As a hopeless
romantic, I enjoy the parallels of this
year...one decade ago. It was to date the greatest
year of my life. It was a continual build all year
with new highs every month. It was a year I've looked
back on with envy for a decade and of course it goes
hand-in-hand with 1997, a year which completely
whooped my ass. It has eerily been a 5 year pattern
ever since. In 2001 I had the same build-up all
year only to have my ass handed to me in 2002 and now
5 years later it's the exact same cycle. Of course it
changes nothing. I still believe 2007 will be the
biggest year of my life the same way believed in 1997
and 2002. And realize I didn't think that about
any of the years in between. It's a pretty cool
little cycle...
...of course
when you number your entire life the cycles are bound
to pop-up. :-)
When
I started 1996 at WTVN I was still in the
mode of "the new kid" just trying to impress and by
year's end I had done just that and was getting
the recognition. I released my first CD, I found J-Dog
chillin' in a pet store, I quit school and pursued
radio and music full-time, I got married, I was moved
to a better time slot and offered a full-time position
at the station, I impressed The Other Paper
enough to have them write a piece about me to start
off the new year '97... it was the most perfect year
of my life.
Because of the
popularity of my radio show I decided to spend a
fortune and release 1000 copies of my first CD (this
was still a huge deal in 1996). The afternoon team of
John & Jane at WTVN interviewed
me on the air
I had 2
CD signings, a performance... things were as I
said, perfect. I fully believed this CD would get me a
record contract, even though I knew of no way to
pursue it, I thought the material was strong
enough. Much stronger than before (bad joke). There's
still a couple of tracks on there that stand out. But
amazingly, this section of my life is not what
makes 1996 so amazing...
I really found
myslf with the freedom of The Late Show. A 6 hour
shift in the middle of night with no music to play
turned me into a productive machine. You guys think
The Journey is ambitious? Sheeeeeeeit. The Late Show
was so incredibly packed. I gained every ounce of
confidence I have today from what I was able
to pull off on that show in 1996. From Lester, to The
Boyles, to The Macaroni (one of my 1st parody songs),
to Dr. Dick Rosetti, to The Late Show Online Chatroom,
to the Late Show songs, to the different trivia games,
to all the listener segments...whew. The moment I quit
school in May I jumped head first into producing
everything I could possibly think of to entertain
people...and it worked. It worked incredibly well and
the response was overwhelming. As I mentioned
before I wasn't that kid trying to fit in, I was
now affecting everyone else at the station with what
I was doing on the air and at 20, that
ROCKED.
And no one was
more affected than on Steve "Boom Boom" Cannon.
Man some of the 1996 entries are brutal. I figured
since neither of us work at WTVN anymore it's water
under the bridge but we really went at it. I was
extremely threatening to Steve and our relationship
was anything but cordial. Made all the more wonderful
was me getting the offer to be full-time at the
station...producing Cannon! Hahahahaha. What the hell
was Darry thinking...
...and of
course Darryl. The reason there are two distinct parts
to 1996. Darryl Parks was the new Program Director
that came in on September 1st and changed the course
of WTVN forever. To this day you can see his touch on
the station and other than the color scheme - it's
horrendous. WTVN is now almost completely
sydicated and the identity that once made WTVN feel
like home is completely gone. When Bob Conners goes,
so goes the station. Of course in his first 4 months,
I still believe Darryl was my savior and since
1997 isn't up yet - I won't keep harping on the
negative. For the purposes of this entry, this AWESOME
new PD came in and promised me the world! It's
gonna be AWESOME!
Christ, even
ten years later I hate the man with the same passion.
Anyway,
take your time and check out an incredible
year. Respond on the boards even if it's
just a comment on the mp3 or video! Each
entry has a feedback link. And even if you
skim every entry, be sure to click on said
audio and video clips. None more fun than
today's
video
of me and J-Dog waiting for my first
package of CDs to arrive (which were a
month late thanks to Bone Thugs N' Harmony
bumping me for their release). Other
entries/mp3s/videos of that are good
fun:
A lot of great
clips in there. The Hitler Mix still blows me
away...and nothing beats the first time I got drunk
(amazingly it really was when I was 21) being
forever cemented into the internet
landscape.
"N-n-n-n-no...I'm
Dash, RENdar."
Adam
PS - Don't
expect 1997 until well into next year. It is a
tremendous amount of work that I hopefully won't have
the time to do for quite some time. :-)
