If all goes as planned, WFMU Sunday afternoon DJ Glen Jones will soon find his name sandwiched between The Longest Time Spent in a Tree winner (an Indonesian man named Bungkas climbed into a tree in 1970 and has been there ever since) and The Most Hopscotch Games in 24 Hours victor (Ashrita Furman from the United States completed 434 games). Beginning Friday, May 25 at 9 a.m., at the station in Jersey City, Jones will attempt to break the Guinness Book World Record for The Longest Radio DJ Marathon. The current record, 73 hours and 33 minutes, was set by Greg Daines of the United Kingdom on Labor Day weekend 2000. To beat him, Jones must remain on air through Monday, May 28 at 10:33 a.m. That means staying awake for the entire Memorial Day weekend.
The idea was conceived of six months ago when Ken Freedman, WFMU’s station manager, sent Jones a news wire about a DJ in Malaysia who had attempted to break the record. At the bottom of the note Freeman had written, “Get training.”
“I think he was joking,” Jones said last week. “But I called him immediately and told him I was dead serious.” “I didn’t mean it,” Freedman corroborated. “But it’s always been his dream to die on the air, and this is the fastest way to do it.”
Not just anyone can be anointed The Longest Radio DJ Marathon winner. Guinness has established a specific set of rules. No song can be shorter than two minutes, or longer than six minutes. Invited guests cannot talk for longer than one minute without Jones chiming in. Although past contenders have had the luxury of a 15-minute break every hour for news, and eight minutes for commercials, WFMU is a public station with neither news nor advertisements. Guinness also insists that there be two witnesses on site at all times.
Jones will also have two crew members on site at all times, whose jobs will be to “keep Jones awake at all cost.”
The Guinness Book of World Records was the brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of Dublin’s renowned Guinness Brewery, famous for their frothy porter stout. In the early ’50s, after a heated debate about the fastest game bird in Europe, Beaver came up with the idea of publishing a book filled with trivia. Along with the The Longest Radio DJ Marathon winner, the book lists other minutia like the most valuable painting (Vincent Van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” sold at Christie’s for $82.5 million on May 15, 1990) and the most prison transfers (beginning in 1971 and ending with his death in 1998, Doyle Conkline was transferred 117 times between 53 prisons).
What kind of person tries to break a Guinness Book World Record?
Last week, a brief phone conversation with Jones, who, when he’s not on spinning records at WFMU works as a radio producer at Court TV, revealed a calm and contemplative character.
“I’m not doing this because I’m competitive,” Jones explained. “It’s the chance to do something special, something grandiose for radio – old style. It’ the kind of stunt they would have done in the’50s.”
Jones has been a DJ at WFMU – that’s 91.1 on your FM dial – for 15 years. Combining eclectic rock ‘n’ roll with irreverent chit chat, “The Glen Jones Radio Programme” usually airs on Sundays from noon to 3 p.m. For the Memorial Day weekend’s protracted program, Jones has been putting together a play list of over 1,000 songs, specifically selecting tunes about sleep, dreams and time passing. He has also lined up some special guests for the show including legendary DJs Cousin Brucie, Joe Franklin, Meg Griffin, the former Young Rascals member Eddie Brigati, and the boxer Chuck Wepner.
“[Jones] has a track record of doing crazy stunts,” said Freedman. “He’s set himself on fire on air, he’s been lowered from a balcony, and I once shaved his head on stage at a [WFMU] record fair. We’re always wondering how he’s going to top himself. I guess this is the ultimate stunt.”
According to Freedman, before agreeing to endorse the stunt, the radio station researched the possible side effects of three days without sleep.
“One guy stayed up for 11 days,” said Freedman. “It was part of a study. He was surrounded by sleep researchers, and they found no ill effects.”
Jones, who usually sleeps between seven and eight hours a night, has been riding his bike to work in order to train for the quest. Other than that, he said, there’s not much he can do. “There are no smoke and mirrors,” he said. “I’m just trying to get myself mentally prepared. Trying to get psyched up for it.”
Many years ago, when he worked at a recording studio, Jones once stayed awake for 36 hours. “But that was when I was much younger,” he said.
He continued, “I expect it to hurt and I expect to be in physical pain. But there’s no way that I’ll allow myself to walk away. If I did I would be inconsolable. I’m scared – but I refuse to fail.”
Freedman, the instigator, also expressed his supreme confidence. “He’s either going to break the record or die trying.”