Tune In Tomorrow: An Adventure In Retro-Radio

By Bruce Bell

Tune in Tomorrow is the story of a young under achiever, happy with a routine job in a small Oregon town radio station. His patterned life changes abruptly when a very rich man decides he wants to own a radio station that mirrors his favorite station from another era. The young man is suddenly immersed in a world with wildly creative people and an energetic news team that builds an environment of activity he has never known, much less experience. His adrenaline allows him to keep up with most needs but his lack of know-how produces a string of anxieties that is only relieved by a witty wife and the support from his new best friends at the radio station. The successes and failures of this group of people are fun, funny and frantic. Their head-on collision with life is based on a desire to help make their community a better place. How they, together manage this neat trick is reason enough to Tune in Tomorrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483471877

Bruce Bell

Bruce Bell has been the popular monthly local history columnist for The Bulletin, Canada’s largest-circulation community newspaper, since 1999. In 2002 he was named by the City of Toronto the Official Historian of St. Lawrence Hall and St. Lawrence Market. In November 2003 Bruce was asked by the Ontario Heritage Foundation to host the 200th anniversary celebrations of St. Lawrence Market. In May 2004 Bruce was appointed Official Historian of Toronto’s King Edward Hotel as part of the famed hotel’s centennial celebrations. In October 2004 Bruce was appointed Honourary Historian of the Hockey Hall of Fame Heritage Building. In June 2006 Bruce was appointed Curator in Residence for the spectacular Dominion Bank Building, now One King West (built in 1914). In October 2006 Bruce was bestowed the title Honourary Historian of the 51 Division Heritage Building by Toronto Police Services for his work as a historian in 51 Division. Bruce sits on the board of the Town of York Historical Society and is the author of two books Amazing Tales of St. Lawrence Neighbourhood and the just published TORONTO: A Pictorial Celebration. Bruce is also the official tour guide of historic St. Lawrence Market where visitors from around the globe are constantly entertained by his amusing, fact-packed renditions of the Market’s and the area’s history. In April 2007 as part of the Fairmont Hotel & Resorts 100th-year birthday celebrations, Bruce was named Honourary Historian of the famed Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Bruce’s History Project, a plaque program marking historical sites with large bronze markers, to date includes Toronto’s First Jail, The Great Fire of 1849, the Hangings of the Rebellion of 1837 leaders Lount and Matthews and the Birthplace of Canadian Statesman Robert Baldwin. Bruce’s mission is to tell Toronto’s history through his tours, writings and lectures, including his sold-out shows at Toronto’s famed Winter Garden Theatre, in an informative and entertaining way. Visit Bruce’s website www.brucebelltours.ca to book a tour or to make a reservation for one of his upcoming events.

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Bob

Prologue

M y early attraction to the wonders of radio came in clandestine moments under the covers listening to forbidden dramas in the hours after my scheduled bedtime. These glorious shows provided many playground conversations in my youth. I was awed by the technical wizardry of the sound effects, the use of music and other creations that made the shows enthralling. Later, as music took a large share of my listening, I still found time to enjoy the magic of radio drama. When radio pioneers found ways to mix the two I was pulled deeper into this electronic theater.

Happily assigned to northern California during my days in the Navy I heard some of the best radio in America. I was hung up on what I now know was the occasional and calculated absence of Don Sherwood, a morning talent in San Francisco. An audio Where’s Waldo of the time. One of his many gifts was his satirical addition to local commercials. Sponsors didn’t mind the satire because it brought more attention to the product and they didn’t need a lot of research to grasp the value of his clowning. Sherwood claimed to be The World’s Best Disc Jockey rang true for thousands of people every morning.

In those Bay Area days I sampled the arts and culture broadcasts of KPFA that spanned a wide range of music, poetry and original drama that filled my radio listening. (Years later KPFA aired a series of programs created by the late Will Lucas and myself that as we used to say, satires much and signifies nothing.)

I made the leap from consumer to content provider after college when a friend suggested there was an opening and serious need for a copywriter at the radio station where he held down the vital morning slot from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. I was suddenly immersed in a radio world of network programming, disc jockeys, live, local music shows, national news, opinion stars and a personal favorite, baseball re-creations. In those beginning days the station aired an hour of the Don McNeill Breakfast Club, a national variety show. When McNeill, as he did every morning, announced his march around his breakfast table, the announcer at the station encouraged his listeners to do their own march. The announcer personally led the station’s staff through the halls of the office. When McNeill was mercifully canceled, I did miss the staff’s huffing and puffing about the office.

