Obligatory Disclaimer: You've got to be kidding. Who really cares?
The Flip-Side of Spatula Man
By Ruthless Bunny
Bruce woke up, he felt vaguely hung over. He fumbled around for a minute to ascertain if he was alone in bed. Of course he was, it had been too long since he'd had a chance to take someone home. He focused on the previous evening. A remote from a dance club at the ass-end of the county. He probably shouldn't have driven himself home, but he couldn't afford cab fare from that far out. That is if there were cabs in the suburbs. Saturday, the day he didn't have to get up at four AM. But there was a meeting at the station. From his twenty-five years in broadcasting he never knew of any meeting on a weekend that boded well.
He showered, not because he had an overactive sense of hygiene but because he smelled like someone put out a bonfire with a keg. Not really an aroma designed to impress the new station manager.
New station manager. Those three words were usually the catalyst for movement in his career. Bruce thought back to his first job in radio. Back in the heyday, when discs were vinyl, chicks were easy and coke really was the real thing. He was Bruce Midnight back then. Doing overnights in Indianapolis on a new FM station. FM wasn't always the premiere radio band. FM used to be pretty close to pirate radio. WFRT or "The Fart" as the guys in the booth used to joke. The signal was so weak they likened their broadcast to a fart in a whirlwind. You almost had to be in the parking lot to get the station.
The music was solid, Steely Dan, Poco, Styx, The Eagles, really fine, fine music. There wasn't heavy rotation back then. Each jock played what he wanted. Once, just for the hell of it, Bruce had played side two of "Disraeli Gears" just because he could, well that, and because his girlfriend at the time had stopped by for a quickie. Indianapolis was a great town, pretty girls and lots to do. He had managed to get out of Bloomington and hit the big time. He bought a Trans-Am when he had saved up enough. He still drove that car, even though it made him look like a walking mid-life crisis. Mid-life. How did he get from young kid with a future to mid-life?
Bruce ran the toothbrush across his teeth and grabbed a soda and a Pop-Tart on the way out the door. His usual breakfast. It took longer to warm up the car, although the engine still sounded like Barry White with bronchitis. When he got to the station he found a Miata with a "Magik is afoot" bumper-sticker was parked in his spot. A bad sign. He almost didn't go in, but they owed him a paycheck so he found another place to park.
He saw his partner Chester "Bing" Cherry. Imagine being saddled with that name. Christ. At least he had been born with it. In his career Bruce had been called many things, Bruce Midnight was only the first stop on the pseudonym itinerary. There was Bruce "The Boss" Carbonara. That was when he followed the Morning Zoo in Springfield in the early eighties. Bruce Maxim when he worked for that jazz station in Rapid City. Bruce Montrose in Little Rock. For about three months he was Furious B on a hip-hop station. Thank God he had bailed out of that gig, to this day he still couldn't listen to anything with too much bass.
Bruce landed in Lawndale about four years ago doing morning drive. Previously the station had been The Ocean, mellow music for comatose receptionists and those on hold waiting for them. The format had changed; the station had been purchased by communications conglomerate Clear Infinity Broadcasting. The Ocean competed with another station in the area, The Wave, so they changed the format to the current Top 40/Urban Z-93 to create "less synergistic programming and additional market penetration." What it meant to Bruce was that he stopped pimping Jewel songs and hooked up with Bing to do a variation on a Morning Zoo, without the eighties connotations.
The pair met with their new program director to figure out their show. "The first thing you've got to do is change your name." Paul Martin, the Michelin Man doing an impersonation of a hip and happening radio executive. Everyone knew that last week he had been the engineer for Joe Bob Billy Joe at "The Boot", The Tri-County Area's Sh*t Kicking Country Station (Yee-Haw!) and that he knew next to nothing about actually programming a pop rock radio station. Bruce sighed and agreed. "Well Paul, what do you think I should call myself?" Bruce had learned to roll with it. His name was really only important to his Mom.
"I'm thinking something fun. Something having to do with breakfast." Paul stroked his goatee to punctuate his thought process.
Bing rolled his eyes. He had been pulled from drive time to host the show with Bruce. He and Bruce knew each other to say "hidy" but they hadn't ever worked together. "Well, gee Paul, how about Waffle House Wally?" He didn't really feel the need to stress the sarcasm.
"Well, I like Wally, but Waffle House is too redneck. I like the idea of syrup though..." Again the three hairs on Paul's chin were massaged.
Bruce could see that this could get ugly. "Uh, Pancake Pat? Dan Cheerio? Captain Crunch? General Mills?" Desperation had crept into his voice.
"No. Might have to get clearance from them." Stroke, stroke, stroke.
"Maybe we should think about items used to COOK breakfast. Like that flipper thing, what do you call that?" Bing chimed in helpfully.
"A spatula." Bruce could see where this was going.
The goatee had yielded the solution. Paul sat up and put both hands on the table. "Spatula Man. You will be Bing and Spatula Man." The rest of the meeting went downhill from there.
For the past four years Bing and Spatula Man had awakened the important 14 to 22 demographic in the Tri-County area. At the time Bruce thought there was something meaningful in losing his entire name. In some sense this was the first radio job that he had that he hated. All the other jobs were great, even when he didn't like the music. Now he hated the music and he hated his show.
He could have hated Bing, but they were really just two sides of the same coin. Bing was about five years older than Bruce, although ages in the entertainment business were secrets more closely guarded than the Hope Diamond. Bing had a wife and a couple of kids. He was hoping at some point to become a program director or a station manager, something in radio that wasn't on radio. Today he might get his chance.
