The Morning After

God bless my wife Coral.  She knows I love warm beverages and hot chili spices… so it only made sense for her pick up a tin of Cocoa Camino’s Chili and Spice Hot Chocolate.  Mmmm, its a warm and spicy treat.  You take a sip of the heat, then your whole mouth and throat gets coated in a chocolaty warmth.

Now I feel ready to blog about my favourite topic.  me.

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Mitch over at the Radio Industry blog is chronicalling his journey to FM super-star.  Good for him.  He asked me to tell my story of how I came to be telling knock-knock jokes between Our Lady Peace songs.

Two things about being a radio DJ:

01) Its not impossible to be a radio presenter
02) It is almost impossible to become a radio presenter

I’ll talk about two events that got me to where I am right now.  I’d like to tell you that I overcame great odds with a winning attitude and super-duper work ethic, but the reality is, I had a bunch of great friends and mentors that helped all along the journey.  then a big ole pile of luck.

Story one will take us back to the halcyon days of the summer of 1998.

I graduated high school in Coquitlam in 1998.  After school most all my friends had some sort of post-secondary eduction plans.  A few would travel, some would work.  I didn’t really have anything on the go.  I lived in my parents basement.  I ate too many mushrooms and I worked at a Subway making sandwiches or in the Real Canadian Superstore stocking tampons and baby food (fore-shadowing my eventual future of being married with child… huh).

One day I was at a house party and some of the people there were friends with my buddies Dave King and Mike, both a year my senior.  All these guys had just completed year one of University.  We’re having pints and bull-shitting and one of the guys, James Thompson, talks about his radio show on college station CJSF up at Simon Fraser University.

Now I had always loved radio and rock and roll but I never really thought just anyone could be on the radio, so when James said he had a show I begged him to let me come and co-host with him some time.  he said no.

One day I borrowed Mom and Dad’s car and trekked up the mountain to SFU to meet with the program director to see about getting a show.  The programmer took one look at my snot-nosed surburban Nickelback loving ass and said…. no.

Defeated, I did what any self respecting man would do… I whined to my friends one evening.  My buddy Paul brought up that UBC also had a station (and its WAY better than SFU!) and that being a student, he could get a show and I could co-host with him.

I rode 13 buses and there I was, in the UBC Student Union Building at the doors of CiTR 101.9. I loved CiTR. I became a volunteer and paul and I spent all our extra time playing in the studio doing fake radio shows, doing odd jobs, listening to records and learning the board.  I lived and breathed community radio.  There was a board in the lobby that had a list of show types the radio station needed filling.  If you did a format off the wall, they would fast track getting your show on the air.  Paul and I chose “Canadian Content” which we thought would be a fun catch all and applied for a slot.

They gave us Tuesday mornings at 5AM-8AM.  We called our program The Morning After and in early December of 1998 I was on the radio.

***

Me and Paul, circa 2005 (maybe 2006)

I’ll skip a bunch of good times (including how my folks pushed me to do radio professionally, how I got into BCIT and then kicked out then back in) and get to the juice.  Spring 2003.  I went back to BCIT to finish my diploma and its practicum time.

When you take radio broadcasting at BCIT, you have to do a one month gulag at some corporation to get your diploma.  At the time I was very happy living in East Vancouver with my lady friend and working at the Westin Bayshore and Starbucks.  This practicum was a bit of an inconvenience but I was really jazzed to have school done and at the time I worked so much I had a little saved up.  A month I could do.

I sent letters to a bunch of radio stations I felt I had a shot at.  A rock station in Regina and Kamloops.  My friend worked at a new modern rocker in Victoria so I sent a letter there.  I ran into my old boss, Tim, from CFUN (that shit between 1998 and 2003 I skipped… yeah working at CFUN was in there) on Commercial Drive one day.  He was working at what was a talk radio station in Vancouver on 730AM.  He said I could do my practicum there if I wanted.  And on a lark I sent a letter to KPOI in Honolulu.

Two radio stations got back to me.  KPOI and The Zone @ 91-3 in Victoria.  I had to make a choice.  My Mom encouraged me to go to KPOI and live in Hawaii for a month as kind of a holiday/work thing.  Then come back to Vancouver and work in tourism as I was doing.  But part of me was thinking that I could go to Victoria, have fun with my buddy Scott Kirkwood and maybe, maybe actually get a job.  I could live with my uncle and spend what money I had left on a week in Vegas.

On my first day I reported for duty and the receptionist had me sit in the lobby.  The program director could not see me right away.  Some stuff had happened and everyone was worked up.  After what felt like a few hours, a hurried Al Ford called me into his office.  He was very sorry, but my practicum would have to be pretty basic.  His morning show guy, Layne Mitchel (Sonic Edmonton), had just up and quit and Al would have to fill in on mornings.  He would have no time to baby sit me during the day, but he said I could hang out with my buddy Scott on the evening show and he’d make sure he’d sign any papers that needed signing to make sure I pass.  Lame, kinda.  But also fun because now I didn’t have to do any work.

The Vancouver Canucks making the playoffs in 2003 helped my career too.  My buddy Scott Kirkwood is a hockey guy and wanted to watch hockey, so he said… why don’t you do my show?  uh… sure.  And I did the evening show.

Al called me into his office a couple weeks into the practicum.  I thought I was in trouble because I wasn’t supposed to be on the air.  He said that he’d heard my show, it sounded good and that I could do swing.  Oddly enough, Scott got promoted too.  Al ended up bumping the afternoon drive guy (Paul Brown, The Bear Edmonton) to mornings, Sara P to Afternoons, Scott to days and I got the evening show. Score.

They paid me the colossal sum of $1,400/month which was way less than I earned at the Westin.  I thanked them for that!  Called the Westin, told ’em I wasn’t coming back and I’ve been on The Zone since.

Go with yourself.

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