Radio Silence 2: Podcast Boogaloo

As some of you may remember, I was pretty torn up about losing 97.1 FM Talk back in February. I went through a dark time after that and I found myself listening to NPR podcasts (Car Talk, Fresh Air, and This American Life) as a way to ease the pain. When they got too NPR-y for me, I would turn on one of the music stations just to mix things up. One day, I found myself singing along to a Daughtry song. It was a bleak, bleak time for me.

Then I heard something about an Adam Carolla Podcast, and things took a turn.

Faster than anyone else at 97.1, the Aceman embraced his new place in the universe. He set up a studio in his cavernous garage and started bringing in guests, engaging in long form interviews ranging from personal masturbatory techniques to nitty gritty, let's get really real, smack-down dish sessions. He was born for this type of ranting, and the thing took off for him. I had part of my radio family back, so I started looking around for the rest of them.

Somewhere along the way, Frosty, Heidi and Frank decided to put together a little thing called Frosty, Heidi and Frank Uncensored. Free of FCC restrictions, they were all free to be themselves. Again, their blend of current events and private declarations rang true, quickly building a following. They started podcasting every day, Frosty built a studio in his home and the gang settled in for a long, destitute summer. Eventually, they landed real jobs at TalkRadio 790 KABC weekdays 9-Noon. Now they record the podcast at the ABC studios and get to be raw at the end of the day. Everybody wins.

Let's take a break for a second.

So, I spend all day driving to different medical buildings trying to make a sale. I'm in and out the car constantly, which makes listening to anything stimulating on the radio a bit of a professional gamble. If I hear something interesting, it's very tempting to stay in the car... and I don't make any money in the car. Podcasts, however, give me the best of both worlds. I get the programming I want AND I get to pause it whenever I get out of the car. This is the game that's called, "I Win."

Okay, so I have the best parts of my radio family back and I'm pretty happy with my NPR/Adam/FHFU repertoire when I start noticing people plugging their own podcasts on Twitter.

Whaaa?

Live From a Shoebox and You Look Nice Today turned out to be great little finds. You also get the added benefit of being able to follow these people and really get inside their terrifying heads.

Now I've really got the podcast bug and I decide to start rooting around iTunes. I am, at heart, a movie geek. If that's you, drop what you're doing and subscribe to Creative Screenwriting's podcast right now. Jeff Goldsmith manages to pull down some heavy hitters and he's not afraid to ask them the tough questions. If you want to hear Doug Benson talk about movies with a bunch of comedians, check out I Love Movies (just look it up). The list goes on.

I found another great podcast while listening to the This American Life podcast! Podcasts were giving birth to podcasts, and my head almost exploded. Nonetheless, you should download The Moth and listen to all kinds of people telling stories about their lives on stage. Brilliant, hilarious and touching. Just get it already.

Enough, right? There are hundreds of these things.

Here's the good news: All you have to do to listen to all of this fantastic material as you go on trips, run on the treadmill or sit in traffic on the 405 is subscribe in iTunes, sync it with your iPod of choice and let your computer do the rest.

And, oh yeah, it's all free. I'll say that again: FREE!

Remember "Pump Up the Volume" with Christian Slater? The part where he's driving around in a Jeep with a shortwave radio hooked up so the FCC can't triangulate his location and he drives down on the football field and tells everybody to steal the air? Yeah. It's happening and it's called podcasts. Check it out.

Or, go right back to your Daughtry cover of that Lady Gaga song on that computerized radio station and forget I said anything. Shame on you for knowing what I'm talking about.

Okay, fine. Shame on me too.

Tales from an Elevator

I spend a lot of time in elevators. As a drug rep in Los Angeles, I ride up and down huge medical towers in search of doctors who have time to talk between patients. I've seen celebrities, politicians, sick people, new mothers, dead bodies, delivery people and plenty of caterers. I have been stuck on two separate elevators. I know every maintenance man in every building, I recognize frequent flyers and I always hold the doors open for little old ladies trying to get on at the last minute. I feel very comfortable in this weird little microcosm and I see myself as a bit of a concierge.

Today, I'd like to share a few of my adventures with you.


1. Starr Gazing

One time I was at the top of a building waiting to get on. The doors opened and Ringo Starr was standing there with Barbara Bach. My knees locked and I almost didn't get on.

RINGO FUCKING STARR!!!

