This is so completely unimportant but so is this blog & all the radio shows I do. Like you, I am worried about pandemic & I can't be sure what the future holds but let me, for a moment, pretend everything is normal, & talk about the dumb radio shows I do.
Radio shows. Do you know, a year ago, the idea of having more than one show on more than one station was unthinkable? I did a program called the Tuesday Morning Blend on KNON, & the station manager would have "fired" me - they used that term, although of course I didn't get paid for deejaying - if I had done another show at a different noncommercial station. "They are our competition," he would say, even if it were a low-power station in Denton whose signal never reached Dallas County limits.
Which isn't to say that I had a chance to do a show on such a station. While I was in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, there were three low-power fm stations at which I might have done a show. One of them only played "local" music, which was a restriction that would've made it impossible for me to do Self Help Radio, & the other two never wrote me back. The latter two seemed to be content to have a few live deejays & the rest of the time play random music from iTunes or whatever.
Ack! I didn't mean this to be a complaint or a whine. I just wanted to point out that the idea of me doing three radio shows on three different stations - with no complaints by the stations! - the Program Manager at KBOO said, "Hey, we're all in this together" - that is still a bit mind-blowing for me.
Even moreso is the fact that I am doing a show on KBOO. Of the three stations at which I'm involved, KBOO is the most storied, & probably the most respected. Certainly it's the most recognized, which might not mean anything, but when I say I do a show on KBOO, people know what I'm talking about.
In any event, even before the pandemic ratcheted up this week, I was feeling very exhausted doing Sugar Substitute on XRAY so soon after Self Help Radio on Freeform. When I did the show from 6-8am, there were eighteen hours between the end of one show & the beginning of another. That changed when the show was moved to 8-10am. I was getting very little sleep & then rushing off to do another show. & I felt the last few Sugar Substitutes were suffering from my inability to prepare well for them.
Something has happened, though, & it's not just the coronavirus. In April, I am going to be doing the Dickenbock Report - which now airs Thursday mornings from 3-5:30am - on Tuesday mornings from midnight to 3am. In addition to getting an extra half-hour - gulp! - I will be much earlier, when many more people might be listening. (To be fair, I have listeners now - this morning I got three calls, more in one setting than I've ever gotten on my XRAY show.)
But Gary! In April, you will have only fourteen hours between Self Help Radio & the Dickenbock Report! Won't you be tired then too?
Yes. But the Dickenbock Report will happen every other week. & giving up my XRAY slot frees me to work more on the other two shows. I honestly can't believe I'm saying this. But I think it might be better to do just two shows instead of three.
Holy shit, the me in Dallas is like, What the fuck? Do you know what you're giving up?
Yeah, I do. I wrote the Program Manager at XRAY today, after I got an email from the Operations Manager saying that if deejays can prerecord their shows, they should do so. I don't want to prerecord Sugar Substitute. I hope I can resurrect it at a different time in the future. It was the one place I could play new music, which I love to do. (Maybe I can do it on Freeform during sub shifts now?)
Wow this is a lot of writing. It's my way of saying goodbye to Sugar Substitute for now. & to prepare for the Dickenbock Report on Monday nights/Tuesday mornings in April.
Now if you don't mind I need to drink a little to insure I have a decent amount of nightmares about COVID-19 tonight.
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