2:30 PM, Tuesday, June 6th, 1995: Meeting #1. So I'm nervous as shit. Both Mike and Bill are extremely nice. They don't make me read anything, we just sit around this little table and talk. I make a kick ass impression. I said how I went to a remote for WBNS and met the jocks, and watched what they did. Bill thought that was pretty cool I took the initiative to do that. He said he liked my attitude. I also said that I had the entire summer, night and day, open since I lost the Gatorade job. This was good. He assured me some sort of job doing something even if I don't get the DJ thing. He said that he had to (by law) interview more people, but if he had to go by tape alone he'd go with me! However if someone came in with on-air experience he'd have to go with them. He suggested I sit in with Dave Meckley this Friday, and run the board for awhile. Then Saturday night I could go on from 2 to 4. So they're basically giving me time to get on-air experience. It seems as if they want me and will give me opportunities to get the job. I also asked them about BJ and they sort of laughed at me like "oh, well, uhh..." like he sucked. Mike said that he had "puke on his voice", and that DJ's at B97 seem to do that. Anyway there is absolutely no competition between me and him. I said that he had more experience than me, and Mike said "not for long". It was a great meeting. Can you believe this?   10:00 PM, Thursday, June 8th, 1995: Meckley called me and talked to me about Friday. Dave was my training buddy my first quarter at Otterbein, we kind of hit it off. He was the Production Director at WOBN and the overnight DJ at WTVN, I really looked up to him. Strangely enough I visited him at WTVN last fall, he even put Burg in a WOBN promo. He really spruced up WOBN with his access to digital production at WTVN. Then when the administration changed, like it does every year, I got the Production Director Job...and now this? I asked him not to go into prostitution - I couldn't handle following his career that close. He dropped out of school and now is ending up having to quit his WTVN job and now here I am. He seemed excited, and I was ready to do all I could to get this job.   10:45 PM - 7:15 AM, Friday - Saturday, June 9th - 10th, 1995: Whoa. It was nice seeing Dave again. We went in and started show prep, basically getting stories from the AP wire. The first hour was crazy. I said that there was no way that I could do this. It was almost too loose. All this dead air to fill. Sometimes you talk, then you play a song, then maybe read off the stories, or... I wanted it like WOBN, play this, then this, then here, then there. But no. And none of this get within 5 minutes of the top hour ID. You had to hit it on the second. So I was scared. After the first hour, I started manning the boards. I would even talk when Dave pressured me into it. I screwed up a couple of times, but did alright. I told Dave that the next night I would have to be on and alone for at least 4 hours. If I was going to have the job after this weekend, I wanted to be tight. So I struggled through a few more breaks, and felt a little more confident. I figured out the routine, and it seemed pretty easy, but doing the top hour thing seemed impossible. After the shift Dave and I went into the production room and messed around, and he told me the real reason he was quitting and why no one had seen him for so long. Before he had told me he was just burnt out, but that coupled with the fact that he tried to kill himself, and after they pumped his stomach he was in a psycho ward for 4 and 1/2 days, well that kind of made him reevaluate his life a bit. So that's why I got this great opportunity. Man, opportunity knocks in strange ways.   10:45 PM - 6:15 AM, Saturday - Sunday, June 10th - 11th, 1995: SHOW 1 Tonight had a whole different feel to it. I would be on from 1:00 to 5:00 (taping from 3 to 5), and for the two taping hours, that would determine my job. I was controlling my own destiny. We did our show prep, and at midnight Dave went on and I watched him like a hawk for anything I could use. Then at 1 it was my turn. Dave went and played video games, and I.....kicked ass. It all came together once he left. I told him I may need his help getting to the top of the hour, but back timing was really pretty simple and I nailed it. As the hours passed I was more and more comfortable. I stumbled a bit on a break (the only one my father happened to be listening to), but hey, I'm human. Overall it was awesome. At 5:00 I took my tape out and went into the production room and listened to it. I also made a quick version of "Danny Boy" on the AKG. What took me 6 hours before (because some fuck-up was engineering) took me under 4 minutes. When Dave and I left, he said "good luck", and I said I had done "everything I could to get this job, now it's up to them to go with me." We said goodbye, and that was it.   1:00 AM, Monday, June 12th, 1995: In the heat of an argument about a grill (an argument in which I was in the wrong), it comes out that Burg is extremely jealous of me getting this thing at WTVN, and that she regrets leaving OU, because there she had everything and now she has nothing. ALRIGHTY THEN. There went my heart. I was two seconds from leaving her the moment she said that. She was jealous because I was getting the opportunities and she wasn't. What was I supposed to say? It was totally unfair, she was right. I don't even want to be in broadcasting. I'm a singer/songwriter, I basically fell into this job that Burgundie's wanted for a long time. I knew that she needed to deal with this on her own time and I couldn't help her. It sucks that we're in the same field. I got the chance quicker at Otterbein. And Burg left OU for more reasons than just me, I hope. So this blows up and gets nasty. By the end of the night, we make up, and she feels that now since she told me she's jealous she'll be fine. I guess, but it still seems like a matter of time until this all happens again. Or she'll hold it in for years until we're having our first child, and then right there, in the delivery room: "You knew I fuckin' wanted to be a DJ...."   12:30 PM, Monday, June 12th, 1995: Mike calls me and says that he wanted to make sure this weekend was open, and that he needed someone for this Wednesday. I said yes on both parts. Bill also wants to meet with me at 2:30 tomorrow. ?!?! They don't even have my aircheck yet.   3:15 PM, Monday, June 12th, 1995: I dropped my tape off to Mike Perkins personally, and had my fingers crossed, then I went to a movie to relax. I saw Die Hard 3, but I tried to relax anyway.