Showing posts with label wolfman jack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wolfman jack. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Arroe Collins: This isn't about radio. This is about those who listen to it.
Arroe Collins: This isn't about radio. This is about those who listen to it.: Arroe Collins: This isn't about radio. This is about those who listen to it.'s blog postings.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Dear Radio Listener...there's something I've been wanting to share...
I wish radio listeners could hear the real show. The funniest, most intriguing best content on earth is nearly almost next to never what’s been delivered between the songs but always when the microphone is off.
If listeners could see, feel and experience a room when three to six or seven Broadcaster’s drop their guard and begin to share…its far better than watching a Fourth of July celebration in New York City.
Radio people have the courage to be so far open scientists are incredibly close to calling it a black hole.
Nobody tries to outperform, over produce, build comedy routines or visually attempt to stimulate strength and passion for the two speaker stage; the channel isn’t formatted and neither are the subjects. Radio performers off the microphone are the missing page on a ninety year old journey that’s been challenged by movies, television, the Ipod, Napster and Pandora.
So what happened? Where are the modern day shapes of Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Bruce Morrow, Larry Lujack, Scott Shannon, John Records Landecker, Murphy in the Morning from Big Ways and countless other thought provoking gut busting pee your pants geniuses that could burp the alphabet while shaking hands with an entire city of radio listeners.
These were just some of the masters that proved radio isn’t about having a brilliant voice that makes you say wow but becoming a voice that made you say wow.
What about the late night Pied Pipers that impatiently waited for their program directors to haul their tails to bed so they could break out the 45’s and albums blessed with true rhythm and blues and not candy coated Pat Boone remakes?
Thirty two chapters in this biz and I whole heartedly praise the days when Bill Conway slapped my ego and shoved my ambitions onto overnights. No ratings meant no rules. Until the night Chuck Boozer woke up and discovered I was playing sound effects and comedy bites from his show and he very professionally said, “Dude…I get what you’re trying to do. I was once there. Just let me know so that I don’t use the same bite three hours after your show.”
That conversation would’ve made great big dents in our constant grind to locate a relationship with listeners. It was real and blessed with enough content that might inspire a normal person to step up to a company coffee pot and say, “Did you happen to catch Arroe getting busted using Boozer’s bits this morning? I’d love to talk to Mike in cubical six about how he keeps stealing my pencils.”
While with the Pam Stone Show 2002-2005, the nationally recognized comedian held nothing back on inviting radio listeners to the true party. Anthony and I would stare at each other knowing every lesson taught by consultants and programmers meant nothing within the doors that separated our worlds. Her loyalty to the people earned two Gracie Allen Awards.
Radio people find no reason to fear unless there are unexpected gatherings in offices much larger than the on-air studio. What becomes of those meetings is usually a key to another opportunity. Legendary radio host Henry Bogan was brutally too honest for the norm. If he liked you, that required a tough message by way of preparing you for the inevitable, “My job is to plug in these earphones at the beginning of the show then wait for them to tell me it’s the last time such a move will happen.”
Show me a radio person that doesn’t have a story and I’ll introduce you to a liar.
Popping open that microphone is an art that you’re called to. Ministers and preachers locate pulpits, radio people find knobs connected to control boards linked to transmitters that mysteriously beam out bouncing sound waves from an imagination most high school teachers labeled a leader but not in common sense.
And yet you never hear of the days when being with invisible people hurts so bad that impossibility melts the music but the Great Inner Voice from distant planets and no formats chooses not to encourage the radio man and woman but rips from the bowels of I can’t do this and gifts the talker with the greatest show ever performed.
The days and nights you kicked yourself so hard because every break sucks so bad is the moment you realize that why you’re there has nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with sharing reality with a passerby you may never meet but for one split second their decision to call it quits stopped them from ending the story.
Have you ever stared into the eyes of a radio person after they’ve changed a human life? A forever mark is left in their soul and true radio people can see it no matter how cloudy the day or bright the sun. Not a word can be shared and within the metallic shell assumed protective a ring is heard when two radio performers pass each other in hall…it’s that ring that radio listeners never get to hear and that’s what’s missing from radio.
