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Bi-Polar

March 20, 2018 by Jon Leave a Comment

Jon working at KCSU.

Jon working at KCSU.We cleaned out our storage room last weekend – being an adult is glamorous! – and in an old box I haven’t looked inside of in probably a decade were bunch of old cassette tapes I forgot I had.

Holy shit, these are my old college radio show tapes! And not just the ones you pop into a recorder at the station that capture your breaks so you can do an aircheck with the station bosses to gauge the quality of your show so you can get better (Sidenote: I never once did this with my bosses, partially because I was punk rock and fuck you, you can’t tell me how to do my show! but mostly because I was afraid of their feedback), but the shows in their entirety! Music, promos, breaks, the whole thing!

I used to have either my roommate or my girlfriend record these things because the whole reason I started my show was because I was fed up with commercial radio and wanted to create a show that I’d like to listen to. And with these shows I recorded, I now could. Narcissism fully charged to 100% power!

My favorite, and the longest iteration of my show, was The Bi-Polar Show co-hosted by my good friend Kaycee. I did this show for four years, always on Friday nights. We played punk, ska, emo, and hardcore. We had bits and recurring segments we cultivated over the years, production specifically created for the show, and generally had a great time doing it. Kaycee used to have this giant old-school suitcase filled with CDs she used to bring into the show that, along with a couple of giant Case Logic binders filled with discs that I had, comprised our weekly playlists. Kaycee’s suitcase also made for the perfect smuggling mule for beer that we brought into the studio to drink while we cranked up the monitor and rocked out to some tunes. We were shockingly never caught drinking in the studio, which would have seen us promptly fired, so I call that a punk rock victory. (KCSU’s studio is now at the front of student media with a huge window that looks out into a main hallway rendering drinking nigh impossible these days, which is probably for the good, but also makes part of me weep.)

Before joining The Bi-Polar Show, my very first shift at KCSU was Wednesday mornings between midnight and 2:00 am for The Jonny X Show. When I think back on that, it amazes me how much energy and free time I had because I’d get geeked for my show all Tuesday night, go to the station for two hours, and then come home and drink ‘til 4:00 am or so. Thinking of doing this now makes me want to have a panic attack.

It’s now 12 years after my very last show, and my 2007 Acura inexplicably has a tape player in it, so let’s see how awful these things really were!

In terms of Bi-Polar, surprisingly not terrible! Kaycee and I had really fun banter, the music kicked fucking ass, and since we were both at least three years into our tenure at KCSU, we had pretty good technical mastery over the board which made the show sound semi-professional. As a bonus, I got to think about bands I hadn’t thought of in years like Guns ‘N Wankers, 30 Foot Fall, and terrific local band Dr. Neptune.

It was upon listening to Dr. Neptune that I remembered how I learned to open a pry-off beer cap with a lighter. I was in an elevator at the Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas for Punk Rock Bowling when Ross from Dr. Neptune got in. He offered me a beer from his backpack (it was a Beck’s, if memory serves), but we had no bottle opener. He asked me, “Do you have a lighter?” I did, I gave it to him, and he showed me how to use your finger as a fulcrum while wedging the butt of the lighter under the cap, and then just pull. Pop! The cap flies off, and you’ve got cold beer to drink. Score!

The Jonny X Show, on the other hand, is pretty embarrassingly amateurish and hard to listen to. I talked after nearly every song, and in some cases front sold and back sold the song you heard. Example: “Coming up next, ‘Gainesville Rock City’ by Less Than Jake!” [Gainesville Rock City plays] “That was Less Than Jake with ‘Gainesville Rock City!’ Coming up next off the request line…” I had clumsy control over the board and I tried really, really hard to be funny. It takes some at-bats to get comfortable talking to yourself in front of a microphone, and listening to dorky try-hard Jonny X from 16 years ago is cringe-inducing.

What also struck me was just how aggressive the Jonny X persona was. As I listened, I kept thinking, “Who is this angry young man shouting at me through the radio? Calm down.”

I can’t remember if I’ve told this story before (probably), but it reminded me of a conversation I recently had with Kristin, the context for which now escapes me. But I asserted, “I think I’m pretty high strung.” She looks me incredulously and says, “You’re just now realizing this?”

Yes? No? I mean it makes sense now that I’ve said it out loud, but yeah, I suppose I am just now realizing this.

This realization only enhances my belief that it’s a fallacy that we know ourselves well at all. I always fancied myself a pretty mellow and low-key guy (which is ridiculous as I type it now), but listening to these shows is a nice reminder that I’ve always been incredibly ambitious, pursued what I did with passion, and been pretty aggressive in achieving my goals. I think I confused myself in terms of self-assessment because so many of the other Type-A people I came across felt so disorganized. They were always running behind, flustered, and complained of being over-committed.

