My
Brilliant Careen
The
Resume of a Radio Itinerant
Stephen
Capen
Broadcast Radio
KVON,
NAPA, CALIFORNIA
News
for the Dumbed Down. 1998-2000
Cracker
Management Meets the Aryan Church
(No
Truth anywhere in THIS Wine)
KUSF,
SAN FRANCISCO
"The
Futurist Radio Hour" 1995-1996
(Perorations!
What of it?)
KTID,
SAN RAFAEL
Weekends,
1994
(Anemic
Pop and Meaningless Drivel)
KDBK,
SAN FRANCISCO
Newsflap,
Weekends. 1993-1994
Viacom
thugs fired me by phone as I was booking guests on the other line.
(The
high price of call-waiting)
KFOG,
SAN FRANCISCO
Graveyard,
Weekends, 1992-1993
(Something
innocuous this way slogged.)
WXRK (K-ROCK),
NEW YORK
Afternoons
1988-1989
(Paralyzed
‘em from the waist up! Stern had
them from the waist down.
KRQR,
SAN FRANCISCO
A
two-day stint -- cancelled after one. 1987
(Not
there long enough to ascertain format)
KMEL,
SAN FRANCISCO
Mornings,
1984-1985
(Dance-Band-On-The-Titanic
Format)
KSFX/KGO AM & FM,
SAN FRANCISCO
Morning
Drive, later Newstalk 1981-1982
(You
can teach monkeys to do this)
KFRC,
SAN FRANCISCO
News
Anchor, Mornings 1981
(With
a legendary scumbag)
KSAN,
SAN FRANCISCO
Morning
Drivenness, 1980-1981
Last
Gasp of the First Progressive.
(Fights
broke out over drugs in the halls)
*
WCBS-FM,
NEW YORK
Faux
Oldies. Weekends, 1979
AKA:
Jimmy Foxx
(They
lied. I left.)
WPIX,
NEW YORK
Afternoons,
if the shuttle was on time. 1978
(Revolving-door
school of programming)
WEEI-FM,
BOSTON
“Rock.”
Lite.
(I
don't remember what I was doing there. Or when.)
WCOP,
BOSTON
"Country."
Sometime in the 1970s
Overnights
in the dead of winter. Brassed it out for two long weeks.
AKA:
Kevin O’Capen
(Front
for a drug company)
WCOZ,
BOSTON
Morning
Drive from a Halfway House, 1976-1978
(P.D.
fired me after I stole his girlfriend)
WINZ-FM,
ZETA IV, MIAMI
Evenings,
1975
(When
I was able to make it)
WHCN II, HARTFORD
Progressive
Rock. Evenings, 1974
Hartford
for the taking. Who cares, right?)
KGB
AM&FM, SAN DIEGO
Whatever.
Evenings, 1973
(All
that's currently wrong with radio had its origins right here.)
KPRI,
SAN DIEGO
Doobie
& Roach, The Baloney Brothers. The Morning Team, 1973
(So
ill-conceived people overslept for days.)
CJOM,
WINDSOR, ONTARIO, CANADA
Program
Director, 1972-1973
(Locked
out -- on Thanksgiving Day -- for an alleged farting contest.
(There’s
a problem with calling the mayor a cocksucker?)
WNCR,
CLEVELAND
Program
Director; Afternoon Drive. 1972
(Radio
during wartime: AM sister-station engineers literally hatcheted transmitter
lines.)
WDAI,
CHICAGO
Evenings,
1971
(Robot
Radio, after the dismal Love Network failed.)
WGLD, CHICAGO
Free
Form. Afternoons, 1970-1971
(The
little station that knew not what it was.)
WBCN,
BOSTON
Morning
News, Production Director, 1969
("This
is show business. When your tits sag, you're finished!"--Ray Riepen, owner)
WHCN,
HARTFORD
Evenings,
earlier in 1969
($99
a week. No deductions, no frills, no debate.)
WCCC AM&FM,
HARTFORD
Program
Director, even earlier in 1969
(G.M.’s
guidelines: “If you can hear the bass through the wall, don’t play it.”)
WDRC,
HARTFORD
Mid-days,
very early in 1969
AKA:
Stephen Kane
(You'd
think one might have a prayer with a P.D. named Charlie Parker.)
WHYN,
SPRINGFIELD
PM
Drive Time Rock & Roll, 1967
($50
to play your record? Wowwwww.)