If radio is dead why have the voices between the songs lasted longer than Dave Clark, Foghat, The Captain and Tenniel, Duran Duran, Gangsta Hip Hop and Grunge? We’ve learned to adapt to a constantly changing need to become part of your life and style. The city skyline can change, professional sports owners can sell out and schools can keep farming out future leaders but in the end there’s nothing more solid than what radio people bring with them…the passion to invite something else to think about while the rest of the world has whittled away every dream you’ve held.
Before they throw my ashes into the Charleston Harbor I want my wife to whisper only two words, “Thank you.” None of this would’ve ever happened without radio listeners and that’s the part of this business that never makes it to the air because research shows you should’ve been talking about something else.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
If listeners could see, feel and experience a room when three to six or seven Broadcaster’s drop their guard and begin to share…its far better than watching a Fourth of July celebration in New York City.
Radio people have the courage to be so far open scientists are incredibly close to calling it a black hole.
Nobody tries to outperform, over produce, build comedy routines or visually attempt to stimulate strength and passion for the two speaker stage; the channel isn’t formatted and neither are the subjects. Radio performers off the microphone are the missing page on a ninety year old journey that’s been challenged by movies, television, the Ipod, Napster and Pandora.
So what happened? Where are the modern day shapes of Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Bruce Morrow, Larry Lujack, Scott Shannon, John Records Landecker, Murphy in the Morning from Big Ways and countless other thought provoking gut busting pee your pants geniuses that could burp the alphabet while shaking hands with an entire city of radio listeners.
These were just some of the masters that proved radio isn’t about having a brilliant voice that makes you say wow but becoming a voice that made you say wow.
What about the late night Pied Pipers that impatiently waited for their program directors to haul their tails to bed so they could break out the 45’s and albums blessed with true rhythm and blues and not candy coated Pat Boone remakes?
Thirty two chapters in this biz and I whole heartedly praise the days when Bill Conway slapped my ego and shoved my ambitions onto overnights. No ratings meant no rules. Until the night Chuck Boozer woke up and discovered I was playing sound effects and comedy bites from his show and he very professionally said, “Dude…I get what you’re trying to do. I was once there. Just let me know so that I don’t use the same bite three hours after your show.”
That conversation would’ve made great big dents in our constant grind to locate a relationship with listeners. It was real and blessed with enough content that might inspire a normal person to step up to a company coffee pot and say, “Did you happen to catch Arroe getting busted using Boozer’s bits this morning? I’d love to talk to Mike in cubical six about how he keeps stealing my pencils.”
While with the Pam Stone Show 2002-2005, the nationally recognized comedian held nothing back on inviting radio listeners to the true party. Anthony and I would stare at each other knowing every lesson taught by consultants and programmers meant nothing within the doors that separated our worlds. Her loyalty to the people earned two Gracie Allen Awards.
Radio people find no reason to fear unless there are unexpected gatherings in offices much larger than the on-air studio. What becomes of those meetings is usually a key to another opportunity. Legendary radio host Henry Bogan was brutally too honest for the norm. If he liked you, that required a tough message by way of preparing you for the inevitable, “My job is to plug in these earphones at the beginning of the show then wait for them to tell me it’s the last time such a move will happen.”
Show me a radio person that doesn’t have a story and I’ll introduce you to a liar.
Popping open that microphone is an art that you’re called to. Ministers and preachers locate pulpits, radio people find knobs connected to control boards linked to transmitters that mysteriously beam out bouncing sound waves from an imagination most high school teachers labeled a leader but not in common sense.
And yet you never hear of the days when being with invisible people hurts so bad that impossibility melts the music but the Great Inner Voice from distant planets and no formats chooses not to encourage the radio man and woman but rips from the bowels of I can’t do this and gifts the talker with the greatest show ever performed.
The days and nights you kicked yourself so hard because every break sucks so bad is the moment you realize that why you’re there has nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with sharing reality with a passerby you may never meet but for one split second their decision to call it quits stopped them from ending the story.
