My alarm clock now goes off at 3:30 a.m., five days a week.
When I am crawl out of bed in what feels like the middle of the night, I ask myself the same question: “How in the hell did I go from being a civil servant that inspected dirty kitchens, public restrooms, rodent infestations and Hepatitis A outbreaks, to co-hosting a morning radio show?”
I guess if I had to come up with an answer, it would be sheer luck — and because Roger Creager didn’t feel like autographing T-shirts at his merchandise table one night almost three years ago. Or at least that is how the old story goes.
Rita Ballou was “born” after a bad night as a bad joke and the rest is pretty much history. I didn’t create this “character” or the Rawhide and Velvet website thinking people would ever read it; I just wanted a place to voice my opinions about the music I loved, passively aggressively bitch about bad show experiences, make fun of the obnoxious people you always run across at concerts, and to create a place where my eclectic group of music-addicted friends could do the same without their comments being deleted. To say that Roger Creager changed my life would be an understatement.
Earlier this year when I heard rumblings of a new radio station coming to the Waco area that would be playing Texas/Red Dirt/Americana music, I was excited, but skeptical. I knew that the Central Texas area was lacking this type of programming because other than Saturday nights, there wasn’t a station playing this type of music between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Austin. But I never thought that it would actually happen.
I was wrong.
When the former Mix station started playing Billy Joe Shaver’s “Wacko From Waco” on a loop right before the format switch, I knew the rumors had to be true. The new Shooter 929 “Young Guns and Legends of Country” station was finally here.
Shooter FM was on the air about a week when I got a Twitter direct message from the program director, Chris Austin, formally of KORA in College Station, asking if I would be interested in working part time for the station. Since I had quit my job the year before to become a trophy wife and full-time blogger, I thought it sounded like a great idea. I just assumed I’d be doing some promotional stuff like passing out T-shirts or bumper stickers at concerts.
Again I was wrong.
After a lunch “interview” that I didn’t even realize was an interview and a quick tour of the studio, I had suddenly become part of the new Shooter FM morning show, soon to be known as the “A.M. Corral with Terry and Rita.”
Because my office was at home when I worked solo on my own territory for the state health department for a decade, I had never experienced working with a “partner,” much less a team, so that has to be one of the most challenging parts of my new radio gig. It is literally an arranged marriage. You are thrown into a room the size of a closet with a complete stranger and asked to make radio magic. Luckily for me, my co-host, Terry Hunt, is a radio veteran with 30-plus years of experience and presses all of the buttons and fiddles with all of the knobs. Unluckily for him, I have no on-air experience other than doing a few “Rita” call in segments and I have no idea what I am doing. But so far that combination seems to be working for the A.M. Corral. Does that mean I haven’t started crying on air because I royally screwed up a live commercial spot or thrown my headphones down in the middle of a segment and ran out of the studio? No, because I have. But isn’t the first year of marriage always the hardest? Here’s hoping.
We are slowly getting to know each other … or at least, Terry is quickly learning about my warped sense of humor. I think he has finally forgiven me for telling him “the cancer ate my ovaries” on air after he asked me about not having any children. I was completely kidding, but the dead air and the look of panic on his face proved to me he didn’t exactly get the joke.
If you know me, you know that I have opinions. I have learned that voicing these opinions on the radio is a little different than voicing them on the Internet. People actually listen to the radio! I won’t say I have gotten into trouble per se, but I might have been reprimanded a time or two.
I don’t know much about sports, but evidently not knowing who Robert Griffin III from the Baylor football team is might be a big deal. Sorry, but I thought “RG3” was one of the characters from Star Wars, like C-3PO, and might have accidentally referred to him as WD40. The Baylor fans didn’t appreciate that or find it the least bit humorous.
While I haven’t gotten into much hot water by the higher ups at the station yet for not filtering my thoughts, I seem to get into a lot of trouble at home … or at least in my hometown. My mom might have rethought bragging to her church lady friends about her daughter being on the radio because I am constantly getting phone calls from her with questions like, “Did you really say that the girl from the Band Perry was having sex with her brothers on the radio?” or “Why did you say that you thought the wax the doctor cleaned out of your ear looked like Jesus and you were going to sell it on Ebay?”
Sorry Mom.
As much as I love chatting about music, celebrity gossip and pop culture on air, I loathe reading the news. Reading the news is my Kryptonite. Not only do I have a tendency to read so fast that I am almost impossible to understand, but with this small town Texas accent I apparently have absolutely zero annunciation. The harder I try, the worse it gets. At this point, me attempting to read the news report is basically an on-air comedy bit. I honestly don’t mean to giggle uncomfortably when reading about murder and child abuse. And I can’t seem to stop myself from stopping in the middle of the news stories to ask questions like, “Is that presidential dude’s real name Mitt? As in oven and baseball catchers?”
Still, I like to think that I’m getting a little better at my new gig every day. I’ve already learned a lot. I realize I am new to this radio fraternity, and I don’t want to be giving away any treasured secrets, but I will let y’all in on a few of the things I never knew as a radio listener.
For starters, if you are calling in over and over and over again to request the same song, that song is not going to be played, no matter how many times we say, “sure, we will try to get that one on for you.” We are lying. Oh, and the same goes for spamming the Facebook page with the same requests. We know you are Billy Fred from the Billy Fred Band’s momma! It is very sweet to request your pride and joy’s song once or twice, but when you request it 15 times in a two-hour period, that is just annoying, and we will do anything in our power to make sure it isn’t played.
Also … when we say “be caller number 92 to win,” that might not be 100-percent true. Do you really think we have time to sit thru 91 callers? We only have two lines coming into the studio! Oh, and if you happen to be the winner but you sound like you are on hog tranquilizers on the other end of the phone when we answer, you aren’t going to win even if you are caller 92. And if you take the time to call in, you might as well take the time to sound happy about winning and not be such a Grumpy McGrumperson. Oh, and while we are on that subject, if you do happen to win, don’t complain about the prize! I can’t really grasp the concept of people bitching about getting free stuff, but it really does happen more than I ever dreamed it would. Please don’t tell us how you would rather have tickets than a CD or would rather have a CD than a T-shirt. If you don’t want to win the prize offered, don’t try to win the damn thing! If you do win, don’t be an un-grateful bastard.
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
Looking back on my first 90 days of being an “on-air personality,” I can’t say it has been easy. Granted, I do enjoy being able to go to work wearing my stretchy yoga pants and flip flops, and say what you will about having a “face for radio,” but honesty there is something about not having to fix my hair or put on makeup that is definitely a huge perk of the job. But still, this is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I think I am definitely up for the challenge, though. And hey, even if things don’t work out, at least I’ll still have all those intriguing dinner invitations from listeners — especially from my No. 1 fan/frequent caller, who wants me to come over to his house and have BBQ with him on my birthday. He is currently under house arrest.
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