So many thoughts running around my head right now.
Chris O'Brien: Chris and I worked together at WARM for a couple years, then we did indeed "reunite" at WBRE briefly. Chris was in master on the second floor, so I didn't see all that much of him. In different guises, Chris may have spent some time at most every station in this market over twenty years or so. My first encounter with him was by name only back in 1973. He'd been working for WHPA in Honesdale and had some sort of blow-up with the GM and split, which opened up a job, which turned out to be my first job in radio. It would be years before we actually met. A good guy, a real character, a pleasure to work with.
"Rhinestone Cowboy": The song and the man both pretty much epitomized WARM's absurd music policy from the mid-70s until at least the mid-80s. There were far more charted songs WARM didn't play than it did. What had most of us pulling our hair out was that music selection made no sense, it followed no existing rules whatsoever, it was completely arbitrary. What might sum it up best is that WARM became more concerned about not offending its current listeners than it did about prospecting for another generation of listeners. In that process of stupidity, WARM lost all its listeners. And then there was WARM's oldies library. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of mine upon going to work at WARM was the discovery that what should have been a magnificent oldies library was instead a pitiful and limited collection of carts, backed up by an even more pitiful and limited collection of original 45s. The real tragedy was that there was a weekly culling of that library by a certain PD, who would then bulk the cart after pulling it from the control room rack. Thinking about it still makes me sick.
FM Cable Feeds: Once upon a time I lived in Williamsport, working for a truly great little radio station, WWPA. WWPA came to be known as TWIN W Radio, and in time, simply The TWIN. While at the TWIN, an engineer once told me that the local cable company had a couple dozen "out of town" FM signals available on a sub-carrier, that the cable company used to offer them at a nominal charge but had stopped selling the service because of very limited interest. Unknown to most, the sub-carrier and the signals were still there on the cable. Out if idle curiosity I ran my TV co-ax into my amp/receiver by some temporary homemade wiring tangle, and sure enough, there were a pile of Philly, NYC, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore FMs. Curiosity satisfied, I never listened to them.
Cash Call: Did any station NOT do Cash Call, or a variation of the same? Surely some will remember the famous Cash Call made by a very famous radio personality hereabouts, during which the term "blow dry" somehow didn't come out quite right. Who's got a copy? I know they're out there.
Myron??: "Myron" would have to be Milan Krupa, local purveyor of used radio equipment.
OK, thoughts no longer running around in head, back to work!
P.S. Jim, you sell yourself way too short, old buddy, way too short...
