The Nightcap with Gary Jeff Walker -- 1/6/25

Frost by the Vigo. Here's some of his favorite interviews. It is another edition of American history on the radio on the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW, Gary Jeff Walker. You know, over the past months, even over the last year or so, I have been interviewing people in this profession who work in the business that I do because I respect them and their reputations in their careers speak for themselves. But tonight I am letting them speak for

Guy who's got oh Jam milk an hour out of that guy. He's been on radio for about ten minutes.

But I combined that with his football career there you go, and his current football you know, career and everything he has does his political career, So there were lots there was lots of material fodder there with Rocky, but with you, it's just enormous. We could sit down for probably two or three hours. You said, before we sat down for this, you were on the phone with one of your perpetrators at the Dawn Patrol, Bob Berry producer.

Bob we all keep in touch yet, Bob the producer, I love that guy. Well, look, you know him as well as anyone you work with, the bush and uh, he's a different cat.

You know.

What could you say? I don't know what kind of species he is, whether it's a cat or something else, but he's definitely different. And he was screwed up before he fell and hit his head, roll hard at Symphony Home big time.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I want to go back. I want to start with where it started for you.

I will tell you, man, when I was a kid, I had I think I was in third fourth grade and it was my birthday and my mom's like, what do you want? And I said, I like a tape recorder, and so I I just wanted to fidget with it, you know, And uh, I never thought about getting into this as a as a career but I played with and I've still gotta I guarantee you, if I dug hard enough, I could come up with some of those tapes me interviewing my grandma.

They were totally they were totally disintegrated.

Yet I would guess they probably have but if I could find them right exactly, you interviewed your grandma When I was like eight, I recalled doing that, and uh and it which is something. And my brother, my brother and I would pretend we were just shockeys, and we would the DJ was on Wing Radio and Dayton Top forty and uh, so the DJ would be talking up you know.

Do you remember who it was? Who the DJ was?

The mojo man, Steve Kirk, oh Casey Petrowski.

I worked with Kirk. Well, he was actually retired when I worked in Dayton for the ten months I did before I came here, and was one of the coolest dudes I ever met and one of the guys that was instrumental in bringing the Beatles to the area. But anyway, so.

But that was it, you know, And but we would we would let them talk over the beginning of the song. It'd be in the background, so we'd be talking up the record and then try to hit the post and hold the hold the microphone up to the radio and play I want to hold your hand or whatever that one.

You know what is synonymous And almost all of these interviews that I've done for this particular topic, Eddie, is that all of us either did that with tape recorders or built our own little radio stations that maybe went five hundred feet to whatever John records Land Decker's shotgun time. I did it when I was like twelve years old. I was in this special education class for good kids who'd gotten a's through the year in summer school, and

It's amazing, yeah, And it was just something that, like I said, me and my brother and I just thought it was fun and cool. Never in a million years thought I could do this. I mean, I grew up blue collar. I know, I'm sure you did as well, blue collar. Like Kamala Harris came from a middle class family.

There you go. I don't know, I think we were middle middle class. I mean boom. You can't get more middle class.

And uh, you know, my parents both worked for GM and Dayton, which was a giant gmtown back then it was. And if you could get a good GM job, man, you were set the pension, get your thirty one out and retire at fifty five. And and I had done well in school and stuff, so they wanted me to go to college.

No idea what I wanted to do.

And uh, this is sad to say, man, but I I thought I'm going to go to pre med at Ohio State and be a dentist because I thought, how hard can that be?

You really thought, dude, I was seventeen years was an easy path.

I thought, seventeen by easy path to wealth. I'm like, hell, so what you looked? People said, Okay, that needs philled, come over here and do that.

Well, actually, Anie, I need some work done. Can you help me?

Fortunately I did. I didn't pursue that path. Yes, but I a girl I went out with a high school. Her brother was friends with a guy from ud who they had a radio station back there in wvu D, which is where I ended up working. And I was like, you know what, guy who's on the radio that's cool. And I go home and tell my mom and dad he, uh, remember the dentist thing, scotch ned, I want to be a disc jockey.

How did they react? How did they react? How do you think?

Well?

They were, well, my dad was like he looked at me like I've grown another head.

It was like, you're going to do what now? And my mom was like, let him do whatever he thinks he can do. Blah blah blah blah blah. So mom was on your side.

Mom was on my side because what they both my parents, they never finished high school. So the fact that I was going to go to college, they were like, well, he must know what he's what he's doing, because he's smart.

Enough to go to college. Yeah. Well, obviously all parents always want their kids to be better than they were and right, so sure.

So then I because I thought, I don't know how you felt about it when you were a kid, but I thought radio announcers, TV stars, movie stars and stuff. I thought they came from a special they grew on someplace.

Oh, we're definitely special people. At me, there's no you know.

I was like, I'm not special. What the hell those guys are good?

My god?

There I'm mute. I've known you for thirty years. You're definitely special.

Special at I've heard that a lot anyway. But anyways, so I go to school the UD And here's how dumb I was. I didn't even know that. And I grew up in Dayton. I didn't know that the University of Dayton was a Catholic university.

That meant nothing to me. The Jesuits must have loved you absolutely, and I go and so, you know, my first week of school, I was living at home and my Mom's like, so, WHOA, what's it like there? And I said, what was kind of cool because there's all these priests and nuns that are coming back and apparently advancing their education. And well, I was talking to one of the one of my friends at.

School, and he goes, dude, you do know this is Catholic university And I said, I don't even.

