Chapter 9
Indoctrination to the Microphone
"He who holds the microphone
holds the power."
~ Thelonious Monk, 1981
For me, college was about more than just bonding with my fraternity brothers and fraternizing with sorority girls. It was about more than mediocre grades and stealing food from the dining hall. For me, it was also about my first taste of the microphone. I've always had a way with words and a velvet voice like none before me. I had proven as much when I was reading the morning announcements from the AV room back in high school. While I was majoring in Philosophy, I had a feeling in my gut that something else was calling to me. I was close to something great.
Much as I had done in middle school, I began trying out for clubs and teams. And much like in middle school, most of the clubs and teams rejected me for wholly unfounded reasons. Apparently I wasn't good enough for the chess club crowd. You shove one bishop into an opponent's nostril and suddenly you're banned for life. What a bunch of snobs. That was fine by me. I was looking to put my perfect voice to work and that lot seemed to think the whole world is a library. There was a university chorus. I thought maybe singing was the best use of my golden vocal chords. The professor in charge of admission to that particular group must have been tone deaf. He claimed I couldn't carry a tune. Anyone who has heard my political renditions of children's nursery rhymes knows that I don't need to carry a tune. The tune carries me. There were various religious studies groups where I thought I might be able to practice my vocal talents, but they wouldn't have me either. You give one sermon about how Shakespeare wrote the bible as a work of fiction and you get labeled the antichrist. If they want to learn about the antichrist they ought to look into that hack, Christopher Marlowe. But I digress.
I would not be deterred. I was determined to find some group or organization who would let me utilize my vocal talents and not tell me to shut my gaping maw. Once I stumbled upon the answer, it seemed so obvious, I wondered why I hadn't thought of it sooner. I was lounging in the quad, having skipped out of my American History class, when some freshman hit me with a Frisbee. As I was chasing him down to beat him with his own plastic disk, I ran past one of the campus bulletin boards. There, between the football team's schedule and an advertisement for tutoring services, was a flier stating they were seeking new recruits for the campus radio station. It was meant to be! I snatched the flier, chucked the Frisbee into a fountain, and headed right over to apply.
I marched right into the campus radio station and exuberantly declared that I wanted to be the new voice of WFIB. I was directed to Professor T. Scott's office, the staff member assigned to watch over the otherwise student-run station. Professor Scott asked me for my resume and my demo tape. Given the fact that I had neither, I simply launched into an unsolicited and very enthusiastic audition. I exhibited a variety of voices, accents, and personalities. I sang samples of songs I might put on the air. I put on a vocal display for the ages, barely pausing to take a breath. When Professor Scott finally got a word in edgewise, he told me he would put me on the air if it would get me to shut up and get out of his office. With that, I was awarded the coveted midnight-to-6am time slot. While I couldn't know at the time the way in which that moment would cement my career trajectory, it felt big. Something inside of me told me that I should commit that momentous day to memory, for it would change the rest of my life.
The very next day I walked into the dank basement room where the radio station was headquartered for orientation. I was given a tour of the facility and shown the ropes in the broadcast booth. I met the other student broadcasters and was given a copy of the on-air schedule. I spent the next 48 hours blowing off my classes, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and listening to the broadcast around the clock. What I learned was that these jokers should have hired me a lot sooner. They were desperately in need of my skills. The format of the radio station was that there was no format. It seemed that every DJ simply did whatever they wanted. The two morning hosts had one of those "morning zoo" formats with lots of cheap laughs from two broadcasters who thought they were standup comedians. After they went off the air, the listeners got a few hours of sad songs about heartbreak and loneliness hosted by a depressed lesbian. The lunch hour was filled with a talk show, discussing life around campus and taking calls from listeners. The afternoon and early evening was split up amongst three different broadcasters, each favoring their own musical genre. That left the listeners wondering if this was a rock and roll station, a free jazz format, or their home for the country western hits. It's a wonder anyone tuned in at all. From 8pm to midnight they had a political show where guests were brought in and asked to debate the host on various topics such as on-campus housing equity and scholarship mismanagement within the administration. Talk about a snooze fest. That led up to what would become my on-air timeslot, which was just six hours of dead air waiting to be filled. I listened to every minute of those six hours of silence intently, thinking of all the ways in which I could fill that blank space. I was going to show these clowns what a real DJ sounded like.
When my first night in the broadcast booth arrived, I was more than ready. My on-air personality had been fully developed and was ready to be presented to the discerning listeners. I strolled into that broadcasting booth with a fist full of vinyl, lit my ebony lust incense to set the mood, dropped the register of my voice two octaves, and introduced the University of Cincinnati to the bad boy of WFIB. I flooded the airwaves with my soothing timbre and refined discourse. I also elevated the quality of music that was being broadcast across the campus. Rather than the trashy pop hits and country western twang selected by my colleagues, I played music that created an atmosphere of taste and sophistication. I played the best of Cream and The Doors. I played the greatest hits from Deep Purple and The Ohio Express. I closed every set with a Foghat song, just to help my listeners get to where they needed to go. The only problem with the format I chose for my show, was that it forced the listeners to stop listening to my incredible voice and listen to these musical artists instead. I quickly devised a solution to this problem. I simply talked over every song, expressing my opinions about the artist, the quality of their music, and what they might look like naked.
I was an instant smash hit. I quickly became a local celebrity around campus. According to a survey conducted by me and consisting of my Sigma Nu brothers' opinions, my show was the highest rated six hours of programming in the history of WFIB. It was remarkable! I walked a little taller and the ladies gazed at me a little longer. I was blossoming, shedding my outer layers, and becoming the man I was meant to be. I had found my calling. All I wanted from that moment forth was to be in front of the microphone, forcing my opinions into other people's ears. If it were up to me, I would have dropped all my classes and lived in that broadcasting booth. However, Professor Scott advised me that he couldn't give me any more time on air. Sometimes I would sneak into the booth during other host's shows, posing as a guest. Or I would call in pretending to be a listener. There was nothing I wouldn't do to get a little extra air time. It was the most thrilling feeling in the world.
Being on air was also a form of therapy. Every night, I would pour my heart out into the microphone. I may have been talking about the music, but the eagle-eared listener might have caught that I was really talking about my heart and soul. When I said that Hangin' On was some of Vanilla Fudge's greatest work, what I was really saying was sometimes I felt unloved as a child. When I said that Otis Redding was a hack and he should retire from music permanently, what I was really saying was that I think my brother wishes I were dead. I would come out of that booth at 6:01 feeling like I had the weight of the world removed from my shoulders. It was cathartic to say the least. In a way, it was addicting. Being on the radio gave me everything I needed. I had an audience that I never had to face. I could express feelings without ever having to verbalize them. I was achieving fame and making a name for myself. I hadn't quite ascertained exactly what my career would look like yet, but I knew I would spend most of my life in a booth with a microphone, speaking my truth.
The whole music thing, however, I could do without. Why let someone else's lyrics trump my own words of wisdom? Why give my air time away to someone less deserving? It was absurd. Still, I was young and still finding my way. It wouldn't be long before I would find the niche for which I was born: news radio.