Egg-Timer democracy

 Note: This is a part of my unpublished memoir I Might Be Naked For All You Know: A chronicle of my lazy-hazy-crazy days in the radio broadcasting business. 

The long-time host of the important wake-up show, a self-important fifty-something guy named Gary something or other, had developed the habit of drinking himself senseless every night and stumbling into work late every morning, nursing a monster-mother of a hangover. 

Even though I was a rookie graveyard shift pronouncer, I knew you never left an empty swivel chair in front of the microphone, even if your shift was over. Wavering between pissed-off, tapped out, and juiced up by the chance to work prime-time, I’d launch Gary’s show, explaining that I expected him any minute. Sometimes I would answer the inside line and say the same thing to the glum and resigned general manager.

I perfected talking while back-timing in order to hit the ABC news at the top and bottom of the hour and Howard Cosell’s sports at ten after. I also set the timers to tape Paul Harvey on twin decks behind the control board. You always ran a backup on the famed commentator’s feed. You could screw-up on-air all you wanted, but listeners got their undies in a bunch if Paul was MIA. They’d flood the phone lines for hours sputtering their disgust and displeasure, claiming you were part of the international communist conspiracy, and threatening to phone your boss.  I also brought the Jackson County news in on a feed from the local paper and gritted my teeth as one of their reporters, a man I would later learn was the North American body-odor champion, droned his way, word for word, through the front page of the Medford Mail Tribune. Riveting it was not.

Gary would wander in at six-thirty or seven—once or twice as late as eight—red-nosed, coughing, and throwing aspirin down his throat. He’d flap his hands to keep me in my seat and head for the john. When he emerged, he’d fill his mug with steaming sludge from the pot, drink it down, and then refill it before sliding in behind the microphone. The smell of whiskey wafted from the cup as he sank into the swivel chair behind the board, declaring that his “medicine” had made him well enough to help his listeners greet the new day.

I once asked him if he ever caught any heat about being late. “Naaaah,” he confided. “You’re lookin’ at one bulletproof mo-fo. A local institution. Been on the air in this town forever.” The fact that he was also the program director convinced me he was right.

          He wasn’t.

One morning about five I got a call from E.J. Michaels, the afternoon guy, Without preamble, he told he was the new program director and Gary had been canned.

First real-life radio lesson: nobody’s bulletproof. Second lesson: listeners forget who you are faster than you can say the station call letters, time, and temperature. Which was exactly what I ended up doing in the six to ten timeslot. Hey, what can I say? They offered me a smokin’ raise: an extra hundred a month. Even then I was a shameless show business whore.

          At nine, at the end of the news block, KYJC originated a one-hour call-in talk show hosted by David Allen, my former college professor and mentor. I loved and respected Dave. He was a great teacher, a square shooter, and an A-1 human being. I miss him to this day      

But, as much as it pains me, there’s no dancing around the truth: Dave sucked as a talk show host. He was intelligent, reasonable, and as incapable of lying as he was of being rude. In short he was the polar opposite of today’s crop of shrill, finger-pointing, fact-warping conversational mutants. Dave truly believed that his show served democracy. No matter what kind of boring drivel or bigoted lunacy a caller wanted to spew, David Allan would take him on, armed only with his mind, his microphone, and his handy egg-timer.

          That egg timer was Dave’s way of guaranteeing every caller was treated equally. He’d twist the dial to the three-minute mark and set it ticking.

Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick. When you heard the ding, your time was up. Until then, you could blather on. Democracy.

          Now, this being right-wing Southern Oregon in the early 70s, there was undoubtedly more than one storm-trooper-wanna-be in the broadcast area. The one I called “the Nazi” had appointed himself their official spokesman. Since I’ve blocked his name, can’t remember it, or may be sued if I use it, let’s call him Henry. Every morning, at eight-forty five sharp Henry called. As instructed, I’d take his name and put him on hold. Another aspect of Dave’s concept of democracy—callers went on-air in the order they called in. The Nazi always called first.

At 9:05, after the network news, Dave began his monologue, a review of what he thought were the important issues of the day. He’d take several logical and well-thought-out positions and invite callers to debate them. They never did. Some might say, “I agree with you, Dave” or, “I think you’re wrong about that, Dave.” But when he asked them why, he got dead air or a conversational U-turn. Often I’d hear his wheezy smoker’s sigh and once, after three or four idiotic off-topic opinions, he’d ripped the top two pages from his yellow legal pad, wadded them up, and tossed them over his shoulder.

