Episode # 6 - Castaway: Rock Bergeron

Our "castaway" is Rock Bergeron, the host of "Something Or Other" - a weekly music show heard every Friday morning from 6:30am to 8:30am on WMPG Radio in Portland, Maine. In a former life Bergeron was a commercial radio deejay who says he "truly misses the days when you could make a living entertaining folks by playing records and CDs, even at 3am." Rock grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire where, at an early age he developed a fascination with radio, wondering what went on behind the scenes while the DJ played songs and commercials. He rode his bike to area radio stations and pestered receptionists for tours. At home he would use his dad's cassette player to record himself reading stories and advertisements from the newspaper. When he played records on the stereo he would talk over the intros of songs, trying to time his raps to end when the song's vocals began. During his junior year of high school the Boy Scouts offered Rock an opportunity to learn about radio through their Explorers Program and soon he was working part-time at the local AM station, WGIR, playing local ads during Red Sox and Bruins games. Being an on-air announcer was what he really wanted to do and by the time he graduated he was working the overnight shift on 'GIR's sister station, Rock 101. That began nearly twenty years of jobs on stations in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, Rock had a habit of rebelling against the narrow playlists at many of the stations he worked for and would frequently get in trouble for playing deep cuts not approved by his bosses. And in 1997, after a leave-of-absence dispute, Rock found himself out of radio while living on Martha's Vineyard. For a short time he tried commuting off-island to a station on Cape Cod, but ultimately Rock had to find work outside radio. Since his exodus from commercial radio he's worked in the warehouse for an internet bookstore, as a clerk at a CD store, at the counter of a local bakery and currently in an assisted-living facility for the elderly. While certainly missing his career in radio, Rock enjoys the freedom he has hosting a show on Southern Maine Community Radio at USM on WMPG.

Lately, Rock has embraced the phrase "work to live, don't live to work" and he's enjoyed several European vacations, been in two improv comedy troupes and has just completed his first attempt at writing a screenplay based on his early days in radio which he hopes will someday find its way to Hollywood.