Friday, October 13, 2006

How I got fired from a radio station.

I worked at this radio station in college, Wolf 108. The guy who ran it was a complete fucking lunatic.

His name was Wolf, legally, and he was batshit crazy. He told some bullshit legend about how he got his name.

Supposedly a man in black approached him in a bar and gave him a vial of white liquid. The man in black told Francis (I don't know his real name so I made one up) that if he drank the liquid he would become a werewolf. Now and forever. What a bunch of shit. Obviously he drank it.

After this he went completely off the deep end. He started to refer to his hands and feet as his paws, his nose as his snout, hair was fur, you get the idea. The really obnoxious part about this is that while most people don't usually find ways to work their nose into casual conversation, this guy would go out of his way to refer to his "snout" just so you would get the whole "I'm a wolf" thing. Fucking jackass.

He also received warnings from his doctor to stop eating raw read meat, and his neighbors were often pissed because of his late night howling at the moon. He also stopped drinking because he got in a bar fight, bit some guy in the neck, almost ripped out his larynx, and then howled over the guys sputtering, bleeding body. Dude almost died.

We were talking once about Lycanthropy. Talking to him was like talking to a microwave filled with scrap metal, he was always snapping on people or shutting down. The most socially inept fucker alive. He liked talking about wolf stuff though, obviously, so we got to talking about Lycanthropy, which he explained is a condition where someone thinks they are a wolf. I responded with, "So you are kind of a lycanthrope then?" He said "No, there's a difference, they THINK they are wolves, I AM a wolf". Fuckhead.

Ok, enough about how nuts this fucker was. I could go on forever. It should be obvious that he was completely unfit to run a radio station. Radio stations are fairly democratic places, or should be, but Wolf was a fucking DICTATOR. I almost got fired twice, once for using my cellphone inside (dipshit thought it would interfere with the signal, not true) and another time for spilling a teaspoon's worth of pizza sauce in the lobby. Both times he screamed so loud and got so pissed I thought he was going to hit me.

His dictator shit went even further. He billed himself as a "community" radio station. However, within the first month he alienated one of the only TWO rock music venues in town because they promised a deal and didn't deliver. So from that day forward, he would not even SPEAK of anything going on there. There was also another community radio station just starting to get their shit together. They weren't even on the air yet, but Wolf went ahead and fucking blacklisted anyone who even mentioned them. Serious, you were fired and out of the office.

I ran the industrial show. I like some industrial, I know a lot about it, but I'm not necessarily "into" it because of the high amount of dickheads who listen to it. These people suck, especially the ones who listen to EBM, an offshoot of industrial that sounds like gay German trance with different vocals. Bullshit. The people who like it are even worse. Horrible human beings. Anyway, I did it because I liked the idea of playing Ministry at high volumes and talking shit.

It should be obvious by now that this place was headed for the bargain bin.

I eventually got fired. Wolf and I had a bit of a "falling out" over someone playing an mp3 on the air. He had a legitimate right to be pissed since the thing sounded like shit, and it happened on my show, so he was pissed at me. Again, rightfully so. He told me I might be getting cancelled, but he didn't know and would let me know by Monday, my show was on Wednesday. Monday came around, no info, so I called him, emailed him, nothing. By Wednesday, I was under the impression that I will still on the air. So I got ready to do my show, got REALLY high with my roommates (which I rarely do) and as I was heading out, I checked the website to see a big "TBA" in the timeslot where my name should be. Fucking prick didn't have the balls to fire me personally.

I went in anyway, to pretend like I hadn't seen the site and there he was, getting his shoulders rubbed by his Bear (read: hairy gay man) tech guy...I think they were dating. Anyway, he told me to turn in my badge I was fired blah blah blah. I knew I was fucked so I took this as an opportunity to rail on him for a good 15 minutes straight, dusted out of my mind. I think I might have called him fat at one point. I broke down why he is a dumb fuck and why his station will fail.

It was the only time I've ever even made an attempt to "tell someone off". It was also one of the rare times I've willingly burned a bridge. I pissed on the ashes. Fuck that guy and every failed business he decides to start.

Wolf 108 went under like 2 months after I was "dismissed".

Why tell this story? Shit, I don't know. I thought about that nutbar on the train today and I decided I would write it down so I never forget it.

Here is a story about the station on the website of one of the Wolf 108 shows that actually survived on another station, complete with a picture of the man himself.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Soooooo hilarious. Phil and I never miss a chance to share our stories of that crazy ass motherfucker. You left out the bit about that mysterious stranger returning after Wolf had lost control for the first time, giving him that chintzy medallion that "kept the beast at bay". Someone read their Werewolf The Apocalypse player's handbook one too many times. Either that or he liked the Howling wayyyyy to much. I also enjoyed how he plied his advertising time (so valuable!) in to free meals at a greasy spoon a few blocks away.

Good damn times.