How many Radio Legends cleverly disguised as Montreal Canadiens can you name? List them below.

Wow my old radio partner Bill Yde just sold his traffic company he started with $900.00 in his pocket for 266 Million. I’ll have to dig through some old boxes and see if I can find any binding agreements between us. (-:

Another friend, Ivan Braiker looks like he also got to cash in some big chips with his company Hip Cricket. Why do I think both of them are well on their way to forgetting my name.

How about them Sox spanking the Yankees at Fenway.

The reason Santa Clause is smiling in all those pictures you see of him is because he discovered the joy of giving. I bet even he would like a little return action now and then.

I did something recently that I regreted doing. I stumbled upon a personal note my daughter had written about her Mom. Half of me said I shouldn’t share it with her Mother the other half hoped something like this would be shared with me. Hey I had a 50 50 shot I figured, it went badly. I told my Brother about it and he said you had no choice you had to do it because the 50% possibility of the note doing some good. That out weighs the possibility of a negative reaction. He reminded me about why I quit smoking. Candis had saved up all her baby sitting money when she was 13 or 14 and gave to me what she called ” The Gift Of Life” in the form of a product called Smoke Enders. I had no choice, I had to quit smoking. That’s why you shared the note Reg said.

The only thing worse than living with someone you no longer want to live with may be living with someone who doesn’t want to live with you.

I think Authors are much smarter than most Air Talent, they know its all about the book. The Air Talent still think it’s all about them.

I also think it’s about “The Game” not the Athletes

When I first started doing AC type programming we would look for top 40 Jocks who had a lotta style but weren’t as young sounding as they needed to be anymore. We would talk them into moving to AC where we wouldn’t change their sound or their style, just their content. Now I think it’s time to move them into talk.

Now that you can publish your own Blog as I do I guess the old Publish or Perish is now a thing of the past.

The only big change I’ve noticed since Obama was elected is much higher gas prices.

Just because Radio has been doing it forever doesn’t mean it’s not dumb.

My definition of ART is … The Observation Of Life with your slightly exaggerated and emotional comments about It.

Of all the women I have encountered during my lifetime, My Grandmother, My Mother, My Sister, My Aunts, My Cousins, My Wife, My Fiances, My Lovers, My Girlfriends My Gal friends and all My Acquaintances. My Daughters so far have been the most powerful.

Have you ever noticed that the more you plan things out the more of a disappointment they turn out to be. Yet sometimes the things that just happen to us turn out to be a nice pleasant surprise. Maybe we should just let things happen a little more often.

I met Reid Reker for the first time when I moved to San Diego and remember saying to him  … Man this is beautiful I love it here. He responded with, what’s not to like. The Ocean, the Mountains and the Desert they are are all here take your pick. I hate it though because I can’t see any of it. All I can see are the Millionaires who own it.

I’m not a big fan of the Arab world but I sure like their immigration laws.

Warren Cosford and I had a recent conversation about how lucky we were growing up in the world when Rock & Roll had just begun. Not only did we love it as all our friends did but we could play it too which made us instant experts and led us to our lifetime careers.

The toughest time in a young woman’s life may be finding a young man who will treat her even better than her daddy treated her. Well thats my plan anyway.

Anyone can say no but only a few can say yes.

Mike McVay and I both agree that there are a couple of things that after showing them off to your friends you sometimes wish you could just return them. “Houses and Women”

Bad Boy Bobby is at it again …

 

 

 

 

The reunion in Winnipeg for CKY a couple of weeks ago worked something like a time machine for me because it took me all the way back to my early days of Radio.

