Here it comes! But first, my updated link at my agent's site:
http://sullivanmaxx.com/clients/gates-tory/
As you'll note, there's a lot of stuff I'm working on, writing, have written, and so forth. Look about and you will see a very neat little site, and I'm quite thrilled to have them in my corner.
That said: I've spent most of the midday writing out what I hope is a good guide book for my training at WITF, which starts early tomorrow. It's back to "Morning Edition" training, and I hope to be proficient enough to get a shot at an hour or so on the air.
I've felt incredibly confused and overwhelmed at points, when I tried to synthesize more than one set of notes on this. This includes a guide on the things you need to do and say, plus the WITF program log, which are two very different documents.
Then there's my notes; now I'm hopeful I've got the guidelines down so I don't sound a complete twat in the production studio tomorrow.
I'll be tanked up on coffee and liquid crack ~URRR!~ Amp, or its equivalent. Don't get me wrong; I love Monster energy drinks, which was Ahltyrra's unofficial sponsor as certain people in the band trained on it.
Coffee Monsters are fucking wonderful, but also expensive. Amp is sold in the vending machines at ITF, and they're essentially the same stuff in Monster. Also cheaper, mind.
Anyway...I'm gonna be a wreck, but I've got a little better handle on things. I'll be in early to make sure I'm on it.
The Week from Hell is coming...I'll be doing three days of training, then I've got a Senators game at the Ticket on Friday, two days of WITF/KYW sports work, and oh yes, a Bears playoff game at the Ticket on Sunday as well!
This the most paying work I've had in over a year! Nice.
Walkman stuff...Doyle Bramhall, Senior's version of "Baby What You Want Me To Do" is done...Stones doing "Ventilator Blues" is running. Walkman been running over time the past two or three hours.
I'm exhausted, and it's not even 2:30 in the afternoon. In 12 hours I need to be up to get ready for another day in the studio. Work, work and more work...
The writing is not on hold. "Silk Road Days" is going through my brain as I try to figure the next step for Chapter 16, and how I'm going to get everything in. This could be one long book, or perhaps I can fit it all in. I've no idea. It could be another damned series, who knows?
I have so much stuff piled up and ready to go; but we need to get that first one done. Also need to get hold of Riz (she of the Letters from the Disgruntled Fringe blog), and Jen (our intrepid artist and GameStop expert).
Rargh...need to figure out what else I'm doing here. This is life, as we know it...always on edge and not always that certain. Feh!
"Beautiful Swimmers," by Jimmy Buffett now...very different. Onward...
Monday, April 18, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Long Week, and Another Week from Hell is Coming...
Well, another week has passed. It has been a strange one for me, where to begin?
First, I have been working hard on "Silk Road Days." I'm warming to the return to the Japan/Anime/YA Fiction thing, and I think once the framework of the initial script is done, I can go further and figure out where it is all going.
15 chapters are down as of this evening; I do not know how long it will take to finish. And then there's the gaps that need to be filled in, probably a lot of those.
TrafficTalk, which I've explained in the past, has announced a suspension of operations. So, I will not need to be in front of a computer in the afternoons for the foreseeable future. I had guessed we were headed there. At the moment, talks are continuing about technical aspects of the service and how it can be used.
This frees me up to go hustle about and add some additional radio work, hopefully. I did train briefly last week at Clear Channel Harrisburg (WTKT-AM 1460 the Ticket) on the Senators baseball games. Pretty easy; and I'm hoping for some more hours.
WITF is ready to start training me again this week on "Morning Edition." I'll do three days of it, and possibly get on the air for a little...daggers.
This is gonna be tough, and I have to be ready to do it right and well. Lot of timing issues as I've said in the past, but we'll see how it goes. I'm optimistic.
The Dharma Fools have been quiet, as again we have become scattered. I know we will return to form, and I must be patient. Meant to happen when it does.
My friend Riz has finally convinced me to go to Pittsburgh in May and see Jim Jeffries at the Improv! I'll go for a Friday nighter, because I have to be back the next day. Also an ulterior motive of seeing an old friend who lives out that way. Should be interesting if I can pull it all together.
Riz has lost her job; blessing or a curse, not sure. It is time for her to consider the next move of her life and perhaps reinvent herself, but she knows what she's doing. All good.
Urg. Exhausted; must be up early again for the KYW thing...
First, I have been working hard on "Silk Road Days." I'm warming to the return to the Japan/Anime/YA Fiction thing, and I think once the framework of the initial script is done, I can go further and figure out where it is all going.
15 chapters are down as of this evening; I do not know how long it will take to finish. And then there's the gaps that need to be filled in, probably a lot of those.
