An unexpected dedication

When I started working the six to midnight shift at KZZO in Clovis, NM in March of 1987, Jid the owner allowed me to start doing listener dedications of songs on the air. It was something he had previously forbidden us from doing. Our rival, KTQM, did them, but what their DJs would do is just read a whole bunch of dedications all together at once. It wasn't really special. I did one dedication per song and only six dedications an hour between 7pm and 10pm. After just a few weeks, I was filling up my dedication slots very early.

After I lost my shift to Heid, he still did the dedications. But there was a twist in which Jid attempted to record the callers so that they could be played over the intro of the songs they were sending out to their intended recipients. Heid usually made some kind of snarky, sexually-charged comment on the dedication. However, this complicated Heid's ability to do his show because it required him to leave the studio and go into the production room to record the calls. And he usually had less than three minutes to accomplish all this before he had to play the next song. (We did not have automation at the Zoo when I worked there.) I don't think this process became permanent because it would have meant that someone else had to be on hand to record the calls and Jid was not about to pay someone to come do that.

During one of the many down phases with Marz, I was driving around with her, her sister Vid and one of her friends. I stopped to fill up with gas. As soon as I got back in the car, I heard a girl on the radio say, "I want to make a dedication to Fayd." Heid asked, "You mean the guy who works overnights here at the Zoo?" "Yeah, I want to let him know that I love him." "Seriously? Have you SEEN what he looks like?" "Yeah, I know. I love him!"

The second the caller mentioned my name, everybody in the car starting gasping and yakking about what was going on, so I couldn't tell whose voice it was. At first, I thought Marz had called up the station from my apartment while I was outside and that the dedication was pre-recorded. Marz said that she did not make that call. Then Marz started getting jealous and demanded that I tell her who that was. I didn't recognize the voice. I still thought she made the call and was trying another one of schemes to get me to break up with her. Marz said that she was going to find out who made that call and beat her up. I'd never seen her get so possessive about me. It made me wish I had actually set something like that up a long time ago.

A couple of days later, I had to call Kiz for some reason. Her sister Chez picked up the phone. She told me that Kiz had moved out of the house and was living with "Sean Penn." Chez asked me if I'd heard the dedication the other night. I told her that I was in my car while Marz was with me and she got really mad. (Chez was aware of my relationship with Marz.)

A couple of days later, Marz and her friends came over to spend the night at my apartment. Marz said that she found out who made the dedication and beat her up. Marz said it was some Radio Tease I didn't think was worth writing about in this blog. I was pretty certain she was lying because I didn't give her much information about the Teases I met before her. She told me I was to never talk to her again. And then she and her friends ran back out and didn't spend the night.

The next Saturday, I got a call from Chez while I was working at the station during the daytime. She asked me to meet her at the mall because she had something to talk to me about. I went over there and found her. We sat down on a bench. She asked me how I would feel if she told me she knew who made the dedication. I told her I thought it was that certain Radio Tease. She said she knew it wasn't because she was the one who had called in and made that dedication.

While I was trying to process what she was telling me, she talked about the first time she saw me. It was when we had done that remote at the City Zoo (when I was hanging out with Graz). She and a friend were talking to Tod. Chez said she saw some guy with long hair there and asked Tod who it was. He said, "Oh, that's Fayd!" At the time, she thought I looked interesting. So, when I came walking up to her house to meet Kiz for the first time, she knew right away who I was.

She said that she enjoyed how nice I was to her while I was trying to go out with her sister. She kept pestering Kiz about whether or not she was going to go out with me, but she wouldn't give her a straight answer. She was afraid to tell Kiz that she had a crush on me because she was afraid I would find out and reject her. Chez said that everytime I called the house to talk to Kiz and she picked up the phone, I was always nice and asked her how she was doing. It drove her crazy because she couldn't say anything. She said that one of the main reasons she started really liking me was because I was the only guy who never called her the b-word. Even her father had called her that. At one point, she thought to herself, "If he calls and talks to me one more time, I'm going to be in love with him." Sure enough, I called. She thought, "That's it. I'm in love with him. I have to do something about this." And that's when she called Heid to make that dedication.

The whole time I was listening to her, I was wondering what I was going to tell her. Then she asked, "What are you thinking?" I said, "I guess you know that I don't feel the same way about you..." "Yeah, I know." "...and you know I'm involved with someone else right now..." "Yeah, I know." "...and you know that I was not trying to make you feel this way about me." "I know that, too, but I couldn't help it."

The stupid thing was that I actually kind of liked Chez during my encounters with her. She was actually rather cute in a tomboyish way. She had dark hair and large brown eyes. But the main obstacle that kept me from throwing Marz overboard for her was that Chez was only 16 years old. One thing I found out that day was that Chez had actually gone to junior high school with Marz and was two grades behind her. She'd actually gotten into altercations with her.

Chez told me that what she needed more than anything else was someone she could call and talk to who wasn't going to be mean to her. She knew nothing was going to happen between us, but she just needed to know that I could be there for her. I was rather flattered by all this and I agreed to be that person she could lean on from time to time. I gave her my phone number.

She would call every once in awhile and let me know what was bothering her at school and home. I mostly listened. I never really gave her much advice. It wasn't a big deal and I could tell she was trying everything to keep from blurting "I LOVE YOU" out loud.

This went on for about a month. Then, her father decided to move the family to Roswell. (Kiz was going to get to stay because she was no longer living at home.) Chez was upset because she didn't want to leave Clovis. She had friends in school and I was there. She also knew she wasn't going to get to talk to me as much because long distance was EXPENSIVE back then. She was only going to get to call me when her family happened to be in town. She knew they would be coming up every once in awhile.

The night before her family moved, she tried to call one "last" time. But this was a night that Marz was sleeping over (which I told her was going to happen). The phone rang and I picked it up. I didn't say anything, but I knew who was calling. I could hear her breathing. Marz was staring me down, wondering who was on the phone. I laughed and said, "No one there" and hung up the phone. I went back to bed. The phone rang again. I picked it up. "Fayd?" Chez asked. "Yeah, I can't talk now." "Is she there?" "Yes." I hung up.

Steam was coming out of Marz' nose by this point. "WHO WAS THAT?" "Hey, do you remember that dedication a few weeks ago?" More steam came out. "YES?" "Well, that was the girl who did it. But she's moving away tomorrow, so we never have to worry about her ever again."

All of a sudden, the stack was blown. "YOU WERE GOING BEHIND MY BACK? WHAT IS HER NAME?" "Chez." "CHEZ? YOU MEAN THAT B**** I USED TO BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL? WHY ARE YOU MESSING WITH HER? SHE IS SO UGLY!" "We're just friends. There's nothing going on." "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU! THAT'S IT! WE'RE THROUGH!" She and her friends left the apartment. But we really weren't through, even though I'd hoped we were.

At this point, you need to be aware that there is a lot more to Chez' story and her connection to me. It takes place over the course of several years. It's practically an epic with some strange coincidences. Even though I promised in my rules that I would get to payoffs right away, I can't do that with Chez. (Technically, the rule only applies to things from my childhood. At this point, I'm 23 years old.) Just know she'll likely turn up when you least expect her. That's the way it was in real life.

Jackpot!

Today, I have to return to writing about Girlfriend #2: Marz. And she's going to play a big role in tomorrow's post as well. Even though I ended the story on our relationship, there are some tidbits that I still need to tell that need their own articles. While this one is another doldrums of the relationship story, it ends in a way I never expected.

As I mentioned in Part 2, Marz was still hung up on her former boyfriend Nid, who had moved to Albuquerque. One thing I did not tell was how much she talked about this guy. He was good-looking, he got along really well with her family and they had a lot of sex. He was also a rich boy. A REAL rich boy, not one of those fakers who tried to date the rich girls. His grandfather was a well-known judge in Clovis, so the family obviously had money. Marz always said that if he ever came back to Clovis, she would marry him and leave me and everybody else in nothing flat. She was ready for the good life.

So, the time came when he returned to town for a visit. Marz had made him sound like he was 6'4", full of muscles and hair longer than mine. She got called at my house that he was at her house waiting for her. I hate to admit it, but I actually wanted to meet this guy and see what the big deal was all about. We drove to her house and he was on the front porch. Her friends and some family members were out there as well visiting with him. The first thing I noticed was that he was not very tall or muscular. AND he had short hair. (I have a feeling he was attending school at Albuquerque Academy and they had a rather strict dress code there.) But there was one thing she wasn't kidding about: He was very good-looking. I could tell I wasn't much competition for him. But the whole time Marz was talking to him, he kept looking at me. I could tell he was trying to figure out what my deal was. After about five minutes, Marz introduced us. I was civil toward him, but I didn't want to be his friend.

I left and went home. Later that night, Marz called me up and asked me to give Nid a ride over to his grandfather's house. She told me to meet them at her parent's house (which was just down the street from where she lived.) I got over there. Marz and Nid were walking over from her house. I could tell that they had been intimate since I had left.

Marz and her sister Vid rode with Nid over to his grandfather's. Marz got out of the car with Nid and they shared a very long kiss goodnight. That really tore me up. I questioned myself why the heck I was there and why I was willing to go through that torture. Marz got back in the car. She told me that he had asked about me and she told him I was just a friend. I'm pretty certain he didn't believe her.

