(November 8, 2010) What Am I Doing Here? (When Everything I Want Is Somewhere Else) is a book about living a happier,

more successful life. In that regard, it’s a book about knowing ourselves. It’s also a book about our radio brethren - their trials

and tribulations. Before too many pages it becomes apparent that the insights and experiences we can glean from the stories of

radio’s greats, and not-so-greats, are entertaining and effective catalysts for finding our own joy and achieving our own goals.

To many in our business the pioneers named Storz and McLendon are, at best, historical figures – caricatures carved into

radio’s equivalent of Mt. Rushmore. Sadly, many know little more about these trailblazers’ actual lives than we know about

George Washington’s from the fictitious tale of his chopping down his father’s cherry tree. What Am I Doing Here? brings these

and other icons to life. Here are the fantastically colorful, often hysterical, sometimes grotesque true stories that, until now, have

usually only been told when an elite coterie of career broadcasters bent elbows at L.A.’s old Martoni’s or New York’s now

defunct Café des Artistes.

Rollye James offers valuable exercises in self-realization, setting goals and making life choices. Radio’s best-loved female also

explores such heady topics as the essence of happiness and the science of wisdom with thought-provoking insight and depth

that you would expect to hear from a gifted psychologist, not a broadcaster – and certainly not from a broadcaster portraying a

psychologist, which Rollye clearly professes not to be.

Page after page, the fun of radio’s most vibrant, rowdy, rebellious Top 40 adolescence is chronicled from the border blasters,

through the adventures of Freed, Drake, Storer and a dozen more, as they rode roughshod up and down the new frontier of the

once staid radio dial. They innovated and imitated with wanton disrespect for the competition, and often the FCC, in a blaring,

no-holds-barred, often low-budget battle to capture the fascination and loyalty of Hooper and Pulse respondents. 

These icons’ escapades make for fantastic reading and for real-life studies of freed creativity, overcome emotional hurdles,

discipline, positive belief, perseverance and perspective. These elements of success and the roles they played in some of radio’s

greatest hits and misses are chronicled by a respected and beloved career broadcaster who was in the studios, the board rooms

and the bar backrooms with some of radio’s most beloved legends.

When it comes to radio’s juiciest stories, Rollye has the low-down on the down low –  Alan Freed, Bob Horn, Roby Yonge –

and she tells the definite tales of the high flyers – Dick Clark, Rush Limbaugh, Wolfman Jack. Likewise, Rollye explores the

fables of our beloved brethren who have survived career extremes, rebounding from graceless to greatness – Rod Roddy, Joey

Reynolds, Chuck Riley. Rollye includes them to entertain and inspire, as well as illustrate the important roles that

self-awareness, perspective and rational analysis can play in deciding on a next course of action.

As for the state of our art, how we got to where we are today, and a guess about radio’s future relevancy, draw your own

conclusions as you connect the dots between the stories our author weaves about Congress, the FCC, the IRS, the economy,

highly-leveraged station acquisitions, deregulation, re-regulation, re-targeted demographics, syndication, the 1996 Telecom Act,

barter, short-sighted cost cutting, and non-stop stop-sets.

LARP will enjoy the analysis of how KFWB, KRLA, KHJ and K-EARTH each came to power, and the look into the lives and

careers of favorites including Robert W. Morgan, Art Laboe, and Huggy Boy. When it comes to colorful stories, I can only

hope Rollye is saving Humble Harve’s for the sequel. Besides an amazing memory for all things radio, Rollye (R) has a gift

for being able to see the dynamics at play in business and interpersonal relationships.

One evening about thirty years ago in Joey Reynolds’ Calabasas condo, Rollye amazed me with her insights into the human

condition. She was holding an extensively detailed astrological chart that had been prepared about me for a television pilot as

she told me more about myself than I knew, or at least was willing to acknowledge at the time. In retrospect I’ve become

convinced that the sheath of paper filled with charts, graphs and strange symbols was more a prop than a tool. Skeptical as I can

be, I also think it was far more than a parlor trick. That’s why it comes as no great surprise to me, these many years later, that

Rollye has been able to refine her insight into a handbook for a new approach to living. 

As she lived a life in radio’s minor and major market trenches, as well as chronicled the industry for years in the pages of

Billboard, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Rollye has such a wealth of stories to so eloquently punctuate her hypotheses and

so richly entertain radio fans. Her point is the perfect counter-point to Network’s Howard Beale: “You don’t have to be mad as

hell, and you don’t have to take it anymore.” A close second to the commercial copy you will read today for a paycheck, What

Am I Doing Here? is must reading. You can order the book at: www.nickajackpress.com.