W.I.F.F. (Wacky International Fun Fest)

In the middle of the year, my friend Martin from Austria approached and told me there was a group of students doing a radio program and asked me if I was interested and said they were meeting to brainstorm for it in the next 15 minutes. I was interested, so I attended.

Everyone sat around staring, while Martine proposed ideas.
“What should we call it, what should be our theme? Etc. These were some of the things that needed considering.

Everyone sat in silence, looking bored and uninterested. I can never resist in moments like this, I always have to blurt out something stupid and annoying.
“Lets call it WIFF, the wacky international fun fest!” I laughed at myself like an idiot right after I said it, always the craftsman of a perfect, eternal humor, funny only to myself, and every once and great while, a good friend that is present that has the same tastes. Everyone just looked at me, like I had just cleared my throat to speak.

One guy said it was a dumb name, unaware that I was in no way serious about the name. I was imaging these dumb American commercial commentators, introducing stupid products or events, whether on TV or radio, talking in that stupid, this-is-so-exciting-you’ll-poo-your-pants voice, that anyone with a little integrity and sense of self worth and connectedness knows is the voice of grotesque, scheming, commercial artifice. There was no way for them to know all of this, of course.

The meeting resulted in almost nothing, and I had forgotten about it, more-or-less, until Martin had contacted me a while later, letting me know we needed to meet up to plan the soon upcoming first program.
“Cool,” I thought. “I will bring a few songs and be able to sit in a little and help with some details.”

I arrived at the meeting spot and there was Martin, but none of the other 6 or so students I thought were also going to be there. We greeted and talked a little.
“So, I like the name WIFF, lets use it.”
“I was joking when I said it,” I told him. “But,,, why not use it.”
“So, what are we going to do this first show about?” He asked, expectantly.
My mind bent when he said this, I was not thinking it would only be the two of us.
“Uhh, what,,, I thought I was just going to help out a little bit with the music, etc., not plan the whole show. Where is everyone else.”
He listed off some of the people that said they would do it and why they could not make it to the meeting. I felt just then, like bailing out and not doing it, but I didn’t want to be another cop-out, and no one really gave him any decent notice. I really wanted to try it out also.

So, we did the first show, and to our fortune, our friend Jessica (who has too many background details to say where she is from, French, American, African, British, I am confused with the details) also showed up after the first meetings to help.

Luckily, Martin had previous radio experience, as he did a show at his home school, which if had not been the case, I would not have stuck around. The controls and planning would have been too much for me on top of my school work, etc. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun, even if it was completely amateurish, and often was not as “wacky” as we would have liked it to be. I was really glad I didn’t stop the many times I felt stressed and nervous about being responsible for content. In the end it was really fun and rewarding and I loved spending time with Martin and Jessica.