I Was on the Radio

When I was in eighth grade our class took an aptitude test, and it determined the best career path for me was to become a disc jockey, Imagine how proud my parents were; their private school tuition was really going to pay dividends. Well, that result stuck with me, so much so that I even added, “college radio station,” to my list of priorities when searching for colleges. I ended up choosing one with a radio station, but I never followed through on my ambition. Fortunately, one of my roommates did; he walked in one day during our junior year and said, “I signed us up for a radio show!” I still don’t know what motivated him to do that, but I’m sure glad he did

Our show was every Wed. evening from 8-10 pm, which meant we were up against Dawson’s Creek, but I like to think that we offered a more entertaining experience than that blonde crybaby. (We all know it was Pacey’s creek anyway) After a brief orientation that we mostly ignored, we were left to our own devices. We had the station’s library of music at our disposal, but we brought our own stuff. At first, we made a decent effort to edit the adult language, but that quickly evaporated and we just let things ride. On more than one occasion, someone would call into the station to ask, “Is this a real radio station?” That only motivated us to keep pushing the envelope.

We didn’t just play music; we enjoyed calling people while on the air, or asking people to call in to be on air. One person in particular I enjoyed calling was the woman who answered the phone at the Rice Bowl, one of our favorite restaurants. I would call her and ask her advice about important issues, like who to invite to our next Fraternity function. But even more fun than calling the Rice Bowl lady was randomly calling numbers in the freshman girls’ dorm. My favorite prank was calling numerous girls and telling them I was a Sigma Chi pledge, and I wanted to invite them to our Michael Bolton party this weekend. I told them we’ve already got his entire catering at the house, but we’d really appreciate it if they could bring any bootlegs or rare imports they have with them to the party. I also promoted our biggest perm contest. The best part was, I guess based on the Sigma Chi’s reputation, no one questioned whether or not this was real. They all believed the Sigma Chi’s were throwing a Michael Bolton party, and word spread around fairly quickly. Looking back on it, maybe they really should’ve thrown the party. I bet it would’ve been well attended.

My roommates and I lived in building G, apartment 101, so naturally, being 20-year-old males, we named our place “The G Spot.” One week we decided to have the Miss G Spot Sweetheart Pageant as one of our shows. Surprisingly, we were able to convince three young women to participate. Although, two of them were dating two of us at the time, so I guess it’s surprising we were able to convince a third girl to participate. We had listeners call into the show and ask the contestants questions, and we had our own questions as well. I honestly can’t remember any of the details, but I do remember that Carly was declared the Miss G Spot Sweetheart in the end. (She’s a doctor now, but I’d like to think she still includes this accomplishment as part of her LinkedIn profile) To be fair, we didn’t feel right voting for someone we were dating, so it may have been stacked in her favor just a bit. I used to have cassette tapes of several of our shows, but sadly they seem to be lost. Honestly, that may be for the best. First, I no longer own any equipment that is able to play a cassette tape, but more importantly, I’m pretty sure there are things on there I wouldn’t want people to hear now. As I’ve said many times, Generation X is so lucky we didn’t have Facebook, Twitter, ot camera phones during college, because things happen you end up regretting, and it’d be great if there wasn’t a public record of your mistakes. (digital cameras were barely a thing too, which was nice) The same goes for my time on the air. It was fun at the time, but it may be best just kept in the past.