The Night Cap with Gary Jeff Walker -- 9/16/24

That means I am in with you for the next three hours.

It's great to have you along. I hope you'll thoroughly enjoy tonight's show. I know I'm going too, because well, this is stuff I'm interested in, like American history on the radio. We continue that series here on the Nightcap tonight just a little after ten o'clock in the next hour. John Records Landecker a true radio rock and roll icon in our business and one of the great inspirations for me as a young kid, as a teenager and making me want to do this talk to you on the radio.

To be like.

And at eleven o'clock we continue with American history on the radio. Joining us will be my buddy Eric Page, who I worked with early in my career in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then in Nashville, and then finally here in Cincinnati. And he was for a very short time here at WLW an influential part in kind of molding and crafting what we call the inside pitch. Now the Reds pregame broadcast. Anyway,

W don't let Game Day take a toll on your home this season. Call zero S Carpon and at our cleaning for those nasty spells. Their patent and cleaning system gets your home.

On Hopkins Medical Expert doctor Marty McCarry, New York's Times best selling author of The Price We Pay, which was an eye opening book, and look at the medical group think, which I think we've seen a whole lot of in the last four or five years that has led to public harm and what you need to know about your health. The new book is Blind Spots, and this is a book that kind of continues that narrative, but it talks about things like this explosion of peanut allergies amongst children.

How are you, doctor yay good, Thanks so much for having me.

Good to be with you. Yeah.

So a lot of times the experts so called get it wrong and speaking specifically about the peanut allergy explosion among children, there were doctors. The American Academy of Pediatrics No. Less and two thousand issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they're three years old, which I mean when I was one and two years old, we were outside. We were eating dirt, doctor, literally and you know, not because we didn't have anything else to eat,

Correct.

Yeah, there was a lot of wisdom to the dirt theory. And actually it's basically true when you're exposed to allergens early in life, in the first couple of years of life, your body learns to tolerate them. And that's why it's important for young kids infants, when they're five to six seven months of age, to get a little bit of peanut butter. Sometimes a little milk and eggs is also recommended. But we have an epidemic of medical dogma, an illusion

Yeah, there is something in the medical profession, I'm sure you're well aware of, called standard of care, and it exists in these big hospital groups amongst doctors and nurses and sometimes the accepted standard of care actually is exactly the opposite of that. It's not care at all, because again, you're looking for cookie cutter, blanket kind of consensus decisions and recommendations that I mean, we are all. We are all as human beings. And see if you'll agree with

Yes, And there's a certain arrogance to it. You don't hear any humility when the medical establishment gets things wrong, be it with our biggest health recommendations like the food pyramid, or policies during COVID that hurt kids. You don't see an apology. I haven't heard of any apologies.

And that's why.

There's an epidemic of mistrust right now. Mistrust is at an all time high. I mean, only forty percent of the public trust doctors and hospitals. In a recent gem On Network study that just got public.

It was seventy.

Percent just five years ago. So public trust and profession has gone down thirty percentage points in just a matter

Well it's not a blank and endorsement either, but this is some of the things that Robert F. Kennedy Junior was talking about and you never hear anybody talk about it in political circles, you know, And I think it's about time that somebody is at least raising that awareness and talking about it in those circles. The book is blind Spots when medicine gets it wrong and what it means for our health. Is it just humorous or is it?

Think it's mostly group think. But for the small people at the top of medicine, the oligarchs in our priesthood of the medical establishment that tell us what we can and cannot talk about, it does.

Get pretty dark.

I mean, if you look at their gigantic mistakes and the medical establishment saying opioids were not addictive for thirty years, igniting the opio epidemic, getting the food pyramid wrong for sixty years, igniting the obesity epidemic today, getting hormone replacement therapy wrong, trying to scare women away from it, causing needless suffering. In all of those examples that I go through in the book, they crushed the descending doctor's opinions.

Doctors has said.

Wait a minute, there's no science to support this, we can't put this out there with such absolutism, and they were crushed. And so when you have the keys to the kingdom at the top of the establishment, it's easy to just suppress.

People who disagree with you.

But that's not how science has done. Science has always been about challenging deeply held assumptions, and maybe right now in American medicine today, we need to recognize that we're going down a bad path. We have the sickest generation in the history of the world. Autism goes up fourteen percent every year for the last twenty three years. Half of our nation's kids are obese or pre diabetic or overweight, and cancer rates have doubled in my field of pancreatic cancer.

Where are we going?

We have to stop and look at the big picture. We need fresh new ideas. That we have had terrible leaders in the medical establishment.

We're going down a bad path.

Maybe we need to talk more about treating diabetes with cooking classes than just throwing insulent people. Maybe we need to talk about school lunch programs, not just putting every overweight kid on ozembic.

Well, I came into my doctor's appointment five years ago. Was the first time I'd seen a doctor in thirty five years, doctor McCarry. So I was expecting terrible news, which I got chronic high pertension type two diabetes. My A one C was nine point two and the first thing they did for that was put me on met Forman. Now I've been on met Forman ever since. I have altered my diet slightly. My A one C is down. But I'm also because I have some you know, mild

In your opinion, Well, it's ironic that we put people on statins because we believe it lowers their LiPo proteins and cholesterol and therefore or it has long term benefits. But there was an interesting study that showed that people lived a little longer if they took Satan's, regardless of the cholesterol was high.

And that suggests that.

The benefit from Satan's may not be the liftid lowering effect. It may actually be the anti inflammatory effect that Satan's give. Now, thats have side effects like every medication, so we may have missed the mark, but actually saved some lives or extended lives almost accidentally with some staatens.

You did recommend the COVID vaccines for adults but not for kids, and uh, I guess this is the thing. And but you were against the mandates. That's why you were one of my champions in this. I've never taken one jab. My wife didn't either. We just decided it wasn't for us. And and then that's that's with type two diabetes and hypertension. You know, I was in one

I don't.

I think it was passed through too fast. But they come up with these new strain vaccines now, and there's a new one out now for the latest strain of this terrible, this terrible common cold that was you know, put upon the whole world from a lab in Wuhan. So you recommended the vaccines for adults, but not for kids. Why not for kids?

Doctor?

Well, first of all, initially the COVID vaccine provided some transient protection maybe three three to six months of decent protection against the original virus that was circulating at the time when the vaccines came out, and that benefit was not really there for people who already recovered from COVID and had natural immunity, or for young, healthy kids who had essentially zero risk of death from COVID. But you wouldn't hear a nuanced message. Instead, the medical establishment does

Yeah.

I just had a lot of questions and a lot of skepticism about the vaccine because it wasn't a vaccine in the truest term as we knew it.

It was.

The mRNA was as some people have described it as a vax gene because it was more gene therapy than it was what we think of as a vaccine. And the other thing that bothered me doctor McCurry about the entirety of the COVID nineteen vaccine rollout was that if you go if you go on TV and you look at any ad for any drug, prescription drug, about half of the ads is listing the possible bad side effects

Don't you think that's odd.

Well, they overcounted COVID hospitalizations, making the virus looked more dangerous than it really was, and they undercounted COVID vaccine complications and vaccine injuries, making the vaccine look safer than it really was.

So they were very intellectually dishonest during COVID. And the tragedy of the whole thing was that the entire nightmare of COVID, the prolonged school closures, the learning loss that were now we just learned from a Brown University study equated to twelve IQ points, and the twenty eight million people that may have died was all avoidable, almost certainly in high likelihood, had we not had the most dangerous

Doctor Martin McCary. The book is Blind Spots. It's brand new, it's just out when medicine gets it wrong and what

I appreciate your time so much.

Great to be with you, Thanks for having me, and I hope you enjoy the book.

Absolutely looking forward to it. That's doctor Marty McCoy.

This news sponsored by Delta Dental, building healthy, smart, vibrant communities for all news, traffic and weather. News Radio seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.

Any more information about the suspect while the investigators look for a motive with the nine point thirty report, I'm Sean Galviagher breaking now an investigation by the FBI and it's early stages as a man is suspected of trying to assassinate former President Trump while he was playing golf at his course Sunday afternoon. The Secret Service saying Ryan Rauth never got a shot off, and Trump was never in his line of sight. Ohious Senator and Trump's running

No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out.

