Weekdays 11am-2pm ET, replayed weeknights 8-11pm ET (also replayed weekends 11am-2pm ET)
Also tune into Outlaw Country, Sirius XM 60, weeknights 8pm-midnight ET
I guess the story starts with the funky old Zenith Radio bestowed upon me by my dad when I was still in single digits.
It was meant to help me fall asleep, something I've never done readily or easily. Instead, it filled my nights with music and voices from across the country. AM broadcasts from Chicago, Virginia, Florida and beyond beaming into my New York bedroom. Local FM legends whose voices were smooth and almost indistinguishable, but who turned me onto records that were changing rock 'n' roll.
Through the tinny speaker of that radio, I first heard the keening voice of Sting when he was the brash frontman of The Police, Joe Strummer of The Clash setting tales of his suburban childhood to three strident chords, The Jam fueling my budding Anglophelia, and so much more...hardcore punk at midnight...classic rock that wouldn't resonate with me 'til more than a decade later...preaching...desperate teenage callers whose quandaries I was still too young to fully understand...and the voices of the America I knew from so many road trips with my parents, not the one I woke up in every day.
I never left home without my little transistor radio. There were no I-Pods, not even Walkmans. We traveled extensively as a family, and I heard radio broadcasts in the Middle East, Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico. Radio always meant instant connection – to other cultures, other languages, other music, other lives. It added a dimension to my travels that few kids experience – something private, something that was just mine. Unlike the internet, it was completely safe while being educational and entertaining...and oh so portable.
There were really only two New York radio personalities I remember from those days -- Carol Miller and Scott Muni. I finally met Miller at Sirius, where we now both work, and blurted out, "I love you" to her. As for Muni, I attended his memorial service in November of 2004 and listened to a series of eulogies from radio giants who knew him intimately, not just as a listener but as friend, co-worker, mentee. The stories were even larger than Muni's enormous presence, and I wondered why so few of those folks proffer the same generosity of spirit as the legendary deejay.
Obsessed with radio as I was, I knew it would be a mistake to study communications when I went to college. I chose my school in part because you didn't have to be a comm major to work at the radio station, where I showed up the first week of my freshman semester and was awarded an overnight gig. Fine by me...I don't sleep anyway. Eventually I became program director and learned about lunatics running the asylum, something I'd experience again and again during my, uh, career.
With my political science/history/international relations degree and no job prospects on the horizon, I went to my university's job placement office and asked for assistance finding work in the communications field. A rather large woman behind a large desk flipped through a large book for several minutes before asking me, "Do you mean telecommunications?" "No," I replied. "Then I can't help you," she said, snapping the book shut.
I moved back to New York but didn't know a soul anymore and had less than no media connections. When I saw an ad for a job at K-ROCK, a major NYC rock station, I immediately applied. It didn't matter to me that the ad said "Van driver wanted."
Well, I interviewed for the van driver job, but K-ROCK's promotions director was not impressed with my degree or my driver's license enough to hire me to drive the van. But she was impressed enough to recommend me for a low-profile job on The Howard Stern Show three weeks later, and for that I am eternally grateful.
As for what came next, blah blah blah, you'll have to wait for the book. WNYC ... WBAI ... WFAS ... WMMR ... WFMU ... WFUV ... ABC Radio Network ... XM ... SIRIUS. Now my studio is down the hall from Howard's, and I see him as much now as I did then (very rarely). I'm still obsessed with radio, and right now satellite feels like the future. Or at least the present. Yes, it costs a little, but you get what you pay for. It's fun, it's adventurous, and its programmed by radio-heads like me, who grew up with one ear on the transistor and who still believe that it's not only about having great content, it's about connecting.