In the Beginning, There Were Forks in the Ceiling

My first radio job came on the last day of finals my freshman year at Northeast Louisiana University. I took my 5 minute reel of tape – a shaky newscast complete with hog futures and cotton prices in Louisiana – to the local AM station in Monroe, Louisiana, in hopes they had an opening.

Snookie, the General Manager, interviewed me. That’s right, I said, Snookie. I believe he was an offshore oil rig worker by trade. His mom owned the station and allowed her beloved son play General Manager when he was not getting greasy with the rest of the roustabouts in the Gulf of Mexico.

During the interview, I couldn’t help but notice that the radio station smelled faintly of pot, and the studio was a shambles. Burned wire copy littered the floor of the newsroom, and knives and forks protruded from the acoustic ceiling tiles. I later learned that the night jock had used burning newswire the night before as kindling for the stems and seeds of his cleaned and sifted pot, hoping for a contact buzz. I’m at a loss to explain the forks. Anyway, the GM realized that things had gotten out of hand, and I just happened to walk in for my chat with Snookie moments after they fired the pot-smoking, utensil-packing night jock.

Snookie listened to my 5-minute tape and said, “You got the job. Can you start at 6?”

“But that’s only three hours from now, and other than the five minutes of me reading hog futures on that tape, I’ve never been on the radio!”

“No problem,” said Snookie, “You can start training right now.”

So, in the middle of afternoon drive, he walked me into the studio, introduced me to the afternoon jock – also an offshore oil worker on leave – and said, “Move over, we gotta train our new DJ.”

So, with just one hour of training, I was proclaimed ready for my first show, which now started in two hours. Snookie had one more question before I left to mentally prepare: “Uh, do you have any records at home?”

“Sure I do, why?”

Turns out, all the records used on the progressive rock night show were the property of the stoned, utensil-throwing DJ. So, I went home and got my collection, and from 6 p.m. to midnight, I was the coolest mother in Monroe, talking like Clyde Clifford on Beeker Street, a mellow DJ on KAAY, Little Rock. I even stole Clyde’s wind chimes idea, and every time I cracked the mic I would give the wind chimes a swat for effect. Not sound effects mind you, but the real deal taken right off my mom’s patio. Like it or not, a career was born.