AMJOCK.COM Confessions of Brian Pierce, a morning radio disc jockey.

Remember the movie with Clint Eastwood?  Clints a DJ who deals with an obsesssed fan.  This was the original Fatal Attraction.  Bad idea.  I’ve dealt with a few obsessed people over the years.  All when I was younger - and all - really lonely women who listened to radio late at night.  Going to mornings pretty much stopped the calls & visits dead in their tracks.  If you imagine that evening & all night jocks get calls from strange women, you’re right.  Some just show up at the station - and while walking to your car - they spring on you.  It always starts the same way.  You get a call.  You’re nice.  They call back the next day.  You’re nice again.  They call three days in a row.  Then twice a show, then three times, then four - then you have to decide if you want to continue to be nice.  I’ve been really stalked only two times that I can remember.  On both occasions I was nice even after the calls escalated to multiple times a night.  Then I made the nighttime DJ mistake - all nighttime DJ’s make.  I agreed to meet these women.  Let’s just say I knew within 3 seconds of meeting - it "wasn’t gonna work out."  I’ve never had my life threatened.  I’ve been threatened with, "I’ll never listen to you ever ever again for as long as I live!"  I’ll stay on the morning show thank you - where the women who call are smart, career minded and mostly married.

Occasionally I’ll say something that incites a negative reaction.  It doesn’t happen often.  In maturity, I’ve learned how to say what needs to be said and not make the GM’s phone ring.  But, before the maturity - with wreckless abandon - often I’d spout things people found offensive.  This one made the GM’s phone ring.  Seemed pretty tame.  But enter the concerns of famine & children - and voila - tasteless joke.  This was about the time Bob Geldof was suggesting we "Feed the World."  I heard the joke earlier that day.  It was a thinking mans joke.  I laughed for 30 minutes.  Surely everyone would enjoy this little jewel.  The punchline is subtle - my kind of joke.  I cracked the mic with: "What’s the fastest animal on the planet?  An Ethopian Chicken!!"  HAHAHAHA - thud.  I was on air within 30 minutes expressing my apologies for being so insensitive.  I haven’t done any starvation bits since.

I was Iraq’s first rock & roll disc jockey.  That’s a hell of a claim - but true.  2004 Camp Freedom Mosul Iraq.  Brian & Kellie have an "in" with the public affairs unit and discover they’ll sign on what they’re gonna call Radio TFO-FM 94.6.  TFO as in Task Force Olympia.  The station intends to transmit information to military personnel.  I ask if they intend to broadcast music.  They hadn’t really considered it.  The stations reach is Mosul Iraq & 15 miles in all directions.  I suggest they program music and offer to send complete shows on CD.  They take me up on the offer -agreeing to broadcast the shows.  The Iraqi people have never heard American Rock & Roll radio.  In June, July & August 2004, they finally did.  Adrian Cronauer yelled "Good Morning Vietman" in the 60’s.  His broadcasts originated from the structured AFRTS.  35 years later, using a briefcase transmitter, I was the first to scream, "Good Morning Iraq!"  I wanted to give away a goat to the 9th caller.  I was told maybe that wasn’t a good idea.

You’re on the air on the hometown radio station at 9pm.  You get off at midnight.  It’s raining ice and you don’t have an icescraper.  What would you do?  I thought that in a couple of hours I’d have an impossible situation on my hands.  I was afraid I’d not be able to see through the windshield.  I simply went on the air and asked if anyone had a spare icescraper.  If anyone had one they should come to the radio station right now.  "To make it worth your while, I’ll give you the new Journey album."  (We had a giant box of them in the hall.)  I went to the door after the announcement expecting to see a car drive up.  Seconds later one did.  I grabbed an album, went outside, they gave me a scraper, I ran back inside thinking I’d just go back on the air in minutes and say thanks.  It wasn’t gonna be that easy.  Before I could make it to the stairs, I saw more headlights.  It was another car.  I grabbed another album.  Then I saw more lights, I grabbed another album.  I ran outside and was met by those cars and three more.  I exchanged the albums for scrapers, grabbed more albums and got more scrapers.  More headlights.  More, then more, then more, then more, then more, then more came.  There were 50 albums in the box that night, and at midnight I had 50 icescrapers.  In about 15 minutes, I had a lifetime supply of icescrapers, and about two and a half hours to concoct a story to tell my boss about what happened to the box of Journey albums.  I don’t recall getting into hot water over this - he must have understood - maybe he heard the bit - but that night I discovered the power of what I’d chosen to do for a living.