February, 1998:
I returned for the first time in several years as a guest speaker at the Country Radio Seminar (CRS).
This was the first CRS in many years not to be held at the Opryland Hotel; instead, it was held in downtown Nashville.
I thought this was a good idea, because despite the importance of this event not only to radio but to country music in general, the hotel had always treated attendees not as valued customers but rather as needless inconveniences to their employees.
Unfortunately, I picked up another flu bug somewhere. Aside from conducting my seminar, I spent the entire time in my hotel room, feeling lousy.
The CRS had arranged for me to present How to Critique Radio Air Talent.
As usual, I arrived at the meeting room an hour early. This was not due to any extraordinary dedication on my part; it was due to the fact that convention center audio-visual people tend to be highly individualistic free-thinkers who believe it to be beneath their dignity to be guided by the expressed wishes of their customers.
Those who have worked with me know that I provide modest yet very specific A/V requirements far in advance.
I do this to maximize the likelihood that the A/V people will have set up the equipment I need in the configuration that I need it before I arrive to check it out.
By “maximize the likelihood,” I mean increasing it from 0% to 2.5%.
Sure enough, the meeting room contained the correct equipment, but it was set up on one side of the room…which makes it impossible for me to operate as I stand in the center of the stage. So I had the hotel page the A/V guy assigned to my room and explained that I needed a lectern center-stage, with the audio player and mixer to my immediate right.
No problem, he said.
I went off in search of a couple of muffins for a quick breakfast, and when I returned he had centered a lectern and placed the equipment near it…to my immediate LEFT.
“The equipment is supposed to be to the RIGHT of the lectern,” I told him.
That probably sounds like an insignificant detail. Dan went into a snit because he had to reach six inches to his LEFT rather than to his RIGHT?? What a prima donna!
Ever since I started conducting seminars, I have had the equipment to my right.
That is because one day when I was 12 years old and milling among my fellow 7th Graders enclosed in the cement compound where we passed the time between Lunch and our next class, my oldest friend in the world (who presumably is reading this now and is feeling terribly, terribly — and deservedly — guilty) said to a huge, over-glandularized fellow 7th Grader, “Boy, it sure would be funny if you snuck up behind Danny and pulled his arms behind his back!”
So this unthinking 12-year old goon (I’ll call him Bob, because that was his name) came up behind me, grabbed me at the elbows and pulled my arms behind my back.
The following week, while on a truly awful vacation with my family in the Florida Keys, a trip to an emergency clinic (prompted by ceaseless pain) revealed one result of Bob’s clever prank: my left arm was broken.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I discovered another residual benefit of Bob’s surprise attack.
Actually, it took me far longer than that to figure out the connection…and even longer to diagnose the effect. But since the age of 16, I had wandered the world with what I obliquely referred to as a “trick shoulder.”
The trick was that every once in a while, totally without warning, my left shoulder would become dislodged from its socket, causing me immense pain and rendering me immobile, my body twisted and distorted.
The only way to get back to normal was to awkwardly massage my upper arm, trying (without really knowing what I was doing) to nudge the shoulder back into place.
Sometimes it took only a few minutes to return to normal; sometimes it took 30-40 minutes. Afterward, my arm would be a bit sore and for several days especially vulnerable to redislocations.
For the first decade or so, my shoulder occasionally “went out” as the result of some sudden movement of my left arm — for instance, that time in the Bahamas when I jerked on the rope to start the motor of my little boat.
Gradually, however, I learned that even very small movements could trigger a dislocation — reaching for a light switch, untying my shoes. Which is why over the years I trained myself not to reach for anything with my left hand.
But over the years the shoulder had deteriorated to the point where it would go out for no apparent reason.
Once it happened to me — for no apparent reason — while I was driving. With no other cars near mine, I managed to make it to the side of the road.
The absolute worst example of this was the time it popped out while I was asleep in bed; I awakened in extreme pain, twisted and unable to move.
A few years earlier I had related this recurring problem to a physician next to whom I was seated on (what else) an airplane, and I was told I had a “torn rotator cuff.” You know, like baseball pitchers get.
At least that sounds more impressive than “trick shoulder.”
All of which is why I automatically require the A/V equipment to be to my right, so that I can reach for the controls with my right hand and not tempt my left shoulder.
“The equipment is supposed to be to the right of the lectern,” I told the A/V guy.
“Yeah, well, I know. But it’s easier for me to leave it here,” he replied, hoping I would be reasonable.
Attendees were filing in. I still had to test the equipment. And I was sick. The heck with it; I’ll let the matter drop this time.
Happily, we had a standing-room only audience. In fact, later I was told that during the entire session, some people who couldn’t get in stood just outside the room and listened.
Even when I’m sick, once I begin a seminar adrenalin takes over and I enjoy myself…including this time.
Perhaps ten minutes into the session, I smoothly intro’d the next audio piece, simultaneously reaching to my left to hit the “PLAY” button on the audio player…and my shoulder popped out.
In the back of my mind, I had always wondered what would happen if this ever occurred while I was onstage. Now I knew:
I screamed in pain.
Bent downward and my body twisted to the left, I still held the microphone in my right hand…which was the only part of my body I could move at that time.
I brought to mic to the general vicinity of my mouth and said, “What has just happened is something that I have always been afraid would happen during one of my seminars, and now it has happened for the very first time. I have a ‘trick shoulder,’ and it has just popped out of its socket.”
The audience was confused. Was this a joke? What was going on?
“This really is happening, and I know I probably look like I’m in incredible pain right now…which I am. My only hope is to take a couple of minutes and try to manipulate my shoulder back into the socket. So if you’ll bear with me, let’s take a break for just a few minutes. And the best way for you to help me is try to ignore me while I work on the shoulder.”
The CRS attendees did their best not to stare at me as I frantically tried to coax the shoulder back into place. After trying for 3 or 4 minutes, I realized it might take another half-hour before I succeeded — and my session was only 90 minutes long.
Concerned, the CRS staffer who had introduced my seminar asked, “Should we cancel the session?”
THAT was not an option. For all of the abuse they take in this industry, one thing that good disc jockeys learn early is that you don’t miss an air shift. And I’m an old disc jockey.
Okay, so I was in pain. I was familiar with the material I was to present. All of my audio examples had been dubbed, in order, onto a single file, which already was in the player, cued.
Yes, I must have appeared unsettlingly like Quasimodo, and it probably wouldn’t be a lot of fun….But simply cancelling the session would, I figured, be much more painful for me.
So we got everyone back in their seats, and I explained to the group that rather than waste more of their time trying to fix my shoulder, we were going to continue the seminar.
Thirty seconds later — without any direct encouragement from me — my shoulder popped back into the socket.
Well, at least it made for a memorable session.
