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!

CELEBRITY TALES.......AS I REMEMBER THEM: O.J. SIMPSON

The guest appearance was scheduled for a couple of days in mid summer, 2007, just about a month or two before a group of men led by O.J. Simpson entered a hotel room in Las Vegas and stole sports memorabilia at gunpoint. A crime for which he sits in a prison cell to this day. But, what did we know? This was, also, more than a dozen years after he had gotten away with murder, which was the reason for his guest shot in the first place. I was working for MN1, Market News First, an experimental IPTV station that reported on small cap stocks. We followed penny stocks, bringing news of the companies and interviews with key players to our viewers, we assumed, world wide by way of the internet. The concept and funding came from a 33 year old high school dropout named Josh who had conned his way into a job as a stockbroker, did it very well and was, at the time, worth millions. He was an irresponsible kid who once led police on a high speed chase in his Lamborghini, laughing all the way, just because he could. Unbeknownst to those of us who worked there, the whole project was just a front for a “pump and dump” scam. I wasn't hired for any particular stock market prowess......I have none. I had been a professional broadcaster for more than 40 years and would lend a sense of credibility to the on-air product. They figured they could teach me about penny stocks and I needed a job. The last I heard, Josh had been extradited from the Turks and Caicos islands and was doing time in a federal prison somewhere in Texas for stock fraud. It was Josh who had the idea to bring O.J. Simpson in to get some healthy publicity for MN1. This was supposed to be the biggest, most real appearance of the decade. I think it made the entertainment section of the Dallas Morning News. There was one major stipulation O.J. had to agree to, however. He had to take unscreened and unedited questions from the viewers, no matter how raw or probing, after his so called explanation. I'm not quite sure why he agreed but he did. At that point he was old news and, like I said, Josh was worth millions. I did a morning news block that always ended with a commentary. Sometimes they were funny, sometimes they were serious and sometimes they were opinionated – MN1 gave me carte blanche. I was asked to do a commentary as an opening to the session with O.J. I tried to remain as objective as I could and spent the 3 minutes or so, talking about the fairness of the platform we were providing and how great MN1 was for doing this and blah, blah, blah. It added an air of professionalism and made it look like we had an inkling about what we were doing, which we didn't. Thank goodness for my improv experience. I did, however, notice, while it was running, that O.J. Told everyone to shut up so he could hear the opening, which, apparently, met with his approval. O.J. then went into the booth and sat in front of the camera, delivering some lame excuse and listening to, what seemed to be a visiting convention of village idiots, calling in with nothing constructive to say, kind of like the Rush Limbaugh show. It was like watching some pretty good satire so there was a level of entertainment value that managed to creep in After the show, O.J. thanked me for the intro and we chatted about golf. “Too bad I didn't bring my sticks,” he said, adding, “We could go play 18. I call you next time I'm in town.” Things went from “pretty nifty” to “really cool” when someone suggested that we all go for a cocktail and a cigar at a very exclusive cigar bar in North Dallas. Again – Josh - worth millions. O.J. had been sitting and held his hands out for me to help him up because his knees were so bad. I gave him the leverage he needed to rise and watched him slowly waddle towards the door as a thought briefly raced through my mind - “How the hell could he have escaped after stabbing people to death when he can't even get up off a couch?” By the time we got to the cigar bar, our party had grown to about 20 but, O.J. and I had hit it off. We were only 13 days apart in age so we got all of each others references and had similar interests. He was very personable. A nice guy. “He's pretty bright,” I thought, “I liked him.” We smoked a cigar, had a little 12 year old scotch and some good conversation as he sat on another couch and I squatted down so we could hear each other over the noise. When it came time to get up, I couldn't. I looked at O.J. and said, “You're not gonna believe this,” as I held out my hands so he could help ME get up. My knees were as bad as his. It wasn't long after that night that O.J. Simpson entered that hotel room in Vegas. As I watched him being arrested, I had two fleeting thoughts, “OK, maybe not so bright!” and “I guess the golf game is off.”

