Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left That's Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest this week is truly alleged the soundtrack of
Speaker 1: my growing up, the one and only cousin Brucing. Thank you,
Speaker 1: what a lovely introduction. Well so nice to not only
Speaker 1: hear you, right, but also to see you. A pleasure,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for the invitation. Really do
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I gotta tell you what a huge influencial.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure you know you hear this all
Speaker 1: the time, but when I went to college, I had
Speaker 1: a radio show and I immediately called myself cousin Bobby.
Speaker 1: And there are people to this day who say, hey, couse,
Speaker 1: so this is not something you know that I'm blowing smoke.
Speaker 1: This is a real thing. So were you always Brucy? No,
Speaker 1: My parents at time, especially when they needed a babysitter
Speaker 1: I couldn't get one, had other names for me. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say what they were, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: my name is Brucey. It's always been brucy. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so when you've been on the radio, from the moment
Speaker 1: you're on radio, was also brucy. Yeah. Well no that's
Speaker 1: not true. No, my real name is Bruce Morrow. Most thing,
Speaker 1: most people think my name is Bruce Cousins. You see,
Speaker 1: they think my last name is Cousin. Uh No, it's
Speaker 1: but it's Bruce Morrow. I got my name actually. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was on W Y and S in New York City.
Speaker 1: Were like, here a nice story. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: fun story. It's it's fun. Uh. So I'm in the
Speaker 1: studio and uh security guarden. Those days we were allowed
Speaker 1: to have people come up. We didn't think they were
Speaker 1: gonna come inteer the radio station. So so he brings
Speaker 1: in this a little silver haired lady. She walks and
Speaker 1: he says, Mr Tomorrow, is this all right? To bring
Speaker 1: her in? I said this, pre cousin Brucy, and uh,
Speaker 1: I said, please bring her in. I love people. I
Speaker 1: like people. She owed me open the door and it's
Speaker 1: little silver haired, twinkly eyed lady walks in. She locks
Speaker 1: on my eyes immediately, Bob cousin, Bob, if i'm me,
Speaker 1: when somebody locks on eyes like I'm doing to yours
Speaker 1: right now, whether we're we're on the screen, um, they
Speaker 1: get you. That's the big secret of life. When you
Speaker 1: want to talk to somebody, you want something luck on
Speaker 1: their eyes, not they knows, not them. I'll hit the
Speaker 1: eyes immediately. So she locks on my eyes and she
Speaker 1: says to me, quote, excuse me, uh, sir. And I
Speaker 1: knew she didn't know who I was. She wasn't sitting
Speaker 1: hearing Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis or anybody else. She
Speaker 1: said to me, do you believe her overlated? And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a Brooklyn kid, so I know somebody's after something. Money, money, money, money,
Speaker 1: So I said, yes, I do believe her overlated. And
Speaker 1: I do believe that Bob all right somewhere along the line,
Speaker 1: and she said, well, listen, I'm broke. And I said,
Speaker 1: hold on one second, man, and I queue up my record.
Speaker 1: And those days we played these little black things with
Speaker 1: holes in them, and I used to queue up a record.
Speaker 1: We didn't have any digital starts or anything. And I
Speaker 1: said okay. She said, well, cousin, i'm broke. Let me
Speaker 1: fifty cents to get home. And I looked at her
Speaker 1: and she had these smiling eyes, and I said, sure,
Speaker 1: I gave a fifty cents, right, And she said, thanks, cousin,
Speaker 1: talk to you. She leaves. I never see her again
Speaker 1: that night in the Brooklyn Battery tunnel. I lived in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and those days I was on the way home, and
Speaker 1: in the middle of that tunnel I hear cousin, cousin,
Speaker 1: cousin brucie. That's it. I got it. I got my stick,
Speaker 1: I got my handle. The next morning, I go in
Speaker 1: and I speak to the program director, and he says,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? You can't goin to the cousin bruci
Speaker 1: There is the big apple man. This is New York City.
Speaker 1: This is not Fargo, this is not Morgantown, West Virginia.
Speaker 1: This is New York City. Forget it, I said, sir,
Speaker 1: let me ask you something. When you were a kid
Speaker 1: not so long ago, I was small enough to say
Speaker 1: that to him, to butt them up a little bit.
Speaker 1: Who did you like to go to Didn't you like
Speaker 1: to go to your homes of your cousins. They had
Speaker 1: the best toys, and your aunt and uncle will always
Speaker 1: treat you nice with food and snacks. He said, yeuh,
Speaker 1: all right, he said, I'll tell you what, kid, do
Speaker 1: this sparingly tonight. Don't overdo it, because if you overdo it,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be in trouble deep Well, that night, Bob
Speaker 1: I went on the air. I don't think there was
Speaker 1: more than three and a half words that went by
Speaker 1: without me saying because I cousin them. I even wanted
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. My cousin dom I did everything. I
Speaker 1: didn't stop. That next morning, at six o'clock, I get
Speaker 1: a call. It's the program director and he says to me, Bruce,
Speaker 1: I said, yes, get your posterior midsection in here, quick,
Speaker 1: get it in here. Now you're in trouble. I got scared, stiff.
Speaker 1: I called my father. Now, I've never been fired. I
Speaker 1: thought maybe he would hit me, and this guy would
Speaker 1: smack me or something. I didn't know what they were
Speaker 1: gonna do. So my dad goes in with me. He
Speaker 1: was a street smart guy, grew up in East New York,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're going together and Leeds says to me,
Speaker 1: sit over the airpirs and I'm scared stiff. My father says,
Speaker 1: next his desk and says, well, what's the problem. He said,
Speaker 1: I told your son not to overdo it, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you something. He didn't stop last night. The cousin.
Speaker 1: I said, well, is that okay? He says, I want
Speaker 1: to show you something, and then it's funny. He opens
Speaker 1: It wasn't funny at that. He opens his desk raw
Speaker 1: and he pulls out hundreds of yellow envelopes, hundreds, and
Speaker 1: they're spilling off his hands all over his desk. Now,
Speaker 1: these yellow envelopes were precursor to the email crieze, right,
Speaker 1: They were called Western Union telegrams. He received hundreds of
Speaker 1: Western Union telegrams wanting cousin Brucy. So my father smartly says, well,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that? Says I told him about too.
Speaker 1: I'm firing him on the spot. So my father looks
Speaker 1: at him and he says, but I'm gonna put him
Speaker 1: on a seven year contract immediately. Cousin, cousin bry That's
Speaker 1: a long story, but Cousin Brucy was born Bob. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's okay. You are such a character. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of people they're on mike or they're on stage,
Speaker 1: personality is totally different. But we got on and you
Speaker 1: were immediately Cousin Brucy. No, there is no you know,
Speaker 1: can I tell you something? Maybe I shouldn't say this,
Speaker 1: you can. You're gonna tell everybody. I'm told that. You
Speaker 1: you tell what you want to tell, which is good,
Speaker 1: so do I There was no cousin Brucey. It's Bruce.
Speaker 1: It's Bruce, Bruce Morrow. Bruce Morrow is cousin Bruci. There
Speaker 1: is no comic character. It's me. What can I tell you?
Speaker 1: I sleep this way, I talk of my sleep this way.
Speaker 1: I go to the bathroom this way, I take showers,
Speaker 1: I get up and I'm me. Now. Am I unhappy
Speaker 1: at times? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I'm just like everybody else.
Speaker 1: I have my moments, but generally I'm a pretty happy camper.
Speaker 1: I love life, and Bob, I love what I am doing.
Speaker 1: Underline bold underline, I love what I'm doing. I'm happy. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in Brooklyn? Yes? What I hesitated? Yes? Okay?
Speaker 1: And were your parents were they born in America? Yes?
Speaker 1: My parents were born in America. My grandparents one was
Speaker 1: via these huh, that's why I walked so well, I guess,
Speaker 1: and my grandma was Russian. My parents were both born here. Yes.
Speaker 1: And what did your parents or your do for a living? Well?
Speaker 1: My father, uh stole automobile caps, caps and my dad
Speaker 1: was in the garment business. He manufactured and designed children's clothing.
Speaker 1: And my mother was a Brooklyn housewife, took care of
Speaker 1: the family, shopped and she was terrific, never really had
Speaker 1: an occupation. My dad was the breadwinner, the right breadwinner.
Speaker 1: And then how many kids in the family, my brother
Speaker 1: and myself, And which one is older? Well, I'm younger,
Speaker 1: but he's he's younger. And explain it. Now you figured
Speaker 1: out out. I said, I'm younger, but he's younger. Oh,
Speaker 1: I got it, now, I got I have heard it first.
Speaker 1: What what does his life look like? Well, Bobby was
Speaker 1: in marketing. My brother, Bob's in marketing. He's I guess
Speaker 1: SMI tired. Now he's down in Florida. See, I don't
Speaker 1: have the word retired him of my vocabulary. I refuse.
Speaker 1: I don't like the what I call the R word.
Speaker 1: I believe, as long as you have energy and you
Speaker 1: have desire, and you have an enjoyment of what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you should do it. You should do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you can't get out of bed, you are having
Speaker 1: a problem. That's another story. But I speak to people
Speaker 1: all the time on the air who should not be
Speaker 1: retired their board and they're angry there, hustile, And I
Speaker 1: don't believe people should retire unless they absolutely after. Now,
Speaker 1: weren't there moments though, when you were not on the
Speaker 1: air you were on the business side of it. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think you've done some research. I'm getting a feeling
Speaker 1: I really hadn't. I said, I know your story, you know,
Speaker 1: because I know I know Bob Sherman, a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: hooked me up with him. And then of course you
Speaker 1: work with Stiller men, so you know, said you're an
Speaker 1: on air guy. I was wondering what motivated you, how
Speaker 1: you felt when you were not in front of a mic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I was never really through not being in front
Speaker 1: of a mic. Um. I became a businessman. Bob Silliman
Speaker 1: and I and we lost him about a year or
Speaker 1: so ago, and uh, he and I formed the Silliman
Speaker 1: Morrow Broadcast Group, and we bought radio stations and a
Speaker 1: couple of television stations. And I used to fly in
Speaker 1: a twin engine something or other um lego, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was. And we had a pilot and
Speaker 1: he fly me to different my different radio stations with Bob,
Speaker 1: and every day I'd be in a different market, I'd
Speaker 1: go on the air, and then after the year I'd
Speaker 1: go sell because you know, people love to meet characters
Speaker 1: like us. They enjoyed people in you know, the business wheel.
Speaker 1: They enjoy you know, saying hey, how you doing, price
Speaker 1: heard you last night? They get a kick out of it.
Speaker 1: So I used to fly to different markets almost every day.
Speaker 1: I did that for about seven years. We we guarded
Speaker 1: about well seven major radio stations. It became any more
Speaker 1: than that a couple of television stations. And I enjoyed
Speaker 1: it very much. I used to sit and I do
Speaker 1: my shows on each station that I sit in the office,
Speaker 1: and the kids would come in or pardon me for saying, kids,
Speaker 1: but these are the people who were for me young
Speaker 1: using young guys or gals, and they sit with me
Speaker 1: and they'd make exchooses. Why I caught him making a mistake,
Speaker 1: and I'd look him in the eye. This is Brucey
Speaker 1: now in his jacket and a tie, which is not me,
Speaker 1: and I'd say, no, listen, don't try to bowld me.
Speaker 1: I invented what you're telling me. Don't tell me, don't
Speaker 1: tell me that that's my story. I invent that stuff.
Speaker 1: So that is what I want you to do. I
Speaker 1: want you to make your mistakes. Feel good about that.
Speaker 1: But Lord help you if you do it again, I
Speaker 1: want you to correct your mistakes. So I became a
Speaker 1: business executive and after a while, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just didn't didn't enjoy it. I missed my microphones. So
Speaker 1: I continued doing a lot of Michael and work on
Speaker 1: our own radio stations, selling and and they're going on
Speaker 1: the air. And then day Joe McCoy and Rod Coraco,
Speaker 1: these are two executives at CBSFM, called me and he
Speaker 1: said to me, you know, Bruce, because it's time to
Speaker 1: come home, time to come home to New York. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, I can I own a d radio
Speaker 1: stations and some television properties. I have some problems. She says, no,
Speaker 1: you gotta come home. So they came out. They came
Speaker 1: out to my station and Randolph, New Jersey, and we
Speaker 1: found a little sandwich shop and we sat down and
Speaker 1: we talked. And of course it didn't take much to
Speaker 1: sell me. I'm a sucker. I mean, I'm an easy mark.
