The Loud Speaker Spoke Up And Said Xx

At 11 AM Mountain Time on a cold April 1st, 1995, I walked into the studios of KCNR AM 1320 with the idea that I was going to be some talk radio star. I figured that 10 hours of prep time for my show wasn’t enough. I wanted my show to be like none other heard on the air. I wanted talking. I wanted loud music. I wanted montages describing is sound and music what the show as about. It was radio for the night time and I wanted to fill that little AM signal to capacity — almost beyond capacity.

That day I practically camped out in the production room and plotted every break, every musical note… every word.

Anyone could open a microphone and talk — I wanted to do a show where people would fall in love with their radios again. Well, I hope I accomplished that. What followed were great ratings and many awards for my time.

I was semi-famous in semi circles. Was offered Art Bell’s job when he quit, turned it down, was syndicated nationally twice, took my show to the people and settled back in to do a national broadcast with a major network- and now here I am.

My career went full circle as those radio executives that gave me my break are the same radio executives I am working with today — it is just luck and coincidence that they are back with me reminding me of hoe much fun my radio show is and can be.

For the longest time I had been told to shut up while working on Morning Rock Radio as a news sidekick, and also a host. I was told by too many program directors to just play the music and shut up. I was told that the entire listener wanted was music.

In Rock radio you were told to be brief. “Don’t try to be too funny”, they told me. “Just get out your news and traffic, double time sell, and give the weather.”

I liked to talk. I wanted to create. I wanted to control my own show.

Having a full three hours to just talk to yourself seemed like an eternity at first. What If I get no calls? What if I sound stupid? People are going to think that I sound crazy.

People are going to think that I am a fool.

At the time I was working two news reporting jobs for a national company that beamed news to regional radio stations and I freelanced a couple of regional reports for CNN Radio. We answered to CNN and I would have all of the contacts of a full CNN reporter. I filed several national stories including a story for a New Zealand affiliate.

It was a living.

But I wanted to tell more. I wanted to do more than just rip and read off of a computer spitting out news on a daily basis.

I wanted to try my hand at being an investigator in stories that weren’t covered by major media. I wanted to be my own boss. Make my own rules. Maybe even make up my own stories, and tell them with all of the conviction in the world.

The result was KULT radio, a show that at first was going to be a total rip off of the Hour of Slack. I figured that Utah was ready for J.R. Bob Dobbs and I would give them the ride of their lives. I thought that I could parody “The X-Files,” David Koresh, and Jim Jones all in one show.

I remember that the first words I ever spoke on a Ground Zero program in 1995 were not the words I say now. They were some cryptic verse that I thought was appropriate for the moment. Amidst the wailing of sirens and strange sound effects I spoke softly trying to sound like an angel above the noise:

As you see this, you might think it’s all crazy. What you’re really seeing is situation normal in the Apocalypse. The Last Days. The End Times…Forever and ever and as often as not that boils down to only just one thing.
The removal of all imperfect human beings.
— The first words spoken on Ground Zero Media, 1995

It was a bit pretentious and I eventually removed it from my opening sequence. However, it was what I truly felt at the time. I was thinking that our absurd beliefs were all in place so that we would voluntarily remove ourselves from the earth. It appeared that the cycle was a making a revolution and that eventually, we would achieve Ground Zero.

The words “I am not a conspiracy freak” were heard under a sound of frequency whines and static and after some chaotic word from the past a deep voice would say “Now it begins.”

“The Loud Speaker Spoke up and said “Ground Zero” — after the ashes and rubble from Ground Zero the Loud speaker spoke up and said “give up, give up, GIVE UP!”

Ground Zero has always been about the end of the world, mostly a nuclear end. However there are so many fascinating things that are supposed to happen before our apocalypse and so as an agent of the Apocalypse my basic job is to predict the apocalyptic weather. Whichever way the wind blows there is always something that bends or breaks in some strange way and in what appears to be a supernatural way.

There is always some strange thing that happens in politics, religion and science that is worth talking about and learning about. Places where the mainstream fear to go or are just too lazy.

I would like to think that in the nearly 20 years I have been on the air that people actually know what I am trying to do with my show Ground Zero. I have been getting the feeling that people who are not necessarily used to the show see it as provocative. I know that whatever topic I choose to do there will be a ton of interaction both positive and negative about what it is that I do and what I set out to do the moment I opened the microphone on April Fool’s Day of 1995.

I guess I can say without even thinking that what I wanted to do more than anything was to find a way to get on the air and do my best to sell the counterculture. I really didn’t even know if the counterculture was really out there wanting to hear a radio show that was outrageous with a sound that was unique.

My inspiration began working on a morning show in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was a night jock who dabbled a bit in sound design while working on a show called “In the Pink” a night time Pink Floyd show where I used samples of sound and other things to enhance the Pink Floyd psychedelic flow.

I was sincerely hooked on B horror movies and science fiction psychotronics. I realized how effective words from these corny films out of context would give them new life. Packed with the genius of Pink Floyd I felt I was speaking to a counterculture of sorts and the show was successful.

Ground Zero started as a show that tried to expose fraudulent claims of the paranormal. I talked about comic books and Star Wars, Trekkers, and role playing games. I was playful and funny. I had on fake psychics to trick people. I offered $10 million dollars for proof of UFO’s. I would hold contests to see who could create the best fake pictures. Then there were some very strange occurrences that convinced me that maybe I should be a little bit more open to destiny.

I was told when I was young that each minute is important in the time line because it can’t be replaced. Your decisions affect the very movement of the planet. Once a day has past, you can’t go back. It can’t be relived. The next day comes and we must make the best of it especially in uncertain times as these. Once the hour is gone, it is over and done with, once the morning breaks, and the afternoon ebbs the evening and the night brings us to our beds it is always important to ask yourself if you did something productive in that day.

What saddens me the most is that we have no guarantee how much time we have on this earth.

I take for granted that I have plenty of time, I think a lot of people do. Lately I have been realizing more and more that I have less time ahead of me than behind me. I sometimes wonder if all of my best years have passed me by.

It is obvious that generally we are used to happy endings, and successes. We all think we are invincible. We are told in every story that the good guys win. We have been programmed to think that whatever happens in the world that we are the good guys.

Yet we never take 60 seconds to tune out all of the distractions and do some self-reflection on just whose side we are on.

We never take 60 minutes to decide if all of the destruction and death in the world is worth it.

We are all programmed into thinking that we have freedom.

We are programmed into thinking we have choice.

We are all programmed into consuming that hamburger, drinking that beer, buying that car, refinancing the house, it only takes 60 seconds for the programming to hit its mark.

It only takes an hour to watch the bad guy get his door kicked in, watching people humiliate themselves for cash rewards.

After the daily mental hopscotch takes place, the very attractive woman, and man, tells us that we are being watched and marked for death and that our chances of dying today are color coded like a smog alert. But stay tuned we have infomercials on how to lose weight without exercise.

This ends another broadcast day. Now we begin another generation of Ground Zero.

After 20 years I now have adults telling me how they had to hide the fact they listened when they were kids, hiding under the covers with their headphones plugged in. Later some even found out that their parents were listening.

It is weird when you are around that long. But I truly am blessed and loved and will continue to do what I do until the stage no longer needs me, until the magic is gone.

Then again my job is to find that magic… It keeps me in business.

It’s business as usual in the Apocalypse, and business is good.

Text – Check out Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis Live Nightly @ http://www.groundzeromedia.org