There are two things that I haven't felt like doing since March 17, 2020, which for me was the start of the pandemic - take pictures and write this blog.
It's not that I don't want to remember how it all went down and what it looked like. It's something else and I can't figure it out. For now, let's just try to figure out one day of radio.
It's not that I don't want to remember how it all went down and what it looked like. It's something else and I can't figure it out. For now, let's just try to figure out one day of radio.
I couldn't sleep last night. I laid in bed for hours waiting for dreams. They finally came, but when 4:22 rolled around, I couldn't hop out of bed like I usually do. I read the text newsletter that Paul Goddard of Region News Source texts me every morning. (Okay, not every morning. I only do the show four mornings a week now.) I finally pulled myself out of the warmth, took a shower and walked to car.
"Crap. Garbage day."
That took a good ten minutes, pushing me further behind schedule. By the time I turned on the last light and adjusted the last camera, it was 5:58am and I had to live on the air without a moment to dance. I like to dance for a couple songs before going live. Now it's on TV so it looks either really cool or stupid. You decide.
It's Tuesday, so Verlie comes in. She brings me a large coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I start salivating at 5am Tuesdays. We didn't waste much time getting into a story about the city of Hammond raising water rates on surrounding communities. It's not a sexy topic per se, but if you saw Hammond mayor McDermott's animated speech to a city council, they you might want to hear more. In the end, towns and cities around here fight like hell with each other. But deep down we're good people.
Another topic was the Lake County cop caught wearing black face in a photo from a few years ago. It wasn't much fun trying to boil the story down to a few sad facts. Verlie was seething, rightfully so.
After the show, I talked with Mont Handley, the entrepreneur in residence at PNW, about all sorts of projects that could lead to innovation and the establishment of a venture capital culture in northwest Indian. I did another show at noon while training new producer Andrew Garcia. A bunch of people called. It's a different vibe at noon versus the morning. When I start talking at 6am, I better be on. My motto for the noon show is "no rules." It releases me from having to prepare stuff and allows me to retreat to my natural state, which is laziness.
I forgot a couple of shows in there. At 8am, VJ Damasius of Vyto's Pharmacy talked about the three types of Covid tests and about the efficacy of the different vaccines. With many more people wanting a vaccine than there are vaccines, vaccination talk draws calls and questions.
At 8:30, Damian Rico and Sarah Ticich of Hospice came on. Since, as of yesterday, 500,000 people had died of Covid, there are a lot more grief-filled people walking around than there used to be. Covid sometimes means that your relative gets a little cough, then a fever, then extreme body aches and trouble breathing. You usher him or her into the car and to the emergency room. People in blue suits come out to the car. They put the love of your life in a wheelchair. They motion for you to get the hell out of there. For many, that glance at the back of a wheelchair is the last time they see their loved one alive. To top it off, you really can't have a funeral.
Damien Rico's recently died. Damien talked about being part of one of the grief groups at Hospice led by Sarah. At the end of the show, I asked Damian about his dad - Viet Nam vet, snappy dresser, an amazing grandfather. Damien held it together for the most part but from my vantage point in the front row, you could see his eyes tear up. You would never think that a pharmacy show and a show about the dying process could garner so much interest. But then again you never lived through a pandemic before.
That should be it. I'm teaching myself how to design quality emails. Like pharmacy and death, email design doesn't sound like the most tantalizing of topics. But work habits have changed. No one shakes hands at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and picks up a few leads. It's all digital. And I've been lax in addressing our marketing, digital or otherwise. Nothing like an email in your inbox from someone who called a couple weeks ago for an advertising proposal... and they're still waiting. This is bad business. I know, and I'm working on it while listening to the Grateful Dead from 1976. Slipknot/Franklin's Tower. The video is in black and white or really faded color. Remember when a lot of TV was still in black and white? Of course you don't. You weren't even born when I graduated high school.
I don't have any guests scheduled until 8am tomorrow. That gives me two hours to screw around. Maybe I'll sing ishka maloofka and whiz during a tirade. Whizzzzz you hear on the radio. Cindy or Gigi called today and said she hates when I talk ishka maloofka and when I go to the bathroom during a segment. I'm guessing you can hear the hollowness of the urinal. Oh well. I broadcast from the moon. I am alone in space. There is no one else in the building and, it seems, on the radio planet. It's just me. I don't have anyone to turn the show over to when I gotta pee. So EXCUSE ME, as Ralph Kramden would say.
