DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF CLOWNS

Robert Ira Brettschneider just wasn't a good name for a disc jockey in the late 60's when I began my career. No better than it is today. I thought it might have worked if I was a newsman back then. Kind of like Irving R. Levine or Jim Miklaszewski, “R. Ira Brettschneider, CBS News” would have worked but “It's Bobby Brettschneider playin' the hits”......not so much. Finding the right air name often takes no more creativity than having a program director who wants another “Johnny Dark” or “Charlie Brown” to take the place of the one they just “let go due to creative differences” without having to go to the expense of recording new jingles. I had to find a name that meant something to me and would define me as a personality. The first name I tried was “Bob Tracy” because, when I was home from basic training in 1966, I visited a new Rhythm & Blues station in my home town, Hartford, and was greeted warmly and shown a few “ropes” by their new DJ, Don Tracy, who left a few years later for a great career in Los Angeles. It worked for my first real radio job, which was a sign off shift at a small station in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where my job was to babysit long tapes of muzak and turn the transmitter off after the "sign off" at midnight. The "sign off" was easy. All I had to do was read the “This concludes another broadcast day.....” speech, turn out the lights and lock up. It was the best part of my day because I got to turn on the microphone and spend about 12 seconds as..........a radio announcer. “Tracy” served the purpose but just didn't feel very comfortable. Since my next radio job took me to San Juan, Puerto Rico, I decided to try a name that fit the situation. Once again, Brettschneider was off the table and I became Bob Santiago. For a couple of years, all went well, but the nature of radio being what it was at the time, it wasn't long before I was out of a job, back on the mainland and looking for work. Once I found a job, at a tiny station in Newington, Connectibut that played polkas in the morning, Spanish music in the midday and me in the afternoon. The polkas returned to end the broadcast day. I had the job......I needed a name. I have always considered myself a student of comedy, having been weaned on movies by the likes of The Marx Brothers, The Bowery Boys and Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis. My parents collected records and had a lot of great comedy. Everything from 78's by Sam Levinson to the LP's of Bob Newhart, Jonathan Winters and Lenny Bruce. I loved it all but I really perked up when I heard Lenny making the type of social commentary that I was so drawn to as a teen and young adult in the turbulent sixties and early seventies. I began to listen to Lenny's contemporaries like Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory and Lord Buckley and they were powerful but nobody spoke to my soul like Lenny Bruce. I listened to his material so much that I knew it word for word. “Christ and Moses,” “Pissing in the Sink,” “Thank You, Masked Man,” - comedy routines that inspired most of the great minds to follow. George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Sam Kinnison, Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, Lewis Black and Louis C.K. To name a very few. Comics with a dark side. Those who aren't afraid to ruffle a few feathers to make a socially relevant point. It was a comic darkness that I felt a kinship with and it seemed to fit my attitude and the idea of the radio personality that I wanted to be. I decided to call myself: Bob Leonard. The name served me very well for almost a half a century and gave me the inspiration and confidence to write and say a lot of what I wrote and said on the air over the years. It shaped my ideas and helped to define the personality I became, on the air and off. It took me to #1 in Philadelphia and Chicago and to 25 years in syndication around the world. I am not unhappy with the outcome, never imagining that such dark humor could spawn such a bright career. No good career defining move, like taking on a permanent air name, is complete without a healthy dose of irony. About two years ago, my mom told me that they weren't, originally, planning to name me Robert. They had a favorite relative that they wanted to name me for but, in their Jewish faith, they had to name me for someone who had died and this guy was still alive. His name was--------Leonard. Thank goodness that didn't happen. If everything had stayed the same I would have been "Lenny Leonard." Too Loungy!