Somebody's gonna get hurt by it.

But Vans and Trump have continued to push a false online claim that Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio llegally have been eating people's pets, which has led to nearly three dozen threats against government building, schools, high hospitals, and others there over the past week, which ended up being hoaxes. Governor Mike DeWine, who says the claim is false, announcing today that members of the Ohio State Highway patrols Field Force will be deployed to secure and do daily sweeps

Both ladies forecast from a train heating and cooling weather center on news radio seven hundred WLW.

So it'll be a little bit cooler as we head into the overnight hours. Tempters dip down to the mid to upper fifties for your Tuesday morning, with cloudy skies and chances for rain throughout most of the day. It'll be light rain and not enough to help with drought conditions, but it will be nice as tempter stay in the low eighties formas of your weather station, I'm nine First Warning Meteorologist Cameron Harden on news Radio seven hundred WLW.

Clear and currently seventy degree.

The Cincinnati man will spend ten years in prison after admitting he sold fentanyl and laundered money from those sales. Nathaniel Williams last year, told an undercover agent he had money from drug deals and needed to get it into the bank. US attorney Kenneth Parker says that Williams gave the agent more than fifteen thousand dollars in cash, which was wired into Williams' bank account. Williams with drew ten

Ges our calling in on the seven hundred WLW Hotline backed by guilty trusted pros.

Everyone knows hey, neighbor.

Oh my gosh, is your energy bill sky high again?

Too?

Not anymore? My windows were so lead.

To shoot the whatever with the fur ball. Andy Furman is joining us. They I understand that, Andy. They call you at the ups store, Old yeller? Is that true?

Uh?

Y E L L A yellow like a yell and scream, you know, not yeller like yellow like yellow?

Do you find do you find yourself.

Do you find yourself tending to just break out in these fits every once in a whileland public places? I mean, have you seen a doctor about this? Maybe a psychotherapist or something about this?

This?

You you have this pension for just breaking out into full blown, full volume yelling, And I don't know if that's normal or not.

Maybe it is for you. What do you think?

Well, you didn't even freaking well, first of all, you didn't even freaking introduce me.

That's number one.

The first thing I said, another night with the fer ball. What else do you want?

Well, it's usually it's usually a bigger intro than that, But that's okay. Next thing is, I have a tendency to break out not only in public, but in private. And I did it yesterday when I.

Was watching the Bengals Chiefs game. I broke out and said, what the hell is going on?

You got three turnovers by Kansas City that had a clean game on the Bengals for Borrow's part, And I saw that the.

Thing just vanish away, vanish away.

I mean, I rather lose my three touchdowns than lose like that.

Well, how many times in the Bengals recent pastor or not so recent past have some stupid injuries or some stupid penalties cost the Bengals a football game. And Anthony, you know, God bless him. He's a rookie. But yeah, that was past interference playing and simple and all you got to do to get into Harrison. Butker's range for a winning field goal is somewhere on the field.

I mean, that guy's amazing.

Way.

You're right, I will tell you this much. I have no problem with the rookie nicking that mistaken It was the right call. It was pissed of the fearence. What led up to that, it was the blowout to melt down of Jamar Chase.

I mean that hurt too, with that fifteen yard penalty on him.

I mean, to control yourself. I'm borrowed at the very best he could to try to separate it from the official. I'm sure the magic Gordy said to the official was not where are we going to eat after the game? I'm sure that was not the magic word.

No, he was pretty animated at that point. And I'm the same way you are. I'm just sitting there and I'm a Kansas City fan. I'm going Jamar, shut up. The plays over they made the call, just go back to the huddle. But no, he couldn't help himself.

Right what.

Let me ask you this, and it's not just about Jamar Chase, it's about me watching the NFL over the last twenty years. It's been at least twenty years, maybe a quarter century, maybe longer than that. Andy, Why are all these star wide receivers. Why do they all devolve into these incomparable divas when it just because they can

It's me, me, me, me me, don't you agree?

I'll tell you if you want to go back to I dodeed this day are There's no doubt about that.

And their paycheck represents that as well.

However, let me go back and explain this whole thing started.

With the era of Dan Marino.

I called Dan Marino, the former quarterback of the Miami Dolphins, the godfather of the forward pass.

He basically changed the game of.

Football where it has become a passing rather than.

A running game.

However, However, if you look through statistics. I'm not a statistic geet, the great Lance McAllister is, but I tell this Lance may want to check this out. Eleven of the fifteen teams last year that went postseason, okay, e love of the fifteen seas had great records and great seasons last year had more touchdowns.

By way of the run than the pass.

And the last several weeks in the NFL, the last two weeks is they're more rushing than passing. Look at the stats of the LA Charges what they have done. They have outrushed their passing stats over the last two weeks.

Because Jim Harbaugh.

Believes on the three odds in the Cloud of Dust, I think the game is transforming right now and moving back towards the run game. Why the run game is a valuable tool because A it eats up the clock. B you control the line of scrimmage and can move for first downs. And see it keeps the better players on the other team, like a Patrick Mahomes off the field.

So the running game is coming back.

You know, the game is not new, there's nothing new that's going to be involved in the game of football.

But things do change.

They go back the more things over the past. Are they come back to the future. If you get what I'm saying, I.

Get your drift, baby, And I'm telling you what. The most eye popping game that I got to see yesterday was dead New Orleans Saints taking a part of the Dallas Cowboys in front of God, Jerry Jones and all those faithful at that stadium in Dallas in Arlington, and I just, man, the Saints are for real, man, And that's an offensive machine.

They've done it two weeks in a row.

Now, well, here's the thing. I mean, when things let that happen, you scratch head, say why is it happening? They got a new offensive coordinator, but they have Kurt Kubiak, and he scored thirty seven points the first game, forty seven points yesterday.

He's got him going.

And no one thought that the quarterback situation nor Leans would be that good for them to be that competitive right now, and they are, okay. Offensive coordinator Joe Hardy basically in Buffalo basic goed like something like sixty five points in their first two bowl games. It's about coaching, It's about systems. It's about people who coach and evolve into the system. And the players that they have. All Right, everybody thought that would Buffalo lot Stefan Diggs.

They'd be down the dumps. They're good.

You got to stay Buffalo right now is a potential Super Bowl contender, maybe even more so than the Bengals.

I've been watching the Jacksonville game a little bit of that, the Jags game. And they've got that pool out in the stadium for fans to swim in.

Have you seen that?

And I'm just we were having that discussion back during the Olympics about the athletes peeing in the pool during the swimming events.

I wonder how much DNA is in.

A pool with all those little kids out there at a football game?

And do you like that? Do you like that these venues.

That are designed for people watching sports teams have all these other little amenities on the side. I think it really is a detraction from the game.

I think course of a want to apologize at the offense. The offensive coordinate for the football those is Joe Brady, not Joe Harty. So let me get all right, all right, First of all, if I'm going to a football game, I don't want to go swimming.

No.

Number two, I question what what particles may be in the play.

I want to keep this as clean as I can.

Yeah, well, the only beer that's been drunk at a bit at a football game. I guarantee you the color of the water of the pool is not blue and may be more yellow.

That's all I'm saying.

Possibly, And and all those young fans out there swimming in that pool, there's Have you ever been to a resort where like it's it's a family resort and you get in the pool and after about fifteen minutes you get out and you feel like you've got to take three showers just to clean the film off. That's what I imagine that would be long.

I would think, Yeah, well, I don't know why you would go to a football game or a baseball game for that matter, and want to go swimming.

We have to bring a change up.

Do you bring a change of clothing and they give you a locker?

What do you do?

I mean, do you walk in with a baby suit? I wouldn't even know how it's done.

How do you do that? It's not I mean if you come.

Into a bowl game, you know, you come into a game, you usually have your keys, your car keys, your wallet in your pocket. You're gonna jump in the pool with that, you got to obviously take it love and put a swim suit on.

