TANGENT SUNSET CLUELESS RADIO by Alex Cosper

Clueless Radio is a fictional story about an alternative station failing in ratings and sales but experiences occasional flashes of success. At one time the station had great ratings and dominated the market but a new regime with a new focus has erased the station's influence in the market. What could they be doing that is so wrong?

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Chapter 3: "Fumbling The Handoff"

At six o'clock Jennifer's alarm went off. She looked at the clock and thought "that's early" as she drifted back to sleep. Then her eyes opened wide as she felt the shock of reality. She had set her alarm for six o'clock instead of five o'clock. It was an honest mistake. But it didn't matter what the excuse was, she was supposed to be on the air. This was the first time in her life she was going to be late for work. She flipped on the radio and quickly got ready.

"It's six o'clock," Jarz opened. "And whatta ya know for the second day in a row there's no one to do the news. I at least thought Plato would be in but he must have thought I was serious yesterday when I told him he was fired. Well, Plato, if you're listening out there I got news for you - it was just a little joke. Come on, man, I need you. Let's try to work this out. Okay, I'm joking again, I don't really need you. I just need someone to read the damn news. Someone off the street. Anyone."

Jennifer arrived at the station at 6:45. "Sorry I'm late," she said to Tim frantically.

"Late?" responded a puzzled Jarz. "What do you mean? You're like three hours early."

Jennifer had forgotten all about the fact that Jarz was getting blown out. "Oh, well we're supposed to do the morning show together this morning," she said thinking she had covered it.

"I don't remember ever saying that," said Jarz. "I remember us talking about doing a morning show together in the future but not today."

"Well-well," she stumbled. "They told me to come in because Candy wasn't coming in."

Jarz put down his headphones and walked over to Jennifer. "Who is they?" he asked.

"Well, they...I mean...I don't really know."

"You're acting weird. When I said I needed someone to do the news did you think I was talking to you?

She just gave him a blank stare.

"Do you want to do the show with me this morning?"

"Yes."

"Then who is gonna do your show? No one knows what happened to Candy. I'm not gonna wake Python up to tell him he's doing middays and nights. Joe wouldn't be happy doing middays and afternoons. Even if Plato still worked here, he was too green to go on in the day. All the weekenders suck. Why don't we plan on doing this in a few weeks? That way I'll have time to find someone for middays."

"But, but," she couldn't think of what to say.

"Just go home and get some sleep," directed Jarz. "I can do the morning show solo and I need you to do middays, just for the time being."

Jennifer didn't know what to do. She slowly walked out of the room, thinking she had completely blown it.

Paneela's phone rang. "Hello," he said, barely awake.

"Why is Jarz on the air again?" Heichman growled.

Paneela was shocked. "Son of a...you mean he's on right now?"

Heichman couldn't afford to get too disturbed this time since Paneela had just put up a lot of cash to get him out of jail. "Yes he is," the GM said trying to be keep his cool. "He's on right now, this minute, as we speak."

"He must not have gotten my message."

"Jeff," Heichman said like a parent. "You can't rely on messages to get this thing done. When are you going to tell the guy to his face? We even have his final check waiting for him at the office. All that's left is for you to do your job."

"Right, right, right," Paneela said. "Look I'm sorry. I'm going to the station right now to yank him off the air. I told Jennifer she was supposed to come in. Is she on too?"

"I haven't heard Jennifer or Candy or anyone except Jarz. At this point I wouldn't mind hearing an intern on the air. Anyone but Jarz."

"That's strange. I told Jennifer to come in. I'll have to have a talk with her. Anyway, don't worry Wally. I'm going to set it all straight." Paneela hung up and quicky threw on some jeans and a T-shirt and rushed out the door. It was an hour commute, but he was determined to put it all behind him as soon as possible. All he could think about was how to tell Jarz he was fired. He still hadn't given any thought to who was supposed to go on the air.

Paneela arrived at the station at 8:15. He jumped into the control room and said, "Tim, we have to talk."

Jarz looked stunned. "Jeff, I thought you were outta here, man."

