Newsbreak: Writing on the wall

Good morning...it’s 7 o’clock and this is an FM 89.3 newsbreak:

President Clinton no longer wants his wife to lead the fight for health care reform. White House officials said Wednesday that two lesser known aides, Carol Rasco and Robert Rubin, will head the administration’s second attempt for health care reform. Officials also said Hillary Clinton recommended the change, feeling that the health care debate has moved to another stage.

Whatever happened to make American Eagle flight 4184 fall from the sky apparently happened too fast for the pilots to call for help. “There was no distress signal sent from the plane and no indication from conversation between the tower and aircraft,” Jim Hall, the chairman for the National Transportation Safety board, said Wednesday. However an NBC News report said that the cockpit voice recorder indicates that alarm after alarm suddenly went off signaling an emergency on Monday’s flight.

Back in Washington, a Colorado man was ordered to stand trial on charges he fired 27 bullets from a semi-automatic rifle at the White House last weekend. Francisco Martin Duran is charged with possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, destroying government property, assaulting a uniformed Secret Service agent and using a firearm while convicting a crime. If convicted on all counts he could face a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison.

Cloudy today with a high of 85; lows in the 70s, cloudy and humid tonight. Currently it’s 76 degrees.

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I got a lot of strange looks from people when I said I had signed up for 8:00 a.m. classes my freshman year. No one in their right mind wants to get up early for class, I was told. My response usually echoed around the concept that it didn’t bother me, but also because one of the key classes I had to take (Introduction to Broadcasting) was offered at either 8-9:30 a.m. or 9:30-11 a.m. on T-days (Tuesdays and Thursdays). I suppose I wanted to get classes over with as soon as possible so the rest of the day could be mine.

This “get it done and over with” mentality also was why I stacked my M-days (Monday-Wednesday-Friday) with classes all morning. After four hours of classes I gave myself an hour for lunch – eaten with, of course, members of the Octumvirate – before heading off to final M-day class, English Composition I. There were little hesitations about this class as I had always done exceptionally well in high school literature and composition courses. I assumed this would be somewhat similar.

It turned out to be one of my least-liked classes that year for a number of reasons. First, the official text for the course was the Grandville English Primer, a hefty 1000+page text book compiled by the university English department in an assumed effort to come up with a book that did most of the work for them. The book had a little bit of everything in it, including long-winded chapters about sentence structure and grammar; how to cite sources, which seemed an almost verbatim copy of the Modern Language Association (MLA) handbook we also had to purchase; and finally some representative poetry and prose selections that would be discussed (or were going to be discussed) in the introduction English courses. My semester was the debut semester of the book, which featured an illustration that tired to look like a woodcut of the iconic 150-year-old Grandville Building on campus but failed and instead looked like a cheaply-created illustration.

Another thing to dislike about the course was the instructor, one Ms. Mona-Itza Getnam, best described as an annoying busy-body that was guided more by departmental rules and procedures than common sense. Some instructors had Ph.D.s and taught the upper-level courses and mucked about in bureaucratic issues, while others were graduate teaching assistants and worked in the writing lab and taught introduction classes during their studies to earn a master’s degree. Ms. Getnam fit into a second and thusly less fashionable group that had attained a master’s degree but was still regulated to instructing either introductory courses or English courses taken mostly by non-English majors.

Ms. Getnam’s syllabus for the class was the same one used by all the other Composition I instructors (something discovered and discussed with Lenny and Alan during mealtime). However I found out as the semester wore on that only Ms. Getnam paid strict attention to its details. The course outline was indeed very specific about what all classes should be doing each week of the semester; its major flaw, and that of the faculty panel that authored the text, was forgetting each class of students would act differently when presented with the lessons. Some classes would instantly understand the topic at hand, while other groups of students might need reinforcement about the concepts.

And the main “concepts” and “lessons” that Ms. Getnam and other similar instructors taught that semester were basic punctuation and capitalization skills. These were the same basic skills that my high school senior year English teacher had decided to focus on the year before, sensing that as seniors we could use a refresher to “wind down” our high school experience. Therefore I was subject to another year of a topic I felt everyone should have learned back in elementary school. There was refresher – which should have been one class sessions – and then there was overkill, which lasted two weeks too many.

