'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy,
It's just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes.
Frustrating, frustrating, always waiting for the bigger axe to fall.
A patient game that i can't find my way to play.
Never mind what's been selling,
It's what you're buying
and receiving undefiled.

Pop Quiz

The Introduction to Broadcasting course (see Broadcast) was sort of divided into two halves, with one half of the semester geared toward audio production and the rest of the year devoted to television, although there was of course some overlap. Naturally the audio elements were presented first – as a foundation – as it was understood (by most) that the later details of video production would be built on the earlier lessons of the semester.

This, then, would be a good place to briefly introduce Lanna Sexton, one of the obnoxious prima donnas of the class, who made it known she felt her attendance was an oversight and she was just ready to get her degree in television (i.e. radio was beneath her). We'll discuss some more about her later on.

The course began with Propel's introductory chatter about radio and television production in general. From there it was lessons on dayparts and target audiences (enter new word: demographics) and so on. The following week or so, when most of this seemingly basic and unnecessary information was dissipating, Propel decided to make good on his threat from the syllabus (enter another new word, for those new to college...).

I've noted some of Dr. Propel's classroom quirks (e.g. EBS threats, video montages); another such trait was his penchant for the unannounced pop quiz. The syllabus said to expect them anytime, be it any day of class or any time during class (nothing soured the morning more than getting through the first hour and ten minutes thinking we were home free and having him end class with a 20-question quiz). Propel usually segued from attendance or the lesson right into the quiz, with little fanfare; the only hint was his whimsical announcement, "It's time for a quiz."

After a brief pause, in which time Propel would contort his face into an impish grin of delight, we were then given a simple directives: "Take out...two...sheets...of pay-pah!" The phrase was known building wide and parodied often. The ridiculous stress on the word "two" and the silly pronunciation of the word "paper," plus the fact we heard it weekly, left an imprint on many people's psyche. Long after he had left the department people would still crack a grin when someone tried to do a Propel impression.

And what of the quiz? We were the Pop Quiz Kids, speedily moving about to get out our two pieces of paper (one to write on, the other to cover our answers) before he began asking questions because, as we learned, a question was only asked three times. He asked twice in the course of the quiz and if someone missed a question he would recite it once more. But never four times would a question be asked.

One of the first quizzes was asking the class to give our individual interpretation of the word "broadcasting." Most everyone had an answer that dealt with audio and video signals dancing across the ionosphere or something media-related. If memory serves, only one (or a scant few) knew the somewhat-dated definition involving seed scattering. Naturally, even while the curriculum discussed mass media and so on, Dr. Propel only wanted the archaic answer about seed scattering.

Such was the way of Dr. Propel.

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Pop Quiz
(Mark Mancina)
Mark Mancina
From the album Speed: the Original Score
1994