“Listening to Myself” by Billy Idle

Things I am doing now, in order of enjoyment:

Sipping on an ice-cold Coca-Cola Classic. No further details required.

Checking a package I got in the mail….aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it’s season one of Rod Serling’s “Night Gallery.” Cool! I thought it might be season one of “The Abbott and Costello Show” on Blu Ray, which is also on its way. I have a DVD/BluRay/book problem. But winter 2022 is shaping up to resemble winter 2020, so I might be able to devour all this media before spring thaw.

Looking at old vacation photos. I’m gonna take a trip in the Spring. Don’t know where. I keep going back to a train trip, it’s like two vacations in one because traveling by train is so incredibly fun. I just have no idea where to go. Right now “nowhere” seems like the best answer. But that will change.

And last….Listening to myself on the radio.

This last one is…well, awkward as hell. My KCOW programs are all done live, so I hear it while I’m doing it, but… I’m doing it so I can’t effectively evaluate it to critique my vocal performance. Well now, a Top 40 radio station our company owns in Missouri has asked me to be their weekend disc jockey, Saturday nights and midday Sundays. When I called someone high up in our company to get some help arranging the technical requirements of the new gig, I suggested that a giant boulder must have crashed through the hallways of the Missouri station’s building with multiple casualties for them to ask a man about to turn 50 to be the disc jockey on a station that plays artists young enough to be my children. He did not appear to see the humor in that.

So anyway, the way a guy in Alliance, Nebraska D.J.s a radio program in Missouri is through pre-recording my announcements which, through computer wizardry, are inserted into the automation system along with songs, commercials, and the like. It really is quite remarkable.

One of the great benefits of voice tracking (there’s a phrase I thought I’d never use) is the ability to dump a track and try again. I’ve had to do that…a LOT. For one thing, about 87% of these songs are completely foreign to me, so I need to roll through the intros 4 or 5 times before I get something resembling a decent rhythm. I’m also finding that I have to frantically hit up YouTube videos so I can get pronunciations for these artists and bands.

Having pre-recorded my show means I can listen to the station while I’m “on the air” and hear myself. If you believe anything I ever tell you, believe this: I’m not doing this for fun or because I get excited hearing myself on the radio. I’m doing it to see if I suck or not. So far I don’t sound too hideous except on one of the tracks I hit a button too soon so you can hear me take a big deep breath before I start talking. Like all the hip 20something top 40 DJs do.

On this station I am using the air name “Dr. J”, which I used in community college and at SUNY Brockport–to the point where some people only know me as Dr. J. This was a deliberate move on my part to put myself in a younger frame of mind, back to the days 25-plus years ago when I was playing current hits.

My pal Kalin used to voicetrack for Top 40 stations in Alliance and North Platte before he became News Director. He had what I would describe as a “high energy” approach, to the point where I could hear him hollering out “JUSTIN BEEBS BEIBER!” in his studio…with its door closed…from MY studio three doors down…also with door closed. I think if Kroheim had yelled just a bit louder he could have reached the North Platte transmitter without need of microphone.

I….uh…..can’t do that.

So I’m being my usual, semi-humorous, mild-mannered self, with just a little goose of extra energy. As I listen tonight I hear times where a little more energy wouldn’t hurt. So we’ll make that adjustment next week. Assuming I still have the gig. It may have only been a medium-sized boulder with some minor injuries.