Chapter LVII (I Started A Joke) 2/20/23 (57)

Download PDF

Living in Florida
and doing well
As WRMF continued
to give ’em all hell.

Over the years, I’ve had the honor of working with some incredible talent.
Jeff n’ Jer, Martin Milner, Rick Moranis, Jim Harper, Shotgun Tom, Don Bleu, Delilah, Jack McCoy, Craig Walker, Earl Mann, Jimmy Darin, The Magic Christian, Fred Heckman, Ron Chapman, Cris Conner, Chuck Riley, Bob Christy, Brent Farris, Cat Simon, Jo Jo Kincaid, Tom Lewis, Loren & Wally, Bill Gardner, Robert Murphy, Lou Palmer, Paul Page, Chuck Knapp, Ken LeMann, Buster Bodine, Reid Reker, Tom Cochran, Doc Harris, Bruce Murdock, Roger Klein, Daryl ‘B,’ Ken Singer, Cat Simon, Stirling Faux, Gary Russell, Keith Elshaw, Greg Tantum, Woody Cooper, and Sandy Hoyt, to name just a few.
Oh, and did I mention that most of them are in the Radio Hall Of Fame?

However, even though I only worked with her for a short time at WRMF in South Florida, one of my all-time favorites was Jo Myers. (Jo pictured above)
Unfortunately, Jo had a book brewing inside her called “Good To Go,” and before long, she was gone.

As I’ve said in earlier chapters, I left San Diego in the early ’90s to do a project in Boston that took much longer than expected.
When Hilliard finally sold WVBF in the mid-’90s, I had fallen in love with a psychotherapist from West Palm Beach, so I moved to South Florida.

Jo, whom we hired out of Denver to be a co-host of the morning on WRMF, is one of those rare individuals who seems to always end up in the middle of the strangest goings-on.
I’m not sure if Jo enjoys having all that weirdness around her, but her descriptions about it are hilarious, and they make great radio.

We planned to team her up with a straight man whose job it was to ask her what she did last night and then get the hell out of the way.
We thought that we’d found the perfect guy, but somewhere between our hiring him and his arrival at the station, he decided that he wanted to be the funny one. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t funny.

Jim and I loved Jo’s act so much that we broke our “Cardinal Rule,” “You can do anything you want on the radio except live with your mistakes.”
Oh, and you also can’t force chemistry either, but sadly, we kept on trying anyway.

Jo came to Florida ahead of her family so she could find the perfect neighborhood.
Her being here alone gave us time to have dinner now and then, where we’d discuss how we wanted the morning show to go.

Our concept was the age-old premise of man versus woman, except we were going to use humor to exploit it.
Eating dinner in Palm Beach one evening, I told her I had a joke that exemplified the difference between men and women.

“Men,” I said, “All Laugh at this joke, whereas women don’t even smile.
Jo claimed that she’d probably laugh because she wasn’t very feminine.

At the joke’s end, Jo proved to be a lot more girly than she thought because not only didn’t she smile she said, “George, not only is that joke not funny, it’s stupid.”
When I claimed that had she been a guy, she’d be on the floor howling; she claimed that her husband John would never laugh at a joke; it was too juvenile.

“Ok,” I said, “When husband John gets here, let’s all go out for dinner, and if he doesn’t laugh at my joke, dinner’s on me but dinners on you if he does.”

About a month later, when John finally showed up, the three of us went for dinner at Chuck & Harold’s in Palm Beach.
I loved Chuck and Harolds because it was very casual in an elegant sort of way, and they even had a live Trio playing light jazz.

At some point, Jo excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, and while sitting there chatting with John, I was surprised to hear that they’d had added a torch singer to the trio.
The singer was not only excellent, but she was also naughty because she was singing a very adult version of “Making Whoopee.”

When I turned to watch, I was shocked to discover that the singer was Jo.
Not only was she singing seductively, but she was also slithering sensuously all over the top of the grand piano.

When I asked John if he was aware that his wife was the one doing the singing, he said, “I don’t pay any attention to it because it only encourages her.”
When Jo returned to the table, I asked her if this would be an appropriate time to share my special joke with John? She just laughed and said she’d forgotten all about my silly joke and that I should just go for it.

So John, I say, “A guy goes into the Doctor’s office, and after giving receptionist his name she tells him that the Doctor’s expecting him so he should go right in.
While seated in one of the small examination rooms, the Doctor came in wearing a worried look.

Ok, he says, “I’ve got some good news, and I’ve got some bad news; which would you like first?”
When the guy asks for the bad news, the Doctor tells him he has a rare, incurable disease, which means he needs to get his affairs in order as quickly as possible.

Shocked, the guy mumbles something about needing to get another opinion.
“Absolutely,” the Doctor says, but “Know this, I’ve probably taken your case to most of the specialists in town, and they all agree that your time is almost up.

The guy, shaking his head in disbelief, finally asks, “What the hell is the good news, Doc?”
He replied, “When you checked in, did you notice how beautiful the blonde with big tits who sits out front was?” When the guy nods yes, the Doctor proudly says, “I’m fucking her!”

Just as I expected, John exploded with laughter, and Jo looked at him with disgust.
Later, while sharing a dessert, John breaks out laughing again and when Jo asks him what the hell he’s laughing at now? He says, “I was just thinking about George’s joke again, and I’m thinkin’ he may still be on the couch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *