Monthly Archives: July 2018

Geo’s Media Blog. An inside look at movies music radio & life. (Nashville) 7/30/18

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A few weeks ago when I wrote a piece entitled “Livin’ Large” in which I used a quote from my good friend Mark Hubbard. After reading it, Mark called to ask, “When are you going to write about the time we got stuck in a bar in Nashville? You know, when we were trapped there because of an ice storm and you were driving me crazy with that, “Ain’t it a shame stuff.”
Mark at the time was the president of both the Fairmont and Osborn Communications groups and because I was his programming consultant, we made a lot of market visits together. In fact, we’d just finished one up at K101 in San Fransisco and were on a flight to Nashville to meet with the folks at WLAC. However, upon arrival, an ice storm was hitting Nashville which made our plane the last to land before they closed the airport. After getting our bags, we learned that the freeways were also closed so there was no way we were getting to our hotel downtown. Luckily though a van from the Holiday Inn near the airport was parked at the curb so we jumped in hoping that they had a couple of rooms.
The hotel was wide open, so after putting our bags in our rooms and freshening up a little, we met downstairs in the bar where we ordered up some drinks and a couple of burgers. As we sat there eating, we couldn’t help but notice that we were the only ones in the bar and Mark said, “I bet on any other night we wouldn’t be more than 30 feet away from a dozen demo tapes in here.” Then all of a sudden a pretty little lady wearing tight fittin’ jeans, cowboy boots, and carrying two acoustic guitars that looked like Martins, climbed up on the small stage in the corner and began to sing. Mark claims that he still remembers me turning to him after she sang a couple of tunes and said the words that he’ll never forget, “Ain’t it a shame Mark?”
He now says that he uses those very same words during a few of his business lectures at Notre Dame. However, back at the bar in Nashville that night, he just said, “What the hell are you talking about?” Look at that pretty girl up there I said, “Singing just for us, she’s probably from some small town where she’s a star and all the folks have told her that she’s good enough to make a record. Finally, after hearing many stories about how folks like Randy Travis, Dolly Parton, and others all being discovered in bars like this, she moved to Nashville.” I get that Mark replied, “I’m just not getting the shame part?” Ok I say, she’s only up there singing in an almost empty bar because she’s been told a thousand times that you never know who’s watching you, so always sing your heart out.
Well, guess what Mark, they were right, she’s hit the jackpot, we’re here, and we’re sitting right in front of her. Not only are you the president of two big radio groups but you also have a ton of music connections. I consult radio stations all over North America, know a bunch of record guys, even had my own records out, so I kinda know how it works, and if that’s not enough, my daughter Candis is a big deal at Warner Brothers Records. Either one of us could probably make a phone call tomorrow and get her a record deal, so tonight’s the night she’s been praying for. She’s been working long and hard for this moment, and it’s finally here. However, the shame is, neither one of us is gonna make that call tomorrow. She ain’t good enough! 

LIFE-LINERS.

MOVIES MUSIC & RADIO
Professor Dick Taylor claims that ReelRadio will return.

When Radio Hall Of Fame member Ron Chapman told me that he wanted to be big enough in Dallas that he’d have difficulty walking down the street, I ordered a new Vette. Hell, I figured we were already halfway there.

A good on-air product produces more revenue than selling it does

Radio Consultant John Lund says that aircheck sessions should last no more than thirty minutes and I agree. I give myself that amount of time to hopefully hear something that I like so I can say, “Can you do anymore just like that?” If they tell me they can, the meeting is over. However, if I don’t find anything I like within the thirty-minute time limit, the jock is over.

Motivational parties do very little whereas rating parties change lives.

Santa Rosa radio guy Brent Farris claims that the Comcast folks are all tied up in meetings trying to figure out how to get people to stop canceling their service after they binge-watch all their favorite shows. Hey, Comcast has creating any new product ever come up?

A creative person can beat a gifted talent but if the gifted person ever learns creativity, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.

Publisher Jerry Del Colliano says that the time to stop chasing your radio dream is never.