How do you do that exactly? I know that you like to, you know, used to like to take a fits. You call it as fits at the athletic club.

Well, I got it's just the athletic club. You're go in the raw. There's no problem whatsoever. You just take everything off and jump.

In, right.

You know, it's not bad.

So, I mean, it's a relaxing It's relaxing for you to be around a bunch of other naked, sweaty men, is what you're telling me.

Well, well, I used to go to the athletic club. I was like the only guy in the pool. Not many people go there. I mean, you know, not many people swim. I think the average age of that place probably is seventy enough. If I can't swim, they'll look if they could open their locker, you.

Know what I'm saying.

So it's a different.

Ball game over there. But you know, I just I'm.

Just saying, what hell we got off on this thing?

But what else has grabbed your attention in the world of sports this week?

What take do you have what acts do you have to grind?

Andy Furman, Well, it's not an act, But I tell you what I want to talk about. This something off the Fieldhich to me is somewhat serious. And uh, I want to go back a week ago with the Tyreek Hill basically pulled out of his vehicle prior to the game with the Miami Dolphins. And I read a column and I want to say here and now that it was written by Mike Freeman, an African American who I believe that he's a friend of mine. Mike Freeman is the best sports columnist in America today if you've never

Calls the talk.

The talk is what a parent gives a kid when he's growing up, or more so Pamba an African American kid than anybody else. And he says the story that there was a police officer who started following him and did so for about five minutes, he knowing he was going and goring I could stop.

He said.

He got his documents out of his compartment, already neatly stacked together, put them in the passenger seat, and then there was flashing lights and the cops said my inspections stick.

There and and spired it had it was a pandemic.

I was barely leaving my house live alone getting my car inspected, and the officer understood and told me to get it done soon. But before she spoke, I rolled my window down, put my hands on the wheelers who I wasn't a threat. I told the officer, I'm unarmed, there are no weapons in the car, and he says, my mom had taught me all these things years before the talk. It was in my head during every moment

I don't think your parents give you the talk.

Oh absolutely, but I think tyreek Hill probably And I don't know his personal family situation, and I'm not going to try and guess andy, and I'm not going to just make assumptions about it, but I think that maybe tyreek Hill didn't have a whole lot of parenting in general growing up.

And that's sad to say.

Other than maybe encouragement, and did tyreek Hill come from a single parent family, was he raised by his mom or his grandma, as many kids are today, and you wonder these lessons they are important and it is all down to what the parents give their children as building blocks for life outside of the home. And you're right, that talk is probably one of the most important talks any parent could have with any kid, regardless of their skin color. It's just something that you need to know

No guy, I want to say this though the twelve does not guarantee safety because that happened. Is this is a black driver's cooperating a police are still aggressive with the driver, So you know that, and is this some research and this.

According to Mike.

Freeman, there's been some research that shows that black drivers are more likely to be stopped by police than their white peers, and that means obviously more chances for things.

To go wrong.

All right, And look, obviously none of this is Hill's fault. He pulled down, he was handcuffed and thrown to the ground. It was ridiculous. It was bad. It's a bad look all the way around. I don't know what the end result is going to be, if the cops are going to be fired, or what's gonna happen right now, but it.

Just was not a bad thing.

And look, Hill came back and said he could have been a little more cooperative as well. He could have been, you know, he had the window up for fear of maybe some of some of his so called fans would have seen him. Look, he could have got arrested, right he. No one mentions in the story though, that he didn't have a license. That that's that's not mentioned didn't have a license.

I didn't I didn't realize. I didn't hear that part of the story. Tyreek Hill did not have a license when he got pulled over for speeding, and then wouldn't open the window for the cop when he came up to pull him over.

Okay, right, right, Well, you know it's shining ugly situation. And I don't know if if he didn't have his license with him or he just doesn't have a license.

I don't No, we don't know that.

How come if you're at that status in the NFL, you're making that kind of money, you just don't have a driver to take you to and from the games.

Andy, Well, I'm gonna go one step further. I'm gonna go into the football.

Elm of this thing right now. Number one, he was late. Why the hell are.

You coming so late for a game that day? Most of these guys are in the locker room by nine point thirty ten o'clock for a one o'clock game, and he was getting there like eleven o'clock. So we're in a hell weale number one. Number two, I don't understand. The old philosophy in football always was you don't practice, you don't play, right, Jamar Chase hasn't practiced, he's playing. Okay, I don't get it. I promise you right now, If forrest Greg may he rest in peace, were still coaching

Way it is.

Well, maybe Forrest greg we're still coaching the Cincinnati Bengals were he alive, they wouldn't have lost that game yesterday.

What about that, Andy, I tend to agree, although I think that's Zach Taylor and the hell of a game plan with those tight ends right there, and the protection is pretty good on Joe, and no one's talking about Joe's water bottle or spiral or anything else right now, which is a good thing. And they went to the tight end many times for receptions.

I think things are good.

You know, certain freaky things happened that the play that passed interference.

Call, and obviously Jamal Chase blowing up, and then again, you know, when money Mack.

Misses the extra point, the game would have been tied. It got actually the whole aspect of.

The game as well, mister, there's a lot of.

Factors in that game. Who the hell thought he missed an extra.

Point, mister perfect.

Evin McPherson whiffs on an extra point, and here we are twenty six, twenty five, a loss for the Bengals.

In a win for my Kansas City chiefs. Hey, you know, Brittany Mahomes, I will say this, what what are you gonna say?

Yeah?

Now, I'll just say I didn't think, looking at the schedule that they were going to be Kansas City.

And I feel pretty good the way they lost.

I mean, there's not to make things they need to correctly, don't be as sloppy. But the point is this, now I know that this team is not as bad.

As they were an opening dick and.

Yeah competitive, Yeah, they're competitive now. And we've also learned yesterday that maybe the paintings are as bad as we thought they were going to be. They lost an overtime yesterday.

That's true.

I mean, the Patriots are surprising people. They have bounced back from their four win season of last year, and they have beaten the Bengals and they pushed another club to overtime. They're one and one, the Bengals are zero and two. They can't afford to lose on Monday Night. Football a week from tonight against the Washington Commanders. Though, don't you agree with that?

Well, you know, when you're owing to, the percentages go pretty up, pretty pretty scaled up of the chances of going postseason. Yeah, they've been lucky lest a couple of years going on with.

To start to restart doing percentages, you start ohing to, you have a five percent chance of making the playoffs. That is what is what the statistics show.

Yeah, so I don't know.

The Ravens to Also, I know I loved watching I loved watching them lose. I can't stand the Ravens. The Steelers. How about the Steelers? How about the Pittsburgh Steelers?

Andy?

Good lord, are we ever gonna see? Are we ever gonna see Russell Wilson play quarterback again?

I don't think so.

Probably not, I don't think for a ball. It's good to talk to you again. It's been quite a while since I've even had an opportunity to talk with you. But I'm glad that you could take some time out of yelling at the UPS store. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of the evening.

You too. Thank you.

Speak to you soon, all right.

You bet?

You. You can't spell Furman without f you. It's the nightcap in American history on the radio coming up afternoons.

Meanwhile in Me and Chuck it Forest the Princess. Wait a minute, where's the princess?

And she's on Maternity Lead.

We're filling in while she's out. But you're Eddie and Rocky. Yeah, So what this story is supposed to be about? How the princess does nothing but listen to your show?

What you know, Let's be honest.

If all she ever did was listen to our show.

She wouldn't be on Maternity Leader. You know what I'm saying.

Oh, good point, guys, Eddie.

And rock tomorrow afternoon at three on seven hundred WLW You're.

Smart, all right?

You ready to get into the parents Okay?

Now, I bet yeah. I can make you on saying music words, saying up the phone on me. Oh that's easy, w L boogie check. Hey, mister Wizard of Dot, I'm.

Calling him the name of justice.

If I'm a month ago, I called me a monkey Eddie on the phone.

So if you say the right magic word, how did you make a monkey out of me?

I got something wrong?

