In fact, as it seems, slowly the cultures are melding to such an extent that traveling to exotic faraway places is not so exotic any more. Nor is it as special as it used to be. When I was teaching in a small town of about 3,000 in the Texas Panhandle they called an assembly to hear an Indian (from India) talk about where he was from and the cultures he'd visited. We were all excited and curious about what adventures he had to tell...then they made an announcement that it'd been called off. But it stuck with me that this man's presence was able to fire an entire community into a frenzy of anticipation.
But now it's available to the masses, and nobody is impressed with world travel. The thrill of going to a place like Taiwan and seeing signs like this has become humdrum. But to me it's still interesting, and I'll continue to snap and post...
_______________
[continued from yesterday's post; series started 05/09]
So all of that happened at KTRM/KIEL. I was getting restless, though, and sought a change in the routine. Like all DJ's did in the day, I used the equipment in the production studio to cut some air checks to interview in other places.
The logical place for me to try my luck was KLVI - logical for me because they also played country music and logical for them because they were in need of an all-night DJ on weekends, which was my forte at the time. I got the job, and if KTRM was a step up from KOBS, then KLVI was an even higher wrung on the broadcasting ladder. The reasons for this were that: a) it was more powerful, therefore attracted a much wider listening audience...I got requests from as far east as Cameron, Louisiana and south from Corpus Christi; and b) there were some more interesting and well-known personalities that worked there, including Al Caldwell, who had just been hired on from KAYC, and Gordon Baxter, famous for his stories and authority-tweaking personality on the air. It was an interesting place to work, but being a bigger business lacked the homey, cozy feel at KTRM.
One of the most unique things I found at KLVI upon starting was that it had a stand-up board. There was a tall stool there, but the DJ's were encouraged to do all of their announcing standing up, because it supposedly made us sound better. That could well have been the case...I felt that my voice and projection at the mic were better there, but that could have been partly due to more advanced equipment that enhanced the sound of everyone's voice.
As an aside, it's amazing to me that Al Caldwell is still there at KLVI, some 43 years after my time there (this being written in 2020). He is so good at what he does, and I still tune in to his show at times on our way to work in Houston. It's just a pleasure to see - or in this case listen to - someone who is doing what he was born to do on this earth, no matter the field.
So on that happy note I'll end the series on my radio days, for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment