Go Big, or Go Home

The Ironman is coming.

I can't stop it.

Can't put it off in any way.

On July 20th, 2008, about 2000 very fit people will jump in Mirror Lake in Lake Placid NY to set off on a day of excruciating fun. And I'm one of them.

Since signing up in August, I've been downplaying the whole thing. Anyone who asks me about it is hit with my standard "I've never wanted to do one of these...I'm not looking forward to this...Ironman is a ridiculous race...I'm only doing this because my friends sucked me into it" answer. It's easy to act like I don't want to do the Ironman because that way the pressure is off me.

But it's not true.

As I've discovered in the past three weeks, I'm really excited, honoured and privileged to have the chance to take part in this huge challenge.

Tony O'Keefe changed my attitude. Tony has done dozens of Ironmans, as well as the Race Across America (LA - NY on a bicycle), and a few Double Ironmans. Tony loves to challenge himself, and isn't shy about telling the world. He came to talk to a group I belong to, and as he spoke, I realised that I wasn't being respectful to all the driven, highly-motivated people who put so much of themselves into a competition like Ironman. Sure, most know they won't win. That's not why they're there. Every reason for entering is different in some way...and yet, as Tony pointed out, they're all exactly the same too: we all WANT to do it.

We want to do it so badly, that we endure ridiculous training regimens. We negotiate time from our families and work places.

We do this because nothing makes you feel more alive than rising to a challenge that seemed so unbeatable when you first heard of it, that you knew you could never even think of taking it on.

I had an uncle who visited more cities than I could ever hope to. He went to places any one of us would be thrilled to experience. He travelled the world...to take pictures through a bus window, and complain about the poor television in his room, and the lousy meals the group was given. He totally wasted his chance to live a bit bigger.

I don't want my Ironman legacy to be that I'd watched the NBC special from the privacy of my comfy couch, drinking a cold beer.

I need to get in there and find out what it's really all about.

I'm gonna be an Ironman!

Be Careful of What You Read

So what do you do for a living?

I have the greatest job in the world (next to driving the Oakland Raiders Cheerleader Bus) getting up early, playing some song and talking to the finest city on the planet.

Beat that!

There are some things about this job that defy logic. For example: the best time slot for a dj is the early morning show, and all of us work long hard hours to be good enough to get up at 3:30am, drag out sorry butts into work, put together a show and pull it off every day. This is coupled with an insane amount of "personal appearances" which are anything from introducing a hot act at a club to mcing a major charity event. Sleep is a myth. Family life is precious. Being able to open your mouth in public and not have someone stare at you with that "I know you, don't I?" look on her or his face...well that's all gone.

And we love it.

And what do you complain about? Do you ever get personal, telling someone that the place they work at sells products you just would never buy, or that you didn't like the way they spoke to you on the sales floor? We get it all the time. "I don't like that kind of music." "The guy on there in the morning has an awful voice." "You suck." All delivered with a smile.

And we love it.

The point of having a good radio station is to serve an audience. We work very hard (not just at my station, but at all radio stations in this city) to make sure we're doing what the audience wants us to do, within the confines of the very specific, and sometimes very odd rules that our governing body the CRTC lays out for us. If you're a private broadcaster, and your audience has the right mix of ages, genders and lifestyle choices, you can sell commercial time to local and national businesses who want their message delivered to the people who will help them to prosper.

Some days are better than others. Getting to stay up around the clock to cover Natalie Lambert's swim(s) across Lake Ontario with Mike Reid from Bob FM, was priceless. Helping raise money for a young leukemia victim. Meeting music stars. All good. Then there's the time that two large jetliners flew into the World Trade Center in the middle of what was a fun and fluffy morning show, or the time I heard my favorite station stop the music to tell me that John Lennon had been shot.

The days in between make up most of our careers in this business. Those days when the only thing that matters is the minutiae that makes up our everyday lives.

And we love it.

Critics, pundits and people with vested interests will come along from time to time, giving their insight into what radio is all about. Sometimes they're dead on. At other times, they just don't get it. Their opinions are important to us, because they're just that: opinions. We in this business need to know what others think of us...what people say about us. We need it as much as we need those folks who love us and everything we do.

So if you ever need to know what's "really going on" in the radio biz. If you ever feel you're not getting the whole story about the ratings, the firings, the hirings, and the music changes. Ask one of us who are truly "inside" the business. Better still, ask a bunch of us, from different companies, formats and backgrounds.

Otherwise, you're just getting whatever someone wants to feed you. Good, bad or whatever.

Old? Who's old?

What was I thinking?

Back when I first Googled (seems so long ago) I did what everyone else does, and swears they'd never do. You've done it, so stop lying that you haven't. It, of course is Googling oneself.

What a non-event that was. My name came up thanks to my company's website, and from about a million races I'd entered that published their results online.

Still...I came up on Google!

Did it again a couple of days ago, and whadya know, my name came up on the company website, and about ten million races I'd been in that published their results online. Then, there was one more. There's a blogger here in Kingston who calls himself the "Kingston Radio Insider." He says that he wants to start a dialogue that will help educate advertisers in an objective way so they can better understand what's "really" going on in the market. Fair enough. So I read further and found my new station 989 The Drive mentioned. He seemed to like what we were about to do on the air, and even mentioned me as the new morning host. Okay. Then I went a bit further to find him asking "...the Spring book will tell us if CTVglobemedia can put an old Kingston jock to grab the young male audience." So you know, the Spring Book is a ratings tool that all stations in the country use to gauge their audience and set advertising rates.

Old Kingston jock?

Kingston...yes. Jock...definitely. Old...kind of harsh don't you think? Eddie Vedder and I are the same age. Eddie Vedder can't be old! Yipes! If you're going to put me in a slot, why the hell would you choose old? I've spent my entire life getting told that I'm TOO YOUNG to do things which I want to do. NOW I'M OLD!

Call me too skinny. Make fun of my crazy hair. My squeaky voice. My inability to talk in a slick, formatted, focused manner.

Just don't call me OLD!

Here's a thought: Kingston Radio Blogger, how about you and I go for a little run together. Nothing more than five k's. I'll set the pace. Then we can see who feels old.

Gawd I hope you're not fast!