Old School Radio DJ's, From Dave M.

OK, this is definitely “inside baseball”, but some of the blog readers might enjoy this. This was sent to me by a good friend who had a long and very successful career in radio -


---DM ---



You can tell you’re an Aging Disc Jockey if...

You still refer to CDs as "records."

Radio stations were no place for kids.

You even REMEMBER "Name That Tune."

Sales guys wore Old Spice to cover the smell of liquor.

Sixty percent of your wardrobe has a station logo on it.

You answer your home phone with the station call letters.

Your family thought you successful, but you knew better.

You used to smoke in the control room and nobody cared.

You played practical jokes on the air without fear of lawsuits.

You've been married at least 3 times, or, never married at all.

Agents were people like James Bond and the “Man From Uncle.”

You were playing Elvis' number one hits when he was still alive.

You remember when people actually thought radio was important.

People who ride in your car exclaim, "Why is your radio so loud?"

Dinner? Let's see what the last shift left for me in the refrigerator.

You remember how upset people used to get about Richard Nixon.

You knew exactly where to put the tone on the end of a carted song.

You're at least 10 years older than the last two GM's who fired you.

You know people who actually listened to baseball games on the radio.

Somebody would say, "You have a face for radio", and it was still funny.

You only did "make-goods" if the client complained. Otherwise, who cared?

You worked for only ONE station, and you could name the guy who owned it.

You knew at least 3 people in sales that took credit for you keeping your job.

You've always told your listeners "Yeah! I'll get that one for you right away."

You never thought twice about drinking from the same bottle with another DJ.

You were first hired by a GM who actually worked in radio before becoming GM.

You can name at least 2 receptionists that you nailed who now have grandchildren.

Engineers could actually fix things without sending them back to the manufacturer.

You know the difference between good reel-to-reel tape and cheap reel-to-reel tape.

You remember when normal people listened to AM radio, and only "hippies" to FM.

Radio stations used to have enough on-air talent to field a softball team every summer.

You had listeners who only tuned in for the news, and not you. You could never figure that out.

You still have dreams of a song running out and not being able to find the control room door.

You got off while turning the radio up at the sound of "dead air" on the competitor's station.

You could post a record, run down the hall, go to the bathroom, and be back in 2:50 for the segue.

You still have a couple of old transistor radios around the house with corroded batteries inside them.

You wish you could have been on "Name That Tune" because you would have won a million bucks.

You've run a phone contest and nobody called, so you made up a name and gave the tickets to your cousin.

You always had a small screwdriver in the studio so you could take a fouled-up cart apart at a moment's notice.

You have a white wax pencil, a razor blade, and a spool of 3M splicing tape in your desk drawer - - just in case.

You can remember the name of the very first "girl" that was hired in your market as a DJ. (Margaret? Leilani? )

You were a half an hour late for an appearance and blamed it on the directions you received from the sales person.

You knew how to change the ribbon on the teletype machine, but you hated to do it because - "...that's the news guy's job."

Engineers always had the worst body odor, not because they worked too hard, but because they just didn't shower that often.

You used to fight with the news guy over airtime. After all, what was more important: your joke about your ex- wife, or that tornado warning?

The new guy you're training has never listened to an AM station. He couldn't even name one in his own home town if his life depended on it.

You spent most of the time on Friday nights giving out the high school football scores. And when they weren't phoned-in, you got really pissed off.

You have at least 19 pictures of you with famous people whom you haven't seen since, and who wouldn't know you today if you bit 'em on the ass.

Religious radio stations were locally owned, run by an old Protestant minister and his wife, never had more than 20 listeners at any given time, and still made money.

You have several old air-check cassettes in a cardboard box in your closet that you wouldn't dream of letting anyone hear anymore, but, you'll never throw them out or tape over them. Never!

You would spend hours splicing and editing a parody tape until it was "just right", but didn't give a damn how bad that commercial was you recorded. Hey, I can only work with what they give me, right?