Back when I went to Bishop’s University, I managed the stud…

Happily, it was 1993. Pump Up the Volume made it cool to be a DJ. Grunge and indie were huge. We went from, like, 12 DJs to 100 and started acting like a real radio station. God, it was awesome. It was like we were on a quest. It felt like a real crusade.

Eventually we decided to try to get an FM licence. This was no easy feat. The bureaucracy was maddening. It cost a lot. We needed to find a proper tower. Long story short, after two years of solid effort, everything came together: CJMQ was awarded 88.9 on your FM dial.

We were going to launch one blissful night in 1995. I planned a massive party and woke up the morning of, not quite believing we’d finally made it. I went to say good morning to my roommate, David, and… Not a single sound came out of my mouth. Not even a whisper.

I had completely and utterly lost my voice. OH GOD NO. I raced to the pharmacy and scribbled a note to the pharmacist: “I’ve lost my voice, and I really need my voice.” She nodded and retrieved two suppositories. They were each the size of large-caliber artillery shells.

I looked at her and wrote: “I don’t talk out of my ass.” She assured me that the fastest way to get the necessary medicine was through my rectum. Years later, I butt chugged vodka—that’s another story: no—but at the time, I was unfamiliar with anus-based delivery systems.

I went home. First things first: I had no real idea of where my anus was. I mean, I knew the general vicinity. But this was a precision operation. So, I reached back and sort of… poked it like a doorbell, I guess? I got the sense that my anus was reluctant to receive visitors.

But the pharmacist said I really had to get the suppository up there, so I lay down on the bathroom floor, on my side, to give myself better purchase. I took the suppository, reached back, and mashed it up my ass. It was like trying to push a big pill down a small cat’s throat.

The situation seemed stable. I got to my knees, rose slowly to my feet, bent down to pull up my pants… And that fucking thing shot out of me with the exit velocity of a rocket. I kid you not, it flew into the tub and ricocheted around like a bullet. It made “ping” sounds.

Oh no. Now what? I collected the hot, mangled suppository, returned to the floor, and kind of smeared it onto my bunghole, like I was trying to grease a tiny Bundt pan. And then I lay there for an hour, hoping I was somehow absorbing enough of it to give me back my voice.

Sure enough, at school later that afternoon, I could talk. Not perfectly, but well enough that I didn’t use the second suppository. We launched. I cried like a baby, thanking the DJs. I loved them so much. And then my raspy, croaky voice was the first sound heard on CJMQ FM.

A little while later, one of the DJs, a sweet girl named Kristy, lost her voice, too. She had her first FM shift, and she came into the station’s office in a total panic. I asked her to hang on a second, and I began rummaging through my desk. I told her I had just the thing.

Back when I went to Bishop’s University, I managed the student radio station, CJMQ. When I started, it was kind of a pirate station. We had an illegal antenna on a roof, and a couple of residences could get us through the radiators somehow. Nowhere to go but up.

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