It’s hard to believe I started this blog when I was still working in radio. It’s been over 15 years since I was doing my thing as “J.P. Marks” on the radio waves on the Mohawk Valley in Central New York. Despite the decade and a half of time passing by, I still have a “radio dream” a couple of times a year. Last night was one of those nights.
My radio dreams usually manifest themselves as a frustration dream, and to the best of my knowledge this type of dream was common amongst DJs. The scenario always heads toward the same place. I’m my present age but I’m back on the radio. I’m trying to keep the music playing, answering the phones, and making sure commercials and jingles are lined up as required by the “clock” (schedule) dictated for the station. In these dreams I always end up with panic moments: I can’t read the catalog numbers on the carts, music is ending way before it’s suppose to and bringing about the dreaded “dead air”, or the phone is ringing loudly when I’m trying to talk on the mic. Sometimes I can’t read the spot log, or I knock down the hour’s worth of carts I would always stack to the right of the console (I was pretty anal about being prepared back when I was really on the radio). I’m trying to enjoy being back on the radio but I just can’t get it together.
These types of dreams are usually a symbol of something else going on in my life. I don’t miss my days on the radio. I loved being on the radio back in the day but I don’t really miss it. Once in a while I’ll listen to local radio when we’re traveling just to hear what other stations are doing these days. I know all of the segues are being controlled by computer now and there’s a really good chance the DJ isn’t even live or local. Voice tracks are timed to always sound flawless. I don’t find a lot of fun in that, but hey, that’s where we are today.
The song that kept having problems in my dream last night was “Sleeping Satellite” by Tasmin Archer. A great track, and in my dream I even remembered that it was cart #133 (Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is A Highway” was #144 at the station I worked at), but I couldn’t hear the entire song in my dream last night. So here the song as found on YouTube.