I need organization, structure. I crave it. I’m able to deliver the things I want and need to do on-time and on-budget because I can set the process fairly efficiently in my head. Having a shitload to do never really bothers me. It’s the idea that there’s not a good roadmap for getting it done that stresses me out.

Listening to these shows is also a reminder of something my dad said on Episode 146 of my podcast. One of his biggest regrets of his professional career was his need to give his superiors “the full compliment of [his] emotions when he was upset or unhappy about something.” I very much identify with that, and, as my therapist pointed out to me, when I feel my feelings, I tend to really feel my feelings and I’ve worked very hard to be more considerate of others as I espouse those feelings. And that lack of restraint, at times outright arrogance, comes across very starkly in listening to the old Jonny X persona on the radio.

When you record yourself talking into a microphone every week, and are forced to then listen to it back, you have no choice but to learn a lot about yourself. Radio is in my blood, and probably always will be. My podcast is now 4-years old. I produce a radio program twice a month for one of my clients that’s now in its third year. I love creating consumable audio for others.

The by-product of all this creation is having a living almanac of your past selves, which is both fun and cool, and also sort of harrowing in terms of understanding yourself.

I’m reminded of a line from The Bouncing Souls song “Kids and Heroes” that goes like this: “There are only a few things that really belong to me: who I am, who I was, and who I wanna be.”

The Bi-Polar Show and The Jonny X Show are who I was, the Jon of All Trades Podcast is who I am, and the shows I’m working to create that haven’t even been conceptualized yet are who I wanna be.

Filed Under: Good stuff, Jon of All Trades

In Praise of Denver Water

May 5, 2016 by Jon Leave a Comment

dw logo

As a resident of Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, I’ve seen Denver Water crews in my neighborhood the last couple of summers. I’m generally pretty engaged in my community, but never bothered to look into what they were actually doing since their activity never made its way to my street. Not until now, anyway.

And in truth, I never had to. Denver Water beat me to the punch.

As I was out mowing my lawn a couple of weeks ago, I saw a man dressed in standard white collar working attire (dress shirt tucked into khaki chinos) walking up my street knocking on doors and placing a manilla envelope on each doorstep. Since we’re gearing up for campaign season, I figured he was handing out literature for one of the 3,000 ballot measures (approximate) we’ll be voting on in Colorado come November.

I turned off my lawnmower and he introduced himself as a representative from Denver Water. He asked me if I had received their initial letter talking about the project they’re working on this year (I had), and if I had any questions about it (I didn’t). He then gave me an envelope, gave me a brief rundown of what’s happening, told me his business card was inside, and encouraged me to contact him with any questions or concerns. Terrific!

So what’s Denver Water up to?

Between the end of April and the end of August, Denver Water will (taken entirely from the material they gave me in the envelope):

  • Clean and re-line the water main under your street as part of a project called pipe rehabilitation. Crews will drain water mains, clean them by removing mineral buildup from the past 100-plus years, and then line the mains with a specialized mortar to extend their lifespan by decades. See step-by-step photos of the pipe rehabilitation project at http://denverwater.org/PipeRehab.
  • Replace lead water service lines in the project area.

Given that lead water pipes have been in the news recently (and especially due to what appears to be a dereliction of duty from certain municipalities), it’s good to see this is and has been a priority for Denver Water.

The ensuing five pages included in this material discuss what they plan to do, how they’ll do it, how we’ll be impacted, how to manage those impacts, and, again and again, how to get in touch with them should we need to for any reason.

It’s not often as a PR practitioner I encounter proactive, transparent, and repeated outreach on a project of civic importance that affects me directly such as this. And it’s even less frequent that the agency conducting a project with this type of impact receives any praise for their efforts whatsoever.

And that’s why I’m happy to offer a sincere thank you to Denver Water for their efforts to make sure me and my neighbors are well-informed about improvements made to our water and working to ensure the impacts during those improvements are as painless as possible. Here’s to hoping the project goes as well as the outreach!

Filed Under: Deft Touch, Denver, Good stuff

Around Town

August 14, 2015 by Jon 3 Comments

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Building on my previous post about becoming one of the “Day People,” and having now worked in a variety of places all over the city, it’s time to build on this concept a bit. I find it uncouth to be some freeloading crotchstain and just show up at a business to use their free wi-fi, so it’s vital that I buy something.

I tried working at the libraries near my house – where it’s fine to be a freeloading crotchstain since you’ve (presumably) already paid your taxes, and thus, have no further commerce pre-requisites to fulfill – but I ran into two problems with this.

