Friday, December 16, 2011

Move it, loser

Readers of this blog please take note. The opinions contained herein are not those of my employer, the radio industry, the FCC, Federal Government, or even myself. I was raised to believe that it was a sin to  have an opinion, but an even greater sin to not share the opinion of the person who signs your paycheck, so I pretty much agree with everything Boba Pitt thinks, because, well...He's a truly beautiful man. Now, I don't mean that in a sexual way. Well, I DO mean it that way, but not JUST that way. Hey, I'm straight as an arrow, but arrows have feathers at the end, so...

Okay, this is getting off the track and very, very weird. God, I wish my DELETE key hadn't popped off of my netbook and I could change things I've typed. Oh well.

The state of our radio business today is precarious. The Digital Revolution has taken root, and everything that's important is on the internets (except for "The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart," which I can't find a free download of ANYWHERE). Boba Pitt has moved our company straight into the Digital Future (capital letters intended) and man, am I grateful for that. He's a genius. Not like those other two guys, Randall, Mark and of course Lowry (who BTW just had his Carbonite resealed, so he's good for another couple hundred years - yay!)

The whole "I'm in my car driving to and/or from work, listening to my car radio thing" is mercifully GONE, Chester. Nobody does that anymore. I'm not even sure they're putting radios in cars anymore. The fact is, if you're not on the internet, you're not relevent anymore. Streaming, Beaming, Podcasting, Blogging, Syncing, Tweeting, FBing, Emailing, Fornicating, Subliminalizing, Macrophiseologizing and even Bobbing and Weaving are all important Social Media elements that radio stations have got to master if they're going to survive.

And you know what each one of these important activities have in common?

Get ready for it, Philo. This is a big one. I guarantee you haven't thought of this one yet.

They all have "ing" at the end of them.

Yep. I  N  G. That that's key.

Activity. Doesn't matter what kind of activity. There's an old saying I've always subscribed to, ever since I was thinking about it one day and about a hundred of those SUBSCRIBE NOW cards fell out on the floor, which reminds me, How the HELL can a magazine travel all the way across the country with 20 or so of those cards in it, and then when I take out of the mailbox they ALL FALL OUT?

Anyway, I subscribe to the idea that activity is much, much, more important that what it is you're doing. There was once a guy I knew who used to say "Don't just DO something...STAND THERE," a different take on the old saying "you attract more flies with coffee on the wall than a pile of shit, Sherlock." Or something like that. Anyway, he used to go around advising against activity for its own sake - just to be looking busy. So, he'd say "HEY, HOAGGIE, DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE!"

He died in the middle of a big, wide road in Atlanta checking his Blackberry. He got hit by a bus.

Should have moved, I guess.

Which is what I'm talking about today. Activity. Do it. Move. Change. Respond. Revise. Make waves. Argue. Occasionally try to go too long between bathroom breaks and accidentally pee in your pants just as you're getting to the urinal. Okay, I made that last one up. It's not a really good idea. It just happened to me yesterday.

But you get the idea. You couldn't possibly do something that's as important as looking like you're doing something important, whether you are or not.

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