Where Was This When I Needed It?

Bill Moffitt and I, two sons of the Midwest, amazingly spent close to fifteen years working at three different San Diego radio stations where we most often hosted shows in either middays or afternoon drive time.  Sometimes it was "Willie" from 10A-2P and me from 3-7P and other times, vice versa. Neither of us liked to "tour".  Touring was how those of us the radio business referred to making personal appearances at car dealerships, grand openings, elephant races when the circus came to town or introducing artists featured on the station's playlist when they performed at local venues.  We both hated those gigs.  Sure, there was extra "cheese" for showing our faces but, damnit, like most radio loons, we got into the business to hide out.  If we wanted to be seen we'd be on TV! In fact, our one time boss at KCBQ, Gary "Fuzzy" Herron, officially dubbed us the Steely Dan of broadcasting.  His reference to the pop/jazz duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker was apt in that, like those two, we preferred studio work to any live appearance.  We liked being incognito as it afforded us the opportunity to say horrible things about people without getting punched in the nose. We had no desire to mingle with listeners who perhaps didn't share our  semi-delightful senses of humor.  Exposed to us in the flesh, the fear was, like the Wizard of Oz,  a peak behind the curtain would show us to be mere smoke and mirrors scam artists.  Hell for us was having to show up anywhere, but being required to do live broadcasts from the Southern California Exposition, a glorified county fair held in Del Mar, California every summer, was the worst.  Broadcasting from a station mobile unit right on the midway reminded both Bill and me of just how close to that bottom rung of show business (the carnival) we were.  How far away could a job as a ride loader for the Tilt-A-Whirl be?  For a couple of guys only capable of talking dirty and playing the hits the correct answer was, "not far".

Narrative Clip 2

What prompted this reverie was a recent story in the Wall Street Journal about a tiny 8-megapixel camera that clips to your shirt and snaps a photo every 30 seconds.  It's called the Narrative Clip 2 and we sure could have used it back in the 70's and 80's.  You see, often times in order to prepare for putting ourselves out there as live targets, Moffitt and I would first fortify ourselves with what we referred to as "liquid show prep".  Station promotion department personnel would be assigned to accompany us to these outside events which left us only required to demonstrate the ability to stand upright and be able to speak to both listeners and clients without swearing.  No easy task.  Often this left us with little recollection of the engagement.  At one point we seriously discussed hiring a couple of the station interns to follow us around with a video camera so that we might be able to defend ourselves to management should anything untoward happen during these forays into the real world. They often did.  I do recall some fallout from our closing down of the Sky Room at the El Cortez Hotel  in 1978 and a surprise late night visit to the local NBC television station in 86' where, while on an unsupervised self conducted tour, Willie and I stumbled into the director's booth during the eleven o'clock news.  TV people can be so touchy.  And, I completely deny the story about the two of us being forever banned from a concert venue in San Marcos by an outraged Korean midget for simply running up the largest bar tab in the history of the place.  I tried to explain the promotional advantage of this feat to our boss, but it was a NO SALE.

"Are you my daddy?"(captured by Narrative Clip!)

Alas, as it often is with life, fate intervened.  Radio got clobbered by the Internet coupled with a distinct lack of interest by millennials and station owners decided that it was far cheaper to run what was left of the business with robots and trained apes.  The latter being willing to work for peanuts.  Also, the two of us had reached retirement age and had already been asked by our less party intensive friends and relatives to maybe lay off the sauce during the 21st century.  (I plan to start again in the 22nd.)  So we did.  Still, I think the Narrative Clip wearable life logging camera is one terrific idea.  I would highly recommend its use to all wives or husbands of spouses who may be alcohol aficionados who like to be out and about.  It could save the day and is certainly more inexpensive than hiring a police sketch artist or a kid to follow you around with a camcorder.  Those things can make you look fat.

"Think you're going out?  PUT THIS ON!"