Apparently Lenny and Alan were in English classes with students that far excelled the instructor’s expectations because they spent very little time on those subjects and moved into the writings found in the back of the primer. Even though a majority of the class mastered the subject and passed the countless end-of-day quizzes spring on us, we still had to spend time going over capitalization and punctuation because the syllabus said we had to.

There’s a note on the syllabus about the clock. Oh, yes..the clock on the back wall. Ms. Getnam got a huge kick in class the day she finally realized it was dead and that's why it was always ten minutes until three. Yes! How funny! Right in the middle of her reading an essay! But there was precious little else to remember about this class except those darn primers we had to spend upwards of $60 on at the start of the semester. When it came time to sell books back at the end of the year, the English Department, going through the motions of another brilliant idea, had decided to not use the books again. Bookstores were on strict order not to reshelve the book.

Plenty of reruns in class...no reusing the book. And that’s how Composition I became one of the worst classes that semester.

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Writing on the Wall
(Pat Coil/Grant Geissman)
Grant Geissman
From the album Reruns
1992

See what is real and what is make believe

Magnetic tape wound on a wheel
Record and playback, reel-to-reel
Splice because it's not encased,
Shake the rust – it's bulk-erased.

And now a few thoughts on audiotape. It was, simply, everywhere. Thin, brownish-black strings of tape snaked its way up, down, and around every room of the radio station and often into every aspect of the student life. You discussed its measurements and width and movement in class, you practiced using it lab, and then you made it work – ready or not – on staff at the radio station.

The first format for magnetic tape sound reproduction was using reel-to-reel audio tape recording. In the audio profession, reels are the round, somewhat flat plastic or metal devices used to store and playback audiotape. The operator affixed the reel of tape to the spindle of the open reel-to-reel machine and then manually feed the tape over, under, or across the various knobs, rollers, and tape heads to the empty take-up reel. Correctly done, the tape would be pulled across the heads and sound would be produced.

Knowing how to use these machines was expected of practically everybody: Propel’s Introduction course first presented the medium to students and LeMeck’s Advanced course would build from that with topics of tape speed, tape thickness, reverberation, and the anxiety of splicing. After these two required courses students rarely used audiotape reels unless they spent their time working at the radio station. Every audio production room in the Communication Building had one of these open-reel machines, so named because the reels of tape were “open” instead of closed within the confines of a cassette cartridge. Another such device was found in the radio station’s main studio; here the DJ might use the machine to air a lengthy public affairs program.

Students often pointed out that the concept of audiotape was nearing the apogee of antiquation. Why, with all the rage of digital devices, should we be taught how to use the outdated analog equipment? Easy enough, the faculty responded: money. The newest and best digital toys were often so expensive that only certain big market stations could afford them. Not everybody graduates and immediately takes a job at these major market station, but, instead, usually gets their feet wet at middle market stations or, perhaps, at that 900 watt-job out west of the middle of nowhere that’s never heard of digital (those stations, Propel joked, played country music). Those stations, so went this theory, would not have had the resources to purchase the digital equipment and would still be using reel-to-reel machines. Therefore it wouldn’t bode well for a newly graduated radio station employee to not know how to use the most basic of equipment. While that is a somewhat exaggerated theory, the more important reason was to instill students with the fundamentals. If by splicing audiotape the student gained a better understanding of multi-track recording, chances are they would better understand the concept when they had to use a computer to perform a similar task.

Using open-reel machines could be fun, such as when you created echo or reverberation effects with the output. The biggest headaches came from splicing the tape – marking it properly and cutting the tape to remove an unwanted noise and then fastening it back together. It took practice but soon we all mastered the moves. That is, most of us mastered it. During my junior year that Spadowski kid couldn’t reel the thread...I mean, thread the reel.

Really. And he would be graduating at the end of that semester.

Really.

