THE PERCEPTION OF FAME

“Fame” is relative. It depends on who you ask, about whom and when. After nearly a half century on the air in various ways, shapes and incarnations. I am still referred to by the vast majority of those asked, as “Who?” “Fame” is also subjective. It too elicits a response of, “Who?” Funny how that works. Just as Art is in the eye of the beholder, fame is often found in the same place. Ones level of fame is directly related to the amount of fawning someone else wants to do. By virtue of the fact that I was fortunate enough to work at a few top tier radio stations in some pretty enormous markets (Philly, Chicago & Dallas - 3 of the top 5) and I got to spend 25 years doing a syndicated network morning show on 260 radio stations across the country and in the Caribbean, it was clearly evident that I possessed the sometimes supernatural ability to “be in the right place at the right time.” To ask me who was the most famous person I've ever met is a loaded question. I've had the good fortune to meet pretty much everybody and I can't narrow it down to one. I can, however, narrow the experiences down to a few of the most memorable and it's inevitable that I will leave some folks out. Let me give a few notable examples: I did a two-man morning show in Philly in the late 70's. My partner, Sonny Fox, was also the program director so he did his half of the show from his apartment, 6 miles away, via telephone line and then came into the radio station to direct programming. We were never together in the studio but we tried to create the image of us sitting right next to each other. Pure “Theater of the Mind.” One of the advantages was that, whenever we had a celebrity guest, they could bypass the nonsense of fans and staff following them around a radio station and just go to his apartment. One day were were interviewing and entertaining Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead who came into the apartment, walked through the living room to the bedroom where he emptied the underwear drawer onto the bed, poured in an ounce of weed and began separating the stems and seeds. We all smoked and, I assume, did the interview. I'm pretty sure it was fun. We had another interview set up for the opening of the movie “High Anxiety.” We were lucky enough to snag the writer, director, star. As I drove my little, yellow Karmann Ghia to Sonny's apartment, I couldn't help but notice a limousine tailgating me on the highway. I took the exit to the apartment and the limo followed suit. As I pulled into the apartment complex I tried to park my car only to have the limo speed up and pull in front of me and stop. The door opened and I saw someone get out and run towards my car. I too stopped and open my window to be greeted with a hand to shake and, “Bob Leonard! Hi......Mel Brooks, I'm a star!” We went inside and did one of the funniest and funnest interviews of my entire career. At the end of the interview, I said, “My dad is a huge fan and told me to give you a kiss for him. Jews kiss......c'mere.” He stuck out his face and “mugged” as I kissed him on the cheek and the photographer snapped. My dad kept that picture on his office wall until the day he died. The first time I met David Crosby was at Sonny's apartment. It was the late 70's and, as you might expect, we got high. The 2nd time I met him was while at the ABC Radio Network. We had both quit doing drugs by that time and we shared our experiences with quitting. The third time we met, we threw everyone else out of the room and just “shot the shit” for about an hour. It was a delightful chat. I liked David Crosby. There were others while I was in Philadelphia and Chicago doing “local” radio. Things picked up once we got the network (SMN/ABC) up, running and somewhat established. Since we were the first ones to broadcast our 24 hour programming by satellite, we had to prove ourselves and build a solid reputation. Others were trying to do what we did and we prevailed. We built a spotless reputation and, with the solid variety of formats, became a desired destination for any celeb going through Chicagoland. There were many who came through but a few stand out in my ever fading memory. Former President Jimmy Carter was my guest 3 times over the years. Once in person and twice on the phone. He always remembered my name and was always a joy to talk to. What you saw was what you got with Mr. Carter. He was about as genuine as you could find. A very nice man. Deepak Chopra was in the studio and having a great time but was due to call CNN for an interview. When I put on a record, he called CNN and told them he had to reschedule. He was having too much fun and decided to spend the entire hour with us. Mariah Carey was being interviewed by one of the other formats in the building, one morning, and I found out so I approached her road manager in the hallway to let him know that we played her music and that I'd like to chat with her. As he was explaining the intricacies of their schedule and reasoning why she couldn't do it, Mariah walked out of the studio and heard him. “I'll make time,” she said, looking at me and adding, “Do you have a studio?” There was a free production room where the two of us spent the next 40 minutes having an absolutely delightful conversation. One of my favorite interviews, however, wasn't even on the air. When I moved to Dallas, I joined the JCC (Jewish Community Center) which was near my apartment and had a great gym. Somebody found out I was with the media and asked if I would introduce a guest that was coming to speak to the membership. I said I'd be glad to and I was introduced to Dr. Carl Sagan. Carl and I talked for more than an hour and a half before the show and found that we had a lot in common. His family and my family both came from the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn (just buildings apart) and we both sang the praises of marijuana before it became fashionable and, quite logically, legal. He had “billions and billions” of great stories. Then, there was that day in 1977 when I got to ride, in a limo, to the premier of “Star Wars” with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. For its time.....What a movie! If I've learned anything at all from my celebrity encounters it's that people are, generally, the same. They are, with some notable exceptions, nice, down-to-earth people who are just doing their jobs and looking, like the rest of us, for some semblance of normalcy in a dog-eat-dog world. If you mention my name to any of the celebrities I've met over the years, they will have the same response. They will look you right in the eye and ask, “Who?” image