The next day, Marz came by the house to get something that I had. I looked outside and I saw some of her siblings and Nid in the back of a pickup. I gave her whatever she needed and watched her get into the back of the pickup. As they drove away, I saw that Nid was pretty much commanding the conversation. Her younger brother (who never really cared much for me) was intently paying attention to everything Nid was saying. I figured that was what life was like when you were rich and good-looking. People just automatically look up to you. That was the last time I saw Nid.

So what does the title of this post have to do with Nid? Well, since I remembered his name so well, I was able to find out what he'd been up to. When I searched on his name and "Clovis." I found an obituary for his grandmother (the judge's wife). The obituary mentioned that Nid lived in Baton Rouge at the time. So, I searched on his name and "Baton Rouge." I found out he broke the law and it had a very embarassing consequence. JACKPOT!

Originally, I was going to go into coniderable detail about the offense. But I remembered my rule regarding writing about wrongdoings by others. Since his offense didn't really impact me, I have no reason to reveal it, but I can still gloat about it:

"Ha ha, Rich Boy! Your money couldn't buy you out of this situation. And I'll bet you got in trouble for the exact same thing before and your parents bailed your butt out! But they didn't help you this time! That means they wasted a lot of money trying to avoid what happened anyway because you never learned you are responsible for your own actions. It's a hard lesson and that information is just going to be there long after you die!"

There are worse things than being a loser. One of them is being a winner with a criminal record.

Violence at the Zoo

Things could get interesting while working with Heid at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM. There were a couple of times in which we had to have the police come out to the station.

One night, he went outside after his shift and locked the door. A few seconds later, he ran to the door, quickly unlocked it, ran in and locked the door again. (He had to use the same key to unlock and lock the door.) He ran into the studio and yelled, "SOMEONE JUST SHOT AT ME!"

Heid had a tendency to say some things that would make people upset. I never thought anyone would get so mad that they would want to kill him, but there were a lot of people who owned guns in Clovis.

We called the cops. They came out and took his statement. At the time, there was a pickup parked across the street. The police questioned the people in that vehicle. It was determined that they had nothing to do with the shooting. They just happened to be there when the cops arrived. One of the officers said that somebody was probably practicing with a rifle and didn't know that anyone was in the vicinity. Heid was not a target. Over time, this became apparent because no one ever tried to kill him again.

Another incident took place on Friday, April 1st, 1988. Something you need to know about our station is that we almost never played Heavy Metal music. It only stood a chance of getting on our playlist if it hit the Top 40. And really, we had a tendency to wait until it hit the Top 20 before we actually played it. And if we did, you could only hear it at night. However, Heavy Metal was the most requested genre that we received on a daily basis. A lot of the younger listeners wanted to hear it more frequently on our station.

That night, Heid started promoting a new feature called the "Heavy Metal Hour of Power." It was going to launch at 11pm. Since I was Music Director, this was a new one on me. But Heid said that Jid the owner approved it. He said he had been getting phone calls all night requesting certain songs. He would tell everyone that he was going to play the music they requested.

At the time, Heid had a couple of visitors at the station. They were both high school students. One was an Alpha Male. The other was this effeminate twerp with big ears.

At 11pm, Heid played this spectactular open to his program. After the intro was finished, Heid came on and said, "Well, I hate to tell you this, but APRIL FOOL!" He then played one of our cheesier Top 40 songs. And the phones went crazy! People were angry! Some didn't hear the announcement and said, "I thought you were going to play Heavy Metal right now!" "No, it was an April Fools joke." No one was happy, but Heid couldn't stop laughing.

About 11:10pm, there was a crashing noise coming from the back of the station. I was walking down the hallway from the Program Director's office toward the studio when I heard it. I could also hear the sound of someone laughing outside and a car driving off. All of a sudden the effeminate twerp yelled, "AAAAAH! THEY'VE GOT GUNS!" I thought for certain he was actually seeing people with guns. I immediately ran back into the Program Director's office. There was a rear exit there. I was about to go outside when I suddenly realized I needed to call 911. My plan was to report it, run outside and hide in the field next door until the cops showed up.

While I waited for the dispatcher to pick up, I could hear someone shouting, "STAY THE F*** DOWN! EVERYBODY JUST STAY THE F*** DOWN!" I envisioned somebody holding a gun to Heid's head, forcing him to play Ozzy Osbourne.

The dispatcher got on the phone. I tried to give her the information as calmly as possible, including the possibility that this was a hostage situation. I got ready to head out the door. The dispatcher told me I needed to stay on the line. I told her I didn't want to stay on the line, I wanted to get out before someone shot me. She said she needed more information, like a description of the suspect car. I groaned and went outside where I couldn't be seen from the lobby. I saw a car I wasn't familiar with and quickly memorized the license plate number. I came back in and gave that to the dispatcher.

Again, I got ready to run outside. Suddenly, I heard Heid yell, "Fayd! It's okay to come out! The cops are here!" I asked Heid what happened to the guys who broke in. "Nobody came inside the station." "Well, who was shouting for everyone to stay down?" "Oh, that was me yelling at the other two." "Well, whose car is out there that I gave out the license plate number to?" Heid slapped his forehead. "That's MY car! You gave the cops MY license plate number!"

The police went into the sales office. The window to the back door had been broken. On the ground, we found a big rock. On the rock was a piece of masking tape that had "HEAVY METAL" written with a Magic Marker. (Oh, I get it! It's a "Hard Rock!") One of the cops asked, "Do you think we ought to dust that for fingerprints!" Another said, "Yeah, like we can get fingerprints off of a rock."

It looked like someone just drove up to the back door, threw the rock through the window and drove off. The police never did find out who did it. We were just lucky they broke a small window in a door and not one of the larger windows in the main lobby.

I didn't realize at the time, but I did not need to stay on the phone with the dispatcher. And really, she had no right to keep me on the phone after I made the report. I mean, if there had actually been gunmen in the station and one of them found me, it would have been her fault if I had gotten shot. I always feared that the Clovis Police Department played a tape of my 911 call at their Christmas party that year along with the other dodo calls they received.

But the thing that really gets me is that if it wasn't for that effeminate twerp, we never would have suspected anyone had guns. Heid and I would have just gone back to the sales office to find the broken window and the rock. We still would have called the cops, but no one would have been in a panicked state about it. I almost feel like a better scenario would have been to see a severed arm instead of a rock and having J. Walter Weatherman show up to say, "And that's why you don't let visitors in the station at night!"

I didn't care much for April Fools after that.

Girlfriend #2: Marz, Part 4

So, what was really the deal with Marz? Why did she like me so much at the beginning and then start disliking, but not to the point that she was willing to break up with me? I have a theory.

As I mentioned before, all her previous boyfriends had cheated on her. They would just use her for sex until someone else came along, then she would get dumped. When we first met, she was expecting me to do the exact same thing. During those first few days, it became apparent that I wasn't going to have sex with her. She may have felt guilty for sleeping with so many other guys before me that she didn't feel right continuing the relationship. But she didn't want to break up with me, so she set about trying to do things that would make me break up with her. If I broke up with her, that would make me just like all her other boyfriends and she wouldn't feel guilty anymore.

Another issue was that she was still hung up on her ex-boyfriend Nid, who had moved to Albuquerque. I found out later that her trip to Albuquerque had been scheduled in advance before I met her. This meant she had planned to see him and meeting me kind of complicated things. (Yes, he had cheated on her, but he was a rich boy, so she was probably hoping that he would marry her and give her the kind of life she'd never had, even if it meant having to share him.)

I guess she concocted a plan to do something to get me to just leave her. The one thing she didn't count on was how I hadn't been romantically involved with anyone in almost eight years and that I wanted my next relationship to last awhile. I think that she had a discussion with her friends on how to get me to give up on her. One of them probably said, "I know! Tell him you were raped!" And then another said, "Even better! Tell him you were raped by a black guy. All white guys hate to have sex with girls who have been with black guys! He'll be running out the door!"

So she revealed the "dramatic shocker" and ran into the bedroom. One of her friends went in with her. During the next half-hour, her friend would open the door, look at me and close the door. I think she was saying, "Nope, he's still there." They probably spent that time planning her next move. That next move involved her coming out and telling me we couldn't see each other anymore. That led to the 10-minute conversation in which I talked her into staying in the relationship.

She must have realized she was stuck with me, so she started doing everything she could after that to get me to break up with her, including withholding affection. This would also include her telling me about how she was afraid I was going to hurt her that led to us breaking up for a half-hour. I guess she just got so used to trying things to get me to leave that making me miserable just became a habit. She just couldn't wrap her mind around the possibility that I was a good guy that she should stick with instead of getting me to kick myself to the curb. She was probably still holding out her hopes that she would marry Nid.

Sometimes, her attempts could be somewhat elaborate. One night, we went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell. She said she knew the woman working at the window and that she disliked her a lot. The next night, I got a phone call on the request line from this woman. She claimed to work at Taco Bell. I asked her if she worked the drive-thru the night before. She said she did, but she didn't remember me. We talked for a little longer, and it did get into the flirtatious zone. She asked me, "So when do I get to meet you?" I responded, "You don't." "Why?" "I have a girlfriend. I can't go around meeting women who call me on the phone." She hung up.

Less than a minute later, Marz called me on the request line and said, "WHO WERE YOU ON THE PHONE WITH ALL THIS TIME? I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET THROUGH!" I told her that I was talking to that woman from Taco Bell and that she wanted to meet me, but I wouldn't do it. She was still angry at me. I then questioned why she was calling me on the request line when I specifically told her to call me on the business line. She never answered that question, but kept yelling at me.