  • There are kids EVERYWHERE during the summer, which, even with your headphones in, is distracting because kids move with such unpredictable and different cadence from adults. You can’t not watch kids even if it’s just to see what they do next. They’re mystifying.
  • Thanks either to poor management of resources by our government, the increasing distaste of voters to fund basically anything that even appears extraneous, or some unholy combination of the two; libraries are open at weird, short, and not terribly convenient hours.

[shakes fist at government cronies] [shakes other fist at misguided voter ideology] [remains unsure which fist he should actually engage]

Thus, coffee shops and cafes! What follows is a list of places I’ve gotten work done, and something from there I happen to really like. Important note before we start: I don’t drink coffee – which I realize could get me branded a heretic depending on your level of coffee fetishism – so you won’t find any of it listed here, which will likely influence your enjoyment of this list.

Look, coffee tastes fine and I accept that my Facebook feed is flush with people who believe they can’t live without it, but I neither need the caffeine, nor like the taste THAT much. I also accept that my position is objectively wrong, much like my inability to care about Game of Thrones. So let’s just move on.

Here’s some good stuff from some cool places around town. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Denver, Good stuff Tagged With: Cake Crumbs Bakery, Deft Communications, Denver Bicycle Cafe, Denver PR, Fork & Spoon, Hooked on Colfax, Rooster & Moon, Sugar Bakeshop

Common Courtesy

July 30, 2015 by Kristin Leave a Comment

I have always described myself as upbeat and chipper. I have rarely met a stranger, and will talk to anyone. I talk to animals, to myself, and sometimes even to the walls. I am outgoing.

So, the other day when I was at Panera for lunch, I didn’t hesitate to chat with the guy behind the counter, making and bagging the food. As he bagged the food and called the customers’ names in front of me, the interaction, or complete lack thereof, saddened me. Every customer just grimly took their food, ignoring the gentleman behind the counter and no one even uttered “Thank you.”

He prepared my food next and we made eye contact. Without hesitation I said “Hello!” and asked how his day was. He smiled and we started chatting. He handed me my food and told me, “Thank you, you made my whole day.”

I teared up a little as I walked out the door. Someone who works with people all day, and this tiny minute of conversation – just a little common courtesy – made his day.

This led me to wonder, how many people do we just pass by, do we not engage with, do we never say “Thank you” to? A little common courtesy can make all the difference to someone.

Filed Under: Good stuff Tagged With: Common Courtesy, Deft Communications, Denver PR

Kindness

May 28, 2015 by Jon Leave a Comment

This’ll be a short one, but hopefully it perks up your day as it did mine.

It can be easy to get bogged down in negativity. I’m especially prone to this for a bevy of reasons I won’t go into here, but for me, when it rains it pours. I start generating the negative self talk for whatever reason, and then I get trapped in a cycle of seeing nothing but ugliness, pettiness, rudeness, bad citizenship, and egregious lack of courtesy. When you’re in a mood like this, you see what you want to see. And when I’m down, I seek the negative. Hard.

I’m not currently in one of these phases, but when I am, I have to remind myself that it’s amazing how beautiful the world can be if you’re open to it. That’s as broad a statement as I’m going to make here because I don’t want this to turn into some boring, platitudinous, vaguely inspirational piece of claptrap that uninteresting people bombard you with on Facebook; rather, I want to share a very small story of common kindness that made my day. Maybe reading about it will make yours.

Yesterday, with gorgeous weather embracing the city for the first time in what felt like forever, Kristin off tending to a real estate client, and me assuming full parental duties for the afternoon, I took the baby for a walk in her jogging stroller through my neighborhood of Park Hill.

As I walked down one of the sidewalks, I noticed a man with a big commercial-size lawnmower working on someone’s property. It was a bagless mower, and the clippings blew out the side. Timing it in my head, I realized I would pass by him right as the clippings blew on the sidewalk, and, as a result, all over my baby. I began to make a move to cross to the other side of the street to avoid this when the man running the mower looked up at me.

He saw my intent, caught my gaze, stopped in his tracks, and shut down his mower until I passed. I waved at him, said “Thank you!” and he took his right hand off the mower, waved it kindly at me and smiled. He waited until I was well past the yard, and then fired up the mower once again.

He didn’t have to do that, and truthfully, it wouldn’t have been a huge deal to walk across the street, but he did, and he made me feel good. It was a random, small act of courtesy, and if we’re open to those moments, they happen more often than we think.

May your day be filled small courtesies and random acts of kindness. Both given and received.

Filed Under: Good stuff Tagged With: Courtesy, Deft Communications, Good vibes, Random acts of kindness

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