MY PROBLEM WITH CARS

I can state, pretty unequivocally, that every car I've ever owned has come with it's own set of problems. This sorry state of affairs began in 1966 when I bought my very first car. It was a light blue 1955 Oldsmobile with a huge black spot on the rear quarter panel on the passenger side. Upon careful inspection, it was obvious that it was electrical tape used to hide an enormous area that had fallen prey to body rot. It had been previously owned by a Sgt. Scarborough with whom I was stationed about 30 miles from Nashville and who was about to ship out for his first tour of duty in Vietnam. He offered to sell it to me for $75. It was an offer I couldn't refuse and, as I was about to learn, should never have taken. The car was a disaster from the word “go.” It broke down nearly every time I tried to drive it and I was forced to leave it on the side of the road nearly every other day. I had to get rid of it and I knew I would never recoup my $75 so, the last time it broke down and I had to hitchhike back to the base, I left it there. The last time I saw it, it was still on the side of the highway, the tires were gone and the engine had been ravaged for parts. It would have cost me a lot more to have it towed than I paid for it so, that's when I decided that enough was enough and I just left it there. Hitchhiking was easier and much more reliable. My first car had become my toughest lesson. A lesson I was reminded of on a daily basis as I caught rides to town and had to ride past it's deteriorating carcass. Having never been rich, I found myself relying on “used” cars whenever I was forced to be “in the market.” My reasoning being that it was “new” to me. Unfortunately, the semantics of justification never really worked. The cars all had problems. In the mid 70's, while once again looking for a decent car in my price range, I let the dealer talk me into a used Audi 5000. It was loaded with luxurious options from heated seats to power everything. The one thing that should have given me a clue was that it still had relatively few miles on it and was sitting in a used car lot. There was a reason it was there. The previous owner or owners apparently found out and got rid of it. The biggest issue with the Audi was that it was recalled for having a mind of it's own. We didn't pay a lot of attention to what we had heard or read....we liked the car so we bought it. The problems with the Audi were driven home on the day that it decided to drive itself into a corn field with my ex-wife behind the wheel. It took a tow truck with a long winch and about 2 hours to retrieve it so we could drive it to a dealer and get something else. Of course, whatever we drove out of the dealership was also used and eventually fell apart. By the early 90's, the marriage came to an end and she got the house and the car. Since I had always settled for used cars, I decided to treat myself to something new and exciting. I bought a red 240Z, drove it off the lot and made a stop at an appliance store on the way. When I came out, I saw a car leaving a parking space and running smack, dab into the side of my new “toy.” I couldn't even get it home before wrecking it. Fast forward to current day and my current vehicle. We moved to South Florida more than a dozen years ago and eventually landed less that a mile from the beach and ½ mile from a downtown area that I like to characterize as “Greenwich Village with palm trees.” Our car was old and was starting to fall apart so we bought our current car, new about 5 years ago. It has been through it's share of bumps, bruises and fender-benders but we've fixed it and have assured that we can keep it in great shape because we walk everywhere we go. In the5 years of owning this car we finally discovered the secret to keeping our car in good, running condition. We have nowhere to go. Problem solved!

