All I want from tomorrow is to get it better than today

So the other night Rob was curious as to why I've never mentioned going to college for broadcasting. I didn't finish the course and its really a sore spot for me. I was thinking about it all day. So I'm going to vent a bit. Bear with me as i ramble.

So in 1989 i went to Niagara College for broadcasting. The first year was the best. I had an awesome teacher. His name was Mr Johnson,an older gentleman but he was very cool. So everyday our class would run our college radio station in the afternoon. We would take turns doing all the jobs of a radio station-writing the news,reading the news,writing commercials and the big one-getting to be the on air personality. We would get marked out of 100 for the job we did- and i will brag a bit-i got high marks everyday in that class. i loved programming the music. For a little college station that no one heard outside of the college they had an amazing record library. I once spent 3 hours in there to do a play list and i swear they had thousands of singles. They had to have every single made in the 70's and 80's. It was the coolest. Still have some of the playlists i wrote up. Anyhow to sum up,the first year was the best and i did well and it was a great time.

This brings us to the second year. During the summer the guy they had teaching the 2nd year class quit. He was replaced by a guy who actually dj'ed at a station up north. Little did i know he was soon to become my Lex Luthor. His name was Cliff. I remember that because i wanted him to jump off his name. So my first bad encounter with Dj Douche. I arrived 5 minutes late for class one day. So i believe i was writing the news that day. At the end of the class he graded me. He went on to tell me what an awesome job i did but he was giving me a big fat zero for the day. What the hell? He explained i was five minutes late so i deserved a zero. If this was a real radio station i would have been fired. Well it wasnt a real radio station it was a class. He said we agreed that if anyone was late they would get a zero. To this day i don't remember that conversation. I remember we all agreed that if we missed class we should get a zero. Whatever.

A few weeks later i was late again. The teacher was late to and walked in at the same time as me. Ok if he was also late i thought i was in the clear. Not so. I got another zero and the same if this was a real radio station speech. Now i was geting pissed. If he would have told me at the beginning of the class that i was going to get a zero i would have just left and not worked so hard.

So lets talk about how he killed the record library. The asshole got rid of the entire library except for maybe twenty singles. It sucked. He got all kinds of free cd singles from his old radio station that for some reason he also refused to play.

Then came the day that i first got on the air in the second year. I was doing awesome. I was amazed that a Huey Lewis single made it onto the playlist. It was the song Jacobs Ladder which was actually a number one hit for him. Cool i would play that and i talked about hom much i admired his music. So i put the song on and was getting stuff ready for the broadcast. All of a sudden the door bursts open. in storms Cliff who is really angry at this point. I'll never forget the conversation.

"what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"my show?"
"who told you to play this record!!"
"it was in the pile,the guy that made the playlist gave it to me"
"i made this weeks playlist!!!"
"Ok then i was playing what was given to me."
"i wanted you to play the other side of the single!"
"the b side?"
"yes"
"but the a side was a number one song and the b side is a live version of an earlier hit. Why would i play the b side?"
I'm sorry big time dj or not i think i knew more about Huey Lewis than he did.
"you better watch yourself!" with that he left. So i was left really confused. Oh and because i played the "wrong song" i also failed that weeks class.

Next time i was on the air my first year teacher came in and told me what a great job i was doing and that he actually recorded my shows to play to his first year class because they were so funny. Man i missed the guy and wished he would punch Cliff in the balls for me.

So the second year was a horrible experience and the bastard gave me a failing grade. It didnt matter- after that year i didnt want to go back anyhow. Thus ended my short broadcasting carreer. I later found out that cliff had been fired but by that time the damage was done. Screw him. On my last day i swiped 2 Barney Bentall cd singles that he got from his old radio station. That was my experience and i really dont like to talk about it that much. It still makes me mad thinking about it 18 years later. So Rob sorry i didnt tell you about it. Cliff was an ass and maybe if i'm lucky he was hit by a bus. Cheers!