Vivian Schallel:

During my tenure, I learned the ins and outs of radio -- how to produce a show, how to program an airshift, how to find something redeeming in a song I might loathe and how to wax poetic about it with gusto -- from the very best in radio. Peter Wolf was a DJ there before forming J. Geils; its Pied Piper, program director Oedipus. Charles Laquidara and The Big Mattress. Mentors and buds like Ken Shelton, Carter Alan, Steve Strick, Bradley Jay and Tami Heide. Marc Parenteau. Albert O. Bill Abbate. Those renegades were MAD in the way I aspire to be. And thanks to them, you have bands like U2. The Clash. The Sugarcubes. You have comedians like Lenny Clarke and Denis Leary.

Back then, there were no degrees that qualified you to work in radio. You kept your head down and your eyes peeled. The shit that went down within the confines of those walls could fuel a dozen pithy cable comidramas. Among the rich, complex conflama, I realized I liked to flex my big mouth, and not necessarily in the Lubriderm and skin-like-vinyl kind of way.

I'd finally found a place where I was encouraged to run amok. I'm sure many of my Facebook buddies from the intern stable share the same fond memories of us rolling off the conference table choking on laughter and tears, interacting with the very artists we'd once worshipped from afar and inhaling spliffs as big as my head in the garage