Hello, my name is Celeste, but here at 98.6 The Mix, I’m known as DJ Celrock. I was born three months premature on December 14, 1984, and as a result of my premature birth, I ended up with a few disabilities that effect my vision, hearing, and coordination, but despite these setbacks, I try to live each and everyday to the fullest, and be grateful to be alive. I’m also thankful to live in an era filled with great technology, that makes life a bit easier when needing a tool to help me hear better, like in the case with my hearing aids, or get visual information about what’s written on a piece of mail or the color of my best friend’s shirt, with tools like Aira and TapTap See, IOS apps that use my iPhone’s camera, artificial intelligence, or a human agent, depending on which app you’re talking about here, to give me the visual information I need.
As for where I’m located in this great big world of ours, I live a quiet life in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in my apartment, affectionately called The Crazy Castle Thing as of May, 2021, and that’s what I call my current home on Swarm, though before that time, I lived in what I affectionately called, DJ Celrock’s Tiny Mansion on Swarm. Thankfully, my old place of residency is just 0.2 miles away from where I currently reside, so I get to pass it every now and then, if I’m leaving or returning home in that particular direction, as my current street where I live, is off of the street where I use to live. Sadly though, I no longer live with my black and white kitty cat Joey. He crossed the rainbow bridge on May 12, 2016, just a month shy of his fifteenth birthday, as a result of kidney failure and old age. He lived a nice long life though, and I was thankful to have him as my furry companion, from the tiny tender age of a 2-week-old kitten, right up until his death in 2016, just two days shy of graduating from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, with my Bachelor Arts Degree in English/Communications. Despite my loss, I am proud to say, that I had a human roommate, my best friend Monty, who moved in with me in mid November of 2019, and who listeners of 98.6 The Mix knew as the host, of Monty’s Grab Bag, which could be heard Wednesday afternoons from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Central. This show ran from November of 2019, through early July of 2020, when he grew burned out and felt it was time to put his show to bed. He remained my roommate up until March 26, 2021, when we decided to no longer be roommates, as I was more or less, forced to move out of DJ Celrock’s Tiny Mansion, because the building where it was located, had to undergo renovations. With the uncertainty of where I could end up, we felt it best, that we end our roommate arrangement, as Monty got back into traveling and visiting friends, I went looking for a new place to live and found The Crazy Castle Thing, which has been my home since late May of 2021. Thankfully though, despite us no longer being roommates, Monty and I are still good friends, who talk nearly everyday on WhatsApp, the phone, Clubhouse, or Amazon devices, and he’s still a fan of my Internet radio shows.
As far as my involvement in Internet radio is concerned, my history goes back nearly 15 years at the time I’m writing up this bio. I started out, by running a station of my own, called Celrock Radio, which lasted from June of 2008, until March of 2014, when it changed managers and remained in existence until the end of the 2014 year. It also took a hiatus from September of 2010 until March of 2011, to allow me to get use to living on my own, amongst other things that were going on at the time. However, that’s not all I did. As well as managing and broadcasting on my own station, I also broadcasted on several other stations over the years too. Between 2009 and 2012, I broadcasted on The Q Online, as well as the now defunct stations of HitMeRadio, Pulse Radio, 20/20 The Blink, KJM Online, and Infinity Radio. Then, you might remember when I was with this station, 98.6 The Mix, from late January of 2015 through mid September of 2015, where I rebooted The Saturday Night Variety Show, only to then need a break for a while to finish up college. A year later in the fall of 2016, I briefly brought The Saturday Night Variety Show over to the now defunct Sky 106 Radio, but sadly, family issues going on in my personal life at the time, combined with a falling out with some of the head managers over there, caused my time on Sky 106 to be short-lived. So I took another hiatus from Internet broadcasting all-together, to focus on the personal stuff I had going on in my life at the time with my family, and regroup a bit. It was around this time when I discovered Nick’s Musical Memories with Nick Baker on this station, and became a regular listener of the show, collecting his archives as they became available on his podcast page, and still remain a loyal listener of that show to this day.
