{"id":48518,"date":"2006-01-03T09:36:37","date_gmt":"2006-01-03T15:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=48518"},"modified":"2014-10-24T09:44:55","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T14:44:55","slug":"it-was-twenty-years-ago-today-part-xxii-1305","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=48518","title":{"rendered":"It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part XXII"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’d been at KSTP a little over two weeks. The job was settling into a bit of a routine. I got up at 8:30 or 9AM, got to work around 10:30, ran the board for two hours during the syndicated Owen Span show (a classic “Fairness Doctrine”-era talk show, simultaneously about everything and nothing, mushy-left but unwilling to say it), then into the “production meeting” with Don Vogel and Dave Elvin.<\/p>\n

The meeting usually involved listening to Don bitch about his latest travails (the unreliability of his Metro Mobility driver was constant theme) and gush about his latest joys (food was a big, constant one) for about an hour, and then a frantic hour of getting stuff together for the show.<\/p>\n

Thursday, January 3, 1985 was no exception.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

“I got this tape in the mail”, said producer Dave Elvin. “It’s from a guy who claims Elvis is alive”.<\/p>\n

The letter was from a “Colonel Bill Smith”, a Dallas man who claimed to have evidence that Elvis faked his death; the tape was from 1981, and purported to prove that Elvis was alive and well, and in hiding.<\/p>\n

He popped the cassette into a player. There was some crowd noise, and then the sound of Elvis Presley over a strummed guitar:<\/p>\n

I will spend my whole life through
\nloving you, loving you.
\nWinter, summer, spring-time, too,
\nloving you, loving you…<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The guitar stopped. There were a few seconds of silence, broken only by a few mutterings from the crowd and what sounded like glasses tinkling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then, the voice of Elvis (?), speaking this time…:<\/p>\n

I’m sorry…<\/em><\/em> <\/p>\n

I…<\/p>\n

Uh…<\/p>\n

I can’t go on.<\/p>\n

I just heard that President Reagan…<\/p>\n

…has been SHOT…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The tape ended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don erupted in his deep-in-the-belly chuckle. “We gotta book this guy!”<\/p>\n

“I’ll do it”, I said. It sounded interesting.<\/p>\n

I walked out to my little desk – it was a little larger than a cutting board, its right wall was a rack of satellite demodulators, and I shared it with the morning show’s producer – and called the number on the “Colonel Bill Smith” letterhead.<\/p>\n

Answering machine. I left a message.<\/p>\n

The rest of the day? Do the show, get home around 7PM.<\/p>\n

My biggest challenge, of course, was figuring out how to stretch my $3.35 an hour to cover my bills; $212.50 a month rent, probably $100 for gas (I put “move to Saint Paul”, a much shorter commute, high on my list of to-dos – once I could afford it), and that left about $100 of my $420 monthly take-home for food, clothing, and everything else.<\/p>\n

I started scouting around for ways to supplement my income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d been at KSTP a little over two weeks. The job was settling into a bit of a routine. I got up at 8:30 or 9AM, got to work around 10:30, ran the board for two hours during the syndicated Owen Span show (a classic “Fairness Doctrine”-era talk show, simultaneously about everything and nothing, mushy-left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twenty-years-ago-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48518"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48544,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48518\/revisions\/48544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}