Sunday, February 27, 2005

The Dangers of Alcohol

Last night, 18 of us rented a limo and went to party at Crobar as a surprise for Chris Mangum's 30th birthday. It was a lot of fun, and we all had a good time, from what I can remember. I just really need to learn to stay away from drinking more than 5 drinks in an hour's time. Especially when it's vodka and red bull, which is toxic to my stomach. The entire limo ride home (over an hour), I was on the verge of throwing up in my hat, and probably all over Jay. Thank God I didn't. A little hung over today, but more than anything just taking last night as a lesson learned. Now it's back to the grind tomorrow. Lots of stress on the work front these days with the big boss Billy Diggs, especially since Julian got fired. But hopefully this week will see an end to that.

In the meantime, it's the sunday night ritual- heading to KTU to drop off tonight's mix, and then over to Jay's to watch some TV.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Borgata

Heading to AC with Jay, Jarrod and Jessica for the night. More to come when I get home tomorrow.

Wish me luck, as I'll be gambling with money that really should be going towards my bills :-X

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Happy Fucking Birthday

So today I turn 24 years old. This has by far been the most horrific birthday ever. My first birthday since my parents found out about me having a boyfriend- not a girlfriend :-) Six months since all this shit started in my house- and granted I knew it was going to be hard and they weren't going to take it well, but I never thought it would get worse six months into it- if anything I figured things would get better with time. My mother has become cold towards me lately- barely speaking to me unless absolutely necessary. She claims to be depressed about her life, which is partially my fault because im gay. Whatever the case- given the fact that it is my birthday today, I at least expected sincere birthday sentiments from the woman who gave birth to me. But what do I get? A halfhearted "happy birthday...are you wearing jeans to the restaurant today?". That was it. No card. No hug. Nothing. I wish there were easy answers to situations like this. I wish I could say "I really don't care" or "well fuck them". As easy as it is for me to say fuck it to most people in this world, it doesn't apply to the people that live in this house. And as much as I wish I could talk to her, make her understand, do SOMETHING- it all falls on deaf ears. Unfortunately, my mother has the "always right" complex, so according to her "always right" mindset, I have made a horrible "decision" to be attracted to guys, a "decision" that is, in her words, "the worst thing in the world that could possibly happen to you" (yes- worse than terminal illness, drug addiction, etc..). A "decision" that means I will never be happy, that I will contract multiple sexually transmitted diseases and be a social outcast. Yeah. All that has been said to me- at one point or another. Crazy, right? So this is what it's been like in my house for the past six months. But today I thought at least a nice sincere birthday gesture would be in order. Guess I thought wrong. And the more I say it doesn't bother me, the more it eats me up inside. Anyone have an answer to this one? Because I'm really running out of ideas over here...

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

So in the time since I've last written, my daily work routine has been thrown into an absolute panicked mess that has been nonstop. Bill decided that I wasn't busy enough with my normal work, so he decided to put me in charge of the entire radio promotion campaign for the upcoming TLC reality special that they are in the process of filming for UPN (for those who don't know, Bill is the manager of TLC, the biggest selling girl group of all time). Now granted, Bill is NOT an easy man to deal with. He's irrational, focused on 10 million different things at once and makes ridiculous requests for things. Up until now, I've only had to deal with him peripherally, as 90% of my work comes directly from Hosh. He basically handed me a stack of papers, contacts and email trails and told me to go ahead and start booking TLC's radio interviews for 5 different markets.

Fine...but first things first...how the hell do you go about doing all of that?! Guess I would just have to figure it out on my own.

So in the past week, I've figured out how to book the girls at different radio stations, deal with programming at all the different stations, deal with the UPN people, deal with Chilli and T-Boz directly. It's sort of interesting and great to learn, but it all comes at the expense of my primary responsibilities with Hosh. I really thought I might be able to handle both until Tuesday, when Bill demanded that the entire Atlanta market be "locked in" (a term he uses every 2 seconds and I can't stand)- meaning every radio station needed to give me a written agreement specifying exactly how many plugs and mentions they would promote the girls with (something that some stations fought tooth and nail about giving me), and the interviews were to be confirmed with the station, the girls and set up accordingly. All in one day. Meanwhile, Hosh had given me work that I threw to the side at the expense of Bill's ADD-fueled sense of urgency that if this didn't get done THAT DAY, the entire process would fall apart. After yesterday, where Bill told me "You've given me nothing", I pretty much had it.

