Excerpt #14 from the long-awaited book that Chuck Blore has almost finished writing ...

www.chuckblore.com

OKAY, OKAY, I WROTE THE BOOK

A quick recap ... The young airman who had been sunburned by the intense lights from what he was sure were alien spacecraft, Ted Payne, KELP News Director and I had gone to the middle of the desert in them middle of the night hoping to recreate the incident with the UFOs. When the lights on our mobile news unit suddenly went out, it was so dark I could barely see but I knew from the sound of the voice it was the young airman saying, “That’s exactly what happened before. Right before the lights ...” . Okay. Continuing ...

The next voice to break the silence of the desert night was mine screaming ... “LET’S GET OUTA HERE!” I was running for the car.

“Oh, God!” shouted the young airman as he sprinted past me.

“Hey you guys, come back!” Ted’s voice. “This is where it happened.” As I said before Ted was the typical news weirdo determined to get the story no matter what. In this case, the no-matter-what, was his portable transmitter which had also lost power and which at that moment Ted was pounding on trying to bring it back to life. That’s when we saw the light.

A bright light in the sky obviously scanning the desert and ... “Oh crap!” I heard the airman say, “I don’t want to go through this again.” And I think he started to cry.

Then, we began to hear the sound of an approaching helicopter. It was pretty clear pretty quick that the light was from the helicopter and that light was now focusing on Ted. He was furiously pounding on his machine and fighting to look directly into the bright light to identify it’s source.

“You are trespassing on U. S. Government property!” A huge voice boomed down from the helicopter. “You are ordered to leave now.” Ted threw his malfunctioning machine at the helicopter which responded, “LEAVE NOW!”

“Ted! Come on!” Ted was jumping up and down shaking his fist at the helicopter. He was determined to take on the whole US Airforce. “Ted! Dammit!” I shouted at him again, “Move your ass!” By this time the circle of light encompassed all three of us. It was easy to see the airman and me pulling Ted toward the news unit.

Ted was fighting us all the way, holding up some kind of ID card and shrieking at the light, “KELP News! KELP News!” The light was not impressed.

“YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. LEAVE NOW OR YOU WILL BE PUT UNDER ARREST”

“And you’ll be put on KELP News, you bastards!” We shoved Ted into our immobile mobile news unit and held onto him until he quieted down. “Bastards.” He was now kinda talking to himself. “I’m gonna do an editorial on this! I’ll show those sonsabitches.”

“No, Ted. I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“We gotta tell people how we were treated. This is government abuse.”

“Ted. We were on government property.”

“Maybe, but they can’t treat people this way. We’re citizens for Chrissake! Citizens just trying to do their job.”

“Ted.” I was using my very stern PD voice, “Forget it!”

The helicopter moved on and we sat there in the dark. I woke up with the dawn’s early light to find a note taped to the inside of the windshield. It was Ted’s resignation. I never saw him again.

Haven’t seen any more UFOs either.

About that time, The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, having heard about the remarkable resurgence of radio, thanks to Todd Storz and Gordon McLendon, decided to expand into broadcasting. They bought KFWB in Hollywood and hired a highly respected Los Angeles broadcaster to run the station for them. His name was Bob Purcell. Although Bob was a radio veteran, having been one of the founding members of AFTRA, he had spent his recent years in TV. Bob admittedly had never even heard of this Storz-McLendon “modern radio” phenomenon and he decided the best way to get up to date on contemporary radio was to peruse the ratings books and seek out the highest rated stations and then chat with their management people about radio generally and programming specifically. The single most dominant radio station in both of the two recognized ratings services, Hooper and Pulse, was this little station in El Paso with it’s 72 share. I remember him telling me later, “When I saw that number I figured that was a good place to start.”

In the late sixties and early seventies there were three or four record promotion people who gave their industry a very good name. The best of those was George Jay, a giant of a man in both stature and reputation. One of the reasons George was so successful is that he made it his business to know every successful radio programmer in the business. I had known George since he called me when I was in Tucson to ask if I’d like to interview Georgia Gibbs. Well, Georgia Gibbs was about the hottest talent on record at the time having just had the Number One hit in the country ... a memorable little ditty called, Tweedly Dee.
I was overcome with joy and enthusiasm ... My God! Georgia Gibbs! My first real radio interview is with Georgia Gibbs! Wow! I must be pretty hot! I’m gonna talk with Georgia Gibbs! George and I were friends from that moment on.

Bob Purcell knew of George Jay and called him to see what, if anything, George knew of KELP. And then, George called me to say, “Purcell is going to call you. I told him you were the best. You won’t have to sell yourself at all. Just listen to him and tell him you were born and raised in L.A. so you certainly know the territory.”

A couple of hours later ... it seemed like a couple of days ... I got the call, “This is Robert M. Purcell.” Thus spake the most beautiful speaking voice I had ever heard. “I am the general manager of KFWB in Los Angeles. We’re looking for a program director and ...”

“I was born and raised in Los Angeles.”

We talked for a few minutes and he asked me if I’d like to come to L.A. the day after Thanksgiving. “You can spend Friday afternoon listening to the station, maybe even make some notes on what you’d do to improve our sound. Then, we can have dinner and talk about it.

“Well, I certainly know the territory.”

On the flight to L.A. I had all of Gordon McLendon’s memos, most of which were those that made up his “Policy Book” and at least two others which he’d written directly to me in response to program philosophy questions I had written him about. Gordon’s policy memos were a lot different than what I heard or did on his stations and the one thing I knew for sure was that if I were to get the KFWB job, it would be done ... by the book.

That Friday afternoon I locked myself into a room at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and, as I had done when I came to El Paso, I began to fill up big yellow pads with things I heard on KFWB which “had to go.”

Friday night at dinner, I could tell Mr. Purcell liked me. I could tell he liked most of the things on the yellow pads. The one thing I wasn’t sure about was how he would react to my demands of throwing off a half hour drive-time sports show which was sponsored by Seven Up. It was their biggest single contract. Also, there was a half hour program every morning called Shop Talk which I hadn’t heard but it was sponsored by the International Brotherhood Of Electrical Engineers and unless I missed my guess it was not music and news. Purcell looked at me and said, “You’re asking me to throw off almost a quarter of a million dollars in billing.”

“Yessir.”

“You think this is absolutely necessary?”

“Well sir, I ... uh ...” Okay Chuck. I said to myself. If you’re gonna do it right, it starts right now. “Yessir!” I said. And then I remember I gulped very hard.

“Just throw off a quarter of a million dollars.”

“Yes ... sir.”

(...to be continued)