Category Archives: Education

Jan 07 2013
1 Comment
Education, Ramblings

My Days On The College Radio Station


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My first two years after high school were spent at Rider College (now Rider University) in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. I lived on campus in a cinderblock door room with metal furniture.  The first thing I did was offer to work at the college radio station. WWRC-AM. Yes, it was an AM radio station. They wouldn’t get an FM license for years. (It’s now WRRC-FM, 107.7) After a quick trip to Philadelphia to get my FCC broadcast license, and an even quicker tutorial on how to run the equipment, I was on the air.

 

The first song I played was Elton John’s ‘Mona Lisa and Mad Hatter’ from the Honky Chateau album. I remember that because someone called into the radio station midway through the song to tell me how much she liked the song. That’s all I needed was a little encouragement.  My next song was Eric Clapton’s ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ from 461 Ocean Blvd. That was followed by ‘One of the Nights’ by the Eagles. The song had only been released a few months earlier – and was still relatively unknown.

 

You may wonder how I remember all this. That’s because I recorded my first show. I have a reel-to-reel copy of an 18-year-old version of me spinning records, talking about liner notes, and discussing music.  But the funny part is the commercials. Even then – I had to read commercials and public service announcements over the air.  The boring – ‘Jim’s bar and grill just across from campus has a wide selection … – to the embarrassing ‘VD is for everybody, not just for a few.’ Yikes.

 

And don’t think I was some incredible music junkie. I played a lot – and I mean a lot of crappy music on my first show. The studio had a ‘playbook’ – these were the required songs you had to play sometime during your 90 minutes on the air. I think we needed to play them to continue to get free albums from the music labels. I played Bad Company’s ‘Shooting Star’, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rhiannon’, Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Evil Woman’, and the album of my freshman year Jefferson Starship’s ‘Miracles.’  That album was a staple of college radio.

 

But the album I loved to play was Peter Frampton’s ‘Frampton Comes Alive.’  Released in the middle of the year, I played that endlessly. One night, when I thought nobody would notice, I played the entire album start to finish without any commercial interruption. (It allowed me to take the elevator to the student pub and get a beer.) That album sold 6 million copies in that year. Amazing.

 

I worked at the radio station for two years. Had numerous time slots – including a poorly thought through morning radio show with a dorm mate – Wayne Hodges. (Hodges and Levy in the morning). AM, three days a week. I don’t think we wanted to admit that nobody is listening to a college radio station at 8 AM. I broke up the partnership quickly and changed to a better slot.

 

My time on WWRC taught me a lot of valuable lessons. How to present material to an audience. How to read something for the first time and make it sound good. How to get people to engage. It was a fun time. It was hard work. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

 

The one thing I didn’t do was have a signature sign-off. It never crossed my mind. I just ended the show with ‘that all the time I have, see you tomorrow.’

 

So, until tomorrow.

 

01.07.13

Feb 25 2012
1 Comment
Education, Family, Ramblings

Spring Break – A Long Time Ago


I don’t know why, but I had a dream last night about my college Spring break. It was a time I hadn’t thought about in a long, long time. I was at Rider College in Lawrenceville, New Jersey studying journalism. My goal was to be the next great investigative reporter – you know – the next Woodward and Bernstein. I was in my dorm room in Switlick C (I know, it’s a strange name for a dorm) when my room mate, Weazer asked if I wanted to join him, Space, and Breeze on a road trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. By the way, their real names were Dave, Jim and Paul. I think the real reason they asked my to go was because they didn’t have a car to drive down and I did. But that didn’t matter, I quickly agreed and off we went.

That was the amount of planning.

We jumped in my car with a backpack full of clothes, virtually no money, no plans, no hotel reservation or place to stay. We just assumed we’d figure it out on the way down.

And we had the time of our life.

We drove all night. Decided for some strange reason to stop in Orlando on the way and spend a day in Disney World. The only reason I remember stopping in I have a photograph of Space standing in from of the Space Mountain sign. He has this shit eating grin on his face. I’m pretty sure he was drunk. I seem to remember that we knew someone at a college in Florida – and we crashed in their dorm for a night. Had a fairly late party, and decided in a drunken state to go visit Mickey Mouse. I’m sure at some point in the night it seemed like a good idea.

Next day, off to Fort Lauderdale. We somehow found a place to stay. I think we crashed with other guys from our college, because I seem to remember we had seven of us in one room. We stayed for a few days. Went to a few bars. Met a few people. And then we decided Fort Lauderdale was lame.

So all seven of us packed up our two cars and drove further south to Key West. Again, no plans, no reservations, no hotel. Just seven guys. Two cars. And a few six packs of beer.

By the way – you’ll notice I never mention eating food. From this entire trip, I have no recollection of ever eating. Probably because we didn’t eat. We used all of our available money for beer. But that’s beside the point.