Have you ever stared into the eyes of a radio person after they’ve changed a human life? A forever mark is left in their soul and true radio people can see it no matter how cloudy the day or bright the sun. Not a word can be shared and within the metallic shell assumed protective a ring is heard when two radio performers pass each other in hall…it’s that ring that radio listeners never get to hear and that’s what’s missing from radio.
If radio is dead why have the voices between the songs lasted longer than Dave Clark, Foghat, The Captain and Tenniel, Duran Duran, Gangsta Hip Hop and Grunge? We’ve learned to adapt to a constantly changing need to become part of your life and style. The city skyline can change, professional sports owners can sell out and schools can keep farming out future leaders but in the end there’s nothing more solid than what radio people bring with them…the passion to invite something else to think about while the rest of the world has whittled away every dream you’ve held.
Before they throw my ashes into the Charleston Harbor I want my wife to whisper only two words, “Thank you.” None of this would’ve ever happened without radio listeners and that’s the part of this business that never makes it to the air because research shows you should’ve been talking about something else.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Don't argue with me! Write!
To blog or not to blog…that is the question! To be so selfish by not writing isn’t the answer.
Therefore what shall become the single thought that evolves into a whisper of inspiration and or influence and where shall it be read Russia, Indonesia, South Korea or Butte, Montana?
Being just a radio disc jockey seems so small when man and woman scientists and computer geeks have created for the human a stage that can be seen in every corner of the universe.
Elvis Presley would’ve been extremely jealous.
One of the best stories shared by legendary speaker talker Wolfman Jack is the heartfelt drama created when the King of Rock n Roll verbally spouted his discomfort for the Wildman of nighttime radio. Elvis loved being on stage which he paid heavily for; not only in sweat and gut wrenching unheard of chances taken but Tom Parker wanted his managerial chuck of the cha-ching.
Wolfman’s stage was radio…thanks to a 500,000 watt monster signal from Mexico and later WNBC NY the vibrations generated by studio passion tore up the souls of a passerby that happened to punch in.
To say radio will never be like that again is a pie in the face of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Ryan Seacrest and Big Willie McAlister who doesn’t know it but he’s going to graduate from a Broadcasting school in twenty six years and what he brings to the stage will be a continuation of what radio is, was and will forever be; just regular people doing regular things in a regular world on a planet that happens to have water and oxygen.
Ask any radio jock how they got here and no two stories are the same. Ask them why they stay and nearly everyone will makeup lies to save face.
Broadcasting isn’t just for television news reporters seeking secrets while solving murder mysteries and song intro invaders with fancy stories and bad jokes. Just like Benjamin Franklin’s printing press the internet provides an empty page blessed by the makers of the universe to be anything, everything, too much and sometimes too little…no matter how thick the challenge or easy it might seem…staying silent keeps the need to be or not to be wrapped tightly in a box called: it’s all about me.
When Chaz Bono was invited to walk on a surface oversaturated with uneducated judgment there was no way he knew that being while most have chosen not to be would invite peace to a life of potholes and un-located highways. Millions beyond this moment will be because writing with honesty was broadcast in places people escape to.
Recognized by the world as being one of the most expressive artists of our time, Peter Max chose one night to raise his vocals in my presence, “What you create doesn’t belong to you! You were born to share it!”
Wanna know why we’ve slid into a second recession inside a single ten year period; we’ve allowed the news media to do the talking for us. If more people spent ten to thirty minutes a day blogging what its like to be on welfare and medicare or working at a job where its become legal to abuse employees like Farrah Faucett in The Burning Bed; the weaknesses that keep our secrets in mental boxes would be released and there would be change.
A collection of foreigners made a choice to make their way across an open sea to find a land that would give birth to a voice that required nothing more then to be heard. It is this generation that has chosen to be seen but not heard. So…there is no need to be because the decision been made…it’s all about me.
Now you know my inspiration to rush into the recording studio and drop the tracks on my newest song. Slipped from the pen to which I write a wordy word picture was painted about our American way of life.
When I looked at you I began to see, reasons why I became me.
I chased you my entire life daring to change what I can’t face
I don’t dare to be different, didn’t want to be this way.
Not a fame game or web page surprise…look into my eyes!
