Great Moments In Radio--Volume VIII

LARRY’S FOLLY
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I was reminded of this story because it happened 20 years ago this week during my halcyon days in radio at the “Mighty 1030” KKJC-AM in Blue Springs, MO—aka “Eastern Jackson County‘s Radio Station.”

For reasons that were never quite clear to me, the powers-that-be at KKJC hired a guy to work part-time as a board operator/announcer who had precious little practical experience in either role, a guy whom I’ll refer to as “Larry” for to protect his identity, and because I think he truly meant well.  Larry had a wonderful voice—very authoritative and commanding—but he couldn't run a control board to save his doggone soul.  He was also quite a bit older than the rest of us on-air staffers—we were all in our ‘20s and ‘30s, while Larry had to be in his early-to-mid-50s, and he really didn’t fit in with our music format (adult contemporary mixed with ‘60s/‘70s oldies).  He'd have been a much better fit for what they used to call “Music Of Your Life” stations at the time that played Perry Como and Frank Sinatra records ad nauseam.  Larry’s other “real” job at the time was hotel detective for a major lodging chain near the Truman Sports Complex, but unlike the one in Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band”, this dude most definitely wasn’t “out of sight”!  To put it more succinctly, Larry was more akin to Forrest Gump, only with a really good voice…

Anyway, Larry had been with us not more than a month or so, and was still very shaky running the equipment, when October 17, 1987 rolled around.  It was a Saturday, and I worked the afternoon shift running the board during a pair of college football games, one live featuring Central Missouri State University, followed by a tape-delayed broadcast of those world-famous Baker Wildcats, a small college based in Baldwin City, KS—a town from which you could barely even pick up our 1,000-watt daytime signal, let alone our sorry-ass 500-watt nighttime signal!  When I was due to leave at 7PM, the Baker broadcast was still running, and all Larry had to do was let it finish out, then merely hop back onto the Transtar satellite station from which we carried most of our music format on.  I advised Larry to try and time it to where he could jump back on during one of Transtar’s regular commercial breaks (or stop-sets as they’re called in radio), and if need be, fill in some time by running down the football scores again, etc, until such time when he could seamlessly fade back onto the network, and all would be well the rest of the night.  Or so I thought…

Meantime, it was Game 1 of the 1987 World Series that night between the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Twins, and being the dedicated beisbol fan I was at the time, I drove like a maniac to get back home to Raytown in time for the start of the game, and my good friend Tom was waiting for me when I arrived.  Not long after the game started around 7:30, we grabbed a couple beers and I tuned in the radio to make sure Larry had successfully landed the proverbial plane, and there were commercials and PSA’s (public service announcements) running at the time—for like, TEN minutes!  And the same ones ran several times during that 10-minute stretch.  Tom and I were cracking up, and I popped in a tape to record the proceedings at this point, whereabouts Larry opened the mic and did indeed run down a few college football scores from the day, per my suggestion.  Unfortunately, I swear he must have repeated that damn Baker score at least half a dozen times!  Then he retreated back to commercial-ville and kept playing the same ones over and over once again, including one for a local gun & ammo joint that started off “I know you’re having trouble finding the perfect gift for your hunting partner…”  By this time, Tom and I were in stitches and had forgotten all about the World Series game.  This on-air siege went on for damn near half an hour before Larry finally gave up trying to find the perfect place to hop back aboard the satellite and just potted it (that’s short for “potentiometer”, boys and girls) back up during the middle eight of “In Too Deep” by Genesis.  Our long national nightmare was finally over!

The following Monday, I took the tape I made to our Program Director (our Andy Travis, if you will), as well as our Station Manager (our Big Guy, Mr. Carlson, if you will) and played it for them, and prefaced it by saying, “Look, I’m not trying to get this poor guy fired, but he’s really making us look bad…”  For better or worse, both parties agreed with me, and I did indirectly get the guy fired, but as the old axiom goes, “shit happens.”  As a result, I got more hours on the air, which I was desperate for anyway.  Do I feel guilty about Larry getting sacked?  Fuck, no!  This guy never should’ve been hired in the first place, and being’s as the station went dark three months later, it didn’t really matter anyway.  My guess is Larry’s out there now selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door somewhere…