We get to Key West and can’t find a place to stay. Nothing. Everything is booked. So we decide to sleep on the beach. Can’t be too hard to find a place to sleep. Some of us can sleep in the car. Some on the beach. But then a miracle happened. As we’re driving to the beach, we see a beachside shack. Sitting on the porch (and I’m not making this up) are seven local girls drinking beer. They wave at us. We wave back. We head over. Before you know it, we’re drinking their beer, sleeping on their floor, and basically crashing at their shack for the remainder of the trip.

While in Key West, we also ran into another friend from school that had become stranded in the Keys when his group from school left him behind. So he crashed with us. We drove him back. And that was a good thing. He had money for gas. We didn’t. One thing we forgot to figure into our plans was money to buy gas for the return trip.

It’s funny; I often talk about my daughter and how they’ll leave the house with no plans, no money, and no idea where they’re going. And it always works out. Maybe I should let it go – because my Spring break trip proved to me long ago – that some times the best memories are the ones you don’t plan.

Spring break was one of those times.

2.25.12

Feb 06 2012
2 Comments
Advertising, Design, Education, Family, Ramblings

Answers to questions people have asked about my past posts


How’s the exercise going?
It’s been slow and painful. I’m hoping that I can really tackle a set routine this week. I’ve created a daily workout on my computer and I’m beginning to put it into practice. And yes, I’m tired.

Reading my posts?
Someone just said something very funny to me, so I thought I’d share. I just mentioned to a woman in my office that I hadn’t talked to her for a while. She replied, “But I read your blog.” Hmmmmm, somehow people don’t need to talk to me because they’re reading what I’m writing? I hope not. So, if you’re reading this, come by and say hello every now and then.

More funny stuff my son says?
Many people have advised me to create a separate blog specifically for the funny stuff my son says. I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to a second blog so soon. For now, he stays on the main site. BTW – look for tomorrow’s post. He said some incredible things this weekend.

Did I purchase that guitar?
While tempted, I didn’t purchase a 1961 Epiphone Casino reissue. I liked the guitar but didn’t love it. So I couldn’t justify the purchase.

When will you write again about your class?
I only teach once a week, so if you’re looking for posts about my class, you’ll see those every Friday.

Do people really say those stupid things to you?
Yes, I don’t make up the dialogue. I have witnesses. In fact, the ‘women on the chairlift’ conversations are as close to word for word as humanly possible to remember.

Do you ever proofread what you write?
Yes, I’m famous around the agency for making funny typos. I’m sorry. I really try not to put typos in my posts. But I’m a terrible proofreader. Of course, that’s just an excuse; I’m actually a terrible speller.

Is this what you sound like?
Yes, if you were in my office, these posts would sound just like having a real conversation with me. And yes – at times I say really dumb things.

2.6.12/PM

Feb 03 2012
2 Comments
Advertising, Design, Education

Excuse me, Professor Levy


Last night, I taught my first advertising class at the Fashion Institute of Technology, teaching a Senior Portfolio Design class. I hope the students enjoyed it, because I had a blast. What I found was a group of students who were eager to get better, eager to learn, and eager to get a job in the industry.

I was thrilled.

Teaching a class is a little like opening a box of chocolates, as Forrest Gump said, “you never know what you’re going to get.” I’ve taught before at the School of Visual Arts, and it was a completely different experience. There were some very talented students and some people who were never going to be good in the field.

But last night was different.

Last night, I met 14 people who all could be very good in this industry. All have the potential to be special. I was struck immediately with these things:

Design:
There are some incredible designers. The work all looks clean and crisp. Even the work that wasn’t very conceptual, still looked great. Heck, I may hire one of the students to redesign this blog site. The design work is far, far, far superior to the conceptual work (so far).

Copywriting:
This is an area that needs a little help. The ideas are there. Sometimes they’re a little buried, but they’re there. The students have done most of the hard work. But to make some of these concepts great, they need a little more help in the copy department. Luckily, I’m a copywriter. I’m going to need to push harder in this area.

Selling Skills:
We’re going to work hard on selling. When I asked the students what they wanted to get out of the class, almost all wanted help in presenting their work. How to talk about their ideas. How to sell their ideas. How will it hold up in the real world? When I told them that I planned to videotape them in an interview setting and let them watch it, they all squirmed a little in their seats. Clearly this will be a little hard. But the more we practice, the better they’ll get.

Really Fun, Nice People:
I was also struck with how nice everyone was. If there was a prima donna in the group, it didn’t show itself last night. (Perhaps I was the prima donna of the group!) Everyone was welcoming, helpful, fun, funny, interesting and had a point of view.

Real World:
There is a fear that their work won’t hold up in the ‘real world.’ They are all aware that school work and real world work is very different. They are welcoming my real world experience and ask that I be brutally honest. I promise to do that.

Well, one week is in the books. 14 more weeks to go. I’m looking forward to what the future holds. As someone once said in a movie ‘stick with me kid, I’ll make you a star.’ I promise to do everything I can to make sure these students are prepared to get jobs in this industry.

I also promise to curse less. But don’t hold me to it.

2.3.12

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