Session 14 - Posted on 2015-02-28 by Liz Faux

After reaching out to Casey and exchanging emails, I was able to go to the WMMR studio on Thursday, February 26 at 6am to watch the Preston and Steve show. The studio was very different from the one Rabbi works out of and the studio I record in. This room was much bigger with probably 10 microphones. There were TV screens throughout the room which projected images (found by interns just outside the room) of whatever they were talking about at the moment. Each day for this show there are five people on air at once: Preston, Steve, Casey, Kathy, and Nick. Preston and Steve are, obviously, the main DJs of the show. Kathy read the traffic, news and weather, as well as commenting on what was going on throughout the show. Casey managed the sound effects as well as being another commentator. And I'm honestly not sure what Nick attributed other than additional commentary.  During the show three guests called in to promote their various exploits. First was Mr. Skin talking about the Anatomy Awards. Mr. Skin runs a website which allows you to quickly find the nude scenes in any given movie or tv show. The Anatomy Awards go out to the best nude scenes with different categories such as: the best butthole blur fail, best side burger, best lesbian scene, etc. To be honest I was very confused by how that was suitable for radio (or life in general). The Preston and Steve show actually has a close affiliation with Mr. Skin as well as other porn-like things. During my time in the studio a girl came in to be featured on the "Hottie Cam", another porn-like thing which really confused me. The girl came in wearing langerie and high heels and sat in front of a camera posing, pushing out her breasts, pulling up her skirt to reveal her thong, and blowing kisses. She was also brought props like a hoola hoop and an exercise ball to bounce on. Listeners were able to go to the WMMR website to watch this girl. It was rather uncomfortable and again extremely confusing to me how that is appropriate. The next guest to call in was Josh Duhamel to promote his new show Battle Creek. During breaks Steve would do a few live reads of commercials and I was able to talk to Casey about the different hot keys he had setup on his screen. The final guest to call in was a psychologist who is part of a show called Sex Box. The premise of the show is to bring couples with relationship problems in to talk with different experts. Then the couple would go into a box, in front of the panel and a live studio audience, and have sex. They would then come out of the box and talk to the experts again. The psychologist said people are most vulnerable and willing to open up after sex so this is an extreme form of counseling. As soon as the doctor was off the phone Steve started complaining about how drone her voice was and I thought it was a little odd to immediately talk negatively about the guest they just interviewed. By 9:30am it was time for me to leave the Preston and Steve show and go find Rabbi. I was able to accomany Rabbi to a new music meeting this week and found that very fun and interesting. I was handed a packet of papers, the first of which had a list of the A, B, C, and R songs. A songs are the most frequently played songs, Bs are the second most frequently played, Cs are third, and Rs are recurrent songs which play every 24-48 hours. The next two pages were survey results, and the fourth page contained a chart with the top 30 songs on the station's rankings. This meeting was used to determine which songs should be dropped from their current standing and which songs could replace them. Then we listened to demos of new music and rated them from 1-4 in order to determine if any new music should be added to the station. It was really cool to be involved in that meeting and to have the opportunity to watch the Preston and Steve show. I feel a lot better about my standing now and, after seeing what the daytime interns had to do, I am very glad I am with this program as opposed to whatever they were there through. I'll be returning to the studio tomorrow to record my final demo!