DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

Illustration © 2009 by Bobby Ocean

Gary Burbank told me this story years ago.

I’m still not sure if it really happened or if he made it up.

Or simply hallucinated.

Here he is again, telling that same story on TV.

September 1995 (continued):

That evening I flew to from Nuremberg to Berlin, where the next day I enjoyed a return visit with Rik de Lisle, Ulrich Gathmann, Ralf Molfil and the air staff of r.s.2

After the seminar, I flew back to Hamburg, where a disc jockey from Delta Radio picked me up. He had been assigned the task of driving me to the station’s home of Kiel, roughly 100 kilometers away.

It was raining pretty heavily during the drive, and the DJ was in a hurry to get back. As the car reached 200 kilometers per hour he asked if it was too fast for me.

“Not as long as it’s safe,” I replied.

“Oh, it’s very safe,” he assured me. “This car is equipped with two air bags.”

That wasn’t exactly what I meant by safe. But he did get me to the small, charming hotel where I had just enough time to sleep before working with Adam Hahne and his crew in the morning.

Now, I am quite used to the phenomenon of radio people who are so caught up in the business that they can stay up all night talking about it. Or those who spend all of their vacation time listening to other stations. And radio programmers & jocks certainly are used to very long workdays.

But this was a first: We worked from 9 o’clock in the morning until 6:00 in the evening….without a lunch break. I hadn’t had time that morning to eat breakfast, and as soon as we finished I was driven in a mad rush (we barely made it) back to the airport in Hamburg.

Which meant I worked — i.e., stood & talked — for nine hours without any food to sustain me. (I’ll now pause for one minute while everyone reading this marvels at my ability to survive such an ordeal.)

Arriving at Frankfurt Airport, I took a taxi to a nearby hotel to spend the night before flying home the following morning. As the taxi driver put my bags in the trunk, I said, “Queens Hotel.”

He looked up at me, shook his head and said, “Shuttle bus.”

I took this to mean he was suggesting I wait for a shuttle that would pass by the hotel. I had no desire to wait; my desire was to sleep.

“No, danke. I prefer a taxi.”

“Shuttle bus,” he insisted.

“I don’t want the shuttle bus. Shall I take another taxicab?”

Clearly he wasn’t allowed to refuse a fare. And apparently he thought my fare wouldn’t be worth his while. Scowling, he slammed the trunk shut and we drove away

The fare was 25DM. I gave him 28DM. He returned three to me.

“No,” I explained, “that’s for you.”

Still scowling, he climb back into the taxi and drove away.

LEAP OF FAITH RADIO PRODUCTION with Bobby Ocean

Q: “WHAT IS a REAL jock?”

A: “It takes one to know one.” — actual dialog from days of yore

(You can always tell if dialog’s authentic by the quotation marks.)

Translation: You can’t ‘get it’ — what a real jock is — from any other instruction than actually being one. When radio folk say, “It Takes One To Know One,” their semantics may vary to include the unasked question assumed, “so — how good are you?” It’s another way we subtly play the old “One-Up” Game, when we’re not Name Dropping.

Let’s play. I’ll go first to give you the template. (Then you go, and I’ll steal it from you.)

I say: “It takes one to know one, and I think…Real jocks are the ones who play the song all the way through.”

OK, now it’s your turn. You ask me, “What’s a real jock?” And I’ll come back with something like, “As you know; takes one to know one, so I can say… Real jocks are women.”

And on we play through the night…

Real jocks are men.

Real jocks are of all genders and generally curious.

Real jocks are confident enough they can hit the post every time, that they don’t.

Real jocks are no strangers to having things stolen from them, but invariably they’re
the kind of people who would probably have given it away, anyway.

Real jocks are an asset.

Real jocks are an investment.

Real jocks are the “Show” part of show business.

Real jocks are the part of Show Business that SHOWS.

Real jocks are able to find the sizzle in road kill.

Real jocks are professional enough not to kill those referring to them as “content.”

Real jocks are worth something to a radio station once when counted as a “cutback,” but
are valuable in many ways every day as a member of the team.

Real jocks are like a programmer’s Swiss army knife to intelligent management.

Real jock would always make money before cutting back to save it.

Real jocks are confusing to management that doesn’t understand.

Real jocks are capable of making shareholders very happy.

Real jocks are not afraid of Light Rock.

Real jocks invented many, if not every, tease you have seen on any TV football game.

Real jocks are used to having their listeners get it when their boss doesn’t.

Real jocks aren’t considered real by fellow jocks until they have been fired at least once.

Real jocks are artists.

Real jocks are almost universally against dead air.

Real jocks are not stupid, for the most part; usually the reverse.

Real jocks are flexible.

Real jocks are capable of faking sincerity.

Real jocks usually have great excuses.

Real jocks often appear preoccupied.

Real jocks have “headphone hair,” and their own workarounds for it.

Real jocks are like police officers in only one respect — love of pastries.

Real jocks are able to hold a fistful of paper near a live mic very quietly.

Real jocks are unaware overall that their boss has an ego at least ten times their own.

Real jocks are not afraid to “borrow” courage on the wager of fame.

Real jocks are prepared.

Real jocks are crazy, as when one tries to define another in love. Real jocks have found  something that means more to them than anything they had experienced previously. So, they’re willing to let go of nearly all their past for it. But, like so many religious experiences, only at first.

Still…