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10 Questions with ... Pat Mellon
September 17, 2019
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
DEMO:
After licking boots at talkers like WTAL, WEEB, and WPTF, I was doing afternoons at 850 The Buzz WRBZ in Raleigh, North Carolina when it was still a Hot Talk powerhouse. Later, I was recruited to take part in a new venture with state of the art studios on Bourbon Street in The French Quarter in New Orleans. It was a radio station but not a "broadcaster." Essentially, it was an internet station- pretty common now, but this was 1999. They did a lot of things right, and a few wrong. In 2001 I moved to Los Angeles to pursue, like most people do, my career in obscurity. I followed a woman there who wanted to be an actress so I figured..."What could go wrong while i look for radio work in market #2?" Jack Silver was the king over at KLSX 97.1 back then and I got a job screening for weekend shows and eventually slid a demo under his door. I filled in on weekends or whenever someone broke a nail. In 2007 I got hired to host the morning show at The Highway Stations, the ones out in the desert that you can only pick up when you're driving to Vegas on the 15 between Cajon Pass and Baker. In 2010 my daughter was born and I knew I'd need to do something drastic and establish some real revenue streams to pay the bills (her first word was STANFORD) so I abandoned my dream and moved to Long Island and sold advertising for 6 years after working briefly in the morning at WRCN.
Now my daughter is almost 9 and we're going back to Cali to re-examine our love for traffic, high rents, and dentists with head shots. And I have no plan.
1. What do you do to maintain a positive mental attitude and to stay motivated?
It's tough sometimes because the industry has changed and it's hard to figure out where you fit after some time on the beach. I am always online looking at job sites and reaching out to program directors.
2. How are you occupying your time, besides looking for a job?
Your talents can atrophy if you don't exercise them, and if you're used to hearing your own voice in headphones for months or years and making a living at it, the silence can be scary when that stops. I do stand-up and freelance for newspapers and anything I can do to keep the engine running and remind myself that what I have to say is meaningful. Social media is good for releasing the pressure that builds when the caustic and opinionated can't vent daily. Plus it allows you to constantly update your resume. I'm always editing clips and demos.
3. Some people get discouraged or enlightened with the business when they actually step out of it for a while. Tell us your observations from the outside.
It's easy to question and even curse a business that once embraced you and then later decided it could live without you. And the one thing that unites us all is our exaggerated sense of self-importance. I'm a fragile egoist. Borderline solipsistic with textbook Peter Pan Syndrome. That realization, along with the constant, haunting voice that reminds me that I may have chosen the wrong profession, wears me down sometimes. So yeah. Discouraged. The enlightened part comes, I'm guessing, when you're feeling a sense of renewal and appreciation for the craft after some time away.
4. Do you plan on sticking with radio?
I really don't know what that means anymore. Is the answer ever NO? It's sort of a trick question. It's like asking if I am always going to like beautiful women. Well, sure I am. Because they're beautiful, and I had some mild success with a beautiful woman in the past. But if she's always busy washing her hair and she's not hiring, I'd be dumb to keep calling. This analogy got away from me.
5. What's the longest stretch you've had on the beach?
Are you kidding? I've been on the beach so long a bunch of people try to roll me back into the water three times a week. I've been here so long I just took out a second mortgage on my sand castle. I've been on the beach so long I can remember when the Beach Boys were actually BOYS. I've been on the beach so long (should i do more? I wrote 5.) I've been on the beach so long, ok I'm done.
6. What's the best way to get your foot in the door?
I've always been a fan of BIG and BOLD. Have a pizza with your phone number written in sausage delivered to the station. Sign for it yourself in the parking lot and then take it in yourself. Or rob a 7-Eleven in a station t-shirt. Paint the station logo on the top of your car and let the high speed chase begin.
7. What has been your best resource for finding out about job openings?
The phone. Weird, right? Go old school. Do some research and call the station. I'm kidding. The internet.
8. What's the craziest thing you've ever done to get a job?
You remember that movie Airheads? About the guys who take the radio station staff hostage until they get their demo played on the air? I sent a VHS copy of that movie to the manager of the McDonalds by my house where I wanted to work.
Once I chained myself to the top a billboard for the station where I was applying for an on-air slot and I called the station and told them that I wasn't going to leave until they hired me or until they played "When The Children Cry" by White Lion. I called back every 10 minutes with my increasingly ridiculous list of demands, local news broke into programming with TERROR At 40 FEET updates, and the station took votes from callers on whether or not I should jump. OK, this may have been a dream.
9. What is the next job you'd like to obtain
I'm looking for full-time on air. Any day part
10. Are you finding salaries/benefits lower than you ever thought, about the same, or have you seen some pleasant surprises?
I'd have to say they're the same.
Bonus Questions
Care to contribute a recipe for our "On The Beach" cookbook
No one wants that!
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