We now have more ways of communicating than we have things to communicate.

Radio consultant Tracy Johnson says, “Always record client interviews, always.”

Radio executive Bob Pittman told me that the only reason he took a part-time radio job in Jackson Mississippi was so that he could afford to take flying lessons. He’s been flying ever since. 

REALITY.
Courage is simply a matter of overcoming fear.

It’s not the taste of liquor that makes it so good, it’s the effect.

If you don’t set your own goals you’ll soon be working on somebody else’s.

It’s difficult to make yourself happy but virtually impossible for others to do it for you.

Blind faith is just that, blind!

Who’s ever claimed that they’re being overpaid?

Being the best also pays the best.

Not being afraid to die is not courageous, it’s crazy.

The only place on earth that has free healthcare, free education, free clothing, free food, free housing, and free utilities, is a place called prison.

Most folks only change when something very emotional happens to them.

The Red Sox still have the best record in baseball and the Blue Bombers won over the weekend so life is good.

PHILOSOPHICAL.
You can never be any more successful than you think you can.

Even though it appears to true and everybody agrees that it is, it still may not be.

When Walt found someone who could draw Mickey better than he could. He fired himself.

GEO’S POLITICAL BLOG.
Not only is Trump politically incorrect, he’s not even political.

The people who surround the presidents are much more dangerous than presidents.

GEO’S LOVE & MARRIAGE BLOG.
Beware of women with cats, they may be all out of love.

Using a poem, a song, a movie, a play, a dance, a painting, a sculpture, or a photograph in order to communicate may do wonders, but a kiss will do it better.

Comments about #NashvilleCats and Kittens #NotreDame and #Bars above. Comments about everything else is @ GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter @GeoOfTheRadio. Sharing and commenting appreciated.

 

 

Geo’s Media Blog. An inside look at music movies radio & life. (love & marriage) /18

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I’ve been in love six times, engaged twice, friendship ringed once and also married once. I recall the romantic part of my life beginning when I was fifteen and spotted a very pretty girl at the Oxford Grill. I’d just popped into the “OG” on my way home from school to get some chips and gravy and there she was. She, along with all her eighth-grade friends was there celebrating their graduation from middle school. Her name, I found out was Lana and I knew the moment I saw her that I’d be spending another year in the ninth grade. Only of course so I could help her adjust to the high school environment. (well that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it) Hey, it was the least I could do for the woman who would become the mother of my precious daughter.
At that time we lived in a suburb of Winnipeg called Transcona, but unlike me, I’m pretty sure Lana would have been content to stay there and just raise some kids. I, on the other hand, had bigger dreams, I wanted to be somebody even though I had no idea how to go about it. Although my Dad saying to me one day, “All Hunters hunt but the good hunters hunt where the deer are” had stuck with me. So years later when Lana gave birth to our daughter Candis, the deer had moved because I was offered the program directors job at CKOM in Saskatoon for double my salary at CKY, I had to take it. I did, however, have to promise Lana and the grandparents that we’d return home just as soon as I was good enough to be the PD of CKY. However, we had no idea though that we’d just boarded a rocket ship called my career, and we’d never live in Transcona again.
After being in Saskatoon for a couple of years I figured out that the most of the deer were in Eastern Canada so we moved to Sudbury and then four months later we were off to Ottawa. Ottawa was where it really started to come together for me because I learned how to get ratings and we also adopted our son Curtis. Next Toronto called, and before I knew it, I was the station manager of CFTR and my career was on fire and I realized that we were past the point of going back to Winnipeg.
I was loving how it was all going and just assumed that Lana did too but as I look back on it now, maybe not so much
Then I get offered the National Program Directors job at Fairbanks Broadcasting in Indianapolis. Are you kidding wow!  However, I guess I was the only one excited, but hey, if you haven’t played the States, you haven’t played. Hell, even my Dad who never thought I would amount to much was sad. He said, “Son, you’re moving so far away that we’ll probably never see you again.” I told him that if he checked it out on the map, that he’d see that we were actually closer. He just shook his head and mumbled something about how upset my mother was going to be so I can only imagine how Lana must have felt.
Indy was great, Candis started Kindergarten there and because it had an excellent school system in Carmel where we lived she excelled scholastically. Curtis was a beautiful kid, and whenever we’d be in the Mall all the young mothers would have to stop us to say how adorable he was. He was definitely a chick magnet. We lived in a nice house but things were going so well that we eventually upgraded to a big new one in the trees. (very important in Indy) It also had had a creek, a pool, and a jacuzzi out back plus a couple of fancy cars out front, so life was good. 
However, I was also about to turn forty, can you say mid-life crazies and was becoming more and more restless. Finally, after being in Indianapolis for almost eight years, I announced that I was moving to California to start my own business. Lana, along with everyone else was shocked but she did manage to tell me that she wasn’t coming because she was done with following me around.
I think everybody was hoping that I would come to my senses, but I didn’t, and before long I was living in California and loving it. Every few weeks or so I would travel back to Carmel to see my kids but Lana’s moving to California was still a no go. Then one day she surprised me with a call saying she’d changed her mind and was coming to California but I don’t think that her heart was really into it. We tried our best to make a go of it, but I was on the road all the time and what with her friends being back in Indy, she wasn’t very happy, so eventually, we split.

