Newport Tales – Part X

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There are a lot more stories to tell about KSND, and I’ll get to them. My Newport experience, however, also included various elements of small town coastal living. Some of those were just as entertaining as the radio station antics. For starters, there was the apartment complex where I lived.

I should never have been admitted into Pinewood Manor. It was for adults 55 years and up, which I didn’t know when I applied.  It was also Section 8 housing. I did qualify for that because my salary, like most radio broadcasting compensation — especially in small markets — was paltry. For whatever reason the husband and wife management team let me in, and I secured all 482 square feet of a one-bedroom flat.

When I got the apartment, I didn’t know that the radio station was only five blocks away. Perfect! The beach was six blocks away. Even better! The city’s small sewage facility was right next door. Not so good! Pinewood Manor was centrally located in town, so despite the odor on some days, I couldn’t have asked for a better place. It was a couple miles from Yaquina Bay — home of the fishing fleet. On nights when it wasn’t windy or rainy, I could hear the foghorn in the bay and the sea lions barking faintly in the distance on Bachelor Island and Bachelor Row. (The males hang out from August to June. They swim to California in July to breed with the females, which remain south year-round.) I loved falling asleep to those comforting sounds and miss them to this day.

Living in what amounted to a retirement community had its benefits. I was treated as a grandchild and had a few meals I didn’t have to cook on my own. Perhaps my neighbors heard the smoke alarms in my apartment? The vent exhaust fan in the kitchen was terrible in that it was actually a bathroom utility fan and couldn’t clear anything that wasn’t steam. On more than one occasion I smoked out the kitchen and living room while cooking with olive oil. The unit would smell like smoky ground beef for the next several days.

I had some interesting neighbors during my time at Pinewood Manor, which my sister perpetually referred to as “Shady Pines.” There was John, who took a liking to KSND and me. He had conspiracy theories about Newport and “had to get out of town.” He sold me his coffee table before leaving. There was Jim, the Korean War veteran, who stood outside every day smoking and watching people. He started talking to me after several months. We had the same build, and he gave me a really nice topcoat that he had rarely used. There was Vikki, who saw me as her younger brother. She was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Juanita, downstairs, was the friendliest neighbor. She always saw me pull up in the parking lot and waved. Finally, there was Kei, the Japanese woman who was my most immediate neighbor — the one with a fiery temper.

The on-site managers who came through were also intriguing. I don’t remember their names, but the husband and wife who admitted me were an interesting pair. She was gruff. He was friendly but a little clumsy. He almost killed himself in my apartment while installing a bedroom window blind. A total John Ritter sitcom moment. He didn’t have his ladder close enough to the window. He lost his balance, but instead of falling forward he fell backward. He narrowly missed the nightstand on the way down and fell into the side of the bed, which was on castors and rolled backward as he flailed around trying to catch his balance. CRASH! The one-man wrecking crew survived without injury after making a mess of things, but he didn’t come by to do much maintenance after that. The incident was equal parts horrifying and hysterical. I was just glad to have renters insurance.

My favorite manager was Iris, who came on board after the husband and wife were transferred. She was a friendly manager and loved by the residents. She always wanted me to meet her daughter. That happens when the youngest resident in the building is 25!

After Iris, it was Gary. He kept the place running but had a bit of an edge being from New York. “Shady Pines” was his first assignment as a primary manager, and he wanted to make a good impression. He was the one who told me I should never have been able to get a rental contract there being under 55.

We were an interesting collection of residents and managers. Throw in weekly ambulance visits, Wheel of Fortune wafting down the halls, and an infamous pink paint job. (When deciding to repaint the building, the paint swatch was apparently a little different than the actual paint color. Looked like a Pepto-Bismol industrial spill. Hard to miss.) That was Pinewood Manor. The place had character…and characters! One of them was my neighbor across the hall.

More to come in Part XI…

Newport Tales – Part IX

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March 23, 1995, was a cloudy Thursday. I woke up that morning with great anticipation, but there was a lot of waiting around before we signed on. Friends and family of the owners were arriving from out of town, and a priest was coming to bless our building. Most folks were traveling from Portland — about 130 miles to the northeast and more than a two-hour drive away.

Prior to the big day, Keith and Jack produced an 18-minute sign-on piece to run out of the studio. When that ended they would push the button launching the Schafer automation system, and we’d be off and running. I was scheduled to work my first shift from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am that night.

With loads of time and nothing to do, I wandered down to the station to see what was going on. Flowers and balloons were delivered, and the lobby looked festive. Otherwise, it was fairly quiet with a palpable excitement bubbling under the surface. I took some pictures and headed back home.

My apartment was really close to the beach so I went down there for an afternoon walk, thinking about what was happening. It had been a long journey for me with multiple false starts. I was elated to be on wonderful team and with a start-up operation, which is so rare in the broadcasting business. I knew I was in the right place.

