Living The Dream

It’s 2:37 in the morning, and I’m drenched in sweat. My hands are clammy and trembling uncontrollably. I need a cocktail or a Xanax – or both. I’m physically and emotionally drained, yet totally wired, and need to stand up or move aimlessly.

I just finished an airshift at the radio station, the likes of which you’d never imagine. OMG, I’m stressed! The studio? A disaster area. Shit everywhere, none of which I needed. The mic boom was totally busted, so one hand was occupied holding up the mic at mouth level. The windscreen smelled like ass. My other arm struggled to reach the board. Oh, and that effing board. Half the console wasn’t working, either, so it was a crap-shoot whether any music or spots would fire or if the mic went hot at all. Meters? Not. Working. At. All. I picked up my Koss Pro 4AA headphones, but they weren’t plugged in, because the jack is missing. Oddly, there was sound coming out of them, but only in one ear, and that side of the phones was flopping all over the place and wouldn’t stay on my head – which is great, because Koss Pro 4AA’s weigh like ten pounds.

Where’s the goddamned playlist? Something was printed out in front of me for some reason, but hell if I could read it. And, the music itself? Nowhere to be found. Of course, this is not a digital studio, and there seemed to be a handful of random, nondescript CDs – CDs, for God’s sake – lying around in no particular order. What other songs – or what I think are songs – that were visible were on something called “carts” but with labels ratty, peeling, and faded, and there were only six of those. I really don’t know what was on them. It coulda been music, but maybe a PSA? None of the songs playing were the least familiar, and since I didn’t find anything in this studio, there’s one song that kept playing over and over.

No way these carts had spots on them. Is there anything on them at all? Six were stacked on the degausser, so maybe they were just blank. Actually, there were no spots anywhere, even though my log said I should be playing some. Every audio element faded or ended sooner than it should. Dead air all over the place and in the wrong place. Of course, I’m across the room when that happened, so I scrambled to that sagging, intermittently inoperable mic to talk, and – shocker! – I’m not prepared. But, I start talking anyway, and then I can’t pronounce anything or articulate a complete sentence. Was I having a stroke? Gibberish. When able to make my mouth move, I heard someone I didn’t recognize. Suddenly, I’m a puker and cliché ridden. For God’s sake, I actually said, “Good mornin’ this mornin, everybody!”

The white erase board on the wall in front of the console – the one with the hand-drawn element clock – says I was supposed to read a five-minute newscast (Wait, who does news anymore? WTF?), but there’s no copy, no AP machine nearby, and certainly no computer anywhere in sight. Okay, well, there’s a Smith Corona typewriter off in a corner, circa 1974, but even I could see from across the studio that the ribbon was thrashed and not in working order. There was a totally dried out, fossilized bottle of White Out liquid paper next to it, but what the hell am I gonna do with that, drink it? Oh, and one more thing: No real paper, anywhere.

Maybe that Ampex AG 350 reel-to-reel machine off in the corner could be of help, but there was crap piled all over it, including four fresh Ampex Grand Master 456 reels of tape, still unopened. Oh, wait, I just checked again – these machines weren’t plugged in, because – par for the course tonight – there WAS no outlet on any wall in this studio. Perfect.

The red light on the wall flashing incessantly told me the hotline was ringing; now I’m in deep shit. I wish my PD understood I wasn’t blowing him off, but instead, there didn’t appear to be a telephone of any sort anywhere in this room. I had no cell phone, because apparently, it’s 1981 all over again. Maybe he knew I put that styrofoam cup of coffee on the console; I swear I set it down carefully just minutes ago, but I took a sip and it is ice cold. Not iced coffee cold, mind you, but cold, stale, radio station coffee that sat on the burner for too long, because I didn’t have time to make a new pot, because all hell is breaking loose. Ugh.

I tried to write down all the problems with this studio on the engineering trouble report, but I couldn’t find a pen. I was left to one single nub of a white grease pencil. Next, the studio monitor started cutting in and out, so I basically couldn’t hear the radio station. Where is the engineer when you need him? But, what’s the point? He’d just blame ME for all the problems, then ask why I didn’t remember to take the effin’ transmitter readings. Come to think of it, where was everybody? I was the only one there. But, not the only one listening. There was that red light, flashing again. Now, that same song began fading slowly into dead air. Again. No way I’d get to the mic in time, because I was stuck way across this overly sized studio, which – by the way – was ice cold.

Everybody said when I got into radio, I’d be “living the dream.” Yeah, right. In the middle of all this, I’m thinking somebody wake me, please. I need my mommy, a binky, and a blankie. Tell me this was just a bad dream I’ve had five times a year on average for 30 years. And, by the way, where’s that Xanax?