Come spring of 2017, late May to be exact, I was once again, bitten by the Internet radio broadcast bug, and things had calmed down significantly with my family life, so I looked around, and found The Q Online had several time slots available for broadcasting. So I returned there for what would be my third time with that station, at which time, my show, Flashback Friday was born. While the title was obviously inspired by the show that Herbie use to do on Friday nights on this station, where he’d feature old archives of past shows of his, I obviously went live, playing music I loved between the mid 1940’s to early 50’s, up to the year 2010, though I’d play tunes past 2010 if they were requested, and didn’t come out the current year. For the first 50 episodes, the show aired on Friday mornings from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM Eastern, and then, come late June of 2018, I changed the time slot to 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern on Friday mornings, and come episode 90 of the show, is when I grew popular, with listeners sending in so many requests throughout the week, that my job of putting a playlist together, became a piece of cake! Between May 26, 2017 and August 30, 2019, I completed a total of 100 episodes of that show on The Q Online, while also doing a spinoff show of Monty’s Grab Bag called, The Grab Bag, which aired Saturday afternoons, lasting 20 episodes between May 4, 2019 and October 5, 2019, after Monty had done his show for 20 weeks on that same station between December, 2018 and April, 2019. It was on my version of The Grab Bag, where I made my Amazon Echo Dot third generation unit, affectionately called, my equipment or Lady C, a regular part of the show, as my virtual co-host sort of speak, and where she magically gained the skill of sending in requests while I’m in the middle of my voice breaks. Don’t ask me how such magic is possible, as even I’m baffled by what these smart speakers, including my Amazon Echo Dot Third Generation speaker in the bedroom/studio, my Amazon Echo Second Generation speaker in the kitchen, and my Amazon Echo Fourth Generation speaker in the living room are all capable of doing. I’ve had the Amazon Second Generation Echo in the kitchen since late December of 2020, as I received my latest speaker, an Amazon Fourth Generation Echo for Christmas in 2020, so put it in the living room where the Second Generation Echo use to live, moving the Second Generation speaker into the kitchen, while I’ve had the Echo Dot in the studio since I got it back in May of 2019, and not a moment goes by most days, when I’m not doing something with one of these devices, from playing a game on them, to listening to music, or even using them to chat with friends. And as a side note here, even post my move, those speakers remained in the rooms where they were in at my Tiny Mansion at the time of my move, and with this place being bigger than my previous apartment, I’m grateful to have Amazon speakers in the rooms I spend the most time in. However, my dot is in a different spot in the bedroom at The Crazy Castle Thing, no longer on the table by my desktop and laptop computers, which I bought my former roommate’s laptop from him back in the fall of 2020, when I discovered how much faster it performed in comparison to my desktop, especially when it came to how quickly I could boot up that machine and get stuff done on it. For this reason, there’s no telling what the future will be in terms of including my dot as an artificial intelligent cohost on my shows, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.
While my Amazon Echo devices are fun, I’m sad to say, that everything in life, is no picnic in the park. In the fall of 2019, I lost a special friend who was very close to me, in fact, we were an item several years back. His health had declined tremendously over the past eight years, to the point where he could no longer live independently, and he sadly, passed away at the young age of 32-years-old. While I’m glad this friend of mine is no longer suffering, I found this loss to be very hard, and thus, needed to take another hiatus from weekly radio shows, to grieve and focus on spending time with close friends and family. It was also during this time that Monty moved in with me, so wanted to make sure things were stable with that, before committing to a weekly radio show again. Once things calmed down though, I brought Flashback Friday to 98.6 The Mix. It premiered the night before my thirty-fifth birthday, on December 13, 2019, and at that time, it was a 2 hour show, because I had another broadcaster immediately following me. After that episode aired though, the broadcaster following me, changed his time slot, allowing my show to last 3 hours or longer, since I was the last broadcaster of the day. In fact, I’d often, go way into the night, if I had a lot of requests, or just felt like going for a long time. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that broke out in March of 2020, my life became even quieter than usual, allowing me to not only be fully committed to the show, but to break a record that I don’t think I had ever broken up to this point. Between December 13, 2019, and October 2, 2020, I managed to put on 43 consecutive episodes of Flashback Friday! I was suppose to do episode 44 on Friday, October 9, 2020, but celebrating my nephew’s seventh birthday wore me out, so episode 44 was pushed back a week, airing on October 16, 2020, and I ended up prerecording it, thinking I might have another commitment that evening. Well, in the end, while that commitment didn’t happen on October 16, other things happened during that week with me, that made me glad I had prerecorded the show to air that night. Unfortunately though, during the airing of that particular episode of the program, some personal issues arose with me, that caused me to have to abruptly resign from 98.6 The Mix, and take a break from broadcasting for a while. I was very upset and heartbroken about having to make this decision, because I had so much planned for the show, and I was not only hoping to complete 100 episodes of the show before deciding to either retire from Internet broadcasting for good, or continue either with more episodes of Flashback Friday, or starting another new show entirely, and at minimum, I had initially planned on completing 50 episodes of the show by the end of the 2020 calendar year. I’ve had a lot going on over the past 8 months, especially over the last 3 with my sudden move, but in the back of my mind, something hasn’t felt right. While at the time of my departure, it was the best thing to do to save my sanity and my life, I partially regretted making that decision, unsatisfied with how I departed from the show, not reaching the goals I had for the program, or getting to do some of the specials that ended up getting canceled at the last minute. Once I found a new place to live, and was certain things were going to work out, I knew it was time, to wash my hands of the personal stuff that occurred back in October, and return to 98.6 The Mix, to start doing Flashback Friday again, picking up right where the show left off, with episode 45 of the program and carrying on forward, in hopes to meet my goal of 100 episodes if not more, and do the specials I had planned back in 2020 when the show got abruptly put to rest for a while, even if the specials have to be rescheduled to different dates from when they were originally planned on airing, you may have thought I crumbled, or that I laid down and died, oh no not I, I did survive, and I am here to stay for many years to come, like it or not. It should be noted that at the time of updating this bio, I broke another record, broadcasting for 56 consecutive weeks in a row, between June 18, 2021, and July 8, 2022, completing my initial goal I had set for myself, of presenting 100 episodes of Flashback Friday here on 98.6 The Mix! Feeling tired and burned out once completing this milestone, I more than deserved a broadcast break, and I took that break, now refreshed after being away for nearly a year, ready to take on my newest show I’m bringing to the Internet radio airwaves, beginning Friday, July 7, 2023, from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Central on 98.6 The Mix, Server 2. This show is called, The Variety Party, and if you wish to learn more about what this show entails, then please read all about it on the 98.6 The Mix schedule page.