Know what that means. So you're on wv U D. Yeah they have. I was like, they have a radio station. That's all I care about.

Well, I wasn't yet, because I the first day I walked in there and it's like, you know, you got to work your way into it. Sure, I mean it couldn't have been second day of school, and and I walked into the office and like, when do I start?

I'm here, I'm here, the one you've been waiting for.

I am now entertained me and they were like, okay, cool. And so I ended up working at a carrier current station w SB and for you know what I carry, yeah, yeah you do. But for people who don't, it was just on the campus, right, you had to have your radio plugged in. It came through the outlet, your sawl outlet exactly. And I was doing one to three in the morning one Sunday morning, and that's where it all started.

They gave you the prime shift, right, I know, right, that's how I'm going kicking ass man. So when did did this evolve into an actual career?

Then?

How long were you there? And what was your first professional paid job.

That would have I worked at View after I got on VUD. Eventually I worked there for two years and then I got hired at SAIFM here in town, which is ninety four to one. I don't even know what that is.

Was it an album rock station? At the time, it was ebn's competitor. What year is this seventy nine, nineteen seventy nine, the year I graduated high school, and.

They I first came in just as part time filling. I was working at a record store to fill in the gap, living with my girlfriend, who, thank god, got a job as a dental hygienist.

So I was like, you still had that dental connection.

Absolutely, maybe it was one of attracted me to it, and so I did that for a little bit. Then they fired the production director and said can you do production?

And I was did you have any idea? No, what productions?

I mean I had done stuff, you know, I cut tape and stuff in college.

Yeah. This is another thing that people don't understand today with all the technology we have at it is that back in the day when we started, there was a reel to reel machine. There was a splicing block, there was a grease pencil, and there was splicing tape. And that's how you did edits, and that's how you put commercials together. You got your razor blade and the way you went unless you were good enough to be a one take jake all the time, or you weren't editing

Well that's what kills me these days. But it is digital editing. I don't know how to do it. I ain't gonna lie to you, but it's so much easier than what we used to do. I mean you could, I would, and you've done this. You would take a piece of tape and set it to the side, yes, in case you needed it later, and then put it where you needed it because you would.

Find that you had made the edit at the wrong place correct, or you had omitted something that was essential to the piece of production you were working on. Yeah.

Absolutely, So I started doing that and got fired after a year.

You're not really a professional in this business until you've gotten fired. I believe that.

And they said they were eliminating the position. I'm not sure about that long story. They were eliminating you, they were eliminating me. They said, we're just getting rid of that position. I was like, no, you're firing me. But luckily I got a job at a production agency ad agency not too long after that. And worked there for a year it went bankrupt, so you can see I.

Was a.

Success everywhere he walks ladies and gentlemen. Now I've got to ask you, and I know most people believe, and it may be true, that your name is actually Eddie Fingers. Where did Eddie Fingers come from? Because I can tell you the Gary Jeff story if you want, if you oh, absolutely full honesty, But yeah I was.

I was in Cleveland and the guy uh was like, we don't really like your real name. I was like, okay, he said you got a name and I said no. He goes, We're going to have a staff meeting next week and talk about it.

Okay.

So he calls me a couple of days later and said, all right, we got two names for you, Eddie Fingers or Woody Fingers. Yeah, that's what That's exactly my reaction.

It's like, what are your fingers? I was like, man, that sounds like Pinocchio's brother or some such. So how long are you in Cleveland?

Then?

Is this before you went to Cincinnati?

Before you came this was after the agency closed. I got hired in Louisville to work part time, and my old buddy Tom Owens.

You remember, I remember Tom I was I was here when Tom.

Was Yeah, And so I worked there for a few months and then I got a call from Cleveland or O. Buddy Allen Sells said, hey, we're looking for a guy up here, and I'm thinking about quitting, so you see, if you can get my my job. So I went to Cleveland, worked for about five or six months, and guy by the name of Mike McConnell that sounds familiar, Yeah, called Cells and I answered the phone because I was living at his apartment. And uh, I'm like, hey, buddy,

Yeah. Okay, and so you've heard that Christmas story too many damn times.

Oh, absolutely, go ahead, No, but that was it, and uh so move back down here. And he he said, what are you going to do about your name? Because I was only I was doing production and I was going to do a couple hours on the air a day, and I said, I think I want to go back to my real name. And he said, man, you know, keep the Eddie Fingers thing. Nobody else is doing that. What's a cool air name?

I love it. So where was this that you ninety six rock? At ninety six Rock? And that sets up the radio wars of the nineteen eighties. Perfect and it's a perfect time for us to go ahead and take our first break. Excellent. We have another segment with Eddie Fingers and yes, that might be his, No it's not. It's the Nightcap American History on the radio, Eddie Fingers in the Spotlight tonight on seven hundred WLW. Maybe you missed one of our shows because your Karate Sinse has

Twelve hour shift watching the salt Pile. Here's another one of his nightcap favorites.

When we last left Eddie Fingers and the story of his radio life, we were at ninety six Rock. Eddie Fingers, welcome back into American History on the radio and the nightcap. And so you're at ninety six rock what year is this? This is eighty one, eighty May of eighty two, eighty two, okay, and McConnell was running the place. Al Sells came.

McConnell's then wife, Mary Cuzon was doing mornings and she was pregnant, and I was doing production and night I think noon to two, just kind of ice.

Yeah, the midday Guy production happened a lot back in the day, and so that happened.