My early contributions to radio allowed me to mix the message with music and effects to attempt in sixty seconds to create commercials that felt like the best of those nights under the covers. I worked under strict content rules of the FCC and regulations of the NAB & RBA. In summary, these rules were in place to satisfy Truth in Advertising and to disallow a monolithic, single message from any radio station. Still, none of these guidelines and laws seemed to hamper the inventions of the announcers or mine, although I was not sure why an announcer couldn’t say hell or damn in some situations.

One evening early in my radio life, I turned my production studio over to Al Jazzbo Collins, already a significant talent known to both coasts, who built a promotional tape for his Purple Grotto radio show. He was trying to get a job on one coast or the other. What I learned that night was how to develop a theme in an audio demonstration to sell an idea. In Al’s case, himself. For me, selling our station to Regional and National accounts. Lucky me. This one evening also gave me permission to seek help for station support at the highest levels of the industry.

The work with various announcers on staff turned out to be a training ground for a job managing and in some cases recruiting a talent roster for 24 hours of broadcasting. Advice on staffing from a personal mentor suggested to aim for perfection. This target always left our station close enough to be a good team.

The team building exercises in my radio experience covered a wide range of human characteristics. Ego and status, real and imagined, were always part of the mix. Among the staff members you could find strains of the gregarious, the introspective, the studious, the street smart: each one spontaneous and the one or two who were self-destructive. And they were all blessed with an innate curiosity. To this the on air talent lent their own slanted, entertaining views. Those views and styles ran from country cousin humor to satiric barbs against the pompous. My assignment was to embrace, boost or tone down these talented, overdeveloped egos as I saw fit. This task to assume control, as I learned from other ‘talent wranglers’ of the era, was an exercise in self-delusion. What could be accomplished was to support all of them in ways that they could use to do a good show on a daily basis, and a great show once or twice a month that provided an idea or theme that could be turned into a reoccurring concept. What they were all doing is taking daily risks without benefit of a safety net or a risk management consultant.

The best of the lot were two morning men with totally different styles who could hardly wait to get to work each morning. Both were incredibly inventive and could make you laugh at what otherwise might be viewed as mundane.

There was one afternoon man that I never understood, but his relaxed style seemed to say to his large audience that life was going to be O.K., so enjoy it. I admit that in personal contact he always made me smile. And he never stopped asking for a pay raise.

I’m sure that most ‘personnel managers’ of the era had one superstar who could have worked anywhere in the country. I was no exception. I had to run like hell just to keep up with one comic, intellectual, culturally attuned, and biting critic of the arrogant. His genius for entertainment spanned three decades. On the air he was beloved. Off the air he made a shambles of self-control. In the end his demons overcame his genius.

When network news was still in vogue, we provided additional hours of local news coverage of city, state and regional interest every day. The men, and later women, in the newsroom came in varied human packages. Some were fun loving while others were private workaholics and in at least one case, aloof. Every man and woman in our newsroom had an immense desire to discover a story, get the details and share the information. There was an intense commitment to get the story, get it on time and in the case of two news directors, get it first.

One of those firsts was a news director who was the first local reporter to visit Viet Nam. He was a veteran of the Korean War and vowed he would never go to a war zone again-ever-until it meant being first. His daily feeds were amazing as he gave listeners a sense of our soldiers and the lack of battle lines common in previous wars.

Another first was inadvertent. A 747 airliner had crashed at our local airport. It forced all programming people to work that night. The first reporter to enter the aircraft was our sportscaster, with prompting he gave a grim report of what he saw. That report may have been his finest hour.

Radio, and for that matter TV license renewal in those days was a serious matter. Volumes of requirements needed answers. Local leaders in business, government and service groups needed to be contacted and interviewed, then follow up letters from these contacts had to be made part of the licensing response.

This license to use public property came with a responsibility to operate in the public interest or lose the license. It created a respect for that ownership and the service required to operate on public property. After the first completion of a license renewal I made a commitment to seek out groups who needed promotional help and give them the sixty seconds of air time we were committed to use to support local activities. It was exciting to be at the core of food drives, health rallies, immunization campaigns and announcing cultural events. One unforgettable event was a valley wide measles immunization event where station personnel showed up at sites across the valley to turn humdrum affairs into parties. We had clowns at some sites and handed out balloons and other prizes to children getting free shots.

It was a tragedy when the FCC removed many of the rules that helped build an informed community. Sadder still was the loss of meaningful community outreach by too many radio stations. Commercial radio was and still could be a remarkable tool for most communities in the United States. In less than a century we have gone from experimental models to handsome consoles as the family’s entertainment center, to a small portable radios, to the invention of FM and now a future of digital AM radio with a brilliant clarity of music in many forms. I have been witness to a remarkable part of radio’s history – good and not so good. For many associates and myself, radio was intoxicating. Every day was a new, spontaneous experience. We were unambiguously living in the moment 24/7 and eagerly looking forward to offering an invitation to Tune in Tomorrow.

