A wheeless Wagon Wheel.
There was an old, familiar name in my e-mail box. "Greetings from beautiful downtown C-ville. As WBHF is preparing for its 60th birthday on Monday, July 17th. I would like to invite you to come up to help us celebrate." That was the radio station I worked at about six years ago, the place I thought was a lowly starting point that has instead proven to be a high-water mark.
I had some reservations about going up there. For one thing I was pretty sure I had been placed on a Shit List prior to leaving, considering they banned me from speaking on air my last month, plus witheld my last paycheck until I paid them $5 for a door key that went with an alarm system they were no longer using. Maybe the guy sending out this e-mail, who I had trained to run the board and who had co-hosted with me on Saturday mornings, hadn't heard that news.
The 60th birthday would be held at the unwieldy hour of 7 a.m. Who in the hell was going to show up at 7 a.m.? Well, I couldn't stand the curiosity, especially considering...well, considering I'm sure my brief part of that 60 years had to have been something of a highlight, or lowlight, depending who you ask.
Naturally after setting my alarm for 6 a.m. I didn't actually get up until 8:15. I threw my clothes on and ran up there to arrive at 9:15, fifteen minutes after the "party," such as it was, was over. I saw the old general manager out on the sidewalk packing up a tablecloth and two coffee dispensers and figured it must not have been much of a party if the crowd had dispersed so quickly. Maybe not worth stopping in at this point, I reasoned. So I drove around town for 30 minutes as the Allman Brothers played me "Mountain Jam".
The tenacity that little 1,000 watt AM has shown is apparent when you drive around and see how many local landmarks have blown away. There was a locally-owned breakfast place called the Wagon Wheel I used to speed to for a sausage biscuit inbetween morning newscasts. It had been there since the `60's, and it's shuttered. Across the street, a sign of the times -- a Waffle House. Store #1602 or something, I'm sure. The original WBHF building is a Peachnet Cellular store. Suzie's Coffee Express, official sponsor of the station's birthday list...Suzie married a doctor from her drive-thru a few years ago when I was still up there and her Fotomat booth has stood abandoned ever since. All the businesses that were under the bridge where I did my blues block party have turned over probably more than once, with a new set of hopefulls throwing their early retirement packages away hoping their decorative candle shop will one day be self-supporting.
The intruder across the street.
I circled back by the radio station and saw the author of the e-mail on the corner and decided to get out and say hello. There was also the engineer/fix-it man who I strongly felt never liked me, although he was fairly friendly today.
Inside, there was...old Sam. Still there behind that board! The general manager, the general supervisor lady (titles don't matter in a place that small). It was like standing among ghosts, or characters from a dream. Of course they all said, "There he is, late as usual!" and had a big laugh that sorta annoyed me. I was the only one from the old school, or middle school, any school who had shown up at all!
They looked up my Web site, and I noticed the engineer guy seemed to be stifling a gale of laughter to see I had put $150 as my hourly rate on the voiceover page. Perhaps out in Petticoat Junction he doesn't know some guys in Atlanta get $2,000 an hour! Even Joe Schmoes get $450! That price is very reasonable! Of course there haven't been any takers, but still...
So I was inquiring "whatever happened to..." and told them one person I knew the whereabouts of was this guy, a `BHF alum who's now a TV street reporter in Memphis. As we went to the page behind that link the same guy who invited me up asked, "Does it look like he's had any work done? That guy was the original metrosexual." I don't know where he got that from, I never noticed this guy frosting his hair or anything like that. He went on, "I notice his picture isn't at the top of the page." I said, so what? It's amazing he's a TV reporter in a big market like that! The last time I heard from him he said he had even gotten to anchor the news. "Yeah, probably on Christmas Day." WHATEVER!
No one seemed genuinely excited for that guy. That brought home, or rather reminded me, why I likely never got anywhere with that -- people don't want you to get anywhere. A helping hand is near impossible to find, but ones trying to push you down, sit on your head and fart are easy to come by. For some reason I've been quite happy to see that guy soar; I don't know what's wrong with the rest of them.
So we were all lining up for a picture and the general manager was headed towards the back wall. I said, "Uh, it's usually tall people in back and shorter people up front, so you might want to, uh..." My host said, "He's only been here 20 minutes and he's already worn out his welcome!" Maybe they were kidding, or maybe I had. Hey, I could have slept in! Be thrilled at least one of us "graduates" showed up!
And so I returned home to reflect that I've only gone further off the rails since I existed in that scene on a daily basis. Of course, a 1,000 watt AM in a town of 13,000, starting at $7 an hour, is high-falutin'. I should get my nose out of the air and demonstrate that I'm really willing to start at the bottom and work my way up. Right, Rob*?
* Kerns, not Rankin'.
Can't wait to see some of them again. Others I couldn't give a shit less.
as we all know, the people who gripe about the corporate game usually have the greasiest hands. those who analyze and digest it sometimes just walk away from it.
brian's game show work is exciting.