TrafficTalk, which I've explained in the past, has announced a suspension of operations. So, I will not need to be in front of a computer in the afternoons for the foreseeable future. I had guessed we were headed there. At the moment, talks are continuing about technical aspects of the service and how it can be used.
This frees me up to go hustle about and add some additional radio work, hopefully. I did train briefly last week at Clear Channel Harrisburg (WTKT-AM 1460 the Ticket) on the Senators baseball games. Pretty easy; and I'm hoping for some more hours.
WITF is ready to start training me again this week on "Morning Edition." I'll do three days of it, and possibly get on the air for a little...daggers.
This is gonna be tough, and I have to be ready to do it right and well. Lot of timing issues as I've said in the past, but we'll see how it goes. I'm optimistic.
The Dharma Fools have been quiet, as again we have become scattered. I know we will return to form, and I must be patient. Meant to happen when it does.
My friend Riz has finally convinced me to go to Pittsburgh in May and see Jim Jeffries at the Improv! I'll go for a Friday nighter, because I have to be back the next day. Also an ulterior motive of seeing an old friend who lives out that way. Should be interesting if I can pull it all together.
Riz has lost her job; blessing or a curse, not sure. It is time for her to consider the next move of her life and perhaps reinvent herself, but she knows what she's doing. All good.
Urg. Exhausted; must be up early again for the KYW thing...
Monday, April 11, 2011
Monday...Urgh
It has been one long week. I've worked more this week than I have in a year and a half, in which I actually made money.
Training at WITF was very long, but with Pledge Week, that's off until next week. At least I have a beginning, and can go from there. I rather enjoy the challenge of doing something I've never done before, and it's worth doing on a number of levels.
A quiet weekend on the KYW front, and I got a chance to produce a Harrisburg Senators game at the Ticket. So keeping my hand in has its benefits.
New book, "Silk Road Days" is coming along in fits and starts. My new strategy has been to go back over the early part (100+ pages now) and then rewrite and add stuff that's missing. There's a lot missing right now.
I need to expand the concept, and see what I can do with it. I do like some of it, but the rest I can't get to work cohesively with the others.
The Dharma Fools did not get together last night; everyone busy or uncommunicative, so that's that. We'll try again this week.
Very slow in terms of trying to get my life back in gear. But that's pretty normal I suppose. We all go through times when it does get slow, and you feel unable to get started properly.
Sofia is finally coming home today, I hope. She has been at the vet five days, with some sort of internal problem. She had a terrible case of heaves, and couldn't keep food down. Also got dehydrated. Vet says she's done all right and is much better, but no one knows what made her act like that.
None of the others were sick, so she may have just caught something.
Too much to do, must get to it.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Another Week, Interesting Writing Things, and Foster & Lloyd Reunite!
It's been a long and busy week for me, so blogging has not been an option. I really don't have very long right now, as I have to hit the road and get up to WITF. I have a brief recording session with a friend of mine, then it's gonna be a long night doing sports for KYW Radio.
Reason Being: the Philadelphia Union are in Los Angeles. Kickoff vs. David Beckham, Landon Donovan and the Galaxy is 10:30 pm. Joy.
Now you (along with Jim Rome) might ask, "Why worry about soccer?" Reason to; the Union are only in their second season, and opened the year 2-and-0. LA is gonna be their toughest test, and this team has only scored two goals. But staying late means getting paid more.
I went through two exhausting mornings of training at WITF on "Morning Edition." I'm being trained as a backup for the program; there is a lot of timing issue stuff to deal with. It's not as easy as it sounds, if you've ever listened to NPR for very long.
It means being there at 4 am, and what follows is five hours of intense, mindful work. But this is a challenge I never had, and I'm glad to get a shot at it.
Oh yeah...the Phillies won yesterday, very nice. They play tonight, and the Sixers are on the road, oh busy I'll be.
I was at Clear Channel last night to do the Bears game. And if you read my previous blog, you'll recall how THAT ended out.
Tonight, much easier and better. Back in the original studio, a much easier time of things, and ... cell phone call, update coming!
***
Radio Update
***
Art has called just now...for now, we have learned what caused the production room control board to fritz out like it did last Saturday. Or at least we have a solution.
This morning, they ran a test, and it didn't work. At all. I was not hallucinating.
The engineer says to go somewhere in or under the control board (?!?) and find the power switch. Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it on again.
Okay...it rebooted. It worked. You cannot however do this during a live broadcast...SLAMS HEAD ON DESK.
I'm sure Art is doing plenty of that now.
Anyway, I've been somewhat vindicated.
Now...my agent informs me via the quarterly report that another publisher, an e-book publisher is "reading" Sweet Dreams: Searching for Roy Buchanan. Coolness. Doesn't mean anything yet, but I'm encouraged.
My new work is called "Silk Road Days," and I have to consider carefully how to make this story a bit different than all the other Japanese anime/fiction stuff out there.