THINGS CHANGE

Shortly after word of the closing of the venerable Connecticut School of Broadcasting a couple of years ago, I began hearing all of the criticism that came pouring out of the woodwork. Waste of good money….scam……they don’t pay their teachers, so they don’t get decent teachers…..they teach nothing that can be used in an actual broadcast. I can tell you from first hand experience that every bit of this criticism is misinformed. The summer of ’64 found me readying myself for my senior year in high school in the Greater Hartford area. It was a time when our major influence was Top 40 radio and the disc jockey who served as the soundtrack to our life’s adventures. That year, the new disc jockey in town, was Dick Robinson on WDRC. I had an inkling , somewhere in the back of my mind, that radio was the way I wanted to go, but, within a couple of years, I was sidetracked by military service and a little trip to Southeast Asia, where I dabbled in “playin’ the hits” on a local station'…for free. Upon return, I was pleasantly surprised to find a brand new school started by my then faceless hero, Dick Robinson……called The Connecticut School of Broadcasting. When I found that the GI Bill would pay for it, I jumped in with both feet. Lessons were taught by Dick and a few other local broadcasters who had a love for the business that they wanted, fervently to pass on to those they deemed worthy to carry the mantle. Classes were held in a hotel room in downtown Hartford and we learned, on an old reel-to-reel tape deck and a couple of turntables, all of the little technical tricks necessary to help make our dreams a reality. We also learned what we needed to know to pass the exam for the then requisite FCC license. One of the first and best lessons I learned was that nobody can teach anyone else to be a personality, but, if you are so well versed in all of the technical stuff that it becomes second nature and your hands automatically move to where they are supposed to be without thinking about it, you will be able to concentrate on your content and personality. I also learned that as competitive as the business was back then, if nobody could talk me out of it….I would, eventually, work in it. I have, now, for 43 years. Over the past 44 years or so, Dick Robinson has expanded his bona-fide love for the industry into 27 schools nationwide. And, as the criticism of trade schools in general and broadcasting schools in particular grew, so did Dick’s enthusiasm for turning out the best broadcasters possible. This has come to fruition countless times over the years and over the airwaves with the likes of MSNBC’s Rita Cosby, Bill St. James, the voice of Showtime and Nickelodeon and one of the most recognizable voices today and…I'm almost ashamed to admit.... Rush Limbaugh (cringe, to name but a very few. A few years back, Dick Robinson decided to sell his creation and the Connecticut School of Broadcasting was taken over by people who had no passion for broadcasting and no passion for their students. It was, kind of, mirroring the fate of most of radio today – taken over by corporate entities who have no clue about broadcast entertainment and care about nothing but the bottom line. I was privileged to teach at the Irving, Tx. campus for its first year in the DFW Metroplex, while Dick was still in charge. After he sold, I heard key people on the phone blatantly lying to prospective students to get them to borrow the money to come to the school and laughing about it after they hung up. It seemed as though everyone who called was awarded a “scholarship.” It became an unethical and greedy mess that I no longer wanted to be a part of. The world of radio has changed into something unrecognizable and the Connecticut School of Broadcasting followed suit with its new owners. When the students showed up, ready to go to work a few weeks ago, only to find the doors locked, all I could think was….wow, that’s the best lesson of all about the reality of the industry today. Welcome to radio.

