THE WORST JOB I EVER HAD. THANKFULLY

By Budd Mishkin

We’ve all have stories of jobs we disliked that don’t seem so bad in retrospect. This is not one of those stories. It was bad. And yet, I always smile when I hear the phrase “ski reports.”

The fall of 1985 was the worst of times. No Charles Dickens “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”  For me, it was just the worst of times.  I was four years out of college, out of work, lacking direction, my folks still helping me out, clueless. Other than that, things were going pretty well.  I was living in what New York calls a railroad apartment, where you can see straight through the apartment from end to end. I was sharing it with my oldest friend Mark Solomon and his friend Danny Mollin. Danny was in school, Mark was underemployed and I was unemployed.  A swinging bachelor life in New York? Not so much.  It was the middle of the Wall Street boom and seemingly everyone in New York was thriving. Except for me.  I took up running to get rid of some of my anger. I’d look into a restaurant on Third Avenue called Mezzaluna and see all of the people having a great time and wish them all…..well, bad things.  Our restaurant on Third Avenue was a Chinese takeout place called Wok on Third. We’d order for Sunday night and leave enough to have leftovers on Monday night. On good weeks, we still had food left for Tuesday night. Good times, indeed.

I’d come to New York that summer because some friends of mine offered to loan me their apartment in Brooklyn. I took that as a sign from God that I should leave my fulltime radio job down the Jersey Shore and come to New York. Once you’ve got the real estate figured out in New York, everything else will follow. After four years of working at radio stations in New Jersey, I got a summertime vacation relief job writing news at WMCA Radio. WMCA had been a big station in the 1960s, playing rock and roll and calling its deejays “The Good Guys.” Long before I arrived in 1985, it was goodbye to “The Good Guys.” And there was a sense that the station’s glory days were past. ”  But it was a job and it was experience.  I would wake up at 2:30 in the morning in Brooklyn, get ready quickly and drive into “the city,” parking at an outdoor lot about 8 blocks from the station.  Remember, this was the mid 1980s: not New York City’s finest hour. As I walked the streets of Manhattan in the middle of the night from the parking lot to the station, I learned certain tricks to try to ensure my safety. For example, I always carried an umbrella. Wasn’t raining? Didn’t matter. Carry an umbrella. And I developed a habit of talking to myself. It’s not so unusual to see that now on the streets of New York as people jabber away on their cell phones. But in 1985, talking to yourself on the street gave off the impression that you might be a bit unhinged. And therefore, a person to avoid.  I doubt that I ever struck fear into the hearts of my fellow night owls.  But I didn’t have any issues. Must have been the umbrella.

I worked from 4AM-noon writing news copy for WMCA’s morning show, the Ralph and Ryan Show. Ralph Howard was a wonderful guy who would go on to anchor at 1010 WINS. Bill Ryan had co hosted one of the first local television newscasts in New York along with Gabe Pressman.   It wasn’t my dream job but it got me into a New York radio station and I was learning. WMCA’s morning sports guy Bill Daughtry was a kindred soul, kidding and kibitzing with me and making the new guy feel welcome.   I was a decent writer, nothing great, but good enough to get the copy in on time and not get the station sued. I thought it was going well and was told as much by the powers that be at the station.  I made a demo tape to do some on air work, a tape that landed with a thud. But still, it went reasonably well. My expectation at the end of the summer was that they would give me a full time job, perhaps President of the company.  And so at the end of August when the general manager said “thanks a lot, good job,” I was surprised. As was she when my surprise registered, once again indicating to me that a summer vacation relief job meant that I had a job….during the summer. And summer was over. And so was my time at WMCA.

September. October. November. Out of work. Four years out of college.  No plan. No strategy. The worst of times.

And then in early December, I got a phone call from a man whom I’d met a few months before.    Morrie Trumble worked for the ABC Radio network as a sports and news broadcaster. He had that great radio voice, showed me around the ABC Radio network studios and was extremely kind to me, a kindness I’ve never forgotten.   And so in early December, he called, explaining that he had a service that provided ski reports for radio stations around the Northeast and beyond.  One of his announcers had bailed on him only days before the start of the ski season and he needed another announcer. Was I interested? My memory is that I copped a bit of an attitude with him. “Thank you very much Mr. Trumble, but I’ve done news and sports. Ski reports?” I recall that Morrie gently inquired if I was working. “Um, uh, no.” To which he said something to the effect of, “look, it’s 100 bucks a week part time, two hours every morning from your apartment. But it will get you on the air.” I will forever remember and appreciate that piece of advice and the kind way Morrie offered it. “It will get you on the air.” 

