The Goodbye Look

"The rules are changed
it's not the same
It's all new players in a whole new ball game

I know what happens
I read the book
I believe I just got the goodbye look"__Donald Fagen: The Goodbye Look

Since I no longer have to shovel the hits, I find I'm listening to music more often these days. Not a lot, but more.
When I toiled in music radio it was four hours a day of popular music, which, when taken in those kind of doses, can make you rather cynical. It's not unlike being a farmer with one more field to plow or a plumber with another plugged toilet. A JOB in other words.

Lately, the jobs in radio have been disappearing at a dazzling rate. I can number the friends and former colleagues of mine who are still on the radio by using one hand. A fairly remarkable reckoning when you consider that I spent nearly forty years honking the hits at seventeen stations in six different states. ( I never count the two months at the country station in Oakland as it was too surreal.)

Getting fired in broadcasting is no big deal. It happens all the time. It's just the nature of the business. Some have likened radio to an art trapped in a business or a business trapped in an art. Whatever the case, running a successful broadcast property is not unlike trying to juggle a car dealership and a dinner theater at the same time. And, oh yes, the damn thing should MAKE MONEY.
Not easy.

Anyway, that's the problem. Making money is something that most radio stations are having a hard time with today. The internet is killing newspapers, radio and TV. People get fired when enterprises no longer make money.

I have been fired several times and beat it out the door just ahead of the executioner a couple of times too. It's always sweet when you have something lined-up before the clowns you're working for decide to "show you the parking lot".

When I look back, I can honestly say that in each case where I was "let go" (one of my favorite euphemisms) I wound up better off in the long run. It was a good job to lose.


New doors opened. I found better things to do.

"The Goodbye Look", by Donald Fagen from his Nightfly album got me thinking about that. Like I said, now that I don't have to...I have been listening to some of the yesterhits lately. It's good advise.

If you find that things are changing and you're getting the Goodbye Look from your boss, it may wind up opening a door to a whole new job and better life for you. In hindsight I now realize that every job I ever lost was a... Good Job to Lose.