Shea

The story of why Shea stopped talking to me twenty years ago and why we never saw each other again:

It was about twenty years ago this very week that I saw Shea last.  I was leaving Lexington for Portland, Oregon, and KKRZ and the new title of Imaging Director, back when people actually did that job and not shipped out poorly-written copy by overworked programmers to cut-and-paste production houses (I interviewed with some of them, that was their term, not mine).  Back when being creative actually got you paid, even if all you created were a succession of fart jokes.

I had the idea that maybe I could use Shea as one of my stations' voices, as we hadn't yet settled on all of them, and I sent her some copy and in a week received an old-timey reel in the mail.  It was just for two promos, but it was fifteen minutes of Shea riffing on my scripts and being hysterical about it.  I'd post the audio if I had it handy, but it did air, at least until we got complaints for the Dr. Laura one.

Things just weren't going to work out, though, because Shea didn't have access to ISDN, and I needed somebody I could count on every day, not every week.  I relayed this regretful information to Shea, who was silent on the matter, to me, anyway.

One week I came in for vacation and came up to the old station on the weekend to use the internet, probably for porn.  I was in my old continuity room and Deke walked by and mentioned Shea was on the air.  I said, cool, tell her I'll come downstairs and visit when I was done with whatever filth I was donwloading.

In a few minutes, from all the way up in the continuity office, I heard Shea scream a cacophony of invective and cursing at my possible presence that I wouldn't have been shocked to learn that some of the words manifested phyiscal form and slithered off into the record vault, still alive today in that old building eager to feast upon the souls of an unwary intern.  She apparently was not happy that I couldn't hire her, for no fault of her or my own.

I quietly slipped out and went back to Portland.

Years later, after social media got going, I did hook up with Shea again, at least online.  Karyn and I tried constantly to get her to meet us for sushi, but she never would.  That's just the way of Shea, I would think.  As the avoidance wore on, I began to suspect there was more to the story that I could not see.  I recognized signs, like avoiding friends and not responding to messages.  These are not the signs of somebody having a good time in life, and I've got through my share of them.  I thought maybe she might also have bad depression like I had, and I think she did.  

I never got to see her again, and now it is too late.  I never got to apologize for... whatever, I'm not sure what I would have said, and now it is too late.  And I can still listen to the poorly produced promos I did with her voice and say, I'd hire her if I had a full time gig, and I can't because now it is too late.  Her voice is silenced.

The memories of Shea will always be ones we cherish when we come across her photos, or old airchecks, and we can laugh and remember what we were and who we thought she was, and that she was a tough old girl who let her mouth get her into trouble nearly as much as it got her into the spotlight, and that's all that's left.  An empty spotlight on a stage we wish she was still on.

RIP Shea Baker, 10/08/2018

Retired

Not a surprise, but my old boss from Boston is leaving his post, which I knew because I saw the ad for his replacement months ago.  What IS a surprise is that he is leaving the company altogether, which is good news for me, as now I am not so scared to apply to positions within the company.

It's not that I felt he was a bad or an evil boss, but he did turn out to be... very Boston.  Or I guess I could say, very Northeastern, since there was quite a bit of NYC sass in him.  Yes, that would be a more accurate description, as he had a lot of Trump's ego about him.  I remember him berating the promotions guy one time, about whether or not a vendor was going to give us free soft drinks for our VIP tent at a concert we were putting on.  "DO THEY KNOW WHO I AM?" he bellowed, incredulous that he was not getting exactly what he wanted.  You know.  Free pop.

Yes, they did know who he was, and that's why they never wanted to deal with him.  

I shortly realized after accepting the job and starting it that I'd been lied to... I could not use character voices (not even my own voice), I could not do comedy skits, and I had practically no equipment in my "studio" aside from an aging Protools unit... no cable, no services to gather sound clips, no way to pull them myself... nothing.  I was to be the morning guy, the midday guy, the afternoon guy and the night guy on a station that had no actual personalities to speak of.  I am surprised that I lasted as long as I did.

While I've been hesitant to apply to this company in the past, I definitely will now.  He is the kind of guy who would sing your praises in a backhanded way, which corresponds to most of Boston to be honest.  "Sure, he's good, but he's apt to have a heart attack soon as much as he weighs."  That kind of thing. Not out of vindictiveness, just it's a very Boston attitude.

The good news for his station is their ratings can only go up from here.