(chorus)
Everywhere I go there are you with me.
Everywhere I play there you are with me.
Every breath I take I’m watching me…
Iphone smart phone totally digital,
Google Facebook nothing original
When I decide to look your way I try never to say your name.
Fact-uation means nothing I’m too infatuated with me.
600,000 YouTube views…didn’t want it to be this way.
Not a fame game or web page surprise…it’s all in the eyes.
(Chorus repeats)
I don’t care to make you happy…wouldn’t it be a waste?
It’s my eyes you’ve come to see…
(Chorus repeats)
Double click free pics…take all you want. It’s all in the eyes.
Written by the Poet in Me called M’e (May) because it truly isn’t about me so “May” the sun rise above your tears.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Therefore what shall become the single thought that evolves into a whisper of inspiration and or influence and where shall it be read Russia, Indonesia, South Korea or Butte, Montana?
Being just a radio disc jockey seems so small when man and woman scientists and computer geeks have created for the human a stage that can be seen in every corner of the universe.
Elvis Presley would’ve been extremely jealous.
One of the best stories shared by legendary speaker talker Wolfman Jack is the heartfelt drama created when the King of Rock n Roll verbally spouted his discomfort for the Wildman of nighttime radio. Elvis loved being on stage which he paid heavily for; not only in sweat and gut wrenching unheard of chances taken but Tom Parker wanted his managerial chuck of the cha-ching.
Wolfman’s stage was radio…thanks to a 500,000 watt monster signal from Mexico and later WNBC NY the vibrations generated by studio passion tore up the souls of a passerby that happened to punch in.
To say radio will never be like that again is a pie in the face of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Ryan Seacrest and Big Willie McAlister who doesn’t know it but he’s going to graduate from a Broadcasting school in twenty six years and what he brings to the stage will be a continuation of what radio is, was and will forever be; just regular people doing regular things in a regular world on a planet that happens to have water and oxygen.
Ask any radio jock how they got here and no two stories are the same. Ask them why they stay and nearly everyone will makeup lies to save face.
Broadcasting isn’t just for television news reporters seeking secrets while solving murder mysteries and song intro invaders with fancy stories and bad jokes. Just like Benjamin Franklin’s printing press the internet provides an empty page blessed by the makers of the universe to be anything, everything, too much and sometimes too little…no matter how thick the challenge or easy it might seem…staying silent keeps the need to be or not to be wrapped tightly in a box called: it’s all about me.
When Chaz Bono was invited to walk on a surface oversaturated with uneducated judgment there was no way he knew that being while most have chosen not to be would invite peace to a life of potholes and un-located highways. Millions beyond this moment will be because writing with honesty was broadcast in places people escape to.
Recognized by the world as being one of the most expressive artists of our time, Peter Max chose one night to raise his vocals in my presence, “What you create doesn’t belong to you! You were born to share it!”
Wanna know why we’ve slid into a second recession inside a single ten year period; we’ve allowed the news media to do the talking for us. If more people spent ten to thirty minutes a day blogging what its like to be on welfare and medicare or working at a job where its become legal to abuse employees like Farrah Faucett in The Burning Bed; the weaknesses that keep our secrets in mental boxes would be released and there would be change.
A collection of foreigners made a choice to make their way across an open sea to find a land that would give birth to a voice that required nothing more then to be heard. It is this generation that has chosen to be seen but not heard. So…there is no need to be because the decision been made…it’s all about me.
Now you know my inspiration to rush into the recording studio and drop the tracks on my newest song. Slipped from the pen to which I write a wordy word picture was painted about our American way of life.
When I looked at you I began to see, reasons why I became me.
I chased you my entire life daring to change what I can’t face
I don’t dare to be different, didn’t want to be this way.
Not a fame game or web page surprise…look into my eyes!
(chorus)
Everywhere I go there are you with me.
Everywhere I play there you are with me.
Every breath I take I’m watching me…
Iphone smart phone totally digital,
Google Facebook nothing original
When I decide to look your way I try never to say your name.
Fact-uation means nothing I’m too infatuated with me.
600,000 YouTube views…didn’t want it to be this way.