Speaker 1: I really missed being on the air. And they talked me. Oh,
Speaker 1: actually maybe I talked to him. I said maybe, how
Speaker 1: about once a week? No, that's so much, how about
Speaker 1: once a month? So I did it for a once
Speaker 1: a month on CBS FM. The once a month became
Speaker 1: twice a month, thrice a month, and then quadruple a month,
Speaker 1: and I just fell in love with it again. And
Speaker 1: then Bob and I, after a while we decided to sell.
Speaker 1: It was during the DEAs to believe, when it was
Speaker 1: still time to sell. That's why you see me smile,
Speaker 1: by the way. I know I've got to ask you
Speaker 1: that next. That's why I'm still a character. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you we did knock Wood very very well, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just everything worked out for me. But my
Speaker 1: love from broadcasting, I believe is the most important part
Speaker 1: of my life. I love what I do. I really
Speaker 1: adore this audience. And when I get on the mic,
Speaker 1: Bob Hope, I'm not answering all your questions, but when
Speaker 1: you I get on the microphone, I feel them. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking through a mic right now. Uh, this blue
Speaker 1: white Snowbird or whatever it's called. I'm talking directly to
Speaker 1: people at their homes. I know that I'm in bed
Speaker 1: with people. I know that I'm showering with people. I
Speaker 1: know that I'm taking a bathroom people, I'm shopping, I'm
Speaker 1: in cars, I'm just walking with people. And I feel it.
Speaker 1: I feel in my in my heart, I feel it
Speaker 1: in my gut, and it comes across. I forget where
Speaker 1: I am. I forget that them in a studio. That's
Speaker 1: always the sentiser things and wires and all kinds of
Speaker 1: glass between me. It doesn't matter. I'm at home. I'm
Speaker 1: very much at home. Now. I'm not gonna answer the
Speaker 1: next question. Let me see you answer it, because I
Speaker 1: want to continue on this. Okay, Well, you know you're
Speaker 1: doing telling great stories. But do you need the audience
Speaker 1: to complete you? Or without the audience, do you feel
Speaker 1: like something is missing and you get depressed. Well, I
Speaker 1: need an audience, There's no doubt about it. I have
Speaker 1: to feel the audience. Now, how do you feel an audience?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's something that God's God given. It's something
Speaker 1: that's in my soul. It's in my heart. I know
Speaker 1: they're they're obviously the physical reaction telephones, emails now right
Speaker 1: and uh, twitters and twitters and modyrs whatever they're doing today.
Speaker 1: But I know the audience is there because as soon
Speaker 1: as I say something, there is a physical reaction. But
Speaker 1: besides that, quite wait, a physical reaction in you, No
Speaker 1: physical reaction from the audience to me, I mean, you
Speaker 1: see it, the screens light up, the telephones light up. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you something I'm very proud of and maybe
Speaker 1: you'll get a kick out of this. I broke the
Speaker 1: telephone system last Saturday. I love that and I always
Speaker 1: say that to be but come on, call me, let's
Speaker 1: break the system. It broke. We had an overload. It
Speaker 1: was wonderful years ago when I was a w ABC.
Speaker 1: You know I left w ABC. Oh gosh, my forty
Speaker 1: six years ago. Last time I was on besides now
Speaker 1: and uh, we used today threatened to shut down the system,
Speaker 1: the telephone system. I'd say bi monthly, every time I'm on,
Speaker 1: I'd get telephone calls and then sometimes will be the
Speaker 1: surge and it would break down the exchange today, Today's today.
Speaker 1: You don't have to break down exchange, but systems do
Speaker 1: get into ill repair, and they did that last Saturday.
Speaker 1: So the question, the answer is I feel them because
Speaker 1: I have a physical field telephones, emails, etcetera. And I
Speaker 1: know this. I know this in my body. I can
Speaker 1: feel it. Yes, But do you need it to complete you? Yes? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I am happy as when I have an audience. I
Speaker 1: love being on the stage. I'm a ham I love it.
Speaker 1: I love the feeling. I like the feeling of making
Speaker 1: people happy. I know they smile. Some people probably get
Speaker 1: mad at me, and why don't they say I wanted
Speaker 1: to be quiet? Knock it off. I know that. But
Speaker 1: of the people are loving what they're hearing, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: reaching them. I'm crossing that bridge. So it makes me happy.
Speaker 1: I love to be in front of an audience on
Speaker 1: the stage show. I love doing Broadway. I love live television,
Speaker 1: but my favorite is what we're doing now. I love
Speaker 1: being on the air. I like I like my radio.
Speaker 1: I love I love doing talk shows. You know my shows, Bob,
Speaker 1: there's all with one breath. You know that right since
Speaker 1: you started, uh, my shows have changed amazingly. UH. When
Speaker 1: I first started, obviously, it was very mechanical. I was
Speaker 1: in Bermuda, my first job when I graduated from New
Speaker 1: York University, where I founded the radio station. By the way,
Speaker 1: I went to Bermuda, I sent out my uh my demos.
Speaker 1: So I spent the yuran Bermuda, and I came back
Speaker 1: and had different jobs and became a producer and everything.
Speaker 1: But when I went on the Era, the old days
Speaker 1: w ABC and even CBSFM. It was really UH music, news, weather,
Speaker 1: I did jingles, I did uh telephoned, uh exchanges, but
Speaker 1: I it wasn't really a talk tipe show. It has evolved.
Speaker 1: It has metamorphized, metamorphis sisto to bed word and to
Speaker 1: uh you let it that I know you won't, but
Speaker 1: it's okay. Uh. It has changed into a variety show today.
Speaker 1: It is no longer UH music, time and weather. It
Speaker 1: is now brucie and variety and music and people want
Speaker 1: to hear ideas. The audience of you has become so
Speaker 1: amazingly hyper sophisticated that they demand certain content and playing
Speaker 1: records as a jukebox is not enough, and giving him
Speaker 1: a weather break once in a while with a temperature
Speaker 1: reading is not enough. They want to hear ideas, They
Speaker 1: want to hear other people. They want to hear exchanges
Speaker 1: like you do. You are a communicator. I have become
Speaker 1: a communicator and I'm very proud of that. I love
Speaker 1: to talk and the the connection I have and is
Speaker 1: a big word with me. Connection capital c underlined. My
Speaker 1: bold with my audience is amazing. What has developed over
Speaker 1: the past many years. So I have this connection, and
Speaker 1: I've learned how to use it. Well, it was easy
Speaker 1: for me to learn because it's me. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to Brooklyn. What kind of kid were you? You
Speaker 1: are a loner? Were you the leader of the band?
Speaker 1: You remember the group? Well, I'm gonna shock you now,
Speaker 1: maybe not. You probably know this. I was a shy kid.
Speaker 1: I was always kind of a semi leader because I
Speaker 1: was always big. I was always the tallest in my class,
Speaker 1: or one of them. Anyhow, I was kind of shy
Speaker 1: in class. I would make a deal with the teacher
Speaker 1: not to call me. I get my bees and my
Speaker 1: cs C plus is, but I didn't want to stand
Speaker 1: up in front of class. I was shyny. I was
Speaker 1: a very shy kid. One day, a very astute teacher,
Speaker 1: my English teacher, Mrs fry Lesher, and I believe it's
Speaker 1: a PS two oh six in Brooklyn, New York. I
Speaker 1: love that love that school asked me to try out
Speaker 1: for a hygiene play. Now, you're probably too young to
Speaker 1: remember the word hygiene. Not that you don't have hygiene.
Speaker 1: I didn't say that, said don't go after me, right,
Speaker 1: I didn't say that. We used to have hygiene plays.
Speaker 1: Because in those days we couldn't have sex education. It
Speaker 1: was not permitted the word high sex, or maybe it
Speaker 1: was education. So we had hygiene place and one day
Speaker 1: I did Finally she convinced me to try out, and
Speaker 1: I won the part of a cavity. Are you laughing
Speaker 1: at me? All right? I won the part of that part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's a good line. A lot of people still
Speaker 1: think I am one. And I was on that stage
Speaker 1: that day. You let't forget it. This is in my
Speaker 1: heart and my body. And they had me dressed up
Speaker 1: as a big tooth with a black spot somewhere in
Speaker 1: the top, and I sang something like, uh, I never
Speaker 1: brushed my teeth. Amy doesn't let me brush my teeth,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of think. And something happened to
Speaker 1: me on the on the stage that day. I looked
Speaker 1: out of a little window, you know, the window that
Speaker 1: bad tooth, and I saw the audience laughing, and I
Speaker 1: felt the heat and the warmth of the audience coming
Speaker 1: at me. I never stopped. I never stopped from that
Speaker 1: day because I knew this is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I stopped my Uh, I was gonna maybe study medicine, right,
Speaker 1: I was maybe gonna become I didn't know about being
Speaker 1: an astronaut, but I wanted to be a pilot. I
Speaker 1: never thought of this, and on that stage, the heat
Speaker 1: and warmth and reception of that audience, I realized what
Speaker 1: I was going to do for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And here where we are today. Yeah, so you were
Speaker 1: in high school? Were you in the school plays? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Doing school plays and what he called public school too,
Speaker 1: as I said, PS. Two six. So I started really
Speaker 1: in elementary school, and then I graduated to high school.
Speaker 1: And while I was in high school, I wanted to
Speaker 1: audition to what they call the Old City Radio Workshop,
Speaker 1: and that's where my radio career really started. Well, but well,
Speaker 1: let's let's slow down for a second. Since you love
Speaker 1: the heat of the audience, did you contemplate going the
Speaker 1: Broadway or being in the movies or was it always
Speaker 1: radio now? At one time, I always like radio because
Speaker 1: it was fun. It seemed to be an easier way
Speaker 1: of life. But I went to drama school. My girlfriend's
Speaker 1: mother convinced me to go to drama school, and I
Speaker 1: was going to become an actor. I enjoyed being on
Speaker 1: the stage, and I realized pretty quickly that I don't
Speaker 1: think an actor's life was for me high didda e
Speaker 1: d No, it was not for me. Uh. When I
Speaker 1: got to the last part of high elementary school, radio
Speaker 1: and television pointed its way to me. It was pretty
Speaker 1: obvious what I wanted to do. Okay, So you're talking
Speaker 1: about the All City all see the Radio Workshop in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York or the New York City Board of Education
Speaker 1: system they used to have. I hope they still have
Speaker 1: it because this is where I got my education, really
Speaker 1: honestly and everything. I won the audition and I stayed
Speaker 1: with them for about three and a half years. This
Speaker 1: they had their own radio station. It was called w
Speaker 1: n y E FM w n y E f M,
Speaker 1: and it was housed in studios at Brooklyn Technical High
Speaker 1: School downtown Brooklyn, and I stayed there for three and
Speaker 1: a half years. I did shows, I did acting, Okay,
Speaker 1: but just where could one hear that station today? No? No,
Speaker 1: back then? Was it over the year watch? Was it
Speaker 1: a wired situation? No? No, no, that was out. That
Speaker 1: was something that was later that was an over the
Speaker 1: air broadcast station. I don't remember ninety probably the lower
Speaker 1: two point one or something. That's where they have you
Speaker 1: know a Board of Education frequency and uh, we were
Speaker 1: actually on the air and I played I remember Paul Bunyan.
Speaker 1: I played all different kind of dramatic parts. I wasn't
Speaker 1: doing music in those days. I did reporting, I did
Speaker 1: uh poetry readings. But my biggest advancement was playing Paul Bunyan.
Speaker 1: It was me, it was not it was it was typecast. Okay,
Speaker 1: this was while you were in high school. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so then you decide to go to college. This is
Speaker 1: a business where many people did not go to college.
Speaker 1: How did you end up going to college? Well, my
Speaker 1: parents offered me a car. That was a little incentive,
Speaker 1: right to offered me a car if I went to
Speaker 1: college because I wanted to go out. I wanted to
Speaker 1: go on the stage. I wanted to study a little
Speaker 1: more acting. I still had the acting bug and I
Speaker 1: wanted to go on radio because I had that bug too.
Speaker 1: But they convinced me that college would be the right
Speaker 1: way to go. So I remember I was the recipient
Speaker 1: of a beautiful two door Uh. It was a Ford
Speaker 1: at two door Ford and it was green and white
Speaker 1: cream topped. It was a beautiful car. How did I
Speaker 1: am radio? It was brand new Oh yeah, Oh, that's
Speaker 1: quite an attentive Mario was. My parents were really great.
