{"id":4883,"date":"2012-07-11T03:41:31","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T03:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelwagstaff.wordpress.com\/?p=1247"},"modified":"2012-07-11T03:41:31","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T03:41:31","slug":"im-going-to-be-a-radio-dj-13-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelwagstaff.info\/wordpress\/im-going-to-be-a-radio-dj-13-2\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m going to be a radio DJ!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WSUM”s new studio.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I was in 6th grade, and living in Oklahoma, one of the DJs on a local radio station moved into my family’s neighborhood. I think his name was something terrible, something like Jimmy Rocket. I was really pumped, especially when I’d see him pulling his car into the garage every couple of weeks. I used to think being a radio DJ would be the best job ever. And then I developed musical taste and realized how soul-crushing it would be as an adult with fully operational cognitive abilities to DJ for a commercial radio station, especially one that catered to the tastes of teenagers. So the dream sort of withered on the vine. And then when I was a senior in high school my dad bought me a subscription to CMJ<\/a> and I learned that there was something called college radio<\/a>. It wasn’t long before I learned there was even something called pirate radio<\/a>. And the dream sent out tiny hope tendrils. And then I took a radio documentary class as an undergraduate and made a 15 minute long This American LIfe<\/a>-style piece about BYU’s Inernational Cinema<\/a> program. It was the most fun thing I did in a college class, probably. And the dream developed a single tap root, burrowing blindly deeper and deeper. And then I came to Wisconsin and learned about WORT and WSUM. And then I learned that one of my former students, a non-traditional student who had led a a really interesting life was hosting a radio show<\/a> on WSUM. And then I appeared on his show\u00a0as a guest (listen to a .mp3 of that show<\/a>) to talk about the Writers in Prisons Project<\/a> and really enjoyed being in a radio studio and seeing all the equipment and how the guts of a radio program worked.<\/p>\n

So that was it. That was as close as I got. And then I ran into that former student in the library last week ago and we talked and I mentioned how I had wanted for a long time to have a music show on the radio and how I had made plans with a colleague from grad school but he never followed through on them and we never applied for a spot and how it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. And he said, “well, wouldn’t you know…”<\/p>\n

\"WSUM\"<\/a>
WSUM (Photo credit: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And now I’m going to be DJing a weekly radio show with Pete Hnilicka every Thursday from 11AM-noon [`central time] on WSUM (91.7) in Madison starting this week!!! You can stream the show live from their website<\/a>. I’m not sure what we’re going to call the show yet, but the plan is for each show to have some kind of starting theme and then proceed through a six degrees of separation kind of deal where each song connects in some way to the following song. Pete’s going to primarily select more mainstream\/classic rock type tunes, and I’m going to go a bit more indie and eclectic with my choice. And for our first show, this Thursday, you ask? It’s starting with Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Boom.<\/p>\n