Steve's Blog

1. Hi Seve if u rember me i talked to u about your pig named after u it died just kidding c u at the fair

   (Posted on 2008-06-19 12:49:00 by David Rohe)

2. It’s always sad to see one of your co-workers go. As you probably know, our mid-day air personality C.J.’s last day is today (Friday, June 6th). C.J. leaves Kicks 96 on great terms and I wish him nothing but the best. Why is C.J. leaving? Well, he explains it much more eloquently in his blog - but I can explain it simply by saying that C.J.’s heart is and always has been in Chicago. Chicago has been whispering in C.J.’s ear for the past year that, “you need to be here.” He told me about a month ago that he was finally fulfilling his destiny to walk the busy streets of Chicago, ride the “L” and be closer to Wrigley Field. After his final airshift is over at 3pm on Friday C.J. will hop in his car, hit the interstate and set his sights on the home of Bob Newhart in the Windy City.

   With the impending loss of C.J., I am excited to announce that Lisa Marie will be taking over the position as Kicks 96 mid-day air personality. Lisa has been working in radio for over ten years, has worked in Dayton and Indianapolis and has been with Kicks 96 since the beginning of the year. I am confident that you will love Lisa and she is looking forward to the challenge of mid-days at Kicks 96.

   Over the years I have worked with some amazingly talented people at Kicks 96 and many of them have worked the mid-day air shift. It kind of has been a revolving door since Dave McKay left the air in 2004. Dave had been on the air doing mid-days at Kicks 96 for about eight years. Though he no longer works at Kicks 96 and hasn’t since early 2007, Dave is still one of my best friends and we still hang out today. He is happily working as an IT Director for one of the most popular radio stations in Cincinnati and is doing amazingly well for himself and his family. After Dave’s departure from the air Jim Barbee (affectionately known as the Tallest Man in Country Music) took over the mid-day airshift. Jim was an extremely talented and intelligent man that read constantly (unfortunately, sometimes even when he was on the air!). The last I heard Jim was towering over his minions in Bloomington, Indiana. When Jim left Kicks 96, evening air personality Lindsay Parker got promoted to mid-days. Lindsay had an amazing voice, did great commercials and had so much talent for so little experience in radio (she had never worked in radio until coming to Kicks 96 and learned it from scratch). She was also a very talented singer that sang for the local band The Lushpuppies. Lindsay left Kicks 96 in 2006 and in all honesty, I haven’t heard lately much about her whereabouts but hope she is doing well. After Lindsay left the mid-day airshift at Kicks 96 I hired Lance Allyn. Lance came to us from southern Indiana and moved to town not knowing a single soul. Lance was an easy-going guy that had no problem making new friends. When Lance wasn’t taking your requests for the Lunch Time Request Show on Kicks 96 you could find him in the evenings working at Chucks Sports Bar. Lance was with Kicks 96 for about a year until his departure in spring of 2007. Over the winter he was kind enough to invite me to his going away party as we celebrated his short time in the Richmond area and wished him well in his new career of gaming security. C.J has been working as a part-time employee for Kicks 96 for about a year and was graduating from Miami University at the same time that Lance was leaving Kicks 96. C.J. gladly accepted the position of mid-day air personality and much like Lindsay Parker, was taking the job with little if no experience. C.J. was a very quick learner with tons of raw talent and took to the air with amazing grace and finesse.

   I have no doubt that the revolving door that has been mid-days at Kicks 96 has finally come to a sudden halt with the addition of Lisa Marie to the full-time staff. Lisa will sound so good in mid-days and loves being on the air serving her listeners.

   So, as I write this with only a few hours left of C.J.’s career at Kicks 96 I bid you farewell my friend and am glad that Kicks 96 could be a stepping stone for bigger and better things to come in your career. I will miss the really cool t-shirts that you wore every day, your slightly off kilter yet amazing wit and your desire to help out in doing all the off-air work you did for me. Celebrate your leaving with a beer knowing that in your short time here you did make a difference to not only the staff at Kicks 96 but the listeners that give us the opportunity to do what we truly enjoy doing for a every day. Salute my friend!