So if you say the right word, You'll make a monkey out of me. I want to make a monkey out of you. Go Banana.

That is some of the craziness that was known as boogie check, an invention of one John Records Landecker when he was on eighty nine WLS in Chicago. That's from nineteen seventy seven. Today, John Records Landecker is a national radio treasure and he is nightly doing a talk show on seven to twenty WGN back in the Windy City. And this is American history on the radio on the nightcap. John Records and Records is truly your middle name, land Decker.

Well, thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it.

Oh man.

And you know, I kind of told you, but I'll tell the all audience that as a kid growing up in suburban Chicago, we lived in Downers Grove in Napersville from like sixty five to seventy one. Now, you hadn't gotten a WLS at that point, but when I got my first transistor radio, I think it was seven years old, WLS was locked. As long as I was able to have the radio on or the nine volt battery didn't

We're seventy two. I got there, yeah.

And so anyway, I was still hooked on WLS when we moved away, and of course with that big booming signal like seven hundred WLW has big booming signal on WLS. I could hear it in suburban Saint Louis when we moved there, and then to even to Nashville, Tennessee, in Middle Tennessee, and I would listen late at night and I would hear you, and I heard boogie check, and it so influenced me in my radio career. Later that

When you were first of all, First of all, I want to say that it's a great honor to be on WLW because it's one of the great radio stations in American history. And it also is part of my current situation where I only appear ondeo stations that have three call letters.

So I wanted I wanted to make it clear, all right, where did boogie check come from?

If there was a real place that it came from, you know, some.

Thought out, well thought out plan, I let you know.

But it was a totally spontaneous experience on the air. I guess this sort of starts with the fact that the term let's boogie was a spying expression at the time. Yeah, it was being printed on T shirts and other items of apparel and being used and as slang. And so you've got that as a base that term boogiele's is floating around.

Okay, Well, am.

Radio the stations that played top forty rock music at that time had a reputation of repeating the same songs over and over and over again. And that's because they repeated the same songs over and over and over again, and I was on at night and I got really tired of that. I was just you know, if you heard them once in a while, it was okay, but if he were there every time they repeated, it became irritating.

Well, one night, don't ask me how.

I had no idea because it just spontaneously occurred. All of that came together as the sixty second bookie check. I started answering the phone live on the air at WLS.

I had no idea what a boogie check meant. It didn't mean anything.

You could interpret it, I suppose any way you wanted to, if you were like a twelve year old listener. And it just went.

On from there. No One, as far as I knew, no one used Top.

Forty or rock radio in that manner Prior to that. I mean, they took phone calls to the extent that you could hear a request or a dedication, But this was none of that.

This was just random chaos.

Going up and down the telephone line, live on the air, just reacting whatever I ran into. And it seemed to be something that I could do pretty well. And that's pretty much it. There's no grand design to it, well.

You know, and it doesn't occur to me that it would be a thing that you put a lot of thought into.

But that was the beauty, no thought into it.

Not only that's one of the reasons I loved it. It didn't require any thought, didn't require any preparation, you know, I just did it.

No, they would call and they would be stupid, and you would be rude and hang up on them. And the idea was for listeners hearing this, and what's a bookie check anyway?

Exactly so. But it was like almost like bull riding.

If you could stay on eight seconds until the bell, you could win, right.

I've never heard that analogy, but that's great. Yeah, I guess so.

But it inspired me boogie check.

Hearing that as a teenager and tweener inspired me till later on in my radio career do this game? I used to play at multiple stations that I've been on, called what is it? And I didn't have an answer for what it was. But when I got a creative enough, whacky enough phone call and they exactly it, it's this, and they'd go through some rambling dissertation about what it is, and I.

Say, you're right, I can't believe you nailed it. That's great.

But that was all because of listening to John Records, Land Decker and boogiey Check you know there.

Over the years, people have said to me, how did you splice all those phone calls together?

And the reason we didn't.

They were always one hundred percent live or on delay. Rather, there was never any kind of pre taping at all. The only concession that was ever made to the callers was the fact in the beginning WLS had note delay system because no one took any phone calls live on a rock station, so the big f got put out over the airwaves. I mean, the SEC at the time said something like, you know, do whatever you can to keep these obscenities off the air. Well, you know what,

Allow bookie checks would be on the air.

You'd go into the delay system for the for the phone calls and for.

The bit and then come out of it at the end.

Nowadays it's all digital and everybody's on delay.

Much all the time.

Oh yeah, I mean yeah, from when they installed the digital transmitter here at seven hundred years ago. Uh, that added an extra delay to the system. But there is a delay dump system that we in the talk studio and in the producer's room. There are giant red buttons that just stay dump exactly and I rarely imagined.

Yeah, if you can imagine, there was none of that. Yeah, nothing, There was no delay system whatsoever, and so something had to be devised. And instead of telling me that I couldn't do it, which you know might have been one management reaction, uh, they were totally behind it. And I think that's another thing that's very important to note here is that the program director at the time, John Garan, and the general manager Marty Greenberg. You know, I never

You know.

They allowed people the air, personalities on the air to do whatever sort of came to mind as long as it didn't cross the lines of I get suppose good taste or threatened the license of the radio station. So I mean, I think that's important to note is that the programming and the management of that radio station were totally into it, which is unusual.

Well, I'm very very I'll tell you.

As a talk show host, I'm very very when I'm talking about anything that's cultural or political. I am very far right. Well I wouldn't say far right. I haven't blown up any buildings or anything, but thank god, yeah, right exactly, and don't intend to. But whatever the subject matter is, whether it's been COVID nineteen, vaccines, or anything else that I have talked about and taken a stand, no one from iHeartMedia or here in the building has ever said Gary.

Jeff, don't do that. You can't. You can't do that.

So I understand having the freedom and it doesn't matter what it is, John, If you have the freedom to express a thought or to do something that you think you need to do for you and your audience, then if you've got the green light to do that, you know. And I don't ask permission either, Like you said, it's always better to ask forgiveness and permission.

And I haven't mend.

You know this wasn't There was nothing political.

No, no, no, I understand.

I was just giving you an illustration of the same kind of the same kind of acquiescence by management of letting the jock or the air talent be the air talent that they are.

You know what I mean.

I understand, Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I do. So.

I mean to have that kind of freedom though, it allows for some fantastic radio and you know, you look back on it now and it just for me, it brings back a well spring of childhood memories. Over Labor Day WEEKND something called rewound radio and that was on

No iniquities shall be punished.

Wait, that's something that was specifically, that was specifically put in there when somebody that was.

The was that the delay system, Yes, that was used to cover up the obscenity.

That was That was Bill Price, our production.

Director, and we had him cut a number of these very short bow as you know, a violated the world's taste, and that played when that replaced the obscendity or the off polo remark that had been on the air.

So that's where that came from that was what that was used for.

You know what, I want to say something else about uh w ellis at that time. I'm one of the keys to its huge success was the fact that everybody got along so well, and you know, the lineup of their personalities appeared on each other shows. We had a great time on and off the air. We had sort of a prime directive, which was that the radio station was there.

As a tool for our amusement and as a law. You know that we didn't have anything to do with the listener per se, but it certainly did in the fact that the people who listen would always say, you guys, sounded like you were just having a great time, and that's because we were you.

And I think that that, you know, transmits itself out to the listener and they pick up on that and they want to be a part.

Of that, you know.

And I've never been at a station that had that kind of camaraderie before or since. And we still as a group maintain connections. It's quite amazing. Quite frankly.

Well, in speaking of the staff, what was Larry Lujack like.

John Well? I love Larry lu Jack. He was a great guy.

He had this on air persona being sarcastic, and he was one of the hardest working people I'd ever met. He was at the station hours and hours and hours going over newspapers and what was called wire copy at the time, which came from United PRESI International Associated Press. He was dedicated to his craft and it was just a great guy to be around.

He was fun.

We all loved him, and that wasn't his persona on the air so much, but because it was a bit of an act, but it worked very well for him and he was really well liked.

I'll tell you a brief, brief story.

