For those of you outside the Los Angeles area (and for some of you who are inside it), Jim Ladd is a bit of a legend in the circles of radio.  He started in the industry back in 1969, he was part of the freeform rock revolution that was 94.7 KMET “The Mighty Met,” he’s gotten a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he was the inspiration for “The Last DJ” by his close friend Tom Petty, he’s had a number of nationally syndicated shows, he made an appearance in Say Anything, he wrote a book — oh yeah, and he also does a five-hour freeform radio show every night on 95.5 KLOS here in L.A., which means he gets to pick his own music and it’s basically like making a complex five-hour mixtape live every weeknight.  He is the last freeform commercial radio DJ in America.

In 1991, Jim wrote a semi-autobiography called Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial, which I happened to stumble across 3,000 miles away in my local library.  I took it out of the library so many times, I bought myself a first-edition copy.  If there was a fire inside me to get into the radio industry, this book poured gallons upon gallons of gasoline on it, and it’s one of the few books that I’ve kept over the years; it even made the journey out to Los Angeles with me six years ago when I finally got a chance to listen to Jim himself on the air.

Last month, I interviewed Jim and his boss for a feature article for the magazine I work for, and after all these years, I finally got to thank Jim.  There is definite truth to the revelation that he is part of the reason why I am where I am today and why I had the drive to get there.  Being able to tell him that was like thanking one of your idols for helping you achieve your own success… no, it was exactly like that.  The interview went well, and I even pushed my bosses for an extra page of content because I had so much material to work with.  The article appeared in my magazine a couple of weeks ago, and I got a few compliments from people around the office.  Cool.

Late this afternoon, as I was finishing up for the day and was already in my usual Friday afternoon goof-off mode, my phone rang.  Laughing, I answered it — only to hear Jim Ladd on the other end.  Over the next 10 minutes, Jim proceeded to tell me how wonderful he thought my article was, how thankful he was to me for writing it, how grateful he was that I’d been accurate in the way that I quoted him in it, how impressed he was with it and how he’d actually read an entire section of it on the air last night to his listeners both in Los Angeles and those streaming his show worldwide.  I was floored.  To have one of my own idols come back to me this way… it was something that will stay with me for a long time.  And today turned out to be one of those days when I really felt like I lucked out — that I have one of the best jobs in the world.