   (Posted on 2008-06-07 23:34:00 by Steve)

3. Food may be an integral part of our survival but it can also be one of the most enjoyable parts of our leisure and social activities. Big business deals, romantic interludes and gossip at work are all usually exchanged over everything from Little Debbie snack cakes to a Foie Gras aux Pommes Acidulees (mmmm...I think?). Food often dictates when and where we gather ("Let's meet at the sandwich shop for lunch.") and sometimes who we gather with (know anyone that hates Mexican or Chinese food?). Hey, what's a sleepover on a Friday or Saturday night with the kids without pizza and breadsticks? What's a picnic at the family reunion without burnt hotdogs and potato salad? What's a continental breakfast on the road at the hotel without a stale bagel and some lukewarm yogurt? And what's a lonely Tueday afternoon lunch at the house without a Salisbury steak frozen dinner or a bowl of tomato soup and Saltine crackers? Whether you are cognizant of it or not, food is on your mind from the moment you wipe the (pizza) crust from your eyes until late at night when your eyes are glazed (doughnuts) over from lack of sleep. Let's face it, food is good and good food is even better!

   My interest in food is probably a bit askew from traditional American tastes. The fact that I am a picky yet adventurous eater (doesn't that sound like an oxymoron?) drove my mother crazy when I was a child and now equally drives my fiancé Chrissy crazy now that I’m an adult! To this day I still do not like any of my food to touch (and I thought that would subside when I got older). There are exceptions especially when it comes to food that originates from other countries. What I mean by that is, the juice from my creamed corn or green beans cannot run over into my fried chicken or hamburger (a soggy bun is a huge chow down faux pas). It boggles my mind when at a buffet, watching people pile layers of food on top of each other! Yuk! Exactly how does one eat cottage cheese that is embedded in their applesauce that is splattered all over a piece of lettuce that is covered in Thousand Island dressing? Humm... The irony is that when I indulge in Chinese, Mexican or Indian food, any and all food items on my plate are allowed to touch (and even blend in a swirl of fiery chaos). A chimichanga lying on top of a bed of refried beans and guacamole is just as much fair game as an egg roll sinking into a mouthwatering serving of General Tso's chicken! That doesn't make any sense does it? I think what it comes down to is the fact that American food is not as exhilarating as foods that originate from other countries.

   Unlike my parents and the environment that I was raised in, I am not one to enjoy a steady diet of meat and potatoes. Somewhere around the age of twenty or so I began branching off and experimenting with alternative American foods and fare from other countries. In all honesty, I find most American cuisine bland. Granted mashed potatoes have their place in history but I would be more than happy to keep them limited to family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I would even be up for trading in the traditional bird on Thanksgiving for a heaping plate of raw oysters or sushi with wasabi! Nothing says, “thanks” like raw fish, huh?

   Also, I’ve never been one to just eat plain potato chips or corn chips (can we say, “Boring!”). A plain potato chip does nothing but rock my taste buds to sleep. On the flipside, I love habanero or jalapeno chips (burn baby, burn!). For the record, I also love raw potatoes and could eat a whole potato in its natural form without giving it a second thought. Speaking of raw, since I was a child I have been known to put Bisquick in a bowl with some milk and mix it until it you can pick it up and ultimately eat it. Basically, it's a raw biscuit (which has always made my mouth water!). I have also been known to eat raw pancake batter, muffin mix and oatmeal. Since we're on the subject of breakfast, I also don't like crispy bacon (limp and greasy is where it's at!).

   You know, it's not something that you eat but, even though I am not a smoker, I love to sniff a box of freshly opened cigarettes. It’s kind of sweet smelling! It's too bad they don't smell or taste that good once they are lit.