It was later that I figured out that she had likely gotten her friend to call up and pretend to be the woman from Taco Bell in order to catch me trying to cheat on her, which would give her an excuse to end it. When I didn't take the bait, it just made her angry that she was going to have to come up with another plan to get rid of me.

That plan involved changing her taste in music. When we first met, she was really into R&B. But with the influence of her younger sister, she got into Heavy Metal. I guess I had mentioned at some point how much I disliked Heavy Metal, so she figured if she was into that, I wouldn't want to be with her. Nope, didn't work.

So when she told me she was sleeping with Mord, I just thought she was making up something else to get me to leave. When I saw his pickup outside her house, that was what worked. She claimed she was in love with him. But I still wanted her in my life. This relationship had messed me up more that I'd realized.

She called me after I had moved up to Denver. She told me Mord had gone out of town for a few weeks. She later heard that he came back to town, but that he was no longer living in the dorms at the base. That meant only one thing. She knew that she only had to look in one place to find him. She went to my old apartment and he was living there with his new wife. Apparently, he had been engaged the whole time he was sleeping with Marz. She told me his wife was ugly and had a big butt. She didn't tell me what went down when she showed up at the apartment, but I'll bet he was shocked to find out he was living where I used to live. (He did know about me, and even though Marz told him we weren't having sex, he probably didn't believe her. I guess it didn't matter because he knew he was engaged and he was just banging Marz to tide him over until the wedding.)

I saw Marz one last time after I'd moved to Denver. I came back through Clovis about six weeks after I'd left because I had three days off in a row at work. We hung out for a little bit, but it was nothing spectacular. We didn't talk about the situation with Mord.

Several months later, I called her and told her about my relationship with my new girlfriend. I told her how after six months, we were still affectionate, holding hands and kissing. Marz asked, "Hey! Did you call me just to torment me?" I hung up the phone and never spoke to her again.

I've already answered the question of why I didn't break up with her earlier, but I haven't explored why I didn't just stop seeing her altogether once I did. There were almost no other prospects out there. There were a couple, and I will write about them later, but I had nothing else going on. At that time, having the worst girlfriend in the world was better than having no girlfriend. I stopped feeling that way as I approached 40.

So, what happened to Marz? I found a MySpace page she had created around 2008. There were a few photographs of her and she looked terrible. One of the pictures featured a poster of Hannah Montana in the background, so that probably means she had a daughter at the time. According to the obituary for her mother, who died in 2008, she was not married. However in 2011, her older sister (the one whose apartment I met Marz at) passed away. That obituary listed that she had a spouse, but did not post his last name. I can only assume she's still in Clovis because I sure can't find her anywhere else.

I found out about her sister's passing fairly soon after it happened. I actually left a message on the guestbook. I wondered if anyone who remembered me noticed.

I don't expect to ever run into her again. I certainly get the impression that every guy she hooked up with after I left treated her exactly the same as the ones before she met me. I don't know if she ever appreciated what it was like to actually be loved. And I kind of don't care.

Girlfriend #2: Marz, Part 3

Yeah, things between me and Marz got pretty bad in my last post, but I was still unwilling to let it end. I felt that she still cared for me and that she wanted to get back to the couple we were during that first week we met. I was able to recapture that mood every once in awhile, but those moments were always too fleeting and the times in-between just kept getting longer and longer. I hoped that with all the boyfriend problems she'd had in the past (which involved them all cheating on her) she would see what a good guy I was and how lucky she was to have me in her life. I now believe she just felt lucky she had a guy she could take complete advantage of. I didn't realize this until way too late.

During this time, she encountered my family. My brother Loyd had signed up for the Air Force. The day before he had to leave for boot camp, he came knocking on my front door. This was after one of the nights Marz spent with me by herself. She stayed in bed and I talked to Loyd in the living room. During our conversation, he used a derogatory term referring to Hispanics. I was afraid Marz was about to run out of the bedroom and strangle him. While we were talking, I non-verbally indicated that Marz was in the bedroom. Before he left, I let him peek in the bedroom. Marz had her face in the pillow, so he couldn't tell she was Hispanic. After he left, Marz told me she heard the entire conversation. I asked her about the derogatory term. She'd never heard that term before, so she didn't know to get mad about it.

A few weeks later, my great-grandmother passed away. My parents came up for the funeral. The graveyard was east of Clovis and the funeral procession drove by Marz' neighborhood. I was riding with my parents and I indicated the area where Marz lived, but they didn't get to meet her. A few weeks later, Dad came to get my car so he could fix it and leave his with me. However, I had let Marz and her friend borrow my car, so I didn't have it. I told Dad this. He remembered where I said Marz lived, drove over there and found my car. He knocked on the door to get the car keys and leave his Chevy Blazer with her. That was how he met her, but he didn't have much to say about her.

Marz agreed to come with me to meet my parents on Thanksgiving. However, the night before, she changed her mind about going. I called up Mom and she got very angry that I had canceled. It made her feel like I was being controlled by Marz (I guess I was) and that she was trying to keep me from my family (not true). Marz agreed to come with me to Artesia the next week to meet them, but she had to bring her friend along. The visit was pleasant and she seemed to get along with my parents okay.

I was able to get her to come home to spend Christmas with me, my parents and Loyd. That was a mistake. She was just horrible the whole time and Mom really didn't like her after that. On top of that, we needed her to help out with my parents 25th wedding anniversary party. She didn't like being a part of that. (Actually, she could have just stayed up in my room the whole. No one forced her.) Fortunately, my family never saw Marz again after that.

We did have one incredible evening together when she spent the night at my apartment. We started holding and kissing each other and I could feel the same magic in the air that existed when I first met her. She went so far as to take her shirt off under the blanket. (But I was on top of the blanket.) I actually thought there was a distinct possibility that we were going to make love. She laughed and said, "I feel so tempted right now." I said, "I feel it, too." I didn't want to proceed too quickly to the love-making because it had been a long time since we had been like this and I wanted to enjoy every moment before I lost my virginity. After a few minutes, the feeling subsided on her part. But it was the first time in so long I had gotten to hold her while we slept. I would never get to do that again or get that close to making love with her.

A few weekends went by without her staying the night. Finally, she said she would be able to sleep over. However, she had to wait until she was done with some sort of meeting she was required to go to that was connected to a shoplifting incident from before I met her. The meeting was held at the Air Force Base. She and her friends came over around 11pm. She said she may need to go out for another meeting. She had to call and find out. Certainly, this did not make sense and I called her on it. She told me if she didn't go, she would have to go to jail. I guess she really wanted to go to that meeting. I just stopped arguing at that point.

A few days later, Marz, a friend of hers, and I were driving through town during the day. All of a sudden, this white pickup drove past us and the driver honked the horn. I saw a blond guy with a military haircut and sunglasses waving at us. Her friend said, "Oh! It's Mord! He recognized the car!" I asked who Mord was. Her friend said it was some guy from the Air Force and wouldn't say anything more.

Not long after that, Marz said she had something to tell me. She said she had been seeing another guy, that it was Mord and she had been having sex with him. I didn't know what to say, but I know I was in denial at first. I didn't think anything was really going on. She told me that Mord got really upset when he saw her in the car with me. I asked her if she wanted to break up with me. She told me no.

A few nights later, I decided to surprise her and drove to her house. I saw the white pickup parked outside. I kept on driving. I could no longer be in denial. I went home and contemplated what needed to be done. I knew I had no choice but to break up with her. I saw her the next day and told her that I didn't need to see her anymore and that would be it.

I basically sulked at home the whole week when I wasn't at work. During that time, I realized that I didn't have any photographs of her. (When you got right down to it, I didn't have any photos of my first girlfriend, either.) I didn't want this to be a pattern. I called her up and asked if I could bring her over to my apartment to take some photos of her. She said she would. I picked her up. She had one of her nieces with her, who was five years old. We hung out at the apartment for a little bit and she allowed me to take a few photos. I was able to get a picture of us together by having her niece push down on the shutter button. Afterwards, I told her I missed her and that I still wanted to see her as friends. She agreed to this.

But that didn't stop the fighting. We still had disagreements that lasted up until the point that I quit my job at KZZO and moved to Denver. There's at least one interesting situation that is worth writing about from that period and it will come up later this week.

In tomorrow's post, I will explore my relationship with Marz with some perspectives that took me more than 25 years to sort out. I will also tell you what has happened to her since then. I promise some interesting twists that I never would have imagined.

Girlfriend #2: Marz, Part 2

There's one thing I would like to point out about my second girlfriend. Marz set off a common thread among most of my upcoming girlfriends in that every woman I got romantically involved with, starting with her, had some kind of major flaw about her. As I pointed out yesterday, Marz was legally blind. These flaws are not always physical, but they cause me to have a tendency to refer to my ex-girlfriends as "the blind one," etc.

I also need to take this opportunity to explain a few things about everything for which I'm going into detail, most of which will probably make you slap your forehead hard enough to get a concussion. Please keep in mind that Marz was the first real girlfriend I'd had in almost eight years. I was bound and determined to make this relationship last more than two weeks because I believed at first it might possibly lead to marriage. I was going to do everything to be the best and most understanding boyfriend ever, even if my willingness to trust her showed a great deal of naivete on my part. If I had experienced all the types of girlfriends I'd had my entire life up to this point, I probably would have left her after the first week (following the discussion we had after she'd told me she'd been raped). But at that time, there was no way I was willing to wait another eight years for another girlfriend, which scared me more than anything. I had to make this one last awhile.