"You obviously didn't get my message yesterday. See what happens when you don't check your messages?"

"What are you talking about? What message?"

"The message that you were supposed to meet with me at noon."

"So...," Jarz said calmly. "That's four hours from now, what's the big deal?"

"Jennifer was supposed to do the morning show this morning and I was giving you the day off so we could go to lunch." Paneela stopped and realized everything he said sounded too full of nonsense. He paused and then said, "look." He paused again. "I hate to be the one to break this to you but Heichman says I have to let you go."

"What?" Jarz snapped. "After all I've done for this place?" Jarz just shook his head. It looked like a tear was about to drop but somehow he held it together. "So I'm out?"

"I'm very sorry, Tim, I tried to go to bat for you, but Heichman didn't like the book so he needed a scapegoat."

Tim was silent as he started to put his headphones in his totebag. "It's been a pleasure working with you, Jeff. I hope we can work together again."

"Absolutely," said Paneela.

Jarz suddenly thought of something. "Hey, what about that new company you're going to work for? Maybe you can get me a gig there."

"We'll talk about it," Paneela said uncomfortably. "Now let's just go somewhere to eat. I'll buy you breakfast."

"Who's gonna do the show then?"

Paneela stammered a few seconds then said, "just put the station in automation." Jarz clicked "automation" and the two walked out of the building.

It had been awhile since the station experimented with automation. Jarz had fogotten why there had to be a person in the control room at all times. The station used a 24 hour computer automation system for its programming. However, because of a glitch in the system that not even tech support could figure out, you had to always manually restart the program every 10-15 minutes. That's why the jocks always had dead air, usually for only ten seconds. They'd go to the bathroom or read a magazine or talk on the phone and then forget they had to hit the next set of music or commericials.

At exactly 8:30 the music trailed off and then there was dead air. The jock was supposed to read a liner, go into a live traffic report and then hit a ten minute stopset. At the end of the stopset the jock was supposed to do the weather and then go back into music. None of that happened. In fact, nothing happened on the air for the next hour and a half.

At 10:00 Jennifer returned to the station to do her regular show. Driving in, she had the radio tuned to Clueless and didn't hear anything. She figured maybe the station was off the air for transmitter maintenance. But it didn't sound like the station was off the air, it just sounded like dead air. She didn't think much of it. She walked into the empty control room and looked at the computer screen. Almost like an unconscious reflex she hit "start" and the station started up again, now into spots. "That's weird," she said out loud. She looked at the program clock and saw that it was an hour and a half behind schedule. Then she looked at the phones and noticed they were completely dead. She began to wonder if anyone knew the station had been dead for an hour and a half.

Jennifer wasn't sure if she should move ahead in the program log to real time or keep it running 90 minutes behind schedule. Jarz never said in the jock meetings what to do if the program fell behind. Falling 90 minutes behind simply hadn't happened before.

What would a PD do? She thought about it for a minute. She decided to advance the program to real time, even though several spots would get dropped. She just wanted to get on with her show and let the traffic department worry about it. Besides, it wasn't her fault. Neither Heichman nor Paneela had any idea the station had dead air. That's because neither of them listened to the station very much. Paneela listened mainly to sports while Heichman listened mainly to right wing talk shows.

Toward the end of Jennifer's show Paneela called her on the hotline. "Hi, Princess," he said.

"Who's this?" she asked, thinking it was just some kook.

"It's Jeff." She knew who Paneela was in person but she never knew his name.

"Jeff who?"

"Paneela."

"And you're with...?"

Paneela thought she was kidding. "Stop joking, Princess, I'll be right down."

Whoever that was, she thought, she was about to find out. A minute later the guy from yesterday who told her she'd be the PD walked up to the glass window and smiled. Paneela then walked into the studio and sat down behind Jennifer, who was standing up, about to go on the air. "I'll let you do your next break," he said graciously.

