I arrived in Tulsa on April 29th, 2008 which means at the end of the month, I'll have been here for 9 months. With this celebration, I present to you:
The Top 10 Thing I've Learned While Living in Oklahoma
10. How to throw change left-handed. Turnpikes! I remember pulling up to it the first time and awkwardly throwing my change in the catch like Scotty Smalls on his first attempt to throw a baseball and wondering how the person in front of me did it so effortlessly. It's second nature now and I can, like a true Tulsan, do it on the fly.
9. "Boomer Sooner":
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner,
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner,
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner,
Boomer Sooner, O-K-U!
Oklahoma, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma, O-K-U!
I'm a Sooner born
And a Sooner bred,
And when I die
I'll be Sooner dead.
Rah, Oklahoma! Rah, Oklahoma!
Rah, Oklahoma! O-K-U!
Thpbpbpbpbpbpb!!!! {said with tongue flailing and thumb pointed in a downward direction}. "Boomer Sooner" is all I ever hear. I never hear people yelling Giddy'up or whatever it is the OSU Cowboy fans yell.THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE NEBRASKA!!!!
8. There are 2 kinds of Oklahoman accents on women. One annoys the crap out of you, the other is kinda hot. Oh, and no guy sounds intelligent with an Oklahoma accent.
7. No one in Tulsa is from Tulsa. I kid you not, I've met 2... two people in 9 months originally from this town.
6. I'm organized. Who knew?
5. 50 degrees and sunny is cold and it "could snow any minute" as one fine upstanding gent put it. And yes, he said it with an Oklahoman accent
4. Never throw away a contact. In this business, its all about who you know
3. Working at Quick Trip is a completely respectable job. People in Iowa drop out of school and end up working for a gas station. In Tulsa, its considered a career. And a good one at that.
2. Turn signals aren't important, you must either go 20 above or 20 below the speed limit, a yellow light means speed up, and a red light means you only have 5 more seconds to get through the intersection unless its a turning lane, in which case you have 10.
1. No one is a good driver {see above} including Cops. If you turn on your signal and slow down you'd better turn or (nearly) get rear ended. And for the trouble he'll pull you over for an "unsafe lane-change". "But officer, I didn't change lanes" will not get you out of a ticket. "I'm sorry officer, I'm from Iowa. See-my license and tags clearly show that"; will, in fact, get you off with only a warning.
So far my resolution to blog more isn't going stupendous. I'm working on it.
I was thinking about my blog name today and the meaning behind it. Originally when I decided on it, it was because I would share with you all what happens on the "other" side of the radio. While I do try to do this from time to time, its more about random thoughts, websites I come across, TV shows, and other things that happen when I'm not working (and admittedly, sometimes when I am!). Maybe I should have chosen "The Other Side of the Morning Commute" as my title.
But today I wanted to share with you "the other side of the radio." I stole the title from a song by Christian artist, Chris Rice. I vaguely remember the song from my years interning at KGBI over 5 years ago, but ask me to repeat a line from the song without looking, and all I could come up with is "Here I am on the other side of the radio." I read the lyrics and they do a pretty good job of portraying why I do what I do, just substitute singing for speaking.
Music is one of the most effective means of reaching people. I sat at a concert the other night and all I could think about was how many people this guy must be reaching (that and the ridiculous dancer in the white pants who seemed to serve no purpose to the music). It wasn't just a good Christian concert, it was a good concert period. My friends, both Christian and non-Christian would have enjoyed it and walked away thinking it was one of the greatest concerts they've been to. You have no idea the kind of impact relevant Christians can make on the rest of the world. I know for a fact that many of them don't feel you can have fun and be a Christian. I grew up surrounded by fun-loving Christians and I forget, not everyone has a children's pastor who's podium spews fire. (Not for visual effects mind you, but for convenience!)
We're changing somebody's world from the other side of the radio. Oh, and it makes my day to see the smile on their face, and in some small way I remember my place.
That's a line from one of the verses to the song and time and time again, I've seen this. I'm blessed to be working for a station that believes in what they are doing. Not only do I hear it from the listeners, but I am constantly hearing from my "contemporaries" of how lucky I am to be where I'm at. Success is a reflection of leadership, and this is a station that is owned by a man who's grandchildren run the halls and who (before direct deposit) insisted on personally handing out each pay check. His son manages the station but also teaches a Sunday school class. The Program Director is greeted by nearly every artist and label representative with a warm hug. He's a man whose advice was almost immediately sought after when a musician lost his little girl. These are the things I've noticed in the 9 months I've been here.