Bruce took a deep breath, and went in. Since it was a Saturday the reception area was empty, but he could hear voices in the conference room. When he arrived the entire on-air staff was crammed into the room. One box of donuts was set up on the credenza. It figured; every single one of them was glazed. No imagination. This wasn't going to be a good meeting; there was no way it could be.
A guy in a leather jacket and faded jeans stood at the head of the room. "Ah..." he groped for the name, "Spatula Man, great you're here, now we can start." The beady eyes scanned the room. The "radio personalities" stared back. They all knew what was coming. Lisa Lovelace, the weekend overnight girl, who was still up from the previous night, was checking the text messaging on her cell phone. "I'm Jack Canvass, as you probably have guessed, I'm from headquarters. You all know that the ratings haven't been that great for the last couple of books. While we're still number four in the market, corporate thinks that we should tweak the format a bit to see if we can't broaden the audience."
Bing leaned over to Bruce, "Yeah, need to get that all important, slacking, stoner demographic. My question is what do those people buy?"
Bruce smiled, "They don't buy, they grow," he whispered back. Lisa smiled at him as she consulted the latest bit of gibberish on her glowing blue screen.
The three of them were scowled at by Jack; they contritely gave him their attention and he continued. "We're trying to include males, 18-25, so we're shaking things up a bit. The plan is to change Z-93 to 93X-The Buzz. The new format will be alternative with an edge." He stood there smiling at them, as though they needed to buy into the new plan.
As everyone digested the news a head poked into the meeting room. "Hey Jack. Lindsey and I were carding some new tunes and we didn't know if we could put in some Metallica. They're cool in an old-school kinda way."
Jack stared at him as though he were a puppy who had just peed on the floor. "Justin, I'll be with you in a minute. Please don't disturb us." Jack had the graciousness to act embarrassed. "Well, that was one of our new on-air personalities, Justin. I guess I should take this time to tell you about some changes we're making in the staff. Bing, could you come up here buddy?"
Bing got up and gave Bruce a meaningful look. He conveyed all the information he had into one glance. "I've got a wife and kids. Please forgive me."
With an almost imperceptible nod, Bruce acknowledged his understanding.
Jack slapped Bing on the back. "As you know Bing's been around here since the earth cooled." There was a pause for polite laughter. "Bing has many years in the business and he's agreed to be our new sales manager." Jack moved to stand behind Lisa. "Lisa has accepted the position of Program Director." More polite applause.
This was awful. As Bruce looked around, he began to perceive who seemed relaxed and happy and who was fidgety with anguish. Matt, the weekday guy had decided to work with Bing in sales. Probably only until he could get a better gig. The only person in the room, other than Bruce, who wasn't still on the team was Cutter, the drive time jock.
Jack adjourned the meeting and indicated that Cutter and Bruce should stay behind. "I know it's hard, and I hate doing it, but it's for the format. No hard feelings?" Jack held out his hand, and each man reluctantly shook it. They were given their pay, no severance or anything.
There was nothing to say. Bing and the rest stayed for a "planning session." Cutter and Bruce walked silently out to the parking lot.
On the drive home, Bruce thought about his next move. He wasn't surprised, he had been working without a contract for three months. Maybe in some way he wanted out. He thought about his life. Sure it was fun, but he felt like the worlds oldest teenager. It was only a couple of years ago that he got his mattress off the floor and onto a box spring. After all those years in radio, what did he have? A one-bedroom apartment, a twenty-year-old car and a record collection.
When he got home he noticed that there were some cute girls at the pool. Normally he would have put on a "Spatula Man" T-shirt and wandered down there to see if he could score, now he found the prospect entirely depressing. He sat on the sofa, a relic from his sister's first house, and contemplated the wall of music that was his collection. Everything in his life was on a shelf, alphabetized, much too accessible.
Could he be more than "Spatula Man?" Could he do something other than radio? Even if he wanted to stay in radio, where did you go from a tertiary market? Was there a quartiary market? Would it be someplace like Death Valley or Tombstone? He felt like the next stop was a cemetery.
He could call his brother-in-law. Steve had always said that if Bruce wanted to come back to Bloomington that he could manage one of the Tire Empire stores. Bruce thought about it. What would be so bad? He would manage the shop, the guys and the inventory. He would learn about tires. He thought about wearing a blue shirt with his name on a patch. How different was it from wearing a T-shirt with your name on it? "I'm Mental in the Morning on Z-93!!!!" It WAS different. He was a celebrity. No matter how you look at it, no matter how cheap it was, there really is only one show business, and he was still a part of it.
The phone interrupted Bruce while he considered his future. "Yeah?"
"Bruce, it's Jack at the station." Bruce's heart flip-flopped.
"Yeah?" Bruce saved his conversation for on air, on his time he was parsimonious with his words.
"I've got a proposition for you, I'm not sure how interested you'd be..." Jack knew. Bruce was interested.
"I'm listening." He walked over to the fridge hoping that he had some soda left. He grabbed the can and popped the top.
"Well, it turns out we need a day guy in Kentucky." Jack deliberately left out the city in Kentucky.
"Kentucky, huh? Where?" Bruce took a slug of soda and waited.
"Well, it's a place called London. We got this station in a package deal. Now, it's country, but you're a pro, I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem."
He was a pro, and part of the deal was going where the work was. "No, it's not a problem."
"Great, the station is WFTG, where fine tobacco grows." Jack laid it on him.
"You're shitting me."
"No, that's it. The good news is the gig comes with housing."
"Housing?" Bruce was suspicious.
"Uh, it's a trailer. But it's double-wide." Jack played it up, trying to make it sound appealing
Bruce looked around the palatial apartment, complete with harvest gold appliances and brown carpeting. "I'm sure it's fine, when do I start?" He sighed.