DOWNSIZING A TRADITION

Any and all family tradition that I am capable of remembering goes only as far back as my great grandfather, Aaron......a man known and loved by my family as Zeide (Zay-da)........the family patriarch. The guy from whom we all took our cues when it came to life's negotiation. Aaron came to this land from Russia in 1905, bringing with him his wife, his 14 year old son (my grandfather) and enough friends (and their families) to run a farm and start a small Jewish community in Ellington, Connecticut, a land where the belief still held that Jews came complete with horns. A belief he was able to successfully counter by wearing a hat. A hat that, for the entire time I knew him, he never took off. Zeide was born in the Ukraine, in the rather large town of Ekaterinaslav, now known as Dnipropetrovsk. He was a woodsman about whom very little was known before he just sort of appeared, one day, at the lumber yard owned by the Levine family. Word had it that he wielded a pretty big ax, which was, apparently, enough to impress the young Eda, the woman who would become my great grandmother, Bubba. They wed, had a son and then, with as many of their brethren and sistren as they could round up, proceeded to escape the Tzar's pogroms, organized massacres of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe, and headed to the good ole' U.S. of A. to find some of that opportunity that had eluded them while they were busy fending off Cossacks swords, an activity they heard they could find some relief from in the new world. Oh......and he needed enough guys for a minyan - a quorum of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship. So, off they went to a new world where they could practice their traditional way of life without fear of persecution. This was the point in my family history where a tradition was born that lives on through me, my brother and, ideally, our children and our children's children. Zeide began preparing for the arduous journey, by himself, with very little money but big plans to find his Eden. A spot to bring his family and others to finally establish the safe and secure Jewish community that had always seemed so elusive except in their imaginations. Before he got on the boat, Aaron's father. Who would be my 2X great-grandfather, handed him whatever the Russian equivalent of our silver dollar was. He was told to keep it on his person for good luck and a safe journey but, when the trip was over, to pay it forward to someone else about to travel. Over the years, the coin became an actual silver dollar and morphed into a good luck gesture for traveling, medical procedures or any other precarious situation one might be facing with instructions that, once you come through whatever it was in one piece, you are to donate the money to charity. When I left for Vietnam, my mom gave me a silver dollar. When I came home and moved to Puerto Rico, my mom gave me a silver dollar. To the day she died, she cherished the role she had grown into and inherited by default: Family Matriarch. She always kept silver dollars nearby and dutifully kept the tradition alive. I'm the old guy now and I have to admit, I have not been anywhere near as diligent or mindful as my mother or, for that matter, any of my ancestors. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the tradition came to an end with my generation. It wasn't that I didn't want to continue but, honestly, when's the last time you saw a silver dollar? When I went into a bank, recently, and asked for a silver dollar, I had to explain to the teller what it was. My family tradition has become a study in obsolescence. I can't find any silver dollars. I don't even think they make half-dollar coins anymore. These days, the best I can do for someone about to face a perilous situation is to flip them a quarter and tell them to,”Have a nice trip.”

