FIRST DON'T PAY

I like to reminisce. I'm at an age and a stage of life where “looking back” can literally provide hours of entertainment but, I'm careful not to spend TOO much time in the past because.......well, you know what they say about your life flashing before your eyes. I don't want to give the guy in the dark cloak with the sickle too much ammunition. Over the course of my career, which spanned nearly a half century, I was involved in a number of “firsts,” none of which paid as well as they did for numbers two and beyond. Of course, doing something that had yet to be done was extremely satisfying and perfecting it so that someone else could come along and parlay it while I looked for another project to give away, always warmed the cockles but, honestly, who the hell needs warm cockles. I actually prefer my cockles a little on the chilled side. Maybe that's just me. In the mid 1970's, I was working as a disc jockey on what was then, the #2 rock station in Philadelphia, WYSP. Up until that time, morning shows, as well as pretty much all dayparts on FM stations, were whispered. It just sounded cool and laid back and made the DJ sound more like a musicologist. AM radio was king in those days. It had the credibility and massive listenership of it's longevity and FM was new and untested. A bastard stepchild where those who couldn't get jobs on the AM big boys went. That was where all the decent programming and the money were. There was quite a bit of experimentation on FM radio back then. We were all vying for the same ratings as the AM giants but we knew that our audiences would be appreciably smaller and, quite probably, stoned. I had gotten the job at WYSP because the powers that be at the FM station where I was at the time had told me, in no uncertain terms, that the insulting salary they were paying me was all I would ever see there. I made a couple of phone calls to program directors in town. One to the biggest AM player and the other to a struggling FM station that played the music I liked. I never heard from the AM station but the program director of the little FM, Sonny Fox, called back and told me to come by. After our initial interview, which consisted of smoking a joint while going for a ride in his Corvette, I was the new morning man at WYSP.....at a salary that wasn't much better than where I had been but there was room for growth and that, in itself, was a refreshing change, not to mention, the music was a hell of a lot better Sonny understood the nature of our uphill battle and was not averse to trying new things. That became evident the morning he called me into his office after my show and asked a simple question that changed my career and, subsequently, my life, “Have you ever heard of Bob & Ray?” My mouth hit the floor. I loved Bob & Ray and everything they were about. I had listened to the AM radio comedy duo for years on everything from Boston Radio to New York radio to NBC's Monitor and, eventually, Piels Beer commercials. They were heroes and I would have killed to do what they were doing. Fortunately, no-one had to die that day......all I had to do was answer, “Let's do it!” We created a form of theater of the mind that just wasn't being done on the FM airwaves We wrote comedy bits, brought in a cast of characters and became the first comedy morning team in rock & roll radio taking our little wannabe FM station to the top of Philadelphia's ratings. We have since been referred to as the “precursor to the morning zoo format,” which, of course, made a lot of cash for a lot of people. The Fox & Leonard Morning Show only lasted about 4 years and we had a lot of fun......but, nobody ever showed US the money. After my stint at WYSP, I moved on to WLS in Chicago where I was, once again, relegated to the position of disc jockey, reading image liners and “playin' the hits.” After 2 years or so, I moved on to WEFM to do a morning show playing beautiful music because it paid the bills. One day I received a call from a young programmer in Canada, but originally from Philly, named Robert G. Hall. Robert was familiar with Fox & Leonard and was calling to tell me about an experimental project that he was involved with. It was a satellite delivered radio network that would provide 24 hour formats for small and medium markets from coast to coast and beyond. It was a very ambitious venture. There had been a few individual shows sent to stations this way but never programming that ran 24 – 7. I was being offered the morning show on the adult contemporary format and my timing and placement couldn't have been better. The network had to broadcast from the south suburbs of Chicago because WGN had its satellite uplink there and, as the technology of the times dictated, it was the only place in the country we could broadcast from. I just happened to live there and hated my job, so my answer, even with the mediocre pay they could afford, was an unqualified, “When do we start?” We physically built the studios ourselves in a strip mall in Mokena, Ill., a suburb about 30 miles south west of Chicago and about 4 miles from my house. We dubbed all the music from vinyl onto carts and, on Oct. 1, 1981, I became the first person to turn on a microphone on the Satellite Music Network. We started with two formats and two affiliates and never knew, from week to week, whether the checks would bounce. We struggled through all kinds of issues and would often have to brainstorm to come up with solutions to problems that had never before existed. Before long, we became a success, added formats and were, eventually, were sold to ABC. We were now the ABC Radio Network and growing in leaps and bounds, trying to fend off the the other companies that were trying to knock this upstart off it's throne. That gave way to the Clear Channels and Cumuluses that would come along and monopolize the radio business so that people like Howard Stern and Ryan Seacrest could make obscene amounts of money off the ideas that we had implemented, fine tuned and ran on a shoestring. You're welcome! I stayed with the network for 25 years but never saw the kind of cash that became the norm for a select few. During my time at ABC, I was approached with another new idea that I found to be exciting and a good prospect to finally “cash in.” The network had worked out a deal with the Peoples Republic of China wherein we would provide a daily, one hour show for Radio Shanghai called “The American Music Hour.” I figured that, if this took off, the sky was, conceivably, the limit. The week was divided into formats and specialty shows, providing one hour of different programming each day. Mine was the very first show recorded and, soon, I was given 2 slots per week. One was a “pop music” format which highlighted the biggest pop hits of the week and, for the other, I designed a show that would spend an hour each week spotlighting one particular artist. The shows were a huge success. The loved us in China and, before we knew it, we had expanded to 3 more markets in different provinces giving us a potential audience of about a billion listeners a day. That is probably a slight exaggeration, but not by much. I did the show for 7 years. “Could this finally be my goldmine?” I thought, assuming that such a massive audience had to be worth at least a small stipend. That was about the time that the fine folks who ran the The Peoples Republic decided they didn't feel like paying ABC for the programming any longer and the plug was pulled. Another one bites the dust. After I left ABC I was involved in a couple of more “firsts.” One was an IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) company that was so small and run by criminals and really doesn't deserve much of a mention, so, I will only say that I was once again the first. As it turns out, in that particular venture, I was also the last. Unless you count the owner who was eventually found in the Turks and Caicos Islands and extradited back to the jail where he is now spending his days.....and nights. Not only was there no money in that little sidetrack but for the last 8 weeks, I worked for free. That didn't seem to be the direction I should have been going at that point in my career. It wasn't long before I retired and was able to do so with the knowledge that I was instrumental in a lot of changes in the industry by virtue of being the first in any number of projects that were revolutionary in concept and paid nothing, paving the way for many talented folks to make “the big bucks.” Too bad you can't eat satisfaction. I have now embarked on a new first, at least for me.....blogging. I like to write and I hope people enjoy what they read as I still hold on to the hope that I can find a dollar or two in the written word. So, how's that working for me? Well, as I sit here in the process of filing for bankruptcy, one question comes immediately to mind - “Anybody wanna buy a blog?”