A TALE OF THREE NORMIES

When a newborn enters the lives of a Jewish family, they are obligated, by their faith, to name the child after a well respected, deceased relative. In my family, there must have been a pretty swell guy named Norman because, during my fathers generation, we had three Normans – all about the same age. There was “Big Normie,” “Little Normie,” and “Rock Garden Normie.” I have no information on “Big Normie” other than the fact that he existed. I had heard the name over the years and was always a little curious but never quite enough to make an effort to find out more. “Little Normie” was, ironically, my dads big brother. They called him “Little Normie” because he was smaller than the other two Normies. If the three ever posed for a picture together, he'd be.....the little one. “Little Normie” was a constant in my life. He was my uncle and we spent quite a bit of time with him over the years. He had two great kids who grew into wonderful adults but he followed my career as if I were another son and would get excited if I did something that got any type of recognition. When a “stunt” that I did on my morning show from our Chicago studios was covered by the local media and got picked up and featured on the Today Show, my dad's phone rang as it was airing. It was "Little (I called him Uncle) Normie" sounding like a kid in a candy shop. He was so excited. “Bobby's on the Today Show.....Bobby's on the Today Show,” he shouted over and over as my dad calmed him down and missed the entire piece. In my nearly half century on the air, I don't think I ever had a bigger fan than my beloved Uncle Normie. Ever the logicians, my family called the third Norman, “Rock Garden Normie” because he owned and ran a little nightclub in Willimantic, Ct. called “The Rock Garden.” His purchase of the club was a very thoughtful gesture as regards the rest of the family because it gave them a way to tell him apart from the other two Normies. It was “Rock Garden Normie”who took me farther aback than I had ever been taken. I was 23 years old and freshly home from Vietnam. I had spent 4 years in the Air Force and, as a 19 year old enlistee, ready to go off and, perhaps, die for my country, I couldn't legally drink a beer so, I had never been to the Rock Garden. I had heard stories over the years but never had the opportunity to “see for myself,” as it were. Now, I was home, I was of legal drinking age and I had a relative who owned a nightclub. Could the stars have been in any better alignment? My friends and I piled into someones car and took the 30 minute ride from Manchester to Willimantic and our magical evening at the mysterious Rock Garden. Having never see the inside, all I had to go on was my imagination. I'm not sure what I was expecting but when we walked in it was so nondescript that I, for the life of me, can't tell you a single detail about the place. We walked in and were greeted by “Rock Garden Normie” who had been alerted that we would be coming in. He immediately put his arm around my shoulder and started introducing me to patrons and boasting, “This is Jerry's kid. He just got home from Vietnam. We're very proud of him.” He was making it a pretty big deal. He hung out with us for a few minutes and then told us to have a good time. After a few more drinks and some of whatever was fun for a 23 year old in 1970, we decided to head home. I told “Rock Garden Normie” that we were leaving and he put his arm back around my shoulder and, once again, told me how proud everybody was and how happy he was that I would come out to The Rock Garden. He then handed me the check and walked away. That was my one and only visit to The Rock Garden. I don't think the club exists any more and “Rock Garden Normie” is long gone but the memory of that night will always give me a little chuckle.......and a little heartburn.

TALK TO ME..........PLEASE

“It’s so funny that we don’t talk anymore.” That’s a lyric from a Cliff Richard “sorta-hit song” from 1979. Little did he know just how prophetic his words were. Actually, I would venture to say that he didn’t have a clue, as he was referring to his lover…not the rest of humanity. But it’s true, we don’t talk. Oh, we communicate…we just don’t talk. Quick, what color are the eyes of the last person you had a conversation with? You can’t tell from a text message, can you? We text, we Facebook, we IM, we tweet.....we don’t talk. The art of conversation seems to have gone the way of of letter writing, which, I suppose I should explain to you younger folks. A long time ago, in a civilization far, far away, people would utilize an instrument known as a pen and touch it to a substance known as paper and move it around so that it would leave intelligible markings, known as letters. You should know what they are. You have them on your keyboards. They would put these letters together on the paper and then fold it, put it into a pocketed piece of paper known as an envelope and then into…are you ready….a mailbox, only to have it delivered to whoever you were trying to communicate with. They would read it and repeat the process to communicate back with you. I know it seems a bit archaic by today’s standards, but, it was very effective. Back in those days, people would look at each other and speak. While one person spoke, the other would listen and respond, constituting what was known as a “conversation.” This, too, was a very effective way to get a point across or, in many cases, just kill a little time. There were two instances, a few years ago, that tipped me off to just where my place would be in the changing communication climate. The first was when the phone rang. It was my then 23 year old daughter calling to ask if her mother would make some nachos for her. Not an unreasonable request when one is on their way home and, perhaps, in a hurry to get back out, as could be the case with any busy 23 year old. I asked my wife where she had called from, fully expecting a rather lengthy explanation. The answer I got? ”Her bedroom.” Her bedroom is a good 15 feet down the hall. Well, I suppose it IS a pretty long 15 feet. I then made the trek (at least 30 or 40 feet) into the kitchen and saw my then 14 year old at the computer. I asked what she was doing, to which she answered, “IMing my friend Cessie.” “Isn’t Cessie spending the night?” I asked. My daughter answered, “Yes, she’s in the bedroom, IMing me back.” I think that’s when my utter confusion started to show. The next day I was shopping for meat. I was at Costco, where meat, in bulk, is cheaper. As I looked at a package of a particularly great cut of about 4 steaks for $30 dollars, I noticed one package was marked $63 dollars. I told the “meat guy” who was restocking some N.Y. Strip steaks about it and he looked at me, without missing a beat, and said, “It’s REALLY good meat.” We both had a laugh and it was then that I realized that conversation, as an art form, is all but dead. You just can’t tweet that kind of spontaneity