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My Almost Brilliant Radio Career
My brilliant career in radio hasn’t happened (yet). Recently, Hurricane Ida nearly decimated the recordings of my earliest national broadcast appearances. Now I’m expediting a salvage dive of materials dating back to my days in high school.
When it comes to preservation, the performing arts have always had a spotty record. Motion pictures were seen as such a transient industry that thousands of silent films and early sound era movies vanished simply because there was more value in the physical celluloid than the stories recorded on them.
Howard Stern has explained that the only reason archives of his broadcasts exist is because he paid for stacks of audiocassettes to record his daily shows on terrestrial radio.
I did not listen to Stern while he started in New York on WNBC Radio (660 AM). I did listen to Michael Sarzynski, his predecessor in the afternoon drive time slot. In fact, I became a featured performer on a regular segment of Sarzynski’s program. That brings the topic of preservation full circle, with the recent destruction in my garage caused by Hurricane Ida.
In 1978, Saturday Night Live and its original cast was white hot. SNL’s legendary announcer, Don Pardo, was a constant presence at 30 Rock, where the late night program was taped. That was also the home of WNBC Radio, a 50,000 watt station…
