Long before I got into radio, I was a musician. I started out on the accordion and then switched to trumpet, but when I saw Elvis on TV, I knew that I had to become a guitar man.
Shortly after I bought my guitar, I was invited to join a singing group called “Shayne and the Devines,” which was kinda fun. However, being more of a musician than a vocalist, I persuaded Shayne to let me recruit some of my talented musician friends.

On tenor sax, we got Pete Proskurnik, who brought along his drum playing buddy Gordy Duke and I talked my friend Rolly Blaquiere into playing bass with his brother Lawrence on piano.
Now that we were a real band, the name Devines sounded a little too wimpy, so we changed it to Shayne and the Rebel Raiders. Then when we realized that our name sounded much too southern for a northern band, we became the Phantoms.

My Mom made us some very cool blue satin tux jackets (see above), so we were lookin’ good, but when Shayne found out that it wasn’t Shayne and the Phantoms, he walked.
When Shayne left, we replaced him with Donny Burns (pictured above) and added another sax man, Jimmy Harrison.

Now we were starting to sound pretty good, but when I spotted Perry Waksvik playing at a variety show for another band, I recruited him for ours. Perry not only had great chops on guitar, but he also sang all those cool Chuck Berry songs, and I moved over to rhythm.
Within weeks we became one of Winnipeg’s best bands, and I’d stumbled across a philosophy that I would use for the rest of my life, “He who is smart enough to hire people better than themselves is the smartest person in the room.”

Is it racist to have good thoughts about somebody just because of their race?

With greatness comes great responsibility.

The only people who tell the truth all the time are kids and drunks.

How much money can there be in Tobasco Sauce when you only use it one drop at a time?

The next thing you should do is that which you’re afraid to do.

Want the boss to notice you? Take the blame for something; you’ll be the only one in that line.

Who gave the prosecutors the right to plea bargain? I don’t remember voting for it.

A couple of years ago, while driving my daughter Cami back to Tampa for her sophomore year at USF, it took me back to the time her sister, Candis, was a sophomore at NYU.
Anyway, on this occasion, because I had to travel to New York on business, I told Candis that I made arrangements with my old friend Rick Moranis to have dinner with us.

Rick and I used to work together at CFTR in Toronto during the early ’70s, and he hadn’t seen Candis since she was just a little girl so he was anxious to see how she turned out.
Candis, who was also excited about dinner, begged me to let her boyfriend Luigi come along because, as she said, Rick was his favorite actor.

When I agreed, and she told Luigi that he’d be dining with Rick Moranis that evening, he didn’t believe her.
Then, when she told him that Rick and I were old friends, he just laughed and said, “Yeah, right, your dad knows everybody., doesn’t he?”

The weather was perfect when I arrived in New York, so when Rick met me at my hotel, we decided to walk to the restaurant.
As we strolled along catching up, Rick was so unpretentious that he never seemed to notice the folks doing double-takes when they passed us by.

Upon our arrival at the restaurant, we discovered that Candis and Luigi were already seated.
Then, when Rick gave Candis a big hug, Luigi’s jaw dropped to the floor.

Candis told me later that until the moment we walked through the door, Luigi was still trying to figure out what the prank was.

What an unforgettable evening. Rick entertained us with all the inside stories about the making of Ghost Busters, Little Shop Of Horrors, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Space Balls, My Blue Heaven, and countless others he’d been in.

He claimed that the magic of Ghost Busters came from the nervous energy that was on the set each day.
Like him, most of the folks in the movie were writers, which meant that you never knew what was about to come at you as the cameras began to roll.

During the filming of Little Shop of Horrors, Rick said it took five people pulling on ropes to make the plant look alive.
However, because they couldn’t pull them fast enough, they’d have to double the playback speed, meaning Rick would have to move his mouth at half speed.

When I asked how he managed to do that and act too, he said it was easy; they just put a guy on the other side of the camera to help me out.
“What did he do,” I asked, and Rick responded, “He held up my paycheck.”

We talked a lot about movies, but we did get to reminisce a little about when we worked together at CFTR in Toronto.
While talking about our days in Toronto, Rick graciously told Candis that I was the person responsible for him being in show business.

“When your dad put me on the radio for a weekend all niter,” he said “I knew right then that I had no choice but to pursue a career in show business.”
“The next day,” he said, “I quit Medical School, and here we are.”

Chet Tart: Thank You for helping me see the real imagination and influence of radio, from the first letter you forgot you wrote to me, to the days I spent with you in San Diego at KOGO, to the days at WRMF where we ruled every rating book.  Now, it’s the Happy Hour conversations. Thanks for the journey, George! (Help!)
Geo: What a ride, huh, Chet?