As I mentioned yesterday, she capped off our first week by telling me that she had to go to Albuquerque with her family. I wrote that I didn't like this, but didn't fully explain why: During our conversations, she told me that her ex-boyfriend (named Nid) moved to Albuquerque a few months earlier with his family. One of the things that was apparent about Nid was that he was a "rich boy." She swore to me that she was not going to see him while she was there.

I didn't hear from her Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday was the day I found out I got shafted to the overnight shift at KZZO. While I was at home that night waiting for my show to begin, she called me. She had tried calling the station first, but found out that I wasn't going to be on the air yet. I had to explain what happened and that we weren't going to be able to spend as much time together because I knew how messed up my sleep pattern was about to become.

She then told me that she "accidentally" ran into Nid in Albuquerque. (As much as I was trying to be the trusting boyfriend, I knew she was lying. You don't accidentally run into the person you're trying to avoid in Albuquerque. I've even gone up to Albuquerque to meet with a friend and missed him the whole time I was there, and he knew I was coming!) I didn't get mad at her because I appreciated that she was being honest. Besides, I was too upset about what happened to me at work to worry about her indiscretions.

I was on the air Saturday afternoon when she called me. I remember screeching with delight when I heard her voice. We made plans for me to come see her that night at her sister's. However, she told me she got sunburned in Albuquerque, so I wouldn't be able to touch her. When I actually saw her, I completely forgot all about the sunburn and hugged her. I suddenly remembered what she said and backed off. I said I was sorry. The strange thing was that she didn't exhibit any signs of pain when I touched her bare arms.

I had been hoping to fall asleep with her in my arms that night, but that didn't happen. We only got to hang out for a couple of hours before she asked me to leave. The whole time I was there, it seemed like her mind was on something else, but she wouldn't tell me what was going on. (Yes, I know what her mind was on!)

My main goal at that point was to get her to go on a second date with me, something I never got to do with Roz. We went bowling. I knew she wasn't going to be good at it, but the point was just for the two of us to go out and have fun as a couple without going to the movies or some other activity that required us to sit on our butts. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the alley put the only other people there right next to us, so she got rather embarassed about it.

We would spend some time together here and there. Mostly, we just hung out at my apartment or went to get something to eat. The first couple of Friday and Saturday nights we spent at my apartment. We would hold each other and kiss before falling asleep in each others' arms. I was very happy when our relationship hit the three week mark.

And that's when things started to go bad. One night before my shift, we were talking on the phone. She started saying she was afraid that something could happen between us and I would be the one to blame. I tried to be sensitive to what she was saying and told her the idea that something could happen scared me a little too. And then the conversation went into "Say Anything" territory (two years before that movie came out). There's that scene in which Ione Skye thinks she needs to focus more on her family problems while John Cusack is sensitively listening and agreeing with her. The next thing he knows, they're broken up! The only difference was that our conversation did not end with stunned silence. I actually yelled and screamed at her for seeing her ex-boyfriend in Albuquerque when she promised me she wasn't going to. She hung up the phone and I thought, "Well, that's it, then." I just sat there for a half-hour. (I got to work really early because I had nothing better to do.) She called back and we calmly talked things through. I apologized for yelling at her and we decided to continue seeing each other.

But the relationship was never the same after that. It was little things that changed at first. When we kissed, she would wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. It wasn't because I slobbered on her. She would let me continue to kiss her, but every time, she wiped. She did this in an "I'm only kidding" manner, but she didn't stop. After awhile, she wouldn't let me hold her. After that, we didn't hold hands as often.

We went a couple of weeks without spending the night together. I finally got her to agree to come to the apartment on a Saturday night. Before we started holding each other, she said she had to make a phone call. I was laying on the bed while she sat next to me. I don't know who she was talking to, but it was obviously a guy and she was acting very flirtatious with him. Every once in awhile, she would lean over and kiss me. But the conversation went on for an HOUR AND A HALF! All day long, I had been really looking forward to getting to hold her and kiss her. I didn't want to wreck that by making her get off the phone and having her get mad at me. However, when she did hang up, she just sat there and looked at phone. She didn't say anything to me. I tried to hold her, but she gently brushed my hands away. Okay. Now, I'm mad. "WHY DID YOU SPEND AN HOUR AND A HALF ON THE PHONE WITH THAT GUY? YOU DIDN'T TELL ME YOU WERE GOING TO BE ON THE PHONE THAT LONG!" She yelled back, "I WAS TRYING TO SET SOMETHING UP FOR MY SISTER!" "NO, YOU WEREN'T! YOU DIDN'T EVEN MENTION YOUR SISTER THAT WHOLE TIME!"

We stopped talking to each other and just laid down on the bed with our backs facing each other. We both fell asleep that way. When we woke up, I really felt rested, which was surprising. I just drove her home after she woke up. She didn't really say much.

After that, I was never able to get her to sleep at my apartment without her friends or her sister Vid (or both) staying the night in my living room. We never got to hold and kiss. We just laid in bed and fell asleep. One time was really awkward when Vid had to sleep in the bed with us because there were two friends on my living room couches. (Marz was in the middle and would scream if I tried to touch her.)

And yet, things just kept getting worse. More about that on Monday.

Girlfriend #2: Marz, Part 1

I had gotten to experience my first girlfriend in October of 1979. I met my second girlfriend in July of 1987. That means I went almost EIGHT YEARS without an actual girlfriend. After all the Friend Zones, Ring Zones, Mistops, Lostops and Radio Teases, I was finally able to get someone to actually commit to me.

Her name was Marz. I hadn't realized it at first, but I'd been in her vicinity and had contact with her on at least three occasions through KZZO, the station I worked at. One of those was durng Hands Across America. She had been one of our contest winners who got to ride the bus to San Jon, NM. At one point, I got on the bus and looked at the people who had boarded. She may have been on board at that time.

The other two times were when she had won our nightly Domino's free pizza giveaway. The rules were that the winner needed to live in the restaurant's delivery zone. She claimed both times that she was because they had delivered out there before. When I called the order in at Domino's, they pushed back and said it wasn't, but they still delivered the pizza anyway.

What led up to us getting to meet was my nightly feature, "Love It or Shove It." The new Michael Jackson single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" came out. I premiered it on my show. Afterwards, she called up and asked about it. We talked for a little bit, but I still needed to take more calls from people wanting to give their reactions. I asked her to give me a call back in five minutes.

She actually called back and we talked some more. She was REALLY into Michael Jackson and enjoyed listening to other R&B artists. Somehow, I managed to talk my way into meeting her after I got off my shift that night. I drove home and shaved. On my way out the door, I ran into the woman who lived downstairs from me. We had seen each other, but had never met before. (She was not someone I was interested in dating.) I didn't chat with her very much because I was in a hurry to get over to see Marz. In my excitement, I plain forgot to brush my teeth.

I went to the apartment and knocked on the door. She opened it. She did not look straight at me. She was Hispanic, had long, black hair and was very skinny. At first sight, I didn't find her very attractive. However, I saw that she was really beautiful after a few minutes. One thing I found out about her was that she was legally blind. She mostly saw things through the sides of her eyes, which was why she didn't look directly at me when she opened the door.

This was at her sister's apartment. We hung around on the couch and talked. She was telling me about some bad stuff that had been happening to her. We were facing each other and my hand was up on the back of the couch near her head. I started slowly stroking her eyebrow. She didn't swat my hand away. We continued talking. Eventually, I worked my hand down to her hand and held it. We were both smiling while we were talking.

There were other people in the house hanging around. They were getting a little loud, so we went to her sister's bedroom. It was a little more quiet in there. There were still people in there, but they weren't making as much noise. We continued talking on the bed and holding hands. Fairly soon, we were both lying on the bed, holding each other and trying to look into each others' eyes. I couldn't believe it. I was making the moves!

I was there until about 5am. We decided to call it a night. She walked me out to my car. She said she wouldn't kiss me, but hoped that I would come over after my shift that night. (Whew! I didn't have to worry about stinkbreath!) I went home and I couldn't sleep for three more hours. I was so excited about what had just happened and couldn't wait for my shift to end that night.

She called me at work and we talked awhile and confirmed that I was coming to see her again. I went home and made sure I brushed my teeth this time. I came over and it was more of the same as the night before. Again, we didn't kiss. I didn't want to feel like I was moving on her too quickly (because goodness knows that's what I was doing the night before).

I got to come over again the next night. This time, there were a couple of her friends at the apartment. Then some of her sister's friends came over. They were black men. Marz said she wanted to leave. I suggested we go over to my apartment and hang out. She agreed to this. We went over to my place. The past two nights, we had been listening to Heid on KZZO all night long. I decided to put on one of my favorite CDs. It was Suzanne Vega's first album. We listened to the music and started kissing. We mostly just kissed and held each other the rest of the night. I drove her home again and looked forward to work ending that night.

However, she called and said that she wasn't going to be at her sister's that night or the next and we weren't going to be able to see each other those two nights, but she was planning to be there Saturday. I thought that it wasn't a big deal. I could certainly wait. I just wasn't going to have anything to look forward to after my shifts on Thursday and Friday nights.