Speaker 1: I mean that was an expensive carmer those days. Probably course,
Speaker 1: at least three dollars, I don't know, Probably more like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you start school where college? College? Now you're gonna
Speaker 1: embarrass me. See, you know you are a very smart,
Speaker 1: shy guy. You sly guy. I know what you're doing here,
Speaker 1: all right? I went me you, I know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I went to Brooklyn College, right. I lasted there for
Speaker 1: six months. You're gonna embarrass me now, but I'm gonna now,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in it. I gotta tell him. I went
Speaker 1: to Brooking College for six months. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: couldn't find the classes. Yeah, they kept moving the classes.
Speaker 1: So I I left obviously, or maybe I was requested
Speaker 1: to leave. I don't know. It was maybe a combination
Speaker 1: that too, Bob cousin Bob Um. I started talking to
Speaker 1: people who went to New York University, and it sounded good.
Speaker 1: It sounds like I wanted to do something there. So
Speaker 1: I enrolled at n y U. And what was there
Speaker 1: In the first year. I decided they needed a radio
Speaker 1: station and then we didn't have when we had a
Speaker 1: radio club, you know, was held at an Arizat studio
Speaker 1: and we had a microphone and uh a little control
Speaker 1: room and we practiced radio. But it wasn't going anywhere
Speaker 1: but into somebody's web corps or something or wire recorder
Speaker 1: in those days. So I decided I was gonna go
Speaker 1: this is this is typical me. Now, I was gonna
Speaker 1: go see a dean. I looked up to dean, my dean,
Speaker 1: and uh, I was gonna go ask him to get
Speaker 1: me a radio station for the college. We needed a
Speaker 1: radio station. It really was important part of the community.
Speaker 1: So it was snowing. It was a bad snowy, nasty day,
Speaker 1: muddy snow, slush, and I tripped into the dean's office
Speaker 1: with my gloshes. Now, in those days, Bobby probably remember,
Speaker 1: we used to wear these over shoes called galoshes. Terrible.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, forget it. So I went in
Speaker 1: and I didn't take my glashes off, and I brought
Speaker 1: in a lot of slush with me. He looked down
Speaker 1: at his beautiful new carpet, and I knew right away
Speaker 1: he looked back at me once again the eyes he
Speaker 1: was not happy. He says, what can I do? For you,
Speaker 1: Mr Morrow, And I said, well, sir, I want to
Speaker 1: build a radio station. We need a radio station, the
Speaker 1: community needs one, the college needs one. So he looked
Speaker 1: at me and said, you know what, I think it's
Speaker 1: a good idea. I'm gonna get you twenty eight dollars.
Speaker 1: Get out. Literally, he didn't want me. I'm I messed
Speaker 1: up his office. He gave me eventually twenty eight dollars
Speaker 1: to professor my professors. I went and board wire. I
Speaker 1: bought a used Dina box phonograph, and we had a microphone,
Speaker 1: and I formed the club of people who really wanted
Speaker 1: to be on the radio. I took the wire from
Speaker 1: the back of the console, dropped it four stories out
Speaker 1: of window, and I connected it with solder to the
Speaker 1: back of two radios in a lounge in the green
Speaker 1: room down there upstairs. We had microphone and a Dina box.
Speaker 1: I went over to London Records at r C A,
Speaker 1: and I begged them for their catalogs. I had, you know,
Speaker 1: Cosmo music, and I had Semi pop music, had all that. Well,
Speaker 1: we started doing shows. We did news, we did music,
Speaker 1: and it went to the fourth four stories below the
Speaker 1: two radios. But we were on the air. That's how
Speaker 1: it started. That's my career. That's how the career started.
Speaker 1: I knew that to really gets this out of me. Okay.
Speaker 1: And then was at the extent of the radio station
Speaker 1: during your whole college career or did they ultimately get
Speaker 1: it over the year broadcast? Yeah they did, they did.
Speaker 1: Uh what was it called carry a current? I think
Speaker 1: they did carry according after a while. Yeah, carry accurrent
Speaker 1: is not really over the year. We never had a transmitter,
Speaker 1: so to speak, but we somehow the technicians we now,
Speaker 1: we hired a technician. He the UH cabled us into
Speaker 1: the electrical circus throughout the college, and the electrical circus
Speaker 1: carried this UH the signal. So we were on the air.
Speaker 1: I saw it selling time to local sponsors. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of records. We had newscasters, I mean a group.
Speaker 1: I had a radio station and it worked. And today
Speaker 1: that radio station uh w n y U FM is
Speaker 1: on the air and gets all kinds of awards. Yeah. Absolutely, okay,
Speaker 1: So what do you study in college? Uh? I studied
Speaker 1: UH radio I UH. I very rarely went to class.
Speaker 1: The My professor's all excuse me, because they knew what
Speaker 1: I was doing. And everybody wanted a radio station. Albeit
Speaker 1: even though it was only two speakers at the time,
Speaker 1: I was kind of excused. So my college career was
Speaker 1: really building that radio station. But I learned finance, I
Speaker 1: learned history, I learned geography, I learned sociology, I learned psychology.
Speaker 1: I had the best, the best education of my life.
Speaker 1: My parents paid a lot of money for that education,
Speaker 1: but it was well worth while. Right but you, but
Speaker 1: you did graduate, you did get a degree. O start
Speaker 1: somewhere behind me and something. In fact, I even have
Speaker 1: a a an honorary degree. I have a pH d.
Speaker 1: You know, it's Dr Cousin Bruce. You know. No, I'm
Speaker 1: very proud that I graduated, n y U. It was
Speaker 1: tough at times. It was tough of times because my
Speaker 1: head was always outside the classroom wanting to do things.
Speaker 1: But I did it. I graduated, and uh, I'm very
Speaker 1: proud of that, very proud of n Yu. You graduated.
Speaker 1: What was the next step in your career? Well, when
Speaker 1: I graduated, I sent out demo tapes or if you
Speaker 1: remember those days. But we didn't have uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have the Internet or anything. We had to
Speaker 1: send tapes out. So I uh, sent out eight tapes
Speaker 1: under the under the supervision of my professor's Professor Falk,
Speaker 1: Professor Emerson. Funny while I'm talking, I remembering names here,
Speaker 1: And I sent these tapes out to different radio stations. Now,
Speaker 1: I've always, Bob, I've always wanted to be a warm climate.
Speaker 1: I don't like being cold, and I don't like being
Speaker 1: I don't like to this day. And so I sent
Speaker 1: them out to warm climates, which is a very bad
Speaker 1: thing to do because you're really narrowing the pickings. So
Speaker 1: out of about eight tapes, I got four or five
Speaker 1: back that said, kid, you're very very nice going to
Speaker 1: your father's business. All right, forget it. And a couple
Speaker 1: of them came back very positively. One was in Panama City, Florida.
Speaker 1: Perfect nice weather, you know, a little cool once in
Speaker 1: a while, nice weather. And one day the owner of
Speaker 1: the radio station called, and once again, my dad was
Speaker 1: standing by Dad and he's on the phone. I'm on
Speaker 1: the other phone, and uh, he gets on him. Yes,
Speaker 1: he said, this is Mrs so and so of whatever
Speaker 1: the radio station was, and still there by the way,
Speaker 1: Panama City, Florida. We'd like to offer your son a job.
Speaker 1: So my father answered, I was like throat stopped, and
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, well, what's the job. Well, we'd like
Speaker 1: to give him a job, and uh, he'd work in
Speaker 1: both our businesses. My father said, really, what both businesses? Well,
Speaker 1: he said he was very cagy the guy. He said,
Speaker 1: he'd been on the air for about four hours. He'll
Speaker 1: do a two hour show and then he'll go out
Speaker 1: and sell for two hours out small stations. Right, we'll
Speaker 1: pay him eighty five dollars a week, and we'll help
Speaker 1: him get settled and everything. Eighty five a week. And
Speaker 1: then my father knew something was wrong and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: that sounds all right for this time, because he was
Speaker 1: going to supplement myself. I'll read what's the other business?
Speaker 1: My father very shrewd once again, so the older of
Speaker 1: the stations as well, Mrmorrow, we also own a car wash.
Speaker 1: What are you laughing at? That's serious stuff. Listen, how
Speaker 1: would you like that? He said, he'll work four hours
Speaker 1: in our car wash. Now, my dad and I looked
Speaker 1: at each other and we said, no, no, I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna carry eight hundred towels down to Florida. So we
Speaker 1: turned that one down. About a week later, I received
Speaker 1: a call from I guess the station of my dreams,
Speaker 1: z B M, or as we say, z B M
Speaker 1: z B M in Bermuda. Down in Bermuda Paradise for
Speaker 1: two I met my loved one deep in the Blue
Speaker 1: remember that song? Alright, anyway you do not recognize all right?
Speaker 1: I go down to Bermuda, and I really had my
Speaker 1: education there, Bob. This is where I learned radio. You know,
Speaker 1: you can stay in college and high school and read
Speaker 1: books and go to a broadcast school all your life,
Speaker 1: but until you're on the professionally, until you're on that
Speaker 1: radio and doing it and you feel that feeling in
Speaker 1: your belly and you're so scared, right because it's so new,
Speaker 1: you don't know what to do. That's when the education began.
Speaker 1: So one year and a little bit of a couple
Speaker 1: of months in Bermuda and I did everything from well,
Speaker 1: I I brought rock and roll music down to that
Speaker 1: quiet island. They used to call me the Hammer. By
Speaker 1: the way, I still have listeners down there that right
Speaker 1: to me. Email me. They love it, uh, that hammer
Speaker 1: because they never heard anybody speak with the cacophony of
Speaker 1: the music that we were playing. Suddenly they were hearing
Speaker 1: Fats Domino and Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers, and
Speaker 1: yet that whole thing drifters, and they were getting a
Speaker 1: whole new beat this once quiet Calypsonian Island, and the
Speaker 1: Hammer was on the radio with him. I did shows,
Speaker 1: I did stage shows. I started a show called The
Speaker 1: Search Party. That's where I got in trouble. I mixed
Speaker 1: black and white audience once again. I love my audience.
Speaker 1: I was dead, so I was really wanting to have
Speaker 1: an audience in front of me, even in those days.
Speaker 1: I knew it. And they didn't like this too much.
Speaker 1: They didn't like the idea of mixing audiences. So at
Speaker 1: night I used to get threatening. When I was on
Speaker 1: the radio, I used to get threatening phone calls. It
Speaker 1: got so bad. And this is the old days of
Speaker 1: the Beater's not today that things have changed. I used
Speaker 1: to walk home with a lead pipe at the ready
Speaker 1: in my pocket, real big pipe, and I used to
Speaker 1: put it under my shirt because and every time a
Speaker 1: palm tree would sway, I jumped ten feet in the
Speaker 1: air getting ready for something. So they threatened me right
Speaker 1: until I got home, and I used to get into
Speaker 1: my little bed that I paid. I think, uh, ninety
Speaker 1: dollars a month. I was on the eve of on
Speaker 1: the eve of a roof, and if I got up,
Speaker 1: I'd smashed my head on it. But I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you some that was probably the most important poignant part
Speaker 1: of my education, my radio education. I left there, go
Speaker 1: away before you go there? Yeah, what's what's happening with
Speaker 1: you in romance along the road here? What? Wait a minute?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I'm not gonna talk about that. You gotta
Speaker 1: we only get me in trouble. I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: afford a divorce this year. No, I guess uh I
Speaker 1: did you have dates in high school? In college? Did
Speaker 1: you have relationships? Sure? Oh, absolutely had a lot of girlfriends.
Speaker 1: I thought you were talking about one specific one in Bermuda.
Speaker 1: It was that I had my research. Does not go
Speaker 1: that day, Thank goodness. Hold on a second, okay, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you did have one specific person in Bermuda.
Speaker 1: You were not homesick, well, I was homesick. I was homesick,
Speaker 1: but there were times it was not homesick because we
Speaker 1: were making nice. We had a good time. My uh
Speaker 1: my two door forward, which I had pre Bermuda, was
Speaker 1: now being used for another kind of education. I didn't
Speaker 1: know there was a back seat there. Okay, but you
Speaker 1: took the Ford to Bermuda too, No, no, no, I said,
Speaker 1: I used the Ford pre Bermuda for you talking about girlfriend. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that how do you get out of Bermuda. Well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a story that twenty century Fox bought
Speaker 1: in my book, right, and that was that could have
Speaker 1: that was almost a movie. Uh. There was a church
Speaker 1: in Bermuda outside of Hamilton's that burned down, and this
Speaker 1: church was in dire needs of funds they had to rebuild.