Sorry, but it's not every day you get to ride fourteen floors with a living legend. I pulled myself together and got on, giving them a nod. They knew I knew them.

I stood there, not staring at him in the mirrored wall. He started fumbling with the buttons and obviously didn't know what he was doing. When I asked if he needed help, (Yes, I initiated conversation with a Beatle about elevator buttons. I'm the concierge, damn it!) he said he couldn't remember where he left the car. I helped him out and he was very gracious about the whole thing.

As we rode, he looked down at my rolling cart full of samples. "Now, what do you do?"

"I'm a drug dealer." He looked me over and gave me a Ringo smile. You know the one.

"I could use a guy like you," he said. Then we both laughed. There was more to the conversation, but that's between me and Ringo.


2. Love in an Elevator

People get frisky in elevators. I blame that Aerosmith song, that Sharon Stone movie and just about every trashy romance novel ever written. There's something sexy about a private place in public, not unlike department store dressing rooms, and it makes people touch each other.

A few weeks ago, I got onto an elevator with about five floors to go. The smell hit me first. I'm not trying to be insensitive, it's just that sex has a certain odor and I was swimming in it. I looked over at the worming couple to my right only to find them with tongues down throats and hands down pants. There was some mutual masturbation happening not three feet from me and the door had just closed.

Now.

You're probably thinking you would've said something or gotten off (stop it) as soon as possible. Maybe you would've, but I didn't. There was a certain sweet immediacy to the scene and I couldn't help but feel a little jealous of them, if only for a moment. Also, they were a damn fine looking couple. To be more accurate, they were a Dolce & Gabbana advertisement come to shimmering life, so it's not like I was looking for the eye bleach. When I got off on my floor, they didn't even notice.

Now I think I'm pregnant.

(I have something to say to you elevator sex people: there are cameras. Unless, of course, that adds to the allure for you, then there are no cameras but many strains of bacteria. Knock it off and spend some quality time at home, where there are disinfectants, drapes and lockable doors to contain your passion. Unless you're a young, gorgeous couple in the throes of barely concealed foreplay, then by all means carry on.)


3. Did that Just Happen?

Last week I was at Cedars Sinai riding the elevators. I pushed my button and wedged myself into the back corner as the rest of the car filled up. A man in his mid-sixties got on, but only halfway. The door closed on his elbow and then reopened.

"Sorry about that, little elevator," he said, patting the stainless steel door as it closed again. A few of us exchanged glances. He chuckled. "Uh-oh. I'm hungry and talkin' to the elevator."

The quickest way to win over any elevator crowd is to whine about being tired, being hungry or the weather. Everybody in the car smiled, all of us feeling the drain of the day.

The young woman in front of me said, "Here, have a taco," before pulling one out of her purse and handing it to him.

Hold on a minute.

I'm not talking about an individually wrapped, soft taco from Taco Bell. I'm talking about a homemade, hard shell taco with ground beef, crisp lettuce, sour cream and perky tomatoes. It was wrapped in a paper towel and it looked friggin' AWESOME.

"You don't mind?" She shook her head, smiling. "Please."

He looked it over and then ate it as the elevator beeped at every new floor. A few of us exchanged glances again. I looked down at the purse. Looked pretty empty, but you never know.

"I like ice cream," I said.

This Pharma Life: Ruined.

I listen to every "This American Life" podcast and I've recently started watching the TV version on Showtime. As I was thinking about writing this blog, I thought it might be fun to structure it in the T.A.L. tradition. Call it a tip of the hat to Ira Glass and all the fantastic people at Chicago Public Radio.

So, today on This Pharmaceutical Life, stories about things that are ruined.

My blog today is in three acts. Act 1: A mother misses the point of her own lesson. Act 2: The death of cool. Act 3: Mondays really are that bad.


Act 1

This morning I found myself standing by an elevator with my rolling file cart, waiting. There was nobody else around until another drug rep came up with another rolling cart. We nodded a casual greeting and looked at our phones. A mother pushed a stroller up and started fixing her young daughter's hair as the baby in the carriage started crying. Five other people walked up.

Ding!

One of the elevators opened and the last five people piled into it, blocking the rest of us out. The doors closed, leaving us all to wait for another round. The young girl said, "That's not fair, Mommy, we were here first." The mother said, "That's just how people are. They have no consideration for others."

Ding!