That lasted for about a month, and Mary, as I said, was pregnant and she was out walking her dog and another dog and long story, but basically a dog tackled her and blew up her knee. Oh she's like five months pregnanty and just ran right through her leg, absolutely destroyed it. And so McConnell comes to me and he's like, man, I need you to cover the morning show. And that's when I was young and dumb, and I haven't learned

Huh, so you're doing mornings at ninety six Rock and then what happened to lure you to WEBN and the down of the troll? Like I said, the radio wars of the nineteen eighties in Cincinnati and well you guys, you guys, ninety six we Rock and EBN are button heads.

Yeah.

Well, I did the show by myself for two or three months, I think, and I wanted off, and McConnell by that time m one O five, where I'd worked in Cleveland, had disbanded and they went contry or hell, I forget what they did. And so the morning guy there, a guy named Marty Sobel who became Marty Bender, was hired to do mornings, and mcconne was like, work with him for a little bit. You is going there and be his partner for a little bit and then we'll go back to the way it was. And I said fine.

What we did.

And so that lasted for three years, and I foolishly wanted to get into programming. I wanted to be program director of the Radius. Yeah, that's a bad move, big time, big time. And so the program director was fired and Marty was much more qualified to do it than me, and it pissed me off that they were going to

It happened. And so regardless whether it was Louisville or Cincinnati, Bowwood wanted wanted you to work for him. Yeah, and you eventually did. Yeah.

He wanted one of us off of the competition because uh, bender and fingers were starting to breed.

Down the Don Patrols neck a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, So you come to work at web N in what year is this now? Eighty four eighty August of eighty five, and you already have a set kind of morning show there. Robin Wood is there, It's been there, Craig Copp was Bob Berry there yet no all right.

While man Walker was just starting to come into prominence, and uh they had Craig Copper brick Bird doing doing the news, and yeah, it just kind of took off from there. And then I joke, I can't even tell there who who is the morning show in Louisville at QMF down there? Oh geez, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, and I can't think of their names. Yeah, Terry, Terry Miners, yes, Terry Mine. I forget the other fella's name. I think

Yes, we were.

Out to lunch one day and she goes, you know, I was I was talking to overheard both saying that the joke of the day, isn't it cutting it?

You guys got it's gotta be picked up a little bit. Yeah, And I said, what do you mean minute? He said, well, I think I got the impression he wants dirtier. I said, okay, we can do this.

We can.

I definitely got this.

And uh so the next day I told you again, I wish I could even kind of tell you that, right, talk around the edges of the joke, but I can. And uh but it was right there, tip to it over the line. It was probably over the line, but nonetheless, so the same lady a little uh a little later on seize me and again at lunch and is like, he's pissed.

I said, what right, I just did what he asked me. I just I just did what he wanted. But the thing was, he didn't tell you that directly. It was from a conduit, and it may or may not have been from bow Well. But the thing is that became kind of a hallmark. And it was.

I realized that from again my time of working with Marty and improving and all that stuff. Sure that the more and you know that man, the more over top you are with some stuff like this, go for it.

We know it, and it's a template for what I do every Saturday morning. One of the most popular segments on my show is the what I call Gifts from Wally, which is basically a joke of the day and I a thirty five people are locked in. They know, and that's the thing. It's that time stamp. It's that benchmark that people get. Okay, I'm going to tune in for this and it really works. Appointment radio really works. Your first fireworks, your first TB in fireworks, Tell me about that.

Well, the first the first time I announced it. The first couple of years, I mean I wasn't I wasn't allowed on the area yet. I was getting sued by Randy Michaels for breaking a contract at ninety six okay, and uh, and he was just mucking He was just mucking up the works because he you know, he was just he already knew that he and bo were teaming up. Sure, so he was just like, I'm was gonna screw it with Boe. So I couldn't talk on the air for the first month I was there, and the next year

Man.

I was scared to death. Scared to death still to this day, Eddie. There is something about being in that place, in that crowd, in that electricity, in that environment that would scare anybody to death. You're standing there with a half a million people, half on one side of you, half on the others, with the biggest event that the city has every year, and you're in charge of getting it all started. That's that's remarkable.

I mean you're looking at a kid who used to be scared less to go wep in front of a class and give an oral book report.

Stand in front of a half a million people.

Yeah, so over It took me a couple of years, but then then I look forward to it.

It was fun, sure, you know, well the party the Barley Corns boat was the best. You were there, Yes, I was. I mean just the fact that people after two or three hours were still climbing the stairs to the next level and able to do it well amazed me. Yeah, I will. I'm sitting here. I've had enough free booze and food. I just want to see the fireworks and go home. There was when Kennison did it.

I was in the men's room when I walked in as he was standing in the middle of the men's room doing coke off of his thumbnail and and one of the owners of Barley Corns walks in and he's, look, you can't do that. You cannot do that. He's like, you already did. And later he was with his girlfriend and her twin sister, who were porn stars. They had one of their little brother was with him, and he was about thirteen, and he's sitting there drinking like gin and tonics and stuff.

It did not go well. It is it is the primary cocktail for most thirteen year old's right, exactly A respectable I hope, hope. What with the quality is yet, Let's let's do some just word association. First thing that comes to your mind. You don't have to elaborate. Robin Wood, lovely, Bob Berry, funny, wild Man nuts nuts. Okay, I still talk to wild Man, so yes, I would agree. I would concur uh Rick Bird great guy, just smart, smart as a whip. Yeah, I remember drinking many a lunch

Yeah, I'll say that, okay, because the taste that I think had.

