You Know How We Do

When you work in radio, you quickly learn that the worst possible thing you can ever have is dead air. That is, any moment of your broadcast where absolutely nothing is happening. It's a moment where you risk losing more listeners than almost all other causes combined, because once people realize there isn't something wrong with their stereo they almost instantly switch over to something else.
Not that silence can't be beautiful, but that in radio every second costs money.
So when you work as a producer, it's vitally important to have something around to throw on really quickly just in case there's ever a danger of it happening. Especially with event-based things, like talk radio shows or sports broadcasts. Anytime you have an instance where you're going from music to a satellite link to a commercial or whatever there are all sorts of things that can go wrong -- feeds that aren't there, carts that won't play, whatever.

Radio and TV production guys have names for these -- like for instance, when you play music (like a theme song) at the beginning of a show that leads into the host's opening speech, or music that you play at the beginning of the broadcast to mask the sound of the satellite uplink going live, it's called a ramp. When you're working with satellite feeds or pre-recorded content, they'll build in breaks that feature canned music to make room for commercial breaks -- which most of the time are called floaters.
All little tricks designed to keep dead air from happening.
You don't notice them so much on larger radio stations because so many radio stations nowadays run off computer sequencers, but if you spend any time listening to AM formats you hear it almost all the time -- mainly because so much of what they do is fed in from somewhere else, but also because most of your local talk and sports channels usually hire college kids or get interns to handle the switching duties. I actually was one of those kids for a while when I worked at the radio station in Tallahassee, where I spent waaay too many weekends producing local broadcasts of Georgia Bulldog football games and minor league hockey games.
Which is also where I learned how forbidden dead air is.
Not because I had someone diligent and experienced training me on all the little nuances of the industry, but because any time there was dead air on my shift, even if it was just for a second -- the phone would start ringing.

When I was just starting out and was totally green, I'd make the mistake of answering the phone first, at which point my boss (and station owner) Ed Winton would tear into me for letting silence go out. And when I'd apologize to him and tell him that I was gonna fix it, he'd get even angrier.
You're not fixing it, you're talking to me -- put something on NOW!!!
Despite his constant hovering, there were still a handful of times where I let dead air go out. Once or twice it was a result of something technical outside my control, but most of the time it was becasue I wasn't at the top of my game. I'd fall asleep near the end of the night during a dead-boring shift, or be on the phone with someone and miss the cue.

But worst of all were the times when the song playing wasn't long enough to let you finish your business in the bathroom.
Because you'd always end up sitting there with your pants
around your ankles when the song would run out -- leaving
no other sound for you to hear but the ringing of the phone.
The funny thing is that now, many years removed from my short-lived career in radio how I still notice things like that. How at certain times during the day you'll hear the same kinds of music being used for floaters or ramps between the sports talk shows I sometimes listen to.

Most stations don't care what music you keep on hand for emergencies, as long as it's not obscene or doesn't stray too far from the format of the station itself -- so a lot of producers take it as their one opportunity to put the songs they love the most on the air. So on one station you might hear hard rock, then on another between the breaks you'll hear rap. Sometimes you'll even hear what sounds like garage band recordings -- which is a good hint that the producer is a musician, and that the music you are hearing is his band.
At the same time, it is just filler music -- so a lot of times it's easy to ignore.
Which is probably why it caught me off guard a little bit this morning when I clicked on the internet radio to catch one of the sports shows I like to listen to only to hear the opening chords to Harvey Danger's   "Flagpole Sitta" kicking in. It's a fun song, one of those tunes that it's just hard not to want to dance to or sing along with, especially with lyrics like:
Put me in the hospital for nerves
and then they had to commit me
You told them all I was crazy
they cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, goddamn you!
But it's odd how certain things resonate. How one man's silence is another person's symphony, how one person's filler music is another's chance to get his own band on the air.

Was "Flagpole Sitta" her favorite song? Eh, probably not. She had such fantastic and varied taste in music it would be hard to think that she could ever be compartmentalized into having just one favorite (and even if you could, the better bet would probably be The Cure's "Like Cockatoos") -- but regardless, Hana loved this tune.
How long has it been since I've talked to you?
Things happen. Friendships ebb and flow. Sometimes the water pushes too hard against the shore and gets caught in a tide pool. Sometimes the tide pulls too hard against the ground and the sands get washed out to sea. Sometimes even when you truly, truly care about people they slip away from you.

But what never changes are the memories, and the precious value they carry. What doesn't change is that even if I never have the chance to talk to her again, the fact remains that during a time in my life when I truly needed a friend, she was there for me. The simple fact is that she is one of my very best friends, even if I haven't heard from her in ages.

I didn't always take her advice. I didn't always keep myself straight of confusing what it was or wasn't. We didn't always see eye to eye, and as time moved on -- it seemed like our lives were starting to move in different circles than they had when we were floating paper boats across unseen oceans. And in the end, despite a song that I still listen to in the car that I'm still really proud of being a part of, we weren't always really able to make music together.
But I loved her just the same. And in a lot of ways I still do.
But dead air can be fatal. And after a time where I wasn't able to contact her, and even worse sometimes didn't really know what to say, she switched stations and moved on. I suppose in some ways I did too.
..But I miss her sometimes.
It's funny how people affect us --especially when time, life, and miles get in the way and they become more of a fond memory than an active participant. Strange because when you speak of them it's almost as if you're referring to a photograph, a frozen instant in time; saying things like "this is what she would say," or "she always cracked up over stuff like that" when in reality people evolve and change. I think what I valued the most about our friendship is that during a time when it seemed on separate levels both of our lives were going through different kinds of upheavals we were both able to provide enough patches of flotsam and solid ground to at least escape the rain for a while.
That being said, I still can't believe I learned
all those AFI songs on guitar for you, beyotch.

[Listening to:    Telefon Tel Aviv"My Week Beats Your Year" ]

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