(FOOT)BALL OF CONFUSION

Never having been even close to fitting into the role of “good student,” I was completely taken aback when I actually got into a college upon wrapping up a less than mediocre high school performance. What could Waynesburg College have been thinking when I was accepted. It was a small Presbyterian run college in the corner of Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. There were 31 African Americans and 9 Jews on the campus and, in 1965, the 40 of us were barred from the “greeks” so, a lot of us hung out together. I like to tell people that we had our own fraternity/sorority called the GDI's, God Damn Independents, and everyone wanted to come to OUR parties but, we barred them. I don't remember much about the school except hating it immensely, hitchhiking to Pittsburgh a lot to listen to live jazz in the clubs in the culturally iconic Hill District instead of going to geology class and, of course, a few special people. I had a friend named Bo. We would go to the jazz clubs and drink sloe gin and ginger ale. Yeah......I know. I will never forget his philosophy of life. “Fuck it!” He would say, “When I was born, the doctor slapped me and I said – fuck it.” and “If at first you don't succeed – fuck it.” While riding with Bo one afternoon, I noticed that he was driving the wrong way down a one way street and I told him so. He responded with, “Fuck it – I AM going one way.” I couldn't argue with that logic and off we went. I don't know whatever happened to Bo. He's not on Facebook. There was a girl I was crazy about so I will allow her some anonymity. Her mother ran a boarding house for Pitt students and she had a boyfriend at another school. We became friends but I was always a little let down about that boyfriend at the other school. I found her on FB recently and she has done quite well. She became an attorney with a successful practice in Pittsburgh and had a wonderful marriage until her beloved husband passed a few years back. She is having a good life and that's really nice to know. One of my best friends was Dave Smith. At Christmas break, Dave and I went back east together and spent a little time at his mom's house in New York before I headed back to my folks place in Connecticut. I never went back to Waynesburg after that break and I lost track of Dave completely. I was trying to transfer to Uconn but got drafted. The Vietnam war was in full swing in 1966....I was gone. Dave played football for the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets and, as I found out not too long ago, went on to play pro ball. He was drafted by the Steelers as a wide receiver in 1970 and stayed with them until '72 when he went to Houston. He had a pretty impressive record of 109 receptions, 1,457 receiving yards and 7 touchdowns. Then after a year with Kansas city in 1973....HE was gone. Dave doesn't have a Facebook page so, I googled him. All I could find was his Wiki page which didn't tell me any more than I've just told you and some football cards on the images page. Oh wait, there was this one thing. I was taken to a site called - “The 50 Worst Screw-Ups in Sports History” and at number 46: “Dave Smith's Spike Heard 'round the World” - Few remember receiver Dave Smith for his three years of NFL service and 109 receptions. Most do remember him for his performance in the Oct. 18 Monday night game against the Chiefs in '71. After catching a pass from Terry Bradshaw, Smith ran for the end zone, ready to celebrate ferociously. But as he approached the pylon, Smith raised the ball and began to pump his arm losing the pigskin in the process. The rock continued rolling into the end zone. Touchback........ Career defined.” Dave Smith.....my friend.....college football star........potential pro football great........oops!

9 /11/01

Remember where YOU were on 9-11-2001? Of course you do. We always remember where we were and what we were doing during what seem, at the time, to be earth shattering events. Catastrophic weather, space shuttle disasters, assassinations and the like. I am very clear about days of note during my life time. The assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK and John Lennon, the Challenger explosion, the deaths of Elvis and Michael Jackson. Times in history that are etched in our memories in their magnitude and scope. 9-11, however, stands out for me as the all time worst day of my career. I have been on the air during a number of “bad days” and always made it through them with fairly little effort, and, so it appeared on that fateful day on 2001. The morning started normally. My partner at the time, Lori and I met in one of the production rooms an hour before the show to share the “prep” we had individually done and map out our “breaks” for that day. We didn't always follow the map, in fact, we rarely did, but, it was always nice to have a plan and we did this every morning. The show was going well that morning. We had done a couple of silly, preproduced “bits” and were preparing for a hearty game “Stump the Chumps” while “Today's Hits and Yesterday's Favorites” graced the virtual turntables and permeated the airwaves, when Lori went to the room we all referred to as the “Dead Break Lounge” for another cup of coffee. She never made it to that end of the hall. There was a TV between the beak room and the studio and she saw a plane hit a building. She ran back into the room to tell me what she had just seen and we went on the air with it. “It looks like a small plane has accidentally flown into one of the World Trade Center towers,” we reported, adding, “As soon as we have more information, we'll bring it to you.” Next song. And then............it all hit the fan. Once second plane hit the WTC, everyone began to realize what was happening. We were watching chaos unfold in front of our eyes and we weren't sure what to do. Obviously, the first thing was to suspend all the music and try to explain something that we didn't understand any more than those listening. We became a “clearing house” for all the info we were getting from other sources and as we attempted to disseminate what were seeing on the TV in the hall, people began to call in droves. We were inundated with emotion and opinion and realized that, perhaps we should try to, at least, serve as the voice of some semblance of reason. We tried to calm fears and explain, to the best of our ability, what we knew. It wasn't very much. At one point, I said, “I have been doing radio for many years and for the first time in my career, I can't think of anything to say.” I was at a complete loss for words. It was pretty unprofessional, but, it was also a very real moment. Shortly before our shift ended, the decision was made to switch all programming over to our parent company, ABC, whose capable news team took over the task of explaining the unexplainable to listeners who wanted answers. Our shows for the remainder of the week were music free and we continued taking phone calls, giving the listeners an outlet to vent and discuss. Each morning, for 5 hours, we handled call after call after call while, as I stated earlier, trying to be the best “voice of reason” we could possibly be. I went home after our show on Friday, proud of the way we had handled a very intense and tough week. I was proud of our professionalism in the face of disaster and I held my head high. Until I got into bed to take my daily nap. That's when the magnitude of what had happened over the prior week hit my like a brick. We had been in the same position as every other American. We were angry and confused and had been a sounding board for all of our listeners for days, absorbing all their anxiety and emotion. I curled up into the fetal position and began to sob. And that's where and how I spent the entire weekend. I finally stopped crying on Sunday night and was able to return to the air on Monday, but, by that point, the world as we knew it had changed forever.

IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE, IT'S...POP

MY dad, despite being born in a rough section of Brooklyn at the dawn of the depression, was the kindest, most even tempered human being I've ever known. And I've been all over this country and to a few pretty nifty foreign locales. I've met a lot of different folk but my dad will always sit firmly at the top of my list of “who I wanna be when I grow up.” Let me give you an example of the kind of person I observed as a young idiot trying to figure out life: My dad was a furniture salesman and a very good one. When he came home from WW11 he got a job at a stationary and office supplies store in Hartford,Ct. called Plimptons. He was there for more than a decade and after he had established himself as a top salesman, the store sold to Litton industries. Suddenly, dad was jobless with a family of 4 to support. He never changed his daily routine, though. He would wake up at 7am, shower, put on a shirt and tie and walk across the room to pick up the phone and “go to work.” He made looking for gainful employment his full time job. He did this for a few month until he realized that he had built quite a nice reputation with furniture manufacturers, so he decided to try and become an independent manufacturers rep which he parlayed into a nice business with showrooms in New York, Chicago, Hartford and Boston. It was during this time of rebuilding his life that he was shopping for a new suit at his favorite men's clothing store in Hartford. While he was looking at shirts, he spotted an old associate from Plimptons who had lost his job the same time as my dad but had not been as fortunate in the aftermath. He was still looking for work and wanted to dress appropriately. My dad was aware of his situation and saw him looking at a $100 sport coat. Somehow, my dad knew the guy only had $50 so, he pulled the salesman aside, slipped him two 20's and a 10 and said, “Tell him the coat costs $50” and then went back to looking at shirts. I tell this lovely story to show just what kind of man my dad was. This was not an isolated incident. This was how he treated everybody on a daily basis which became quite evident when too many people came to his retirement party. The room was filled to overflowing and the fire marshal had to be called. People liked him......a lot. I'm not sure anyone ever saw my dad lose his temper. For a guy who was brought up in tough surroundings, he was a lamb. For a guy who ate spaghetti with tomato sauce made from ketchup and hot water (a little more water if you wanted soup), he always understood the importance of keeping nourishing food on the table. He gave us a great life. Of course, I can say all of that now. I'm a grandfather and he's been gone for about 22 years but I didn't always know how I truly felt. That came with time. I was very rebellious and a pretty snotty and annoying teenager. On this particular Saturday, I was being my typical obnoxious self, bugging my mother for something I wanted and didn't need. She, of course, was trying to explain her reasoning when I mumbled something to the effect of, “Geez, why do you have to be such a bitch.” That was the first and only time I ever saw my dad fly. Fists balled up like Superman from the comic books, he took off from mid hallway and soared like an exquisite bird across my entire room, landing on top of me, accentuating each swing with a new word: “Don't.....you.......ever......call.....your.......mother.......that......again.” Chivalry was not dead that day but I was about as close as I'd ever been. My dad then walked into the other room, sat in front of the TV and put on the ball game, satisfied that he had let me know right from wrong in no uncertain terms. He was confident that the lesson I was taught that day would last me a lifetime. It did. I never called my mom (or any woman) a “bitch” again.....ever! And I never saw my dad fly again. But that day, I watched him glide with the grace of a swan. It was a lovely flight but the landing hurt like hell.