Going to have to work a lot on character development and other weird things. But I think it will turn out well.
Too much to do today, tonight, tomorrow...same old.
Oh...Foster & Lloyd are back! They have not recorded in 20 years, but a new album is coming out this spring!
Great music, singer/songwriters of the New Country movement in the late 80's (not the muck being shit out Nashville's ass since 1991!); they still wrote together all this time, and I'm glad as hell they're back. Can't wait to hear what they do.
Now I gotta get going!
Reason Being: the Philadelphia Union are in Los Angeles. Kickoff vs. David Beckham, Landon Donovan and the Galaxy is 10:30 pm. Joy.
Now you (along with Jim Rome) might ask, "Why worry about soccer?" Reason to; the Union are only in their second season, and opened the year 2-and-0. LA is gonna be their toughest test, and this team has only scored two goals. But staying late means getting paid more.
I went through two exhausting mornings of training at WITF on "Morning Edition." I'm being trained as a backup for the program; there is a lot of timing issue stuff to deal with. It's not as easy as it sounds, if you've ever listened to NPR for very long.
It means being there at 4 am, and what follows is five hours of intense, mindful work. But this is a challenge I never had, and I'm glad to get a shot at it.
Oh yeah...the Phillies won yesterday, very nice. They play tonight, and the Sixers are on the road, oh busy I'll be.
I was at Clear Channel last night to do the Bears game. And if you read my previous blog, you'll recall how THAT ended out.
Tonight, much easier and better. Back in the original studio, a much easier time of things, and ... cell phone call, update coming!
***
Radio Update
***
Art has called just now...for now, we have learned what caused the production room control board to fritz out like it did last Saturday. Or at least we have a solution.
This morning, they ran a test, and it didn't work. At all. I was not hallucinating.
The engineer says to go somewhere in or under the control board (?!?) and find the power switch. Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it on again.
Okay...it rebooted. It worked. You cannot however do this during a live broadcast...SLAMS HEAD ON DESK.
I'm sure Art is doing plenty of that now.
Anyway, I've been somewhat vindicated.
Now...my agent informs me via the quarterly report that another publisher, an e-book publisher is "reading" Sweet Dreams: Searching for Roy Buchanan. Coolness. Doesn't mean anything yet, but I'm encouraged.
My new work is called "Silk Road Days," and I have to consider carefully how to make this story a bit different than all the other Japanese anime/fiction stuff out there.
Going to have to work a lot on character development and other weird things. But I think it will turn out well.
Too much to do today, tonight, tomorrow...same old.
Oh...Foster & Lloyd are back! They have not recorded in 20 years, but a new album is coming out this spring!
Great music, singer/songwriters of the New Country movement in the late 80's (not the muck being shit out Nashville's ass since 1991!); they still wrote together all this time, and I'm glad as hell they're back. Can't wait to hear what they do.
Now I gotta get going!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Madness in the World of Radio
Years ago, I once said I'd write a book called, Why Radio Sucks." Mostly it would not be so much the medium, or some of the people in it. It would have a lot to do with those who have destroyed it.
One such place is a company called Clear Channel, aka, Cheap Channel. The very big broadcasting company that got bigger and bigger and bigger to the point it teeters on bankruptcy, and cannot keep its stations up.
The monopoly that this company has on broadcasting, TV, radio and the concert business is pretty sad, and badly operated.
This has to do with last night's insanity in Harrisburg. I am an occasional working at the Clear Channel "cluster" in Harrisburg, which includes six stations. The one I generally work for is "The Ticket," the sports station.
Most of the stations are by and large automated, under a system which (in theory) allows the operator to access it and take local control. This is not unusual at all; most radio stations today are pretty much operated by computers. This takes away the human element, meaning less opportunity for error (in theory), and not having to pay humans to be on the air or running the board, or whatever 24/7.
One must remember an old axiom about computers: they are only as intelligent as those entering the information into it.
Well, I actually feel bad for my bosses, and the people who have to work their every day. I don't think anyone understands what kind of stress varied pieces of equipment, which includes computers and hard drives, right up to the control boards and every piece in between go through. They get put through an awful lot, only you can't always see the problem. If your car breaks down, or blows smoke, starts to make noise, etc., you know about this, and you take it somewhere to fix it, right?
Well, in theory, you would.
In radio, that's what engineers are for. You must remember that in the radio business, anyone who calls themselves an engineer is INSANE.
Especially if they don't admit to it.
Well, CC lost their engineer some time ago, a guy I met once called "Squirrel." Nice guy, seemed a bit more together than most. Anyway, I don't know why he left, but I gather it had something to do with the way things run over there.