I I put.

I pushed back on a problem harder than I should have, But I think we had a mutual respect for each other.

How about that? Who is the most influential person in this business that has helped I don't know shape the eddy fingers we know today? Is there one particular guy that just stands out and go, you know what, If this guy hadn't come along at this point in my life, I probably would have not had the success that I've had. I will say three three guys. Yeah. The guy named Jeff Vargo, who was the program director at VUD in Dayton, all right, who pulled me aside the first after I'd

It is good to hear because we all do when we first start who's the second. Uh Tom Owens who ran who hired me at s A I and then ended up hiring me in Louisville and then hired me at EBN. And I'm going to go for Bo Would of course, owner of EBN back in the day. And Randy Michaels, Randy's on my list too, who he the the benderin Fingers team thing. He really encouraged us to push it. I mean it's like I told you with

It was cool. Yeah, Uh, instrumental in my career. We've got a couple of minutes left, Eddie. Let's flash forward to to from e b N the end of the Dawn Patrol to w l W and you moving into talk. Yeah.

I was.

No probably late November of seven, okay, and and I'd been craving that the gig here and Gary was leaving, and I had filled in with the forum several times and they kind of told me I was their apparent. Gary told me he wanted me to take this show well, and then Gary kept kept working, which is fine, I don't care. But I was fifty playing Metallica records at EBN and I was like, this is this is turning to get at.

Last year I was at the Fox, I knew the station was going to be sold. I knew that I would have a couple of choices when it was in January of nine and I decided somewhere during that year that I was tired of babysitting music and I wanted to do talk. I'd wanted to do to talk ever since nineteen eighty seven, the first time I heard Rush Limbaugh and I, you know, I finally got the chance in ninety seven and I said, you know what, I want to do that full time. And what about today?

Yeah, big time. I mean I love working with rock. We have a good time. We've got a good rapport, I think. And you know, it took me a while to settle into doing this because, like I said, when I came in, I wanted to do a Burbank style show. Yeah, and I thought that's what they wanted. Well, they wanted to go a little more issue oriented, issue oriented Foxy Talkie thing. Yeah, And I even said to him, I'm like, I don't know if I can do. I'm not good

Well, for me, when you're in music radio, you may talk for fifteen seconds or thirty you know, unless you're interviewing somebody occasionally. But the first time I was on WLW in nineteen ninety seven doing Saturday mornings, even I was like lost, I'm good because I'd never rambled for five minutes or six minutes at a time without breaking you know what am I going to talk about?

Yeah, that's one of the things that Tom Owen said to me years back. We're doing an air check session. If you don't know what, I remember this, so you remember those they take you in and play a tape and go that sucked you, right, And he doesn't. He stopped the tape and he looks at me. He goes, buddy, let me tell you something. Anything you have to say is not more important than the best Beatles record we.

Play exactly, all right, fair enough? I work for those guys. I know, Eddie, it's been a joy. That is a great man. All out of time for this, and of course here Eddie and Rocky every Monday through Friday three to six here on seven hundred WLW. This has been one of my favorites. Thank you so much. A lot of Budweiser. Here's another nightcap favorite. This is American History on the radio 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 Pineville 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 ten 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

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

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 in our request line at night. You know, you and I both from as far away north as Bowling Green, Kentucky, as far away south as Atlanta, and I mean almost to Burningham and way into the Carolinas and stuff, and it was just incredible to reach that that station had.

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 recall those days in Chattanooga, Eric in the early eighties. One of them is not exactly one of our finest moments.

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 dead o winner right as January.

And we didn't 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 with 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. I mean, 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, they got up to the catwalk, and you know we did We broadcast Mayor. We used to give away stuff from Jean Juris from a Warner Brothers Records, came down from Nashville and bought 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,

It truly is.

Well, you know, you talk about going out to schools. There was one particular dance we you know, we did sock ops. Like you said, our dance is 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

And then we used to being completely surrounded by kids and swamped, you know, and we're playing that while we're playing 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 Chattanooga 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 set up our stuff and went okay, and we played Pretty Woman by Van Halen, which was 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 that downhill from there brother didn't it.

Well, the first record we played was He Really Got Me by Van Halen, And he had no idea that we were playing van Halen Rights.

Records 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, 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.

Tell we had so much of it, with so many great other great times. At 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 then you disappeared. You started off at center court and wound up underneath all the

We have to talk about. But 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

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 its pad twelve deep down the baselines all the way out as you know, the defenses, and it was just nuts. It was like a World Series kind of atmosphere. Randy Owen and Teddy gentry student at home plate and sang the Star Spangled Band and a cappella and it just brought down the house.

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 uh, 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 the hard ground and so he was

That was the.

Biggest That was the biggest crowd in Ingles Stadium. That stadium's history too, and you know, it was a Wire 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 out drew Bo Jackson.

We out Drew bo Jackson.

Yeah, Bo, no, second place.

Well, that's how popular Alabama was. Yeah, is incredible. And then and they're so nice, you know. That was one of the great things we did. Lots of neat stuff that the Haunted Caverns at Ruby Falls, inside the out 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

Special and other people too.

We met James Brown, remember, carl Perkins was there, yep, Crystal Gale. It just the whole spectrum. It was thirty acts in eight hours, the best concert ever. Everybody came out and played twenty minutes, thirty minutes, and then they would disappear. Then they'd come back out later and play as part of a jam band with Charlie or whoever. The one year I think Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd opened the show. You know, they were like a

That's crazy, that's great.