Speaker 1: So I decided very wisely, I think to this day,
Speaker 1: to hold a big record hop and a dance at
Speaker 1: a huge hall in Hamilton's harbor. So we hired this
Speaker 1: hard It could have held thousands of people. And uh,
Speaker 1: I was going to raise money to read help rebuild
Speaker 1: the church, which I did. I raised some funds. Um
Speaker 1: after this was over, I was invited to leave. I
Speaker 1: was invited to leave Bermuda. Now once again, I love
Speaker 1: Bermuda and I've been back a couple of times since.
Speaker 1: At this time, Bermuda was kind of living in a
Speaker 1: different world. They weren't in today's world. They really didn't.
Speaker 1: I think if you weren't uh British Anglo Protestant Um,
Speaker 1: you were not acceptable. They had a lot of different
Speaker 1: laws which have changed, you know. So I was right
Speaker 1: there in the middle of all this stuff. So, as
Speaker 1: I said, I got a letter and I suggested that
Speaker 1: I leave. Okay, let's let's let's let's hold back for
Speaker 1: a second. To what degree if you encountered anti Semitism
Speaker 1: in your career, very little to none. Honestly, No, I've
Speaker 1: discovered I've encountered anti humanism many times. I've never had
Speaker 1: the unhappiness of anti Semitism or anti anything. The only
Speaker 1: anti I really had was in Bermuda. That was just
Speaker 1: not nice. It wasn't right. Okay. So if you were
Speaker 1: raising money for the church, what was their problem with you? Well,
Speaker 1: I was helping a black church. It was a black church. See,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. So they were invited to leave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I started to leave, and I accepted it. I left,
Speaker 1: and uh I went home and I got a job
Speaker 1: in Miami. I probably had another job before that. I know,
Speaker 1: it's getting a little kind of mushy now. Uh, I
Speaker 1: get a job in Miami and I go to w
Speaker 1: Y n Z in Miami, broadcasting from high you top
Speaker 1: the beautiful Biscaine Bay, overlooking beautiful, beautiful Florida. So I
Speaker 1: was in the there for W Y and Z for
Speaker 1: about a year. One day I'm walking on Biscaye Boulevard
Speaker 1: out here speak about things that you never forget. I
Speaker 1: suddenly see Santa Claus under a palm tree. It's not
Speaker 1: in December Christmas time, wearing Bermuda shorts and a T shirt.
Speaker 1: And I said, boy, you're out of here. That was
Speaker 1: I got enough see Santa Claus and shorts, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was time to leave, and I left in
Speaker 1: the I got jobs, So I got his producers jobs,
Speaker 1: and I went to W I and S in New York.
Speaker 1: When you how long were you off the air from
Speaker 1: Remuta to your next job? Maybe three months? Pretty quick.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think it might not work? No? I
Speaker 1: never did. I always had. You know, I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1: I have great faith in me. I believe in what
Speaker 1: I do, and I ain't a feard. I'm not afraid.
Speaker 1: I'm not a scaredy kid. I'm a Brooklyn kid. Nothing
Speaker 1: scares me. Okay, So when you leave Miami, do you
Speaker 1: continue to stay on the air or there are times
Speaker 1: when you're behind the mic, behind the MICU of the
Speaker 1: first jobs, I was at Mutual Broadcasting as a producer
Speaker 1: and then Fate stepped in. This you're gonna like, I
Speaker 1: am hired a w Y and as my dad parents.
Speaker 1: My mother had a friend who was parents parents of
Speaker 1: a young lady who worked at w I and S.
Speaker 1: In those days, w Y and S was music. It
Speaker 1: wasn't an old talk or all news stations. So they
Speaker 1: hired me as a producer. Once again, Fate here it
Speaker 1: is mom Ba bamb Homema bam home. Fate steps in.
Speaker 1: There's a strike after calls a strike. Now what happens
Speaker 1: when there's a strike, all of the on air personalities leave,
Speaker 1: They go out and they pick it or they just
Speaker 1: leave and uh. Then the other unions like what was it?
Speaker 1: Navid was something? I believe it was NAVID, the engineering unit.
Speaker 1: They could not cross the picket line, so we were
Speaker 1: without operating personnel. So what are you do? Well, as
Speaker 1: a you know, a broadcaster, you do what comes dentually.
Speaker 1: You get everybody that works for you that's non union
Speaker 1: and you put them on the air and all the
Speaker 1: ancelory jobs that's what you do. So they knew I
Speaker 1: had experience. They put me on the air. Okay, but
Speaker 1: did your the people broadcasting were on strike. Did they
Speaker 1: see you as a scab or did they excell Let's
Speaker 1: put it this way. At first, well I was that's
Speaker 1: after the fact. But I went on the air, So
Speaker 1: just no preceding. That went on the air, and I
Speaker 1: stayed on the air for quite some time. Cousin Brusci
Speaker 1: was born on the air. That's what happened. My enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: my energy was now developing, and they kept me on
Speaker 1: the air. Now, when the strike ended, they gave me
Speaker 1: a contract. I stayed on the air. I went on
Speaker 1: the air. Uh. The union members, well, at first they
Speaker 1: were kind of cold, I remember, but after a while
Speaker 1: they warmed up. I'm a very kissy, huggy guy, and
Speaker 1: they saw the young guy, young kid. Right, I wasn't
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. I was doing what I was instructed
Speaker 1: to by executives. So I had no choice either that
Speaker 1: or I was gonna be fired. So one on the year.
Speaker 1: So after a while they warmed up to me. Right.
Speaker 1: How long was the strike, Oh, I don't know. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty good one. It was a pretty long strike.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't years or anything. I think several months. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what year are we in? All right, now, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to use your research. I really, my research
Speaker 1: is my whole life. But it's obviously pre w ABC. Wait, okay,
Speaker 1: let me let me switch it a little bit. Because
Speaker 1: something you've mentioned, you have a love for being performing,
Speaker 1: You liked the connection with your audience. To what degree
Speaker 1: was the music important to you at that time? Absolutely everything?
Speaker 1: The music I believe was my connection. The music was
Speaker 1: in my absolute absolute bridge to that audi. It's I
Speaker 1: was playing that music and I sounded like that music
Speaker 1: because I learned how to sound like that music from
Speaker 1: Alan Freed, who was my mentor back in the old days.
Speaker 1: Alan Freed probably the granddaddy of Top forty and rock
Speaker 1: and roll radio when I was a kid, when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, I used to go once in
Speaker 1: a while up to w y and S where he
Speaker 1: was on. Came out of Cleveland and came to Wyns.
Speaker 1: Pressed my nose against the glass, and one day he
Speaker 1: noticed me because I came up pretty often, and he
Speaker 1: signaled me to come in with his hand, come on in,
Speaker 1: and he went in. He says, kid, you like this?
Speaker 1: I said, yes, sir. He says, don't do it going
Speaker 1: to your father's business. It's boring, boring, and you know something,
Speaker 1: Thank god I didn't listen to him, right. I was
Speaker 1: so enamored because this man sounded like rock and roll,
Speaker 1: but I sounded like it. And the music, to answer
Speaker 1: your question, was the entire absolute bridge to where I
Speaker 1: am today. Okay, Now, Alan Freed ultimately went up the
Speaker 1: river as a result of Paola. To what degree did
Speaker 1: Payola permeate the business? This back then completely? But fortunately
Speaker 1: for me, I was a kid. I took Payola once
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna admit it to you know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be shocked. Are you ready for this? All? Right? I
Speaker 1: accepted a cherry and an apple pie from somebody once
Speaker 1: he came up. This man who was a record promoter,
Speaker 1: offered me, wanted me to play one of his new records,
Speaker 1: and I he knew I could get it past and
Speaker 1: the music meeting, and uh, he gave me a cherry
Speaker 1: pie and an apple pie. I didn't know it was Payola.
Speaker 1: It was pie Ola. I don't know what the heck
Speaker 1: it was. They were very good pies. I witnessed those
Speaker 1: days of payola, program directors, music directors, getting television sets,
Speaker 1: cases of booze cars. I mean there was one guy
Speaker 1: and even had a wedding. Uh, an amazing thing happened.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I was so young. Nobody really
Speaker 1: ever approached me. I could have, I could have probably
Speaker 1: followed it, but I never did. I just told you
Speaker 1: that apple pie and cherry pie. That was okay. So
Speaker 1: how long were you all? You went directly from w
Speaker 1: I n S ten ten wins to w ABC. Correct? Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know, I think that's pretty right. I
Speaker 1: think how long were you at ten ten wins before
Speaker 1: you went to ABC? And what was that transition about? What?
Speaker 1: It was? Two years? Two years at w I n S.
Speaker 1: It ended kind of unhappily. There was a DJ named
Speaker 1: Murray the K and Murray wanted my hours. And I
Speaker 1: was a young guy. I didn't know how to protect myself.
Speaker 1: I was still you know, my early early twenties, and uh,
Speaker 1: Murray was a season veteran and he wanted those hours.
Speaker 1: And you're talking about quantity or specific time time, which
Speaker 1: was when oh I was on from uh, I think
Speaker 1: ten to midnight in those days. Why did he want
Speaker 1: those hours because he was on at night later and
Speaker 1: he wanted the extra hours, So we wanted the hours,
Speaker 1: and he was very friendly with the sales manager and
Speaker 1: then they made a deal. So I was put on
Speaker 1: a different time and eventually I left, but I was
Speaker 1: I was really forced forced out. So murray, Uh it was.
Speaker 1: It was not a happy moment in my life. And eventually, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: uh it came to pass whereby he paid the piper
Speaker 1: for that, paid the piper with his with his life.
Speaker 1: Nothing to do with me, But that's another story he developed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got very sick, right, But staying with you, how
Speaker 1: did you did you quit? Iron asked? Or you were
Speaker 1: you recruited by ABC? Or do you look for another job?
Speaker 1: How did that transition happen? You know, I just want
Speaker 1: to think. I don't think I was let go. I
Speaker 1: looked for another job. I looked for another job and
Speaker 1: at the time, but see none I went. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure I went to W Y and Z before I went. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that. You know what. There's so much
Speaker 1: going on with my chronology. It's like word but as
Speaker 1: you're talking and sort of lights up a pinball, A
Speaker 1: little glimmer. Um, I got a job from Wins and
Speaker 1: Wins in Miami, Florida. That's where I went. So I
Speaker 1: went out of Florida. I was pretty I was known
Speaker 1: by that in Florida because New Yorkers, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of New Yorkers are there, right, and that's how
Speaker 1: they advertise it. So a guy named Rex rand Oldness
Speaker 1: radio station w Y and C. I think this is
Speaker 1: where this came in because we talked about this came
Speaker 1: terrorists before and I went down there and I spent
Speaker 1: that year. That's where this happened. While I was down
Speaker 1: there that year, I was recruited for w ABC. That's
Speaker 1: when they were starting out to look and see what
Speaker 1: they wanted to do. They were becoming they were the
Speaker 1: seven Swinging Gentleman that they became the All Americans. And
Speaker 1: I got the job there. I got the job. There
Speaker 1: was Rick Sklar already the program director. Yes she was.
Speaker 1: Rick was my program director. I think what I got there.
Speaker 1: There was a guy leaving in transition, but Rick was
Speaker 1: my program director and uh he called me into his
Speaker 1: office one day and uh, I was on the air
Speaker 1: and he goes into his draw and he pulls out
Speaker 1: a folder when these vanilla folders and the en folder
Speaker 1: was a star. And he said to me, Bruce, this
Speaker 1: is Rick Slane. This is your star. This is you
Speaker 1: from now on, and he gave me the break. I
Speaker 1: went on the air seven to ten. Okay, and so
Speaker 1: immediately you were at seven to ten. Let's see, right,
Speaker 1: how long after you went on ABC did the Beatles break?
Speaker 1: Oh many years after, because I think I'd say two
Speaker 1: to three years later. I was starting to get records,
Speaker 1: uh from England with them before they broke, you know,
Speaker 1: with Swan Records VJ. And we bring him to music
Speaker 1: meetings and we all said, well, tell a bunch of Brits,
Speaker 1: make him believe that the Everly Brothers and Chuck Bury
Speaker 1: we were very, very genius as we turned them down
Speaker 1: right until we started noticing a lot of things happening
Speaker 1: in Europe, Riots and what was going on with the Beatles.
Speaker 1: They were growing popularity until eventually they were ready to
Speaker 1: come over here and I get very involved with them.
Speaker 1: I introduced them at Chase Stadium with wall wa wa wa,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to hear. So let's slow
Speaker 1: down a little bit. When the Beatles break in sixty four,
Speaker 1: do you immediately, when do you sense that this is
Speaker 1: something different? This is just not another act and other
Speaker 1: than the Beach Boys in the Four Seasons, pretty much
Speaker 1: gonna wipe everybody else off the radio. Kind of a
Speaker 1: fun story. First of all, it took a little time.
