Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Radio Dayz: WALF 89.7, Alfred, NY

To say I had an unconventional first pregnancy is an understatement:

I was a sophomore in college, had only known C for a year, was in withdrawal from the one huge party that was my Freshman Year, and frankly, not taking my studies too seriously.

So in the midst of all this craziness in my young life what did I decide to do? Host a college radio show with my roommate and BFF Celia. And not just any radio show, but one that aired from 3:00AM to 7:00AM Thursday night/Friday morning. Go ahead and smack your foreheads or roll your eyes now. I'm used to it.

As you can imagine, we didn't have too many listeners in that time slot (kinda reminds me of my Blog Talk Radio show in a way; on any given night I have like 10 listeners tops.). Not even the station managers/evil censors were tuning in at that ungodly hour. So what did we do? Played whatever the fuck we wanted: Cheech & Chong comedy records, lots of Sade, Marley and Blues Travelers; classic rock; and a shitload of inappropriate/random finds from our own stash or the station's archives. We didn't care.

And each week we took turns starting the 3-5am shift while the other slept on the floor of the station waiting to take on the 5-7am shift. Yes. My pregnant ass slept on the floor of the radio station waiting for my turn. I was 20. We didn't care.

On the rarest of rare occasions, our drunk friends would call in and make requests just to fuck with us; one instance sticks out in my mind. Someone called from the Theta house, DUH-RUNK as all hell, and requested Air Supply. I ran to the archives to get it and played about 15 seconds of that bullshit before Celia pulled up the needle and said over the air, "I'm sorry but we can't play this shit," and proceeded to replace it with something cooler. The power we wielded was intoxicating. We didn't care!

Don't even ask me how we managed to go to class the next day! Especially MY PREGNANT ASS who had a 9AM SPANISH LITERATURE CLASS on Fridays. *stank face* I really don't know how I managed to get an A in that shit. Did I even go? We just didn't give a flying fuck, man. We were young and on the air and just LIVING.

Remember just LIVING?!

I guess the memories of those cold nights sleeping on the station floor came back to me on Monday as I rushed home to start my BTR show and I asked myself, "Why do you bother? You have like 5 listeners and only 3 of them ever call in? Just go home and chill. Fuck that Monday Musings shit!"

But I like it; I like talking to people on the air and acting a fool in the chatroom and spreading EL Generalissimo's and Lady Estrogen's message as far as I possibly can. Even if it is to only 5 people. Those 5 might tell 5 more, and so on and so on...

And whenever I'm all upset because no one is calling in or no one is listening or downloading the show I can just think to myself: It could always be worse. It could be 3AM and I could be sleeping on the cold floor of a radio station in the campus center with a class to go to at 9AM the next morning. WITHOUT Celia.

Maybe that's what's missing from my show... Celia...

*smooches...plotting on how I can get her pregnant ass on the air*
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my undergrad years, even the ones after I had K, were just one big party for real. "Kids, stay in school. Do your homework. Don't do drugs. Use a condom (or two)."