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Real
(Ronny Moorings)
Xymox
From the album Metamorphosis
1992

You sit in a garden
locked away from the world
find no reason to see your friends
everything you need is here
but your eyes are open
enough to see you said
all i read are memories
with a black line of love

you make me feel
real

see the hand in front of your face
and see what is real and what is make believe
would you run away to catch the ocean if it called you name ?
Everybody is looking for heaven on earth
and you believe to be bling
your mind is the watchman at the gate
faith is all you need

you make me feel
real
real

Strange Meeting

While the freshmen year began being enrolled in the Introduction to Broadcasting course, I didn't get involved with radio work for a few weeks, as the student management had to get situated themselves in with their own classes before preparing for the station-wide meeting. In the meantime the station was usually run by veteran volunteers, people who had been around a while and didn’t need to be trained. Usually these would be the same people who would disappear when volunteers were needed to train new people. Such was the way of this land.

I was sort of hesitant what this strange, all-staff meeting would entail. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do there, but I thought I’d give this radio thing a try. I guess it seemed the natural, obvious thing to do.

Of course, there was nothing guaranteeing me a new position. While non-management roles at the radio station were usually required to be filled by students enrolled in the Advanced Audio Production course, students in the introduction course could sign-up to help, too, though they often were used to patch-up unpopular shifts (like an early morning news shift or one of those late night weekend music shifts [see Curve's the words, spin's the verbs]).

These meetings were generally a loosely organized affair run by the program director, a student chosen to oversee all aspects of the station. Also in attendance were the station manager and faculty advisor – roles that were arguably the same thing but, at this point, were separated between two faculty members, Dr. Propel and Dr. Schapp. Of course the students in the Advanced Audio course were there (shoot, their grade depended on it), as well as anyone else who wanted to join in on the festivities for the semester.

The one requirement for participating, however, was that the student be enrolled in one of the Communication classes. That seemed like an obvious prerequisite to me at the time. Later I was told this was noted up front due to a mishap that happened one summer. Apparently the station wanted to maintain normal hours during a time when student involvement was slim and invited community volunteers to take a few shifts. An older gentleman from the community stepped into help but quickly went off on his own, making up his own rules and questioning the student management. That would have been interesting to see. And hear.

There are little memories of this first meeting, as I was still wide-eyed at the time and not always grasping just how much everything fit together (there were a lot more behind the scenes positions than I realized). Needless to say, I left the meeting having signed up for news shifts – three of 'em. I had come to college interested in journalism and I thought this might be a good way to get myself involved. I had no idea what lay in store (see Watching your river turn into an ocean).

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Strange Meeting
(Bill Frisell)
Bill Frisell
From the album This Land
1992

Arise and Dress Yourself

Our Saturday morning folk show (see Jesse James behind the wheel) at the undergraduate station was a hybrid of music, a juxtaposition of sounds that didn't always sound the best together but we made them work the best we could. One form of music that we played was something one might consider "Celtic" music – traditional reels and jigs played on pipes, fiddles, and the eccentrically named and sounding hammered dulcimer, among other instruments.

I never knew how we ended up with a lot of this music. Did Brad, the format’s creator, have a fondness for this and seek it out, or was some of it sent blindly by an independent record company and we were so far fetched for music that we'd play anything? While I personally never disliked the music, I often wondered about the listening audience. This was about the most abnormal type of music the station played up to that point (maybe some obscure classical or jazz pieces coming in a distant second place), especially since it wasn't always sung in recognizable English.

I often wondered what would have happened had we decided to "go Celtic" one morning and throw out the program clock to predominantly play this type of music for the entire program? To the untrained ear I could surmise that it might have sounded like one four-hour song, a bouncy, airy tune that sped up and slowed down every few minutes or so. In other words, the one downfall was that a lot of this music sounded the same after a while.

The other major problem would have been properly identifying the musicians or song titles. For example, someone took the time to put together a pronunciation guide for the classical shifts to assist those announcers who had never heard of Handel and Waggoner and to correct people who thought it was pronounced “terra cotta and fudge.” While it would have been very useful, a pronunciation guide would have been much difficult to do for the folk show because, to begin with, we didn't know where to go to get a proper pronunciation of Ceoltoiri. That fledging novelty, the World Wide Web, didn't have pages of text about every obscure Celtic group or song we played.

So that left the DJs of the folk show (meaning, first, Brad and then me) to come up with something that sounded believable yet mildly foreign. Ceoltoiri came out "seal-a-tory," "soul-tor-ee," and "kel-terry." I see now it’s pronounced “kyul-tory,” and Irish Gaelic for “musicians.” (Boy, were we way off....)