It is not unusual for stations that have old, outdated, obsolete or substandard gear to have problems, especially if you are putting 21st Century stresses upon them. Some equipment you can get by with; others must be replaced, because when they're falling apart and duct tape is the #1 repair tool (I have actually seen this in a number of stations), you are going to have problems.
Case in point, last night: now, I am a part-time jobber in the radio world once again. 26 years in this biz does not entitle me to anything. Howard Stern has been paid millions upon millions from varied companies, and is now suing Sirius/XM -- talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
So anyway: I did a 7-hour shift at my primary weekend job, WITF, a public radio/TV outfit. Fairly easy day, as I do sports updates and reports for KYW in Philly, as part of a working agreement. Not a bad day, but I knew that my second job was going to be trouble.
The Ticket, or WTKT is the flagship station of the Hershey Bears, the American Hockey League franchise that is one of the oldest in the US, and the defending two-time Calder Cup champs. Very good team; they have a rabid fan base, and the Ticket flashes this game to affiliates.
You'd think this would be easy: the game is broadcast from wherever, we send it out, we drop in the commercials, the computer trips things for us at the touch of a button or the F9 key, yeah, easy, right?
WRONG.
Two days before the game, my boss lets me know that we are not running the game from the Ticket studio; we're running it from a production studio.
Why? Because very soon the station will also be broadcasting Harrisburg Senators baseball games; and the boss correctly decided to ensure this studio will be able to handle a feed, then send it through to the Ticket studio, etc.
Now, the prod. studio is a good one, with fairly decent gear...on first glance.
The computerized screens are large, good graphics, easy to read, and the third screen which we use to record goals and saves for the Bears game is easy as well. No problems.
Well, the flips and twists of putting this game on the air is not what it seems. We need to go to the 6th Level of Hell, or in this case, the Engineering Room.
This is a small room with several racks of gear that handle six radio stations. There are computers, relays, stacks of rack gear, ISDN gear, phone line gear, all manner of things, most of which I can't tell you what they're for.
You have to dial in one station for the game, you have to dial in the broadcast of the game, you have to change relays, push buttons, get codes right...THREE MILE ISLAND doesn't have this kind of processing.
Okay...now the computer system that handles all of the station programming (same software, six systems) has a series of commands called Macros. You can trigger these, program these, take these in and out of effect; if you know how to use it. I don't.
Bless my boss, the poor guy was there, on a Saturday night, helping me and making sure this thing was gonna work. I think what has happened in retrospect is: in an effort to make the job easier, we have made it a thousand times more difficult.
So anyway, things don't get off to a good start at pre-6:30 pm, when we're supposed to hit the air. Once we're established, John Walton, the voice of the Bears, and I are supposed to be able to talk back and forth without it going over the air. Well, we did, then we didn't...then we did.
Okay, we get on the air, things are going okay. You have to listen to three or four things at once at times in this job, so it is stressful. You have to stay on top of it. Now in this studio, the breaks must be triggered manually, through the button-bar screen; okay, easy enough, but if your mouse doesn't cooperate, and you're not mindful, watch out.
To compound the madness: early in the third period of a tie game, it is stopped due to a problem with the ice. Not once, but two times. So, John, his partner Ed and whomever they can grab from the tunnel and from the press box are discussing the matter, trying to figure out if there's gonna be a game, etc. They're doing their job, I'm trying to do mine.
Station problem: the game usually ends around ten. If it is a home game, which it was, John does a call-in show. I take the calls, screen them, put 'em on hold, and send IM's to John to let him know who is on the line.
Problem, Part II: this game is not gonna end at ten. We don't know when it's gonna end. At 11 pm, the station as a Macro (remember those?) which will fire and return the station to Fox Sports Radio.
Art has to kill that; the hope was John would just bag the call-in show, but no he wants to do it. Okay, extra hour of work for me, and an extra hour for the boss.
Game resumes, Bears break it open, and kick the Albany Devils' ass, 7-4. Hooray, the Bears are in the playoffs!
We finally get done a little before 11 pm, and we kick into the call-in show. For once, the cheap call-in box actually works pretty well (had this problem in the past), and I can get callers on the air.
I have not mentioned the control board: the sliding pots trigger themselves to go ON when they're raised automatically. WTF?
Buttons are sticking! This is a common problem on every board...too many people punching the buttons again and again and again over time, and the metal below the button is depressed and damaged, and there go your contacts.
Okay...now, the button bar screen has one last trick left in store for us. The boss has left, seeing that things are going okay, and I know what I need to do to restore the streams, the programming, etc.
Five minutes later...ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.
The screen that has the buttons to trigger commercials STOPS WORKING. Let me explain:
--The screen is lit. It's there.
--The commercial keys are there.
--Fire them; the clock runs on each spot to show you how much time there is.
