Reflecting On Radio

Tuesday February 24th, 2009 - Lake Villa, IL

I wonder what would have happened if I’d focused on an actual radio career rather than drift around without a plan and see where I landed? I’ve made more than my share of big mistakes in life but one of the biggest was waffling between standup comedy and radio. I never did choose one over the other and now all these years later I’m half assed in both.

I am one of the very few people who has been able to pull off a living doing both pretty well and that was a blessing as well as a curse. Each one of them is a completely different skill even though most radio people think they could easily be a comedian and vice versa.

Sorry. Not a chance. Radio requires the ability to entertain the same audience with new material every day while comedy is entertaining a new audience with the same material. It isn’t the same thing at all and most people don’t know why that would make a difference.

It totally does. Radio builds an invisible bond over time. Listeners hear a personality for years and gradually get to know the person until they become familiar like a neighbor or a relative. Comedy is a much quicker one night stand kind of thing. It’s get in and get out.

As a comic I need to start hitting on all cylinders in a few minutes and grab the attention of the audience up front. They have to like and trust me almost immediately if I’m indeed going to be successful. If I don’t get them right away it makes it a whole lot harder later.

Radio is exactly the opposite. I don’t have to go on the air the first day or even the first week and grab the listeners by the throat. It takes time to bond with them and it also takes a different effort to be prepared to entertain the audience. I have to read and experience as much of life as I can that would possibly pertain to my audience. That takes a lot of work.

I’ve worked at three country stations in my life and I still can’t believe it but I did. It’s a whole world unto itself and even though I wouldn’t have chosen to work there that’s what was available so I took the jobs. In retrospect I’m glad I did because it expanded my life. I lived in towns I wouldn’t have lived in and met people I wouldn’t have met. It was fun.

I got a chance to go to Nashville for the CMA Awards and personally meet all the stars of the genre from Keith Urban to Toby Keith to LeAnn Womack to Sarah Evans and a lot more. 99% of them were really great to work with and I can honestly say I enjoyed myself and have learned to appreciate the entire country music industry as a whole. Thanks radio.

Even though I’ve been fired without a real cause five times I still could have made a lot more money and been a bigger name if I’d had a plan of action when I got in the business. I kind of lucked into my first real job in Lansing, MI in 1990 and that was where I goofed.

I never made a commitment to either comedy or radio and that was my big mistake. I’ve always taken it as it came and was fortunate enough to keep getting job offers in radio out of the blue without having to look for them. They kept coming and I kept on saying yes.

Had I been forced to get a tape and a resume like most other people in radio I doubt if it would have turned out like it did. I love standup comedy and still do and even though I’ve learned to love being on the radio too comedy is the winner. It’s always been my first love but radio is a close second. That’s why all this has been a problem. I really do enjoy both.

If comedy hadn’t been my favorite I’d have stayed in Lansing in 1990. That was a brutal situation but after six months when my contract expired I could have re-signed rather than resigned as it was me that quit when in fact they wanted me to stay. A hyphen changed it.

At the time it was absolute torture to work there. The people I liked who were working there when I started had all quit and moved on because nobody liked the owner. He was a rich kid about my age now who had apparently inherited the station and had no clue as to how to manage people and at that time in my life I was just not into being his minion.

In retrospect I should have stayed there and learned the craft of radio and ignored all the insanity going on around me but at the time I couldn’t. My immediate boss was a balding insecure geek who drove a Mustang and could suck ass better than a starving leech so the playing field was tainted from the start. He sucked up to the owner and I was the ‘rebel‘.

That’s what happens with youth and inexperience. I could have played the game and did what they said and just sat back and banked money while I got the experience I needed to go to the next job. That wasn’t my makeup then and it really isn’t now either but looking back I wonder what would have happened if I’d focused on building my career correctly?

I’m sure I still would have been fired and had some miserable memories I don’t have to remember now but I also probably would have made a lot more money in the long run for doing basically the same things I already did for the money I did make. The bottom line is I had ZERO career plan. I figured just as in comedy it would all work itself out in the end.

How completely stupid have I been in TWO different career paths? It’s not the path, it’s me at this point. Whatever the career choice or even life choice there needs to be a PLAN. I know that now but is it too late for me to salvage something out of my pile of mistakes?

That’s where I am now. I’ve had a half ass radio ride and a half ass comedy ride and the both of them together make me one full ass. Here I sit with my experience and education all this time later and I’m still not 100% sure what the smartest decision is for me for the long run. I still love comedy a little more but the thought of a solid radio gig is tempting.

That’s the key word though - ‘solid’. A ‘solid’ radio gig is like a ‘cordial’ war. There’s been no documented case of one ever existing. Jerry Agar had a ‘solid’ job at WLS and I thought he was in the clear but sure enough the Grim Radio Reaper found him anyway.

That probably answers my question as to what I should do but I still enjoy being on the air whenever I can. Why? Because it’s FUN. Radio management knows that and they can be as nasty as they want because like a trailer park abused wife - we’ll ALWAYS return.