Revisiting Theo

Vinyl was on its last legs when I began my long, mostly obscure radio career in 1990.  You would come in fifteen minutes before shift and "pull" your first hour of music.  This involved flipping through shelves of LPs and 45's which lined three walls of the studio.  

Working with two turntables, you'd have to select and backcue the next song while the current one was playing.  Everything was live.  Dead air was a sin.  So it was imperative to be prepared.

Record companies began sending us compact discs.  Some along with the vinyl album, and then eventually only CDs.  When the FM studio was built, there were two CD players and only one turntable.  Theo ultimately disconnected the turntable (possibly because I was going rogue and getting off format by playing too much old Charley Pride off vinyl late at night).

A few years later, everything began to be computerized and the art of the backcue was never fully appreciated again.

In the years since leaving radio, I've had a recurring dream about not being able to find the song I wanted to play next, panicking and having dead air. Commercials would be missing, or the ones in the racks would be outdated.  More recently, the situations within these dreams had become progressively worse.

At first, some of the discs were not in their usual location, but I was able to find them in another spot, a large filing cabinet in another room.  In subsequent dreams, more and more seemed to be missing, and I was no longer able to find them at all.  It was like someone (Theo?) was hiding them from me.

It got to where there were only a few songs available to play and I had never heard of any of them.

And then...

Two nights after I had written about Theo, I had another in this series of dreams.  Perhaps the finale.  

Again, I am at the station.  Except this time, there is no music.  Not a single song.  At least none that I can find.  There are fifteen minutes of dead air.  (Other than someone going off on a curse-filled tirade during the call-in request show, this is a DJ's worst nightmare.)  I just want to lie down in the floor and sob.

Then Theo appears.

He shows me a box full of carts and says the music has been transferred over to these tapes.  They are sort of like 8-tracks.  All the music is there.  Indexed.  Easily accessible.  

There is relief.  At long last, some resolution to this frustrating, anxiety-ridden series of dreams!

When I awoke and recalled the dream, I smiled.  Two nights after I had written about Theo, he had appeared.  But why?

Had Theo come to make peace?  Maybe he just wanted to let me know he was finally at peace.  Or perhaps I was holding onto something -- some conflict, some disharmony, something that just didn't sit right - and telling Theo's story had allowed me to let that go.

Or maybe it was just another dream, dreamt by an idiot, signifying not much of anything.

Either way, I thought it worthy of sharing.

Next, I think I shall write about my unresolved issues with Kristen Wiig.  See if she shows up!