When I was younger I worked in radio. I was what was called a DJ or On-air announcer. Air Talent was the industry term that described individuals entrusted to give the time and temperature, music trivia and bits of information of general or specific interest; in short, a disembodied voice that reflected the voice of the community at large (or small). I broke my radio teeth in small towns in California and it was in those small towns that I would stay; my voice confined to those geographical air spaces rife with the sweet scent of dust and pesticides. My first radio job was in Stockton, California at a small station situated on a stretch of farmland 2 hours away from my home in San Francisco. I figured that this station would be a mere steppingstone on my quest to working at a “real” station (IE: A station in a “major market” such as San Francisco). I recall taking radio production classes at City College of San Francisco. I had a show on its radio station whose signal could be heard on a local cable TV station. The head of the broadcasting department spoke to our class. He said, let me guess, you all want to be radio DJ’s in San Francisco. He was correct about this. In hindsight, we were just the latest enrollees in a program of would-be DJ’s with dreams of working at a station in San Francisco–mostly likely KSOL, the leading R&B station. With wisdom informed in no small measure by his age, he said, well, if that doesn’t work, then do something else. I later found out that the department head once starred in a Woody Allen movie playing the role of Woody Allen’s father. I found the movie at a rental store—on VHS.

I arrived for my airshift at the station in Stockton on a Saturday afternoon having driven past endless stretches of farmland. I pulled into a parking lot covered with gauze-like fog and a bitter chill in the air. I got out of my pick-up truck and was greeted by a half-dozen or so cows meandering about in a sort of procession. I got out of my pick-up truck and those cows of many colors (These cows were ahead of the curve having embraced diversity early) gathered and looked at me then parted, providing a walkway such as Moses in the parting of the Red Sea. “Who’s that guy?” asked a white cow with black spots. “It’s the new air talent answered a brown cow with white spots. “Hi,” I said, in a most energetic way. The brown cow proceeded to pass gas in a most ghastly way before walking away with the rest of its cow brethren. I looked at the ground. Mounds of cow shit lie frozen with vaporous steam swirling. I carefully navigated the mounds on my way to my first air-talent job—a stepping stone (careful not to step on those mounds) to bigger and better.

I made my share of mistakes which included playing records at the wrong speed or playing the wrong commercial or public service announcement. When this happened, I’d see a group of cows gathered at the control studio window snickering. I learned that some of the more crafty cows had placed bets on what missteps I’d make during my air shift; some placing bets on how long it would take before I got fired. There was always action when I was on air—at least as far as the cows were concerned. All the DJ’s (Air talent) followed a clock. Certain songs were to be played at certain times as well as commercials. At 20 minutes after the hour, we were to read the news. Most of the news was provided via a teletype—Associated Press whose scrolls spewed to the floor like rolls of paper towels. Essentially it was a process of “rip and read”, although the station had a news director who would write local stories. I had the pleasure of reading a story he’d penned that described the robbery of a convenience store in the evening. A man reportedly brandished a weapon, holding up the cashier. However, a customer who happened to be in close proximity—near the potato chip display—stepped in and disarmed the would-be robber of his knife, incapacitating him, and stabbing him several times in “the buttocks.” I got through the story but not without great effort to suppress the laughter that was building inside me.

I got friendly with listeners calling in on the request line. One such listener was a female who complimented me, telling me that my voice was sexy–that it was Barry White-like. This appealed to my fragile and underdeveloped ego. We began a rapport. She called in regularly requesting the same song, a slow jam whose title escapes me. One of the cows stationed close to the studio window looked at me and told me I shouldn’t get too close to the listeners on the request line, to “keep it professional.” One evening the lady who said my voice was sexy called on the request line. What are you doing? I asked. “Oh nothing,” she replied, followed by, “Just looking through the Victoria Secret Catalogue.” The combination of my voice and a Victoria Secret catalogue got me to think, this ain’t a bad deal. This revelation prompted my interest which prompted a meeting at a local bar and grill. It is said that certain people have a “face for radio”. This is true. Some people’s voices do not match what they look like in person. Such was the case with listener browsing the Victoria Secret catalogue. We met once and only once. The cows chimed in with, we told you so.

The one thing you didn’t want during your show was what was known as “dead air.” Dead air was silence prompted by any number of reasons, the most common being some technical difficulty or operator error. When, for whatever reason, I breached the land, landscape, or void which was dead air, I panicked. It was as though I had entered an abyss, a bottomless pit that was worse than a grave, something I needed to extricate myself from before being permanently swallowed by it. 

Silence—or dead air—was the enemy. But what of the sounds that permeated the studio, the car speakers, the radios in houses and cars or the farmland at large? My voice was transmitted in the atmosphere and received on any number of electronic devices. I played the music and gave the station call letters and slogan—Much more music…on KSTN.  I gave the time and temperature and bits of music trivia as was my duty. I began pondering the concept of silence. I asked myself what I was filling the silence with. As time went by the question of silence continued its whisper.  Was silence, in fact, dead air?  I began seeking out silence. I turned the volume of the studio headphones down to the horror of my audience of cows. Someone’s looking to get his ass fired, one of the cows uttered (or uddered?)

Sure enough, due to my dereliction of DJ duties (IE: gaps of dead air) I was fired. The cows gave me a heartfelt send-off leaving mounds of steaming patties–plop, plop, plop–that I had to gingerly step over on my way to my pick-up truck. I turned the key and turned on the radio. Silence. What could I fill the silence with? Or was there a need to fill it with anything at all? No more reciting station call letters, no more music trivia or time and temperature. No more news reports of would-be robbers being stabbed in the buttocks with sharp knives. No more playing the voice of the station owner on an audio cartridge promising would be law-breakers that his station would announce their names over the air as part of a “crime stoppers” campaign (which prompted some of my relatives to ask if the station’s call letters were actually K-R-A-T).

I drove home, arriving at a silent house. I sat for a long while. I then heard the sound of a piano; faint then louder. It was a jazz pianist my poet uncle liked coming from a neighbor’s radio. My uncle played piano—jazz piano. He encouraged me to write poetry and I began scribbling thoughts—that I mostly kept to myself. Who would care about those thoughts? It would be nothing but silence on a page, I thought.  One day my uncle was sitting at a piano. I sat next to him. As he played, he closed his eyes and I felt something stir within me. He opened his eyes and said that it is between the notes, in the silences, that poetry lives. He continued to play and the silence became bigger, wider, and deeper. It was then that I realized there was no such thing as dead air. My uncle left me with a belly full of silence, a mind filled with silence, a heart filled with…

I think of silence and my uncle’s words. It put me on the path toward those stepping stones of silence that I would later use to fill the dead air in my life. With poetry. 

© 2023 Tony Robles