1

S tanding in front of the men’s room mirror, I realized that my basic insecurity was at the moment so heightened I couldn’t look myself in the eye. Daring a peek I locked in on my face. Nowhere in my eyes could I detect somebody who had a clue about what was about to unfold. A week ago the rare new hire at the Redmond radio station where I worked was simply required to be able to open and close his microphone and that of the newsman, mark the commercials played and follow a designated music list. A solid presentation of the time, current weather and station call letters with a reasonably modulated voice made the prospect desirable in the modern radio sense. Today I was about to attempt the hiring of a man who had been in radio as long as I’d been alive give or take a half dozen years. I ended the fruitless self-examination, picked up the coffee marked Dave and took a seat where I could see the door.

As I sat in the Portland coffee shop waiting to interview Luke Cannon I recalled what my dad told me just before I married Jill: Don’t be afraid of people who are a lot brighter than you. It accelerates your learning curve. It wasn’t hard to spot the still athletic looking Luke as he came in the shop. The red, well-trimmed goatee on his handsome African-American face was an easy reference. I rose to offer my hand, which he turned into a hug that swallowed my own six-foot frame.

You’re going to need that one and a lot more just for trying to do what I believe you’re attempting to do. So let’s talk about you.

His question had my planned agenda, worked and re-worked on my iPad, headed for the trash. I fended off his first question by asking how long he’d been counseling in Portland. His one word answer, years, was followed by a litany of radio stations where he’d worked since his teens. Those nomadic years plus his current career put him in his mid forties.

So what are you really trying to do with what we euphemistically called a personality radio station?

It was clear that he wanted to put me on his couch and would not be satisfied until I gave him answers. My research showed that he worked with first responders, athletes and other performers helping them to deal with fear on a lot of levels. We didn’t have enough time to explore all of mine. He filled the silence.

I like the part about the billionaire financing the adventure. Those of us past mid-life do want a sense of security. I’ve had one too many endings in radio that felt like I was locked out of the control room and the record is thwp, thwping toward the label. I want a guarantee this experiment will not have an ugly end. And is there a point in the time line when this experiment ends?

None has been given. The new owner just wants entertainment and information 24 hours a day.

That, my friend, is easy to say and almost impossible to achieve. Who decides how that will happen?

That will be up to the team.

You’re going to fill a room with enormous egos and expect them to cooperate to reach this semi-insane universal goal?

Yes.

"You’re either an innocent fool or a genius rivaling the Dalai Lama. As a psychologist I am going to say yes to your proposal, just to watch you try the impossible. And I like the idea of an hourly exchange with a newsman. Haven’t done that since my early days in Walla Walla.

Luke did make it clear that in his quarter-century plus in radio there was one recurring theme. Many of the people he worked with were inventive, interesting characters with outsized egos. To get along with this crowd, as he put it, you had to be a little off kilter yourself. To me it felt like falling out of a raft in high water, bobbing downstream, completely submerged half the time.

As we shook hands on our bargain Luke said, One more thing. My counseling session for you will be free. You’re going to need them.

On my drive back to Redmond my mind reviewed in perfect detail the events of the past 24 hours. I had bounded up the stairs into the boss’s office, expecting the latest profane rant about one manufactured problem or another. He chose to rail at me like a drunken sailor to show his distain for people with a college education. I now know I got points on my job interview by answering none to his question, what good is a degree in English?

I had a vivid image of the boss and his ever-present half glasses and the calculated menace they gave him. His balding head had more hair growing out of his ears than above them. It was always hard to look at him and not tremble at the thought of him boasting of his sexual prowess to fellow workers at after-hours cocktails in his office. Just thinking about made me feel creepy.

When he simply invited me to sit down without swearing he had me. In a monotone he told me the radio station had been sold. The new owner was, in his words, some rich bastard from the bay area who wanted his station to be just like his old favorite in San Francisco, KLAF. He had even petitioned for those very call letters. The boss confirmed that I too was from the bay area and as a kid I had some knowledge of KLAF. My mental movie became very clear when the boss, totally in character said, Your assignment, Mr. Charles, that you’d better fucking accept if you want to work here next week, is to compile a sample lineup of assholes that deliver the kind of bullshit our new owner, Mr. Bucks, will go nuts for. You understand?

I nodded a yes and he was please to announce that I had three days to be a genius. He then invited me to get the fuck out and let him think. That was code in the building for I had a big lunch and I need a nap. I clearly remember being excited to tell my wife, Jill, that I had three days to put together an on-air staff that would transform the airwaves in central Oregon. I also knew I wouldn’t have to tell her that I could get fired if I didn’t pull this off. She would read that outcome on my face.

