INTERESTING DREAM…
IT’S DEFINITELY A JUNGIAN ‘ANXIETY’ARCHETYPE FOR RADIO DUDES LIKE YOU AND ME.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I TOO HAVE THE EXACT SAME RECURRING DREAM (EVEN THOUGH I HAVEN’T BEEN ‘ON AIR’ IN ALMOST 40 YEARS).
SOUNDS LIKE WE’RE IN THE RADIO VERSION OF “THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE”…
IN MY DREAM, THE RECORD COMES TO AN END.
I TURN ON THE ‘MIKE’, AND DISCOVER TO MY HORROR, THAT I DON’T HAVE A RECORD CUED UP, A-N-D, EVEN WORSE – I CAN’T THINK OF ONE GD DAMN THING TO SAY…
NADA!
ZILCH!
BRAIN FART!
DEAD AIR!
PURE FRIGGIN’ PANIC!!!
OMG!!! 
I HAVE A FUNNY FEELING THAT WE’RE JUST THE TIP OF THIS JUNGIAN ICEBERG.
I’LL BET YOU A LOT OF RADIO TYPES EXPERIENCE ‘ANXIETY’ IN SIMILAR WAYS.
IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO FIND OUT…
I’D LIKE TO SHARE THIS WITH ONE OF MY OLD PROGRAM DIRECTORS, GEORGE JOHNS.
I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND.
GEO HAS A VERY INTERESTING BLOG WHOSE AUDIENCE IS COMPRISED OF (MOSTLY) RADIO DUDES, AND DUDETTES.
I HAVE A FEELING THEY TOO HAVE EXPERIENCED THESE SAME RECURRING ‘ANXIETY’ DREAMS. IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO FIND OUT.
BEST, E
Geo, It’ll be interesting to see if this is a shared, or an isolated dreamscape…
I don’t think so Earl, I have heard about that dream from too many on air folks!
Definitely shared. In my version, of course we’re playing records. I’m never cued up because the songs are only seconds long (and what’s in the record rack is often only Christmas music). Spots are so short I can’t keep the cart decks loaded. People walk by and look in the air studio window, but nobody comes to help me. And, of course, I can’t think of a thing to say. I’ve talked with other radio guys over the years who have had a very similar dream. It may have its roots in that panicky first few times on the air as a brand new rookie.
My problem Doug was Doug it did have roots in my rookie start Mark Parr a CKY Dee Jay showed me how to run the board on CKY-Fm then left! Of course the owner came in with his buddies as everything was running at the same time. I had no idea what was on air or what was just coming through the cue speakers but I knew they couldn’t fire me I didn’t even work there. By the time I figured it out my Radio career had begun!
I absolutely had that dream- All the time! And still do sometimes, although it’s been over fourteen years since I had a regular on-air gig.
The record would end, with none cued up on the other TT. No carts loaded (music or otherwise)… Mike on, but somehow would not work (or capture my audible mutterings OR screams). Try to cue up another song on the disc that just ended- disc disappeared… Go look for more records or carts- anything! But none to be had.
The DEAD AIR NIGHTMARE!
Good line Lesley “Dead Air Nightmare” Sounds like a novel!
I shared with Earl a few days ago a recurring dream. My company builds new studios but we are still playing records and carts. I’m on the air but everything is running out and there’s no spots to play and I can’t find the records… But for some reason there’s a bed next to the audio board in case you want to take a nap. When panic reaches a fever I wake up!
OK George, here’s mine.
In my dream, for some reason I’ve left the station after starting a record. Sometimes I’m in a car, or lots of places, always a long way from the station I hear the record end and the click click click of the needle going round and round. It’s “Dead Air” and I’m desperate, yet obstacle continue to stymie my return to the station. I awake with my entire career having been destroyed. It’s so relieving then to look around the bedroom, and reassure myself it was but a dream. This dream continues, despite the fact that I haven’t been on air for 40 years. Talk about latent fears of failure, tough to top that!
Isn’t funny Pat our Radio addiction was so strong that some how our fear of it continues! Good to see a bunch of my old friends talking that Radio talk again!
Then my alternate nightmare. I’m searching through the record rack on top on the console where we Top Forty’s always kept the music and guess what? I can’t find a record with a recognizable title. I keep ad libing, on and on and on in total panic as I can find nothing to play. This cute little sleeping trauma has the same ending of awaking in total panic, to happily discover myself in my bed but do have to look around the room for a few second to re-assure myself.
Exactly Pat, “latent fears of failure”… As a (one time) would be Psychiatrist, I’m fascinated by the Jungian archetype we Radio types seem to share (despite the fact that, like yourself, I haven’t been live to air in almost 40 years, and yet, I continue to have these dreams once or twice a year). Btw, Stephen Drepperd is the genius responsible for writing and producing my Radio openings for every Baltimore Ravens football game. The show is called “Baltimore Gameday, Uncensored”.
Hah! That actually happened to me! Back in the 70’s at Vancouver’s CKLG, we had the latest modern up-to-date equipment, including a giant carousel that held all the carts for the station. I was mumbling my way through the PM Drive show and went to a stop set, and—nothing! As it turned out, the whole system had, in a modern and up-to-date way, crashed. And for some reason the rest of the system went down, too, leaving us without turntables, independent cart machines, or even telephones. The only things that worked were the mikes! So I started rappin’ and had to keep it up for around 45 minutes. Sports scores, commodity prices, interviewing the janitor—anything we could come up with. It’s amazing what you can do when you have to…Special credit to our friend Gary Russell, program director, who actually came in and (this is true) tap-danced to help fill in time. So it may be a dream to you guys, but it was the even scarier reality for me!
PS Hi Earl. Glad you’re still around. But stop TYPING ALL IN CAPS! You’re DEAFENING MY EYES!
Doc, believe it or not, stupid stuff still happens to this day. It was the Fall of 2005. We just moved into a brand new 100% digital broadcast center. Everything was run with CAT 5 network cable and a huge server room. 22 studios all linked together with today’s latest technology. Since we’re the network flagship station of the University of Maryland, we had a football game scheduled to Saturday. Friday afternoon, the engineers did a “software upgrade” to the entire system. Unbeknownst to them, the upgrade wiped out every setting in the building. When I tried to get the audio to the satellite, the setting was missing and we had DEAD AIR on the network. After about 20 minutes, the light bulb went on. The audio going to a recorder still worked. I put it in record, connected to cables from the output to the input to the satellite and BAM! I had no fader control for the audio, so I had to push buttons in and out for audio for the next 5 hours. After that, I had nightmares every Friday night for the rest of the season! I kid you not.
You guys are getting scary now!
Okay, okay, I hear ya, Doc … I know it’s considered bad cyber form, but, I swear I’m not yelling. HONEST! 🙂