Rock Radio

To Mom and Dad who taught me to follow my dreams...

and t
o Robert who made them come true.

Before iPods and mp3s,
satellite and internet radio...before corporate America changed the rules, radio was the ultimate music medium and disc jockeys ruled the music world.

This is their story.

The Nineties

Jonny Rock just got laid.

Tall and tan with bright spiky bleached blon
de hair, Jonny was a rock star - in his own mind.

Jonathan Roeker was a poor student from Philadelphia.
  Bad grades and an even worse complexion were not a recipe for success.  But Jonathan had drive, raw ambition and an intense love of music.

Besides, radio deejays didn’t need a pretty face, just a good set of pipes and a lot of attitude.

Jonathan was blessed with both.

An overnight shift, a skillful dermatologist and Jonathan was on his way.
  Jonny Rock was born and Jonathan Roeker was left far behind in a middle class suburb.  Now Jonny was the man, the Assistant Program Director of WORR – Only Rock and Roll, Miami’s alternative rock station.  It wasn’t an easy road, but he had made it.

And he was loving every minute of it.

Jonny stretched his arms over his head and flipped on the radio. It was two in the afternoon and he was on the air. 
The miracle of voice tracking,
he thought to himself.  He could record his breaks the night before into an automated computer giving himself free time in the afternoon for some
extracurricular
activities.  All while his wife listened to him “live” on the air.

He couldn’t ask for a better set up.

He turned over onto his side and looked over at the nubile girl next to him.  She was a college intern and a natural redhead, a fact he was very happy to find out.

Her name was Heather, his latest conquest.
  She was long, lean and minus the extra ten pounds his wife had gained in the six years of their marriage.  Heather desperately wanted to be on the air and so she was doing what so many young girls do, sucking up to the big guy.  He laughed at his own joke, stirring Heather from her afternoon slumber.

“Hey, babe,” she murmured in sultry tones rolling her naked body on top of his.

“Hey,” he said.

“So do we really have to go back to the station?”
  She ran her tongue slowly down his chest, glancing up momentarily to eye the dingy motel room with distaste.  She wasn’t proud of this moment, but she was determined.

“Shh,” he said over his own voice that broadcast from the radio.
  “I’m on the air...I wanna hear this break.”

Heather stopped licking and feigned interest.

Jonny listened intently to his deep voice resonating from the small speaker.  He loved to hear himself talk.

“...and so,” he heard himself say, “you can see me and the whole
WORR gang this Saturday at the Just Talk cell phone store in Miami.  Stay tuned, I got music from Stone Temple Pilots and The Offspring coming up next.”  Jonny admired himself.  He sounded so natural, like he was really live in the studio.

“You sound terrific...as always,” Heather complimented in her most sincere voice.
  It wasn’t a lie, Jonny
was
good.  His voice was strong, but not intimidating.  He sounded like the coolest guy on the block who just happened to be your best friend.  A true master of delivery.  That’s why Jonny was the most popular jock on WORR with the best shift, afternoon drive - the time when every commuter trapped in his car was listening to the radio.  Most car radios were tuned to WORR and Jonny Rock.  And now Heather had just bedded him, the man with the voice, the man with the power.

“You’ll get there too,” Jonny said, basking in his own glow.
  “When do you graduate?  Next year?”

Heather looked at him, annoyed.
  “This semester, remember?”

“I thought you were only nineteen, baby girl.”

She bristled.  “I am.  I told you.  I’m in a two year community college radio program.  I graduate at the end of this semester.”

“Oh, yeah,” he replied, brushing her soft red hair back from her head.
  She looked up at him.  He could see the disappointment in her bright blue eyes.  Memory was not one of his better traits. “Sorry.”

Heather smiled sweetly at him.
  “That’s okay,” she lied.

Jonny cupped her head in his hands.
  She was so incredibly beautiful.  He would never have been able to get a girl like this when he was in college.  He drew her toward him, placing his lips intently on hers.

Heather wasn’t ready to go again.
  Sex was a necessary evil to a greater goal, Jonny promising her an on-air shift.