I’d left I-5 and was passing through Mill City. My mind wander to my good luck in making early contact yesterday with the old program director at KLAF, Al Newbold. I’d found out through what was left of radio trade magazines that he was running a food co-op near the Mission in San Francisco. He’d been a farm boy with a dual degree in AgBiz and Psychology before his dozen successful years in radio. It took three tries before we connected. First he warned me that nobody wanted to get a daily dose of humor from the radio any more after the deal blew up he could always use a friendly checker at the coop. Then he told me the secrets of hiring talent. University professors were his first choice. A sense of humor was obviously a big plus. Sociologists and psychologists were first on his list. He had success with people who could speak to what people were doing and why. His own definition was someone you’d like to have a chat with in a neighborhood bar. Then he gave me the names of eight people who should be working in radio but were not for a number of reasons, obvious to both of us.

He was ready to hire two of the men on the list when his own management decided to go sports talk twenty-four hours a day.

How often can you learn that athletes take ’em one at a time or why other athletes are not sure where the gun came from, he offered in cryptic criticism.

He wished me well and told me he’d keep a check stand open for me just in case. Now, between Al, Luke and the boss, my supporters numbered zero.

The sight of dairy herd outside of Sisters made me think about my days considering a career as a milkman. At least that was my default position. Even as a teenage I woke up before the sun. A precious habit in a small child but very big on the alienation scale by the time you start to worry about what people think. Taking morning walks kept an angry mom or dad at bay until a reasonable breakfast hour. I tried farming but violent sneezing in a constant cloud of dust took care of that notion. I did like milking the cows and sending a spray of milk at the ever-waiting cat. This is a way of saying that being a morning disk jockey at a locally owned radio station was not a shock to my system.

Be cheery, give the time and temperature every ten minutes, introduce the newsman on the half-hour with his sound intro, play music from the list of pop hits of the last ten years; when time permitted read a News of the Weird during each half hour segment and most importantly play the commercials. They paid the bills as salesman Fred Underwood repeatedly pointed out. Fred had a canny ability to put local businesses on the air that had no need to buy our miniscule audience. The big bonus for my job was I could spend the first three hours of the day minding my own business as Peter, the newsman, minded his. All of this was perfection until I had to finish my day writing commercials for those businesses Fred had sold airtime. In conversations with Fred, it was always my argument that my copy was so entertaining the sponsors always came back for more. My reverie ended, as I pulled into the driveway at the Charles hide-away.

My next contact was with Clark Lewis. Clark S. Lewis to be exact. From his voice mail I learned that he was a mail order minister (church of the well-turned grape) who was available for quickie weddings, counseling, séances, movie parts, commercial recording as well as being a marvelous male escort.

Our phone conversation introduced a voice with tone, range and an uncanny ability to manipulate words to make them soar or sting. He’d had several minor parts on Broadway. He possessed a master’s degree in theater from NYU, which, he added would remain our secret.

A good idea given the boss’ prejudices about college boys. Clark was clever in a streetwise way. His upside-down worldview made me laugh. He could satirize the simple act of washing his underwear or a business mogul justifying his outlandish salary. It wasn’t hard to see why Clark was at the top of the old KLAF program director’s list. If his on-air presentation was as warm and personable, I was off to a good start. He was sending me an audio to listen to.

Ted Bertolli’s picture showed a long scar over his left eye. In thirty seconds I heard three versions of how the scar came to be. After more conversation I almost believed the head butt story when he forgot he wasn’t wearing a helmet during his college days as a linebacker. His MP3 audio had the most amazing kiddie pool battle between himself and the Rubber Ducky. As the play-by-play announcer he talked about the duck repeatedly pecking at his eyes. He finally finds a way to sit on the duck, claim victory to the minimal cheers of his friends and family. As he stands to acknowledge his fans the duck pops up and gives him a shot to the groin area. No blood is drawn but Ted, unable to breathe, surrenders. A stadium full of Ducky supporters erupts, led by the honking sound of the quackettes. It was wonderful theater of the mind. But what really sold me was the rapid stream of one-liners Ted fired off during the question and answer period.

I always wanted to host the Tonight Show but as close as I got was being denied an ushers job.

Ted was teaching a sociology class at a community college in central California.

In a less than ringing endorsement he said, I’m in but you have to give me a year’s severance when the station fails.

It wasn’t my money so I agreed. Ted’s constant burst of energy and ability to humorously counter punch at the drop of a hat is perfect for a real morning personality, not one like myself who is waiting for the right milk delivery route to open up.

Day one had ended with a great degree of success. I had