I'm proud to be where I'm at and thankful for the opportunities I've been given. The Bible tells us to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation". I believe music can reach people nothing else can reach. Not Billy Graham or Joel Osteen, TBN, or "testamints". Music is my world. The Bible says we are the light of the world and we are to let it shine before men that they would praise God. Ghandi basically said the same thing when he said "Be the change you want to see in the world." We, as Christians need to present ourselves in such a way that people look at us and hear us and say to themselves, "I want that." Ghandi, by the way, also said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Of course I love having that "all access pass" at concerts, and I love talking to artists where my content is not "what inspired you to write this song", but "how's your family". And I'll never forget the first time someone said "Oh my gosh, you're David Wage!" But, with God's help, I'll also never forget why I do what I do.
Ok, in my last post I said I'd send out another "recap" blog over Thanksgiving and obviously, that didn't happen, so here it is... better late than never.
I'll try to summarize best I can, but I've been keeping myself pretty busy with lots of concerts, live remotes, and a few little projects soon to come at KXOJ.
Back in October, mom and my aunt Rhonda came down for a concert with Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman. I'm sure there was another reason they came down, but free tickets didn't hurt. My boss is very close with Steven and Michael, so I really felt like I had the pleasure of meeting a different side of them than most. With Bob there and being backstage, it seemed they both had their "fan guard" down.
From my end, the concert was a big success as well. It was our first experience with the new Spirit Bank Event Center but it was a great one. Especially for me. The deal with them is they take care of most of the finer details as part of the rental price. Those finer details are normally my responsibility so my job was limited to finding merch volunteers. Their merch manager was great working with and I even got to show off a little for him. In talking, he expressed gratitude for finding all the volunteers and said that was not the case for the next night and he was getting a bit worried. Knowing the next night's show was Omaha, I gave him a hand and jumped on my phone. Before long I had 5 volunteers lined up for him. Again, he was thankful.
On to November, and two more concerts! The first, was Creation Festival Tour with Kutless, Thousand Foot Krutch, Pillar plus half a dozen or so more. We also chose to have our "Bible Across America" stop on this day. Zondervan Publishing contacted us a couple months ago and presented this idea to us about a handwritten bible they were putting together. They went from city to city having people come out and sign their very own scripture in the Bible. We got a HUGE response that day with I believe just shy of 600 people over a 6 hour period. This was their largest 6 hr stop and I believe we could have added 100 or so more had they had an additional podium (by the end, the wait was nearly 2 hours in line so many people left). We were also able to get many of the bands to sign, and they were quite excited about it as well.
The concert went well with over 2000 seats sold, which we were pleased with. Tulsa has become very concert saturated and ticket sales overall are way down. Many concerts are being cancelled and if not, the numbers are very low and promoters are losing big. I didn't actually stay for the show because by that point I had been there for 10 hours, but i heard it was awesome.
Mom and dad came down a few days after that for Thanksgiving. Mom made her annual huge Thanksgiving feast which I couldn't eat! I had been going through some back pain that day and by dinner time it was so bad that I had almost no appetite. Plenty of leftovers though! Had a great time with mom and dad that week and we did our annual trip over to the Rhema lights. For my readers who aren't from Tulsa, and aren't familiar, Rhema is a bible college down here that is right across the street. Every Thanksgiving, they begin their annual display which this year includes nearly 2 million lights all over their campus park! Its truly a site. This year, they included a LED display set to music.
Mom and pop left Sunday afternoon, and that night we already had another concert. Casting Crowns was joined by Natalie Grant, Avalon, Michael English, and more for the Christmas Celebration Spectacular or something like that. Before hand, Natalie Grant joined by about 90 listeners went down to John3:16 Mission to do some caroling. Even though it was a little chillly, we had a blast and collected a lot of warm items! You may remember John3:16 Mission from a previous blog.
So far this month has been pretty calm less a lot of remotes. Its Wednesday and i still have 2 more this week, then a concert Saturday night. This concert will be a blast though. TobyMac, Relient K, Family Force 5... I'm excited!