Okay, you know, here's what I want to do, John, I want to take a break and come back and do another segment if you'll indulge me. And you can tell this is what they call in the business folks to tease. We're going to hear funny Larry Lujack story from John Records Land Decker and Records is truly his middle name. One of the broad is one of the broadcasting legends of my life.

For certain.

It's American history on the radio, and it continues after the break on seven hundred w LW.

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Be a morning lover with Mike McConnell Tomorrow Morning at Fine on seven hundred WLW. In today's Marketers Report, Erica Taylor, chief marketing officer of gen Intech, weighs in on audio's ability to back with John Records Land Deecker American History on the Radio on the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW.

That's a lengthy title. John.

When we last were talking before the break, were you were going to tell me a Larry Lujacks story from those classic vintage days at WLS Radio in Chicago.

So please continue, sir, Well, this is a story like that has a setup of middle and a punchline. But I'll tell you what it was, Okay. I came to WLS and seventy two. I came there from Philadelphia. I was a very young kid. Larry was already there. In one of our little conversations back in our little DJ offices, the discussion was, I've got to be about Elvis and the Beatles, and I said, you know, I really liked the Beatles. I mean, Elvis is okay, you know, but

All right.

Yeah, So years passed, a few years past, and Elvis dies in the afternoon, and I'm at the station and Larry isn't it. And I say, god, he's got to know this. He wants to know this. This is important. So this isn't on the air or anything. So I call Larry at home and I talked to his wife, Judy, and I say, Judy, it's John Landecker.

I got to talk to Larry Elvis dye.

And she goes, well, he's Larry's taken a nap, And I said, well, because he was the morning guy, right so, and so I said, well, I think he would want to know. He goes, he goes okay, and Larry gets on the phone. Yeah, is it Larry, it's a land decker at the station.

Elvis died.

Yeah, I'm taking a nap.

We expect me to do about it? Click okay. Then thirty maybe twenty five, thirty years later, the anniversary of Elvis's death.

I'm doing afternoons on what became wls FM, and I had Larry's phone number from before he was living in Texas, and I called him up.

And I go, Larry, you're on the air.

He goes, yeah, you're supposed to informed people out of the air, too, bid Larry, I want to tell you that I wanted to remind you know, thirty years ago, also died. And he just absolutely broke up, like hysterical, and he goes, I people, that's his story, and he launches into this whole recap of the incident that I

Yeah.

Yes, you and I have both interviewed the legendary Shotgun Tom Kelly this summer because he's got a book out up. But I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you the same kind of questions I asked Shotgun Tom. And you probably inquired of this as well when you talk to him. What inspired you to be in radio in the first place, John, What was.

The That's a good question. I think a part of it has to do with being around when radio at that time still had.

What we would call entertainment programming, before the era of rock and roll. We're talking like somewhere in the fifties where you could hear I mean I was really young, but you could hear people. I don't even if the names mean anything to anybody anymore, like Arthur god For you would have a variety show with singers, and you could hear drama like The Lone Ranger and Sky King, and you could hear comedy shows.

And things like that. And at the same time, my dad.

Who was a professor at the University Masipuid, was blind. So I'm getting like psychological now and in retrospect, I feel that that had something to do with my interest in radio, because of course my father couldn't see, so therefore television. We were the last people on the block to have a TV. But he would get all of his information from the radio. And I was a boy scout and sold Christmas reads from door to drawer and raised a certain.

Amount of money.

And the money that I wanted to do with my money, and we went down to an electronics store and I wanted to buy a six transistor radio. You know you mentioned your nine vote datter earlier, And there was a channel Master six transistor AM only radio that costs thirty six bucks back in that day. That was a lot of money, and I only had sixteen seventeen dollars.

And my parents matched.

It and.

Brought the radio home and my.

Father listened to his newscasts on that radio that night. I was just totally into radio from the get go. I pretended I had a radio station in my How am I in my bedroom?

Did we all do that? We all did?

We all did that?

We all did that. I was talking. I was talking to Tom Shotgun Toime. He did that too. I think we all did that, and you know, and then I.

Was in high school. I went to University of Michigan High School, which was run by the University of Michigan School of Education. It no longer exists, but they were open to suggestion and I had a political science teacher named Mylon Marriage, and instead of doing a term paper, I was allowed to do a term tape or I

He gave it to me.

He said, go into that room and when that light comes on, read this stuff.

And he made a bit out of the fact that.

There was a local high school kid that was there who wanted to get into the radio. And that was basically the beginning.

That was it.

I started going out to that station after school. I was hired as a janitor for a dollar fifteen an hour. They had one rock and roll show on the air during the week on Saturday mornings. From this, I joined that show as a newsman. One thing leads to another, and another and another, and I never left the business since then.

And that was it. Yeah.

I attended the thirteenth grade at Volunteer State Community College in Gallaton, Tennessee, to for the radio program exactly, and did not fit. I was making straight a's in school, but it didn't matter. Once I had the job. After a month internship at the local station, I was done with school. I had achieved my objective. I was just going to go from there. Yeah, and that's that's what happened with me.

You know, you said that you currently are like right wing commentator and broadcasts.

Yeah. I don't know about it, right Wayne, But okay, but you know Rush.

Limbaugh, Yeah, oh, Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh is the guy that inspired me, made me want to get into talk radio out of music radio.

Well, anyway, before Rush Limbaugh was Russell Limbaugh. She was a jack at k q V in Pittsburgh. Yeah, And one day at my house in Chicago, I pick up the phone and it's him, and I have no idea where he got my number, and he was calling me to see if I had any advice on how to be a disc jockey. And I didn't remember this, but I saw him at a like a I think he was being inducted into the.

Hall of Fame, Radio Hall of Fame or something. And he said that he had called and that I was eating a salad, and that's.

What he remembered of that whole experience. But you know, he started out in rock radio. You started out in rock radio. My tenure as a talk show host is only like four years, and that's at WGN. And I specifically stay away from any political or issue oriented content.

Just you don't want to want.

I just don't want. I just I just don't want to get into it with anybody. I can't change anybody's mind. No, nobody's going to change my mind. We got so much visit divisiveness already. Everybody knows what they think. They're not going to believe anything. Nobody will believe anything. I would try to make them believe anyway. Oh No, you know and it makes it easier for me because I'm a people pleaser.

Well, this is this is John, This is exactly why I love doing interviews like this because it is a political has nothing it has to do with with an interest that I have. And my whole thing is if I'm really interested in a topic, I can make the audience interested in it and make it.

Well, that's true, true, you're right, You're right.

Yeah, So I mean, no, I love not but I'm just when it comes time to tackle certain topics and I don't get into people. I just tell them the way I feel it may be in the my opinion. My opinion may be controversial, and that may be why I'm considered right wing by some people. So I guess I may have given you the wrong idea there.

Well, no, no, I think having You know, if I had strong opinions that I wanted other people to hear, I would do that. But it's just not a part of my And I may have a strong opinion on something, but it's just not a part of my broadcast nature.

To be doing that.

And you know, I'm not a shock shock either, and so it's sort of this sort of old not old fashioned, but I guess traditional approach to a talk radio show.

Where it's safe.

We try to be humorous, informative. Obviously it is something big is happening, sure, news wise or whatever.

We get to it.

But other than that, it's I originally came out and talked called it a radio oasis because I came on, ironically in the middle of COVID, and that's all you heard about and then and then it was also the political run up to the election, and we all remember how what that felt like. And so I just, you know, I just stayed away from it. My daughter says, Dad, you got a job during COVID.

I said, yeah, I know. It's sort of weird, isn't it.

And you know, we had the ability to do and you know this too, radio programs that originate not from the studio but from our homes and things like that. And it was a long time before I ever went into the WGN studios simply because of the whole COVID situation.

And it was a very turbulent time.

I mean, just like every day felt like there was nothing but doom and gloom all day long. So I came on, I'm like, you know, we're not doing that now, And initially it was. I got to tell you, it was very successful. I mean I had some rating periods that were and for a nighttime AM station, I was like fifth in the market, and I'm like.

Oh, that's incredible in that market.