WHEN IN DOUBT - ACCESSORIZE

I have to admit that, as a fashion maven, I'm a bit of a bust. In fact, I'd say my finger missed the pulse of fashionability by about a mile and a half. I wear shorts, sandals and tank tops. Every day. I own 3 pair of sandals, 5 pair of shorts and a passel of tank tops with a few t-shirts with sleeves thrown in for our “cold' days. I have stopped cutting my hair and I shave on occasion. I own no socks. Being retired in South Florida, I almost feel an obligation to slovenliness. Before I retired, I had a 50 year career where I lived in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. It was radio not TV. Not that much has changed since. My pants got shorter and I lost the socks. One important aspect of the sartorial arts has, however, not escaped me. For as far back as I can remember, which is about 2 or 3 years old with the exception of a huge gap of time in the 60's and 70's, I have been obsessed with accessories. Let me clarify that. I don't do a lot of jewelry. No plethora of rings and bracelets, no piercings, no antique brooches......I wear a wedding ring (that I got from a pawn shop for $50) and a wristwatch. But I must have, at least a dozen watches. I love watches. I have one Rolex which my daughter bought for me in Switzerland for $35 dollars. Nothing like a good knockoff from the land where they were “born.” It seems so real that it got a compliment from the guy who runs a local jewelry store. I once had a real one, years ago, that didn't look as good. I sold it, also years ago, between jobs to pay the rent. My daily watch is a very nice Fossil with Roman numerals. It's quite a handsome, everyday watch. I have a box full of watches with no bands, no batteries and even one with no hands because they fell off and are sitting at the bottom of the case. I have my grandfather's Bulova from the 1940's and, no, I won't be throwing any of them out. I am obsessed with watches. For some odd reason, I am also obsessed with eye glasses. I have been wearing them since 4th grade when it was, mistakenly determined that my poor grade performance was a direct correlation to my inability to see anything that was put in front of me. They were right......and wrong. I needed the glasses but the boredom with the schoolwork had set in long before the revelation of blindness. As the years wore on, my eyes got progressively worse and by the time I hit high school, I was already semi-fondly being referred to as “Four Eyes.” If I was going to wear them all the time, I wanted them to look decent. I grew as fond of eyeglasses as I had already become of wrist watches. I am obsessed with glasses. My obsessions with watches and glasses pale, by comparison, to the way I feel about hats. That all began when I was just shy of toddler status. My mom was waiting in line at the bank, holding me and standing near her was a family friend who was wearing a fedora. In the late 40's and early 50's, men didn't leave home without wearing one and Mr. Cobb was no different. They said hello and I immediately went for his hat. I have been chapeau obsessed ever since. One of the happiest days of my life was when the doctor told me I had skin cancer and that, after my nose was rebuilt, I should never leave the house without wearing a hat. YES - Drs. Orders! I have a lot of hats. 5 fedoras (one felt and 4 straw), 3 pork pies, 1 cowboy hat, 15 or so “driver” (flat) caps and about 40 baseball caps (5 of them identifying my Vietnam Veteran status). People are surprised when they learn I have hair on the top of my head. It is never out from under a hat or cap. I'm still a bit of a slob. Some things never change and my obsession with watches, glasses and hats has just grown stronger. That will never end. However, when I end, I want people to walk by my casket, look in and say, “Nice hat!”