The Day I Became Federally Qualified to Answer Phones
My Brief Stint in AM Radio
I am, technically, still licensed to do something I haven’t done in over thirty years.
In the early ‘90s, my friend Brian and I used to listen to WrestleRadio USA, a weekly radio show on 1410 AM, WMSX. Amazingly, the station was run out of someone’s house in Brockton, MA.
In the pre-internet days, WrestleRadio was a good way to learn about some of the inner workings of the wrestling business, and sometimes they had trivia contests for merchandise and free tickets to shows. Like many sports talk shows, it had a regular cast of callers who phoned in every week to share their opinions on the wrestling world and try to win the prizes. We soon became familiar with names like Jay from Weymouth, Dave from Braintree, and the Democratic Cowboy. If you must know, my pseudonym was “The Heartbreak Kid,” after WWF wrestler Shawn Michaels. I took it because I thought he was cool. Not because I thought that highly of myself.
One week, they were giving away tickets to an upcoming WWF show at the Boston Garden, so Brian and I decided to try to win them. We called in simultaneously—like any good tag team—using two different phones in the same house, which was perfectly normal back then. To our surprise, we actually won the tickets, and had to go to the station to pick them up. Once we found out that it was run out of a house the next town over, the wheels started spinning.
At the time, Brian worked at a Blockbuster Video, and he was able to get his hands on several posters promoting the release of Hulk Hogan’s Mr. Nanny, and he decided that we would see if the show hosts would be interested in using them as contest giveaways. So, we decided to drop them off one day as WrestleRadio was ending.
The posters were merely our way in, as even the staunchest wrestling fan probably wouldn’t be that interested in seeing Hulk Hogan in a tutu. Once we were inside the station, however, we asked the manager if they would be interested in hiring us as interns. They said that they were, but we would need to obtain a radio license in order to work there. For a moment, I thought that was going to be the end of this endeavor, but then we were told that getting a radio license is pretty easy: you just have to pay for it.
The FCC had recently changed its licensing rules. Some licenses still required passing a written exam, but ours was much simpler. We mailed in a $35 check, and a few weeks later a small yellow card arrived in the mail, giving us permission to work in radio. And apparently, if I ever flew internationally, I could legally operate the plane’s radio. Much to my surprise, it was good for life. Not a bad deal for thirty-five bucks.
I couldn’t find mine, but I did a Google Image Search and found Duke Ramsey Keith’s, and that’s a pretty cool name. Anyway, here’s what it looked like:
I thought having that license was the coolest thing ever. I carried it in my wallet and showed it off to everyone. I loved telling anyone within earshot that I could legally work in radio. In the early 90s, it felt like a brush with fame.
The unfortunate thing was that once I started, I didn’t really love the internship. It mostly involved answering the phone when listeners would call in, and I hated talking on the phone. The only other job was bleeping out swears, but these were nice AM radio listeners who never swore, so that really wasn’t an issue. Otherwise, it mostly meant minding the studio while the actual producer took bathroom breaks. They did let us work during WrestleRadio, so that made it a little better.
In fact, the best day I had at WMSX was when Brian and I showed up one day for our internship to find that one of the hosts of WrestleRadio wasn’t there, so the other host, the great Ed Symkus, saw us outside the booth and waved us in. He asked if we would like to join him, not wanting to do the whole show alone. Brian volunteered to man the phones, but I jumped right behind the microphone and became Guest Host for the Week. I don’t remember if I said anything noteworthy or funny, but I bet I was the envy of the Democratic Cowboy for an hour.
I don’t recall how this all ended, but I’m pretty sure I just stopped showing up after a couple months, probably because I got an actual paying job. According to this Wikipedia article, WMSX switched from talk radio to “a Spanish-language tropical music station” in 2001, and then a Christian music station in 2009. It was then sold and moved to Dedham in 2012, where it was rechristened WZBR. It changed formats a few more times and actually stayed in operation until 2024, so that’s a good run for local AM radio. Imagine if it stuck with the tropical Spanish music?
I did try to parlay the experience into a gig on Emerson College radio when I was a freshman. Unfortunately, I had no idea that WERS was an actual prestigious station, and my only real experience was answering phones. I figured mentioning my radio license might give me a leg up. Then I told them I liked Rush, which probably didn’t help. I never heard from them, and my career in radio ended with one hour on 1410 AM in 1993.
But decades later, I am still sitting behind a microphone with my Leaguepodcast pals. I have hosted, edited, appeared on, and shilled hundreds of podcasts over the last 16 or so years, and gotten to interview some really cool people. I don’t know whether that one hour on WrestleRadio stirred something in me or whether podcasting simply became the modern version of what I’d wanted to do all along. Either way, I still get to sit behind a microphone—no license required.