Well, I don't think.

I don't think it's like that anymore. Things are drastically changed and the station has changed a few things. But the great thing about WGN is that it's owned by next Star Media and next Star Media, we are the only radio.

Station that next Star Media owns.

They were on a bunch of TV stations, but we're it so the only child. Yes, we're the only child, and we get treated like that.

That's great.

John Records Landecker is our guest on the Nightcap American History on the Radio. And I guess what was your first big job, John, big money job, big market Because you worked everywhere. You worked in Toronto, I guess you worked in Philadelphia, the big break.

Let's call it that, because I suppose the money at the time was good, but it wouldn't be anything anybody would like bats their eyes at.

Now.

I was a senior at Michigan State University and I was majoring in communication arts, And little did I know that there were these two radio officionados, Dave Alberry and Jim Donahue, who were students and loved radio, and they were recording my show at night on this local station in East Lansing, Michigan or Lansing, Michigan called WILS while I was going to Michigan State and there was a disc jockey at CKOW and Detroit named Mike.

Rivers, and that was a huge station.

And he got a job offer to go to WIBG in Philadelphia, and they had an opening at that radio station, and Albury and Donahue had sent him a the air check of me, a recording.

Which he took with him, and he played this for his program director, guy named Paul Drew.

And I got a phone call out of nowhere saying, Hey, we'd like to fly you in for a job interview.

Now.

I'm married, I have a kid, I'm a senior in college.

My father is a professor, my mother is.

A social worker graduate. They happened to be out of the country on what was a sabbatical in Germany. My in laws one went to MIT in Harvard, the other one went to Bassard. The idea that I would drop out of college was something.

I never.

Thought of in my wildest dreams. But I talked to my professors, I talked to my in laws. My professor said, you know, you've got like a half a year left. This is exactly what you would be looking for in six months or whatever.

Go for it. I did.

And it was terror in the beginning because I got this job and the guy who ran the station said, we're changing her name to Scott Walker, and I'm like, what's going on here? And this was a very tightly run, strict, no wiggle room format, and I was not very good, to be honest with you. I was surprised that wasn't fired. They hired me to be on from nine to midnight. That got switched to midnight to six, six nights a week. Then they put me on noon to three. Then the

Joey Reynolds and it went.

From super tight to anarchy overnight, and I went back to being johnni is Land Decker on the air, and we gave the big Top forty station in Philadelphia the wufil a huge run for its money, and words spread w LS Chicago about what was going on. And then I got a call from WLS saying would you send in an air check? And that was that so And

I can't do this.

But it helped, it helped lead into now.

Yeah.

Obviously, Yeah Records is truly his middle name. And I wish we had more time to talk about that. Put our times up and.

I just just let me say that that is my mother's maiden name.

Excellent, excellent, John Records, Land Decker, Land Decker on American History on the radio, and we'll in honor of the boogie check, we'll play a little boogie. We'll play a little boogie music out Yeah, a little.

Cool in the gang. John, thank you so much.

It's the night Cabinet continues on seven hundred w LW.

When do you like to listen to Scott's loan?

What do you mean.

When I listen all day?

First to Show, and then.

His podcast, Do You Really?

I listened during my appindectomy.

I listened during jury duty.

I listened during my conjugal visit.

I listened during my grandma's funeral.

Do you mean serious? I kind of feel bad about that.

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Join your redsvio on seven hundred WLW, taking you back to August of nineteen seventy eight.

WSKZ Chattanooga, Tennessee Now begins its broadcast day WSKZ with studios on Pine Blue Road and transmitting facilities on Signal Mountain. Broadcasts with one hundred thousand watts vertical and horizontal and stereo at our assigned frequency of one hundred and six point five megahertz WSKZ Chattanooga, Tennessee is KZ.

One O six.

And that's how that began on the nineteenth of August nineteen seventy eight. A few years later it would be our home radio station. Why I see hours, I mean mine and won Eric Page, the Pager. Together, Eric and I worked the knights and dominated the airwaves because there literally was nothing else on and we boomed all over North Georgia and that part of southeastern Tennessee and into Alabama.

It was crazy.

It was a great way to really get a firm footing on my radio career. And again the man that I shared this with, this experience and all these experiences that we're about to relate to you is on the line with us. Eric Page, Welcome to the Nightcap and American history on the radio.

How are you.

Wow?

That was a quick look back, but that's unbelievable, unbelievable.

How are you doing.

Oh man, I'm well, and this is so much fun because we have some stories to share. We probably have stories that we can't share, but we have stories to share about those early halcyon days in radio together in

You taught me a lot of things.

But we were in our early twenties and we were pretty much given the freedom to do pretty much anything we wanted to.

On the radio and have fun. And we did both of those things.

Don't you think that was really Yeah, that was really the key that we just really got the keys to the radio station there and we covered ninety two counties.

I mean, you talk about the reach of that radio station. We got calls on our request line at night. You know, you and I both as far away north as Bowling Green, Kentucky, as far away south as Atlanta, and I mean almost to Birmingham and way into the Carolinas and stuff. And it was just incredible to reach that that station had. And you're right, it was just a blank slate. There was nothing going on between and radio between Atlanta and Nashville, and we filled a giant boyd for a whole lot

Oh God, so much fun. And you know what.

And we had like a I don't know, an eighty or ninety share at night, which is unheard of. And it was partly due to the signal and partly due to the format, and we may have contributed a little bit to that. It was just the right place at the right time for both of us. And it was a blast. There are many things that come to mind when I recalled those days in Chattanooga, Eric in the early eighties. One of them is not exactly one of

You know. I still feel that to this day.

We got tossed around like rag dolls on a mud pit elevated playwood stage they built. It looked more like gallows pretty much. And wow, there were three thousand people crammed in this little armory there as a dead o winner, right. It was January, and we did get the Chicago knockers that they were traveling mud wrestling troop, and they just about killed us.

Now, Eric, we went to a meeting before the bout and they told us about the choreography and what we were supposed to do at what time, and they would do this and then we would do that, and we did not necessarily adhere to the plan. And I think that's where we got into trouble.

Well maybe we did.

We showed up a T shirts and said I wanted all we were wearing wrestling tides and we both weighed maybe one hundred and thirty pounds, were soaking wet, and yeah, we paid for it that night. But it was fun. It was a great show. It did damage me badly though.

We did something else then that I I could not do now, And we did plenty of things I could not do now, but one in particular was the Studio in the Sky, which was basically a billboard with a built on extra catwalk where we would actually broadcast from at night on one of the busiest streets in Chattanooga, brainerd Avenue, And we were what how high, We're like fifty sixty feet up and forty feet.

Up, probably sixty feet.

You know, we had to climb the pole, get in a ladder to get up to the ladder that got up to the catwalk, and you know, we did. We broadcast there. We used to give away stuff from there. We geen juries from Warner Brothers Records, came down from from Nashville and brought a bunch of cool stuff and we were hanging posters over the over the railing and the first person I could pull across the street and to the payphone and call the radio station and tell us who it was we'd win the poster and stuff

I think it was the key there. We got out.

We did stuff all the time. We got out and met everybody. I mean, you and I visited I don't know how many schools, uh during our time there. We did sock hops and just regular appearances and just go talk to kids and stuff.

Uh.

The most that we did were like constant, you know, several times a week we're out someplace doing everything and meeting people, and they got to know us, and it really helped a lot. It's that radio station is thriving today forty years later because of all that.

It truly is.

Well, you know, you talk about going to schools. There was one particular dance. You know, we did sakops, like you said, our dances at schools for extra money, and it was you know, we lugged the equipment. They actually paid us just to lug the equipment in and lug it out. What we did in the meantime usually didn't matter. But we're at a junior high school, it's a middle school or something, and the students had gotten good grades.

So we're just out there in the middle.

We're just playing records and talking to them, but it's like totally disconnected. It didn't make it. This is a reward. This is like more of a punishment for the kids in a reward.

And then the first we.

Used to being completely surrounded by kids and swamped, you know, and we're playing that while we're playing the music and they're all dancing like crazy and they're sitting in the bleachers with their hands and their lapse.

