#wgcl

[yankee1155]

#AAFFootball #2019 #LegendsApollos #CBSSports #WGCL #CBS46Atlanta #WKMG #News6Orlando #SportsFan 🏈 (at Spectrum Stadium) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwvx-jTnHN2/?igshid=1iy2gnysu9afq

[dellingersatx]

[ARCHIVE] Never Would Have Guessed...

After all this time, the thing that prompts my return to blogging is Larry King's retirement announcement? Yes, yes it is...

You see, in a way, Larry King got me my first job in radio.

Back in the mid-90's, I was working part time as a producer at WGCL in Bloomington. I had graduated about 8 months earlier, and was still trying to find a full-time position somewhere (admittedly, I wasn't trying too hard...the quasi-slacker/barfly life was fun and I was in no hurry to give it up).

This was back when a) Larry King still had his USA Today "column" - which was generally a random assortment of stray thoughts and name checks of past-their-prime stars - and b) he had not turned into an easy punchline for seemingly every comedian on the planet.

One particularly slow afternoon, I took that week's King column and did a parody version of it. Nothing too brilliant, but funny enough that I posted it on the bulletin board in the newsroom. This hung right above the wire service computer, and at some point a few days later the station GM saw it, loved it, and decided I was brilliant and should be working there full-time.

(Why my 18+ months of exemplary work up to that point hadn't already demonstrated that, I'll never know. But, really, who cares? I eventually got hired...that's all that really counts.)

Shortly thereafter I started working full-time as a copywriter/commercial producer. Within a few months, I was Creative Services Director - a much cooler title than the actual job, I assure you. And the rest, as they say...

Larry's long since "given up" his regular newspaper column. And his syndicated radio show. And now, with the announcement that he's wrapping his CNN show in the fall, it seems his glory days are officially behind him. But he was once big enough, and easy-to-parody-without-being-a-hack enough, for his coattails to (indirectly) carry me to a career.

For that I say, "Thanks, Larry."

[lolcalnews]

you guys, remember when that station in atlanta used "i can see clearly now" as their theme and had bitchin' bright green graphics?

remember?