Christmas jock stories

[craig_ashwood]

I thought it might be fun, because of the weird nature of the work we do or have done, to share some Christmas "on air" stories--and I don't mean about the music you play(ed). I mean, being in the building on your own, no one there, no gifts for you, keeping the station on the air Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.

I'll start: Christmas 1979. I'm working morning drive in Minneapolis on an AM punk rock station (no kidding) Monday--Saturday, 6a--noon, and Sundays on our counterpart FM (KFMX, playing disco!)....so, no days off, all for $200 a week. I loved it.

Anyhow, Christmas Eve, the schedule got switched around, so I worked the AM punk rock station 6p--midnight, and then slept on the couch in the lobby--was awakened by the FM overnight jock at 5:55am and was playing disco music Christmas morning, 6a--noon.

Santa never showed up. Then again, our receptionist was beyond hot, so I had good dreams....

Fun days; I loved every minute and would have paid THEM for the experience!!

 

[bnaivar]

Christmas morning 1976, KOGT-AM, Orange Texas. I had to sign on at 6:00 AM and basically just play taped Christmas music until 10:00. Just inside the door when I get to work there's a fifth of Jack Daniels with a note from the boss that read "I'm not listening". ;D

 

[fussbudget]

I was news anchor on a statewide radio network for more years than I care to remember, working many a Christmas Day. There was usually no news to report, so we ran a lot of evergreen stories to fill a five minute cast. One year in the late 80's, I got the bright idea to record several newscasts on a large cart that would rotate throughout the day. Different stories each hour over 4 hours, then repeat to round out an 8 hour shift. I finished recording by 7 a.m and went off to spend the rest of the holiday with my family. While enjoying some Christmas cheer, I kept one ear to the radio, just in case of Murphy's Law. Two of the casts went off without a hitch.
#3 was the winner, the cart began to drag, then stop, then speed up. I raced back to the network, normally a 30 minute drive. This being Christmas, I made it in under
15 minutes, did a live cast, stuck around for another hour then recorded a couple more and called it a day. The next year I was live all Christmas morning.

 

[ck dexter haven]

OK, mine was in Chicago, in 1982. I was jocking at a suburban MOR and on my own and on the air Christmas Eve. The front door bell rings, and during a long XMAS song I ran upstairs to see who it was.

It was one of the young, pretty female AEs, who was someone I'd flirted with off an on, and who had prepared "Christmas dinner" for me (actually, just a couple of slices of deep dish Chicago style perfect pizza) and a couple of Leinenkugels. So back downstairs to the studio we went.

She was like me, she had no local family, so I could relate. I sympathised with her just the best way I could (I'll leave that to your imagination) and a good time was had by all, though requiring interruption every 4 minutes or so to switch to the next cart!!

So now, I'm fast forwarding to the next week to wrap this story up, where I'm doing the news, and I look up through the studio window, and the very same AE apparently decided she wanted some Mardi Gras beads. Shirt lifted, CK choking on the AP copy....great.

 

[X-14]

Mine was actually here in Atlanta about 6 or so years ago. I was asked to come in Christmas afternoon to man the board for the all-automated Christmas music just in case the 'puters crashed. I think I was supposed to do something like 6 pm. to midnight.

The station was in a high-rise downtown Atlanta building and when I got there, all the doors to the building were locked and of course I had no key. So I tried calling the studio, the AM sister studios, anybody, to see if anyone was in the building. Nope.

Then I remembered that there were motion sensors INSIDE the lobby doors of the main building, which would unlock the doors when you were walking toward them from INSIDE the building. I found some newspapers laying around and thought I might try, at least, to trigger the motion sensors from the OUTSIDE by jamming the paper thru the crack between the glass doors and, best as I could, tossing it into the lobby, hoping it MIGHT trigger the sensors.

So here I am, like an idiot, trying to shove sheets of newspaper thru these doors, into the lobby (and it ain't working), when who walks up but the security guard.

After letting the red get out of my face I explained all to him and he let me in, with the stipulation that I had to give him a photocopy of my drivers license so he could check with the station the following day to ascertain that I really did, in fact work there.

 

[jabba17]

Mine was actually here in Atlanta about 6 or so years ago. I was asked to come in Christmas afternoon to man the board for the all-automated Christmas music just in case the 'puters crashed. I think I was supposed to do something like 6 pm. to midnight.

The station was in a high-rise downtown Atlanta building and when I got there, all the doors to the building were locked and of course I had no key. So I tried calling the studio, the AM sister studios, anybody, to see if anyone was in the building. Nope.

Atlanta...automated Christmas music...high-rise...AM sister...that narrows it down to, what, the Building of Death? The other possibility would be the Holy Mackerel. I wouldn't call White Columns (analog or digital) a high-rise. Did V-103 (WAOK) ever play all-Christmas on Christmas?

 

[InSearchOfGear]

I was once fired in the middle of my shift on Christmas eve. It all worked out though. Rehired 3 weeks later.

 

[bnaivar]

Was your boss visited by three spirits that night? ;D

 

[RoddyFreeman]

I was once fired in the middle of my shift on Christmas eve. It all worked out though. Rehired 3 weeks later.