   It should come as no surprise that, as I write this, my stomach is growling and I cannot think of anything but eating dinner. The thought of food has been consuming me for the past hour and when I get to be this hungry I am willing to look past my delectable preferences and settle for something I would normally not consume, like a slice of potato bread made soggy by the juice seeping from a nearby serving of fresh mushrooms. I guess I will eat it but just make sure that I can put all that on top of some raw oysters and biscuit dough doused in habanero sauce…there we go, much, much better! Bon Appetite, baby!

   (Posted on 2008-05-11 22:05:00 by Steve)

4. You know, I've never thought of myself as old, not that thirty-seven is ancient by any means, but rumor has it that it's not young either!

   A longtime friend of mine that I've known since about 1990 has been my hair stylist for the last few years. While I am sitting in her chair getting fashionably snipped we often compare notes on what our old friends are doing today and catch up on each other's lives. We'll often reminisce about parties or concerts that we remember going to with old friends and talk about how few of either we find ourselves going to today! She'll talk about her husband and daughter and I'll talk about my fiancé and job but our history and mutual friends and acquaintances will always bind us. I always look forward to seeing her as she is one of the few last active links I have to my lurid past.

   About a week ago, while the scissors were snipping and the shearers were shearing, we covered our usual topics of nostalgia and present day fodder and soon found ourselves discussing her niece. The conversation soon led to discussing how she thinks it's funny that her niece looks at her as "the old mom" now. I thought, the "old mom?" That really struck me strange because I don't look at her as being an "old mom." She's still wears her Doc Marten's, often colors her hair in non-traditional colors and says that the Foo Fighters are still one of her favorite groups. As I expressed to her that I thought that it was odd that her niece would call her "old" she was quick to remind me that I was a bit older than her and, "Yes, Steve...to them, you are old!" As I sat there and thought about her last statement, the truth was settling in and I was becoming a bit distressed by the whole ordeal. Old? Me? Nooooooo! But she then reminded me about a time when we were both in our early twenties and there was a guy that would often hang out with us at concerts and parties and, even though he was pretty cool, we all still thought that he was "an old guy," even though he was only thirty! OMG, she was right!!!

   A few days later I was going through my show prep at work looking for things to talk about on the air when I ironically ran across an article talking about how there is a new epidemic of "thirty-something's" going through a pre-mid-life crisis called a "thrisis." A thrisis?" you ask? Yep, a thrisis. From what I gather it is people in their thirties that have settled down into marriage, children, home ownership and a job and they begin questioning their life decisions. They begin asking themselves, "Did I do the right thing?" and "What would have been if…" This pre-mid-life crisis can affect one's job, home life and mental state of being (it's nice to know after you get through the thrisis that you have a full blown mid-life crisis to look forward to!). Inwardly, I had to laugh because I may be in my mid-thirties but most of the time I feel like I am still in my late teens which would put a thrisis about another fifteen years away! All joking aside, that is why I couldn't believe that I was considered "old," because I don't feel or act it (at least most of the time). I am lucky in that I have a job that requires me to come to work every day and "have fun." If I am not having fun then my listeners aren't having fun and that is unacceptable. I am paid to laugh and make others laugh. Day in and day out, year after year of working in this fun environment has done little to aid in my aging process…at least mentally! I have often said that working in radio has kept me acting and hopefully looking young. Take the fun out of life and life will take the fun out of you! That said, I don't believe that I am suffering from any kind of thrisis and if anything I am probably suffering from something a little less serious…like denial!

   I guess what it comes down to is that no one likes to think that they are un-cool and getting older is one of the easiest ways for anyone to become un-cool. And it's a double edged sword because if you grow old and always act young and "try" to be cool, both the young and old are quick to point out that you should "act your age." Yet, when you act your age you're undoubtedly labeled as boring and "out of touch." Hummmm…what to do.

   I guess "old" can only be judged by the age of the one who is judging you. As I had said earlier, when I was in my early twenties I thought that thirty was old (remember the song, "Strawberry Wine?") whereas someone in their early fifties might look at me in my mid-thirties as a "young whipper-snapper." Ha! And I'm sure someone that is twelve looks at an eighteen year old as old (remember being scared of the bigger and older kids at school?).

