All-night stand and self-induced insomnia

High five!  I finally met Ms. Jo San Diego, the most popular lady DJ of my teens and collegiate years.  Baby boomers credit her for the stash of music memories they hold dear.  She was the warm, soothing, and velvety voice that sounded incredibly appealing, and was hot and foxy, too.  We called her the lady with the bedroom voice because you couldn’t help but conjure images of elation that were let loose in one’s exuberant imagination.   ? 

 Her radio show was called All Night Stand, aired on DZMT, when it was operated by the old Manila Times and the heirs of Don Alejandro Roces.

Jo came on the air at midnight and stayed until early twilight, the only program that hogged the air lanes at those ungodly hours.  Mind you, this was long before 24/7 services and call centers.  People were normally fast asleep by 9 o’clock at night.

I thought that she was the only woman who worked the same shift as the tireless breadwinner.  The security guards, the linemen, nursing staff, switchboard operators, the milkman — when fresh milk was delivered in bottles — and the bakers in the panaderia, kneading pan de sal, in the dead of night.   If  you added the nightowls and those desperately cramming for their school exams, JSD ruled the very witching time of night with this captive audience.   

In the 1960s, the transistor radio was the must-own, portable invention that every teenager wanted in her bedroom, next to her study desk.  When Jo played a familiar tune, I’d stop whatever I was doing and keep mum.  Every song had lyrics that stimulated the mind and touched the heart.  And that was the main root why staying up late was never dull or monotonous.  Of course, there was this other thing:  The phone next to my night table.  The moment it quivered, I’d pick it up and draw a deep sigh.  My crush was on the other line and his radio was also tuned to JSD.  (Mom didn’t know.)  What was cunning was my lady DJ somehow sensed that I just climbed up to 7th heaven and a gentle tune would aptly play, “Good night my love, may tomorrow be sunny and bright and keep you closer to me,” sang by the Fleetwoods.  How could anyone hit the sack?  I was pirouetting like Eliza Doolittle with my head “Too light to set it down.” 

Jo was my steady companion when I crammed for the finals in Geometry, my Waterloo.  It didn’t matter if there were formulas to memorize because I had music to set the tone for an all-night vigil.  When she played Frank Sinatra’s I’ve Got the World on a String, I’d gain a second wind and hit pow!  “What a world, what a life, I’m in love.”  (not with Math).  I never felt the strain of my self-induced insomnia.  

 Jo kept a packed library of recorded music to cover any sadness, mood, hope, and dream of our emerging generation.  Amazing how we all felt like her bosom buddy.  My brain would ginger up at each tune that she introduced with amusing quips, anecdotes, and sparkling passages extracted from current news, history, poems, and novels.  All Night Stand went off the air when Jo moved to America, but like most restless kababayans, she found herself winging back to Manila.  Another radio personality, Eddie Ilarde, convinced her to make a comeback.   What a delightful surprise to hear her sultry voice back on the air in a new radio program with a different time slot called This Is It.  She became one of the pioneers of the Golden Block, an assembly of top broadcasters and radio luminaries in the Philippines who revived the oldies but goodies, OPM and classic tunes, under a new frequency, DWBR 104.3FM.

 At the Golden Block anniversary, I cheered some icons of radio broadcasting:  Eddie Ilarde, Bong Lapira, Rene Quitorio, Manny Carvajal, Ben Aniceto, Bingo Lacson, and JSD.

 Jo asked for a minute of silence to honor other departed colleagues who, we imagine, were still chatting and spinning records up in DWHH (Holy Heaven): Lito Gorospe, Eddie Mercado, Barr Samson, Lito Balquiedra, Art Galindez, Angelo Castro, Jr., June Keithley, Bobby Ng, etc.  They’re the magic spinners who gave us such enjoyable radio nights.

When the moon and the stars dot the sky and you once again retreat to your lyrical space, keep an old-fashioned refrain close to your heart.  Jo promised to be just a tune away.

Hurry back, JSD!