The group consists of Karen Ashbrook (hammered dulcimer), Connie McKenna (vocals, guitar), and Sue Richards (Celtic harp). The song tells the story of an impatient suitor [who] begs his lover to wake up and cut her hair in preparation for their wedding. By the end of the song, overtaken by eagerness, he vetos the haircut, and the trip to the priest, too!

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Arise and Dress Yourself
(Traditional)
Ceoltoiri
From the album Silver Apples of the Moon
1992

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

The days I think about you, but what seems an eternity

Over the years there have been a few songs that I’ve heard fragments of only two or three times before they were lost into that tedious sound warehouse in the sky some refer to as the ionosphere. There is seldom a common bond between these songs and why I still remember those random thirty-second segments is something I don’t always understand myself. Was it the melody that caught my ear? Snappy lyrics? Catchy beat? Was it the fact I was doing something important when I first caught an earful of the song? Who knows? Here are but two Meditations on a Mix Tape.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

We were meant to be together...above the palm tree

For years I was aware of a brief bit of audiotape that I had surely recorded sometime in the early 1990s, a haunting tune with a certain tropical air to it. What made it difficult to identify was that whoever was singing made a point of quickly flowing his lyrics from one line another; only certain words were identifiable: “we were meant to be together” and something about a “palm tree.” But this sultry imagery combined with the breezy but faint sounds of crashing ocean waves did little to help me explain it to others, especially when young and naïve ears misinterpreted the line of the song – more so the title of the song – “Forbidden Love” as “The two that love.”

As an added insult was that by now I had misplaced the cassette – I was going on these lyrics by sheer memory – and naturally no sooner was the tape lost did I finally find an online forum dedicated to helping people identify lost songs. My attempts of explaining myself were all but successful - could I provide more lyrics? Have I tried a Peter Cetera lyric engine? No, my only real memory is the melody, something difficult for me to transcribe, and I again leave the mystery behind for another three or four years.

But when the cassette surfaced earlier this spring, I was surprised that the lyrics now were somewhat clearer and, more so, searchable. Finally I was able to put a name with a song: Bronx Style Bob and his minor hit, “Forbidden Love.” Bob Khaleel was the musician behind the song, a New York City native who had ties with Ice-T and House of Pain’s Everlast.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Just forget about the hard times left behind, and think of where you really want to go....

There was, once upon a time, a Norwegian trio of musicians that called themselves One 2 Many, which does not leave much to the imagination except the question of whether or not they preferred themselves a duo. Having a common phrase as a band name, albeit spelled differently, probably led to some confusion with some listeners, mistaking the band name with some random words from the DJ.

I first heard bits and pieces of their lone, hit single, “Downtown,” around 1988 or so. Because I usually heard the song long after it had begun, I never heard, much less knew, whether or not the DJ said anything as to the name of the band. By dumb luck, the one time I do hear the beginning of the song was the time I was recording music off the radio to audiocassette. Somewhere in his talk, the DJ made mention that this was one too many “Downtown” – leading me to believe this was one more in a long line of songs that couldn’t think of a better title than “Downtown.” Petula Clark was the only other “Downtown” I knew of then, but since, Lloyd Cole and Neil Young have had their own “Downtown,” too.

While I had listened to the cassette over the years, it wasn’t until maybe fifteen years had passed before I decided to play detective and figure out if anything about the long-forgotten song had made it into the digital age. Thumbing through an online listing of Top 40 hits, I spotted the song title and stared stupidly at the band name: One 2 Many. The name of the band was out there, just not something I was able to grasp.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Forbidden Love
(Bob Khalil)
Bronx Style Bob
From the album Gramma's Ghost
1992

Can you bring the light, my children?
Can you bring the light, my love?