Yeah, I remember that.

So do you remember what the principal came up and told us before tell that story?

Yeah, Well, they were opening in the new arena in Chattanooge. At that time, we called it the Roundhouse. It was the UTC Arena. Uh and Van Halen was going to be the opening act for the christening of the stadium, and so it was a big deal. You know, they were the biggest band in the world really.

At that time.

And we uh set up our stuff and went okay, and we played Pretty Woman by Van Halen, which was like the Roy Orbison you know, remake, and the principal came up and said, I'm sorry, but you can't play that because we don't like that guy.

What they're wing downhill from there?

Brother, Well, the first record we played was You Really Got Me by Van Halen, and he had no idea that we were playing Van Halen, right, He told.

Us to record playing vanill Yeah, until we played Pretty Woman, you know, but he'd heard of a million times before because he grew up with you know, listened to Roy Orbison, you know whatever. But these kids were It was awful. And then we went back to the radio station. I remember I signed on at six o'clock that evening and you and I went on like a twenty minute diatribe.

About what had happened and all this and just how ridiculous that was, and it just, oh my gosh, it was crazy. Wow.

We had so much of it with some of a great, great time. The time you disappeared, we took a bunch of records, uh, a big box load of h forty fives from the station and that we didn't need. And you were out at the center court of this basketball gym and you got just swamped by a couple one hundred little kids and you disappeared. You started off at center court and wound up underneath all the other basket in the far end, just and disappear. We're giving these

We have to talk about the softball game. Chattanooga is like thirty miles from Fort Payne, Alabama, and I have two Alabama store. One was their infamous June Jam, or their famous June Jam that would happen every June in their hometown of Fort Payne. I got to helicopter in with two winners from the radio station right into the middle of the festival grounds to see Alabama and their guests. And Alabama right now is like one of the hottest

It was popular.

Yeah, I had to, so anyway, Alabama had a celebrity softball team that traveled around for charity, and we had our own KZ one oh six softball team, and through our machinations of knowing people and being in such close proximity, you know, we got a deal together where we were going to play the Alabama softball team at the local Ingles Stadium, which that's that Ingle Stadium is no longer there.

Eric well, it absolutely packed it out. We charged the admission was like a can of food for the local food bank, which nobody had even done something like that before, and almost ten thousand people showed up. It was Pad twelve deep down the baselines all the way out as you know, the defenses, and it was just us. It was like a World Series kind of atmosphere. Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry student home play and sang the Star Spangled Band and a cappella and it just brought down

And we had a pretty good team. Uh we had women on our team. They did not. And you know, we got to the end of the game and I got I got hurt during the game.

I was catchy for some reason, and h Randy Owen came to bat for the first time and he took a first pitch and the second pitch he popped it up a foul ball right straight behind up and straight behind home plate, and I turned to go try and catch it, and I dove and missed it went up and skipped up with my glove and I like smashed my face into a hard ground. And so he was like nice, Trim. But he remembers that game to this day. I've talked to him many times over the years since then. Uh,

And we won the game at the end and wound up getting booed off the field because they were so popular.

It just couldn't believe, we know, they didn't come there to watch, you know, then lose or whatever it was. It was just so much fun though.

That was the biggest That was the biggest crowd in Ingles Stadium. That stadium's history too, and you know, it was a minor league ballpark and uh, I think today it's a Reds affiliate. I'm not sure if Chattanooga is a Red's affiliate or not.

I don't know, you know, they was, but anyway, yeah, at that time.

The next year, Oh, Jackson's very first professional baseball game. He got signed by whoever and was I think playing for Birmingham for like ten minutes and came to Chattanooga. Was his very first game. And it drew like six thousand because he was Bo Jackson.

We out drew werew We outdrew Bo Jackson.

We outdrew Bo Jackson.

Yeah, Bo no second place.

Well that's how popular Alabama was. Yeah, it's incredible. And then and they're so nice, you know. That was one of the great things.

We did.

Lots of neat stuff, the Haunted caverns at Ruby Falls inside and Lookout.

Yeah, the sky show, the sky show, the big balloon show at Raccoon Mountain.

Yeah, that's the very first spring we were there. We got there and you and I got there like basically the same week, and I think February of eighty one, and then that very spring in May, I think or June, we had the sky show with the balloons and the ultra light hang gliders, and that was at Raccoon Mountain. That was a nice place.

I always remember too, the trip that you and I took to Nashville for Charlie Daniels Volunteer jam underneath the War Memorial Auditorium in downtown Nashville. And we've got a broadcast table there in the basement underneath the stage, and all of these I mean you're talking about Marshall Tucker and the Outlaws and Black Oak Arkansas and all of these Southern rock bands are all playing on this one night.

Stevie ray Vaughan.

The only time I ever got to see Stevie ray Vaughn was at a Charlie Daniels volunteer jam I seen watching with Redbeard from Rock Oneyal three in Memphis. We snuck up from behind the doing the interviews and stuff and went up and just to see Stevie ray for the first time, both of us. It was just like unbelievable, unbelieable, and you want to see Willie and you got to

That's crazy, that's great.

Little Richard got booed off the stage one you remember that, Yes I do.

Yeah, a little.

Richard got up on stage and started talking about how he was the Elvis was nothing without little Richards.

Everybody started started booing oh God, here we go.

I'll tell you what.

Let's let's take a quick break and we'll come back and share a few more memories because you were here in Cincinnati with us at seven hundred WLW four two short a time in my opinion, but I want to talk about some of the things that you brought to the table, both in in Nashville when we worked together and here in Cincinnati.

It's Eric Page, my old radio pal.

From the wings of rock and Roll on American History on the radio, on the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW.

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Listen for the latest on seven hundred WLW.

Only one of the finest radio talents I ever worked with in my entire forty four year career. First in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then in Nashville, and we work together again here in Cincinnati actually at seven hundred WLW, and that's where.

This is airing at the moment, just in case you hadn't No.

It's the Nightcap, Gary Jeff with Eric Page the pager. And you had these brief stints in other places besides Chattanooga, and some pretty interesting and wonderful radio stations, the least of which certainly not why one of seven in Nashville at the time you were there, we were number one with a bullet and you would come to the station and added a wonderful I found a photo Eric of you,

We were a small man of renegades.

Yes, we were the outrageous FM. You worked in big markets. You worked in Washington, d C. For one week. I remember that, and you told me, you told me the story. Washington, DC is a union town. And what that means in radio is that the talent which I've I've discerned that the term talent stands for talking ass lacking every necessary tool.

Tell me that story, you know.

Well, you know how we were.

We were used to like being on the air, But while a song is playing, we run back to the production room and starts splicing something up to bring back, you.

Know, play on the air.

I wasn't allowed to put a cassette in a machine. I went nuts. It was like, you got to be kidding. I had to get wake up an engineer off the couch, you know. Yeah, it was the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life. It was so unlike what I really wanted to be doing, which is what I was used to.

Yeah, we're used to. We're used to engineering our own thing. We're used to killing up the record, getting the CD or the cart ready, you know, and firing that answering the phone at a Union radio station. You didn't do any of that. You didn't even get to answer your own phone on the air.

We used to hand edit seven or eight or whatever responses to something and play it immediately coming out of whatever we just came out of, you know, and and doing it like that. And then it was just not like that anymore. And they brought me there to compete against Howard Stern because the DC one O three it was had I had hired Howard Stern and uh and I could just beat.

The crap out of him. So that's what they brought me there for. And it just it just didn't work out.

Didn't work out. How did How did you eventually landed in Nashville? Because the details on that are kind of foggy. I know that Mark Chase brought you in and we were all there in the late eighties, and like I said, in the greatest days of that radio station, which of course doesn't exist, is why one of seven anymore?

It's I think they call it the roof, but I.

