My life is already like the Willie Nelson song ‘On the Road Again’. Twelve hours straight from Roanoke,Va.(We still owned a home there and I never moved my family to Charleston. Hell, there was no time!) The only thing that kept me going was hearing promotional announcements between songs for ‘THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH–COMING MONDAY MORNING!!’, when I got close enough to hear the station. My first thought was that they had hired someone else! Who is this ‘MOUTH OF THE SOUTH’? I later found out, it was me! Whew! I finally arrive in Orlando, collapse onto the bed face first, trying to grab some shut-eye, when the phone rings. It’s my new General Manager-M.F. Kershner. Nice name, huh? Wants me to drop by the station, sign some papers and go on the air the next morning! What? I’m bone tired, I smell like my old high school gym clothes, and I gotta go on the air the next day, plus I miss my family! Damnit! I’m glad I went though. Professional all the way, and I knew I had met a kindred spirit in M.F. All he wanted to do was win! WBJW was fifth in the ratings when I went there. Number one in less than a year! Was it all due to me? Nope and nope again. As it was with WROV, it was the TEAM that got it done! We all wanted to win so badly, we hung around the station just in case one of the other jocks needed us for something, and even attended remotes for support! Oh God! I can hear my high school coach now. ‘THERE IS NO I IN TEAM, BOY!’ And the guy was right. It was at WBJW too that I met the most elusive Program Director I’ve ever known, Tom West. In the four years I was there, I think I saw him three times! He’d call me on the phone in the studio and yell at me for something he thought I’d done, and that was it! Think about this for a moment. A boss you never saw! And when he finally did drop by the station, it was a quick pat on the back and then he was in the wind again! Tom was a legend in Orlando radio and he’s gone now. Rest easy, Tom, your management style is certainly missed. You want the gun story don’t you? This guy keeps calling me on the request line accusing me of banging his wife. Was the word banging too strong? How about having a ‘spirited physical relationship’ with? What a nut job! He won’t stop calling. Shows up at the radio station one day, packing a piece, promising to blow a hole in me that he can walk through. M.F. attracts his attention long enough so that I can hit 911, the cops come, take him away, and I am excused long enough to clean out my pants!
A surprise birthday present from my boss at BJ105..
A great day with Disney..
Station promotion. “Come out and let your kids play in the snow!” That’s me on the right with my ‘porno mustache’..
Orlando loved it’s hiney..
Fun Times In The Sunshine..
FM radio was now hot! Nationwide (That’s right-The Insurance Company..Good Lord!) Communications bought WBJW or as we were known, BJ105. Can’t tell you how many jokes I heard about that just because I was BM on BJ. Get it? I’m over it. Really. When they came in, it was time to go.They knew as much about radio as I did about performing a hysterectomy! I was right too, they got out of radio.. Plus my boss and mentor, M.F. was instantly demoted when they took over so he left and did great things for a station across the street. It was never the same after he walked out the door. And, they started firing the air staff, one by one. Nationwide managed to suck every bit of the humor and life out of that radio station. Do I sound bitter here? I don’t mean to. It’s just, damnit, I like it when broadcasters do it THE RIGHT WAY! As in, serving the public’s interest, necessity, and convenience . Hmmm. That sounds pretty damned nobel, doesn’t it? I’ll bet someone wrote that a very long time ago. I really enjoyed being on the air with people who became my friends. Terry Alan, Terry Long, Roy Adams and more. Love you all and I hope you are well. Anyway, I got a great job offer from Baltimore, Md., still one of my favorite places! Love the inner harbor and crab cakes! I’m coming in from the airport in a taxi, I tell the driver where I’m gonna be working and he goes “Sure..Great Station!” He turns up the radio and and I hear this jock (he sounded great!) coming out of the disco song..’Dancing In The Sheets’ and he says ‘Dancing In The STREETS’. What? OK. It’s an honest mistake. I go into the radio station prepared to say something to him in a nice way, but as soon as I rounded the corner and looked into the control room, it all became clear. He was a man of the cloth. Had his collar on too! The guy had a great sense of humor. He would invite me to church and tell me never to stick my finger in the water bowl. He was afraid it would bubble! Ha! Every time I see the Blues Brothers movie, I giggle a bit over the scene at the bar with the wire cage. Remember? I worked a bar just like that one in Baltimore and you just haven’t lived until you’ve ducked a Miller Lite bottle! (or a hundred!) Good station, WQSR. Well it’s time now to make a career mistake.(I didn’t think so at the time) It’s coming up next!