Smile was like the night laughing in the water
The deeper inside is all the purecy of love
We'll have it like the past
And the grass is for the universe
To thinking we're born way to live down a dream

Refrain 1:
My love, I suppose this is well life a bonus
And when the marchingband players
Takes me away, you love

Refrain 2:
Forbidden love, but we were meant to be together
Forbidden passions over fridge above the palmtree
Forbidden love, but we were meant to be together
Forbidden passions over fridge above the palmtree

Above the clouds
Where my grandmother fought with the guns of life
Above the wings
Where the angels dance

Blessed by the roots of love I should know you
Promised by the god I shall exist for you

And I love you, I need you
I love you, I need you

Refrain 2

You know I love you, baby
Yeah (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
I shall love, I shall want you 'till the end of time
When you're goin' and you hide, you know it
That you're on my mind

Forbidden love, but we were meant to be together
Forbidden passions over fridge above the palmtree

Ah, aha
Yeah
Yeaheaheaheah

The days I think about you
But what seems an eternity
To keep your overconscience
I prophesize my own destiny

And when you go I'll be right there
Wait 'till the land's above the sky, you know
To build on the woods of love
Sees that love don't die

Refrain 2

Ahaha
Yeaheaheah

Refrain 1

You didn't miss by far, you know you came this close

My undergraduate station played more Thomas Dolby than it probably gave itself credit for. It probably didn’t even know it played that much.

There were the obligatory Science and Hyperactive flashbacks during the rock shifts - but Science didn't age very well and sounded very out of place; few people seemed to remember anything about Hyperactive. There was the occasional modern track, such as the very cool Close but No Cigar, which appeared on one of the old weekly preview discs, but what infrequent airtime it had was diminished when the station received a new computer system and thus never put a lot of songs back into rotation.

Still, no Thomas Dolby song comes to mind at college more than Airhead. Airhead was a featured track on one of those College Music Journal (CMJ) compilation discs, discs that were mostly regulated to the Pit program (see Kill the Crow). I laugh when I hear the song now because while it was never played in its entirety, the song was featured at least four or five times every weekday and I doubt anyone ever knew what song it was.

How?

I made mention that in addition to students preparing news and sports broadcasts, one student was usually charged with the creation and maintenance of the various production components – which for this anecdote meant the news and sports intros. There were two separate, brief introductions consisting of a voice-over-music that allowed a distinct segue from one type of programming into news and sports (see Sleeping Beauty). For reasons never made clear I chose to use Airhead for the sports bed music, mainly because it had a "sound" that broke away from the trend that sports music must sound like something off ESPN. Airhead had a funky keyboard introduction that I thought would be different and become somewhat memorable. I, once again, was right.

The sports introduction was probably no more than 15 seconds, and I had convinced one of the instructors to do the vocals, which were rattled off somewhat quickly before Dolby kicked in the keyboard groove of the song.

The idea was that the music would be faded out as the student read his or her sport stories. And there lies the problem that made this memorable: it was a music bed (see Something Wicked This Way Comes) and with that came the established concept that one would mix the voice over the music. Nevertheless one student (Dustin) always waited until the music faded out into dead air before he said a word. Student management, listening in the station office, took notice of his trend, if only because they had heard countless sportscasts each day and it didn’t take much to notice Dustin was the only one not to talk over the music. We had gotten to the middle of the semester by this point and he had timed himself to only begin talking once the music was about to disappear completely. I don't know why he did this - I don't think it was done to be spiteful. I just don’t think he wanted to. (Did he really need a reason?)

In any case, the hints sent Dustin’s way from the Sports Director and others were not enough to make Dustin "get it" - until the day I changed the introduction. I had gotten some laughs from a few people when I wondered aloud what he would do if the music was lengthened. Would he sit and wait while a three-minute song played? It was all in jest at first, but then I decided to act. Airhead had at least 40 seconds of music before Dolby's vocals kicked in. It would take little effort or time to quickly edit together a new introduction with a longer music bed. Plus, with a little creative editing the instrumental could easily be looped into a piece of music as long as I wanted.

The modified intro was ready for Dustin's next sportscast and a few of us waited in the office to listen as Dustin calmly waited for the music to fade out - but it never did. Awkward, sort of uncomfortable sounds were heard as Dustin waited, but he finally gave in and – probably – began to talk about some national sports story. That then leads to another issue about mixing, this time about the sports staff reporting both local sports stories and national scores. Some people made an effort to make the local high school football games interesting, and others came close – but no cigar.

But Dustin got the hint. Talk about radio silence.