CKY was the place I cut my very first record with The Jury and spoke on the Radio for the first time. Jimmy Darin the afternoon drive Jock and Program Director had put me on Sunday nights where I got to do a bit of announcing and I also got to learn a very valuable lesson about how you get ratings. I was a new part time board op on CKY-FM at the time and just like the rest of the board ops I was always trying to maneuver my way over to our highly rated AM. We were all trapped on FM back when FM wasn’t cool!
CKY- FM has since become CITI-FM and Howard Mandshein who does the 23rd Hour on it featuring local music told me during an interview about my Jury Days that CITI is very cool now.
Sunday night was when CKY featured religious programs and I got to read a brief announcement after the playing of each taped show which instantly made me a KY Good Guy. Hand me my CKY Gold Blazer Tonto and I may also need that CKY Gold Pen for all the autograph seekers.
My Father was very proud of the fact I was on the radio each Sunday night and used to stay up and record me. After listening to those tapes was when I realized I better get good at some other radio things if I had any hope of staying in the biz I sure was not born Mr. Announcer.
Jimmy Darin who gave me this Sunday night gig later turned out be my mentor, my partner, my client, my boss several times and the best part is he is my lifelong friend. In a earlier piece I had written it was Mark Parr who got me started in radio but it was Jim who really saw my potential and nurtured it. Today Jim takes great pleasure in whining that all I do is take the great stuff he taught me and sell it to the Radio World without even a hint of compensation for him. Jack McCoy claims it’s really his stuff I’m selling so I think I’ll let them work it out and while they are doing that one can only hope they also come up with some fresh stuff because it’s been a while (-:
Anyway back to Sunday nights. Following the taped religious shows we also did a live program from 10 to Midnight called “Ask The Pastor”. It featured a fairly controversial local Minister and I was his board op. My task was to put the callers on the air, play the station id’s and ride the board. The show was mostly about relationships plus we took a few religious calls. Surprisingly the show had some decent ratings but Jim wanted more. I found out much later in life that Jim always wanted more.
Jimmy Darin is now a radio station owner in America under another name and vehemently denies we ever had the conversation you are about to read and it only saddens him to think about how much wine I must have had to drink to dream up this foolishness. In my defense I can only say that I can’t imagine a rookie board op having the balls to conger up let alone put in effect any part of the following strategy but you be the judge.                                  
I can still see him dragging me into his office shortly after announcing I was the new Sunday night guy and saying “OK squirrel this is your shot don’t blow it” Jim has always been full of great little inspirational tid bits like that with which to motivate me. He went on to say he needed me to pay attention in there and forget about those little chickies who always call the station. These religious programs pay us a lot of money so you better not mess with them he said. But here’s the thing Johns religious programs don’t get ratings and you and I are all about ratings. We always need to get ratings because that’s what we do in our little corner of the building and what you are going to learn today kid you will be able to use for the rest of your radio career. Our job as programmers is to always figure out how to get listeners no matter what the programming is. Socrates taught us that over 2000 years ago when he said the cause is the listeners and the affect is ratings.
George, someday in the future you will have to figure out how to get people to listen to the Radio and when you do you will be golden but luckily for you I already have this one figured out so listen up.
When the phone calls come in from all the so called troubled lovers some of them will be con artists and you will need to spot them quickly. This will not be an easy task because they will be scripted and they will be practiced. Ahh I said interrupting him to show I was a very quick study and he had no need to over explain. You want me to figure out who the con artists are and cut them off before they say or do something bad. That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do he instantly replied because these degenerates are the lifeblood of the show. They are the entertainment and more importantly they are the ones who will cause the ratings to go up. I need you on high alert because the moment they think they have our preacher sucked into thinking he is in the midst of a serious conversation with a hurt human being they are going to come at him with the most vile and disgusting language you have ever heard. Some of it is going to curl your toes. I’ve got it now I blurted out, you want me to let a few bad words slip on the air for some shock value then quickly cut the caller off just before it gets a little too raunchy. Brilliant simply brilliant I exclaimed. Wrong grasshopper simply wrong. The reason most people listen to this show is because of those special moments. I need you to be cool and alert in there and I don’t need you blowing the whole deal because you flinched by cutting their creativity off the air.                                  
Now listen very carefully to this part because this is what this whole meeting is about. What I need you to do with those nasty calls is to take forever to fade them out. You will pot down those calls as slowly as is humanly possible and ignore the Pastor who will be frantically waving at you and using the cut sign. I became so slow I looked like I was in slow motion and the ratings literally exploded!