Just 13 days and I fly back to Omaha to see lots of family and friends for Christmas! Then on the 26th, I fly out to Vegas to help my sister and brother-in-law with the kids while they are working. I'll be out there through January 4th, and fly back to Tulsa. I'll do a mega picture post when I return!
Maybe my newer friends wouldn't be much to attest to this, but anyone who has known me since at least high school knows I'm not the biggest of basketball fans. In fact, the only time I can ever remember getting excited for basketball was when Creighton University made the March Madness Tournament, but as soon as their glory faded, so did my interest.
Last night I went to an NBA exhibition game between the new Oklahoma City NBA franchise, the OKC Thunder, as they took on the Houston Rockets with star, Yao Ming. I gotta say, I really enjoyed myself. The radio station I work for also has a sports station in their media group and we carry the exclusive broadcast rights for Tulsa for Thunder Basketball. What does this mean? Well to most people it means, if you want to listen to the Thunder games on the radio in Tulsa, you have to tune it to 97.1FM. To me, this means amazing seats! I got two tickets for a private suite where our seats were leather and the waitress took our orders. I could live like that.
Today was one of those days that at the end, I just had to sigh and say "I love my job". I enjoy my job daily, even those days that are spent mostly puttsing around on the internet and waiting for my phone to ring.
I had a meeting at a church this morning to see what they had to work with for a concert we are bringing in next month. Most venues, we have to cart in a lot of our own stuff, or make do with some of the arrangements they have (green rooms in classrooms, renting a generator to power the lights and sound being brought in, guys suspended from the ceiling holding flashlights to get a spotlight). This church just built a new auditorium and they said it was built with concerts and events in mind. He said they designed the addition after a PAC (performing arts center). It was truly amazing. He also showed me a video room which alone made me want to become a member of the church. They record all the sermons and have a full TV production studio to air it complete with multiple Apple's with all the latest studio and video programs available, flatscreen preview and program monitors, state of the art switcher panels... EVERYTHING! I seriously loved it. Then, the guy who runs their AV dept used to be in a Christian band so I got to hear him and my boss trade war stories, which I always enjoy hearing.
So I returned and my boss told me there was a label stopping by with a new band and that I should introduce myself since I worked with these regularly. I had already worked with one of the guys quite a bit so it was good to meet him. They were going to take my boss and our music director out to lunch and since the label was paying for it anyway, the guy from the label invited me too (which I think caught my boss off guard that the label was willing to spend more money). So more war stories, and met new friends.
Well, to highlight the day, yesterday I had e-mailed my boss and asked him for some actual on-air time. Currently, I am voice tracking weekends for one of our stations which broadcasts out of Muskogee. Its not nearly the money maker our Tulsa station is, and in all honesty, basically just gets the leftovers from KXOJ. Its still on-air, but its not a huge deal. From the time I interviewed for this job, I left my boss know I was interested in some future on-air time. He said, yeah sure, but just kinda shelved it. Well, in the car ride to the meeting this morning, he said it was funny that I brought it up yesterday because he just heard me for the first time over the weekend and thought to himself he needed to get me on-air. Unfortunately, its not really in the budget for now, but starting next week, he is going to start me off on some weekends for KXOJ. Its a small step, but a step forward nonetheless!
I noticed about a month ago that I had yet to post any blogs focused on the concerts I've been doing all summer. By that point it was all too late anyway, but I decided since we wrapped up our Summer Concert Series yesterday that I would post a recap of all the concerts we did (actually I have to do one of the station site so I'm just personalizing it a little and copying it here).
First of all, wow! I can't believe I've been here for 3 months already. Its all been great though. So a little bit about these concerts. Typically they are new artists who maybe have one or two singles out and don't have a huge recognition. The concerts are free to the public, and the bands don't charge us anything, and are what is known as "brown bag concerts". We did all of these concerts at the Riverwalk Crossing which is an outdoor mall with an amphitheater venue.
The first concert was back in May and featured American Idol finalist, Chris Sligh. He was a little sick so it wasn't the best of shows I've seen, although the drunk gal getting up at the end while he was still singing on stage was a highlight.