--The board is up and set right, has been all night.
Result: NOTHING. It's running, but there's dead fucking silence.
Oh, shit...
I try to compensate by finding which spots we need and firing them from other sources on the screen.
No go.
Down the talk-back, I tell John to take it back live, and let's cut this off. He agrees, and does so. "So long, everybody."
NOW I CANNOT FIRE ANY FUCKING EVENT ON THE SCREEN. AT ALL. NOTHING WORKS. NOTHING FIRES. FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, THIS STATION AND THE ENTIRE SERIES OF AFFILIATES ARE PLAYING DEAD AIR.
My blood pressure is now 100 points higher than normal. What do I do?
I have no recourse as one would have had in the good ol' days. I have no music loaded in the CD player, because you just don't need it, in theory.
I have nothing I can play independently to cover my ass. We have no cart machines anymore; most younger people don't even know what one is.
I finally take the only course of action I can: I fire the Macro to bring the station back to the satellite and FSR.
Thankfully, it fires, and we're back on air.
What a horrible way to end the night. This is not what you are supposed to hear.
So I go through what I need to, to restore the Ticket, make sure the WHP Stream is restored to the Hate Talk format, make sure that The River HD-2 is back on that format, unplug the QIC coupler feed, hang up the ISDN lines, reset the relays, fix this, fix that, get into ANOTHER computer system to file my hours.
During this, my poor boss who just got home I think calls. He is not upset with me; he knows what I went through, but he needs to know: "WTF happened after I left?"
I told him. The general feeling is that the equipment could not handle the stress (I mentioned this earlier) that was put upon it.
The boss had to field an angry late-night phone call from Walton about the chamberpot mess of the game (this is now a regular occurrence, I guess), and apparently the boss got a shit-ton of angry calls about how fucked up that was.
The reason I tell you this, is that once these games were very easy to put over the air. In an effort to make things streamlined, we've put more rocks in the road.
There has got to be a better fucking way to do this. People when they turn on the TV or radio expect a certain flow and continuity; they don't expect to hear something that sounds like a bunch of clowns are running the show. Well, most morning shows are run by clowns, but largely unprofessional ones, but that's another story.
My first job in the professional radio biz was as a board op. But it was much easier to do than this. We've made our lives more difficult by embracing technology and letting it fuck us, rather than using it right.
On top of all this, I ended up with the program log in my bag when I left! I've done that twice; yes, the bible of radio stations, the program log. Paper ones do exist, though why I don't know, we've already computerized that too.
Welcome to radio, folks...it's more fun than you can ever imagine!
Argh. Now I must get up to WITF, and do my Sunday shift...oh what joys await me! At least there, the equipment works most of the time, and I am not employed by the station I'm sending content to. Whatever problems they have down there, I don't want to know...
One such place is a company called Clear Channel, aka, Cheap Channel. The very big broadcasting company that got bigger and bigger and bigger to the point it teeters on bankruptcy, and cannot keep its stations up.
The monopoly that this company has on broadcasting, TV, radio and the concert business is pretty sad, and badly operated.
This has to do with last night's insanity in Harrisburg. I am an occasional working at the Clear Channel "cluster" in Harrisburg, which includes six stations. The one I generally work for is "The Ticket," the sports station.
Most of the stations are by and large automated, under a system which (in theory) allows the operator to access it and take local control. This is not unusual at all; most radio stations today are pretty much operated by computers. This takes away the human element, meaning less opportunity for error (in theory), and not having to pay humans to be on the air or running the board, or whatever 24/7.
One must remember an old axiom about computers: they are only as intelligent as those entering the information into it.
Well, I actually feel bad for my bosses, and the people who have to work their every day. I don't think anyone understands what kind of stress varied pieces of equipment, which includes computers and hard drives, right up to the control boards and every piece in between go through. They get put through an awful lot, only you can't always see the problem. If your car breaks down, or blows smoke, starts to make noise, etc., you know about this, and you take it somewhere to fix it, right?
Well, in theory, you would.
In radio, that's what engineers are for. You must remember that in the radio business, anyone who calls themselves an engineer is INSANE.
Especially if they don't admit to it.
Well, CC lost their engineer some time ago, a guy I met once called "Squirrel." Nice guy, seemed a bit more together than most. Anyway, I don't know why he left, but I gather it had something to do with the way things run over there.
It is not unusual for stations that have old, outdated, obsolete or substandard gear to have problems, especially if you are putting 21st Century stresses upon them. Some equipment you can get by with; others must be replaced, because when they're falling apart and duct tape is the #1 repair tool (I have actually seen this in a number of stations), you are going to have problems.
