or at least partially frisky. No, nothing like that, nor would I wish to be as dumb as I was at that time in my life. I would, however, like to return to the days of no aches and pains.
Naw, the sweet number refers to thirty years ago this week, when I finally got behind the microphone for the first time as a "professional." My radio internship through my college didn't lead to anything, and I had been sending out audition tapes rather aimlessly until KCTI-AM in Gonzales, Texas liked my demo and gave me parttime work that began in September of 1980. Thirty years later, I love doing radio more than ever.
Gonzales is located about 70 miles east of San Antonio, and I was living in Seguin, kind of inbetween the two, and working a full-time grocery store job I detested. I was so thrilled to be learning radio at KCTI! I usually got two radio shifts a week, which meant helping with the news block at noon if I was scheduled early at the store on a weekday, or hosting everything from Country to Polka to Gospel shows on weekends. It was block programming--a few hours of this, a few hours of that--which prepared me nicely for the variety of KAOS in Olympia when I arrived there almost 15 years later.
The most fun KCTI show, of course, was the Rock gig at 7pm (when the station wasn't carrying a Houston Astros game). I tried my damndest to get scheduled on a weeknight when the Astros were either idle or playing in a different time zone so I could kick out the jams. Although as an announcer I alternated between sounding totally unsure of myself and then suddenly acting like a hipster (which means I sucked, any way you look at it), the music was good.
Even then, I was going for balance, so if I played those exciting new (at the time) bands
like U2 and Teardrop Explodes two shows in-a-row, I made a rule to play different groovy groups the following week. Yeah, there were listener requests for lame stuff like Jefferson Starship and Eric Clapton's "Cocaine," but it was all part of the balance. Heck, I got to play what I wanted most of the time, which ranged from Tracy Nelson
and Fats Domino to the Who.
Gary Muelker and Sonny Seavers were really helpful and patient with me when I started at KCTI. Their criticism was always constructive, although Sonny gave me a pretty funny putdown once. I was the substitute host on the Saturday morning Soul program, and just to provide a contrast with what was going on at the time (Cameo, the Whispers, early Prince), I threw on an old doo wop ballad. Sonny walked in the control room and told me straight out, "You're going to put people asleep with that!"