WAAB,
WORCESTER
Mornings,
Music Director. 1966-1967
AKA:
Stephen Kane
(“Table
Talk” pies merchandised [read "cashiered"] us. Poetic, somehow.)
WBZA AM&FM,
GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK
Morning
and Afternoon Drive. Go figure. 1965
(The
G.M. recip'd us -- traded airtime for cars, meals, motel rooms, watches -- into
oblivion.)
WFST AM&FM,
CARIBOU, MAINE
6
days a week, $65. 1965
Snow
shoveler, lawnmower man, trashman. Oh, and 8 hours a day on the air.
(Salary
boosts based on migrant Indian field workers from Canada blowing harvest wages
on "bright, shiny objects" at Woolworth's.)
(G.M.
warned: “no screaming niggers”—such as Johnny Mathis)
WCSB,
BOSTON
Parroting
what the big guys were doing, what would you expect? 1964-1965
The
Cambridge School/Grahm Junior College/Defunct.
(Does
this count?)
Radio
Stations that promoted me as joining the
station who ultimately never saw my face.
WSHE,
FORT LAUDERDALE
KZMK,
BISBEE, ARIZONA
Radio
Stations who were absolutely certain
they would hire me ("definitely call you Monday!") whom I never heard
from again.
WDST,
WOODSTOCK
KPIX,
SAN FRANCISCO
Radio
Stations who assured me full-time work
was imminent, then flipped the format, firing me instead:
KDBK,
SAN FRANCISCO
Owners
who win the lumpen-to-samsara award for their rise in consciousness:
Geoff
Sterling, CJOM, Windsor, Ontario
Made
a fortune skinning alligators in South America to finance an empire, wound up
best pals with Ram Dass.
Owners
who take the cake for their humanity:
Sy
Dresner, WCCC, HARTFORD
Thoughtfully
paid me a visit when I was hospitalized, asked me as he was leaving if I wanted
to take it as vacation time.
General
Managers with names identical to mass
murderers who also believed they were Elvis reincarnate:
Charles
Manson, WGLD, CHICAGO
General
Managers with names identical to
brilliant cynics in the music world who managed despite a chronic drinking
problem:
Leonard
Cohen, WDAI, CHICAGO
General
Managers who mixed business and pleasure
to a fault:
Elby
Stevens, WFST, CARIBOU
After
becoming smitten with the manager of the Norge Village laundromat (a new
advertiser), unloaded both barrels of a 12-gauge at his wife and children in a
drive-by to emphasize the need for a divorce.
General Managers
who couldn't handle being the butt of humor:
Jack
Lane, KPRI, SAN DIEGO
(Known as Jack LaLame,
the morning team regularly borrowed his personal credo from the office door,
rewrote everything except the end -- "either kill me or take me as I am" -- and concluded every
sketch by killing him.)
Mel
Karmizan, WXRK, NEW YORK
(He made bad boy Howard
promise never to make fun of him.
Howard promised.)
General
Managers who made all department heads
women, then seduced them or beat them or both:
Program
Directors who died suddenly before their
time:
Morgan Tell, WGLD,
CHICAGO
Jim
Croce's last plane ride.
Jim
LaFawn, KPRI, SAN DIEGO
Dead
of a heart attack at 30. (That's show biz for ya.)
Program
Directors the staff drove virtually
insane who then fled to the sanctuary of automated stations:
Steve
Stafford, WDAI, CHICAGO
Program
Directors who lost their minds and
resolved it by being reborn:
Tom
Carey, ZETA IV, MIAMI
Bill
Stedman, ZETA IV, MIAMI
(Something
about that ZETA IV, MIAMI)
Those
in the Business who abandoned me in my
hour of need:
Lloyd Thaxton, Big Brother Bob
Emery, Joe Pyne, Patricia Hearst, Alan Freed, Jimmy Piersall, Bryant Gumbel,
George Gobel, Boy George, George Fenneman, George Stephanopoulis, Strom Thurmond,
Major Mudd, Alexander Scourby, Rex Trailer, "Woo Woo" Ginsburg, Ralph
Ginsberg, Allen Ginsberg, Tony Orlando, the Lennon Sisters, Leonard Barr.
REFERENCES
PLEASE DO NOT BOTHER ANYONE CONNECTED WITH
ANY OF THE RADIO STATIONS I HAVE WORKED FOR.