   So as I was wrapping up writing this blog I spied our intern here at the radio station in the office and couldn't help but ask her to give me her honest opinion of the age "thirty-seven." She looked at me like she was afraid to answer and I told her that it was O.K. and to be completely honest…tell me, is thirty-seven old? She said very gingerly, "It's not old, it's not young, it's…middle aged." Middle aged. Wow! I smiled, thanked her for being honest and thought as I was walking down the hall so I could go back on the air and make people laugh that maybe I really am going through a thrisis after all! Ouch.

   (Posted on 2008-05-01 17:59:00 by Steve)

5. Let me begin by saying that I am not as much of a sport enthusiast today as I was while growing up but baseball will always be in my blood. My father got me hooked on baseball at a very early age and I remember going to Riverfront stadium in Cincinnati to see Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Pete Rose, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Ken Griffey, and Don Gullet play as part of the Big Red Machine. Somewhere in my parents photo archive they have a picture of me when I was about five years old at Riverfront Stadium, wearing my Reds hat with the outfield in he background. It’s a great picture that brings me back to the innocence of baseball before both the sport and I became tainted in our old age! Though I may not feel as passionately about baseball (and sports in general) as I did when I was a child (I don’t collect baseball cards anymore) I still get excited every year when Opening Day rolls around…and this year was no

   different! Though Opening Day was officially on Sunday, March 30th (there was only one game) most teams threw out their first pitch on Monday, March 31st. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of activity and drama on and off the field. It’s more fun to watch the game on TV (and there are very few Twins games televised in this area) but there is also something magical about listening to a baseball game on AM radio. Sure the sound quality is a bit lackluster by today’s digital

   standards but maybe that is what makes it sound so great, especially when driving at night. I may have been born in The Whitewater Valley and raised on rooting for The Cincinnati Reds but

   somewhere around the age of twelve I defected and discovered a baseball team that would become the team that I would root for for the next 26 years (and more than likely will root for the rest of my life), The Minnesota Twins. There was something about their roster in the form of Kent Hrbek, John Castino, Gary Gaetti and Bobby Castillo that lured me away from The Cincinnati Reds. It wasn’t because the Twins were a great team in 1982…as a matter of fact

   they had the worst record in The American League and came in last that year with only 60 wins and 102 losses! Nope, it’s safe to say that I wasn’t jumping on any kind of bandwagon…but I did

   jump on the train and have been riding it ever since. Along the way I helped root the Twins to a World Series win in 1987 and 1991 and since then have remained faithful through the thick and

   the thin (and trust me, there’s been more “thin” than “thick.”).

   I still have most of my Twins memorabilia from my youth and was thrilled when my fiancé Chrissy got me a new Twins hat for Christmas (she even got our cat and dog matching Twins

   collars…I think that’s why I am marrying her!). To this day at my parents house there is a Twins magnet that is stuck to the light switch cover near the front door that my mother would use to

   attach my homework too so that I wouldn’t forget it on my out the door when leaving for school. Not much homework gets attached to it anymore but that Twins magnet is still there and I have

   to smile every time I stop to look at it when at my parent’s home.

   So the baseball season is underway and some things never change because as of this writing the Twins are tied for third worst in the American League. With the loss of Johan Santana to the

   Mets and Torii Hunter to the Angels it’s going to be a very tough season (although I have been very impressed with Carlos Gomez whom they got with the Santana trade). But, as any true fan,

   I am not giving up hope and am shooting for an early, mid or late season turnaround. No matter what happens this season, and as I’ve done since 1982, I will still wear my Twins hat proudly and

   also remember where my roots in baseball began with The Cincinnati Reds…and thank my parents for taking me to Riverfront Stadium and planting the baseball seeds in my life.

   (Posted on 2008-04-11 18:42:00 by Steve)

6. Scuba... It is rather ironic that your fiance has the same name as your favorite Three's Company TV show. Oh, and you can probably get your shorts back out. It looks like it's going to start getting warmer. YAY!!!