Another elevator opened and the mother raced over to it, jamming her stroller in, blocking me and the other drug rep out for yet another elevator. The door closed, leaving both of us, the two people who had been waiting the longest, standing in the corridor together. We smirked at each other. Good life lesson.


Act 2

I was standing in the back office of a prominent medical practice today when a famous Rocker was admitted to a patient room. I can't tell you who it was for legal reasons, but if you imagine any of the Hair Band guys from the eighties, you'll be pretty close. He still had the teased out hair, the crazy tattoos and the low-slung leather pants. I always wondered what those guys would look like when they got older... they look pretty much how you would expect.

As a rule, I try very hard not to listen to what people are talking about with their doctors. I'll go so far as to walk away from a room if I hear anything. Mr. Rocker was in the room for twenty minutes or so when he came out, still talking to his doctor, "...so my slipped disk is feeling a lot better but my sinuses are, like, impacted. It feels like there's a mountain of snot in my face."

The saggy skin, the trying-too-hard hair, the absurdly commonplace medical ailments... rock stars will never be the same for me.


Act 3

Last Thursday, I forgot to do laundry. This resulted in me having to reschedule Bow Tie Friday for the following Monday. Today. I was all excited about wearing the bow tie because, as a rule, Mondays suck. I figured everybody could use a little Bow Tie Monday, right?

On your average Bow Tie Friday, I get a dozen comments about the bow tie. People have shaken my hand, high-fived me, hugged me and dragged me around for other people to see. It's an event, and it makes everybody happy. Except, it turns out, if you do it on a Monday.

I was on my third call before anybody really even looked at me. People were locked into their Monday misery and refused to come out. No comments, no jokes and no breakthroughs with tough offices. It's possible that the bow tie has run its course, but I don't believe it. I last wore the bow tie on a Tuesday and got fantastic results. There is still power in that wacky little twist of silk, but nothing can overcome a bad case of the Mondays.


I'm Jeff Drongowski and I'll be back soon, with more stories of This Pharmaceutical Life.

Radio Silence

I've been a big fan of 97.1 FM Talk since my days selling copy machines. I would wake up in the morning and listen to Howard Stern ramble on about porn stars and midgets during my commute from Burbank to Santa Fe Springs. When I left the office to hit the field, Frosty, Heidi and Frank kept me company with their amicable and often insightful banter. At three o'clock, Tom Leykis took over with his loud mouth and rules for getting laid without spending any money. The guys in the office were all fans, and we would talk about what he said when we got back to our cubicles around five.

When you sell copy machines you spend a lot of time in the car. You wander all over your territory in search of a business you haven't seen before and nobody wants to talk to you. It can get lonely out there and it hit me hard in the beginning. I found myself getting really involved in all the shows on 97.1.

I listened every day. EVERY DAY. Okay, fine, I may have listened to my iPod every now and again, and I flipped over to NPR to catch up on world events from time to time, but there really wasn't a day that went by that didn't have 97.1 in it. Over time I grew to prefer Frosty, Heidi and Frank over the others, but I still listened to all of them.

When Howard left for Sirius I got Adam Corolla as a replacement. He had some hiccups in the beginning but I was one of the early adopters, empathizing with the enormous expectations he had hanging over him. His support staff changed a little over time, eventually adding Teresa Strasser, Bald Brian and then Danny Bonaduce. Danny didn't last long, but they did give him his own hour between FHF and Tom as a consolation prize. I listened through it all.

When I switched over to selling pharmaceuticals, I lost touch with a lot of my copier friends but everyone at 97.1 came with me. For four years now I've heard their thoughts, laughed at their jokes and choked up at their personal tragedies as they aired their dirty laundry on the airwaves. I've sent them emails, called their shows and loitered on their websites.

On Thursday, I found out there was going to be a format change.

CBS radio had decided to end the FM Talk station entirely, firing everybody on every show in favor of a computer-generated, Top 40 format. No more hilarious rants from Adam, no more tongue-in-cheek apologies from FHF, no more narcissistic bragging from Danny and no more insensitive, shock-jock antics from Tom. My friends were scattering and they all stumbled through their Thursday shows, trying to find the right words after years of talking.

