Day 115

Day 114

"I used to host this radio show for Queens College. We called it the 'Retro Show' because we would, in theory, talk about the exciting events of the 1980s, but that got old in about five minutes and we pretty much spent the remaining fifty-five talking about whatever we felt like and playing occasional hair metal. Because our show was so well-organized (read: because we were the first show to fill out a time-slot application) we were given the 12:30 - 1:30 free hour on Wednesdays, which was cool because the only place the radio actually broadcast to was the student union building, and the only time there were ever any people in the student union was during free hour. I would typically spend the fifteen minutes prior to my show scrambling for co-hosts to help fill the silence, plus I would bring on unfortunate regulars like Michal, who was too shy to say anything but at least gave me responsive facial gestures so I knew whether what I was saying was out of line. And once in a while, it was. The station was so damn sensitive that if we so much as mentioned the name of a disability or nationality, we'd get a bang on the adjacent wall telling us to change topics. You couldn't say the word 'handicapped.' You couldn't talk about 'Mexican food.' The managing board was freaking strict. A sign on the booth door read, 'If you play a song by Nickelback, it will be the last song you play ever.'

My group had no idea how to work the transmitter, so once in a while we realized halfway into it that we weren't broadcasting to anyone but ourselves. We compensated for those broadcasts obnoxiously and creatively; in the beginning of some shows (the ones that actually went on the air), we turned the volume up - way up, in fact so loud that I would get complaints afterward from the student body. It wasn't just that we were the only show who didn't play music, it was that we broadcast so damn loudly that our listeners had no choice but to listen to us gripe about the varying sizes of the Queens College parking lot speed bumps. Every complaint I got was pure encouragement; it meant that I had one more listener.

We did some crazy stuff on occasion, too, like when we brought in the Christian Community group on the same show as the Gay-Lesbian-Straight Alliance. (True story.) Or when we had the Singing Salsa club come in to play Latin-American Idol. (Not quite as true.) We liked to close the show by featuring a random classic song; we would then turn down the music way low and then belt the words to the song on top of it. And that's how I ruined Blind Melon for all those Queens College students. What a show. Those were the days, man."

-wjitt