Saturday night came. She called me and said she was at her sister's apartment and that I could come over. I went there, but we didn't really get affectionate because there were too many people around. Then, a couple of black people came in and she started acting a little anxious. They weren't around too long before they left. Her sister asked her what the problem was. Marz said she didn't want to talk about it. Her sister kept prodding until Marz finally exploded and yelled, "I WAS RAPED BY A BLACK MAN!" Then she ran off into the bedroom.

I didn't know what to say. I just waited for her to come out of the bedroom. I probably had to wait about a half hour. When she did come out, I asked her how she was doing. She said she was okay. Then she said, "We can't see each other anymore." I was probably more shocked by this than her admission that she had been raped. "What? Why?" "Because you don't want to be with me anymore." "That's not true! I never said that! I still want to be with you."

This conversation continued for the next 10 minutes. I finally convinced her that I didn't hate her and that we should stay together. I was simply not ready for a talk like that early in the relationship. I was glad we actually got to have that discussion before things suddenly ended out of my control. After we talked, we went over to the couch, held each other and laid down.

I woke up the next morning and found that Marz was still in my arms on the couch. Her sister's child was riding a tricycle through the apartment. This was the first time I had seen any children there. There were no other adults who were awake at the time. I was on the inside part of the couch, so I was unable to stand up without waking Marz up.

She finally did open her eyes. She was surprised that we fell asleep like that. I asked her if she wanted to go see a movie that night. She did. I specified a time that I would be by to pick her up. I went home and got some rest. I don't remember why, but I had to go to the mall before the date. I ran into Dr. W from the ENMU Theatre Department. We had a pleasant little chat.

I went back home and started getting ready for the date. I drove over to pick her up. She had some bad news for me. While we were still going out to the movie, she was going to have to go to Albuquerque the next day with her family and would be there until Saturday. I didn't like it, but there was nothing I could do about it.

We went out, got fast food and then went to the movie. We saw "Robocop." (Maybe that wasn't such a good choice for a first date, but I went to see it because Dr. W recommended it. ENMU's most famous graduate had a major role in it.)

After the movie, we drove back to where she actually lived, which was not her sister's apartment. It was a mobile home near the city landfill. (This would be the neighborhood that Domino's would not deliver to.) She lived there with her grandfather. After we arrived, her younger sister Vid came over. We talked while Marz packed her bags for the trip. It was hard to leave, knowing that I wasn't going to get to see her again for six days.

And that ended a glorious first week. I was in heaven and couldn't wait for her to return so we could get back to holding and kissing each other.

But, as usual, things just didn't work out the way I planned. You'll see for yourself in tomorrow's post.

Work Frenemy: Heid, Part 2

I left off yesterday with the revelation that KZZO's owner Jid was gay and that he had eyes for Heid. However, that feeling was not reciprocated. But just because Jid wasn't getting any didn't mean that Heid still wasn't his Golden Boy. Jid was able to get Heid a job at an R&B station in Dallas. For many years, I thought Jid was able to pull strings to get Heid that job. However, I recently found out that the station actually held a nationwide talent search and selected Heid. I think Jid still had a lot to do with Heid being chosen. Somehow, Jid was able to broker the deal and got Heid a salary of more than $40,000. WHAT? I wasn't even making $10,000 a year at that point in my life!

The three of us full-timers were very jealous of this, and it wasn't just us at the station who kind of felt like life was unfair. When I told our previous Program Director Tod where Heid wound up, he said he wished the station had never held that Guest DJ contest. Without it, Heid would have remained a student at ENMU and joined the Marines full-time after graduating. There was no way we would have hired him based solely on his ability to announce. Tod was very upset that Jid pulled out all the stops for Heid. Tod said when he approached Jid about trying to get his help in landing a job in a larger market, he was just unwilling to do anything.

But the good news was that we weren't going to have to deal with Heid's shenanigans anymore. He was about to become someone else's problem.

For his last show at KZZO, Heid went all crazy and did what he wanted. The last song he played was "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns 'n' Roses, a song we just plain were not allowed to play, even though it was one of the most famous songs on the planet at that point in time.

A few weeks later, Heid called me during my overnight shift. (Why I wasn't back to working the six to midnight shift is another story). That station in Dallas had him working overnights to start, but he was going to be moving up to the evening shift later. He told me that all the DJs worked four hour shifts, but a couple of them wanted to only work three hours instead and have Heid work six hours. He said the people in charge told him they weren't doing it to punish him. What was going through my mind was, "Hey, these guys get paid $40,000 a year to work four hours a day, and they think that's working too much? On top of that, they're going to work one hour less, but still get paid the same amount of money? Heid is getting screwed!"

The last time I talked to Heid was after I had gotten a part-time job at a station in Denver. One thing I found out was that DJs like Heid were becoming a trend in larger cities. Y108 in Denver had a nighttime jock named Michael Moon. He was a funny guy, but again, he was not an announcer. The main differences between him and Heid were that Moon did not pretend he was trying to announce and he was a lot funnier without having to go into the gray areas.

However, that radio gig only lasted four years. I don't know what happened, but he stopped working at that station. (When I used to believe he had prior knowledge that I was going to get the shaft at KZZO, I had hoped that eventually the same thing would happen to him, that someone he considered a friend knew what was going down and wouldn't tell him. But as I mentioned yesterday, he may not have known, so that probably wouldn't have been true karma.) According to an on-line bio, he went back to school and worked a series of odd jobs, including as a DJ at a nightclub before landing another radio job in Waco. That station got bought out about a year later and he, along with several other staff members, got dumped. He then worked for Southwestern Bell/AT&T for about 10 years. During this time he got married, had a couple of kids, got divorced and got married again to another woman.

He decided to try to get back into radio and went to school to learn about the latest technological advances in broadcasting. (Trust me, there were a LOT.) He was able to land a morning show job in a small town country station about two hours southwest of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

It was around this time that I had gotten back into radio at a news station in San Jose. I got curious and looked him up on the Internet. I found him at that country station. I tried to send him e-mails letting him know about how it was funny that we had managed to get back into radio about the same time after being out of it for several years. He never responded. I don't know if he ever got them or if he just decided to ignore me.

But then Facebook came along. Since I don't use my real name on my account and he has several listeners he's never met listed as friends, it was easy to get him to accept my friend request. We have been connected on Facebook for more than four years, and up until about now, he hasn't realized that I've been his "friend" all this time.

And just within the last five weeks, Heid has managed to get a morning show and Program Director job in Abilene. He said his children would continue to go to school in the town he left and that he'd still go to church there, but the offer in Abilene was too good to pass up.

I mentioned yesterday that he now sounds like a radio announcer. It also looks like he has left behind his desire to be a primadonna diva. I'll bet he's a lot easier to work with now. It's too bad we couldn't have worked with that guy in 1988. There wouldn't have been so many hard feelings.

I am glad for his recent success after the struggles he's been through. But they're probably nothing compared to what I've had to deal with.

I've got a couple more stories to tell about Heid when we were working together at KZZO in Clovis, NM. Those will be coming up in the near future.

Work Frenemy: Heid, Part 1

I'll preface by saying that Heid probably never did anything against me that would cause me to think of him as an enemy. However, he had developed an attitude at one point that simply rubbed everyone he worked with the wrong way at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM.

Our main rival, KTQM-FM, used to have a contest each month in which one of their listeners would get to be a guest DJ. According to their promos, the guest DJ would get to go on the air and pick the music they wanted to play for an hour. (I have a feeling the winner only got to choose from a limited selection of songs provided by the station for his or her show. I'm pretty certain it was always metalheads who won and they probably got ticked off they they couldn't bring their own music from home.)

In April of 1987, we decided to do something similar. The winner would just get to come on our morning program and get to make comments during the stop sets. They wouldn't choose the songs, but they would get to be on the entire three hours.

We asked listeners to send in cassettes of them saying funny things and the one we liked the best would get to come on the show. My friend Diid actually tried to enter and enlisted my help. I came up with a lot of good material for her, but she wouldn't take any of my advice and only wanted to repeat the show's catch phrases. I don't think she ever got around to actually recording her audition. (She wouldn't have gotten it anyway.)

The powers that be selected a guy named Heid as the winner. He was a 19-year-old student studying Radio/TV at Eastern New Mexico University. He had graduated from Portales High School the year before. He was also in the Marine Reserves. He had something resembling a jarhead haircut and piercing blue eyes. I never heard his audition, but I was told he was pretty funny on it.

He performed well on the morning show. I don't know who made this decision, but he was offered a part-time position. He came in and trained on a Sunday afternoon, when we were running our syndicated programs. During the shows, he was required to announce this on-air promotion we had going on with some sort of safety quiz. One thing was apparent from this: Heid was not an announcer.

The next day was the day that Tod and Daz quit. Dod, who was working overnights at the time was changed to Tod's afternoon drive shift. I remained in my shift and Heid was offered a full-time position working overnights. It bothered me a little that I had to work part-time for a year and a half before I got offered full-time and Heid got the job after only working one day. However, this was a drastic moment, so I really didn't have time to get mad about it.

Heid got into trouble with Jid one time during his first couple of weeks. When working the overnight on a Friday night, he decided to invite his friends over to the station for an impromptu party that involved alcohol. He said later that Jid "read him the riot act." He also once accidentally said the F-word on the air.