Cut to Friday. This was THE DAY and everybody was prepared with montages, testimonials, special guests and grand gestures. I lucked out and was able to hear Adam Corolla sign off, promising to show up in the form of podcasts and TV shows. I jumped in my car for the last forty-five minutes of Frosty, Heidi and Frank, wiping my eyes as they thanked their listeners for being such a big part of their lives. I had to work through Danny's big goodbye but I did manage to catch Tom "blowing up" the station with one of his trademark nuclear drops (Blow Me Up, Tom!) as I drove home, another week in the books.

The air went dead. Then there was a long tone, like something out of a bad science fiction movie where all the robots try to kill everybody. More dead air. Then the montage started...

I don't know enough about pop music to tell you all the artists represented in the hodgepodge of craptastic music, but I can tell you it felt like a bullet in my chest. After they wrapped up their medley and promised 10,000 songs without commercial interruption, they played their first song: Kanye West's Paranoid. I turned off the radio before the song finished.

Look, I understand the money angle on this whole thing. Eight people worked on Adam Corolla's show alone, and all of them had to be paid. You'd have to pull down some absurd ratings all day long if you wanted to justify the staff costs for that many shows when you could get mediocre ratings from a computer playing the latest Beyonce hit. The economy is bad and every company has to tighten its belt. I get it, but I can't feel good about it.

It's Saturday now and I'm sure my radio friends are all trying to deal with their hangovers. I can't speak for the others, but I know that Frosty will dive into a pile of cheeseburgers, Heidi will go for a run and Frank will smoke a joint, all of them trying to clear their heads and figure out what to do now. They will all make it through the day and so will I, because it's Saturday.

Come Monday, I have no idea what I'm going to do without them.

Bow Tie Friday

This all started because, after three years of being a drug rep, I still had doctors that didn't know my name. This bugged the hell out of me because "Relationship Building" has always been one of my strengths. I know their spouses, their dirty jokes and their taste in movies. I have a little file in my head for every doctor and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm good at this, damn it! Some of my doctors, it turns out, thought of me as just another drug rep. A nameless, faceless automaton who dropped off samples and brought lunch for the office. They didn't know who I was, what I sold and had no idea I had a secret life as a screenwriter.

I set out to raise my profile.

Step One: Grow a beard.

I went home to Michigan for Christmas. It was cold. I refuse to shave on vacation and when I got back to Los Angeles, I had a halfway respectable beard. I had never seen another rep with a beard, so I figured, what the hell, right?

EVERYBODY had to tell me how they felt about my fresh scruff. Admins, nurses, echo techs and, most importantly, doctors. My Russian doctors embraced me as one of their own. Love it or hate it, doctors talked to me and remembered me the next time I saw them. It became a thing.

Step Two: Bow Tie Friday.

Now I was the Beard Guy and doctors that never talked to me before were going out of their way to ask me how everybody liked it and talk about how it was growing in. I used this time to get my message out and burrow into their brains, kicking out competitors as I went. I started to wonder how I could take it up a notch. Then, like a jolt of serotonin, it came to me. Bow ties!

NOBODY wears bow ties anymore. Sales people looked at me funny when I asked for them. They'd pull out a dusty box and try to talk me out of it. Men's Wearhouse had formal bows but nothing you could wear with a suit. Nordstrom's finally came through at the low, low price of $45. Sold, to the man in the boring neck tie! I took my prize home and prepared to take over the world.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to tie a bow tie? I had to look it up on YouTube and there were a hundred excellent examples of how to royally mess up a bow tie. Then I found Lucky Levinson.



Done and done. Thanks, Lucky.

Now, when should I debut the thing? I settled on Friday because there's a more casual atmosphere in most offices and doctors are in a better mood. I wore it to Cedars Sinai on the next one that rolled around. Guess what I found out? Bow ties make people happy.

Two doctors paraded me through their waiting rooms to show their patients. Another doctor came right up to me and started adjusting the thing, breathing in my face. I could feel eyes on me everywhere I went. Some nurses laughed at me, lots of people chatted me up in the elevator and I had one doctor holding back tears as he told me about how his father always wore one. Bow ties, it turns out, are connected to some very emotional memories. That's a very good thing.

When I came back through those offices, this time in a regular tie, those doctors not only remembered my name but went out of their way to spend time with me. I had broken through the wall and become a bearded, unique face.

At this point you probably think I'm over selling the idea. I don't blame you. I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't just worn it out into the world for the second time with the same results. I'm not saying that bow ties are magical or anything, just that they command attention. So, go ahead, shake up your life a little and make a statement:

I AM HERE AND I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!