Speaker 1: Uh it was another great group and they were making
Speaker 1: a lot of noise in Europe, and nothing really happened
Speaker 1: till that become part of market one. Well we find
Speaker 1: out they're gonna be coming over here, and uh uh
Speaker 1: we started playing Beatle records. I remember the very first
Speaker 1: Beatle record I got. I mean officially, because I had
Speaker 1: other ones that were non official. We s get bootleg records,
Speaker 1: of course, but officially, I gotta want to hold your head.
Speaker 1: That was delivered to me by an armed security guard
Speaker 1: with a promotion man with him. He had an ant
Speaker 1: this is true, this great story. He had a had
Speaker 1: to shade case, handcuffed to his right wrist. I always
Speaker 1: remember the right wrist, right wrist. And the promotion man
Speaker 1: who escorted the security guard said, you can't have what's
Speaker 1: in there. That's a record, the first Beatle record for
Speaker 1: you exclusively until nine o'clock. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: nine o'clock was But then I realized at nine o'clock
Speaker 1: he hands me the record. Mob. I played that record
Speaker 1: eight times that night. Now here's what happened at nine
Speaker 1: o'clock on AM radio. The atmosphere that the signal bounces
Speaker 1: off reaches pretty high, and by the time it bounces back,
Speaker 1: I'm reaching over forty states. That's why I got my
Speaker 1: national limits. While that record is on about a hundred
Speaker 1: and someone around radio stations AM radio stations all over
Speaker 1: the country are copying recording the song that I'm playing.
Speaker 1: That was my eclusive. They knew exactly what they were doing,
Speaker 1: so huh. The next day, being a pretty good businessman, right,
Speaker 1: I developed a thing called blocking out the sound. I
Speaker 1: recorded something called because of Brucie Exclusive Exclusive. Every ten seconds,
Speaker 1: I would play that thing on the air, destroying the record.
Speaker 1: Nobody can copy anymore on my records Exclusive Exclusive Brusie Exclusive.
Speaker 1: And uh, that was the end of the Beatle battle
Speaker 1: of the broadcast airways. That stopped that for a while.
Speaker 1: They grew tremendously in uh popularity. Give you a good example,
Speaker 1: and this is I'm gonna this is not made up.
Speaker 1: This is pretty close. Little Joey from the Bronx would
Speaker 1: call me two weeks before the Beatles came to New
Speaker 1: York and Joey would say, hey, Brucie, Hey man, we're
Speaker 1: digging your show because we really like it. When you
Speaker 1: play a record for me, my girl the name of Susie.
Speaker 1: Play somebody every brothers. Two weeks after the Beatles come
Speaker 1: listen this same kid. Hello, is this so Brucie, This
Speaker 1: is suburb of bronx Shire on the Grand Course Shire.
Speaker 1: Would you play a record for me and me bird?
Speaker 1: Her name is Lady Suzanne. Now what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say here is that everybody became an anglophile. People started
Speaker 1: developing the accents. They talked to me. Everyone was a
Speaker 1: brit They dress, they look, they get quaffed, they dye
Speaker 1: their hair, they do everything. And everybody was aware of
Speaker 1: the mother country. That's what the Beatles did. So the
Speaker 1: Beatles when they came over, not only gave us music
Speaker 1: at that time, but they also gave us language, dress
Speaker 1: and how we behaved ourselves. Everybody was suddenly speaking with
Speaker 1: clip tongue. They also thought with king author. So what
Speaker 1: was your relationship with Brian Epstein? And also the four
Speaker 1: individual Beatles who all had a great relationship with them.
Speaker 1: Brian just to call me every once in a while
Speaker 1: we'd have a nice talk. But the Beatles I I
Speaker 1: really got involved with. I met them at UH at
Speaker 1: idle Wild Airport that became JFK. We were there at
Speaker 1: that first press conference, which was kind of that was
Speaker 1: a little rough. The press corps was not nice to them.
Speaker 1: They were the boys were a little snippy, but the
Speaker 1: press corps was kind of out to get him because
Speaker 1: you know, the press represented mom and dad. There was
Speaker 1: not nobody cared about the kids. There was no youth market,
Speaker 1: so to speak at this time. UH. Then they came
Speaker 1: up there with me. There's a very famous picture of
Speaker 1: me with the boys broadcasting at W A Beatles c
Speaker 1: Bob w A Beatles see right Chime Time, which I'm
Speaker 1: still doing today by the way, which is really makes
Speaker 1: me very happy. So I got involved with him many
Speaker 1: times at UH where they were staying in hotels and
Speaker 1: I saw some wild, wild things, those hells out. I
Speaker 1: used to broadcast their arrival, say to a Warwick hotel
Speaker 1: and uh Rick Sklar was our program director who has
Speaker 1: a book called UH Rocket in America. I think it's
Speaker 1: called good Book and has a story about that, and
Speaker 1: my books have this story too. He held me out
Speaker 1: by the seat of my pants. We didn't have any
Speaker 1: real wireless um wireless equipment in those days, so he
Speaker 1: held me out by the seat of my pants, my belt.
Speaker 1: If he let go, I would have been a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble. I was on like the eighth floor of
Speaker 1: the of Warwick Hotel and I broadcast I'm arriving. The
Speaker 1: kids five thousand, six thousand supposedly were herded across the
Speaker 1: street sixth Avenue by what is now the Hilton Hotel,
Speaker 1: and they were behind police Marricaye's horses, wooden horses. The
Speaker 1: boys came up the one way street I think fifty
Speaker 1: fourth Street to be Shepherd and immediately into the Warwick
Speaker 1: Hotel when that car came, and I was broadcasting because
Speaker 1: every kid in that audience had the radio tuned to
Speaker 1: Duble Do a Beetle c that was that was their news,
Speaker 1: that was their news station. So they said, the boys
Speaker 1: are here. They comes, it's coming up the one way
Speaker 1: and I was. The horses went down across the street,
Speaker 1: the wooden horses. I also saw police horses being knocked
Speaker 1: out of the way by this this delusies Suzami of
Speaker 1: people coming across the street. It was like a tidal wave,
Speaker 1: and they came and they rushed the entrance at Warwick
Speaker 1: Hotel now at the Warwick Hotel. Some of them got
Speaker 1: through and a couple of individuals grabbed the boys used
Speaker 1: to grab their hair, hoping to get a snippet of hair.
Speaker 1: They grabbed shirts, hoping to get a piece of fabric.
Speaker 1: One grabbed He's saying, Christopher's medal. Great story, you want
Speaker 1: to hear a great story. This is this is how
Speaker 1: I got involved. You'll love this. This young girl and
Speaker 1: I'll give you her name in a couple of moments
Speaker 1: because I stole him in touch with her grabbed Ringlar Star.
Speaker 1: But she did. There was an accident, right, It was
Speaker 1: an accident. She grabbed the Saint Christopher's Medal and had it.
Speaker 1: She didn't even know she had it, put in a
Speaker 1: purse or something. About an hour later, Ringo and Paul
Speaker 1: and I think John was there, and I don't remember
Speaker 1: George there. They came in and I said to Ringo
Speaker 1: and this is by the way, Uh, there were this
Speaker 1: film and this and there's a lot of h I
Speaker 1: have audio of this, and I said, ringo, I was
Speaker 1: very nervous. I was very young and very nervous. You know,
Speaker 1: a little insecure would have the beatles in front. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. I knew we had a
Speaker 1: news story here, and I said, you don't look too good.
Speaker 1: That's what I said to him. Foolish, but it was true.
Speaker 1: He says, I don't feel too good because of Brucy.
Speaker 1: Somebody called me St. Christopher's middle. I said, you kidding?
Speaker 1: You got my auntie gave it to me, and I said,
Speaker 1: stupidly was a real gold. I mean, what a stupid
Speaker 1: thing to say. I mean, I was nervous. Come on,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like the moment that on the
Speaker 1: moment and he says, he, oh, I only wear a
Speaker 1: real goal causing Brucey. That's how he asked me. He
Speaker 1: suddenly got is snipping his back, so I said, let
Speaker 1: me ask you something. If I can get your St.
Speaker 1: Christomas metal back right away, Bob, the wheels started turning
Speaker 1: right and you know what I'm gonna say. I said,
Speaker 1: would you be willing to meet that person to give
Speaker 1: them a kiss? And you'd hear outside you hear the crowd,
Speaker 1: thousands of screaming right, And he said, yes, I want
Speaker 1: that St. Christmas medal back, all documented stuff by the way,
Speaker 1: And I said, whoever found I took it? Whoever found
Speaker 1: the St. Christmas mean, you're not in trouble. I want
Speaker 1: you to call me at this number as soon as
Speaker 1: I get off the air, and we're gonna make arrangements
Speaker 1: for you to meet Wringle and get a kiss, and
Speaker 1: he's gonna give you a thank you. Well, sure enough,
Speaker 1: I get off the air and people went wild outside.
Speaker 1: You hear the audience went crazy. I get a call
Speaker 1: from Mrs McGowan. I believe Ms McGowan. They lived in
Speaker 1: the Bronx. That's the mother of a child. The child's name,
Speaker 1: the young lady's name was Angela mcgewan. Angela and I
Speaker 1: still talk once in a while, and I think she
Speaker 1: lives down south somewhere. Well, mother said, uh, my daughter,
Speaker 1: is she in any trouble? I said no, Mrs McGowan,
Speaker 1: and this said, she didn't become a hero overnight. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is what I want you to do. I got
Speaker 1: ahold of Rick's carr. We got a suite of rooms
Speaker 1: at the hotel across street, away from away from uh
Speaker 1: you know, the Warwick And he said, I want you
Speaker 1: to bring Angie there and she can bring a couple
Speaker 1: of friends, right or one of them friends and at
Speaker 1: eight o'clock we're gonna come and get you or whatever
Speaker 1: the time was. Well, it happened. She got there with
Speaker 1: Angie was scared, so for a couple of friends. They
Speaker 1: shepherded her over very carefully to uh our eight floor
Speaker 1: where Ringo came in and Paul and we reunited Angie
Speaker 1: the St. Christopher's Medal and Ringo star. He talked to
Speaker 1: her on the air hugg during gave her a kids.
Speaker 1: She then gave him the Ringo in the St. Christopher's Medal.
Speaker 1: There's the St. Christmas Medal story, and that really cemented
Speaker 1: my relationship with him and with Sir Paul. Okay, did
Speaker 1: they see you primarily as the DJ or were you
Speaker 1: actually friends with the Beatles? No, I'd I'd say most
Speaker 1: of us a d J. I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: we've ever. I got pretty friendly with John, but you know,
Speaker 1: I never I don't think we were friends. Friends. I'd
Speaker 1: say business friends would be more like it. And they
Speaker 1: were very fond of me. Look I made them a
Speaker 1: lot of money day, played their music, talked about him constantly.
Speaker 1: I mean never stopped. I mean you couldn't go anywhere
Speaker 1: in those days without one of the boys appearing. I
Speaker 1: remember this is I guess I can say this. I
Speaker 1: remember going to the bathroom at some hotel and in
Speaker 1: one of the stalls, right there was pictures of John
Speaker 1: and Paul right in there. You couldn't go anywhere without
Speaker 1: a representation of the Beatles. The Beatles arrived, but here
Speaker 1: was a very important PostScript that I want the audience
Speaker 1: to know. The Beatles just did not happen right, because
Speaker 1: the Lord didn't come down and say, my children, I
Speaker 1: shall be got the Beatles to the right. You've been good.
Speaker 1: I'm giving you something. No, it happened with a lot
Speaker 1: of money, a lot of hype, a lot of promotion,
Speaker 1: a lot of sweat, a lot of guys like me
Speaker 1: promoting the Beatles. Did we ever think that they were
Speaker 1: going to become a sociological phenomenon surpassing their music. No, no,
Speaker 1: we never thought. Nobody was that smart. We were not
Speaker 1: that smart. I never thought that would happen because by
Speaker 1: the time I introduced him at Shase Stadium, I'm jumping again, right.
Speaker 1: I introduced him with with that Sullivan Schase Stadium. The
Speaker 1: people were there really to be with him. The music
Speaker 1: was almost secondary because you couldn't hear it anyhow. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: when the Beatles arrived, there's sort of a fight in
Speaker 1: New York to own the Beatles. Your nemesis, Marie the
Speaker 1: Case says he's the fifth Beatle. To what degree were
Speaker 1: you conscious of the conscious of that and trying to
Speaker 1: win the Beatle war? Very conscious? Now, First of all,
Speaker 1: the Beatles never liked this fifth Beatle because the fifth Beatle,
Speaker 1: thinks spread about four or five other jocks quote in
Speaker 1: the country. Uh, they adopted that moniker. They never liked that.
