It really is a good thing (usually) if YOU make it happen.
David Bowie wrote a song about it a long time ago.
Pan-handlers have a line:
"Got some spare change?"
There was even an R & B band back in the 70’s-80s called “Change.” They had a song “Change of Heart”, title track from the LP of the same name (as we used to say). I though they were a good band.
Change is everywhere. Not the band anymore, but in our lives.
People are always changing their schedule. Changing jobs. Changing schools. Changing plans, planes and other modes of transportation. They are changing radio stations.
(We will discuss “What’s On My Car Radio” another time).
They are changing their interest, cable TV and cell phone service. They are changing guy and girlfriends, wives, husbands, etc. because they think what is different from what they have or had is better.
Sometimes it is better. Sometimes not.
Sometimes you have control over that change and you (yes you) cause it to happen.
Other times it’s out of your control and you don’t want it to happen, but you can’t change it for a more desirable It can bring sadness, happiness, wealth or bankruptcy.
With entertainment, you usually have control over what station you change your radio or cable box to. If you have satellite radio, you have more choices. If you are listening to local radio, obviously, you’re more limited.
My first car was even more limited. It only had an AM radio and no cassette or CD player, but at the time, that was enough because I started my career working for AM radio stations.
As my life progressed and changed, at one point I even had a car radio with AM Stereo. It sounded great, but only on certain stations, and by then, AM radio was becoming more talk oriented. People had changed their habits. FM was music, AM was more and more talk oriented, and sports was always a mainstay.
One of the changes in my career came about because of these changes in the industry.
I was a “full service” AM disc jockey, which meant I was basically the MC of many different programming elements that had to be weaved together. There was no such thing as long blocks of music on AM – at least not at the successful stations that could afford to pay you!
So here comes a hot talk show host who was hired to replace what I did. I would have enjoyed giving talk a shot, but I was their Production guy… at least for the next couple months until they decided they could not afford me at all.
So here comes one of many changes in my life – one I DID NOT like. I again became another AM radio jock in Jackson Michigan, until the satellite-fed program replaced me there.
But I KNEW I could FIX stuff and KNEW I had other things I could offer to radio stations that would be of value. The trick in my life was changing my whole approach to getting managements’ attention. Phone calls, resumes and letter mailing campaigns were good at using time, but they were not good at bringing about change in my life for the better. So I did things briefly that would be beneath some people: I made sandwiches for Arbys. I did mobile DJ stuff at weddings. I revved up my old-time radio mail order business. During the peak of the disco era, yes, I was a DISCO DISC JOCKEY! I wasn’t particularly proud of it, but it paid money. I tried to make a few bucks playing in bands and I was a Radio Shack employee as well.
Eventually enough of this stuff started to click for me and change for THE BETTER came about very slowly. The stuff I didn’t like doing I either stopped doing or naturally faded from popularity.
It has been a long long journey and most of it, along with all the changes, have been for the better.
It’s not a perfect world, nor is my life one of perfection, but I know if I wait long enough, something will change. Or I’ll change something myself.
The part of change that is the hardest is the revolving cast of people who have helped to make it an interesting life.
I am sad when people I’ve known make a change (or die) and they are no longer in the “cast.” I’m elated when (for whatever obscure reason) people of the past return.
There are unfortunately, some people I’m happy they have been dropped from the “cast.” They are usually negative people; people who have used or abused their relationship with me, and whether THEY like it or not, I choose no longer to be associated with.
Others from the past I think of fondly. Whatever activity we shared in the past may no longer exist, but it is interesting to re-live the past before all those changes put us in different worlds, and how those activities led to what I do today.
When you start getting to the half-way point in your life, you think about this kind of non-sense. It’s not a mid-life crisis, it’s merely the result of having lived through so many changes.
-Bob B
7/25/2007