Not a fame game or web page surprise…it’s all in the eyes.
(Chorus repeats)
I don’t care to make you happy…wouldn’t it be a waste?
It’s my eyes you’ve come to see…
(Chorus repeats)
Double click free pics…take all you want. It’s all in the eyes.
Written by the Poet in Me called M’e (May) because it truly isn’t about me so “May” the sun rise above your tears.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Monday, August 29, 2011
Stop giving your success away to your boss!
It’s Monday! 90% of your day will be dominated by 2% of coworker’s asking, “How was your weekend? What’s your day look like? Can you help me?”
Where on the turntable of life did the vinyl record get scratched or broken?
High school fails to teach three very important expectations: In the blink of an eye you’ll be 50. Having children is legalized bank robbery and no matter what you put into your job it never turns out to be what they introduced during the interview process.
When you set an apple outside under a hot Carolina sun, what happens?
It becomes you! Dreams dried. A once beautiful smile sunk into its lost soul. The single stem that once fed vital juices into a tiny springtime blossom dropped like a faded memory.
What gives? Wait…you do! Over and over again.
When will something or someone give back to you? The finger pointing is at you! Reality being a big ole hairy bite; if receiving has become your sink hole…never expect the dirt from other mountains to fill what you’ve given permission to create.
You can’t give in the name of expecting a return. When you give you relinquish. The receiver of what you give holds every right to treat the gift good, great or poorly without you expecting to say stop or give me something back. It’s wrong for you to say, “What are you willing to do?”
In 1991 Andrew Ashwood point blank asked me, “Are you a Broadcaster or a radio DJ”
Sticking my chest out there like a well oiled extremely over determined rooster in heat I replied, “Broadcaster!”
“Good! I can only pay you for 28 hours a week but I need you for 60.”
Morally and physically illegal but you know as well as I do…peer pressure and the fear of unemployment keeps you from whistle blowing.
In 1991 I knowingly gave my life away never realizing the Great Recession of 08 and 2011 would have the same impact on your life. Every mall store, hardware outlet, bank, hospital, restaurant and gas station I visit features not one but endless amounts of bad apples and there’s nothing the giver can do about where they’ve placed their current step.
Or so you’ve been trained…
Time to go back to school! Mentally not physically. Meyouhealth.com invites you to recall three of your favorite high school subjects then asks you to write down why.
Openly I share…mine were Creative Writing, Chorus and Current Events or any type of history…especially the history of religious studies; which we got away with in the latter part of the 70’s.
According to meyouhealth.com what we enjoy and appreciate says a great deal about us. Retouching a high school fun study teaches our present self that learning isn’t a chore. Even at 49 I can wave goodbye to radio and become a Montana State History teacher or a religious mentor that puts focus on the present using current decisions by others to help shape a more positive path for newer dreams to blossom in places looked upon as being safer.
By breaking away from assumption that learning or work is a pain in the roots, it allows you to find better reasons to shatter negative stereotypes connected to the empty answers arriving everyday you ask questions.
Artist Way author Julia Cameron teachers her readers to quickly page through a magazine and pull out only the photos that instantly enlighten you. Without thought quickly paste them to a giant sheet of white paper. Stand back and take a better view of your inner life.
Radio legend Wolfman Jack explains in his autobiography that the majority of those performing on car speakers aren’t doing it because they’ve got a burning desire to report news, weather forecasts and to sell the artist and title. When you take a deeper look into the channels that flood your favorite radio station the single reason why most decide to give broadcasting a shot is because the stage to do your thing is easier to locate than a concert hall or local bar. You hear words from wordy word radio disc jockeys…those sharing the conversation see it as writing lyrics; which is why it hurts so bad when someone says you suck! Art isn’t meant to suck…it’s your view of what is or isn’t and those passing by see it or don’t.
Your job is no different.
There are three rules to follow in today’s business world; find success, hire employees that sacrifice. When in doubt revert back to number one find success by locating someone new to do the job.
Three high school subjects then tell me why you liked them. This is America…you can be anything you want at anytime of the day or night. For you to be that person you’ve got to stop trading your happiness for other people’s big boats, thick steaks bathed in wines you can’t pronounce.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Where on the turntable of life did the vinyl record get scratched or broken?