During the next couple of months, Heid got quite a reputation for saying outrageous things. It bordered between Howard Stern and Jay Thomas. A couple of months in, I listened to his show almost every night for one week and I was simply appalled at how many times he would break format by not following the clock, coming on and talking whenever and for as long as he wanted. I heard him talk for five minutes straight about nothing in particular. We're supposed to be playing music, not performing comedy monologues. And of course, there was his cutting-the-edge-of-the-envelope sense of humor. I'll be the first to admit that he was never outright vulgar, but it was probably too much for the tender and conservative ears of those who lived in the area.

I was not the only one who had problems with Heid. The Program Director disliked how he couldn't sound like an actual DJ. He hadn't shown any improvement in that area over the last couple of months. Dod didn't like him because he felt Heid was giving the station a bad name. But I have to admit that we were actually all rather jealous that he was being given the freedom to do these things by Jid, the owner. After all, he had only worked part-time one day before being elevated to full-time. The three of us had all been through the radio wringer and it seemed like Heid hadn't paid his dues. The only consolation that we had was that he was just on during the overnight hours.

I talked to the Program Director the Monday after I had been hearing Heid's show and told him he was just going way over the line with his format-breaking. He said he would see if he could do something about it. Two days later, the Program Director gave me the bad news that Jid was switching the shifts for me and Heid. WAIT! WHAT? I had been playing by the rules all this time! It wasn't fair that the person who had been breaking them got my shift.

But I really got angry at Heid when I overheard a conversation he had with someone. He talked about how, fairly soon after he started working full-time, Jid told him that he was going to move him to the six to midnight shift in three months. WHAT? HE KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AND DIDN'T TELL ME I WAS GOING TO GET THE SHAFT? I had to do everything in my power to keep this anger inside when I had to deal with him on a nightly basis before beginning my shift. But over time, I came to realize that he may not have known that I was going to be put back to working overnights. I'd like to think that if Jid had informed him that was going to happen, he would have told me and I could have been more prepared for the inevitable. So, I don't blame him for that anymore. (But I could have been right in the first place. Heid never told me he was sorry that I had to go back to working overnights.)

However, once he became Jid's Golden Boy, Heid became a primadonna diva. We're supposed to show up for our shift at least 15 minutes ahead of time, but it wasn't long before he started coming in literally a minute before his air shift started. After a few weeks of working the shift, he threw a fit at the Program Director for scheduling him on Saturday nights while the rest of us got four-hour shifts during the day. (I had this same issue when I worked the six to midnight shift.) The Program Director said he didn't really have a say in the matter, that Jid wanted him working that shift on Saturday nights. He didn't win that battle. (Good.)

I did have a hard time getting him to respect my authority as Music Director. During the night shift, he broke format about as often as he did when he was doing overnights. One of the things that really got on my nerves was that every time he played Van Halen's "Jump" off of the CD, he would play the album intro "1984" before it. That instrumental piece is NOT part of "Jump" and there's a five-second pause between the tracks on the CD. I complained to Jid and he said he would talk to Heid. After that, Heid would still play the "1984" intro, then put in a quick KZZO jingle in-between. THAT SOUNDED EVEN WORSE!

Another thing that ticked me off was his handling of our nightly feature "Love it or Shove It." It was my favorite feature when I was working the night shift because it allowed us to get the newest music on the air before KTQM. People would call in and let me know whether or not they liked the song. Sometimes, we would use the reactions to gauge whether or not we should add the song to the rotation. Most of the time, listeners just told me to "Shove it," but if we got a really strong reaction, like we did with Los Lobos' "La Bamba," we knew we had to fly with it.

When Heid took over my shift, I would ask him about the reaction to the "Love It or Shove It" song. I needed this information so I could decide whether to present the song to Jid as a possible add. Heid would usually respond, "Oh, I didn't get any calls." No calls? I got calls every single night on the songs when I was working the shift. Why wasn't he getting calls? I listened to him and found out a few things. First, he was goofing around with the name of the feature. He called it by a half-dozen other names using the same rhyme scheme. (One of them was "Jam It or Ram It," in which both terms could be used to mean the same thing.) Second, he didn't backsell the song or ask for people to call in to tell what they thought. The new song would end and he would just play the next song without saying anything. Again, I complained to Jid, who said he would talk to Heid. But the only thing that happened was that Jid canceled the feature because we weren't getting any reactions.

And we had some other issues in trying to deal with him. One time, during an air staff meeting with Jid, Heid complained that he wasn't being given any production to do. The three of us other full-timers were all thinking, "You're a funny guy, but YOU ARE NOT AN ANNOUNCER!" Jid ordered Dod (who was the Production Manager) to give Heid some easy copy to produce. Heid did one spot and it just did not sound professional. In fact, it was so bad that the client called us and complained. Dod re-did the ad to the client's satisfaction, but said that Heid came in that night screaming at him for re-doing the spot.

Another problem was that every part-timer we hired during this period felt like they were allowed to act the same way on the air. The real issue was that they tended to sound like Bruno Kirby in "Good Morning Vietnam" after taking over Robin Williams' radio show. Any time the Program Director tried to get them to step back into line, they would respond with "Heid gets to do that!" Firing them meant that we would just have to hire other part-timers who would do the exact same thing.

I do know of one time that Heid got yelled at by Jid for something he said on the air during this time. Heid said something to the effect that there was no Santa Claus and Jid really ripped into him. I thought, "Wait, all that other stuff he says and this is the one thing you're going to get upset about? REALLY? No one who listens at that time still believes anyway."

But there was an unexpected encounter between the two. Heid said that one night, Jid came into the studio while he was working his shift and asked, "Heid, how would you like a blow job, right now?" Heid said he thought for a moment and replied, "You know, Jid, that sounds like a good idea. Let me call my girlfriend and see if she'll come over here right now to give me one!" Jid supposedly sulked out of the studio.

All of us who worked at the station knew that Jid was gay, but were mostly unaware about his intense interest in Heid. Dod later told me that once, he heard Jid say out loud, "I would love to get into his pants!"

But Heid didn't stay with KZZO forever. In tomorrow's Part 2, I'll explain how he got to leave Clovis behind for the big city and what happened after that. One thing I will say ahead of time is that he eventually became an actual radio announcer. I never saw that coming.

I was a winner for four months

You may have noticed that, in the theme of this blog, a lot of bad stuff happened to me over the first 22 years of my life. There were some things I could have done differently, but a lot more stuff that I didn't have any control over. If I ever got something really good, there were usually consequences to pay later. I've had way more failures than I've had victories. This has been the pattern of my life.

So when I happened to have a series of good things come into my life following two decades of misery, I felt like I was due for a major turnaround that should carry me through the next 20 years.

For starters, I was no longer working the overnight shift. I had been working midnight to six for the past 14 months because everyone had this stigma (placed by Crad) that I was a terrible DJ. It took time for Jid the owner to notice that I had indeed improved well enough to get a better shift. (Actually, I don't think I had really improved. Tod just had him listen to my aircheck after he was no longer under the influence of Crad.)

But there was a little setback to go with the victory: Ever since I had been working for KZZO, the full-timers would usually get to work a four-hour shift on Saturday during the daytime. This helped a little considering we all had to work six days a week. For the first month, I had Saturday nights off, which I enjoyed. However, Jid decided he wanted everyone to work their usual six-hour shifts six days a week. I asked Tod if I could work Sunday nights for my sixth shift, since we ran some syndicated programs during that time. He said that Jid wouldn't allow that. I was stuck with working Saturday nights.

A couple of months later, Tod suddenly quit the station. Jid decided to split Tod's duties between two people. Our morning guy became the Program Director and I was named the Music Director. I had hoped that I would have gotten the full job because I would have gotten paid a lot more, but I was happy to have the title and responsibilities of Music Director.

Very soon after that, I got a raise. I actually found out about the raise after I had "padded" my hours during my first week on the job. I came in two hours before my shift to listen to the newest music and to figure out which songs I could put back into the "Recurrent" rotation. One night, I showed up for my shift and found that we were off the air. This was because the last engineer removed the filters at the transmitter and forgot to put them back. Co-owner Mr. W took the opportunity to yell at me for putting on extra hours when all I was doing was listening to music (which was part of my job). He said he wasn't going to pay for that especially after approving a raise for me. I told him if I had known about the raise earlier, I wouldn't have felt the need to pad my hours.

But getting a raise was definitely a good thing, even though it was only 25 cents an hour. Jid appeared to think I was doing a really good job. We had started doing a nightly pizza giveaway contest. When someone won the pizza, I would put them on the air. I was really going to town on this one guy who didn't act every excited about winning. Dod and Jid were in the studio listening to me. Dod told me later that Jid was laughing so hard, he had tears coming out of his eyes.

Another thing I had going for me was that I had friends I could hang out with, even though I kind of didn't have much in common with them. It was good to feel like I had some sort of social life. In addition, I had gotten to meet a few women who had called and talked to me at the station. (See all my posts from last week.) Pretty soon, I was able to call one of them my girlfriend. (More on her later this week.)

I was feeling like I was finally finding my place in my world and that things were just going to get better. I was riding such a high that it was easy for me not to realize that it would all come crashing to an end much sooner than I expected.

I came in to the station during the daytime on a Wednesday. The Program Director told me he had bad news. Jid was putting me back on overnights. AND the change was going to happen that very night. I was devastated. I tried to talk to Jid to get him to change his mind. He wouldn't look at me while he was talking to me, but he did say that he was going to have me start working a mid-day shift in a few months. I told him I would do it if I only had to work the shift four nights a week and work two daytime shifts on the weekend. Jid agreed to this. (But he went back on his word two months later and made me work five overnight shifts a week and I NEVER got a mid-day shift.)

