Camp Nolan

If you check out the picture, you’ll see a helicopter next to the house. Who has a chopper land at their party? That’s the fun for at least two years in a row at my friend, Nolan’s party.

First, it was great getting to see some of my former co-workers. I live in the same city, work in the same industry but get to see them so infrequently. I guess it takes a party with something like cars, choppers, food and libations to bring people together. I got to see Newshutr and meet Mrs. Newshutr along with enjoying some dinner talk with them at the picnic table. I work for the competition of many people at this party but they all seem like family.

I got to meet the daughter of one of my friends. I got a lot of e-mail photos and picturemail but never got to meet Olivia in person. She’s cute and loves the water even though she got her dad’s shorts soaked. Soaked shorts suck!

Two of the radio stations were represented. The Buzzard and that Majic station showed up for the party.

It’s always great to see my friend’s mom and her husband. She’s a social butterfly at these events. Everyone who hasn’t met her, wants to. I saw her pulled in a hundred different directions about five or six times throughout the night. I don’t know how you couldn’t love her.

I love it when people you don’t know ask you your age and then come way low. I can never tell if people are being polite or telling the truth. You get the truth from me so if I guess old, well, I don’t have a degree in guessing people’s ages so don’t worry too much about it. I digress. The boyfriend of one of my friends and I got to talking him about getting older. He was older than I guessed. He was divorced. I didn’t get married, we stopped short. Anyhow, he told me how he dropped 30 pounds right after the break-up. I laughed. He didn’t understand until I told him I did the same thing. He said he’s working out a lot. I laughed. He understood. It’s fun sharing life changing information with people you don’t know.

I spent time with one of my former directors, Mark, and his wife, Julie. They are a riot. Their kids are grown-up enough to take care of themselves while Mom & Dad are away so they had a good time. Mark has always been supportive of my work. He’s one of the people always asking me when I’ll come back.

I have to admit getting a little old my bodyclock was getting the best of me at the end of the night and left around 10:3opm to go home. I arrived back downtown around 11:15 and was sawing logs around midnight. I argued with myself this morning when the clock read 7:15am. I woke up again around 10:30am. My body needed the sleep.

Is that another week and busy weekend staring at me?

Good Radio Gone Bad

While I’m on the topic of radio…

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a music fanatic. That’s probably putting things lightly. I have a bit of an obession trying to guess songs in the first couple of notes and then naming the artist and even the year, that’s especially the rule for oldies.

Majic 105.7 has gone from one of the nation’s best oldies stations to the 2008 version of WDOK 102.1.

Gone are the days when it actually sounded like an oldies station. I’m talking jock talk/song/jingle/song/jock talk and so on. The songs were fun, mostly upbeat and just made you feel good about yourself. Gone are Ravenna Miceli (who’s now doing traffic updates), Scott Howitt, the man who could even rhyme “orange”.

It’s become “blah” music. That seems to be the rule for radio stations around the country. The “mom and pop” ownership is gone only to be replaced by the corporate giants. The deejays who knew the music and loved it are gone. The jocks who remain don’t say much and don’t have much of a personality.

It’s sad. I always thought WMJI and WMMS were Cleveland. Just like WKDD was always Akron. You can’t say 96.5 WKDD anymore. It’s 98.1 or something like that, years after the switch I still can’t find it on the radio dial. I think growing up 98.1 was a religious station.

Corporate researchers can’t figure out why people are buying up Sirius and XM radios and turning off the commercial radio stations. I’ll muddle through the commercials (even one for Consolidated Resorts) if it’s worth me to wait for the personalities and the music they play.

Deejaying is an art and it’s been lost for the most part. No more cart machines. All of the jingles, music and commercials are now on a computer. Radio today just isn’t the radio I loved of yesterday.