 

 

I am a huge fan of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy and even have seen all the movies. I heard the U.S. was going to make its own version and just laughed. Now that I have seen the previews it looks like I may enjoy hearing what they are saying rather than reading it more than I thought.

Speaking of movies, Cowboys and Aliens had a good cast but the acting was terrible. They must have owed somebody a picture or somebody had pictures.

Wow! Mike McVay new SVP Programming for Cumulus.

Winnipeg using an old name for their brand new hockey team I think is very cool. I was back in the “peg” years ago for a vacation and attended the press conference when they signed Super Star Bobby Hull “The Golden Jet” for a Million Dollars and named the team after him. I can hardly wait to catch a couple of games with a few of my old Transcona Buds.

Jim Quail reminded me when we played Hockey our motto was … If ya can’t beat them in the alleys your not going to beat them on the ice.

Speaking of Hockey and such you haven’t seen a sports riot until you see Winnipeg go at it. Many years a go I was having a meeting in a hotel on the corner of Portage and Main with Gary Stevens and David Martin. We watched as below us a bunch of fans overturned a huge bus in the middle of a snow storm celebrating the victory of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Grey Cup. Go Jets!

While I was away on vacation a few of my favorite bartenders at Duffy’s in the Village got let go because the company’s “Secret Shoppers” didn’t think they were up to snuff. A few days ago I happened to go to one on North Lake and the service there was not near as good as my faves gave me at mine. I guess the Secret Shoppers are looking for something more than customer satisfaction.

When you hear radio people discussing other radio people’s voices ( pipes) you would almost think they were describing Breasts.

73% of Americans are followers. The trick if you’re an air talent is to convince them you’re not and they will follow you anywhere with their PPM devices firmly attached.

When I first came to America I was very lucky because I didn’t know any radio people so we could do anything we wanted on the radio without fear of one of our radio buddies, who only understand today not tomorrow, asking us if we were crazy. Their lack of input became our “Tipping Point” on KVIL.

Tim Moore says it isn’t always enough to do your very best, sometimes you have to do what’s necessary.

Rich Stevens says the definition of an awkward moment is getting a Facebook friend request from Casey Anthony.

Chris Duffy says that the Uzi I ordered in case there was no Football season may still be a good idea if I continue to work in the same building as Joyce Kaufman.

Bob Christy claims I need a 9mm Glock because Uzis aren’t reliable after firing the first round.

Fear of failure is a great self motivator.

I believe life is measured by it’s breathless moments and your job your whole life is to put yourself in a position where there is a possibility of a few breathless moments occurring.

Recently John Parikhal reminisced to Lee Abrams that nobody stays up all night anymore creating radio to be executed the next day. But he bet they sure do at Google.

When I was a kid Rock&Roll was our cause and our godlike leaders, Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry we were sure were leading us out of the darkness into a new and fairer world. These guys were loud, angry, and just plain defiant as they played music’s new direction. Imagine my total disappointment years later reading Chuck’s book where he said that the whole time he was Rockin’ are sox off he was just wishing he could sing like Nat King Cole. NAT F**KING COLE … ARE YOU F##KING KIDDING ME !

Speaking of Nat King Cole (OK I can do this now) When Bo Diddley had his first big hit “Hey Bo Diddley” on the charts, he was invited by Ed Sullivan to appear on his Sunday night show. Ed asked Bo to play a little of his tune for him.  Upon hearing the hit Ed told him it sounded a little too jungle like and Bo should just sing a couple of Nat King Cole’s songs instead.

Talking about music I remember when if it rocked it was frowned upon as being low brow music. Now if it doesn’t rock it is low brow music.