Know I add to my experience in DC, I wound up it kicks one O four in Nashville. From there, where you've been yep, and a lot of folks of a bunch of people we know, you know, I'd gone through There's a Kyote, McLeod, many many more. And then because I'd met Mark before one of the volunteer jams, I think, and so we kind of had a relationship and you were already working there, and so it just kind of helped and I was able to slip in there after getting on of going one O four when

Eric Page, if you were a Reds on the radio fan, and many of you are, even though there's been less reason to be a fan lately than ordinarily. But anyway, if you're a Reds Radio Red's on radio fan, you're familiar with the pregame show that's called the Inside Pitch.

Eric Page is.

The one that branded that show and actually started it, because before that they were doing a pregame show, but it was just kind of an amorphous. It's a Red's pregame and Eric came up with the name Inside Pitch, and you did so much work in getting that pregame red Show up to par you know, to this day to this day, you were the template for a great pregame radio show before Reds Baseball. Any thoughts on the development of the inside pitch.

Well, yeah, thanks for that. It's a well, it was not my idea entirely, of course, it was marking a bunch of other people. Baseball pregame shows had been a five minute kind of thing before that, from to nineteen twenties when radio broadcast started, it was the announcer that mad announcer talked to the manager for a couple of minutes. It was some commercials they came back at the starting lineup,

It was a hit.

I mean from the beginning it was a lot of fun to do, but it was a year round thing. It took a year. You know, there was never a day off in baseball. But I really love about it, you know, getting to work with Marty and Joe people like that on a daily basis, it's just incredible. I mean, you can't describe that. And then later I got to work at the Atlanta Braves and Skip Carry and Pete Van Wien and Don Sutton, and I learned more about baseball every day than I you know, I knew in

Baseball as much as I do could do that for one day and maybe that would be great.

Your your hometown is Evansville, Indiana, which happens to be the hometown of one Don Mattingly don Donnie Baseball.

Did you know Donny Baseball? Growing up?

Grew up don up, grew up with Donnie Baseball. He played the little league and baby brief league with coming up, growing up with some of my best friends and was around don a lot that known don forever. I mean, we've done a bunch of fun stuff together.

Uh.

When he had the the campaign that was I think Nike or something that uh, he and Kim Grippy Junior did where Mattingly hits a baseball at Yankee Stadium and Grippy's in center field there and he chases the ball all the way across the country and catches it in Seattle. We did the radio version of that with Nike, and uh I did those in evans but it was with Donnie had a really cool bar there, and we did a lot of charity stuff together over the years. And

A little dude, you have, you have kind of a I mean maybe not a direct tie, but you kind of relationship with another Indiana boy.

John Mellencamp too.

John, I've known for more than football, almost twenty five years. I guess we first met nineteen eighty Yeah, before you and I even met. I've been friends ever since. Got to go backstage at one of his concerts at the Grand Old Operator, which is in eighty four, and it was so cool. John was great that night. He was one of his best shows. There was the first rock show they have a like regular rock show. They scheduled to play at the Grand Ole Operator or a minute

No, no, no doubt. My tie to John Mellencamp is very It's way different. Never we're friends, never had a lot of time together. But I'm sitting in my radio class. Actually, this is years after I'd graduated from Vall State there in Gallatin, and I'm talking to my old professor, Skiff Sparkman, and he's got a picture on his desk of these just him and a bunch of kids from like the seventies. He goes, you know who that is? You know who's

And he was there to be a DJ. He wanted to be a radio DJ, and he told me was good enough.

Well, let me tell you the conversation that Skiff had with John. He said he pulled it aside after the first quarter of school and said, John, what do you really want to do in life? And Johnson what he said, I want to play music? He said you should go. After that, he said he was the worst student he'd ever had.

Yeah. Yeah, John's not like anybody else. He's really not.

He's an acquiet taste too. Really, I think he's marrible. And I'm glad he's you know, they're still doing well. But he always seemed like he was the same age as me. But he's not. He's eight or nine years old. He's seventy seventy one now or something. Of them, and I'm a mire sixty four. We were nineteen years old, I think at twenty years old when we started working in chatt America. Absolutely kids, man, twenty years old.

I live on our own.

February of nineteen eighty February of nineteen eighty one, I'm twenty years old. It's my first time away from home. And then I get to meet you and you're my tour guide through this crazy malay.

Thanks oh man, h You know, I was and I was married with a little baby. And that little baby is will be forty four years old next month.

How about that? Has hats off to Brett. So I gotta I gotta ask.

I gotta ask you a question and you may not have you may have want more than one answer for this.

Eric.

We're talking to Eric Page American History on the radio in the Nightcap, and the question is you've been out quite a while of the business.

Do you miss it all the time?

Do you miss it some of the time, or do you not miss it at all?

I miss doing a show. I miss actually showing up and just doing the work, just doing you know, the actual podcast. I don't I don't miss anything else outside of it. I sometimes I missed the production. I missed being able to be in a production room for a couple of hours a day and and out stuff with it. It's just a commercial for somebody's lawn and garden center or whatever. It's just or just creating something else with

Really.

Yeah, I tell the people too. I miss you guys. I miss everybody, but everybody's gone. I mean you're You're like the only guy left who's laughed. Who's Mike mcconnall. I love McConnell, thank god. Yeah, And I miss you know. I missed Jim Scott. I'm going to mention Jim Scott. I thought he was just a wonderful person to work with. I can't I can't imagine a better pro. He was just always so welcoming and so encouraging and everything to me because I was just a nervous wreck, you know,

He was great. He let me get my thing, you know, because it's a little different, but he was great.

You know, you mentioned, you mentioned, you mentioned Jim, and we all excuse me, you got me. We all missed you.

But the thing that made Jim Scott so special and so popular was you talked about us. In early days in Chattanooga, we were out somewhere every day, you know, at least three or four times a week, meeting people. That is what Jim Scott had, and that's what he did for the entirety of his radio career here. Jim Scott never met a stranger, and he was literally somewhere every single day after he got off the radio, out in the public.

And so wise.

We were neighbors in East Waller Hills for while. I lived there too, and I got to see him a lot from this outside of work, which was great because it was just a little bit, a little bit there, you know, and I started as a great person. I miss her. I miss Marty alive, sure, miss Joe. Good grief Marty is one of the funniest people of him man. Until I met Skip care I had Skip Carrey's Harry

No question?

Well, brother, it's so good to share some memories with you. Oh and we do it occasionally just personally over the phone, and that's great too. But the fact we get to share some of it with the Nightcap listeners under this platform is meaningful to me. And I really appreciate your time tonight.

And thank you. I love you, and I miss everybody in Cincinnati. I love you all. I hope a see scene sometimes.

All right, stay Rocky Mountain High out there in Colorado, brother, and watch out, watch out for the Democrats.

They're surrounding you.

They're not out They're not out here.

This is a Mount Clay, Red Clay, all right, Aaron take take care for everybody.

It's the Nightcab, I love you too. And it continues on seven hundred WLW.

A lot of people get their kicks talking trash about America.

That just goes to show how ignorant they are.

Someone needs to sit their butts down and give them a good solid dose of Bill Cunningham. Willie will teach them how lucky they are to be American.

Do they really think it's better in Russia?

Hell?

No, better in Haiti.

No one wants to be in Haiti, better in Canada.

I don't want poutine.

I want Bill Cunningham.

He's a great American. Bill Cunningham. Tomorrow at twelve noon on seven hundred w l W.

We're just days away from our twenty twenty four.

As we put the clothes on this nightcap on seven hundred WLW, Garry Jeff with my sinceres thanks to John Records, Land Decker Radio Legend and in this last hour my buddy Eric Page sharing some of our old radio guys stories from back in the day. I hope you weren't bored by them. It was a nice trip back in time for me. And if you're a fan of radio and obviously you're listening to this you are. I hope you at least appreciated that little look back with American history on the radio.

Also thanks to.

Doctor Marty McCarey, the new book once again is Blind Spots, about the medical profession, which he's been a part of for decades. New York Times bestselling author Blind Spots is out now and as always, the fur ball is always a blast. We'll see you again soon on another nightcap. A new season, Season eight of this show kicks off September thirtieth. Hope to talk to you then, if not before. Now our national land from Donna America on seven hundred w LW