Several college radio stations in Indiana are doing a simulcast this weekend and invited alumni to come do shows.
Chris Ulm, Ryan Schwab and I did a show together on WCRD at Ball State back in the day.
“You’re listening to Wonderful CRuD,” Ulm would say to welcome listeners each week.
Schwab lives in Fort Wayne, but he had the sense to leave town this week so he wouldn’t have to be a part of this summit meeting, leaving Ulm and me to cook up a reunion of the highly rated, for all you know, Night Shift. Ulm now lives in Florida, and I’ve moved on to Texas much to the chagrin of everyone else who lives in Florida or Texas.
The Night Shift premiered when we were wee freshmen. Our first semester, the show aired during the high profile 1-3 am shift on Sunday mornings. By senior year, though, we had advanced to an air shift in the early evening, leaving us to long for the days we were on in the middle of the night because we were pretty sure no one was listening.
Ulm and I started planning immediately. Our focus will be on educating Indiana’s youth on the vibrant, thriving and exciting world of radio. We’ve already pulled a motivational quote from modern philosopher Phil Hartman to spark the kids’ enthusiasm.
I use Twitter grudgingly, and several times, public relations associates have encouraged me to build an “online presence” and a “personal brand.”
“I’m not trying to be famous,” I explain. “I’m also not trying to go viral, which sounds like a lot of kids need medication. I just want to tell people what’s going on and then go home.”
But apparently, I was better at personal marketing when I was a college student because I found a website that cached Geocities sites from the olden days.
“Oh, College Scaia,” I said to the computer screen, wistfully. “You really will win numerous awards while also becoming a malcontent who blogs about industry layoffs. You’ll strike a delicate balance that I’m sure will take you far. You’ll also own a welcome mat that reads, ‘Welcome to Big Scai Country.'”
This led to Ulm and me reminiscing. Loyal Scaiaholics will recall the time our group of associates made a trip to Indianapolis for a Wayne Newton concert. We then returned a few years ago when they demolished our dorm.
I still have other memorabilia from our exploits in Muncie including [but not limited to] a painting liberated from the Chi Chi’s after karaoke night and a plastic thing that covered the barriers in front of the Wal-Mart in Muncie, which now enjoys its own high-profile spot on my front porch.
As we planned the show, the gentleman organizing the simulcast walked us through the number of microphones they’d have, how we could put callers on the air and where to send a playlist for music. He even cautioned us, “We do not have an obscenity delay ability. This should be taken into account.”
“I wasn’t planning to say anything obscene… until then,” I texted Ulm.
“We put the ‘F’ in ‘FCC,'” he responded.
We then discussed the playlist which we determined would include a drum roll in the spirit of Jerry Lewis telethons “benefiting the needy Ball State graduates who just need some help paying tonight’s bar tab. Can we help them, folks? They flew all this way!”
When asked how often we planned to use the drum roll, our plan is “incessantly.”
Scrolling through my old Geocities site, I found some other nuggets:
I met Dan Canan several times. He’s a nice guy and was always patient with the punk college kid who was just learning how to be a reporter and wander into city council meetings. And he’s still an active member of the community.
I can’t speak for the dog, though.
Ball State really did help me become a successful reporter, so it’s nice to get back and help prepare the next generation for success. If I could, I’d change the slogan from that Geocities site to, “The Night Shift: the most popular radio show in WCRD history for all anyone knows.”
You can hear A Very Night Shift Reunion from 6-8 Eastern tonight on WCRD or stream it #LIVE!
Don Rickles speaks for all of us in this Top 10 List:
