Been up late lately? Radio is…and it’s usually more relating than the other eighteen hours of the day.
It’s as if the Pied Pipers of overnight boards and microphones are given permission to say the most bizarre things—sporty conversations, filled with life and or plainer than a slice of white bread. Late night two speaker super hero’s talk about how difficult it is to stay awake while spinning out gobs of web delivered artist and concert tour info, gibby gab about Hollywood, spaceships and aliens while opening your thoughts to simple digestion not found after the boss arrives somewhere around 8 or 9.
I can’t say radio’s moonlit playgrounds are a lost art…there are too many performance starved word creators baking inside an oven of opportunity. Those blessed with a stage aren’t programmed to wake up but rather feed the veins of third shifters needing companionship during Corporate America’s transition period—the single most important part of a success story where shelves are stocked, hallways and offices are cleaned and everything else behind the scenes helps to set up what’ll become the path 9 to 5er’s require to reach up, out and through mountains of paperwork and numbers needing to be met.
Radio continues long after Leno and Letterman have disappeared from their appropriate networks.
For the past month I’ve been getting up at 2 AM and have desperately required the assistance of late night radio to keep my eye lids popped open. This close to the speakers, you’d think I’d be more critical of the vibrations shaking my speeds up and over the limits placed there by law.
What I’m hearing is presence. I’m taking note of a voice that doesn’t have to be there but wants to become part of the struggle to keep the chapters we write in forward motion. Nobody is up that late or early unless they have to be—there is no choice, you know what’s expected of you and to attain it’s presentation with a positive approach needs something more than another cup of hot coffee or your 15th Red Bull inside a six hour period.
I tend to react more to a late night voice because what they’re saying seems more real than the rest of a plastic radio day. This morning, the woman calmly said, “I love coworkers who come across dumb. We need people who pull off dumb stunts. It gives us reason to laugh.”
Twenty five miles from the four walls that keep me busy when the sun is up, instantly my mind shot down the hallways indentifying everyone who makes me chuckle. This, during an age when radio is supposed to be disappearing from the map—thirty one years with a pair of earphones wrapped tightly around my ego and the microphone a tongue’s lick away from the next thought shot through a system of communication…one is left with a palm full of passion that’ll rise above the waters if this ship truly elected to sink.
Music alone won’t get you above and beyond your hourly challenges. Companionship heals darkness.
The industry as a whole still loves its listeners or 98% of us would be bagging groceries.
Radio is a connection between all things real and your ambition to figure out how to make it part of your daily journey. Be it a bright beautiful weather filled day or an addiction to the pitfalls of fame and fortune—before there was reality TV, radio was and still is the stage for single acts of courage shared with listeners wanting to learn more just so they can compare it to the up’s, down’s and complete turn arounds taking place in their life and style.
Late nights were my favorite place to play radio. Not only did the clean up crew at McDonalds constantly bring me food they couldn’t toss out but limo drivers, party goers, chefs who put in a twelve hour day, tax accountants and people fresh from the perils of a vocal war with someone they loved would connect with every reason why I got into the business…music, if blended properly paints for the imagination a well exposed secret called escape.
Which you still get between 6 AM and 8 PM but lets be honest…plastic words and prefabricated thoughts that are deeply researched bounce off a pair of ears faster than snot leaks from a nose during allergy season…therefore listeners become more attracted to the lyrics of songs rather than a creative seven second thought designed to take the shuffle out of your feet, giggle like a goose, shoot diet Coke through your nose or pull off a high energy concert ticket victory.
If radio came with DVR’s and Tivo’s those selected to share thought patterns during the lit up moments a star shines would be ratings winners. It’s called relating and nobody does it better than that midnight to 6 AM voice that seeps from the dial position onto the floor of your car or home and sprouting roots that quickly grow in the crevices of struggle meets having a great time.
The days of midnight Jello jumps and Rock Star look-a-like contests at local malls and drive-in movie theaters may be over but not the attitude required to figure out a meaningful path that’s going to take the breath of a radio talker and place it into your lungs.
Television has elected to go the way of cramming the same evil worldly news stories and info-mercials onto their reasons for being open late. Radio has no problem sharing its relationship with music and conversation with you, your life and all things connected to making whatever you’re doing better than what it was ten minutes ago.
I salute the late night kings of talking and spinning! Thank you for having the courage to continue being up all night!
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
No comments:
Post a Comment