My ‘Don’t Mess With Me Look’. Out for a late night appearance, then up at six a.m. will make your temper short..
Good Bye ‘Charm City’..
I don’t even know why I accepted the job at KSAC/Sacramento. Maybe it was because I wanted to see California. To be fair, Sacramento is a beautiful city, the listeners were wonderful and I’m sure that my view was colored because I had an accident with the ‘Bug’ that put me on my feet for about two weeks. That and the fact that I was three thousand miles from my family. Whether it was management’s fault or mine, their vision for the station and mine were completely different. When I got there, I was doing the usual jokes, phoners, topical stuff, local stuff, and I get a call on the special studio line from the boss, after doing what I thought was one of the funniest bits in my life. (Something about the Queen and crown marks on the headboard) He says, “Barry, that’s not the kind of humor that will appeal to our upscale audience”. That’s the kind of material I had on my audition tape, I thought that’s what they wanted. Why would you hire me otherwise? I got the hell out of there ASAP, even if I was sitting in one of Imus’s chairs. You see, the station was once known as KROY and Don Imus worked there..blah blah blah! Imus was one of my early heroes in this business, a true master behind the mike, so I say this with all the love I can muster. Around the corner, here I come, Miami Beach..when ‘Miami Vice’ was big.
Crockett-Tubbs-And Me..
t was a great time to be in Miami. Cafe Cubano, the beaches, ‘Miami Vice’ on the tube and me in paradise! Another rock and roll station. The only difference was, the Program Director comes to me one day and asks would I like to do an appearance at twelve? “Sure! Noon is fine with me.” “No, No, Barry, that’s twelve midnight” You see, Miami is a very late town. So, that was my life for about three years. Midnight till three a.m. appearances, and back on the radio at six a.m. Got a chance to work with one of the most professional news guys in the world. John Ogle, the kind of guy who could party all night, come in looking like dog crap, crack the mike and sound like The Lord of All Radio! Perfect. Every time. And, proving that life is stranger that fiction, John recently contacted me after finding this site and told me that he had become a Benedictine monk. God Bless you, John! Oops..I guess he already did! I’m happy for you, Brother John. I mean that. It was about this time that my first marriage went to hell. Listen and heed my brothers and sisters.Radio is hard on marriages, and all this moving and being married to a small town girl just didn’t work. No hard feelings, Bonnie. I understand. And, if that wasn’t enough, a new Program Director, and I got those famous words..”Uh, Barry. You’ve just done your last show for us. Here’s your check, thanks for all your hard work, now get the hell out of here!” OK. I’ll go! What a scene. Half the sales staff is crying, I go into the General Manager’s office and he is too! His last words were, “I love ya man. My hands are tied.” The next day, I grabbed a part time job at the local country station, while doing voice work for a talent agency and driving a truck delivering nuclear medicine. Damn! I would carry these syringes in 50 caliber ammo boxes, marked clearly with the nuclear symbol into hospitals where the other passengers in the elevators wouldn’t stand close to me. Too funny! I guess I survived it. My last son wasn’t born with three eyes! Ha! (I’m thinking of ‘The Simpsons’ here–the power plant Homer works in.) I gotta get back into radio full time so it’s back to the small towns for me! Grab some tissues and join a single dad on his fight back. Just stay tuned! Because…THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING!
TV Commercial Shoot
Programming and Sales should work together closely. Right?