Paneela started staring at her body from behind. She had a body like a super model. She was wearing a tight skirt and Paneela liked what he saw. He remembered how good it felt yesterday when she hugged him. He was looking forward to a long and close relationship with her. He was a man with a history of making dreams come true for attractive women...as long as they would play his game.

Jennifer signed off with Joe standing by looking through the glass, ready to take over. She then turned around and looked at Paneela. "So where do we begin?" she asked in her sexy voice. She talked that way to a lot of guys.

"Let's go to the programming office," said Paneela, thinking Jennifer was flirting with him.

They walked down the hall and stepped into Jarz' old office. Paneela closed the door. He paused for a moment and thought about how to word what he was about to say. He had to make sure it would sound playful so that it didn't come off the wrong way. But somehow, it still came off the wrong way.

"So you want to be PD and morning host?"

"Yes I do, very much so."

"Well, where were you this morning?"

Jennifer suddenly freaked. "Uh-uh-when I got here Tim was here and he told me to go home."

"That's funny, Princess, because I was just with Tim and he told me the same exact story except for one small detail...that you were forty-five minutes late."

She didn't know what to say so she just went with the truth. "I'm really sorry," she said. "I over-slept. I promise it'll never happen again."

"That's all well and good, Princess," said Paneela, smiling. "But in order for me to initiate your promotion, I'm going to have to give you a mild punishment for being a naughty girl. Now come over here and bend over my knee. I promise it won't hurt, I'll be gentle," he said, winking at her. Paneela was heavily into spanking. That's why he put the stiff called "Spank Me" on the air. It had been a favor in exchange for a spanking session with the band's lead singer.

Paneela assumed Jennifer would go for it since it had always worked with other women in the past. She was the type that probably would've gone for it if Paneela were twenty years younger and looked more like a rock star instead of a spun-out balding middle-aged pervert with owl-shaped eyes and a gray mustache.

"You creep!" she shouted. "Get away from me. I should've known not to trust a creep like you." She bolted for the door.

"But wait," said a startled Paneela, his voice weakening. "Don't you want to talk about the PD gig?"

"No because I quit. I'll just go back to working for my father's law firm until I can find a real job. This place is just too pathetic for me." She ran down the hall and disappeared.

Just then Heichman buzzed Paneela. "Let's get together in my office," said the GM. "We need to get some things sorted out."

Paneela walked into Heichman's office and sat down, still in disbelief of what had just transpired with Jennifer.

"Today is a good day," said Heichman. "You took care of Jarz and now we can move on. So how does Jennifer feel about her promotion?"

"Well," started Paneela. "I think we should re-think the Jennifer thing."

"Oh?" said Heichman, completely thrown off.

"Yeah, it turned out she over-slept. That's why Jarz was on the air this morning. On top of that, she just doesn't have what it takes. I think we should bring in someone with more experience. I suggest bringing back Bizz Barker."

Heichman was surprised to hear Paneela talk that way about Jennifer. It didn't make sense. Just yesterday Paneela had convinced Heichman that she was the perfect person for the job since she was dependable, smart and well-trained. On top of all that, Heichman liked Jennifer - kind of the same way that Paneela had liked Jennifer, except Heichman could never bring himself to make a move on her.

Nevertheless, Heichman went along with Paneela's recommendation to give Bizz Barker a call. Maybe the old legend was ready to come back. Barker had left the station on good terms and always kept the door open for a return. His career was pretty much going nowhere anyway. He was assistant manager of a thrift store, and that wasn't very exciting.

"One thing I want to make clear," warned Heichman. "I'm willing to give the kid another shot but he's got to come to the realization that I'm the one who built this station with my own money and hard work. Bizz Barker likes to take credit for all those great books we had but he needs to give me a little more respect. It was my game plan that made this place an empire and he was my lieutenant, and a very good one, I might add. He followed my direction precisely. That's why we always had good numbers...And another thing. When we meet with him, get him to understand that we're not crawling back to him for help. Make sure he understands this opportunity is for his benefit and not necessarily ours."

"Sounds good, Wally, I'll set up a meeting with him right away."

End of Chapter 3. Continue to Chaper 4.

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