That afternoon I participated in the blessing of the radio station, helping wave incense in all the rooms that were blessed by the Rev. Charles H. Osborn of the Anglican Parish of St. Mark in Portland. This was where Keith and I met in 1993. When the blessing finished, everyone found a seat in the lobby while Jack and Keith entered the studio to begin the sign-on ceremony.

It was an emotional broadcast for them. The first song played was Dance With Me by Orleans — inviting our new listeners to join us on this new radio adventure. Keith spoke of his love for music and the people who influenced him growing up, including his music teachers, which led to In My Life by the Beatles. Keith also explained why the music would sound so much better on KSND than it did on other stations. From there, the broadcast went into Listen to the Music by the Doobie Brothers.

Jack took over at that point. He read a little from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. That led directly into Be by Neil Diamond — the recording artist who wrote the soundtrack for the movie our staff had watched the previous night. There were a few closing remarks, and then it was the moment everyone was waiting for…the revealing of the format. We came screaming out of the sign-on broadcast at 5:30 pm with Gloria Estefan’s Turn the Beat Around. Adult contemporary it was! Licensed to Lincoln City with studios in Newport and transmitting facilities atop Otter Crest, KSND was broadcasting with 6,000 watts of effective radiated power. Game on!

Jack and Keith exited the studio to applause. There was cake and then most people scattered to have dinner. Keith and his family went out for a private celebration. I went to dinner with Norma, one of Keith’s friends from college. Jack stayed at the station as full-time operations got underway. I returned from dinner just in time to start my first shift. Our listening market was Lincoln County, which encompassed the communities of Newport, Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Gleneden Beach, Seal Rock, Waldport, Yachats, Toledo and Siletz — about 50,000 people. A small market station with a large market presentation.

We launched with a window sticker campaign in partnership with the Subway restaurants in Newport and Lincoln City, as well as a TV commercial run on local cable. We were a bomb in the birdcage that was the Central Oregon Coast. Good things were to come.

A few pictures:

More to come in Part X…

Newport Tales – Part VIII

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Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an allegory and bestseller from 1970. There are a lot of truths in the book about doing things well and not being afraid to be different. Jack, one of our owners, considered it the philosophy on which KSND was built. He purchased copies for all original staff members and made it required reading prior to our sign-on.

I still have my copy of the book, including his inscription: Clarke, thanks for being part of our team at KSND. — J.L.S. The fable meant a lot to Jack, and it was interesting that his initials were the same as the protagonist’s. The night before sign-on we all met at Jack’s house in Depoe Bay to discuss how KSND would soar above all other stations and leave its mark on the Central Oregon Coast.

KSND had CD-quality sound. We honored the music by making it the focus of the station in two distinct ways. We didn’t talk over the beginnings of songs, and we didn’t over process the audio. These were cardinal rules.

Frankly, we didn’t talk just to hear ourselves speak when the microphone was open, either. We had a number of on-air promos running with crazy radio deejay characters yakking about all sorts of nonsense when suddenly Charlie Tuna came on over the din and reminded listeners that at KSND they heard, “all the hits without all the (MOOOOOOO sound effect)…bull,” and then into another song we went! The station even had a little inflatable bull, Buddy, that sat on the counter of the drive-up prize window — a humorous reminder that we were serious about limiting the BS.

The audio processing was a big deal for Jack and Keith, too. All audio needs to be processed before it goes on the air, as it helps keep sound levels from getting too high or too low. Unfortunately, most radio stations long ago adopted the practice of processing much heavier than necessary as a way of sounding louder. The by-product is distortion as the music loses its dynamics.

We ran an on-air promo comparing over processing to running music through a trash compactor. A simple way to explain the practice is that the high end and low end dynamics of the music are crushed, or compressed, into one level. The more the processing is cranked up, the worse the compression and audio artifacts become. This is a great website that describes basic audio processing for the lay person. It’s worth visiting just to hear the examples made using Counting Crows’ Big Yellow Taxi. Keith liked to point out that listeners had a volume knob on their radios if they wanted the music louder, but they didn’t have distortion knobs to fix the bad compression.

KSND was built to stand out from the rest of the market. Our owners were audiophiles who perfected their approach in past broadcasting jobs. The play on our call letters was K-Sound (not K-Sand!) During our evening meeting we discussed persevering to be the best, pushing beyond our perceived limits, and overcoming limited thinking. Sounds like the seagull, doesn’t it? Jack said the market couldn’t support another station. Years of research in Newport and the Lincoln County listening market had shown that KSND could make it, but another station would inevitably go out of business once we gained a foothold.

We were all excited about the launch and thrilled to be part of a very good team that was about to give the market a jolt. I mentioned to the staff that when I was looking for my first job out of college a year before, I contacted the program director at what was now going to be our direct competitor. He told me someone would have to get hit by a milk truck before there would be a job opening for me. I chuckled at our meeting that the milk truck was here…and KSND was driving it. Sweet revenge!

The meeting ended with a screening of the Jonathan Livingston Seagull movie. After it concluded we all cleared out of Jack’s place, eagerly anticipating 5:12 pm on March 23, 1995.

A few pictures:

More to come in Part IX…