Sounds like something Harry Averill (former GM of WEAM, Washington) would have done. He used to run the station, which was a good one in the 60's, on the jock-du-jour plan.

 

[X-14]

I was once fired in the middle of my shift on Christmas eve.

ROFL!!! Oh man.... only in Radio!!!!

 

[BarryATL]

What about Star 94/WQXI?

 

[InSearchOfGear]

I was once fired in the middle of my shift on Christmas eve. It all worked out though. Rehired 3 weeks later.

Sounds like something Harry Averill (former GM of WEAM, Washington) would have done. He used to run the station, which was a good one in the 60's, on the jock-du-jour plan.

Interesting. The guy who fired me worked at WEAM back in the day. lol

 

[CompleteGame]

A very kind woman in her 70s used to call when I was doing overnights for 95.5 WNGC. Nothing sexual about it. But she was convinced I was the reincarnation of her dead husband. So in my mailbox Christmas Eve 1991 was a letter from her stuffed with 500 $1 bills. (No, payola police, she didnt want to hear a particular song.)

This was all fine until I went to the bank the following workday and the teller asked me if I was a male dancer.

True story.

 

[Adric1963]

Working in Elmira NY, Christmas Eve. Was to join Open House Party on the satelite at 6p and go home and let it roll as usual. Oh did I mention it was snowing heavily, not just at the station, but at the uplink in Boston! Needless to say, the satelieate didn't like that and was cutting in and out.. 3 hours later it finally cleared up and stayed so I got to stop playing radio after a very long shift. Finally went home...to shovel all the snow..one to get the car in the driveway, and then the sidewalks..about 45 mintues later finally got in the house to settle in...my housemate had called and left a message from Floridia..."Oh we are just enjoying cocktails on the porch and 70 degree weather! Merry Christmas!"
He got yelled at!

 

[bnaivar]

One more....One Christmas morning (Why did I always have to work Christmas morning?) I came in to start the massive reel to reel tapes that were going to be my entire shift. Inside the first box was a note from the production dept. that said the Christmas show had a break for local spots every 15 minutes, but they hadn't sold the program. The note said the cue to the break was "We'll be right back after this word" and to just let the tape run on until the music started again.

Well, after about a dozen of these breaks, and me with nothing else to do, I would wait for the "We'll be right back after this word" and open the mike and say something like "Lawnmower". Then the music would start back up. What the heck, I knew no one was listening.

"Anchovies"

"Guacamole"

 

[JohnAllan]

One more....One Christmas morning (Why did I always have to work Christmas morning?) I came in to start the massive reel to reel tapes that were going to be my entire shift. Inside the first box was a note from the production dept. that said the Christmas show had a break for local spots every 15 minutes, but they hadn't sold the program. The note said the cue to the break was "We'll be right back after this word" and to just let the tape run on until the music started again.

Well, after about a dozen of these breaks, and me with nothing else to do, I would wait for the "We'll be right back after this word" and open the mike and say something like "Lawnmower". Then the music would start back up. What the heck, I knew no one was listening.

"Anchovies"

"Guacamole"

My favorite so far.

 

[Mitchell]

One Christmas we picked up programming from one of the country ABC formats to run on Eagle 1067. So we built the clocks, checked them twice, loaded up RCS, hit "Auto" and left the building, hoping it went without a hitch. If not, I'm sure I'd hear something.

Sure enough, about 8:00pm Christmas Eve I get a call from Russell Smith the engineer because dead air tripped an alarm. He connected to the station and RCS and it appeared our clocks were working right, but the network was not sending tones. Well, by now there's no way I could make it into the station because I was hammered and I was dreading taking a cab on Christmas Eve to the station to try and fix things...drunk as a skunk.

So I called the Vice President of Country Network Operations at home...and he was drunker than I was!! Barely able to communicate drunk. Foster Brooks drunk. But he did manage to make a call and determined that some part-timer screwed up and the show went on properly. Best laugh I had in a long time.

 

[EW0350]

Late 1960's. Was director of college student-produced programming on a local FM station. The university's orchestra and chorus were doing a Christmas Tree lighting in the student union building. I got permission to have remote telco lines run there and back to our patch panel. I miked everything during the rehearsal. I was going to co-host with a Miss Georgia contestant (Something tells me it was actor Lee Can Cleef's daughter). I'd given her a copy of the program a day or so before. Half hour before air I show up; she's sitting at the table with books, papers, stacked around her. All I had to do was say something like "The chorus is going to sing 'Carol of the Bells'" and she'd pull out notes and do 45 seconds of history, background , whatever. Man, it was terrific! But I'd forgotten to tell them back at the studio to record the show! Would love to have had a copy of it now. Then, as the ceremonies ended, and we still had about 10 minutes left, I decided to pull an Art Linkletter and start interviewing the kids who had come. I think I got one done, then someone kicked the telco cable and they lost our signal. In the studio they jumped in with records until the parent station took back the programming. Still think it was probably the best thing I've ever produced.