Straight From the Mouth

Forgive the question, but since your life is an open book, did any of this lend itself to your two failed marriages?

Well, I am still asking my accountant. Also, because I talked about my two failed marriages on the air, I want to know if I can deduct the amount of money I have to give them. So far he's saying no but I'm gonna figure out a way to work that in there.

In all seriousness, did radio play a role in your marriage problems?

Oh yeah, without a doubt.

Did talking about your relationships on the radio make matters worse?

Yeah, because I pretty much would share anything and everything. It's kind of funny when you asked me before we started if there's anything you didn't want to discuss, I don't know if I have ever said something was off the record in my entire life and maybe that's what's gotten me in trouble. We had a fight, I'd take the fight on the air, the fight wasn't resolved, I didn't care. If it compromised some families confidentiality that's pretty compelling radio.

Would you like to get married again? Would number 3 get a morning guy handbook first?

Radio has got to come first because radio is my only true love, well I shouldn't say that. Radio is the one love that hasn't screwed me over. Would I get married again? Maybe.

Were any of your past relationships with radio people?

Oh yeah. I've tried just about everything. Maybe that's the problem. Both of my ex-wives were former radio people. One was a talk show producer on the sister AM station and she ended up leaving me for a fifty-seven year old fat Italian guy that owned a bunch of adult bookstores. So that was one and then

Can we print that?

Yeah you can print that, again there is really nothing off the record.

Because of your past problems with radio people will you think twice before hitting on the new intern?

No, no I have a girlfriend right now and we've been together for two years and she has absolutely nothing to do with radio.

Have you ever been involved with anybody on a show?

Oh no. Of all the people I have worked with, those are the last people in the world I'd ever want to see with their clothes off.

When you're driving around and come up with an idea for the show, how do take notes? Scratch pad, Palm Pilot, your own palm?

Yes, yes, yes, I have a Palm Pilot, I got a pen, I got post-its, I write on the back of receipts, yeah I am constantly writing an jotting things down at all times. That's the secret, you need to do it right there and then when you are thinking about it not saying to yourself that that's good, I need to remember to talk about this so you have to write it down right there and write down as much as you can that you remember about what initiated that thought starter or what made you think that hey this could be good up here.

How much of your show is just about stuff that you think about?

I believe a show has to have balance because obviously what goes through my mind isn't relatable or necessarily entertaining to everybody but I'd say about seventy percent of the show is stuff that I either observe or have had happen to me or just things that I believe in.

If I put all of your former PD's in a room and asked them to put together a summary of you, what would they tell me? difficult to please, perfectionist, and wound as tight as a golf ball.

Would they say you work well with others?

Yeah, as long as they are not lazy.

Who is your current partner?

Jennifer Ross.

She has been in West Palm quite a while right?

Lets just say she is a market legend. It's amazing how many people this woman knows. She really could run for Mayor of West Palm Beach and would win in a landslide.

What does she think of you so far?

Well, she was with Kevin Kitchens for quite some time and as you remember he passed away, had a heart attack and died at the age of 39. People still talk about Kevin to this day and they always will in this market. She said to me, and I find this to be such a compliment, she said it the first day on the air that she looks at me as a gift above from Kevin and that to me is the biggest compliment she could give me. We clicked together and the other thing is that you can't create chemistry. That is the biggest mistake PD's make. Some think that hey, "We'll save some money and we'll bring someone in cheap and we'll just throw them in together and we'll make it work." No that doesn't work. A morning show in my mind is like a marriage and for the marriage to work there has got to be that chemistry, listeners aren't stupid they'll see through it.

When you are a guy coming into a situation where there is an existing female co-host, who has it more difficult, you or them?

What a great question. I think it all depends on how strong and how talented the female is. If the female is and has always been in a submissive role then I think that she will have the harder task at hand because she will feel that she is being walked on or thrown in the corner but in way that's pretty much her own fault because she doesn't have to be that way. She doesn't have to take on that role if she doesn't feel comfortable. I think in my situation, when I came down here, for the first time in my career I had to just pull back on that launch. We couldn't do a typical assault launch for many reasons. The listeners had to understand that the listeners liked me and that Jennifer had given her blessing that I am part of the show. It's just like anything, you don't walk into a room full of people you don't know and start telling dirty jokes, you know what I mean?

Is this the first time you have ever done radio with your mother in the audience?