Less than a week later we brought in a band by the name of Tenth Avenue North. This was by far my favorite show. I was familiar with the first 10 seconds and the last 10 seconds of their single Love is Here which is as far as I get when voice tracking my on-air shifts. First of all, the label rep came along with them and took me out to lunch. It was great to be able to sit down and talk with her and have her genuinely want to know my needs for the station. Quite the change from my days on Morningside College Radio where I had to fight tooth and nail to get any response from the labels. (This is ironic because Tooth & Nail Records was the only label I didn't have to struggle to get CDs from. Thanks Allison!). The show went great and the guys invited me out with them afterwards to see the "new" Indiana Jones. The only disappointment of the evening.
We took a short break while we geared up for a few other things we had going on with the station including a concert that saw over 30,000 people that showed up. Then in mid-July we kicked it back up with an acoustic show by Pillar. This is to date, the only strictly acoustic show Pillar has ever done. This is why I love this station. They did it as a favor to us and for the fun of it.
Pillar - Fireproof (live at Riverwalk)
Just two days later, we brought in an artist by the name of Meredith Andrews. She was a lot of fun and I especially enjoyed chatting with her and the label rep for a while after the show. Got some great photos too.
Finally, after a great season, with no complications, we wrapped up with a show with three artists on the ticket as opposed to our usual single artist shows. We were so close to having a perfect season. So, I started my day around 9:30 and began prepping for the show. Just before 10, I got a call from the first band to perform, Caleb Rowden Band. They had informed me that their bus broke down outside of St. Louis so they had to cancel. It really was disappointing, don't get me wrong, but given the rest of the circumstances of the day it actually helped us out a little. There had been thunderstorms threatening all day and Outdoor venue + Electrical sound equipment ≠ successful concert. Before they canceled we were going to have to make a decision by 2pm whether or not to move the concert to an indoor church about a mile from the initial venue. This causes problems only because 1, we have already been promoting the Riverwalk, and 2, the church doesn't have the capacity of the amphitheater. Having the band cancel helped us to delay our decision because the other 2 artists were alone. Just a guitar and a microphone. We changed the load in time from 2:30 to 4:00 and were going to make a decision by 5.
Around 11am I got a call from Franny's label rep, Kellyn, saying their flight was delayed by an hour so instead of getting in at 3 and being at the station by 4, they wouldn't make it to the station by 5. With the schedule change from Caleb, this wasn't much of a problem, so no big deal. At 2pm it was a torrential downpour and had we needed to make a decision, it would have been indoors. So its now 3:30 and I get another txt from Kellyn saying they are still on the tarmac waiting to take off which is an hour after the hour delay. So now, they aren't going to land until 5. The day just keeps improving. She calls me shortly after 5 and says they finally landed and I told her to come straight to the venue, but that she could call the station and do a phone interview if she'd like. After another hour of them waiting for their bags, and the 20 minute drive over, they finally arrive at the Riverwalk at 6:30. Its an 8:00 show, so an hour and a half may sound like plenty of time, but believe me its not. Thankfully, it was a quick set-up, she got on the stage for a quick soundcheck and we still had plenty of time to do the pre-show stuff. It all worked out, but man what a ride getting there.
The next morning, I got the chance to take Josh to the airport. What else do you talk to an artists about on a 20 minute car ride than music? He made me fan of pandora.com and I haven't talked to him since he's had a chance to listen, but I'm relatively sure I made him a fan of the Spill Canvas.
Here's some pics from the shows. Just click to enlarge. There's more available on the station website at www.kxoj.com.
As some of you know, this is the second time for me living in Tulsa. The first was only for a couple months over the summer of '04 and within a week of me arriving in town, we had a tornado hit the area. There was rain, lighting and sirens going off until about 4 in the morning.
It would seem, my travels to Tulsa bring bad weather. Last night, we were hit with another bad storm. The sirens went off and me and my roommate went to where anyone would go when the tornado sirens go off; to look out the front door. As we are watching the storm roll through, we heard a pretty loud noise and saw sparks and fire shoot up in the air from about 3 blocks away. I could see the debris begin to be picked up in the air with somewhat of a circular motion. It wasn't a full-on tornado, but it was definitely more than just a little wind. We lost power very shortly after that and spent the rest of the evening playing cards by candlelight.
The next morning, I drove by the site on my way to work and saw a missing building and a news crew.
Its raining today. Blah. I walked into work and this is what I saw. Can't see the ground from my office either. I'm pretty sure the lightning is right outside my window too. Literally. Oh well. I like the rain so whatever, right?
Oh, I saw Iron Man last night. Stellar. If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you stay past the credits. If you have seen it, go back. That's all for today. Things are going great btw
So yesterday was my first official day working. It was a long day. My boss had e-mailed me the night before and had to go out of town last minute so the guy I replaced came back for a day to run the concert/train me. He said right off the bat that concert days were typically pretty easy and laid back, but long days. I started just before 9am that morning and got off around 11pm, so a long day indeed. But a lot of fun. I honestly didn't watch much of the concert, but from what I heard, it was pretty good. It was 2 bands I had never heard of, Daniel Doss Band and Cadia; and 2 i had heard of, Michael English and Avalon. Minus a little snaphoo with ticket prices, the show went well from a production standpoint. Oh, I also got tons of free gear from RHEMA, the church the concert was held at. Its a huge church (main sanctuary seats somewhere around 5000) and they have a huge youth program that has made these shirts called "I believe". Apparently I'm now the spokesperson for www.ibelievethemovement.com with all the stuff he gave me. Anyway, made some good contacts, got some business cards, shook babies, kissed hands, the usual.
Today was my first day in the office. Since I worked a long day yesterday, I went in at 11. I got introduced around the office, filled out my paperwork, and got set up in my office. I've got a window office, and I'd like to tell you this is the view from my window, but its not. The office windows all have shade type things in front of them so if I took a picture, it would be a shot between the shades, so I took this one out of the window just next to my office. So basically, this is what I would see if i didn't have the bars on the window. Its a 60 story building and the KXOJ offices are on the 55th floor. I got my parking pass, and proximity card (allows me into the parking lot, and after hours, the elevators don't work without a proximity card.) Oh, and the elevators are super fast. it takes 48 seconds to go from the 1st to the 55th floor. Your ears pop on the way up and down. Pretty sweet. I also found out today, that I will get some pseudo on-air time. I voice track the weekend middays for one of their sister stations. Its actually the same station with the same playlist as KXOJ in Tulsa, but they've got a different frequency and tower in a small town called Meskogee so they have different on-air people with different commercials and sponsers. Voice tracking by the way is basically pre-recording a show. I have a four hour shift on Saturday and Sundays that (once I get used the equipment) will take me about 10 minutes a piece to pre-record. I'm lookin forward to everything. This job seems right up my alley. Everyone at the station seems really cool as well. I was a little worried my sense of humor wouldn't fit in well here (sarcastic and a little twisted), but I've been proven wrong multiple times in just the last two days so I'm a little more comfortable. I hung out with the morning show guy a bit last night, as well as the Assistant Program Director, and also the evening gal/production director, Caryn, who also goes to my sister's church (which may be where I end up if I can get involved as much as I want to.)
I start in full force Monday, actually doing the job I was hired to do, so there's still one more hurdle to get over (if you even want to call it that). Thanks for keeping in touch, all that have. Shame on the people who haven't!
After an overnight stop in KC where I was able to get a break, hang out with some old friends, and get a good night's sleep, I arrived in Tulsa yesterday around 12:30 in the afternoon. I was shocked and slightly amazed I was able to fit nearly my entire life into a small Hyundai Elantra. My dad took a trip down last week so i was able to send my 3 acoustic guitars, 1 electric, and a keyboard down with him, along with my TV, so that did help considerably, but other than that, my life consists of not much more than DVDs, t-shirts, and a "miscellaneous" bag. Needless to say, I was unpacked by early in the evening.
I begin my new career tomorrow, with a likely 12+ hour day. Avalon will be in concert and I opted to start with that instead of next Monday where I'd just be doing mindless paperwork. My boss asked if I thought I could handle a 12 hour day. I laughed. I'm so used to working long hours, I'm not sure what its going to be like having semi-regular hours. Sure there'll be the occasional concert or event that will get me some extra hours, but someone told me the other day I'm not going to know what to do with all my extra time. After literally walking back and forth in the house today without actually "doing" anything, I think they were right. I finally broke out and went down the road to Panera for some quality internet usage. This blog is my attempt to prove them wrong. I'll try to keep it updated.
I grew up in the country with my nearest neighbor being almost a mile away. I was also the youngest in the family and the only boy. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of "playmates" so I found ways of entertaining myself. I could go outside on a nice fall Saturday (or frigid Iowa winter) and not come in until dark. My childhood is what cultivated my active imagination, or "specialness" as my mom always called it.
