"Jim Nasty"

I don't like to talk about work. I get enough about it at home, with both parents talking about the show I produce. I guess like anyones job, they don't like talking about things that happened at work when they get home. I like to leave what happens at work at work. But sometimes things are just so sad its worth alittle extra effort to talk about something that could give you alittle insight to how sad working in radio actually is.

For about as long as I have been working for NewsTalk 690, there had always been the story of "Jim Nasty". Its a name given aptly to this poor soul for his inability to talk to a phone screener, or the talkshow host (if he gets that far) without the use of cuss words. It was almost a daily routine for him, call the morning show and harrass the call screener and call in the afternoon to do the same to that screener. When we made the move from one broadcast signal to another, we thought this old codger would stay on the sports station that our old signal occupied. It was short lived.

Now, this sounds mighty childish, but I have had some words with this colorful old man. There are just some days where you aren't in the mood for his irrate blasts. I mean, is this the only form of entertainment is for this tortured soul that he has to call up to a radio station annonymously and berate people doing their job? I often think to myself, this guy sounds to me to be about roughly 75-85 years old. Anything past that is senility. He is obviously alone in this world, and has all sorts of time to devote to his little hobby. He claims he has to go to work, but I often wonder what that working environment is like if he actually does have a job.

Well, the past few weeks he has started to call up again. I know its him, he always calls the talk show host "Craig" instead of "Greg". For some reason, alot of elderly people have problems with that distinction, since my grandmother does the same thing. The first time he called (lately) was at the begining of the month, right after our city held elections for new City Council members and school board members. Like most elections, there are run offs slated and thats what "Jim Nasty" called to ask about. The call started off innocently. I hadn't heard his voice in a while, so when I heard him give his name as "Jim" it didn't click at first. The call ended up going like this:

Me: KTSM, can I get your name please?
Jim Nasty: I wanna talk to that Craig fellow that you have on the air right now.
Me: Ok, can I get your name please?
Jim Nasty: Jim. Hey listen, I don't want to go on air, but could you tell Craig that I want him to start talking about the school board elections? Not everybody wants to listen to that jackass talk about shit no one wants to hear.
Me: Excuse me?
Jim Nasty: Tell Craig that he is full of shit, and he should go to fucking Baghdad to run that country full of assholes like himself. You can be Vice President of Iraq. Assholes.
click

That was earlier in the month. He started up again this week. He called on tuesday with a quick little jab at Greg:

Me: KTSM, can I get your name please?
Jim Nasty: I want you to tell Craig that opinions are like assholes. Tell him he's the biggest of them all.
Me: Excuse me?
Jim Nasty: You heard me, you motherfuckers. -heh heh heh heh-
click

Im an advocate for wishing something horrible happens to people. I just hold off saying something like:
"I want to hear him suffer a fatal heart attack while being "cute" with me."

I used to get angry at this man for doing and saying these awful things. Now, it's all part of the job now. I just wonder if maybe there will be peace for him at some point of his life.