"Milk and Honey" on Division has the best huevos rancheros in Chicago. JED, niece Maddy, niece Annie, daughter Jeanie.
Talking to a wall,
I try to figure out the
difference between
165th and 169th.
On one of these streets
there was a murder.
On the other,
nothing happened.
I try to figure out the
difference between
165th and 169th.
On one of these streets
there was a murder.
On the other,
nothing happened.
Better get it right
or the whole Region
will be looking for a
dead body where there
is none. And the dead
body?
It won’t have an
audience at all.
Think how many words
I’ve uttered on the
radio. Think how many
false claims, stupid
phrases, penetrating
questions. What do
they all amount to?
A hill of beans?
A molehill?
Six or half dozen
of the other?
Is there anything at all
genuine in the millions
of words that I have
spoken on these airwaves?
If the scientists are
correct, some of my
words escaped the
atmosphere. A civilization
we don’t know about
yet is listening to Charlie
tell me he wants a
doughnut, Anne berate me
for eating a doughnut,
and to the junior/senior
choir from Hammond
Morton sing “Silent Night.”
“This doesn’t make
any sense,” some overnight
tech from a faroff galaxy
might say. “Even with
the key to what the
words mean, I can’t make
heads or tails out of this.”
“It’s just radio,” his
co-worker might explain
“And there’s lots of it.
So quit trying to
figure it out and just
finish the transcript
before the boss comes."
“I guess. Maybe someone
on the day shift can
unscramble this nonsense
‘cuz it beats the Sam Hill
outta me.”
That’s how I feel about
radio in late December
on the coldest day
of winter. If there
wasn’t so much snow and
ice on the front lawn,
I'd run out there in my
skivvies and explain it
to everyone.
“It’s doesn’t have to
make sense, people.
It’s just radio.”
As the three or four of you may know if you listen to my morning show, I’m not there these days. Until recently, I worked through the holidays. It was a carryover from the Board of Trade. For most of the 18 years I traded there, I was not a top-step trader. I was a middle-of-the-pit trader.
During the holidays, most top-step traders would take off a week or two. This gave me the opportunity to temporarily move up to the top step. I could get bigger edges and trade larger size. It was trading during the holidays that contributed to me being able to eventually make it to the top step.
And, of course, once I made it to the top step, I didn’t come in to trade during the holidays. I let middle-of-the-pit traders do it.
With media, for the first decade or so, I worked through the holidays. When I owned the local free paper, we edited articles, I wrote my column, took pictures of the Christmas concert. Every one of us in one form or another contributed to delivering the paper to doorsteps.
There was so much to do that we really couldn’t stop during the holidays. And I carried this attitude through the holidays after I closed the paper and started to concentrate on radio. I took the holidays as a time to fix computers, build logs, rewire a studio, buy some equipment, review the books and, of course, to continue to do my radio show.
Of late, however, I don’t work between the holidays. I fix my garage door and rearrange the attic. I take my daughter to her doctor appointment in Chicago and I move the other daughter from one apartment to another. I binge watch Amazon Originals with my wife in bed, and I JEDgolf.
The one thing that I try not do during the holidays is go to WJOB. I didn't understand why until this year. Here’s why.
There’s a lot of competition for WJOB. Think about all of the local media that we’re up against.
There is, of course, The Times of Northwest Indiana. They’re the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Their paper paper and their online paper dominate the media around here.
Did I ever tell the three or four of you, by the way, how I eventually closed The Calumet Press? And how The Times had a hand in making that happen?
Leave it for another time. For now, know that there is plenty of local competition. For radio sports advertising dollars, there’s two local networks that do a pretty good job of covering high school sports – Regional Radio Sports and The Region Sports Network.
There’s also the Post-Tribune newspaper that sucks some audience and dollars from the Region. I don’t even know who owns them anymore, but it’s not local.
There’s Lakeshore Public Media, with its TV and radio station. And there’s the Adams group out of Valparaiso. The Adams radio stations used to be owned by Len Ellis. If that sounds familiar to any of you old-timers, yes that’s the same “Uncle Len” who got his start on WJOB.
I acknowledge the competitive landscape in local media. And I understand the reach of the Chicago media in all forms into the Calumet Region. They come down here for stories, and they come down here for dollars. And then they leave. We’re a third world country to Chicago media. They take what they need and move on.
