The Phantoms loved to party
but we did it too much
We’d lost our focus
and were out of touch.

Had to do something
before it was too late
Maybe a name change
would alter our fate

However, before any of that, I was still living at home.
And even though I made money playing with The Phantoms, my Father said, “Son, the Johns men don’t play guitar for a living; we work.”

I could never find any work I liked so my Dad found most of my jobs because he didn’t care if I liked the work.
This resulted in my being involved in various industries, which included my becoming the Assistant Manager of a bowling alley.

Now what made this endeavor so unusual was that I didn’t know anything about bowling.
So, one day when I spotted a brand new bowling alley going up, I decided to see how far my assistant manager’s title would take me and applied for the GM’s job.

The place was called Chateau Lanes, and what made it appealing to me was that it was also going to have a pool room.
As I said, I didn’t know squat about bowling, but pool I knew after having been educated at a poolroom on my way home from school every day.

My interview with the brass went very well, but they said that before they could consider me, I needed to be a certified bowling instructor.
So it’s off to bowling school I go, where I crush the course and got my certification. (see below and on top)
Unfortunately, because the building wasn’t finished, it would be a while before I knew if I got the job or not.
I wasn’t hurting for money, and because my folks were now off my back about finding a job, I was loving life.

One of the things I learned early on was fame usually leads to fortune.
So with that in mind, I’d always suggest to whoever booked my band that they should also hire a dee-jay from CKY to MC.

Their doing so resulted in our getting an enormous amount of publicity which in turn also made the event much bigger.
The dee-jays would kick the evening off by throwing out a bunch of records, and then after introducing us, they’d be gone before we finished our first tune. Every Monday, I’d deliver the Dee-Jays their appearance money, and on this particular life-changing Monday, I was at CKY to give Mark Parr his. (Mark pictured above)
When I arrived at the station, Embree McDermid, who was at the front desk, told me that Mark was waiting for me in the FM studio.

Mark was reluctantly filling in for the FM board op, and when I got in there, he asked if I’d ever run a radio board.
When I told him no, he sat me in the chair and showed me how it all worked.

It seemed simple enough and was going quite well until he spotted Deno Corrie in the production studio and said, “I’ll be right back.”
Can you spell P-A-N-I-C?  Everything started running at once.

I was frantically waving at Mark in the other studio, who was too busy yucking it up with Deno to notice.
To make matters worse, several “suits” entered the studio.

I was told later that one of them was the owner, Lloyd Moffit, who was showing off his brand new 360,000-watt radio station to all his cronies.
Hey, I bet he would have freaked out had he known that the kid piloting his new flame thrower only had about ten minutes of radio experience.

When they finally left, I took a deep breath and began sorting things out, and by the time Mark got back, all was under control, and all he had to say to me was, “See, I knew you wouldn’t have any problems kid; you’re a natural.”

I’m forever grateful to Mark because soon after that, he pestered everybody until they finally hired me part-time.
It didn’t pay diddly, but I didn’t care because I loved it but had no idea that I’d be doing this for the rest of my life. As excited as I was about getting into radio, it wasn’t at all exciting to my Mom.
She cried when she overheard me on the phone telling the Chateau Lanes owners, “Thanks, but no thanks, I’m a radio guy now.” (Me pictured below at CKY-FM)