Little Richard got booed off a stage one year, 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 hit little Richards.

Everybody 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 too short a time in my opinion, but I want to talk about some of the things that you brought to the table, both in Nashville when we work 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 Rate, on the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW, and do you know.

The guy who sets up Mike McConnell, Gary Jeff Countless others. Tonight I'm here to interest some of Gary Jeff Walker's favorite interviews. It seems like Gary Jeff has some Seg Dennison disease. If it snows, they don't go. Here's another helping of Gary Jeff.

Once again, we are talking to Eric Page, who was Eric Page 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 worked 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 noticed, it's the nightcap Gary Jeff

We were a small band 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 I did, and you told me. You told me the story. Washington, d C. 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, asslecking every no necessary tool. But we were talent with the talent in a union radio station doesn't do anything

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. Hey, 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 quelling up the record, getting the CD or the cart ready, you know, and fire in that. Answering the phone at a Union radio station. You didn't do any of that. You 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 or what they had, I had hired Howard Stern and uh, and I could just beat the crap out of him. So they brought me therefore, and it just it just didn't work out.

Didn't work out. How did how did you eventually land 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 River.

But I no.

I add to my experience in DC. I wound up it kicks one on four in Nashville from there where you've been, yep, and a lot of folks, a bunch of people we know, you know. I'd gone through theres

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. Uh 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.

Pitch, Well, yeah, thanks for that.

It's 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 nineteen to nineteen twenties. When radio broadcast started, it was the announcer. That main announcer talked to the manager for a couple of minutes. It was some commercials. They came back at the starting lineup, probably the national anthem,

It was a hit.

I think 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. It's 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 maybe I got to work with the Atlanta Braves and Skip Carry and Pete Van and Don Sutton, and I learned more about baseball every day than I knew in my whole life because

Now.

If it only lasted a day, it was worth it. And everybody that loved baseball as much as I do could do that for one day, then maybe that would be great.

You're your hometown is Evansville, Indiana, which happens to be the hometown of one Don Maddingly don Donnie Baseball. Did you know Donny Baseball? Growing up?

Grew up don yup, grew up with Donnie Baseball. He played the Little League and Baby Ruth League with coming up, growing up with some of my best friends and was around Don a lot that known Donald 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 manually hits a baseball at Yankee Stadium and Grippy's in centerfield 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 I did those in Evans Will It was with Don He had a really cool bar there and we did a lot of charity stuff together over the years. And he's a wonderful guy. I hope he's the next manager of the Yankees.

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

John, I've known for more than 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 Ole Opry, 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 had, a like regular rock show. They scheduled to play at the Grand Ole Opery or a minute

No doubt. My tie to John Mellencamp is very It's way different. Never were friends, never had a lot of time together. But I'm sitting in my radio class. Actually this was years after I had graduated from vall State there in Gallaton, and I'm talking to my old professor, Skip 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?

He was there to be a DJ. He wanted to be a radio DJ. And he told me wasn't good enough.

Well, let me tell you the conversation that Skip had with 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 want 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 a quiet taste too. He's worriable, 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 hours something of him, and I'm a mere sixty four. We were nineteen years old. I think are twenty years old when we when we started working in Chattamerica.

Absolute kids, man, twenty years old.

I live on Don't 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. 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? Hats off, Hats off to Brett. So I got 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 and the night Cap, 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 broadcast.

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, just or just creating something else for the show tomorrow, doing the show prep. I missed that. But I still do it all in my mind, so I really I'm still doing it. I think I think I never stopped. I

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 laugh Who's Mike McConnell. I love mcconnord.

Oh, thank god.

Yeah, I missed, you know, I missed Jim Scott. I'm going to mention Jim Scott. I thought it was just a wonderful person to work with. I can 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. Can you imagine going on with Jim Scott like the very first time is and I'm filling in for Springer or somebody, and it says, I'm just a nervous wreck.

He was great.

You let me do 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 the early days in Chattanooga, we were out somewhere every day, and you know, at least 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

And it was We were neighbors in East Waller Hills for while. I lived there too, and I got to see him a lot from just outside of work, which was great because he was just a little bit a little bit there, you know, and I thought he was a great person. I miss her. I miss Marty alive, sure, miss Joe.

Good grief.

Marty was one of the funniest people. They were man. Until I met Skip Carry. I had Skip Carrey's Harry Carey's grandson, Josh Carrey was my action. Was my intern in Atlanta one summer when I was a sports director at ninety six Rock and WGST there and doing it and abrace baseball, and I just couldn't believe it just blew me away that Harry Carry's grand Center was my inturn. It's like, shouldn't I be working for you? What's the deal?

No question? Well, brother, it's so good to share some memories with you. Oh and uh we 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 an Enclay red on Clay.

All right, Eric, take take care of everybody. It's the nightcap and it continues at seven hundred WLW wind huddles. We're talking about basketball.

I'm a hooper and how he used to play back in the day, however long ago that was, and he tried to show me his move. He went with the up and under pump fake. I don't bite on pump fakes. I sat there like a stone wall and I swatted his shot, made him fall to the ground because he tried to go through my strong body.

He hits the side of the bar. I thought it was over for him.

He had a softball size swollen elbow, and everyone else was saying I committed elderly abuse.

But that's besides the point.

Kerry jeff Sure as a fan of All American college basketball player and multiple time NBA champion Will Purdue.

