What the hell am I doing?

Happy Passover! I figured the start of this holy holiday would be the appropriate time to tell the story of what I am doing, because as the Jews wandered through the desert, so shall I wander throughout the United States.

Bottom Line is this: I quit my job and am putting all my stuff in storage and I'll be traveling around the country for about four months in a 1988 VW camper van. Adventurous? Yep. Carefree? Sure. Am I scared out of my mind? You better fucking believe it.

So why am I doing it? Well, because I want to. And certain factors have come together at the right time in some cosmically pre-ordained manner to allow me to. I have no wife, no kids, very little rent, a small inheritance, and access to a camper van. The hardest thing to do was quit my job.

I'm a talk radio producer. I've worked in talk radio for the past 9 years, since I was 19. I quit college to work in talk radio. Then I quit radio to work for two failed dotcom/tech companies, but radio was always my mistress. For three years I worked part time at KGO/KSFO in San Francisco, and after the dotcoms went bust I worked other part time jobs in order to make ends meet. Finally a full time job opened up, and I produced the Ray Taliaferro show for almost a year, before coming to KFI in Los Angeles and producing the John Ziegler show for the past two years (well, one year and nine months). I've worked hard to get where I am, and I think I'm pretty good at it. Talk radio is one of the few things in life I feel I really "get." It's my favorite of all the entertainment mediums because it's live and unpredictable and in most cases unscripted; it can turn on a dime when the situation warrants, and it's the only medium in which the consumer can directly participate. You can't call a sitcom in the middle of the show and tell Matt LeBlanc he's an idiot and his understanding of immigration law is peripheral at best.

You know when you see a movie and they're in the newsroom while something is "breaking" and there's all this energy and sense of urgency and excitement and papers are flying and coffee is spilling because everyone's about to go on the air live and no one knows what's going to happen? Well, that's radio, every day. You can take chances and be spontaneous, and it forces you to be more creative than television because you have to make the audience understand what you're doing using only words and music. There are no pictures to stir up emotion or make them laugh, only sound. So when you do achieve that effect, either making your listener laugh or think or feel, it's sooo satisfying because you know you've gotten inside their head.

"So," the wise child might ask (because it is Passover), "Why would you leave if you love it that much?" And to them I would say "No one likes a precocious child." The answer is complicated and I'm not really sure that I know. What I do know is this - I don't really think producing a talk show is where my passion lies. I think I'd like to be on the air again, I think I might like to move more into the news side of things, I think I'd like to be doing more on the production side of things like doing imaging and voices...I think I think I think. I need to figure some things out, and when you're working 50 hours a week producing a three hour a day show, it's hard to focus on figuring out what you want to do with your life. Plus, I'd also like to make a shitload of money, and I'm not sure I see a clear path to doing so from where I am right now. So maybe I might want to go back to school and finish my degree and then go to law school like a good jew. Or maybe I'd like to go into politics and save the world from poverty and global warming and toxic mold. Or maybe I'd like to be a documentary film producer and finally tell the world the story of how penguins go on a great march every year. Or maybe I'd like to finally write that novel/screenplay/vegetarian cookbook I've always wanted to write. Or maybe or maybe or maybe.

So it's time to take a step back from my life and figure a few things out. I need to have adventures and see things I've never seen. I need to feel the wind in my hair and hear the call of the open road, but since I'm bald, I'll settle for just hearing the road. I need to get out there and experience life rather than sit in a studio talking about it or looking at a website reading about it or staring at a screen watching it. I'm afraid it's going to pass me by. And as scary as it might be to take this leap, I know in my gut that I'm doing the right thing because nearly everyone I've told has said to me the same thing - "I'm envious."

And that's what this page you're reading is all about. It will be a chronicle of my adventures and a sounding board for whatever happens to be sticking in my craw at the moment. It will kind of be like my own talk radio show, just without the talk or the radio. Friday, April 14th is the last day of my job. Sunday, April 16th I will embark on a mini-trip to San Francisco so that I can get the feel of the van and learn all it's peculiarities. And then Monday, May 1st, I'm off.

Come along with me - it's gonna be a great time...