So began my career as a ski reporter. I wouldn’t know Killington from Stratton, or Jean Claude Killy (you can look him up) if I tripped over him.   But to my assigned twenty stations, I was a ski reporter.  Morrie held a conference call with the announcers Monday-Friday at 5:30 in the morning. We were all given sheets with the names of the various resorts in the Northeast, Colorado, California and Utah.  For half an hour, we would get updates on all of the resorts. e.g. new inches of packed powder, how many trails open, etc.  And then at 6AM I would start calling radio stations for the next two hours.

So it’s my first day. The phone rings at 5:30 in the morning. I’d kept it next to my bed in the hopes that it wouldn’t wake up my roommates. I take the phone, my sheets of paper listing the resorts and the phone numbers of all of my stations into our small kitchen. After our half hour conference, I start calling.

There is nothing NPRish or cool jazz or classical in the approach to ski reports on the radio. It always goes to 11.  And so, I started my first reports enthusiastically, to the point of nearly screaming at the top of my lungs “Hey Boston, good morning, welcome to the Morning Zoo 105 Ski Zone” or something like that. “It’s a great day for skiing!” For the record, it’s always a great day for skiing. Pouring outside? Who cares! “It’s a great day for skiing.”

So I’m doing my thing on my first day of ski reporting from the kitchen when my friend and roommate Mark walks in a little after 6.  He asks how I’m doing.  “Good.” Then he asks what I’m doing. “I’m doing the ski reports like I told you.” It was then that Mark kindly informed me that he didn’t need to wake up for another three hours. Translated? We needed to work out another arrangement because me sitting in the kitchen screaming at six in the morning was not going to cut it. Couldn’t do it in the “living room” where Danny slept. Couldn’t do it in the hallway where Mark slept. Couldn’t do it in my part of the hallway where I slept. Couldn’t do it in the kitchen…too close to Mark’s part of the hallway. So there was only one room left in the apartment.

Remember how I rejected that notion of looking back on an old job and thinking that it wasn’t so bad?” This is why.  Because during the winter of 1985-1986, I spent three hours every morning, Monday-Friday, on the phone getting the latest ski conditions and then calling radio stations with ski reports from the beautiful confines of my bathroom. The acoustics? Pretty good. The surroundings? Lacking.  I think there’s an understandable assumption by ski bums that ski reports actually emanate from ski resorts.    I was providing this information from the ski hotbed of New York’s Upper East Side. Sitting in my bathroom.

It was horrible. I was sat on the toilet, tray table in front of me with my notes and the apartment’s phone (pre cell phone). If it was 35 degrees outside, it might reach 45 or 50 inside. The paint was peeling, the pipes were hissing.  It was an old New York City style toilet with the box on top. Occasionally I would flush in mid report for a laugh.   There was nothing funny when I frequently pondered “how did I end up here.”

But I was on the air, including four stations in New York (one of my stations was K-Rock, then the home of Howard Stern, who allegedly made fun of my name one day. At the time, it was a career highlight).  People started to hear me. And occasionally friends of friends would call and ask for my recommendation for a weekend of skiing. Should we go to Gore? Whiteface? Bromley? Or out west? These people were under the crazy notion that the ski reporter actually knew something about skiing.  I recall that the most I could tell them was which state the resort was in, how much new packed powder they had and how many trails were open. What I felt like saying was “I can’t even afford to go to one of these places for a day. And it wouldn’t do me much good anyway because I don’t know how to ski.” I decided to keep that part to myself.

One day, my contact at a station in Pittsburgh calmly told me that the station wanted me to change my name. Change my name? Hmmmm.  Why might they want me to change Mishkin? I immediately thought some nefarious thoughts.  And he had an alternative name for me. Eric Carter. Eric Carter? I am many things in this world. But I am not Eric Carter, I said to myself.    But if he wanted me to be Eric Carter, I would be Eric Carter.  One day later, he apologized for springing the new name on me without explanation. He asked if I was providing ski reports for another station in Pittsburgh. I told him I was. He said that was fine, but “they are our competitors. So we’d prefer if you had a different name.” Oh. Uh, that actually made sense. Sorry about the leaping to not so nice conclusions. So began my brief Pittsburgh radio career as Eric Carter. Only problem was occasionally I would forget, starting the ski report as Eric Carter and finishing the ski report as Budd Mishkin.  Professional broadcasting. Edward R. Murrow, I was not.