High school fails to teach three very important expectations: In the blink of an eye you’ll be 50. Having children is legalized bank robbery and no matter what you put into your job it never turns out to be what they introduced during the interview process.
When you set an apple outside under a hot Carolina sun, what happens?
It becomes you! Dreams dried. A once beautiful smile sunk into its lost soul. The single stem that once fed vital juices into a tiny springtime blossom dropped like a faded memory.
What gives? Wait…you do! Over and over again.
When will something or someone give back to you? The finger pointing is at you! Reality being a big ole hairy bite; if receiving has become your sink hole…never expect the dirt from other mountains to fill what you’ve given permission to create.
You can’t give in the name of expecting a return. When you give you relinquish. The receiver of what you give holds every right to treat the gift good, great or poorly without you expecting to say stop or give me something back. It’s wrong for you to say, “What are you willing to do?”
In 1991 Andrew Ashwood point blank asked me, “Are you a Broadcaster or a radio DJ”
Sticking my chest out there like a well oiled extremely over determined rooster in heat I replied, “Broadcaster!”
“Good! I can only pay you for 28 hours a week but I need you for 60.”
Morally and physically illegal but you know as well as I do…peer pressure and the fear of unemployment keeps you from whistle blowing.
In 1991 I knowingly gave my life away never realizing the Great Recession of 08 and 2011 would have the same impact on your life. Every mall store, hardware outlet, bank, hospital, restaurant and gas station I visit features not one but endless amounts of bad apples and there’s nothing the giver can do about where they’ve placed their current step.
Or so you’ve been trained…
Time to go back to school! Mentally not physically. Meyouhealth.com invites you to recall three of your favorite high school subjects then asks you to write down why.
Openly I share…mine were Creative Writing, Chorus and Current Events or any type of history…especially the history of religious studies; which we got away with in the latter part of the 70’s.
According to meyouhealth.com what we enjoy and appreciate says a great deal about us. Retouching a high school fun study teaches our present self that learning isn’t a chore. Even at 49 I can wave goodbye to radio and become a Montana State History teacher or a religious mentor that puts focus on the present using current decisions by others to help shape a more positive path for newer dreams to blossom in places looked upon as being safer.
By breaking away from assumption that learning or work is a pain in the roots, it allows you to find better reasons to shatter negative stereotypes connected to the empty answers arriving everyday you ask questions.
Artist Way author Julia Cameron teachers her readers to quickly page through a magazine and pull out only the photos that instantly enlighten you. Without thought quickly paste them to a giant sheet of white paper. Stand back and take a better view of your inner life.
Radio legend Wolfman Jack explains in his autobiography that the majority of those performing on car speakers aren’t doing it because they’ve got a burning desire to report news, weather forecasts and to sell the artist and title. When you take a deeper look into the channels that flood your favorite radio station the single reason why most decide to give broadcasting a shot is because the stage to do your thing is easier to locate than a concert hall or local bar. You hear words from wordy word radio disc jockeys…those sharing the conversation see it as writing lyrics; which is why it hurts so bad when someone says you suck! Art isn’t meant to suck…it’s your view of what is or isn’t and those passing by see it or don’t.
Your job is no different.
There are three rules to follow in today’s business world; find success, hire employees that sacrifice. When in doubt revert back to number one find success by locating someone new to do the job.
Three high school subjects then tell me why you liked them. This is America…you can be anything you want at anytime of the day or night. For you to be that person you’ve got to stop trading your happiness for other people’s big boats, thick steaks bathed in wines you can’t pronounce.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Yes you can!
I remember racing home from Ponderosa School with a pocket full of neatly folded magazine pages baring the souls and rich colorful faces of nicely aged antique cars and the wheels that got them to their place in American history.
I stole the pictures…saw them in a Weekly Reader Book Club order form magazine sitting on the teachers desk and couldn’t shake the vision or vibration from the normally extremely clean path and life my seven year old legs led.