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Close but No Cigar
(Thomas Dolby/Lost Toy People)
Thomas Dolby
From the album Astronauts & Heretics
1992

You came close
Close but no cigar
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close
Close but no cigar

Some people sing love songs
Everybody's got one
This isn't my love song
It's more like my love gone wrong song...

She came to breakfast
And stayed a week
But the lie detectors
Broke down each time she tried to speak
Broke down when she said :

"You came close
Close but no cigar
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close
Close but no cigar
No matter where you are
You know you came this close
Close but no cigar"

I remember - I remember - I remember
The promise in your eyes
As black as the night I drove you to the airport
And I remember - I remember - I remember
The wide Brazillian sky that swallowed you

Then I hit thirty
Guess I can't complain
But I must have been lonely
The night I bumped into Lorraine
She came for coffee
And stayed all night
But the lie detectors
Broke down every time I tried to smile
Broke down like the store of my life
And each dream I missed by half a mile
Broke down when I told her:

"You came close
close but no cigar
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close
close but no cigar
No matter where you are
You know you came so close
Close but no cigar
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close
Close but no cigar
We're better off by far
But you know we came this close
Close but no cigar

Études d'exécution transcendante

Anybody who knows a lick about classical music knows that those "dead guys" (see La Traviata, No. 1, Prelude) didn't make an effort to keep their popular music within an arbitrary time limit (such as 3 minutes, 30 seconds). Pieces of music can run anywhere from eight to eighty minutes and may be Sehr leise beginnend (very soft in the beginning) such that for the first minute or so it sounds like nothing is going out over the air. Because of that, the classical shifts were some of the most tranquil times people could spend at the station. Of course, explaining this always begs the question: what exactly do you during a classical shift?

Well, you're not just sticking in a CD and then running off to play tennis. Like any other three-hour shift, you start by checking and recording the transmitter levels (or signing on the station, for those lucky early birds; see Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125). If you're not the first DJ of the day, hopefully you have arrived a few minutes early to assure the current DJ he or she will be leaving soon and, more so, to pull your music for at least your first hour on the air. And music, more so the length of music, often dictated what you did that day.

I've mentioned the programming clocks (see I see you dancing on the stage of memory), but those didn't really work for this format. If you had four or five short pieces, you would be on the mic a lot, as we were required to come on after each song and identify the previous piece (its name, the composer, and who had performed it). Live breaks would just be a quick backsell of what was heard, maybe some prep (see Boy, you can't play me that way), announcing what was next, and then starting another CD. At least twice an hour there was a stopset where we interrupted the music for more than just a quick talking break and ran some recorded Public Service Announcements and station promos before the next piece. You know, just to break up the constant sound of music. Somewhere in the midst of this we gave a brief weather report and at the top of the hour we made sure to include the legal identification, as was required.

Now, none of what I just explained worked if you had one of those eighty-minute pieces of music. While selections like this were in the control room, we tried to use them for special occasions and not everyday use. Maybe it was near the end of the semester and you needed to study for a test. Maybe you were the program director who got stuck on this shift because someone didn't show up and the PD had other priorities. There was always a reason and usually you could sway student management to allow you to change the playlist.

One of the things we had to always tell new people was that, yes, while we drummed it into your head that the legal I.D. is played near the top of the hour, it doesn't have to hit it exactly. With these long-running classical pieces, we were allowed to forgo the requirement at its usual time, as long as we made up for it at the next natural break in programming. So if I signed-on at 6 a.m. and started off with an eighty-minute piece, you wouldn't hear me until about 7:20, where upon I would fit the legal I.D. into something – maybe the weather.

While this became an easy way to get out of doing anything, I recall more than a few DJs who hadn't mastered the concept of the sixty-minute hour and started a 70-minute piece at eleven o'clock. The problem here was that there was a definite break at noon when we had a newscast and switched formats. The answer: pitch control. Well, not always the answer (see The lily-white cavity crazes). And then a note in the office files that whoever was on the air didn't have the luxury of deviating from the playlist next time.

Here’s a great example of an extended piece: 70 minutes of music by Franz Liszt.