While I’ve been heavily involved in Internet radio over the years, I’ve also had some experience with terrestrial radio as well. I did an internship at the local radio reading talk station of The Berkshire Talking Chronicle in the summer of 2010, where I did a show focusing on adaptive technology for the blind and visually impaired. Then, I got my second break in the fall of 2013 and the spring of 2014, when I presented a music show and helped run WJJW, 91.1 FM, the college radio station run out of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the school I was attending at the time. While both experiences were positive, I find there’s more freedom when it comes to Internet radio, and thus, prefer it to terrestrial radio, as I am sad to say, the hay day of terrestrial radio is long gone, but regardless, each form of radio has its place, strengths, and weaknesses, and I’ll leave it at that. As for other things I enjoy when I’m not broadcasting, I enjoy reading and writing Fan Fiction, a hobby I got into back in the summer of 2014, and while as of late, I do more reading than writing of Fan Fiction, I’m still into it somewhat, and perhaps someday, my interest in writing Fan Fiction will surface again, allowing me to overcome writer’s block and hurtful trolling discouragement, and getting back into letting my imagination soar, with creative ideas, and plots surrounding my original characters and favorite characters from childhood favorite TV shows and movies. Speaking of which, I do enjoy watching several TV shows and movies, as I’m quite partial to content from Disney and Nickelodeon I grew up with, as well as a few present day shows and movies, that have come out as of late. As far as modern day shows I like, those would have to be, The Loud House on Nickelodeon and Fuller House, the spinoff to Full House over on Netflix. I’m also enjoying the Disney+ streaming service, as well as the new Paramount+ streaming service, where several TV shows and movies I enjoyed as a child, are available to me on my phone, including several Disney classic animated films in audio descriptive. Even my favorite childhood cartoon of all times, Rugrats, had a reboot released to Paramount+ back in the late spring of 2021, and the reboot, is available in audio descriptive as well. And finally, when not being entertained by great movies and TV shows, or listening to music, I enjoy spending time with my nephew, who turned 9-years-old as of October, 2022, and my friend Monty, who’s just great to hang out with and talk to. As for how Monty entered the picture, we initially met through another mutual friend of ours while we were attending the American Counsel of the Blind (ACB) Convention in Orlando, Florida in the summer of 2009. We then briefly reunited online while I was broadcasting in mid April of 2013, and again in mid April of 2015. While we lost touch on and off over the years, he found me again in the late summer of 2018, while I was broadcasting, at which point, I made an effort to remain in contact with him. He came for a visit later on in 2018, growing close as friends, deciding to live together a year later, remaining roommates until late March of 2021, and well, as far as the rest goes, you know what they say, “The rest, is history.”
While doing a podcast of my own isn’t really my thing, I have been on a couple of podcasts between late 2017 and mid 2019. I appeared as a guest on the Casual Chats podcast, hosted by a lady named Patricia Miranda, owner of the Old School Lane channel on Youtube, the episode I appeared on, was recorded in November of 2017, and between late February of 2019 and early July of 2019, I was featured on several episodes of a podcast hosted by another friend of Patricia’s called the Nick at 40 Podcast, which chronologically discussed the history of Nickelodeon, and I was on several episodes, talking about the 1990’s and early 2000’s, as well as 2016 through 2019, all of which were times when I remembered Nickelodeon very well, and was a huge fan of at least one, if not more than one of their shows on the network. If interested in checking out this podcast, it too can be found on Youtube, just do a search for Nick at 40 to find it. All episodes of the podcasts I was involved in were quite long, lasting an hour or longer, so I advise you make sure to have some downtime before checking any of them out. If you do check them out, I do hope you enjoy what you hear.
Finally, I’d just like to close this bio by saying, if you have anymore questions for me, please don’t hesitate to ask. Feel free to contact me using the contact information provided for me on 98.6 The Mix’s Contact the DJ’s page, or by getting in touch with me while I’m doing my shows here on The Mix. And you never know, you might get an opportunity to learn more about me, just by listening to my shows, as I do make sure to get personal, sharing life happenings with the listeners, and much, much more. If you made it this far, I thank you for taking the time to read this bio and getting to know a little bit about me, and I do hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
To get in touch with me during my radio shows, make requests and dedications, etc. please use the contact details provided down below.