Mrs. Keefe, my closest friends David Brown, Derek Mullins and Joe Kakowski nor I had a clue what would protrude from the vividly clear but hauntingly too abstract painting tossed at me like a water balloon; all I heard in my head was, “Go home and write…”
Write? I hated reading! On purposely I flunked tests so I wouldn’t have to make my way to thicker thoughts about Huck Finn, Romeo and Juliet and later in life Hamlet, 1984 and eleventh grade Current Events. My first comic book was slammed together by Gene Simmons of KISS but I never read it. Today it sits untouched in the very bag the store clerk put it in…
Talk about feeling out of place!
If you weren’t diving into Batman, Superman and The Archies and couldn’t find enough imagination in your skull to walk into Dr. Seuss’ theater of the mind—the only thing left was to write your own ten act play then quickly hide it in the third cardboard box to the right in the very dark and damp attic above your bed.
I’ll write it ten thousand times; Mrs. Keefe was the first to recognize my mental disorder. Rather than report me to the principal and child welfare, the aging woman so many cherished embraced my weakness by taking this unknown passion to write and giving it to the heart that screamed to bring words to life.
She gave me the names of the characters from the books they studied and softly asked, “Will you please write me a story about these people? This is who they are, what they look like and how they’re accepted or not accepted by the other characters in the book. After you picture them, take your pencil and write…I want to hear how you as an author bring them into the world so others in this room can see what you feel.”
Not all teachers believed in the concept. I wasted twelve long years of a free trip toward something successful on being an invisible head strong wild child that had no clue how to get the energy out…so I soaked in
creative flow with no place to go. By the 5th and 6th grade Mr. Barone had me copying dictionary pages because it was the only way my imagination felt challenged enough to succeed in a world oversaturated by teachers with big bright red pens that said, “You suck.”
The only way to free myself was through music. How dare I think of writing! With writing comes harsh judgment from brothers and sisters, moms and dads and those you thought were your friends. I would never put a pencil on paper in public…so I’d race home to quickly fall asleep, believing if I controlled what I dreamt, it would be equal to an author giving life to a page that once belonged to a living tree. Music put me to sleep. Take it to the Limit and New Kid in Town from The Eagles were my drug. John Denver pressuring us to believe in a Rocky Mountain High painted pictures in ways Mrs. Keefe introduced.
I know! I want to be a radio Disc Jockey! I’ll sit beside the greats of music and help them bring their creative outpourings to the forefront of a listeners next thought. I’ll be Wolfman Jack and Casey Kasum mixed in with Kurt Anthony of KOOK. Why read books when radio people tell stories? Making it even more difficult to turn my back on broadcasting was a radio serial called Chicken Man and every night on KGHL they featured Radio Mystery Theater.
I had finally found my oasis.
Every radio show, every television and or radio commercial written and produced by me today carries the very vision Mrs. Keefe planted in my field of corn. None of it has calmed the roar my heart bakes into the footprints of always changing sands. It doesn’t matter how much air I pump into the tires holding up a thirty one year old radio career, it’ll never support the system meant to be displayed.
Secretly and silently I’ve written since the second grade; every word rushed to an impatient shadow…
People constantly ask why I speak so much about daily writing—because I’m not the only super soaker of thought becoming a rhyme or tale, nourishment for personal growth or an adventure through measures of mediums called blogs, Books on Demand and Kendle, Nook and IPad. You don’t need a publishing company to hang your gallery of pictures painted by an imagination you’ve carried all these years and the only thing you’ve ever offered it is a single thought, “You suck!”
The day has finally arrived; its time to give yourself permission to write.
I can’t explain in words what it feels like to hit Amazon.com and see two books written by these tattered and torn fingers that have spent an entire lifetime scraping away mountain sized walls that kept me from doing what I’ve always had the right to do…to write.
Why wouldn’t I want to take what Mrs. Keefe gave me and place it someplace special for you to steal it? Grab the pictures and race home! If you see it, feel it, taste it, hear it smell it…there are words in your heart waiting to describe it.
The greatest gift you can share is your imagination…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
I stole the pictures…saw them in a Weekly Reader Book Club order form magazine sitting on the teachers desk and couldn’t shake the vision or vibration from the normally extremely clean path and life my seven year old legs led.