Here's the archival interview. Welcome back to the night Cap. We're going to talk a little college basketball, a little pro basketball, and about my my fanboy fascination with our next guest. And I hope he's not creeped out by that. I'm a little creeped out when I think about it. But back when I lived in Nashville and the Vanderbilt Commo Vanderbilt Commodores were experiencing their halcyon days of being coached by C. M. Newton and then Eddie Fogler, and

I'm doing well. So it's just TV black and white. It got yeah, you know, what what are we talking about?

I'm I'm gonna try and bring it into high definition if I can control myself. Buddy. Here, here's here's the thing. I gotta tell you. I was such a hoops fan back then, back in my uh my mid and late twenties. I mean before that, I thought I could actually play basketball, and I was a gym rat, and then I was in radio for a while, but I was still just absolutely a huge college hoops fan, especially of Vanderbilt. We lived in Nashville. I don't know why I never was

Well let me see how much time do we have.

Well, we got about fifteen sixteen minutes. Can you condense it?

Yeah?

So I think so, But it's I think the best way to put this is and in no specific order, except for maybe some timeline was one was me finally figuring out what my priorities were because like most kids, you know, if you're not strictly disciplined. And I always thought I was from a basketball standpoint, yeah, but there were other and basketball, to me was my number one priority. But there were other aspects in my life. And you know, I'm a teenager, so I'm not too concerned about it.

That didn't work at Vandy.

Uh No, C. M. Newton sat me down, had a stern talk with me. Remember seem Newton hardly ever.

Score.

So when he would occasionally pull out the foul word or one of those four letter words, literally you would like, you know, like the gyp, your head would snap back and you.

Can't believe that CM is using profane language.

That is correct. That's how that's that's how you know little he used it, but he had a few choice words to say. He gave me an opportunity to transfer or stick it out. I chose to stick it out. I red shirted and I became the pupil one John Bostic. Meaning my first semester of my red shirt year, which was now my second year on campus, I had to be over at the Magoogain, which was one of the buildings over there at the Athletic department. At six am.

That's who I was going to ask you about. The old coach from TSU who CM had brought into the Vanderbilt fold to help big men.

Specifically, Yeah, we had I think it was John mcclennan had passed away. Unfortunately they needed an assistant coach. He tagged at Martin and I became his project. And also there was a female player by the name of Wendy Schultens who kind of became a project of Ed Martin's as well, since we both played center, and I think she's got a bunch of records now over at Vanderbilt,

Yeah, there was a there was a referee in particular that did not like Vanderbilt for some reason and certainly didn't like you. And I remember it was a game against Florida and I think you got two technical fouls at the end. What was his name? You got to remember this ref's name, and I know I don't, and it's escaping me now, but I learned it cost it costs Vandy the game though, I remember.

That, right. I I learned this early on in my career because I was a little I had a little temper, and I made a I specifically would not learn officials names because I knew that if I learned an officials' names, and it's got me in trouble a few times in the NBA, because you saw these guys so many times sure game season that if I used the guy's name, he knew I was talking directly to him.

Yep.

And and you know, I didn't get enough technicals where I got kicked out. I got kicked out occasionally, but you know, technicals in the NBA cost you money.

Oh yeah, yeah, so it was Clawfordy.

Point not to learn officials name.

Yeah, it was a guy named Clawfordy in my career.

So that you know, so I tried to stay out of trouble.

The guy named Clawfordy I believe was the guy's name. Anyway, Yeah, as a basketball fan and an art and Vandy basketball fan. In fact, I came out. I was working for a radio station in Nashville at the time, and I came out and met you guys at the airport and was doing reports over my primitive cell phone at the time. When you got back from New York from the n t H. I was always a Michael Jordan even before he played his first game in the NBA. So I

Well.

I mean, there's a lot of things, but the one thing that really always stands out is that first championship that we won against the Lakers. You know, the Lakers had the experience, they had Magic Johnson, they had guys that have won championships. We weren't supposed to win, even though we had Michael Jordan, even though he had just swept to Detroit Pistons four to hero. But you know, they just talked about, well, we weren't quite ready for that stage yet. And we end up winning for to one,

Oh yeah, I mean, I mean Bill Cartwright at the end of his career, basically both knees were completely shot. You could tell.

But I think it's unfortunately because people forgot how good he was. This is a guy coming out of the University of San Francisco, was on the cover of Sports Illustrated that I.

Remembered he was.

I had that copy. That's how that's how big of a basketball fan I was at the time. Will So yeah, I know.

But it's just seeing that release of emotion in that locker room afterwards, because of the adversity that these players had dealt with tysically, emotionally, you know, it was just I was, quite honestly, I was stunned. You know. I thought that when we win this championship, we're all going to celebrate, which we did, but I didn't expect that, and that kind of was an eye opening for me in the sense that it just this is because I was still young, you know, this is what my third

Will Purdue as our guest for the next few minutes, Michael Jordan. How much of a you hear this time and time again about Michael Jordan. It didn't didn't just relate to basketball. It related to anything that he participated in as a game, as an activity, as a sport. How much of that competitive just relentlessness rubbed off on you and the other players around Michael Jordan?

It was the fabric of what's our team became because one of the things we used to always talk about. It wasn't like the games were easy, I mean not you know, underplay exactly what was going on, but it just the games were easier than practice. That's how competitive practices were because of Michael. And that's one of the many things. Yeah, we we were very skilled. We had a lot of talent, but I mean you laced it

Have your A game.