Yeah absolutely.

Do you ever think of that before jumping into an edgy subject?

No because you can't worry about that. If you talk about things that people are afraid to talk about, that will get people talking.

In this month's issue of Thought Starters, you mention that the thing you have to do is never ever throw away any of your thought starters. How many thought starters do you actually have?

I have three-ring binders that are all arranged. I probably have fifteen of them filled.

Do you have them on a computer or are they still on paper?

A little bit of both. I could find out what I was thinking about in May of 1990 when I was working in Oklahoma city. It is interesting because it shows you how you have grown not only as a person but as an air personality as well.

How have you grown most notably?

We over-think everything in life and I think the big problem with research is that it over-researched everthing that applies to morning radio. Fifteen years ago we were told how to be morning disc jockeys and you know, "Oh there's a knock at the door, it's Barney Fife," he does his three jokes then he's out the door, slams it and that's how we were told to do morning radio.

What has been your longest ongoing debate with programming as it relates to being a morning personality?

Let me preface this by saying no matter what someone believes, you have to respect their opinion. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to agree with it. I don't see the value in music in the morning show, I just don't. There are PD's out there that believe you have to have that one record in per that quarter hour and just think that is ridiculous.

Do you play any records now?

We may play two, possibly four an hour, four max. And I understand the reasoning for it because it is not going to be that way much longer we are going to reach a point where there isn't any music at all up until 9'o clock but you can't shock the audience, you have to slowly ease them out of it. But no there is no reason to have music during the morning show, none whatsoever unless the morning show isn't talented.

Do you like when people go over airchecks with you?

There are consultants out there that come from a basis of knowledge. Guys like Steve Davis, Randy Lane, Steve Reynolds, these are guys that can come in and really fine tune and really help your show. There are others, without naming names, that basically have 37 ideas on how to f*ck but can't get laid. It depends on the person that is doing the critique.

From the class of 37 ways... what's the dumbest thing anyone ever told you?

"People don't want to hear about sex on the radio. People don't want to hear about sex in relationships." That is what someone actually mentioned to me. This was the beginning of the end of my tenure at that station.

Given the new possibility of saying something wrong on the air and being slapped with a 275k fine, how has the impacted the way you do business?

None at all. This is something that I have never worried about only because I have never blatantly been the dirty guy. I think it takes a lot more creativity to use innuendo and I think it is a lot more entertaining and I have always done it that way where the people that know will know and the people that shouldn't know won't be able to figure it out.

If you had 5 minutes alone with Michael Powell, what would you tell him?

All this over a nipple that was shown for one second and Nelly ran around for three minutes grabbing his junk? I don't get it.

One of the FCC Commissioners had said, and I'm paraphrasing, that the vagueness of FCC guidelines is a good thing. By making it vague, it allows room to argue. Do you agree with that?

Oh absolutely. Anything that becomes more defined as far as black and white only seems to be taking away more of our freedom and liberty so I think when the government is concerned, grey area it is just lipstick.

What did you think of Mancow actually suing someone that has been on his case?

Mancow is and always has been a marketing genius. There is someone who has the ability to take a negative and turn it into a positive. He makes lemons out of lemonade all the time.

As the master thought starter, which of them would rank as some of your all time best?

The one that has always worked very well for me is "Where you sat on the school bus as a kid pretty much determined your path in life."

Where did you sit?

I sat third row from the back because all your CEO's and your computer nerds and your stable people, those are the ones that sat directly behind the bus driver because they were usually in band and probably would have gotten beat up. We did this up in Cleveland and tested my theory and the people who sat in the back of the bus usually were habitual criminals, they end up with tattoos and smoke.

Let's talk about radio for a minute. Where do you see it going?

You can look at this as glass half empty or glass half full. I look at satellite radio as opportunity because with consolidation and all these big companies buying up these small stations, I will say that is all fine and good for the first five to ten years, but look at radio like a baseball team, like the major leagues. All of a sudden you have eliminated your farm teams and there are no play grounds for people to practice on. There is nobody coming up through the ranks so I think that it is a great time to be a great talent because you are going to be in need and people want to be entertained. It also could be the sh*ttiest time ever to be a sh*tty talent because there's no place for you.

Now that you live in Florida, is it possible that you could be the deciding vote in the 2004 election?

You know what, I don't have a candidate that I like. I have never felt this passionate about nothing.