I worked from home today so I could edit these Kevin Aviance voicetones, which I wound up not even taking the CD out of the case. Instead, I spent the day on my cell phone with a laundry list of people, from Atlanta reporters, to radio programmers, to UPN executives, to Chilli and T-Boz. Can't wait to expense that phone bill to the company.

Now granted, I'm all for learning, experiencing new things in this industry- but juggling both work responsibilities and being in the middle of a Hosh and Bill tug of war has worn me the fuck out. My birthday is Sunday, my weekend starts now. No plans have necessarily been set in stone, except for dinner tomorrow with my friends and Mike's party on Sunday- but I hope that Jay and I get to do something nice. Maybe he is planning something. Who knows.

PS- Week 4 of training- coming along nicely- James said the next couple of weeks the results are really going to start surfacing

Friday, February 04, 2005

Me and 1/5 of the Spice Girls

Me and the oh so talented oh so bangable Emma Bunton aka "Baby Spice". Her new album "Free Me" is one of the better pop albums I've heard in a long time. Thanks to fellow KTU mixmaster Johnny Rocks for hooking me up with the picture. I always liked the Spice Girls in sort of a weird "I can appreciate them from a music marketing standpoint" way. Never was a big fan of the music, although I did like the ballad "2 Become 1" and the video for it. I was also a big fan of the Spice Girl candy that the ice cream man used to sell for 50 cents. I remember I had an Emma sticker on my Chemistry notebook that randomly got stuck there. Summer of '97. Anthony would appreciate that one. Anyways, it was great to meet her, I trekked all over Manhattan in the sub-freezing cold to xl to meet her, and it was great. The VIP area very few people had access to, so I had a chance to talk with her for a bit one-on-one, take a picture, get an autograph. I love this industry.


Oh Baby Spice Posted by Hello

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Ratings

So I just got an email from Jeff Z, the PD (thats program director for you non-radio people) at WKTU. These are the Arbitron ratings for the hour that I am on the air doing my mixshow. The one hour of the week that the airwaves at KTU belong to me.

Needless to say, I was more than happy with the numbers that I saw...

From: ZUCHOWSKI, JEFF [JeffZ@clearchannel.com]
To: JamesAnthonyKTU@aol.com
CC:
Subject: RE: Sunday Night Freestyle

Sundays 11p-12 mid

spring 04- 1.6
summer 04- 2.4
fall 04- 5.3

Good job
Jeff


This made my day.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Strange Dreams

Lately I've been going to bed earlier. Not like old people earlier, but earlier nonetheless. I usually fall asleep around 12 now, instead of 1-1:30. I sleep much better and wake up a hell of a lot more refreshed, but I do find that my dreams have gotten more bizarre. Here is some of what went on in my head last night:

Dream #1: The high school anxiety dream: I park my car in the parking lot of some random public (ugh) high school, where it is my first day of classes. I don't know anybody there, and I'm walking down the hallway by myself when I realize that I've forgotten my bookbag with my textbooks and paper and pens and lunch at home. I start panicking and wonder if I can drive home, get the bag and make it back in time before I'm too late and miss homeroom. I get home and start screaming at my dad to hurry up and help me find my bookbag, which is nowhere to be found in the house. I am petrified at the thought that I am going to get in trouble on my first day in this high school.

Dream #2: Six Flags: I'm walking through what is supposed to be Six Flags with my brother. There are two rollercoasters that reach so ridiculously high in the air, much higher than they would in reality. I comment on how I have no idea how anybody can actually go on those rides. So instead of going on the rides, my brother suggests we go in the arcade. When I go in the arcade and see all the games, I realize that it must be the 1980's, based on the games they have. I get all excited when I see all the games I used to play in the arcade when I was a kid. Then I notice that all the games cost 50 cents, which can't possibly be true of arcade games in the 1980's. This anachronism causes me to quickly wake up.

Anyone care to analyze that?