Sunday August 19th, 2012 – Michigan City, IN/Kenosha, WI
Whether I like it or not, I’m at a crucial crossroads. I’ve been at one for a while, but it’s getting more crucial with every passing day. I have to make something positive happen, or I’ll spend the rest of my days in squalor. That or I’ll die. At this point, it feels like part of me is already dead.
I’m sad to say I’m really losing my will to fight. It’s been a lifetime of slugging, and I can’t see a whole lot of progress for my effort. The future is very cloudy. John Lennon or Elvis were dead way before they reached my age, and Rodney Dangerfield’s TV star was already starting to rise.
It’s all about getting in front of people, and I haven’t been able to do that nearly as much as I’ll need to if something big is ever going to pop. Doing one nighters in the Midwest barely pays my bills, and I live like a cockroach. I wish I knew what the right moves were to get myself in gear.
My friend Jerry Agar got himself in gear by discovering talk radio. He was in the right place at the right time, and really launched himself to the top of his field. I knew him when he was doing a music based morning show like most other radio people aspire to. He kept getting blown out of one town after the next as is the norm in that hideous business, then he chanced upon talk radio.
He shot up the ladder in just a few years, and went from Huntsville, AL to Raleigh, NC where he made his first splash. Then he went to Kansas City and eventually WLS in Chicago and WOR in New York. He had two jobs at the same time on two of the biggest talk stations in America.
That’s no small accomplishment, and he did very well on both jobs until the radio meat grinder got a hold of him like it seems to with 99.999% of us all. Now he’s in Toronto doing very well as he usually does, but the station has been sold and new owners are coming in before the end of the year. Gulp. As my grandmother often said, “I’ve heard ducks like that fart underwater before.”
Jerry and his son Cooper drove from Toronto to Michigan City, IN because Jerry needed to get his green card updated in case he ever needs to come back here and work – which could occur at any time. Radio is a highly volatile game, and getting more unstable by the week. It’s a jungle.
That being said, Jerry doesn’t have much choice but to stay with it. Like me, he threw all of his chips into the pile and he’s either going to hit the jackpot or bust. I drove to Michigan City for a lunch with Jerry and Cooper, and we talked about how uncertain the future still is or all of us.
Who has job security these days? Maybe prison guards and Walmart greeters. Crime won’t be stopping anytime soon, and who’s going to fire a Walmart greeter? They’re all close to checking out of the ranks of the living anyway. Let them wear their smock and drool on some teenagers. It will all be over soon enough, but for the rest of us the future is pretty scary. Few of us see any.
I’ve paid way too many dues to be stumbling through life like a beach comber. All I need is for one little spark to catch fire, and I’ll be on my way. But what is it? I have no idea, and it’s killing me trying to find it. There are too many questions and not enough answers. Is Walmart hiring?
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