“So, Jonny,” she pulled gently away and let her hand wander south.
  “Did you listen to my demo tape yet?”

He groaned with pleasure.
  Heather smiled to herself, now she had the power.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “it’s good, really good.”
  The tape lay unlistened to on his desk, he was referring to her skillful hands.

“Great.”

“Ummm.  We’ll go over it together, I’ll help you improve.”

“And then you’ll put me on the air.”
  Heather wasn’t planning on furthering her education.  She knew she didn’t really need a degree to get a job in radio.  College was a good way to get an internship at a radio station and an internship meant a job.

Hopefully.

“You know I’ll help you,” Jonny whispered.

God!
  His power made her tingle with desire. 
Heather kissed Jonny’s neck slowly, making sure he could feel her naked body against his.
Give him what he wants...seal the deal.

“You make me an offer that’s hard to refuse,” he replied grabbing her, unable to control himself any longer.

They made love quickly, Jonny tempering his insane lust for her with his need to get back to work.  Voice tracking was great, but other people needed him during the day, mainly Ted Reed, the Program Director.  Ted was always on his back.  When Ted made him Assistant Program Director, he told Jonny clearly, “You’ll handle all the bullshit.  I’ll handle the music.”  The bullshit included the other jocks on the station and the salespeople.  This in itself was a fulltime job.  Not that Jonny couldn’t understand Ted’s lack of interest in the functional details of the station.  Ted Reed had been there, done that with radio.  An extreme perfectionist, Ted ran WORR with a firm grip.

He needed control of
everything
.

Everything except the petty crap of running the station.

Oh, Ted was a stickler on what music was played, how the station was promoted and how the jocks sounded on the air, but when it came to the day to day business...those duties were relegated to Jonny.  Ted wanted nothing to do with scheduling shifts or assigning appearances.  The last task meant dealing with the salespeople and if Ted could, he avoided them at all costs.  His focus was the station and the music.

Jonny hated him.

Ted took credit for creating the Jonny Rock phenomenon.  Sure, Ted had given him his ticket to stardom by putting him in the afternoon drive shift, but that was all he did.  Jonny’s talent was his own.  He made the station, the station didn’t make him.  But Jonny needed his job like oxygen.  In no other career could he have the fame and attention he so desperately needed.  So he put up with Ted.  Jonny was more famous than Ted was anyway.  This gave him some satisfaction.

Jonny needed to draw on that feeling of superiority when he dealt with the salespeople.
  They constantly approached him to do appearances and endorsements.  He was grateful for the gigs, they meant extra money, but the salespeople were a huge pain in his ass, overpaid phonies who kissed up to him and glommed onto him and his popularity as a measure of their own success.  Jonny loved admiration, but not from them.  The salespeople used him, parading him in front of their clients as the miracle worker.

“An endorsement from Jonny is like money in your pocket,” they’d promise.
  “Right, buddy, boy,” they’d then confirm with a punch to his shoulder.

 
“Yeah, right,” he’d say with a pasted on smile.

He hated the whole dog and pony show.
  He hated how the salespeople acted like he was their best friend.  If he wasn’t popular, if he couldn’t put money in their pockets, they wouldn’t give a crap about him.

Jonny pulled away from Heather.
  Thoughts of work took him out of the mood, out of the moment.  He was done.

“Sorry, sweetie, I gotta get back.”

“Sure, Jonny.”  Heather slipped out from under the sheet allowing him to take in her naked frame.  She bent down to pick up her thong underwear that just an hour earlier was flung with careless abandon.

Jonny admired the view.

She quickly pulled on her pair of jeans and put on her tight yellow halter top.  She needed to tease him a little, make him want more.

“So we do this like last time?” she asked referring to their staggered return to the station so as not to draw attention to their joint disappearance.

“Perfect.  I’ll go back first, then you come back, say in a half hour or so?”

“Okay.”

“All right then,” Jonny said rising from the bed.  “Now give me kiss to think about.”

Jonny returned to the station, slipping in quickly through the back employee entrance.  He was only gone an hour and a half.  If no one needed him, he’d be fine.  If they were looking for him, his time away might pose a bigger problem with questions he didn’t want to answer.