The strange part about all this is that Lana still lives in California where I see her occasionally at our grandson’s events. Although, Candis says, “Dad, you were the one that dragged the whole Johns family to California and now you’re the only one who’s not here. Very true honey, but once again I’d had spotted another herd of deer elsewhere. Now the only proper thing I can think to do is bring this tale of woe to a close with a special toast, “Here’s to Lana, the love of my life.”

GEO’S LIFE-LINERS.

PHILOSOPHICAL

What you do when you’re working determines what you are but what you do when you’re not working determines who you are.

To listen is to learn, to talk is to teach.

A specific has never created greatness.

Being fearful of making a mistake usually results in you making one.

While launching Class FM’s all over North America the only thing I wondered about was how big the rating party was gonna be? The bigger the celebration, the better the sales department would do.

FAMILY.

Shortly after my daughter Candis gave birth to my grandson Nathaniel, she said, “Dad, when I was growing up, you told me everything. What I can’t understand now is how you managed to leave out the part about my getting no sleep after having a child?”

POLITICAL & POLITICALLY INCORRECT.

Instead of President’s Day, we should have Election Day. If you vote you get the day off, if not, keep on working.

Does anybody want to pay the same taxes and horrendous house prices that the New Yorkers and Californians pay? Then maybe we shouldn’t vote the same way.

PHYSICAL.

Women, like Athletes, peak at 28.

As long as I don’t look in a mirror, I feel forty. However, when I was forty, I much more intense, I’m younger than that now.

REALITY.

Even though elitist Canadians like to think of themselves as more European than American, they ain’t. They speak the same language, watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music, drive the same cars on the same side of the road, eat the same food, and pay the same horrendous prices for real estate on our west coasts.

We all understand a guy being pussy whipped by a beautiful woman, but being whipped by an ugly one is unforgivable.

The thing about rich people is that they usually work longer and harder than most folks. In fact, truth be told, it’s about all they do.

I had lunch the other day with Tim Reever of the Shire Marketing group and a real estate client of his by the name of Jim Dipaola. Jim was saying that this is one of the few times in history that a lot of Americans are sitting on a ton of home equity. He thought that they’d much be better off using it to travel the world instead of eventually riding it down.

Speaking of down, the biggest problem with all the ups and downs life gives you, the downs are ten times as powerful.

#Geo’sMediaBlog starts off above with a story about #LoveAndMarriage and then moves on to some of #GeosLifeLiners that deal with #HomeEquity, #PussyWhipped, #Canadians and also #Americans. Much more @ GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter @GeoOfTheRadio. If you would like to subscribe to Geo’s Media Blog, just put your email address in the comment section below. Sharing and commenting is appreciated.