Morris Code: Tuning in to Atlanta’s most relentlessly optimistic radio host
Each of his 6 a.m. shifts begins with this.
Synthesizer. Guitar. Drums. And then he starts transmitting his Morris Code — the baritone instrument that is the voice of Morris Baxter, morning drive host at WCLK FM: “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste; and remember what peace there may be in silence.”
Baxter stretches the opening lines of “Desiderata” into a radio eternity: a five-minute recitation of the whole thing, with instrumental interludes.
Morning drive is supposed to be traffic updates, weather, news, talk and music, right? The essentials to help you grit through traffic and spilled coffee. There is that on Baxter’s 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. jazz show. But there is also this, from the most chronically optimistic radio host in Atlanta:
- "If you feel like you didn't get up on the right side of the bed this morning, get back in and get up on the other side."
- "Hurt people hurt people, but blessed people always bless people."
- "Be an energy vampire slayer today." (Energy vampires are emotionally toxic people who will make you sick, so keep them at bay.)
Baxter strings each pearl between songs. And at 15 minutes before the hour, you can count on another extended “daily motivation.” Could be a quote from Anthony Robbins. Could be one from Rev. Ike. And if it’s raining that day you can count on Baxter to call it liquid sunshine.
And for those who think Baxter’s “Morris Code” is a little hokey, he looks at it this way: “As far as the cynics go, it’s really not for them — until they understand.”
Baxter first tapped into his Morris Code about a dozen years ago, after he got laid off at roughly the same time his wife got pregnant. He was unemployed, depressed and putting on weight. He remembers thinking one day, “Wow, tomorrow’s Wednesday. I get my unemployment check on Friday!” Out loud. With joy. In front of his very pregnant, gainfully employed wife.
“And she looked at me and said, ‘That’s really sad to hear.”’
He said he found that alarm bell deafening. Then he gorged on self-help books, meditation and exercise. He got the WCLK job in 2006 on a tryout.
“I prayed and prayed and prayed for this job because I had started in radio and I knew what I could bring to the table,” Baxter said.
He didn’t start out with words of inspiration on the air, but through the years, the more he read on his own, the more it bled into his work. Early on station general manager Wendy Williams figured it would turn off listeners.
“I thought, with all that talking he was breaking the mike and creating a tune-out,” Williams said. “But I started getting emails and they’d repeat the quotes he gave.”
Baxter has begun to write some of his own motivations he wants to publish. He’s pretty sure it’ll have “The Morris Code”: “Something good is going to happen to me today. Believe it with every fiber of your being.” And it just might end the way he concludes each and every show; with a voiceover from “Cupcake,” his radio appellation for his fifth-grade daughter.
If you’re a morning regular, you already know it by heart: “To all my constituents, have an awesome day!”
About the Author
Rosalind Bentley is an award-winning feature writer focusing on culture, arts and sometimes food, as they are expressed and experienced in Atlanta. She is a two-time James Beard Award finalist and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