And then my relationship went south. I always blamed the shift change for what happened between me and my girlfriend because I was now working the "loser" shift again. I also went into a lot of debt on my credit card in an effort to get her to keep seeing me. (Yeah, I know. Wasted money.)

I swear, if I hadn't just gotten a girlfriend, I would have quit on the spot. However, I had other reasons for staying on, including the fact that I was the Music Director, which I was really enjoying.

So, why did things change so suddenly and drastically for me? I'll be getting into that in tomorrow's post.

Radio Tease #7: Rez/I was such a cad!

(What's a Radio Tease? Click here!)

(What's a cad? Look below!)

Rez used to call in on a regular basis to send out dedications to her boyfriend during my nightly radio program on KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM. This took place over the course of about four weeks. One night, she started telling me she was having problems with him. I told her about how she always called in with dedications to him, but he never called me to make dedications for her. It was rather common for couples to reciprocate. It just seemed like she was more into the relationship than he was.

She called back from time to time and we would talk without her making any more dedications to that guy. She worked at Taco Box in the mall. I arranged to meet her before she started her shift one day. When she walked through the front door of the mall, she recognized me right away. She was rather cute. She was Hispanic, with long, black hair. She sat down next to me on the bench and we talked for a few minutes before she started her shift. Things appeared very promising after that first meeting.

During our conversations, it was apparent that she had been sexually active. However, she was still a little naive. She told me about how once at work, she bent over to get something out of a cabinet. One of the guys she worked with said out loud, "Every time she bends over, she initiates an erection!" She had to ask me what an erection was.

I came by to see her at work a couple more times. As usual, I kept trying to get her to go out with me, but I couldn't get her to commit to a date. I was really getting frustrated at this. Things got worse when she found out I was four years older than her. (I was 22 at the time.) I guess she thought I was maybe only a year older, but 22 was just too old for her. REALLY?

Eventually, I got a girlfriend and stopped talking to Rez. She never tried to call me at the station again or make another dedication.

A few months later, when I was having problems with my girlfriend, I decided to call Rez and see what she was up to. I still knew her phone number. (And yes, it was in hopes of trying to start something up.) I told her who I was and she seemed surprised to hear from me. She told me that she started dating some guy from the Air Force. He was a virgin and the first time they tried to have sex, he got nervous and it didn't happen. The second attempt, they were able to make love. However, she got pregnant from that and she was going to get married to him.

I never talked to her again. I don't remember her last name, so there's no way I can locate her on the Internet. She is gone for good.

Since today's blog entry is so short in terms of what I wrote about Rez, I will take this opportunity to wrap up this week of Radio Teases. One of the things I have to admit is that I was working on trying to get Rez, Diiz, Saz and Kiz to be my girlfriend all during the same period of time. (Friez left the picture before I really started getting into it with the other four.)

This meant I was attempting to juggle four women at the same time. Until it was close to the end, none of them knew I was talking to anyone else. However, there were times that I slipped up and would get a call from one of them and I would try to guess which one was calling. I didn't always get it right, leading whoever was calling to say, "WHAT?" However, they still kept talking to me. I was having a blast trying to keep track of the women and from letting on that I had my hands in several pies at the same time. I can almost understand why some men and women like to sneak around behind their partners' backs to get some side action. It was very exciting and thrilling to think that I was getting away with something.

During all this, however, I was still talking to Branz. I had a confidant in her. She knew about all four women because I told her about them. She even actually contacted Kiz and got some extra information. She told me that Kiz originally wanted to meet me at the mall so that if she saw me and didn't like what she saw, she would just walk away and never talk to me again. I asked Branz if she said that's what she would have done once she saw me. Branz said that Kiz never indicated what she actually would have done if that had been the scenario.

Things started to reach a boil that time I chased Kiz through Walmart (which I recounted in my blog post about her). I didn't realize it at the time, but Rez happened to be in Walmart that same time and saw me running through the store. She tried to get my attention by shouting my name. Honestly, I never heard her because I was too busy concentrating on catching up with Kiz. Rez called me later and asked me if I heard her calling me at Walmart. I hadn't. She then asked me why I was running. I told her I saw someone I knew and was trying to get her attention. She asked who I was going after. I told her it was Kiz. She told me she knew her from high school. I more or less had to admit that I had been trying to go out with Kiz. This was after Rez had found out how old I was, so my opportunity with her was already shot. There was no point in trying to hide anything from her.

This made the situation surrounding my quest for a girlfriend all the more irritating. I had four (now three) women who would talk to me on a regular basis and I couldn't get ONE of them to commit to going out with me.

But when you get right down to it, not ONE of these women I've written about this past week would have made a very good girlfriend. Friez lied a lot. Kiz and Saz were sexually active. (They wouldn't have put up with my efforts to remain celibate and would have hooked up with other guys behind my back.) Diiz and Rez were both very nice and I was compatible with them. However, they would have been rebound relationships and things would have ended rather quickly.

I have to point out that even the woman whom I eventually became romantically involved with was not a very good girlfriend, either. (I'll finally be writing about her extensively starting later next week.) When you're forced to live life as a loser, any choice you make in the love arena is likely to wind up being the wrong one.

Radio Tease #6: Diiz

(What's a Radio Tease? Click here!)

One thing about most Radio Teases is that I can almost never really recall why it was we started talking. Sometimes, I think they just wanted someone to talk to because things were sort of tough in their lives and they felt like they could trust the voice they heard on the radio. It was certainly that way with Diiz.

Diiz was rather young, but had just gotten out of a short-lived marriage. She was able to get the divorce very quickly because she had caught her husband in bed with her sister. We arranged to meet outside an Allsup's convenience store one afternoon.

She was waiting outside for me. She had long, blonde hair and was cute. She said I could just take her to her apartment where she lived with her mother, her older sister Shad and her half-sister Card. It turned out to be the exact same apartment where Diid and her children used to live. (Diid and Diiz actually had the same name.) We were by ourselves in the apartment for a little while. Then, her sisters came in. Shad had short dark hair and freckles. She was taller and thinner than Diiz, but she was nowhere near as pretty. Card was about the same height as Shad, but she had red hair and was rather attractive. They had come back from shopping. Card had bought a Super Soaker water gun. They were going to test it outside.

I later asked Diiz why her husband would have wanted to sleep with Shad. She told me that he just wanted to make her mad. Yep, that was a pretty good marriage.

I called Diid's friend Kyz and told her I liked one of the women who lived in Diid's old apartment. Kyz groaned really loudly and asked, "Which one?" I told her it was Diiz. She said, "Oh, yeah! She's really nice!" "Then why did you like it was a bad thing?" "Because I thought you were talking about Card. She's a really terrible person." (I think it's kind of funny how she knew there was no way I would hook up with Shad.)

I got to come over to Diiz' apartment again and met her mother. She was nice. Another time, I got to come over and Diiz and I watched the movie "Pink Floyd: The Wall." There are some sexual scenes in that film. I didn't know if she was uncomfortable watching that with me, because I know I was. She never said anything.

One day, I was at the mall, eating at Taco Box. I saw Shad and Card walking around. Card seemed to be upset about something, but I couldn't hear what was going on. Shad saw me and came over to talk to me a little bit. We didn't really discuss much.

A couple of weeks later, Shad called me up and asked me if I would co-sign on a bank loan so that she could buy a used car. Shad assured me that she would be making all the payments on the loan, but she needed a car really bad. First, I wanted to speak to Diiz. I asked her if she thought it was a good idea for me to do this. She said, "Yeah, you should go ahead and do that for her."

I met Shad at the bank and started filling out the paperwork with the loan officer. The whole time, I was getting red flags all over the place about this. Mainly, it had to do with Shad not actually having a job, so I don't know how she was expecting to pay the loan back. (I suspect that once she got a car, she would get a job, but I still didn't have too much confidence in that.) Then, the officer asked for my credit card. Even though I had one, I told him I didn't. He said he couldn't approve the loan without some proof of prior credit. That was the end of that. Shad was disappointed.

I talked to Diiz after that. She told me it was a good thing the loan didn't go through, because Shad probably would have defaulted on the loan and left me to pay for it. I asked Diiz, "If you knew that, why did you advise me to do it? The only reason I agreed to do it was because you asked me to!" "I didn't want Shad to get mad at me." I thought, "Shad slept with your husband. She's got no right to get mad at you about anything," but I didn't say it.

I stopped talking to Diiz after that. A few weeks later, Shad called me and told me Diiz was about to get married to this other guy, but that she really liked me a lot. I said, "Oh, well."

I saw Diiz one more time about a year later when I was driving around Clovis. She recognized me before I recognized her. We didn't really say much to each other as I never got out of the car, but I don't think she got married.

I can't find her on-line because I can't remember her last name. Until I started writing this blog, I hadn't thought about Diiz for at least the last quarter century, as is the case with the Radio Tease I'll be focused on tomorrow. Sometimes, writing all this stuff feels like I'm ripping open old wounds, but they always heal again.

Radio Tease #5: Saz

(What's a Radio Tease? Click here!)

Technically, I should classify Saz as a "Friend Zone" rather than a "Radio Tease" because we had something resembling a date. However, she spent most of the time being a tease instead of a friend.

