The Official End of Radio
My last official radio show way back on March 15, 2020, and I hadn't even been back in the radio station since then. That changed briefly on June 17.
That afternoon was the premium pickup party for the 2023 telethon, which is basically when we ask our listeners to come pick up their premiums so that we don't have to ship them. They also get free food and drink and the option to tour WRUW. I decided to take the opportunity to see a bunch of my friends at one time and then to clean out my locker and mailbox.
The mailboxes had long since stopped being used to deliver correspondence to staff members; that was still a thing when I trained in 1998 but ended relatively quickly with the creation of the email lists by yours truly back when I was program director in 1999-2000. I've shared mailbox #6 with gieves for about a million years, or at least 2002. There's been a pack of pens in it for nearly as long. I'd stashed them there just in case the air studio ran out, which in the days before we computerized our playlists and much our other paperwork was not infrequent. I left them there.
The lockers were in the back. Not every staff member had one, and those of us who did used them to store stuff we didn't want to haul home every week. I had claimed one back in November 2004, which I only know because when I claimed my locker I put a sticker on it with the date. The occasion, as I recall, was me and my future cohost Ron organizing a major cleaning effort of the station. The office was completely cleaned out (which has happened maybe four times in the last 25 years), and we clipped locks on a lot of unclaimed lockers.
I hadn't opened said locker in years and years, and honestly remembered very little of what was in there. I did, however, remember my padlock combination, so I cracked it open. I found:
- A pile of whiteboard markers. Way back in the day the concert calendar was written on a whiteboard in the air studio, and these markers were backups. I left them at the station.
- A couple of permanent markers. These were from my time as Record Librarian. Those were still good, so I brought them home.
- A scotch tape dispenser, also from my time as Record Librarian. It came home too.
- A bunch of letter dividers that were provided by Charles A-C when I was Record Librarian. I left those there for future use.
There was also a a pile of personal CDs, most of which I didn't remember owning. I brought five of them home:
- Disc One of the Talking Heads greatest hits collection "Popular Favorites 1976-1992".
- The Slackers disc "The Question" which is the only album I knew was in the locker before I opened it.
- The Sigur Ros disc "()"
- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs disc "Fever to Tell." Weirdly, M had just that week thrown out the liner notes from her copy because of toddler damage.
- A burned copy of New Wave Halloween, which I believe was courtesy of undertheivy99
There was also a pile of other CDs I tossed or left at the station, including:
- The Jason White Christmas Single burned for me by Charlie Saber in the midst of my Jason White phase in 2004.
- A copy of the soundtrack to the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, which I'm pretty sure I bought for a quarter in a pre-YouTube era because of the terrible Sheryl Crow soundtrack of Sweet Child of Mine.
- An album by (I think) Kinski.
And with that, I removed my lock and headed home. Somebody who was down there at the time had claimed the locker before I left, mostly because it was at shoulder level so he didn't have to bend over to get into it.
Thus largely ends my time at WRUW. I say largely because I haven't unsubscribed from any mailing lists, but in a world where nobody needs a sub because the automation put in place for the pandemic also works fine for missed shows, I don't think I'll be dropping by casually. Still, I was at WRUW from 1998 to 2020, and a large piece of my heart (not to mention my ears) will live there forever.
That afternoon was the premium pickup party for the 2023 telethon, which is basically when we ask our listeners to come pick up their premiums so that we don't have to ship them. They also get free food and drink and the option to tour WRUW. I decided to take the opportunity to see a bunch of my friends at one time and then to clean out my locker and mailbox.
The mailboxes had long since stopped being used to deliver correspondence to staff members; that was still a thing when I trained in 1998 but ended relatively quickly with the creation of the email lists by yours truly back when I was program director in 1999-2000. I've shared mailbox #6 with gieves for about a million years, or at least 2002. There's been a pack of pens in it for nearly as long. I'd stashed them there just in case the air studio ran out, which in the days before we computerized our playlists and much our other paperwork was not infrequent. I left them there.
The lockers were in the back. Not every staff member had one, and those of us who did used them to store stuff we didn't want to haul home every week. I had claimed one back in November 2004, which I only know because when I claimed my locker I put a sticker on it with the date. The occasion, as I recall, was me and my future cohost Ron organizing a major cleaning effort of the station. The office was completely cleaned out (which has happened maybe four times in the last 25 years), and we clipped locks on a lot of unclaimed lockers.
I hadn't opened said locker in years and years, and honestly remembered very little of what was in there. I did, however, remember my padlock combination, so I cracked it open. I found:
- A pile of whiteboard markers. Way back in the day the concert calendar was written on a whiteboard in the air studio, and these markers were backups. I left them at the station.
- A couple of permanent markers. These were from my time as Record Librarian. Those were still good, so I brought them home.
- A scotch tape dispenser, also from my time as Record Librarian. It came home too.
- A bunch of letter dividers that were provided by Charles A-C when I was Record Librarian. I left those there for future use.
There was also a a pile of personal CDs, most of which I didn't remember owning. I brought five of them home:
- Disc One of the Talking Heads greatest hits collection "Popular Favorites 1976-1992".
- The Slackers disc "The Question" which is the only album I knew was in the locker before I opened it.
- The Sigur Ros disc "()"
- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs disc "Fever to Tell." Weirdly, M had just that week thrown out the liner notes from her copy because of toddler damage.
- A burned copy of New Wave Halloween, which I believe was courtesy of undertheivy99
There was also a pile of other CDs I tossed or left at the station, including:
- The Jason White Christmas Single burned for me by Charlie Saber in the midst of my Jason White phase in 2004.
- A copy of the soundtrack to the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, which I'm pretty sure I bought for a quarter in a pre-YouTube era because of the terrible Sheryl Crow soundtrack of Sweet Child of Mine.
- An album by (I think) Kinski.
And with that, I removed my lock and headed home. Somebody who was down there at the time had claimed the locker before I left, mostly because it was at shoulder level so he didn't have to bend over to get into it.
Thus largely ends my time at WRUW. I say largely because I haven't unsubscribed from any mailing lists, but in a world where nobody needs a sub because the automation put in place for the pandemic also works fine for missed shows, I don't think I'll be dropping by casually. Still, I was at WRUW from 1998 to 2020, and a large piece of my heart (not to mention my ears) will live there forever.