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Études d'exécution transcendante
(Franz Liszt)
Performed by Aquiles Delle-Vigne
From the album 12 Etudes d'exécution transcendante; La Lugubre Gondola
1992

Watching your river turn into an ocean

As I mentioned a year ago (and my, how time flies: see Chic-chic-ky-boom) my initial plummet into radio started as a newsreader during what would have been the fall semester of 1994, evidently a rainy season where we were (more on that in a moment). The news broadcasts would eventually go through many changes during my four years as an undergraduate, something I knew would (or should) happen. Gee – even as a freshman, and even when I had no authority on such things, I evidently was looking to improve some aspect of the station. Troublemaker, wasn't I?

Well, not that "big" of changes. I mean, you would think there would be some sort of programming element – a zinging sound effect or a transitional music bed – to signify that the station is taking a break from loud music to educate the community on current events. Nope. Essentially, once the music was over and those recorded spots had played, the "morning show" DJ (and I use the term "morning show" very loosely) pointed through the glass into the "newsroom" (and I use that term loosely, too) and both people on either side of the glass hoped they were ready. If you weren't paying attention to the time, and if the DJ didn't remind you, you might have a matter of seconds to get behind the mic – and then forget about a practice read. If you missed the cue and looked up a split second later chances were there was dead air. Finally a voice would crack in and, for three days a week, it was me.

As you’d expect those first few weeks of my one three-minute news report every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday morning did not readily feature a confident newsreader. The only way to get more confidence was to get more experience and perhaps it was wise of me that I did sign-up for three shifts. After a few weeks I got into the routine, understanding my place in the station and how to compose a decent script (even if it was four brief stories of no local merit).

Anyway: on to the rain. There had been showers over the weekend and talk was of more on the way. Lots more. When I left for the communication building Monday morning it was already coming down nicely, and I made it the lead "local story" during the 7 a.m. news update. It was during that hour that my day changed. All that water from the previous days had collected in the low-lying areas; now, as more rain fell, all this water had nowhere to go. Flooding was eminent. First the station got reports of flooded low-water crossings and then high-water crossings and then calls came in about school closures. Then the big news: the university would be closed for the day, maybe some of the next, too. I dutifully forwarded each note to Hodge-Podge and Bandito and asked if it was okay to stick around for an 8 o'clock update. Sure. Whatever. I stayed there all morning in fact, giving my last update at 10 a.m. before deciding I had done enough. When all was said and done the county had over fourteen inches of water and I had logged more hours that day than usual. Those that noticed thanked me for sticking around, which probably led to my inability to leave in the impending years.

At home, the news that day showed all the flooding and its results: people stranded on rooftops, cars washed away, and creek beds that had been bone dry a week ago were now in full rage. Also, fish were shown floating in places where fish shouldn't be, which is what reminded me of this album cover, one I recalled seeing in the music library some years later. It may have been one of those albums used for the Pit show (see Kill the Crow), but I don’t know. In fact, aside from the fact that the Inspiral Carpets were from England, I don't know much the band at all (except that they're named for a clothing shop in their native Manchester).

All in all, certainly a flood of experience for me one October morning.

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Here Comes the Flood
(Inspiral Carpets)
Inspiral Carpets
From the album Revenge of the Goldfish
1992

The sky is red, and the sea is blue
God made the distance between me and you
Always walking the tightrope, always walking the line
Placing your head in the lion's jaws
HERE COMES THE FLOOD, IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN
HERE COMES THE FLOOD, IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN
FLOOD, FLOOD, HERE COMES THE FLOOD
Watching your river turn into an ocean
Sailing your ship off the edge of the world
Watching the sail as it carries you on
The wind twists like lovers in each other's arms
HERE COMES THE FLOOD, IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN
HERE COMES THE FLOOD, IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN
FLOOD (IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN)
FLOOD (IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN)
FLOOD, HERE COMES THE FLOOD
This is my future and this is my past
And they meet in the middle of nowhere
Won't you lend me a hand, stuck out in nowhereland
Waiting for someone to hear me
HERE COMES THE FLOOD, IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN
HERE COMES THE FLOOD, IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN
FLOOD (IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN)
FLOOD (IT'S JUST WASHING YOU DOWN)
FLOOD, HERE COMES THE FLOOD
Oh, here comes the flood, here comes the flood
Here comes the flood (7x)

Tofu, brown rice and carrot juice

I once thought it would funny to compile a list of lyrics to instrumental songs. The inspired concept behind such a feat was that occasional instrumental jazzy-rock tunes sometimes featured dialogue – be them mumbled or scat-sung in the background. However, to shoot down this lead idea, much of these spoken bits were not prominent to begin with (probably nothing more than verbal brainstorming) and we all should focus on the music at hand as that was what got us listening in the first place.

