The reunion in Winnipeg for CKY a couple of weeks ago worked something like a time machine for me because it took me all the way back to my early days of Radio.

CKY was the place I cut my very first record with The Jury and spoke on the Radio for the first time. Jimmy Darin the afternoon drive Jock and Program Director had put me on Sunday nights where I got to do a bit of announcing and I also got to learn a very valuable lesson about how you get ratings. I was a new part time board op on CKY-FM at the time and just like the rest of the board ops I was always trying to maneuver my way over to our highly rated AM. We were all trapped on FM back when FM wasn’t cool!
CKY- FM has since become CITI-FM and Howard Mandshein who does the 23rd Hour on it featuring local music told me during an interview about my Jury Days that CITI is very cool now.
Sunday night was when CKY featured religious programs and I got to read a brief announcement after the playing of each taped show which instantly made me a KY Good Guy. Hand me my CKY Gold Blazer Tonto and I may also need that CKY Gold Pen for all the autograph seekers.
My Father was very proud of the fact I was on the radio each Sunday night and used to stay up and record me. After listening to those tapes was when I realized I better get good at some other radio things if I had any hope of staying in the biz I sure was not born Mr. Announcer.
Jimmy Darin who gave me this Sunday night gig later turned out be my mentor, my partner, my client, my boss several times and the best part is he is my lifelong friend. In a earlier piece I had written it was Mark Parr who got me started in radio but it was Jim who really saw my potential and nurtured it. Today Jim takes great pleasure in whining that all I do is take the great stuff he taught me and sell it to the Radio World without even a hint of compensation for him. Jack McCoy claims it’s really his stuff I’m selling so I think I’ll let them work it out and while they are doing that one can only hope they also come up with some fresh stuff because it’s been a while (-:
Anyway back to Sunday nights. Following the taped religious shows we also did a live program from 10 to Midnight called “Ask The Pastor”. It featured a fairly controversial local Minister and I was his board op. My task was to put the callers on the air, play the station id’s and ride the board. The show was mostly about relationships plus we took a few religious calls. Surprisingly the show had some decent ratings but Jim wanted more. I found out much later in life that Jim always wanted more.
Jimmy Darin is now a radio station owner in America under another name and vehemently denies we ever had the conversation you are about to read and it only saddens him to think about how much wine I must have had to drink to dream up this foolishness. In my defense I can only say that I can’t imagine a rookie board op having the balls to conger up let alone put in effect any part of the following strategy but you be the judge.                                  
I can still see him dragging me into his office shortly after announcing I was the new Sunday night guy and saying “OK squirrel this is your shot don’t blow it” Jim has always been full of great little inspirational tid bits like that with which to motivate me. He went on to say he needed me to pay attention in there and forget about those little chickies who always call the station. These religious programs pay us a lot of money so you better not mess with them he said. But here’s the thing Johns religious programs don’t get ratings and you and I are all about ratings. We always need to get ratings because that’s what we do in our little corner of the building and what you are going to learn today kid you will be able to use for the rest of your radio career. Our job as programmers is to always figure out how to get listeners no matter what the programming is. Socrates taught us that over 2000 years ago when he said the cause is the listeners and the affect is ratings.
George, someday in the future you will have to figure out how to get people to listen to the Radio and when you do you will be golden but luckily for you I already have this one figured out so listen up.
When the phone calls come in from all the so called troubled lovers some of them will be con artists and you will need to spot them quickly. This will not be an easy task because they will be scripted and they will be practiced. Ahh I said interrupting him to show I was a very quick study and he had no need to over explain. You want me to figure out who the con artists are and cut them off before they say or do something bad. That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do he instantly replied because these degenerates are the lifeblood of the show. They are the entertainment and more importantly they are the ones who will cause the ratings to go up. I need you on high alert because the moment they think they have our preacher sucked into thinking he is in the midst of a serious conversation with a hurt human being they are going to come at him with the most vile and disgusting language you have ever heard. Some of it is going to curl your toes. I’ve got it now I blurted out, you want me to let a few bad words slip on the air for some shock value then quickly cut the caller off just before it gets a little too raunchy. Brilliant simply brilliant I exclaimed. Wrong grasshopper simply wrong. The reason most people listen to this show is because of those special moments. I need you to be cool and alert in there and I don’t need you blowing the whole deal because you flinched by cutting their creativity off the air.                                  
Now listen very carefully to this part because this is what this whole meeting is about. What I need you to do with those nasty calls is to take forever to fade them out. You will pot down those calls as slowly as is humanly possible and ignore the Pastor who will be frantically waving at you and using the cut sign. I became so slow I looked like I was in slow motion and the ratings literally exploded!