Case in point, last night: now, I am a part-time jobber in the radio world once again. 26 years in this biz does not entitle me to anything. Howard Stern has been paid millions upon millions from varied companies, and is now suing Sirius/XM -- talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
So anyway: I did a 7-hour shift at my primary weekend job, WITF, a public radio/TV outfit. Fairly easy day, as I do sports updates and reports for KYW in Philly, as part of a working agreement. Not a bad day, but I knew that my second job was going to be trouble.
The Ticket, or WTKT is the flagship station of the Hershey Bears, the American Hockey League franchise that is one of the oldest in the US, and the defending two-time Calder Cup champs. Very good team; they have a rabid fan base, and the Ticket flashes this game to affiliates.
You'd think this would be easy: the game is broadcast from wherever, we send it out, we drop in the commercials, the computer trips things for us at the touch of a button or the F9 key, yeah, easy, right?
WRONG.
Two days before the game, my boss lets me know that we are not running the game from the Ticket studio; we're running it from a production studio.
Why? Because very soon the station will also be broadcasting Harrisburg Senators baseball games; and the boss correctly decided to ensure this studio will be able to handle a feed, then send it through to the Ticket studio, etc.
Now, the prod. studio is a good one, with fairly decent gear...on first glance.
The computerized screens are large, good graphics, easy to read, and the third screen which we use to record goals and saves for the Bears game is easy as well. No problems.
Well, the flips and twists of putting this game on the air is not what it seems. We need to go to the 6th Level of Hell, or in this case, the Engineering Room.
This is a small room with several racks of gear that handle six radio stations. There are computers, relays, stacks of rack gear, ISDN gear, phone line gear, all manner of things, most of which I can't tell you what they're for.
You have to dial in one station for the game, you have to dial in the broadcast of the game, you have to change relays, push buttons, get codes right...THREE MILE ISLAND doesn't have this kind of processing.
Okay...now the computer system that handles all of the station programming (same software, six systems) has a series of commands called Macros. You can trigger these, program these, take these in and out of effect; if you know how to use it. I don't.
Bless my boss, the poor guy was there, on a Saturday night, helping me and making sure this thing was gonna work. I think what has happened in retrospect is: in an effort to make the job easier, we have made it a thousand times more difficult.
So anyway, things don't get off to a good start at pre-6:30 pm, when we're supposed to hit the air. Once we're established, John Walton, the voice of the Bears, and I are supposed to be able to talk back and forth without it going over the air. Well, we did, then we didn't...then we did.
Okay, we get on the air, things are going okay. You have to listen to three or four things at once at times in this job, so it is stressful. You have to stay on top of it. Now in this studio, the breaks must be triggered manually, through the button-bar screen; okay, easy enough, but if your mouse doesn't cooperate, and you're not mindful, watch out.
To compound the madness: early in the third period of a tie game, it is stopped due to a problem with the ice. Not once, but two times. So, John, his partner Ed and whomever they can grab from the tunnel and from the press box are discussing the matter, trying to figure out if there's gonna be a game, etc. They're doing their job, I'm trying to do mine.
Station problem: the game usually ends around ten. If it is a home game, which it was, John does a call-in show. I take the calls, screen them, put 'em on hold, and send IM's to John to let him know who is on the line.
Problem, Part II: this game is not gonna end at ten. We don't know when it's gonna end. At 11 pm, the station as a Macro (remember those?) which will fire and return the station to Fox Sports Radio.
Art has to kill that; the hope was John would just bag the call-in show, but no he wants to do it. Okay, extra hour of work for me, and an extra hour for the boss.
Game resumes, Bears break it open, and kick the Albany Devils' ass, 7-4. Hooray, the Bears are in the playoffs!
We finally get done a little before 11 pm, and we kick into the call-in show. For once, the cheap call-in box actually works pretty well (had this problem in the past), and I can get callers on the air.
I have not mentioned the control board: the sliding pots trigger themselves to go ON when they're raised automatically. WTF?
Buttons are sticking! This is a common problem on every board...too many people punching the buttons again and again and again over time, and the metal below the button is depressed and damaged, and there go your contacts.
Okay...now, the button bar screen has one last trick left in store for us. The boss has left, seeing that things are going okay, and I know what I need to do to restore the streams, the programming, etc.
Five minutes later...ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.
The screen that has the buttons to trigger commercials STOPS WORKING. Let me explain:
--The screen is lit. It's there.
--The commercial keys are there.
--Fire them; the clock runs on each spot to show you how much time there is.
--The board is up and set right, has been all night.
Result: NOTHING. It's running, but there's dead fucking silence.
Oh, shit...
I try to compensate by finding which spots we need and firing them from other sources on the screen.
No go.
Down the talk-back, I tell John to take it back live, and let's cut this off. He agrees, and does so. "So long, everybody."