   (Posted on 2008-03-26 19:50:00 by Amber)

7. Lately I've been feeling a bit nostalgic. Nostalgic in the sense that I've been in this mood where I want to listen to old music or watch old television shows that I remember from my formative years.

   Growing up I always felt that Tuesday nights were the best night of the week for television because two of my favorite shows were on back to back...Laverne & Shirley at 8:30pm which was followed by Three's Company at 9pm. Those two shows were book ended with Happy Days at 8pm and Taxi at 9:30pm (it's kind of twisted that I remember all that isn't it?). I watched Happy Days only because The Fonz was cool (ayeeeee!) and I rarely remember catching Taxi other than the opening sequence where the taxi was driving across the bridge while the credits rolled (usually at that time my parents were trying to wrangle me into going to bed since it was a school night). Still though, to this day, whenever I see those shows or hear their theme music it brings me back to being about ten years old, playing with my dog Princess on the living room floor and watching TV when it had something to offer other than expendable, rehashed reality programming. Don't tell anyone but I do have the entire Three's Company series (every season) on DVD and my parents have the first season of Laverne & Shirley on DVD as well...scary, huh?

   Honestly, today I don't watch as much television as I did when I was a child. As I grew older I slowly replaced the TV with my cassette player (remember those big 'ole "boom boxes" from the early 80's?) and in retrospect I really don't recall watching any "must see TV" by the late 80's into the 90's...my love affair with the tube was over by that point.

   My passion for music though goes back to filtering through my parent’s old vinyl collection (you know, those black slabs that you put on a record player and spun around at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute). I remember looking through my parents albums all wide-eyed and excited about what musical gems I might find in those record sleeves. To this day I can still see in my mind's eye the album covers to some of my parents albums (like Jim Reeves' "Distant Drums"). It was an exciting time, discovering all this "new" music (when in reality, the music was about twenty years old at the time but to me it was untapped musical territory). Though I discovered I didn't like the majority of it, there were some albums that I found that really made an impression on me. There was an instrumental group from the early 60's called The Mar-Keys that had an LP entitled "Last Night" (which had a minor hit with the title track) that was in heavy rotation on my turntable and so were most of my parents Beach Boys albums. The one album that truly made a lasting impression on me though, was Elvis' "Aloha From Hawaii." I would sit and listen to that album for hours while opening up the album's gatefold and looking at all the different ways to say "Hello" in other languages. Whenever I hear the songs "See See Rider," Burning Love," "Steamroller Blues" and "You Gave Me A Mountain" they instantly take me back to simpler days of me wasting the time away awash in carefree freedom. Years ago I eventually found those albums by both The Mar-Keys and Elvis on CD and they are now proudly cataloged away in my CD collection. My parent’s music was undoubtedly laying the foundation to what would become a vast and extensive knowledge and appreciation for all forms of music that would come into play later in my life. Eventually, I would get five and ten dollars here and there for doing odd jobs and I would spend that money as quickly as I would make it on cassette's (yes, cassette's!) by Men At Work, Def Leppard and Michael Jackson. Throughout the early 80's I watched the singles charts religiously and never missed a week of Casey Kasem's Top 40. Soon I branched off and began listening to everything from thrash metal (Hirax, Savage Grace), Jazz (Jean Luc Ponty), Punk (Bad Religion, Crimpshrine), Muzak (George Winston), Classic Rock (Jethro Tull) and everything and anything else in-between. I knew no musical boundaries and as long as it was good music I didn't care what genre it was. To this day those rules still apply. I work in country radio and absolutely love it and when I'm not listening to country I'm listening to any number of other genres of music and the well known and sometimes obscure artists that populate them.