And that was all about competing every day, every play, every minute. You know, there was no taking time off. And that started with him, and that permeated the fabric everybody on that team. And that just that's one of the many things along with skill that made this team so good. Was is it, you know, just our ability to compete every single night?

Yeah, I mean every minute. I heard a story and I don't know if you know if that was true or not, but when the Bulls lost in the conference finals the year before that first NBA Championship to the Detroit Pistons, what I heard was is that Michael had built a court at his house and during the off season he had Scottie Pippen and Hoe Grant over to

Yeah, it does. And you know what, I tell people this all the time. Everybody talks about, you know, the whole thirty thirty for you know, ESPN, and yeah, the whole thing. But I thought what they did, and I always try to make sure I'm very clear with this, I thought they did an excellent job of showing what

Wanted to add something instead of cut something out.

So now the producer always talked about maybe we should have tried to put in more, but I think they did an excellent job of showing what that was like. Because I've always said, you know, Michael Kobe, you know Kevin Garnett. Yeah, guys, that just they they want to win at all costs. And that's the one thing I also tell people to focus on those three words at all costs. And when I say that, I mean that

So it was I mean, just like a minute laugh, what's life for? What's life like for? Will Perdue these days?

Well, hey, this is talking about taking advantage of a situation. The Bulls are supposed to have a game tonight and I do pre half and posts for NBC Sports Chicago. So normally I would have been working tonight, but I was able to come on your show and thank you do that, and then I try to work on my golf game in the offseason. You know, I got a son that's eighteen and a senior at Trinity High School

Well, I want to thank you number one for coming on, and number two, more importantly for me personally, is I want to thank you for all the great memories you gave me as a college basketball and a professional basketball fan, both for the Vanderbilt Commodoors and the Chicago Bulls. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. And I had one question for you real quick. Yeah, where are all those streets in Smith's Where are all those sports illustrators? Because those things are worth a.

Lot of money now, Yeah, I know, so are my baseball collections when I was eight that I put in the spokes of bicycle tires when I was a kid not understanding. So there's somewhere out there that's all of us.

Right.

I don't have them anymore, but I have I owe all our memories.

And oh well that you'll never lose.

Nope, exactly.

Very Jeff I appreciate it. Man, thank you so much. I'm glad we were able to catch up. And I will say this, Scott Brown was a great teammate. He was a guy that was a little rowdy and during his Vandabilt days. And I always laugh when I'm saying this guy is modeling and molding our future. That's kind of scary.

I'll tell Shooter you said that. Well, you know who'll talk to you will. Thank you so much.

All right, Gary, Jet, thank you, take care.

We'll purdue on the nightcap on seven hundred WLW. We continue our hour long conversation on this Memorial Day evening with the Great loll Ponte. You're on seven hundred WLWT. Gary, Jeff and Lowell. We were talking about cigarettes not being addictive but habituating, and it was it was interesting while we were talking about cigarettes and you're not a smoker. I haven't had one for forty five years. You started coughing.

To my childhood. I would smoke in the crib.

Well, you said that the reason you never got hooked on cigarettes is because you would what.

I would smoke only those cigarettes I could bum from friends, and of course, after two weeks of that, they would cease to be my friend and I'd have to go find someone else who could borrow cigarettes and.

A spare nail. But anyway, we're talking about the addictive nature of meta and of the Internet and the little screens in front of us, and how it changes our brains because of the spikes and dopamine that it produces. And the purveyors of all this know this very well. They've known it for a long time.

That I said, the Valdi shooter made three postings I'm about to kill kids, I have killed kids and so on Facebook. Yep, I mean he was to some degree a Facebook junkie. Was certainly a fame seeker in that sense, and a very peculiar person. We don't have a full picture of him yet by any means, but he was strange. Meanwhile, this first president of Facebook, looking back on it, said, Facebook literally changes your relationship with society, with each other.

Strictly because of the color of their skin.

Yes, oh, absolutely, and because, of course Democrats do have every reason for revenge in the pure sense. After all, white America has not a majority who voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since the time of Lyndon Johnson. People are are one group in the society that's utterly immune, well partly immune to the poison the Democrats deal in

It's interesting to see that Elon has now pretty much given up on buying Twitter after all because of and I don't know if that's exactly the case, but interesting when it was so many of us had held out hope that one of these social media platforms would actually be a level playing field for ideas.

Among other things. Elon Musk had some hope that Trump would come over to Twitter again become a major draw on the side, and of course when he chose not to preferring his own site, that was disquieting, but to go back to Facebook, which is more system and groups that are owned by Facebook, like Instagram, use the similar technique. A former Facebook vice president has said, I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric

You're talking you're talking about Section two thirty right, yeah, okay.

Which allows them to have all the benefits of being a common carrier like the phone company, and all the benefits of being able to edit without taking blame for what that editing does. Normally, if you're a magazine, you can be sued for doing editing that is destructive. You

The last time I checked, President Trump had not been actually guilty of perpetrating any kind of violent crime on anyone. And I know there are people that point to January sixth, and he personally endorsed breaking into the Capitol, which he did not. He personally endorsed violence, which he has never done. You know, all of this, and they point to him saying at a rally, somebody ought to go punch him out.

Contradiction and where Trump has behaved that way. Remember it's when they would ask the police stop this person who's disrupting our rally.

Yeah, and the.

Police are told, I'm sorry, we've received orders from the Democrat mayor of this town or whatever not to intervene.

Exactly.