Still, with that mindset, there was a certain scholarly attempt to decipher not only the chanting chorus that grooved along with David Sanborn's saxophone in Bang Bang, but its meaning. I had first caught an earful of the rolling tune in the early 90s and found it an irresistible piece of jazz-fusion, an instrumental piece standing out like a sore thumb in the midst of bawdy balladry of Adult Contemporary radio.

Sanborn's been in the music biz for decades, having released albums since 1975 and is still going strong 30 years later, but this was my first encounter with him and his music. Still, having heard nothing by him before this, I sensed something different with this track. Like cornbread. And hog maw. Plus chitlins. But tofu? What's carrot juice got to do with the equation? Finally making out some of the words was a step in the right direction but it never really answered the question of what the song is about – except maybe food. To understand the song, you have to realize Sanborn's version is a cover of song written by Joe Cuba in the late 1960s. Cuba, better known as Gilberto Miguel Calderon, is considered the father of the style of music called Boogaloo, culled from elements of rock, blues, jazz, and Latin American rhythms. These musical styles were first fused together in the late 1960s, with Bang Bang recognized as the biggest Boogaloo hit of that decade.

Buscasalsa.com explains the lyrics: "though of no consistent narrative or dramatic significance, [the lyrics] nevertheless do have a meaning, which is the interplay of Black and Latin festivity and culture, the playful mingling of African-American phrases and cultural symbols with those from Puerto Rican daily life."

And now we know. Or at least we like to think we do.

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Bang Bang
(Joe Cuba/Jimmy Sabater)
David Sanborn
From the album Upfront
1992

For We Both Know I'm Not What You Need

Where were you when Whitney Houston first sang the "I" part in the title of her song, I Will Always Love You? Where you still in that identical position when she got to the "you" part of the title? Point is, I remember this being one of the many jokes about this song, Houston's soaring interpretation of the chorus and the song's longevity.

At the time, I had no idea it was originally a Dolly Parton song. I suppose that tells you everything you need to about my classic country background. But knowing that really didn't help you out: Parton's version is more twangy and relaxed in a country-format way, while Houston really makes it her own soulful ballad.

However I think it's own popularity prompted many of the jokes I heard. During the 1992 holiday season you couldn't escape it – popular radio played the song, you heard it during commercials for The Bodyguard, and based its charting success you knew you'd hear it once or twice at an award show. This massive overplay – and the aforementioned jab at how drawn out the chorus is sung – made for a bit of humor from some people I knew. Most of the jests came in the form of someone singing a variant of, "This Song Will Always Go On," or asking, "Does she ever shut up?" Of course, these so-called jokes always came from people who weren't in the Whitney fan camp and were almost always enjoyed by similar people.

Me? By this time, I wasn't in the Whitney fan camp, having quickly escaped after I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), which brings up a more distressing question: why that song?

At any rate, 1992 became a big year for Houston: besides this hit single, she married Bobby Brown. A few more hit singles appeared in the decade – some from more soundtracks – with her most recent album appearing ten years after her marriage. Which, at this writing, is supposedly nearing an end.

So much for always?

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I Will Always Love You
(Dolly Parton)
Whitney Houston
From the album The Bodyguard Original Soundtrack
1992

If Should Stay
I Would Only Get In Your Way
So I'll Go
But I Know
I'll Think Of You Every Step Of The Way

And I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
My Darling Mmmmmmm
Bittersweet Memories
That Is All I'm Taking With Me
So Goodbye
Please Don't Cry
For We Both Know
I'm Not What You Need
An I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You

I Hope Life Treats You Kind
And I Hope You Have All You Dreamed Of
And I Wish You Joy And Happiness
But Above All This I Wish You Love

And I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You
I Will Always Love You