The View From Scranton

The Rub

Forget the slog, that mind-numbing, bone-boiling, soul-strangling drudge of a so-called job. Forget that the toy store is the only place to buy a cool gift for someone. That there's no place to get shoes (unless you like Dockers). No place for sneakers (unless you like Foot Locker). Forget that the multiplex only updates a quarter new (hence my sapping bout with Just Like Heaven). Forget that I'm in a House where ill-repute is a prerequisite. Forget that there's no train. Forget that I can't plane. Forget that I've no automobile. Forget that there's no bookstore. I can handle all of the above and more, and I have, for seven swayed weeks. I mean, next to the gulag, these are but minor inconveniences.

What I'd rather not handle is incompetence. The complete lack of professionalism in those professing to be professionals. Or those supposedly on their way to being so anyway.

Like my Be Hear Now, stab one at an Electric City cover. The turnaround was short -- a weekend -- though to be fair it's long been on the agenda. No matter. I'm mouthy, brash, and full of rant. I can bang out two thousand words on drywall in two hours, much less the same about music in two days. That the subject was college radio made it all the better. I listen to college radio. Religiously. And I owe it. Immensely. It was college radio who played me way back when; it's college radio that I play now. It's half of how I stay on.

So I was understandably excited when I landed the assignment. One more generous stroke from my incredible Editor; one more solid next last chance. Covering cool radio would be a cinch. A delight. A pleasure. And I commenced at once, Googling-up the coordinates, bathing in some of the stream, and electronically alerting every kid at every station I could find.

But these days seems some of the kids just aren't with it. Oh, they're with it sonically, I guess, and I'm sure their fashion sense is very au courant. Sound sense and found style though can only go so far. You gotta get wise. Wherewithal. Wherewith.

No, they're not with it with civility. The basic tenets of good manners and common courtesy. And they're not with it with the way of hype, exposure, connectiong the dots that make digs. If someone emails you re: coverage of your concern, Reply. At once. Don't dawdle. Don't drag. And certainly don't ignore. Don't wait three days to inquire. Don't wait five. And don't be disappointed when your wait has wrecked your world. The ball was in your court, you didn't even pick it up. The onus was on you, and you were off elsewhere.

So what? No skin off my skull. You wanna play pause I'll press another play. When I'm given a deadline I meet the deadline, regardless. If the kids wished to operate with such reckless disregard, they'd be disregarded. Or at least regarded how I best saw fit.

And I saw fit to give them all the benefit of doubt. Their silence wouldn't stop my shouting from the rooftops about all that was good and grand and going on the airwaves of this region. I spilled and I spilled liberally. I gushed and I gooed and I plugged and I pulled-for. Till there was no more overboard left.

Then I come to find that one of the stations is wrongly-repped by a six-year old renegade site and I got the dish all dirty. That's right, the number one Googled-up entry is a six year old joke. A hypester's cyberparty prank. Okay, so it might not have been a joke then (the site actually looks pro cool), but it's sure a joke now. And it makes the station a ridicule. Yet it remains ruling the ether.

Worse it made me look clumsy. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not clumsy. I fall, I don't stumble. And I never drop a ball. I may throw it away. Let out the air. Kick it. But I don't drop. Unless of course the drop's on me. Or I get the drop.

And there's the rub. I don't get the drop. If I put something in your hand, hold it. When I toss a lob over the plate, hit it. Outta the ballpark. Into the rafters. For all it'll ever be worth. Don't just stand there when someone's helping what you do to do something. Do something.

Ugh. I just spent the entire day endeavoring to get the right data to the right place at the right time and all I got was an "I'm shy." Really. That was a Reply. To two calls and three emails from two different people. At least it was a properly-spelled and -constructed sentence. A subordinate couldn't even muster that. A college kid. Who doesn't know the difference between are/our and couldn't get the right order of letters in the word here. Unbelievable. 6:13 and I'm still waiting for the promised update to match my promised pluggery. I wanna put these kids names in print, and they can't even pound out something printable for me to cite.

It's enough to make me hit Skip.

But I won't. I can't. I'm too much the fan of real radio. I'm too much the fan of youth. And I'm too much the fan of next last chances. I shall plug away. Maybe they'll get it, maybe they won't. But I shall do my best to ensure that their best is heard. Loudly. Clearly. Nowly. And one day, some day, in another place, another mindframe, one someone might realize what more they could've done, then they'll do so.

posted by John Hood. @ 9:13 PM