You don't know who Ralph Kramden is, do you? In the old days we would say that he was a fat bus driver who liked to shoot his mouth. Nowadays, he's a man (no reference to body stature) who likes to exert his first amendment right. It's time that I go to bed and you watch Jimmy Kimmel and on the other side of another Jerry Garcia guitar solo I go to sleep. If not, there's always Yahtzee.
You don't know what Yahtzee is, do you?
"Crap. Garbage day."
That took a good ten minutes, pushing me further behind schedule. By the time I turned on the last light and adjusted the last camera, it was 5:58am and I had to live on the air without a moment to dance. I like to dance for a couple songs before going live. Now it's on TV so it looks either really cool or stupid. You decide.
It's Tuesday, so Verlie comes in. She brings me a large coffee from Dunkin Donuts. I start salivating at 5am Tuesdays. We didn't waste much time getting into a story about the city of Hammond raising water rates on surrounding communities. It's not a sexy topic per se, but if you saw Hammond mayor McDermott's animated speech to a city council, they you might want to hear more. In the end, towns and cities around here fight like hell with each other. But deep down we're good people.
Another topic was the Lake County cop caught wearing black face in a photo from a few years ago. It wasn't much fun trying to boil the story down to a few sad facts. Verlie was seething, rightfully so.
After the show, I talked with Mont Handley, the entrepreneur in residence at PNW, about all sorts of projects that could lead to innovation and the establishment of a venture capital culture in northwest Indian. I did another show at noon while training new producer Andrew Garcia. A bunch of people called. It's a different vibe at noon versus the morning. When I start talking at 6am, I better be on. My motto for the noon show is "no rules." It releases me from having to prepare stuff and allows me to retreat to my natural state, which is laziness.
I forgot a couple of shows in there. At 8am, VJ Damasius of Vyto's Pharmacy talked about the three types of Covid tests and about the efficacy of the different vaccines. With many more people wanting a vaccine than there are vaccines, vaccination talk draws calls and questions.
At 8:30, Damian Rico and Sarah Ticich of Hospice came on. Since, as of yesterday, 500,000 people had died of Covid, there are a lot more grief-filled people walking around than there used to be. Covid sometimes means that your relative gets a little cough, then a fever, then extreme body aches and trouble breathing. You usher him or her into the car and to the emergency room. People in blue suits come out to the car. They put the love of your life in a wheelchair. They motion for you to get the hell out of there. For many, that glance at the back of a wheelchair is the last time they see their loved one alive. To top it off, you really can't have a funeral.
Damien Rico's recently died. Damien talked about being part of one of the grief groups at Hospice led by Sarah. At the end of the show, I asked Damian about his dad - Viet Nam vet, snappy dresser, an amazing grandfather. Damien held it together for the most part but from my vantage point in the front row, you could see his eyes tear up. You would never think that a pharmacy show and a show about the dying process could garner so much interest. But then again you never lived through a pandemic before.
That should be it. I'm teaching myself how to design quality emails. Like pharmacy and death, email design doesn't sound like the most tantalizing of topics. But work habits have changed. No one shakes hands at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and picks up a few leads. It's all digital. And I've been lax in addressing our marketing, digital or otherwise. Nothing like an email in your inbox from someone who called a couple weeks ago for an advertising proposal... and they're still waiting. This is bad business. I know, and I'm working on it while listening to the Grateful Dead from 1976. Slipknot/Franklin's Tower. The video is in black and white or really faded color. Remember when a lot of TV was still in black and white? Of course you don't. You weren't even born when I graduated high school.
I don't have any guests scheduled until 8am tomorrow. That gives me two hours to screw around. Maybe I'll sing ishka maloofka and whiz during a tirade. Whizzzzz you hear on the radio. Cindy or Gigi called today and said she hates when I talk ishka maloofka and when I go to the bathroom during a segment. I'm guessing you can hear the hollowness of the urinal. Oh well. I broadcast from the moon. I am alone in space. There is no one else in the building and, it seems, on the radio planet. It's just me. I don't have anyone to turn the show over to when I gotta pee. So EXCUSE ME, as Ralph Kramden would say.
You don't know who Ralph Kramden is, do you? In the old days we would say that he was a fat bus driver who liked to shoot his mouth. Nowadays, he's a man (no reference to body stature) who likes to exert his first amendment right. It's time that I go to bed and you watch Jimmy Kimmel and on the other side of another Jerry Garcia guitar solo I go to sleep. If not, there's always Yahtzee.
You don't know what Yahtzee is, do you?
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