There is also Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Instagram. And, in terms of audio, there’s Pandora, podcasting, Sirius radio and online radio stations.
All of these provide strong headwinds for local terrestrial radio. I get that. As real as this competition is, though, it’s not what keeps me up at night. It’s something else.
As I’ve told the three or four of you before, I have basically dedicated the second half of my working life to radio. More specifically, I have dedicated my life to resurrecting WJOB to make it into a strong and positive force in the Calumet Region. Now, I'm starting to understand that I need to do everything that I can to increase the odds that WJOB continues to be a strong and positive force, whether I'm here or not.
WJOB almost died once. It went into bankruptcy and was in danger of going away. Although I accept that I certainly can't control what happens once I'm not leading WJOB, I do want to do what I can to put WJOB in a position to give it the best chance of continuing for generations, in one form or another.
Today, I got a lot of texts about Comcast internet going on the fritz again and how our Wirecast needed to be upgraded and some other stuff. In years past, I would run down to the station to fix everything. That’s how it’s been since we bought the stations. I would either fix it myself or know who to call to meet me there.
But not this time. Instead of running to the stations, I ran around Wicker Park playing JEDgolf. It was great. There was little wind, just four inches of fresh powder and 0 degree temperature. The cold and solitude were part of the beauty. Of course, during this Ralph Waldo Emerson moment, I got several calls and texts. Finally, I answered one of the calls.
“We got a problem.”
I stood in the fairway of the third hole in four inchese of snow and digested the problems.
“So do you think can come down here, Jim, and figure things out?”
I thought about this a second. I was staring down a beautiful sunset over trees with no leaves. I could hear the comforting rhythm of the Borman Expressway and US 41. I could even see the guiding red lights of the WJOB tower 400 feet above it all.
“Nah. See what you can do.” And I hung up.
Now this is not the most professional way to handle it. Due to a variety of technical issues, we could only play spots and music during rush hour. There wasn’t a live person giving the weather and traffic and answering phone calls, which is what we have done for the past 94 years.
But as mentioned, at some point, it's time for others to step forward. I finished my round of JEDgolf and ate dinner with the wife and daughters. The guys at the station called me for the credit card number, but that was it. I’m as curious as the three or four of you to see if we’ll be on the air in the morning. Yes or no, however, WJOB will be stronger for it.
or the whole Region
will be looking for a
dead body where there
is none. And the dead
body?
It won’t have an
audience at all.
Think how many words
I’ve uttered on the
radio. Think how many
false claims, stupid
phrases, penetrating
questions. What do
they all amount to?
A hill of beans?
A molehill?
Six or half dozen
of the other?
Is there anything at all
genuine in the millions
of words that I have
spoken on these airwaves?
If the scientists are
correct, some of my
words escaped the
atmosphere. A civilization
we don’t know about
yet is listening to Charlie
tell me he wants a
doughnut, Anne berate me
for eating a doughnut,
and to the junior/senior
choir from Hammond
Morton sing “Silent Night.”
“This doesn’t make
any sense,” some overnight
tech from a faroff galaxy
might say. “Even with
the key to what the
words mean, I can’t make
heads or tails out of this.”
“It’s just radio,” his
co-worker might explain
“And there’s lots of it.
So quit trying to
figure it out and just
finish the transcript
before the boss comes."
“I guess. Maybe someone
on the day shift can
unscramble this nonsense
‘cuz it beats the Sam Hill
outta me.”
That’s how I feel about
radio in late December
on the coldest day
of winter. If there
wasn’t so much snow and
ice on the front lawn,
I'd run out there in my
skivvies and explain it
to everyone.
“It’s doesn’t have to
make sense, people.
It’s just radio.”
As the three or four of you may know if you listen to my morning show, I’m not there these days. Until recently, I worked through the holidays. It was a carryover from the Board of Trade. For most of the 18 years I traded there, I was not a top-step trader. I was a middle-of-the-pit trader.
During the holidays, most top-step traders would take off a week or two. This gave me the opportunity to temporarily move up to the top step. I could get bigger edges and trade larger size. It was trading during the holidays that contributed to me being able to eventually make it to the top step.
And, of course, once I made it to the top step, I didn’t come in to trade during the holidays. I let middle-of-the-pit traders do it.