In other words, when people are not given protection, the only response of Democrats is, how can we take away your guns so you are not able to protect yourself in any way.

Well, this is a good point Lowell I think to make is that in Uvalde there wasn't a school resource officers. It was first reported who was armed. No one on that campus was armed. And yeah, there were all kinds of a tragedy of errors you could say that led up to the slaughter of these nineteen Pressures children and the two teachers who were gunned down. But the police always in every situation, and to blame the police, I think is a little half witted, to be sure, and

Yeah, And by the way, the Border patrol which supplied the expert who went in and finally took out the Uvaldi shooter that even though they were delayed by thirty minutes or more from being allowed by local police to enter the school, that person got a bullet hole through his beanie. I mean, he was just wearing a golf cap, which amazed me. Why wasn't he wearing an armored helmet?

No, no kidding, no kid.

It was truly surprising.

But understand the kind of environment that we're now seen the more time. This is from the American Journal of Epinemiology in twenty seventeen. They looked at Facebook programming and they said the more time people spend liking posts or updating their Facebook status, the less happy they felt.

Oh I can believe that.

Yeah.

So, I mean, this is basically an exercise that, at a minimum seems to deplete little things like well useful chemicals in the brain in order to keep you hooked on doing things like a trained monkey and don't shock the monkey, ladies and gentlemen.

I can gauge my personal happiness pretty high at this point, although I do have my moments, my fits of anger and frustration at times, mostly at what's going on around me in the real world. But I have never participated in Facebook. I tried Twitter for about, I don't know, three or four months, and was not on it every day. I did not tweet every day, but I found it to be pretty much an environment of hate and sadness itself, you know, a showcase of those things. And I rate

Think I would think, so, well, what do you do if you were a Mark Zuckerberg, for example, with all his money and what he found it important to do A couple of years ago was when talking to Jijien Ping, he literally begged the Chinese dictator and slave master to give the name that his own firstborn child would carry. Zuckerberg asked Jijien Ping to name his child. That seems

I saw this.

It would lead women to give their lives to having a family instead of serving a corporation, preferably, of course, a global corporation. How dare we rebuild the American family? The lack of whit is a major well. It played a major role in these two serious shooters we were discussed. They were both products of strangely broken and twisted homes. And you know, if you look at the degree of violence, it's still about seventy percent of African Americans, for example, who are born to single mothers.

Yep.

Because the Democrats deliberately set up a system were by your welfare payments depend on you accepting the state as the father and fathers the technical term guars government assuming the role of spouse.

Yeah. Yeah, They and fathers started fleeing Black families as soon as this welfare state was established, the so called Great Society in the nineteen fifties, and people told, oh, you just want to go back to the nineteen fifties, and Jim Crow actually, in the nineteen fifties, black communities all over this country, we're thriving, even in urban core centers because fathers were staying with their families, and they were eighty.

People were born to stable, two parent homes right exactly.

And it makes a difference. It makes a serious difference.

One could say, it makes all the difference.

All the difference. And you know what, people will hear this, who are who are race paid real race paiders? And they'll say, oh, there are more white people on welfare than there are black people. I hear that argument all the time, and it does not negate what we're saying.

And it almost traditionally said for a long time what Lyndon Johnson did to the black community was as destructive as if the Klan had made the policy. Well, the Klan did deliberate attempt to wreck the black community.

The Klan did make the policy, just nobody knew it.

I'm afraid though, Yes, as as Joe Biden and his good friend, the Grand Legal of the Klan made.

Clear, Yeah, it's just a it's a secondary plantation system that we have in this country, and it was started by the Democrats. The same way that most of the people who supported plantations and slavery in the Old South were Democrats, just as the same people who supported and held up planned parenthood as a fantastic thing were Democrats. Were racist, real racist, not fake racist or or made up racist for you know.

Of planned parenthood.

Yes, exactly. Democrats have a long Democrats have a long history of being evil and racist, and yet they're the ones pointing fingers at at people who oppose them as being the real racist.

It's it's of having a brainwashing office in the White House, yes, generation after generation, because it allowed this is one of the greatest acts of manipulation of a people ever seen in world politics. The black people who, as you say, the slave owners, the plantation owners, the Kouk DeLux clan people were all Democrats, indeed, and yet black people have been tricked into voting for them.

It is just astonishing that was part of the plan of LBJ. He's been quoted as saying it's a word I can't use on the radio, nor would I want to use. But all we got to do is give these n words enough that they they quiet down, not enough to make a difference, but enough that they'll be voting Democrat for the next two hundred years. That was an actual quote of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

YEP. Now, now there are things in the current argument we must abolish guns that are rather strange. Not only does it violate the entire American tradition in the American Constitution, but there was once a notorious study comparing Seattle, Washington to Vancouver in British Columbi, Canada, and they found that, oh, there was so much more violence in Seattle. It was

Right.

But the interesting thing is a lot of police nowadays are black. Indeed, and the odd thing that the researchers find when they compare them is a black policeman will shoot a black suspect much faster than a white policeman will.

Well, certainly because there's going to be a you know, a month long investigation and a trial many times because of this false narrative that there were a lot of racist white police in this country. Listen, lo with that. We got to wrap up, and I'm sorry there's not more time, but we're at the end.

That's always its pleasure, Gary.

Jeff, always a pleasure to talk to you, my friend. I love you, I love your perspective and your knowledge of history. Loll ponte with us on this Memorial Day evening as we get ready to close on seven hundred WLW. The cold weather is here, so you and your heating system will be