She called me up one Friday night around 10pm and we started talking. I don't remember what the conversation was about, but the end of my shift came up and I told her we could continue the conversation after I got home in about five minutes. Immediately after I arrived at my apartment, I called her. We talked for another hour and we decided to go ahead and meet face to face right then and there. We arranged to get together at an all-night diner around the intersection of 1st and Prince Streets.

I arrived first. She showed up a few minutes later and excitedly found me. She was Hispanic and very pretty. We ordered a couple of Cokes and talked for about an hour. Twice, she reached over touched my hair, which was partially covering my face. I thought things were off to a really good start.

She continued to call me and we would talk from time to time. However, everytime I tried to get her to actually go out with me on Saturday night, she would always come up with the excuse, "I don't know what I'm doing five minutes from now! I certainly can't make any plans for this weekend!" I guess that was why we were able to meet that one time. It fit within her capacity for planning things out.

I guess she liked the experience of talking to a DJ so much that she started calling the other DJs at the station. I got kind of upset about this. I mean, we weren't even dating and she was already figuratively cheating on me. It was really bad because I would talk to the other DJs and they would tell me that they had been talking to this woman I knew. I guess she would go back and forth telling everybody stuff she discussed with the other DJs. I know, because that's what she did when she talked to me.

She started talking to Dod. Dod told me she had described herself as "stacked." I didn't really see her that way, but okay. Anyway, Dod was able to meet up and have sex with her. WHAT? I guess he was able to set all that up within her five minute time frame.

I stopped talking to her after that. Actually, that was easy to do because she stopped calling me. A couple of weeks later, the station had an event at the mall. She showed up to support Dod. She said hi to me. That was the last time I ever saw her.

I wound up hearing about her a few years later because she had become a friend of Chez, Kiz' younger sister. I was briefly a topic of discussion when they had gotten to know each other. One time, I talked to Chez and she told her to tell me hi. By that time, she had gotten married to someone in the Air Force, but Chez told me she was sleeping with other guys when he was away on duty.

I know where she's at now. She's a substitute teacher in Hereford, TX. A photograph on her Facebook page indicates that she's been married to the same man for 22 years, which would make it the same husband she had when she was in Chez' circle of friends. I can't tell for certain, but they may have had some children. One funny thing about her now is that while she was clearly Hispanic when I first met her, her skin color has changed into a causasian tone over time.

Maybe she doesn't do as much sleeping around as she used to, but I'm glad I didn't have to spend more than 20 years having to deal with that.

Radio Tease #4: Kiz

(What's a Radio Tease? Click here!)

Kiz called me the first week I started working the six to midnight shift at KZZO-FM in Clovis, NM in March of 1987. We started talking about music and she really seemed to be interested in me. She called a few more times over the next week. We decided to finally meet. At first, we were going to meet at the mall. Then something happened and she couldn't leave the house, so she just had me come over to her house during the afternoon.

Prior to our first meeting, she had told me quite a bit about herself. She had already been married and divorced. It was with some guy from the Air Force. During the time after they had gotten married, she became pregnant and lost the baby. (She mentioned that it might have been twins.) She never told me what led to the divorce.

I drove to her house, got out of the car and started walking toward the front door. Before I could even knock, she opened the door and was kind of laughing. She had long, strawberry-blonde hair (which she colored that way). She wore rose-colored glasses and was about 5'1". She was very cute. Inside the living room were her younger brother and two sisters, Perd, Chez and Pid. I didn't know her siblings were going to be there or be so involved in our "date."

Kiz and I sat on the couch in the living room and started talking. She told me that when she called me the first time, she felt like starting up with someone new and she liked how my voice sounded on the radio. Pid kept interrupting us to make some smart-aleck comment. She was a pest. I remember that we went into the kitchen at one point and Perd was typing some passage from a book. He was using the red ink side of the typewriter ribbon. Chez never said anything the whole time I was there. When we walked into the kitchen, she immediately walked into the living room.

One of the things she showed me was her wedding album. The ceremony was held in the living room of her house. I can only imagine that the reception was held in the kitchen. It seemed like her family members were the only ones in attendance.

(One thing I should point out is that it wasn't uncommon for members of the military to quickly get married as many of them didn't like living in the dorms and actually having a family would get them moved into decent housing. Some would convince somebody naive that they were the love of their life and others would propose a marriage of convenience.)

While we were back sitting on the couch, Kiz' mother came out. She saw me and motioned to Kiz to follow her into the kitchen. She came back a little bit later. She said her mother asked if she was going to go out with me. She told her she didn't know. My chances didn't look good at that point.

(I found out later that the mother was actually her step-mother and Perd was her step-brother. Her father had recently married her after finding her in the personal ads in the back of a grocery tabloid.)

I went home pretty soon after and told Kiz I looked forward to talking to her again. She called me at work a few more times. One of the things she told me was that she had been sexually active for the last couple of years. She talked about how she got into a sort of sexual hijinks competition with this other girl at school. She had gone after Kiz' boyfriend and told him that she was better at sex than Kiz. Afterwards, he told the girl that no, Kiz was better. That wound up being the guy she got married to. This made me realize why her step-mother was so concerned about my presence that day.

One night, Kiz invited me over to the house. It was raining. The parents weren't there. After I got to the house, Chez said, "If my Dad comes home and finds you here, he will kill you!" "Uh, okay." "I AM NOT KIDDING! HE HAS A GUN AND HE WILL KILL YOU RIGHT HERE!" I stuck around for about an hour before leaving. Their parents never did come home while I was there.

One Sunday night, Kiz sent me a dedication on "Love Songs on the Zoo." Mr. W said that she wanted to tell me that she hoped that we would be able to get together soon. I saw this as a sign of optimism because she was willing to admit publically that she liked me.

Whenever I tried to call Kiz, her parents would sometimes answer. When that happened, I just hung up the phone. Once I called and Pid picked up. She told me it was a funny thing that every time the phone rang, if her parents answered it, whoever was calling would hang up. But if one of the kids answered, they wouldn't hang up. I guess I wasn't the only person doing that. However, I would feel really bad as a parent if no one was calling to talk to me. It would be like I had no social life.

Sometime later, Kiz told me she and her sisters were going to hang out at the park and she invited me to come along. At one point, we were at the swimming pool and Kiz started talking to this guy who was there. It was obvious that he was flirting with her. At one point, Chez asked me if I would loan her a dollar. I happened to have one, so I gave it to her. Later, Chez and I were alone on a park bench while Kiz and Pid were running around. I asked Chez if Kiz ever said anything about liking me. Chez said that Kiz told her that she thought I was kind of cute, but never said if she wanted to go out with me. She also said that there were other guys trying to date her. I thanked Chez for the information and told her she didn't need to worry about paying my back that dollar.

One night, Kiz was staying overnight at a friend's house, kind of a slumber party. She asked me to bring them a pizza. I brought them one. When I went inside the house, Kiz was there and she was only wearing her underwear, as were the other two girls. I only got to hang around for about five minutes because they weren't supposed to have any boys there. As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw another car pulling in. I think it was more boys that they had invited over.

One day, I tried calling Kiz, but Chez told me she was at the mall. I quickly ran across the street. I looked through the whole mall and I finally saw her in Walmart, but she was heading out the front door. I ran out and called to her. She turned around. "Hi, Kiz!" "I CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW. MY DAD IS WAITING FOR ME IN THE CAR!" I ran back inside the store.

So yeah, I was definitely getting mixed signals. Not long after that, I called her, but Chez picked up the phone. She told me that Kiz had moved out of the house and in with her new boyfriend. All she told me about the boyfriend was that he was Italian and he looked like Sean Penn. She also told me that she had slept with that guy from the swimming pool, but that wasn't who she moved in with. A few weeks earlier, I had loaned Kiz a couple of books. I asked Chez if she could get Kiz to get those books back to me.

A couple of weeks later, Kiz showed up at my apartment with the books. (I had told her where I lived.) At this point, I had a girlfriend. Kiz knew about this because I told Chez about her. Kiz was under the impression I was living with my girlfriend. I never told Chez that. We didn't talk for very much. I showed her the apartment and then she left.

Now, this is where I usually write, "...and I never saw her again." But that was not the case with Kiz. I certainly was not expecting it at the time, but meeting Kiz had a major impact on my life for the next 15 years, and that was without ever being romantically involved with her or even really friends. She's going to show up plenty more times in future posts for a long time to come.

But I'm going to quickly cut to the chase and tell you what happened to her. She wound up getting pregnant by "Sean Penn." She had his child, but did not marry him. She then had two more children from a different father. She got her tubes tied because she didn't want any more children. Then she had her children taken away by CPS and her parents got temporary custody of them. To provide a more stable household in the eyes of CPS, she married the guy she was living with at the time. She got the kids back and divorced that guy. Then, she married someone else and moved to Artesia. I saw her and her husband there a couple of times. She finally seemed like she had settled into her role as a wife and mother.

I think she remained in Artesia for a long time. Judging by her Facebook profiles (she has two for some reasion), she may have gotten divorced from the guy in Artesia (as she now goes by her maiden name) and she lives in Roswell. Her oldest child will be turning 27 next month. It looks like one of her daughters had a child herself.

I was able to find her first husband on Facebook. I can't tell much from his profile, except that he now lives in Missouri, which was where he went to high school. He appears to have lived in a few towns in that state without residing in any of the larger cities.

But I'll bet Kiz affected my life way more than his.