Believe it or not, I actually hate writing about myself. This is why my blog posts tend to end up becoming surreal rambles about made-up things. I intended to use this blog as a way of promoting myself and my work, but often I fail to do this and decide instead to go on a complete tangent about something else. Take
”my first blog post
for instance. I spent the first paragraph talking about punctuation marks, and then proceeded to real off a series of puns relating to toilets. I didn’t even mention how old I was, where I lived, how long I’d been working and in what capacity, not to mention all the kind of fascinating things people write about themselves on facebook and Twitter. My shoe size was completely omitted, as was my gaming scores for virtual pin the tail on the donkey, or whatever the kids are playing on Facebook these days. I can’t keep up with all the latest Facebook fads. I log into facebook and people start poking me, humping me, and throwing random objects at me, such as sheep. In reality, I don’t seem to find myself being poked particularly frequently, there is next to no humping at all, although I suppose I am frequently hit by airborne sheep.
Anyway, I have illustrated my point by going off on another tangent. My purpose for this blog post is to explain the reason why there have been no blog posts or podcasts for the last three months. I’m sorry to report that the reason wasn’t because I was being merciful towards you. The main reason is to do with the fact that I have resigned from
”Southside Broadcasting.
I did this about three months ago and I’ll talk about some of the reasons shortly. Firstly though, while I’m sort of in the process of actually giving you some information about myself without going off on a tangent, I might as well explain how and why I joined Southside and some of the relevant events preceding and proceeding it.
After graduating from University in 2006, I decided it would be a good idea to get a job. With this revolutionary thought in mind, I began to send off radio presenting demos to stations. however, it was nearly always the case that the work experience person who was sorting the mail that day opened my letter, took one glance at my CV, noted that I had no experience in radio at all, and promptly binned my CV along with the demo. Either that, or the wannabe radio presenter kid on work experience in charge of the menial task of sorting through the mail simply decided that he/she would stand a better chance of getting employed as a presenter if they threw all the other wannabe radio presenter kids’ demos in the bin. I know that’s not how it was, but that’s sometimes how it felt. I put together a demo, sent it off to the station, and waited, and waited. After a few months I’d call the station and ask to speak to the relevant person, who was never available to take my call. When I mentioned who I was and the reason for calling, they put me on hold for five minutes, forcing me to listen to their station’s output which was always some really annoying radio presenter blabbering on about nothing at all. So I waited on the other end of the phone, listening to this radio presenter boring everyone to death, thinking “why isn’t that me? I could do that. Why does he get the chance to bore and annoy people and not me?” Then the switchboard operator would come back after a few minutes and tell me that no one has a clue who I am, and that there is no recollection of ever having received a demo or CV by anyone of the name “David Eagor”. I tell the person that my name is David Eagle not Eagor, but they simply say, “well thank you for your call Mr Eagor” and put the phone down. I then curl up into a ball and cry for the rest of the day, and the whole situation starts all over again the next day. Perhaps I’ve exaggerated just a little, but you get the idea.
I was aware that one of the major reasons I was finding it difficult to get work in radio was because of my lack of experience. It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried to gain experience. When I was at college I rang up all the hospital radio stations in the area but to no avail. In case you are a new reader to this blog and you haven’t read my back cateblog of previous posts, I must mention at this point that I am blind. You might not think that this would be a massive issue but unfortunately it seemed to be the only factor that stopped me from being accepted at any of the hospital radio stations I visited. I would be met with fervent enthusiasm when I contacted the hospital radio stations. They all said they loved the demo and couldn’t wait to have me working there. As soon as I mentioned I was blind the story changed. Some managers said that it wouldn’t be possible for me to work there because of insurance reasons. One person kept going on about me tripping over cardboard boxes. I wasn’t exactly sure why cardboard boxes were such an issue in the studio, but he seemed specifically concerned with the cardboard box situation. I tried reasoning with him that I had never tripped over a cardboard box as far as I could remember, but this didn’t quell his fears. I even offered to come down to the studio and prove that I could walk around the place without being brought to my knees by a cardboard box but he would have none of it, even if I wore a safety Helmut and body pads. My favourite response was from the man who turned from a really bold, confident speaker into a complete nervous wreck simply when I mentioned I was blind. Everything was sorted. He’d agreed that I could work at the station and he was extolling my demo and saying how great it would be to have me at the station. Then I mentioned I was blind. He proceeded to stammer and stutter nonsensically for about thirty seconds before hanging up on me without a further comprehensible word. Every time I called back he wouldn’t answer.
So I spent two years trying desperately to get experience but to no avail. It never crossed my mind to sue anyone or protest about it. I didn’t really have the nerve for that and the whole situation had entirely destroyed my confidence.
Anyway, after University it was time to get a job and I had always wanted to work in radio. So I definitely had to get experience. But as you’ve just read, that wasn’t easy. I couldn’t get any professional radio experience because I didn’t have any professional radio experience. So I did the next logical thing. I decided to get some voluntary radio experience, and where was I going to get that ? That’s right, hospital radio! What a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that before?
This blog post is starting to get really lengthy, and so I’ll continue the story and eventually tell you my reasons for leaving southside tomorrow.
Thanks for reading. How did you do it? I imagine you’ll probably need to do something relaxing and enjoyable after reading all that. How about some music. You could always listen to some quality folk music on
”The Young’uns Myspace page
and then
”click here to buy the new album.
It’s the perfect antidote to long, rambling blog posts. Enjoy.
Stay safe and beware of those cardboard boxes!
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