Speaker 1: The Beatle battle was tremendous. We became w a Beatles
Speaker 1: c We put out cards and prices, and I mean
Speaker 1: we did everything. We gave away tickets to their concerts,
Speaker 1: We gave away Beetles, sweaters and mufflers and gloves, anything
Speaker 1: Beatles we would do. So we were very connizant of
Speaker 1: the UH and aware of what was happening with the
Speaker 1: other radio stations. And uh, we were hell bent on
Speaker 1: winning this one. And I believe we did. And I
Speaker 1: think well, first of all, the year's size of his
Speaker 1: radio station, which I was always very proud of, fifty
Speaker 1: thou watts clear channel and in the other stations in
Speaker 1: town could not even hold a candle to it. It
Speaker 1: was small. I used to call them tea pots, right,
Speaker 1: and they were tiny compared to this. So just how
Speaker 1: sheer power alone gave us the upper hand? No, I
Speaker 1: just certainly remember because there were three. It was w
Speaker 1: m c A, w ABC in ten ten wins. I
Speaker 1: was always an ABC guy. But as you say, winds
Speaker 1: Win News and then m c A fitted out. We
Speaker 1: know that radio. In radio, you live and die by
Speaker 1: the book. The ratings when you went on ABC, how
Speaker 1: are the ratings? Did the Beatles uh improve your ratings?
Speaker 1: Personal ratings? And how are your ratings relative to the
Speaker 1: other jocks? Well, but the ratings on w ABC were
Speaker 1: always amazing. It took a little while to establish. But well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what that there's a statistic comes in
Speaker 1: my mind. One in four radios were always listening to
Speaker 1: custom Brucey. Now, if you think of that, you translate
Speaker 1: that that is cannot be done. It cannot happen. Went
Speaker 1: on the beach if you want on any beach, Jones Beach,
Speaker 1: Brighton Beach, Conyana. You remember this if you climbed over bodies.
Speaker 1: Everybody had a radio, and I'd say four out of
Speaker 1: five radios were listening to w ABC even before the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Now would answer you a question Beatles came on. Uh,
Speaker 1: did they improve the ratings? Oh? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how money the percentage, but tremendous because everybody was
Speaker 1: listening for a new Beatles record, new Beatles record. I
Speaker 1: knew we'd have them first. Just because of the size
Speaker 1: of this station. We got all the exclutions and okay,
Speaker 1: you were bookended by Dan Ingram and Scott Muni. Did
Speaker 1: you become the star of the stage? When did you
Speaker 1: realize you were such a star? Were you the star
Speaker 1: of the station? And were the other jock's jealous Well,
Speaker 1: you know, in those days w ABC, it looked like
Speaker 1: we were one happy family. That was never the case.
Speaker 1: We were a professional family. We're never a happy family.
Speaker 1: Some of the guys gets to get together with others,
Speaker 1: but there was always professional jealousy. I never looked at
Speaker 1: myself as the star of the station, albeit maybe the
Speaker 1: executives and the salespeople did. Uh. I just did my job.
Speaker 1: I did my shows, and I love my audience. I
Speaker 1: never had really time to really think about being a
Speaker 1: star or you know, getting getting involved. All the television
Speaker 1: stuff came to me, the newspapers came to me. I
Speaker 1: did my Palisades Park shows, which gave me a tremendous,
Speaker 1: tremendous leeway on everybody else. Everybody loved going to Palisades Park.
Speaker 1: But so you know, Bob, I never really and did
Speaker 1: this day this. This might sound a little corny in
Speaker 1: my bath, I don't look at myself as a radio star.
Speaker 1: I'm cousin Brucie. I'm doing my thing and I'm keeping
Speaker 1: this audience. And I know they loved me because I
Speaker 1: love them, right. That's so, That's as far as it goes. Now,
Speaker 1: if somebody is going to make a marble model that
Speaker 1: for me, uh and put it in Time Square someday, great,
Speaker 1: I won't know it. Well, maybe I will, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I will be able to come back. I'll make
Speaker 1: a deal if I can. I know how to make deals.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I just do my thing, and
Speaker 1: I'm really not interested in how do you say being
Speaker 1: a star? Facts? Kind of interesting. Anytime a young person
Speaker 1: comes to me and I give a lot of advice.
Speaker 1: I'm an advice guy. I like to help people, right
Speaker 1: and uh, if one of them says to me, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to be a recording star, that turns me
Speaker 1: off right away. I want to become a recording artist.
Speaker 1: I'll talk with him for an hour. Ep So the word,
Speaker 1: the word star, I don't know what that means. I
Speaker 1: think I do my thing. I love it, I have
Speaker 1: my heart, my soul in it, and to this day
Speaker 1: I am as excited. Uh. But that, like says Brucey,
Speaker 1: you're on the air, my little heart pounds and I
Speaker 1: have that little butterfly on my stomach and I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: I am happy, to a matter of fact, on the air,
Speaker 1: I'm back at w ABC. I'm home now. How did
Speaker 1: that happen? Wow? A complete circle. But I'm so happy
Speaker 1: this has happened because I have that feeling again. I
Speaker 1: haven't had that feeling in quite a while, but it's returned.
Speaker 1: It's good. Let's go back to the sixties. Historically, even
Speaker 1: to today, radio is not a lucrative profession. So you
Speaker 1: were on the biggest station. You had a huge audience,
Speaker 1: how are you doing financially? Very well? Remember you know
Speaker 1: when you're in this market now, and we were making millions. No,
Speaker 1: we were making times more than anybody else anywhere in
Speaker 1: the country. L A does pretty well, maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit of Chicago, but New York City always was very
Speaker 1: good to me, and it were good to most of
Speaker 1: the guys today. Can I skipped today for one minute? Today,
Speaker 1: Cousin John, who bought this man, who purchased this mega station, this,
Speaker 1: this all, this of power right, offered me the best
Speaker 1: contract of my career. So I'm sitting here today saying
Speaker 1: to my wife Judy, I got the best contract I've
Speaker 1: ever had. I've always done well. I mean, cousin Bruce
Speaker 1: is very very happy sold by radio stations. Television stations
Speaker 1: always made a lot of money with radio. So you're
Speaker 1: looking at a guy. That's That's why I'm smiling, and
Speaker 1: I feel good. I can do what I want for
Speaker 1: any risk of my life. This is out of love.
Speaker 1: So I was very happy they paid me well. Could
Speaker 1: they have paid me more? Of course, you always think
Speaker 1: you're worth more than you get. But I've always been
Speaker 1: managing very well over my career. I mean when I
Speaker 1: came back. I guess some bermuda. I decided that day
Speaker 1: and look that I'm never gonna be I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: be poor. I'm gonna have money and I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: it doing what I want to do, being on the
Speaker 1: radio and it and it worked. So yes, I lived
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, certainly didn't have a driver's license, and only
Speaker 1: wished I could go to Palisades Park. How did that
Speaker 1: come together? That was, I'd say, next to the Beatles
Speaker 1: introducing with Chase Stadium, probably the most important part of
Speaker 1: my life. Um, while I was at UH because it
Speaker 1: was W I and S. That's where it really started.
Speaker 1: Or the owner, Irving Rosenthal, was very friendly with the
Speaker 1: owners and the executives of the radio station. And I
Speaker 1: was on at night and people like you say, I
Speaker 1: was there, their boy. I was there. Rick gave me
Speaker 1: a star. I was their star, and he asked them
Speaker 1: if I can be, you know, covering to Palisades Park
Speaker 1: and do shows. Well, long story short, I stayed at
Speaker 1: Palisades Park doing shows, producing them put in it together
Speaker 1: and him seeing them for over a decade and a half.
Speaker 1: And that was an important part of my life to
Speaker 1: this day. I do Palisades Park reunions because the Palisades
Speaker 1: Park is ingrained in my audience. And no matter where
Speaker 1: that audience is, they know Palisades Park. They know it.
Speaker 1: And we used to be there on weekends. Rain storm, thunder,
Speaker 1: didn't matter, snow. We'd have that show. That show we'd
Speaker 1: go on and we had every every major star there
Speaker 1: lip sinking lip syncing records. We couldn't afford to pay
Speaker 1: people to have a live man, so those days it
Speaker 1: was socially acceptable to lip sync. So I stayed there
Speaker 1: for a year and a half and I love it
Speaker 1: to this day. Well you can list to my shows
Speaker 1: and you'll always hear somebody saying, Brucie played Palisades Park
Speaker 1: by Freddie Boom boom cannon. Right course, can you sing
Speaker 1: the commercial? Can you sing the jingle? Right? Palisades has
Speaker 1: the fun? Palisades is the place. Come on over, remember
Speaker 1: that and this one, of course, and say you're some
Speaker 1: one you're like, take let's see, uh, skip the bother
Speaker 1: and skip the fuss. Take a public service bus, public
Speaker 1: service shower is great. Take it right up to the gate,
Speaker 1: so we said, And people still remember those commercial Palisades
Speaker 1: as a place we grew up. We all grew up,
Speaker 1: and I was a babysitter for thousands of young people
Speaker 1: and adults, and it come over in those sunny Saturdays
Speaker 1: and Sundays and we'd have one great free show time. Okay,
Speaker 1: now today's DJs, of course, the classic example being Ryan
Speaker 1: Seacrest there on the radio. They're doing television because traditionally
Speaker 1: you're only on the radio for like four hours. In
Speaker 1: your days at w ABC, you were on the air
Speaker 1: for four hours, seven to eleven. What was the rest
Speaker 1: of your day, looking like well, I would do uh appearances.
Speaker 1: I even taught at New York University for a while.
Speaker 1: I taught. I always delivered lectures. I'd be invited to schools.
Speaker 1: I'd be invited to people's homes for dinner, for lunch.
Speaker 1: I'd be invited to bomb Mitzvah's confirmations, baptisms. I became
Speaker 1: part of a family. And this is what I realized
Speaker 1: that this is more than just microphone and a guy
Speaker 1: who was a DJ. I never liked that word just jockey.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a radio guy. I'm a broadcaster. Um.
Speaker 1: I realized very early in my career that this was
Speaker 1: gonna go much further than playing records and giving time
Speaker 1: and weather. This was gonna become part of family. I
Speaker 1: was going to become part of people's lives. Okay, So
Speaker 1: if someone reached out, you would always respond just about um.
Speaker 1: You know what I always say is ten percent of
Speaker 1: the public is certifiably insane, literally should be institutionalized. But
Speaker 1: you never know which ten percent? Do you think percent?
Speaker 1: Maybe I know, no, you're know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: It We've all had bad experiences. So since you were
Speaker 1: so open, I would assume you occasionally had a bad experience.
Speaker 1: I had to listen. I've been attacked a couple of times,
Speaker 1: you know, physically, Earth's Earth's let's life threatening. Once there
Speaker 1: was a woman that decided that I destroyed her life.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're open to everything, but fortunately for me,
Speaker 1: hasn't happened too often. This woman decided that I wrecked
Speaker 1: her life. That I was in the windshield of a
Speaker 1: car every time she opened her refrigerator. I was there.
Speaker 1: I mean, whoa a little what? Well? One day I'm up.
Speaker 1: I think it was at NBC d's and have these
Speaker 1: Uh that's when I was in my NBC days. I
Speaker 1: miss was on that I was on. Uh interesting days.
Speaker 1: He used to have these guided tours at Rock and
Speaker 1: Fellow Center a NBC. I don't know if you have
Speaker 1: a one on one of those things, and one day
Speaker 1: I did you. One day, there's a woman outside the
Speaker 1: glass with the scissors, a large, not a little like
Speaker 1: you know. Cuticle says, it's a large son of a
Speaker 1: gun turkey carving scissors right, and she's gone with our
Speaker 1: hands up in the air and using this as threatening
Speaker 1: and pounding on the glass or needless to say, we
Speaker 1: had her removed very quickly. That was the first time.
Speaker 1: The next time I met her again, I was doing
Speaker 1: a live performance. I'm doing a live performance and at
Speaker 1: the end of the performance, people come up for autographs.
Speaker 1: She came running on the stage with a knife, a knife.
Speaker 1: I literally grabbed her. I'm a pretty pretty big guy,
Speaker 1: and I have good reflections. I'm a Brooklyn kid, you know,
Speaker 1: bot on the streets. I grabbed her wrist, held him back.