As Dave concluded his daily the exercise in futility, I’d slip him a sheet of paper listing caller names and line numbers. Dave would nod and punch a blinking button on the multi-line telephone. “You’re on the air with David Allen on KYJC. Henry, what do you want to talk about today?”

 “The only thing that matters,” Henry would snarl. “When are we going to get smart and deport them all, David? You know who I’m talking about; the Jews. They poison our water, they put filth on our televisions and radios, and they want to end prayer in the schools.”

Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick. On and on the Nazi would spew. He didn’t just hate Jews. Niggers, Spics, homos, lesbos, Catholics, liberals and what he called “Celestials,” got splattered with their fair share of verbal sewage.

Peering through the glass that separated us, I’d watch Dave doodle on a legal pad, where he’d scrawled the notes for his opening remarks. From time to time he’d light another unfiltered cigarette from the butt-end of its predecessor.

Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick. Dave would occasionally interject calming words or warn Henry to “watch his language.” That only fed the fire. When I turned the caller volume down so listeners could hear Dave’s comment, the Nazi screamed louder.

Seething, I’d do my job, answering the phone, putting people in line to talk. Many of them, sadly, agreed with the Nazi, although in much more politically acceptable language. No, they didn’t hate Jews. It was just that, not being Christians, you know, their motives were a little suspect, weren’t they?

Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick. As I listened to the toxic Nazi and watched Dave squirming until the egg timer dinged, I’d send him telepathic messages: Hang up on him, Dave! Blow the fucker up! Tell people what a stupid twisted cocksucker you think he is. Lose it, Dave. Just once, lose it and tell people what a pathetic, pencil-dicked, hate-mongering weasel the guy is. Please. Just once. Tick-a-tick-a-DING forever, motherfucker!!!!

But Dave never did. And when I finally worked up the nerve to ask him if I could just put the Nazi on hold and then “accidentally” hang up on him during the opening monologue, Dave shook his head and fastened hound-dog eyes on me. “We can’t do that, Mike. This show is for everybody. Even if we disagree with their opinions, we have to give them the opportunity to express themselves.” Dave took the First Amendment seriously.

And callers knew it. Nobody manipulated the three-minute egg timer with more style and élan than an elderly woman we’ll call Aunt Millicent. She fancied herself a poet and loved hearing herself on the radio. A deadly combination. Rest easy, Maya Angelou, you have nothing to fear.

“Hello, Aunt Millicent, You’re on the air with David Allen on KYJC Radio. What do you think about the protests in Washington this past weekend?” Since her daily calls never came within a philosophical country mile of the topic du jour he knew the conversation was going nowhere. But Dave was a professional; he kept on pitching.

“Hel-lo Day-vid.” The words wheezed from the studio speakers in her creaky, my-dentures-don’t-fit-quite-right delivery.

Dave’s microphone would amplify his heavy sigh as he reached into his shirt pocket for another cigarette.

Aunt Millicent would chirp out her opening poetic salvo: “The little puppy dog sat up and begged, but you know the rascal was three-legged.”

Her commandments for her daily verses were, in their own way as simple, principled, and unshakeable as Dave’s rules for a talk show: Thou shalt rhyme every other line. Thy poem shall deal with puppies, flowers, small children, birds, sunshine, and occasionally food. Nothing unpleasant will occur in the verse. Thou shalt read the final line just as the egg timer ticks to the end.

Her timing was uncanny. I visualized a gray-haired gnome in a hand-crocheted shawl, penning her rhymes by the light of a kerosene lantern. Ink quill in hand, she’d commit them to crumbling parchment, then set her own egg timer and read them aloud.

Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-

“And the baby bird flew from the nest.”

Tick-a-tick-a

“And disappeared in the sun just to the . . .”

Tick-a-DING!

“. . . west. Thank you Day-vid. God bless you.”

 

Dave Allen died in 1973, a victim of his own chain-smoking and probably the stress induced by sharing the ionosphere with the likes of the Nazi. I think he would be appalled to see what talk radio has become. After all, Dave believed it was all about democracy—that everybody should get to talk until the egg timer dings.

Somebody notify Rush Limbaugh; I’m sure he’ll welcome the suggestion.