Mrs. Keefe, my closest friends David Brown, Derek Mullins and Joe Kakowski nor I had a clue what would protrude from the vividly clear but hauntingly too abstract painting tossed at me like a water balloon; all I heard in my head was, “Go home and write…”
Write? I hated reading! On purposely I flunked tests so I wouldn’t have to make my way to thicker thoughts about Huck Finn, Romeo and Juliet and later in life Hamlet, 1984 and eleventh grade Current Events. My first comic book was slammed together by Gene Simmons of KISS but I never read it. Today it sits untouched in the very bag the store clerk put it in…
Talk about feeling out of place!
If you weren’t diving into Batman, Superman and The Archies and couldn’t find enough imagination in your skull to walk into Dr. Seuss’ theater of the mind—the only thing left was to write your own ten act play then quickly hide it in the third cardboard box to the right in the very dark and damp attic above your bed.
I’ll write it ten thousand times; Mrs. Keefe was the first to recognize my mental disorder. Rather than report me to the principal and child welfare, the aging woman so many cherished embraced my weakness by taking this unknown passion to write and giving it to the heart that screamed to bring words to life.
She gave me the names of the characters from the books they studied and softly asked, “Will you please write me a story about these people? This is who they are, what they look like and how they’re accepted or not accepted by the other characters in the book. After you picture them, take your pencil and write…I want to hear how you as an author bring them into the world so others in this room can see what you feel.”
Not all teachers believed in the concept. I wasted twelve long years of a free trip toward something successful on being an invisible head strong wild child that had no clue how to get the energy out…so I soaked in
creative flow with no place to go. By the 5th and 6th grade Mr. Barone had me copying dictionary pages because it was the only way my imagination felt challenged enough to succeed in a world oversaturated by teachers with big bright red pens that said, “You suck.”
The only way to free myself was through music. How dare I think of writing! With writing comes harsh judgment from brothers and sisters, moms and dads and those you thought were your friends. I would never put a pencil on paper in public…so I’d race home to quickly fall asleep, believing if I controlled what I dreamt, it would be equal to an author giving life to a page that once belonged to a living tree. Music put me to sleep. Take it to the Limit and New Kid in Town from The Eagles were my drug. John Denver pressuring us to believe in a Rocky Mountain High painted pictures in ways Mrs. Keefe introduced.
I know! I want to be a radio Disc Jockey! I’ll sit beside the greats of music and help them bring their creative outpourings to the forefront of a listeners next thought. I’ll be Wolfman Jack and Casey Kasum mixed in with Kurt Anthony of KOOK. Why read books when radio people tell stories? Making it even more difficult to turn my back on broadcasting was a radio serial called Chicken Man and every night on KGHL they featured Radio Mystery Theater.
I had finally found my oasis.
Every radio show, every television and or radio commercial written and produced by me today carries the very vision Mrs. Keefe planted in my field of corn. None of it has calmed the roar my heart bakes into the footprints of always changing sands. It doesn’t matter how much air I pump into the tires holding up a thirty one year old radio career, it’ll never support the system meant to be displayed.
Secretly and silently I’ve written since the second grade; every word rushed to an impatient shadow…
People constantly ask why I speak so much about daily writing—because I’m not the only super soaker of thought becoming a rhyme or tale, nourishment for personal growth or an adventure through measures of mediums called blogs, Books on Demand and Kendle, Nook and IPad. You don’t need a publishing company to hang your gallery of pictures painted by an imagination you’ve carried all these years and the only thing you’ve ever offered it is a single thought, “You suck!”
The day has finally arrived; its time to give yourself permission to write.
I can’t explain in words what it feels like to hit Amazon.com and see two books written by these tattered and torn fingers that have spent an entire lifetime scraping away mountain sized walls that kept me from doing what I’ve always had the right to do…to write.
Why wouldn’t I want to take what Mrs. Keefe gave me and place it someplace special for you to steal it? Grab the pictures and race home! If you see it, feel it, taste it, hear it smell it…there are words in your heart waiting to describe it.
The greatest gift you can share is your imagination…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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