Speaker 1: Guards came over, We had the police come in. Her
Speaker 1: mother then came in to talk to me. And I
Speaker 1: have her name, but I don't even want to mention
Speaker 1: her name. But I remember that name very well. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you. That was scary. Uh. The mother promised
Speaker 1: to have her institutionalized if I didn't press charges. Now
Speaker 1: I might get a press charges. Sport woman is so sick.
Speaker 1: I'm in a refrigerator, and maybe I go in a refrigerator,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't in there, so I never heard from
Speaker 1: her again. The next problem, Oh wait, I'm not dead.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you. I mean, it's not well. Our
Speaker 1: lives are not easy. People think, oh boy, they make
Speaker 1: all this money and a corne air for a few
Speaker 1: hours and play the Beatles and the Everly Brothers and
Speaker 1: and uh Elvis and they go home. No, I'm in
Speaker 1: the h local Supermark with my kids. I'm a regular
Speaker 1: guy and I go out and people always people nine point.
Speaker 1: I just hey, Bercy, hey, cous hey, Cousin's very nice
Speaker 1: to be really nice. I'm walking down on the aisle.
Speaker 1: My kids are on the side of me, looking, you know,
Speaker 1: to buy things. And suddenly I looked down the aisle
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the aisle and I see a
Speaker 1: man with a love of jacket, kind of strange looking,
Speaker 1: big guy. And I see him on zippers jacket and
Speaker 1: he's walking towards me, and he puts his hand in
Speaker 1: the side the jacket as if he's gonna grab something.
Speaker 1: All right, you just pulled back. I said to the kids,
Speaker 1: leave now, daddy, I leave now. I got where my
Speaker 1: kids quick because the Lord of him and he's walking
Speaker 1: towards me, and he's walking towards me, and he's reaching
Speaker 1: and reaching and reaching, and I'm ready to meet my maker.
Speaker 1: I figured I was gonna finally see the golden microphone
Speaker 1: in the sky. And he pulls his hand out of
Speaker 1: his jacket says, hey, can I give your load of
Speaker 1: grandfrom this? So it's now the damage was done. I
Speaker 1: don't know what my blood pressure went to. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you, I was kind of scared. I was kind
Speaker 1: of scared. So you know, every single day, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you're out in public, you never know.
Speaker 1: You said that ten percent, that's a big percentage. Ten percent.
Speaker 1: You never know what's gonna happen. So am I on guard? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Part of me is always always waiting for something. I
Speaker 1: watched my my love is there. But there's that maybe
Speaker 1: ten percent of me that's looking around for watching for
Speaker 1: that woman again with the scissors. I don't know. So
Speaker 1: it's it's not easy just it's not an easy life.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to if I somehow got through to you,
Speaker 1: you would come to my house for dinner if I
Speaker 1: like you, not only when it comes to your house.
Speaker 1: I might even do a show from my house. I
Speaker 1: has to do shows. If I like somebody, we go
Speaker 1: to somebody's house and they have a black party, people
Speaker 1: would come in and be wild. We do shows in
Speaker 1: the house. I mean, I would go to everybody's house.
Speaker 1: You know, that's impossible. We had tens and tens of
Speaker 1: how many hundreds of thousands of people listening one time,
Speaker 1: but every once in a while somebody would get to
Speaker 1: me and I before I befriend them. I still have
Speaker 1: friends from those days to this day listening to me
Speaker 1: on my shows today. That's still that's still have my
Speaker 1: heart and I know them. You know. Look, I love
Speaker 1: my audience, and there's a guys, you know how many
Speaker 1: millions are listening, but there's always that little cadre right
Speaker 1: that have been with me all my life. And when
Speaker 1: I go to their house for dinner, I go to
Speaker 1: their weddings, I go to their kids baptisms. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: part of my life. And that's when an audience has
Speaker 1: to be part of your life. Now, going back to
Speaker 1: the sixties, all young kids teenagers had a transistor radio
Speaker 1: and I vividly remember doing my homework with my blodder
Speaker 1: and the transistor right next to me. But the key
Speaker 1: night was Tuesday when you did the countdown dollar. How
Speaker 1: did you end up getting the countdown? Well, I guess
Speaker 1: that program director decided that's where they can look when
Speaker 1: I was on at night. You know, during the day,
Speaker 1: during the morning, you had commuters, you had people going
Speaker 1: to business, you had some of the moms that it
Speaker 1: then it became mom time, right, and then it became
Speaker 1: maybe coming back from business time at night that's when
Speaker 1: the kids were listening. So who would a survey A
Speaker 1: Sylvan that called the Silvan Dollar Survey appealed to. Now
Speaker 1: these were a little so in the audience of those
Speaker 1: These are little slips of paper maybe three inches wide
Speaker 1: by maybe six inches deep right length, and it would
Speaker 1: say top forty and don't have a picture of the
Speaker 1: All American of the year, it's what would call and
Speaker 1: it would have a print out of the top songs
Speaker 1: numerically listed in order of how they ranked ranked of
Speaker 1: that particular week on the back of that particular slip
Speaker 1: wasn't add uh huh. They never lost a beat. They
Speaker 1: knew they could sell that because we gave out thousands
Speaker 1: of these things. They were in record stores, supermarkets, anywhere
Speaker 1: you can. You know, layer lay a bunch of papers down.
Speaker 1: They were, They were taken and people love them. People
Speaker 1: love them. I still get them to this day and
Speaker 1: I love to see them. It was really good. But
Speaker 1: I got it because they programmed it, because they wanted
Speaker 1: the teens. I had all the teams. It's so funny
Speaker 1: that morning drive time became the slot because I grew
Speaker 1: up when, of course evening radio was the key. Now,
Speaker 1: as the sixties evolved, really things change culturally, things change musically.
Speaker 1: We have the British invase and then we have the
Speaker 1: San Francisco sound. As the sound evolves, are you still
Speaker 1: a fan of the music, Yes, very very much. I
Speaker 1: love the music. Uh, the Motown sound, of course, the
Speaker 1: Brits sound evolved amazingly and I did a lot of
Speaker 1: television shows for ABC Television and NBC two. I was
Speaker 1: sent over to UH to England and I did a
Speaker 1: lot of shows in those days, talking and being with
Speaker 1: the great stars of England. Motown the same thing San Francisco,
Speaker 1: you name it, the New York Sound, the Los Angeles sound, Boston,
Speaker 1: wherever the sound was evolving, I was sent and I
Speaker 1: would go and Uh. I was always very cognizant of
Speaker 1: what was going on in music. I love the music.
Speaker 1: I was never a hip hop fan. As hip hop
Speaker 1: started developing, I didn't understand it. I never really I'll
Speaker 1: admit this, I never really understood jazz. Uh. I like
Speaker 1: jazz for Rainy Dave, very soft jazz, but I've never
Speaker 1: been a jazz fan. I never appreciated it. Maybe someday
Speaker 1: I will. I have plenty of time. But hip hop, No,
Speaker 1: that's not what I wanted. It's not where I wanted
Speaker 1: the music to go. Uh, not what I wanted. I
Speaker 1: wanted my R and B sound. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: comfortable with what I was listening to, and I wanted
Speaker 1: my audience to be comfortable what they were listening to. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you can't stop progress, you know. I always said every
Speaker 1: decade of music, fifties borrows from the forties, the sixties
Speaker 1: borrowed from the fifties, and it's always like a transition
Speaker 1: period of music from the preceding time and it evolves
Speaker 1: and it transforms into what we're listening to. Well, it
Speaker 1: was so by the eighties. By the late eighties, it
Speaker 1: was getting a little bit out of my reach. I
Speaker 1: didn't really understand what was happening. Albeit I like a
Speaker 1: lot of the music today. I enjoy listening to it because,
Speaker 1: you know why, I hear a lot of my sixties
Speaker 1: and that music. I hear a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: that I helped develop and what's going on today. Music evolves,
Speaker 1: and it revolves, and it makes a circle, it comes back,
Speaker 1: it changes quite a bit. That's what the Beatles did.
Speaker 1: Beatles took our music of the fifties and they gave
Speaker 1: it a sick cease flavor, you know, with a different,
Speaker 1: different accent, different feeling, and a different genius. They had
Speaker 1: genius in it. And by the end of the fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties music, the whole industry was changed. Technology changed,
Speaker 1: distribution changed. There's a big word record distribution, records. People
Speaker 1: still buying a lot of records. Was distribution change. Has
Speaker 1: distribution change. We got larger radio stations, got more powerful
Speaker 1: and more powerful and reaching people, and we started getting
Speaker 1: wonderful producers and poets into the music. Industry, and things
Speaker 1: started growing. So by the late sixties we were really
Speaker 1: going to town. Everything was going well. Okay. So if
Speaker 1: one listens to your show, one of the features is
Speaker 1: you frequently have stars of the past come on the radio.
Speaker 1: Are there two or three of these people that are
Speaker 1: genuine friends that you've maintained a relationship or was it
Speaker 1: more of a professional relationship. No. You become very close,
Speaker 1: very good, very institute. Bobby become very close to some
Speaker 1: of them, think a lot of them. I become extremely
Speaker 1: close to Tony Orlando. I love Tony Orlando. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I don't want to a friend anyway, because I
Speaker 1: have so many friends. I lost a dear friend, Leslie Gore.
Speaker 1: I lost, sir. You know, we've lost a lot of
Speaker 1: great stars. I'm friends with Charlie Thomas, the Drifters, I'm
Speaker 1: friends Gosh, Bobby Rydell Dion. I'm friends with Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: and Ringo. Sir Paul, I mean we're hugging friends. Who
Speaker 1: are hugging friends? We uh whenever we get together, whenever
Speaker 1: we see each other. In the days when we were
Speaker 1: allowed to get together all right and see each other,
Speaker 1: we were very very close. Um uh, Tommy James, you
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna let out. I'm gonna leave out so many,
Speaker 1: but so many people that are are the air, that
Speaker 1: are you we called stars, I recognized stars I've become
Speaker 1: very close to and they've become very close to me.
Speaker 1: Now talking about your personal life, you reach literally millions.
Speaker 1: Are those your friends or do you have one or
Speaker 1: two if any best friends in your regular life other
Speaker 1: than your wife? Oh yeah, I have a very dear
Speaker 1: friend my one of my best friends. Well, Joe McCoy
Speaker 1: is one of my very dear friends. Joe was program
Speaker 1: director of CBS FM, very important part of my life.
Speaker 1: Les Marshak, who was the voice of the Macy's Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: Parade that we're gonna have again somehow virtually looks like uh. So,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of very close friends of mine
Speaker 1: that you know, we we uh we get together with
Speaker 1: and now of course Michael Michael and Barbara the Alertsmans.
Speaker 1: So we we have a very wonderful personal life aside
Speaker 1: from my other personal life. See, I don't I know
Speaker 1: it upsets my wife sometimes because we'll be eating uh
Speaker 1: and a restaurant and people automatically come over to my
Speaker 1: table and sit down because they know me. They feel
Speaker 1: on part of their families. It's not some bozo on
Speaker 1: the radio a thousand miles away, but it's somebody who's
Speaker 1: part of their lives. And I accept this. And I
Speaker 1: see Jody's uncomfortable with it sometimes she's used to it now,
Speaker 1: but I love it. I love the idea that they
Speaker 1: feel that I'm really part of their lives. And I
Speaker 1: know I am. I know I am, so I accept this.
Speaker 1: It's an important part and I think I think that
Speaker 1: is what's so important. When I go on the air
Speaker 1: at people know I'm talking to them. You know, Bob,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you right now, one on one. Now
Speaker 1: you know me for a little while. I think you've
Speaker 1: listened to me for a few years growing up, and Unstan, well,
Speaker 1: thank you. I appreciate that. But I talked to you
Speaker 1: personally when you were a kid. I never talked at you.
Speaker 1: I always talked directly to you, and I maintain that
Speaker 1: is a religion with me. It is one on one.
Speaker 1: I can be at a radio station and I know
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people that sting out there,
Speaker 1: but I'm talking directly to that one person. It's personal
Speaker 1: it's sensitive. That's what radio was. Now, you mentioned your
Speaker 1: present wife your first wife. Did radio and your success
Speaker 1: impact that relationship and calls it to end? Uh? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. It might have had a tiny bit
Speaker 1: to do with it, but no, I just think I
Speaker 1: think my first marriage, we we outgrew each other. I
Speaker 1: don't think radio, if I go back and think about it,
Speaker 1: I don't think radio had anything really to do with that,
Speaker 1: at least I hope not. I never That's funny. I
Speaker 1: never had that thought. Uh. Jody, my wife is my partner,
Speaker 1: she's my my best friend. She's on the air with me.