NOW I CANNOT FIRE ANY FUCKING EVENT ON THE SCREEN. AT ALL. NOTHING WORKS. NOTHING FIRES. FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, THIS STATION AND THE ENTIRE SERIES OF AFFILIATES ARE PLAYING DEAD AIR.
My blood pressure is now 100 points higher than normal. What do I do?
I have no recourse as one would have had in the good ol' days. I have no music loaded in the CD player, because you just don't need it, in theory.
I have nothing I can play independently to cover my ass. We have no cart machines anymore; most younger people don't even know what one is.
I finally take the only course of action I can: I fire the Macro to bring the station back to the satellite and FSR.
Thankfully, it fires, and we're back on air.
What a horrible way to end the night. This is not what you are supposed to hear.
So I go through what I need to, to restore the Ticket, make sure the WHP Stream is restored to the Hate Talk format, make sure that The River HD-2 is back on that format, unplug the QIC coupler feed, hang up the ISDN lines, reset the relays, fix this, fix that, get into ANOTHER computer system to file my hours.
During this, my poor boss who just got home I think calls. He is not upset with me; he knows what I went through, but he needs to know: "WTF happened after I left?"
I told him. The general feeling is that the equipment could not handle the stress (I mentioned this earlier) that was put upon it.
The boss had to field an angry late-night phone call from Walton about the chamberpot mess of the game (this is now a regular occurrence, I guess), and apparently the boss got a shit-ton of angry calls about how fucked up that was.
The reason I tell you this, is that once these games were very easy to put over the air. In an effort to make things streamlined, we've put more rocks in the road.
There has got to be a better fucking way to do this. People when they turn on the TV or radio expect a certain flow and continuity; they don't expect to hear something that sounds like a bunch of clowns are running the show. Well, most morning shows are run by clowns, but largely unprofessional ones, but that's another story.
My first job in the professional radio biz was as a board op. But it was much easier to do than this. We've made our lives more difficult by embracing technology and letting it fuck us, rather than using it right.
On top of all this, I ended up with the program log in my bag when I left! I've done that twice; yes, the bible of radio stations, the program log. Paper ones do exist, though why I don't know, we've already computerized that too.
Welcome to radio, folks...it's more fun than you can ever imagine!
Argh. Now I must get up to WITF, and do my Sunday shift...oh what joys await me! At least there, the equipment works most of the time, and I am not employed by the station I'm sending content to. Whatever problems they have down there, I don't want to know...
Friday, March 25, 2011
Life in the Breakdown Lane, Part I
This is my first attempt at using Xtranormal! I've been fascinated by the crazy stuff that's been put out through this service over the past couple of months, to the point I decided to try and make one myself.
The site walks you through the steps you need to take, and you can go back and edit, and make the changes you like. We'll see how it goes over time.
This is the first chapter of "Life in the Breakdown Lane." It's slightly autobiographical; and slightly is a word I use very loosely.
I hope you find it entertaining, that's the idea.
A Long, Strange Week it's Been...
Forgive my paraphrasing the Grateful Dead (Bill Walton forever has the market on unnecessary and uncalled for Dead references), but it has been a long and very weird week.
I don't even know where to start. I've finally gotten out of a cold; it went straight to my throat, and while it was not painful, it was just nagging...then it went to my sinuses. Lovely. But nothing too terrible.
Walkman update..."Writing on the Wall," by Russell Smith. Heard some good stuff leading up to this, "Hot Patootie" done by Brian May for a Rocky Horror Soundtrack of years past, some interesting Frank Zappa and Brian Eno. All good.
Anyway, I fell into a depression of sorts this week. Some of it was my health, then these weird changes in weather, temp. changes, warm, then incredibly cold, a day of extremely heavy rain and thunderstorms. It always does that.
Working on a new story idea...that has some interesting elements for me, as I again dip into my past for ideas. Not sure if I'll ever plumb the depths of my past years in order to get them away from me; but it's worth the doing.
Dharma Fools Update: still working on it. Johnny and I had a long talk earlier this week, about the direction the new band will take and our plans for a Japanese charity tribute EP. Just hard as hell trying to get everyone together. We have to be patient.
J. continues to come up with interesting songs; while he has a certain formula, he also gets to the point a lot quicker than say, I do.
I have two new songs, the first two I've written in a long time.
"I Feel So Good," by Willie Smith and Pinetop Perkins. Pinetop just passed away, at 97! Still smokin' right to the end. What a guy. Smith is now probably the last of the Muddy Waters compadres from those great years. This CD won a Grammy, and well-deserved.
Anyway, two songs...one is the intro/prologue for this new story idea, but it will also fit well as a song. Katie will have to sing this one, and I'm sure she'll hit it well.