With media, for the first decade or so, I worked through the holidays. When I owned the local free paper, we edited articles, I wrote my column, took pictures of the Christmas concert. Every one of us in one form or another contributed to delivering the paper to doorsteps.
There was so much to do that we really couldn’t stop during the holidays. And I carried this attitude through the holidays after I closed the paper and started to concentrate on radio. I took the holidays as a time to fix computers, build logs, rewire a studio, buy some equipment, review the books and, of course, to continue to do my radio show.
Of late, however, I don’t work between the holidays. I fix my garage door and rearrange the attic. I take my daughter to her doctor appointment in Chicago and I move the other daughter from one apartment to another. I binge watch Amazon Originals with my wife in bed, and I JEDgolf.
The one thing that I try not do during the holidays is go to WJOB. I didn't understand why until this year. Here’s why.
There’s a lot of competition for WJOB. Think about all of the local media that we’re up against.
There is, of course, The Times of Northwest Indiana. They’re the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Their paper paper and their online paper dominate the media around here.
Did I ever tell the three or four of you, by the way, how I eventually closed The Calumet Press? And how The Times had a hand in making that happen?
Leave it for another time. For now, know that there is plenty of local competition. For radio sports advertising dollars, there’s two local networks that do a pretty good job of covering high school sports – Regional Radio Sports and The Region Sports Network.
There’s also the Post-Tribune newspaper that sucks some audience and dollars from the Region. I don’t even know who owns them anymore, but it’s not local.
There’s Lakeshore Public Media, with its TV and radio station. And there’s the Adams group out of Valparaiso. The Adams radio stations used to be owned by Len Ellis. If that sounds familiar to any of you old-timers, yes that’s the same “Uncle Len” who got his start on WJOB.
I acknowledge the competitive landscape in local media. And I understand the reach of the Chicago media in all forms into the Calumet Region. They come down here for stories, and they come down here for dollars. And then they leave. We’re a third world country to Chicago media. They take what they need and move on.
There is also Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Instagram. And, in terms of audio, there’s Pandora, podcasting, Sirius radio and online radio stations.
All of these provide strong headwinds for local terrestrial radio. I get that. As real as this competition is, though, it’s not what keeps me up at night. It’s something else.
As I’ve told the three or four of you before, I have basically dedicated the second half of my working life to radio. More specifically, I have dedicated my life to resurrecting WJOB to make it into a strong and positive force in the Calumet Region. Now, I'm starting to understand that I need to do everything that I can to increase the odds that WJOB continues to be a strong and positive force, whether I'm here or not.
WJOB almost died once. It went into bankruptcy and was in danger of going away. Although I accept that I certainly can't control what happens once I'm not leading WJOB, I do want to do what I can to put WJOB in a position to give it the best chance of continuing for generations, in one form or another.
Today, I got a lot of texts about Comcast internet going on the fritz again and how our Wirecast needed to be upgraded and some other stuff. In years past, I would run down to the station to fix everything. That’s how it’s been since we bought the stations. I would either fix it myself or know who to call to meet me there.
But not this time. Instead of running to the stations, I ran around Wicker Park playing JEDgolf. It was great. There was little wind, just four inches of fresh powder and 0 degree temperature. The cold and solitude were part of the beauty. Of course, during this Ralph Waldo Emerson moment, I got several calls and texts. Finally, I answered one of the calls.
“We got a problem.”
I stood in the fairway of the third hole in four inchese of snow and digested the problems.
“So do you think can come down here, Jim, and figure things out?”
I thought about this a second. I was staring down a beautiful sunset over trees with no leaves. I could hear the comforting rhythm of the Borman Expressway and US 41. I could even see the guiding red lights of the WJOB tower 400 feet above it all.
“Nah. See what you can do.” And I hung up.
Now this is not the most professional way to handle it. Due to a variety of technical issues, we could only play spots and music during rush hour. There wasn’t a live person giving the weather and traffic and answering phone calls, which is what we have done for the past 94 years.
But as mentioned, at some point, it's time for others to step forward. I finished my round of JEDgolf and ate dinner with the wife and daughters. The guys at the station called me for the credit card number, but that was it. I’m as curious as the three or four of you to see if we’ll be on the air in the morning. Yes or no, however, WJOB will be stronger for it.
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