   Where all this nostalgia comes into play is that, after all these years and all the great music from all genre's that I have at my immediate disposal on CD and on the Internet, it's funny that I have come to a point lately where I have been wanting to go back and explore some of the music that is buried on old LP's that have not been pressed on CD. Yep, believe me, there are hundred's of thousands of songs and albums that have never been pressed onto CD or made available as an MP3. So, what do you think that I am doing? As you might have guessed, I have been going through some of the old albums that I have found, seeing if they have ever been made available on CD and if not, recording those albums into my computer as .WAV files, cleaning them up and then converting them to MP3 so that I can pop them into my iPod and have them on the go. Please feel free to insert the word "dork" here, as even I know that this is questionable behavior in 2008. You know, it's safe to say that if it hasn't been professionally made available on CD by this time, it is probably really bad music and simply shouldn't be on CD...but yet maybe that is the beauty of listening to some of this stuff from the late 60's and early 70's. Trust me, this is no Flo Rida, Rihanna or Shawty Lo! I found an album by Hugo Montenegro called "Good Vibration's" that blew me away because I recognized some of the songs from a late 60's Frank Sinatra movie (I'm a big Sinatra fan). And what about an album by The Midnight String Quartet called "Spanish Rhapsodies For Young Lovers?" Ever heard of that one? Probably not and there's a good reason why it's never been pressed on CD, because, simply put, the general public would never understand the beauty of the music. But I honestly found it interesting! Why? Well, probably because hearing this stuff takes me back to that magical time of being ten years old again, sitting cross-legged in front of my parents record player, sliding the record out of it's sleeve, placing it on the record player and listening to the needle find it's groove before playing the first notes of the music within. It's just as it used to be...simple.

   There is so much great music out there but sometimes, even today with all of our technology, you still have to make an effort to go out and find it...just like you did when you were a child. Now, all I need is an old episode of Laverne & Shirley or Three's Company and everything will be just as I left it in 1979.

   (Posted on 2008-03-21 20:57:00 by Steve Baker)

8. Ahhhh...spring time. It can't come soon enough can it? Or let me rephrase that..."spring like weather" can't come soon enough! You know, it's been a pretty brutal winter...more brutal than I can remember in quite some time. Granted, we haven't been hit with the "big one" this year where we were snowed in for weeks and all life outside of your house seemed to cease to exist, but I think it's safe to say that we've had some consistently wicked snow and ice storms thus far.

   Truth be known, I am usually that guy that stares in awe at the first person you see every year wearing shorts...because it's usually in January and though it's sunny, it's still only thirty some degrees! That said, though it's only mid-March and there is still snow on the ground in some areas, I finally donned my first pair of shorts of the year exposing my painfully pale legs. I apologize but I couldn't resist. It was a sunny afternoon and the temperature had peaked out in the upper forties and since it was "so nice" I figured, "eh, why not?"

   O.K., so I'll admit, it was a little chilly but most importantly I WAS WEARING SHORTS! It was a great feeling! The slight chill I felt when the breeze blew through my leg hair, my enormous goose bumps caressing the wind...WOW! My legs hadn't seen the light of day since late October and they were aching to break free of the confines and restraints of the denim jail cell they had been condemned to for the past five months! It was pure elation...my naked legs were screaming to anyone that would listen, "Spring has finally arrived!" Well, at least that was what my legs and I were telling the world. In reality, the heavy sweatshirt I was wearing only served as a painful reminder that Mother Nature had not officially declared victory over Old Man Winter just yet and that there would be many more cold days in our immediate future. I knew I was "jumping the gun" in wearing shorts this early in March and that this would be an isolated incident but I didn't care. I can now proudly say that, “I have worn shorts this year!"

   But, as you know, for ever action there is an equal and opposite reaction and oddly since that day I have had the sniffles (I think my nose is trying to tell me something). In retrospect, I'm sure my body was looking on in awe at the idiot in the mirror who was putting on shorts in March and then running around in circles outside enjoying his leg hair blowing in the wind, thinking, "It's only March, Steve…put some clothes on!" So be it, because I have tasted spring and my pale white legs and I love it! So, go ahead my friend, live life on the edge like I did and let your leg hair blow in the wind too!!! It's only a prelude to what promises to be a great spring and summer!!!

   (Posted on 2008-03-14 18:24:00 by Steve Baker)