Still at Labor

Here’s Part II of my airshift diary from Labor Day, when I did a five-hour shift on The Lake followed by three more at Magic 98. (Part I is here.)

4:05pm: After about an hour to grab a sandwich and mainline some caffeine, I’m on Magic 98 now. It’s the top-rated station in town, with four times the Lake’s rating in persons age 12 and over. We’re doing a block-party weekend, with three-song blocks related by theme. My first one is “sweet songs”—Franke and the Knockouts’ “Sweetheart,” Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love,” and “Sweet City Woman” by the Stampeders–fine songs all, even though I don’t feel particularly sweet at the moment, just tired.

4:20pm: The next block is “bald guys.” That figures.

4:50pm: On The Lake, we do three talk breaks an hour, sometimes four. The first time I did a shift on Magic, I found myself thinking, “Jeez, I have to talk again?” There’s a minimum of eight talk breaks an hour. The first few times I walked out of here after a show, I was completely fried.

5:20pm: On The Lake, I don’t use my last name. I’m just Jim, like Cher or Madonna. On Magic, they want me to use my last name to distinguish me from another jock also named Jim. As a result, I’ve gotten three phone calls from listeners wanting to know if I’m the same Jim Bartlett they went to high school with. One of those calls reconnected me with an old pal I hadn’t seen in 20 years.

5:35pm: Working on a holiday is just part of the gig, and it doesn’t bother me, usually. The exception was the year I wasn’t told I’d be working the night shift on Christmas Eve until the afternoon of the 23rd. Most radio folk I’ve known don’t mind holiday work too much either, although I remember a news reporter who always asked off for Christmas Day right after the Fourth of July every year, and who said she’d quit before she’d work that day. Another guy once tried to get Christmas Eve off by claiming he had to referee a basketball game that night. “Some of these small towns play basketball on Christmas Eve,” he told me. No they don’t.

5:55pm: The block I’m playing right now is “They’ve got rhythm,” featuring a song I haven’t heard in ages: “Take a Little Rhythm” by Ali Thomson. “Walking in Rhythm” by the Blackbyrds follows and damn, that’s a great record, but the third one is Dan Fogelberg’s cover of “Rhythm of the Rain.” Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

6pm: But here comes the legal ID and the next block, “Groovin,” which starts with King Floyd’s “Groove Me,” and our 8.8 share of persons 12-plus is gonna get its ass down.

6:35pm: I have to hit the satellite feed of the Delilah show at 7:00 straight up, and I’ve got to start back-timing well in advance of it. The music director overfills the 6pm hour with songs I can rearrange, but sometimes it still doesn’t work out quite right. The days when you could time within a minute or two, put on an instrumental, and fade it out at the top of the hour are long gone.

7pm: And it’s done. Impeccably, I might add. I haven’t got very many skills, but I can still back-time. I have a couple of other small tasks that will keep me here a few more minutes, but otherwise, I’m signing off.

“Sweetheart”/Franke & the Knockouts (mighty hard to find, except as part of an expensive box set here)
“Walking in Rhythm”/Blackbyrds (buy it here)