The other began as an instrumental, then I added lyrics, based on a DVD my sister sent me. Susan has been a geneology freak, and has done extensive research into the varied branches of our family. They are amazingly long.
She sent most of us a 2000-frame disc of photos...many are very old, dating back to the 19th Century...some more contemporary shots as well, some I didn't need to see.
They stirred some real interesting thoughts and memories. Some good, some not. They also really did make me look into my past and I see now where I get some of my better attributes from. Leastways, I hope they are better ones.
Very strange to look back like that.
"We're Gonna Rock," by Paul Burlison and friends...great CD called "Train Kept A-Rollin'" -- fabulous. I think Billy Burnette is singing on this one. Burlison was a member of the Original Rock and Roll Trio, which included Johnny Burnette. Great stuff.
TrafficTalk soldiers on...I'm still hanging in there, and a bit more press might help us. Got a couple of interesting calls yesterday.
WITF has called me in next week to train on the job I didn't get. I'm to be the fill-in guy...feeling pretty good, I hope I can do well, and let 'em know they made a mistake, hahahahaha...
Either way, to be considered is good, and to get a shot at it, alright with me.
My whole week has been strange, very strange, and I'm just not together. My sleep patterns have been wacked. Not sure why; I feel a terribly intensity building within, and I don't know if it means another creative surge is coming, or if means something else.
Anyway...double shift tomorrow...KYW first shift, then off to the Clear Channel job for a Bears game. They're running it on another of the cluster, because of baseball, so it's gonna be weird. Fortunately the boss and engineer will be on hand. Let's hope it works.
Bleargh. Life in the breakdown lane. Must go.
I don't even know where to start. I've finally gotten out of a cold; it went straight to my throat, and while it was not painful, it was just nagging...then it went to my sinuses. Lovely. But nothing too terrible.
Walkman update..."Writing on the Wall," by Russell Smith. Heard some good stuff leading up to this, "Hot Patootie" done by Brian May for a Rocky Horror Soundtrack of years past, some interesting Frank Zappa and Brian Eno. All good.
Anyway, I fell into a depression of sorts this week. Some of it was my health, then these weird changes in weather, temp. changes, warm, then incredibly cold, a day of extremely heavy rain and thunderstorms. It always does that.
Working on a new story idea...that has some interesting elements for me, as I again dip into my past for ideas. Not sure if I'll ever plumb the depths of my past years in order to get them away from me; but it's worth the doing.
Dharma Fools Update: still working on it. Johnny and I had a long talk earlier this week, about the direction the new band will take and our plans for a Japanese charity tribute EP. Just hard as hell trying to get everyone together. We have to be patient.
J. continues to come up with interesting songs; while he has a certain formula, he also gets to the point a lot quicker than say, I do.
I have two new songs, the first two I've written in a long time.
"I Feel So Good," by Willie Smith and Pinetop Perkins. Pinetop just passed away, at 97! Still smokin' right to the end. What a guy. Smith is now probably the last of the Muddy Waters compadres from those great years. This CD won a Grammy, and well-deserved.
Anyway, two songs...one is the intro/prologue for this new story idea, but it will also fit well as a song. Katie will have to sing this one, and I'm sure she'll hit it well.
The other began as an instrumental, then I added lyrics, based on a DVD my sister sent me. Susan has been a geneology freak, and has done extensive research into the varied branches of our family. They are amazingly long.
She sent most of us a 2000-frame disc of photos...many are very old, dating back to the 19th Century...some more contemporary shots as well, some I didn't need to see.
They stirred some real interesting thoughts and memories. Some good, some not. They also really did make me look into my past and I see now where I get some of my better attributes from. Leastways, I hope they are better ones.
Very strange to look back like that.
"We're Gonna Rock," by Paul Burlison and friends...great CD called "Train Kept A-Rollin'" -- fabulous. I think Billy Burnette is singing on this one. Burlison was a member of the Original Rock and Roll Trio, which included Johnny Burnette. Great stuff.
TrafficTalk soldiers on...I'm still hanging in there, and a bit more press might help us. Got a couple of interesting calls yesterday.
WITF has called me in next week to train on the job I didn't get. I'm to be the fill-in guy...feeling pretty good, I hope I can do well, and let 'em know they made a mistake, hahahahaha...
Either way, to be considered is good, and to get a shot at it, alright with me.
My whole week has been strange, very strange, and I'm just not together. My sleep patterns have been wacked. Not sure why; I feel a terribly intensity building within, and I don't know if it means another creative surge is coming, or if means something else.
Anyway...double shift tomorrow...KYW first shift, then off to the Clear Channel job for a Bears game. They're running it on another of the cluster, because of baseball, so it's gonna be weird. Fortunately the boss and engineer will be on hand. Let's hope it works.
Bleargh. Life in the breakdown lane. Must go.
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