There was one ray of hope during the four months of sitting on the toilet and providing ski reports. One of my stations was WNBC in New York, an old time 50,000 watt killer station that could be heard up and down the east coast. WNBC then owned the radio rights to the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers. And it was starting a new five hour talk show at night called “Sportsnight.” The initial host was a radio veteran named Jack Spector.  The producer of the show was a young man named Mike Breen, now known to sports fans everywhere as the voice of the NBA. For some reason, WNBC decided to include my ski report in the first half hour of the nighttime talk show, known as the “Sportsnight Magazine.”  So Mike and I talked most days when I called in my report. We got friendly and I expressed my interest in sports. I pitched WNBC on the idea of hiring me as a baseball reporter for the 1986 season, covering both the Yankees and Mets at home but not on the road (to avoid travel costs).  Once the basketball and hockey seasons were over, “Sportsnight” would have five hours to fill and a nightly baseball report could fill up some time.  I proposed the position to WNBC, where the powers that be promptly said good idea, but no.

And then ski season was over. Same for the ski reports.   By the end of March I was unemployed. Again.

It was a few days into April when the phone rang in the apartment. It was the new host of WNBC “Sportsnight,” Dave Sims.  And Dave uttered the words that opened the door to the rest of my life. “Hey, do you still want to cover the Yankees this season?” 

1.5 seconds. That’s how long it took me to say yes. I recall Dave asking when I could come in to the station at Rockefeller Center to meet him. To paraphrase an old joke from The New Yorker,” how about 12 minutes. Would 12 minutes work for you?” We agreed to meet the next day. We discussed that it would be a freelance position. I would be paid per report from home games, including a Yankees report that would be heard during the “Magazine,” the first half hour of “Sportsnight.”  He gave me a tape recorder and told me he would arrange for me to get a Yankee Stadium press pass for the season. And he sent me on my way.

Four days later, I was standing behind home plate at Yankee Stadium watching the Yankees take batting practice on Opening Day. It was surreal. But quickly it became very real. Any notion of “hanging out with the guys” in the locker room was immediately dashed. It was a work place where reporters were not necessarily welcome, a place to go in, get your interviews and get out. The fact that I grew up a Yankees fan became ancient history. The old adage “no cheering in the press box,” was an adage that I found surprisingly easy to follow. 

So I fed my Yankee reports every night and then was asked to produce the Saturday night edition of WNBC’s “Sportsnight” for the host Gary Bridges. Gary was a terrific host, a wonderful guy and included me in every aspect of the show, including the post game trip for Chinese food at 1 in the morning.  The Yankees had a good season. The Mets, as you probably know, had a great season that ended in a World Series title (I had an out of body experience covering one Mets game that year, a story for another day).  Once the baseball season was over, I was asked if I would be filing ski reports again. What I wanted to say was “I’ve stood at home plate at Yankee Stadium. There’s no going back to the bathroom.” What I actually said was “no, I’ll be covering the NBA and games at Madison Square Garden and the Meadowlands.” And then in mid November, I was asked if I wanted to host the show, as in the entire five hours. Dave wanted off for Thanksgiving. So did Mike and Gary. Would I like to anchor the show on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend? Again, 1.5 seconds. Yes.

I would go on to substitute host the show many times and loved every minute of it.  Among the thousands of calls, there was a moment from that first weekend that stood out. It was my second or third night hosting and I had started to get comfortable working the board and taking in calls. Caller called up, got on the air and said his last name was Blueglass. Blueglass? I had a wonderful teacher in religious school named Blueglass. Just as I was pondering this, the caller asked “did you grow up in Monroe, New York?” Pondering turned to flop sweat, last seen on Albert Brooks in the 1987 film Broadcast News. Seconds turned to hours. With no idea where this was going, I gingerly responded, “uh, yes.” To which he replied, “I think you played guitar for our temple confirmation class.” On WNBC Radio. 50,000 watts. Heard up and down the eastern seaboard.  Can you say working without a net? Did Mike Wallace ever have to deal with this? Marv Albert? As I started to get all high and mighty and ready to launch into “we’re here to discuss…” and blah, blah, blah, he quickly and thankfully pivoted to “how about those Yankees” and we were off and running.  One year later, the teacher approached me after my father’s memorial service, smiled and said “yes, it was my son.” A sweet memory at a sad time.

I worked at WNBC Radio’s “Sportsnight with Dave Sims” for two years before the station was sold and I moved on to work in television news and sports.  On one of the rare occasions that I was at WNBC Radio during the week, I saw a pile of cassette tapes in the sports office.  So I asked the producer Mike Breen about them. “Those are audition tapes that we get from people looking for work.”  I recall asking him why they hired me and not the hundreds who had applied.  I will never forget his response.  “We knew you from the ski reports.”

We all have to endure jobs we’d like to forget on the way to professional happiness. I hope your journey doesn’t include sitting in your bathroom doing ski reports for three hours every morning. But if it does, here’s wishing that a WNBC Radio gig is waiting for you at the end of the road.