A Song Long Enough

I had just set my headphones down when the intercom buzzed and Ruben O’s voice asked urgently: “you ready man?” I’m standing before the multi-slide mixing board in a studio dreamily streaked in amber from the track lights. “Eagles Lyin’ Eyes man, all six minutes and eleven seconds. let’s go!” was my reply. this is a conversation between two radio deejays at two radio stations in the same building in San Antonio in the eighties. it’s nearly three in the morning and were both bored and wanting a “bump” to make it through our night owl radio shifts. I crank up the monitor in the control room and swing the studio door open and lock it back so I can hear the song play from thirty feet away. Ruben O’ does the same to his door across the hall. this is what is happening on the other side of the microphone as the listening public in four southern states tunes in to hear the Eagles on KTSA and “Karma Chameleon” by Boy George on KTFM. sister stations in a clay colored building at the end of a 200 yard driveway off Eisenhower Road in San Antonio, Texas. I’m already waiting outside the back door where the jocks park. my foot holding the door open. it’s a balmy summer night and lightning silently shimmers in the tall clouds to the north of the Alamo City. You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes… You come and go, you come and go… our dueling aired songs play loudly and the sound crashes through the still air and echoes boomingly off the residential neighborhood two blocks away. we each take hurried hits off the moistened roach. holding the smoke in the lungs for a few seconds. two hits is all I need. I’m already feeling a little fuzzy. Ruben O’s ready to go too. “screw it man, that’s good enough” we both sprint back down the hallway to our respective broadcast studios. such is another night as an all-night radio deejay at twin stations in south Texas on a summer night in the eighties.