Yesterday morning I came really really close to making one of the dumbest mistakes I’ve ever made in my 22 years at WGTD. . . a graphic demonstration of how crucial one little button can be. The task at hand was the recording of a 30 minute interview with Simon Singh, a best-selling author whose newest book is titled “Trick or Treatment? The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine.” As you might gather from the title, this book is a very hard-hitting look at alternative medicine and all of the outrageous claims which it makes with no basis in scientific fact. This is an important topic and a superbly written book, so I was really excited about this interview and anxious to make every second count. At 9:00 I dialed the author’s phone number- which was a challenge in and of itself because he lives in England- and excitedly began the interview as soon as the connection was made. Just as Mr. Singh began to answer my first question, I glanced over at the tape deck to make sure that his sound level was equal to mine – – – and instead of seeing TWO lights illuminated: for play and record, I saw THREE lights illuminated: for play, record, and pause! Somehow in my excitement at finally getting to talk with this guy, I neglected to take the deck off of pause – and if I hadn’t glanced over when I did, I would have spent thirty minutes on a transatlantic phone call and have a blank tape to show for it. (Talk about money down the drain.) As it is, I noticed the problem about five words into his first answer, and I just said “excuse me- I need to adjust one thing. (pause) Okay, that’s it. Please begin your answer again in three, two one. . . “ and we were off.
At least this was a mistake that occurred off the air – and once I’ve concocted a new opening for the interview and grafted it on to what I recorded, no one will know the difference. But I’ve made plenty of on-air mistakes in 22 years at WGTD. One of the worst- which could have been so much worse than it was – came when I played the tape of an interview I recorded with Professor Radwanski, a science prof at Carthage. We had a conversation about some summer program at Carthage – and when the interview itself concluded, I allowed the tape to continue rolling as we chatted for a moments longer. (I do that with most of my phone interviews because sometimes an author will pay me a nice compliment once the interview itself is over = and it’s kind of neat to have those compliments on tape.) This was a relatively short interivew, one of several airing on that particular morning show- and somehow I got mixed up with the time and was out in the hall, on my way back from the restroom when I suddenly heard “Professor Elaine Radwanski, thank you for joining me on the morning show” and heard her reply “You’re very welcome.” And I was instantly running as fast as my legs would carry me back into the studio, but not in time to stop the tape – and I heard over the air “There we go. Thanks, Elaine. That was fun.” and Professor Radwanski replying “You’re welcome. It’s such a pleasure to talk about these students. I just love working with them so much! There’s nothing better! ” And at that moment I paused the tape – and realized that in fact it was sort of nice that I had inadvertently aired those last few words that hadn’t been meant for broadcast – because she was so sincere and endearing as she spoke them. In that split second, I realized that this had been for the best, so I turned on the mic and said “I wanted you to hear that last part after the actual interview was over, because it says a lot about why teachers feel so privileged to do what they do.” We call that Tap Dancing, and when you’re really good at it, no one even realizes that you’ve just done a Fred Astaire number as though your life depended on it!
This close call made me think of various mishaps which have happened at the station over the years, several of which still make me cringe. One of the worst of all was when I assisted a former general manager in recording a phone interview with an archbishop in Milwaukee speaking on the topic of the closure of Catholic parishes and schools in Kenosha and Racine. This interview was a big deal and we felt fortunate to have booked this. (It wasn’t Archbishop Dolan, but rather his predecessor.) This general manager, who shall remain nameless, could no more operate a tape recorder than he could pilot a fighter jet. He was completely clueless, so whenever he recorded an interview he was dependent on one of the rest of us to turn on his mic, call the guest, start the tape recorder, etc. All he knew how to do was ask questions, and he wasn’t even very good at that- but at least his heart was in the right place. Anyway, when it came time for him to do this interview, I got him seated and miked, and then called up the archbishop and got him connected. The last thing for me to do right before the interview began was to reach past my boss and turn on the tape deck and then slip out of the production room and allow the interview to proceed. They had a nice conversation for about 13 minutes (the archbishop said he could only spare us 15 minutes total.) It was only after the archbishop had hung up and my boss vacated his seat at the console that I took a close look at the cassette deck and realized that the play button had never fully engaged, and the tape sat there in pause the whole time. No interview with the archbishop. When I told my boss, he looked at me like I was a piece of disgusting fungus – and only later did it occur to me that this mishap would never have occurred in the first place if my boss had ever managed to learn how to operate a bleepity-bleep tape recorder. But instead, I promised to call the archbishop back, explain the problem, and beg for a second chance. (It was not hard for me to sound very very pitiful.) And lo and behold, the archbishop had a few minutes right then and there, and the interview was redone immediately- and this one ended up going 18 minutes and was far better than the first. So it turned out to be for the best, but still- when I think of that moment when I walked into the production room and saw that tape still on <<pause>> I get that sick feeling in my stomach all over again.
When I was at KWLC, the student-operated radio station at Luther (my alma mater) we had a term for a really bad mistake . . . a Markusch. The term was in fact the last name of a staffer who was responsible for a whole host of errors and mistakes both on and off the air- but the biggest whopper of them all was the time when he played an entire Norwegian worship service backwards and never realized it. It happened because this was back in the days when we used reel to reel tape, and programs from outside sources would often come “tails out,” meaning that you would have to load up the tape and then rewind it to the beginning – or you would end up playing it backwards by mistake. That’s what this guy did one Sunday morning – and although Norwegian may be a strange sounding language to our American ears, you can still tell when the tape is playing backwards. . . especially when the songs or hymns are sung. But this guy never caught on and let the thing play backwards for thirty minutes. I don’t know if he ever knew that his name lived on for a time as the all-purpose term for a really dumb and entirely avoidable mistake.
My hope is that the mistakes I make at the radio station have been and will continue to be few and far between and not so serious that Dave and Dave will start talking about the latest bone-headed “Berg” that someone has committed. That kind of immortality I don’t need.