Speaker 1: The audience loves her. Jody gets a huge amount of email.
Speaker 1: How long? How long have you been together with Jody?
Speaker 1: We're married now forty I think forty three years. And
Speaker 1: how did you meet her? Briand date blind date some
Speaker 1: friends of our He introduced each other to each other,
Speaker 1: and Jody met me. I came out of the I
Speaker 1: think it was CBS, I guess came out of the
Speaker 1: radio station that day, and there was It's been a
Speaker 1: romance ever since. And we went down a little literally
Speaker 1: and it's uh. Jody was born here in New York
Speaker 1: and she was a teacher. And it's funny I met her.
Speaker 1: Years before I met her, my brother was dating her.
Speaker 1: We keep things on the film. I didn't know this,
Speaker 1: and he brought her up. Bobby used to bring his
Speaker 1: dates up to the radio station to make some points,
Speaker 1: you know, so he can have a good time. And
Speaker 1: it was cheap. And it was cheap also, you know.
Speaker 1: So he brings up this uh young lady who was
Speaker 1: a teacher happens to be Jody, And I didn't know.
Speaker 1: And Uh, she was teaching UH in law Old City
Speaker 1: or something, And I asked her what she did. Always
Speaker 1: talk to people when they come in the studio. I
Speaker 1: will always talk to them, you know, I said, I
Speaker 1: am so related to people that again I'll resist. So
Speaker 1: she said she teaches at UH. I forgot the name
Speaker 1: of the school in Long Island City, and I said
Speaker 1: on the air, I said, your teacher is here, Miss
Speaker 1: Berlin is here, and whoever's in miss Berlin's class tomorrow,
Speaker 1: you do not have to do homework. I'm choosing you
Speaker 1: from more work. Is that alright, Miss Berlin? Yes? Well,
Speaker 1: the next morning she walked into the school. Remember four
Speaker 1: every five radios, they went crazy. Well, a little that
Speaker 1: I know, maybe fifteen or twenty years later, Jody and
Speaker 1: I got together on this blind date and we were married,
Speaker 1: and I remember that incident when she came up with
Speaker 1: my as my brother's date. Fortunately she did not like
Speaker 1: my brother. Okay, So as the sixties progress, the FCC
Speaker 1: changes the rule so you can't simulcast on the FM
Speaker 1: what you have on a M. As a result, all
Speaker 1: all the stations that you're talking about had an FM component.
Speaker 1: Now you ultimately were on the FM a certain amount.
Speaker 1: Scott and he went first. You know, there was w
Speaker 1: o R, then there was w A b CFM. There
Speaker 1: was ultimately any W or Scott changed. Tell me about
Speaker 1: that transition. That was a tough time. I really didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. I didn't pay too much attention at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And then we saw numbers, you know, like you said before,
Speaker 1: our important ratings are numbers were eroting. And suddenly this
Speaker 1: uh up start called FM, which really has been a
Speaker 1: round since. I feel to go back in your history,
Speaker 1: probably find it in the twenties, I mean, experimental and everything.
Speaker 1: World War two stopped the development of it, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly we're now back in the sixties and FM starting
Speaker 1: to make some points. We were making all the money
Speaker 1: because we had the most listeners. FM was getting a
Speaker 1: reputation of being a radio radio without commercials, alright, radio
Speaker 1: without commercials for a good reason. They didn't have any listeners, right,
Speaker 1: but well, you know, so look sponsors clients by when
Speaker 1: you when they know that Cousin Brucie has listeners. Cousin
Speaker 1: Brucie had half of the listeners, I'd have half of
Speaker 1: the revenue coming in. Well, a little by little, low
Speaker 1: FM was developing and they started getting numbers. AM was
Speaker 1: really starting to get hurt. And that's when I realized,
Speaker 1: you know, this was getting to a time what we
Speaker 1: have to think about changing our lifestyle. And AM radio
Speaker 1: started going down the tubes a little bit terrestrial radio.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I AM ever really recovered. Part
Speaker 1: is gonna recover now, Oh boy, it's gonna recover now,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you all right. So, uh, I started buying
Speaker 1: radio stations. I started, I went to the CBSFM and
Speaker 1: I did. I did a lot of things to rejuvenate
Speaker 1: my career because all I cared about I wanted to
Speaker 1: be on the radio. I didn't want to lose my audience.
Speaker 1: That audience was now growing up having kids. They were
Speaker 1: my kids, I would their godfather, and that's what happened.
Speaker 1: So I was became aware of it slowly. The Needles
Speaker 1: just say, the radio landscape is completely changed. Since the sixties,
Speaker 1: there were a handful of dominant UH stations in every market.
Speaker 1: You could break a record regionally. Ultimately that was changed
Speaker 1: by MTV and today we have the Internet. Records tend
Speaker 1: to break first on the Internet and then go to radio.
Speaker 1: In addition, statistics tell us the younger generation tends not
Speaker 1: to be addicted to the radio as much as their forebears.
Speaker 1: So I ask you, obviously, you will survive no matter what.
Speaker 1: But in general, what is the future of radio? I
Speaker 1: think the future of radio is terrific, and I think
Speaker 1: I think the audience has become so sophisticated that I
Speaker 1: don't know if they care if they're listening in a
Speaker 1: pod and iPod uh uh, if they're listening uh to
Speaker 1: uh Internet radio or what have a device they're listening
Speaker 1: to it today. I think the audience wants content. So therefore,
Speaker 1: if you give them content, no matter what device you're on,
Speaker 1: whether it be a m FM, satellite, if it be
Speaker 1: a pot in your ear. You know, I have a
Speaker 1: I have a prediction. In fifty years infants are going
Speaker 1: to be born with transistors and resistance behind the right
Speaker 1: of Earth, and you're gonna be able to think, get
Speaker 1: me cousin brucie, and that's all they need. They got
Speaker 1: it a little silly, but that's what's happening today. You
Speaker 1: have Alexa, you have Google Assistant. People listen to me.
Speaker 1: Now with Alexa, you have Syria you can listen to.
Speaker 1: You have I Heart Radio. So there's so many ways
Speaker 1: of garnering communication. But the most important thing I think
Speaker 1: today the audience is that sophisticated. They want content. Give
Speaker 1: them content. They will go whether it's a M f
Speaker 1: M or whatever it is, they will find you because
Speaker 1: they want to listen to something that they hear in
Speaker 1: their lifestyle. Okay. Now, MTV ultimately evolved played fewer videos,
Speaker 1: primarily for ratings, but then as the twenty one century
Speaker 1: came along, the people in MTV said, even though people
Speaker 1: are clamoring for the days of yesterday, we know that
Speaker 1: video is now an on demand item. Okay, so we're
Speaker 1: not playing videos. Music is an on demand item. You
Speaker 1: talked earlier. You talked earlier about your present show that's
Speaker 1: more of a talk show. So I ask you, in
Speaker 1: addition to yourself, what works on radio today. Well, once again,
Speaker 1: I keep going back to that word content. I think
Speaker 1: what will work on radio today is that you give
Speaker 1: people what they want, which is not just playing a
Speaker 1: stream of music like a jukebox, but that they can't
Speaker 1: get anywhere. They don't need radio radio. When you say
Speaker 1: the word radio, radio to me means communication one on
Speaker 1: one or to a group. If you want to do
Speaker 1: a podcast type thing, that's fine, you're getting a special audience.
Speaker 1: But I believe my kind of radio and radio at
Speaker 1: large is reaching out for people with ideas and with lifestyle,
Speaker 1: entertainment and information. You put that in that pod, I
Speaker 1: think you'll always capture an audience. Uh. I. Recently, if
Speaker 1: I may went back, I completed my circle. I went
Speaker 1: back to w ABC Radio. I left there forty six
Speaker 1: years ago. Now forty six years ago was a very
Speaker 1: different form of broadcasting. As I said, we did music, news,
Speaker 1: I did weather and things like that, very little talk,
Speaker 1: just a lot of jingles and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: also there were no devices. You listened to a local
Speaker 1: AM band, you listen to it, and then FM came in.
Speaker 1: Today we have such a variety of how to listen
Speaker 1: to communication on and this is just a tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg because seems like every week something else came out.
Speaker 1: So I come back to w ABC and what am
Speaker 1: I doing? Now? Am I doing the same thing? No?
Speaker 1: Am I doing some of it? Yeah? Because people want it.
Speaker 1: You know, how I decided what to do on my
Speaker 1: current shows in w ABC, I used the Internet. I
Speaker 1: use my cousin Bruci Facebook page and other things that
Speaker 1: the U other the bulletin boards and things like that.
Speaker 1: And the question was what am I gonna do with
Speaker 1: this show? So originally I said, you know, but in
Speaker 1: the press had a lot of press when it was announced.
Speaker 1: I'm coming back to this to seventies seven. I think
Speaker 1: I'll be doing uh, fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties. Well
Speaker 1: all hell broke procluse bombs. They wanted You're not doing eighties.
Speaker 1: No eighties for you. Everybody's doing eighties. Hell are the eighties, Percy.
Speaker 1: We want fifties, sixties and seventies. We want your echo back.
Speaker 1: What I don't want echo? It's coming here. Twenty one
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. Hey, everybody gets a I don't want
Speaker 1: to do. I'm doing echo vox popular the people's voices heard.
Speaker 1: They want jingles. I swear to god I can play
Speaker 1: as many jingles as as records. They'll be happy. They
Speaker 1: want the records. Now, what is this, teddy? They want
Speaker 1: to jingles? This tells you they want that connection to
Speaker 1: the past. Everybody today we are in a bubble. We
Speaker 1: all want to escape. I am part of that escape,
Speaker 1: Bob all right. My music is that escape. My jingles,
Speaker 1: my reverb as part of that escape. They want to
Speaker 1: go back and they want to leave this bubble that
Speaker 1: we're in for those few hours. And when I go
Speaker 1: on the air today, I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: me yet, but when I opened a show, first thing
Speaker 1: I say, Becausins, here's the deal. You can't listen. You
Speaker 1: can listen to me. There's no politics on this show. None.
Speaker 1: There's no talk about COVID none. You have a problem
Speaker 1: that you really need solved, and it's personal. I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you, but I'm talking politics no matter what. And
Speaker 1: if anyone talks politics, you're out. And I said, now,
Speaker 1: if you can't go by those rules, go get some
Speaker 1: ice cream somewhere, leave me alone. And that's what I do.
Speaker 1: And I go on and everyone loves it. They love
Speaker 1: the idea to escape our streets right now. And Bob,
Speaker 1: you are as you are like I. You would like
Speaker 1: to run away a little bit too, We all would. Okay,
Speaker 1: speaking of running away, you're now on the air one
Speaker 1: time a week. What is the rest of Brucie's week
Speaker 1: look like? What was Shodi wash to answer that? I
Speaker 1: go shopping order supermarket. I have been in the pharmacy
Speaker 1: more than they've ever been in these four months in
Speaker 1: my whole life. I don't know what we're doing. We're buying.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. We're in the pharmacy. So what
Speaker 1: we do is it's home. Jody and I go for walks. Well,
Speaker 1: I love to hike. I keep it. I keep in
Speaker 1: great shape. I really, I'm in good shape. Still feel
Speaker 1: very powerful, so I stay young. I watch what I eat,
Speaker 1: I don't drink too much. I miss visiting friends. I
Speaker 1: missed the personal relationship of hugging. I'm a hugger. I'm
Speaker 1: a toucher. I like touching, touching people. I like skin. Right,
Speaker 1: we can't touch anymore that is breaking my heart. Um,
Speaker 1: I watch television a lot, were watching series we stream.
Speaker 1: I go on my computer constantly. I answer my mail,
Speaker 1: which takes me a huge number of hours. The emails
Speaker 1: are great. Everybody's requesting this is from last Saturday's show.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can see it. No, it's
Speaker 1: really it's I'll flip it for those people. And these
Speaker 1: are printed out emails, a huge stack. That's one one day.
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do with these things? Am I
Speaker 1: gonna answer? You know? You know I'm gonna answer everyone.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play everyone they're requesting. But it's gonna take
Speaker 1: me for Christmas? Is it's it's but so that's my point.
Speaker 1: The response is terrific. People want content, they want to
Speaker 1: find what they would like to listen to. I'm gonna escape.
Speaker 1: I have that bridge and uh we have three hours
Speaker 1: now once a week. We'll see what happens for that.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling. Let's go back to the vall
Speaker 1: for one more time. How did the four seasons end
Speaker 1: up doing your jingle? I have no idea, however, all
Speaker 1: I know is I received a phone call from Bob
Speaker 1: Gordion and Frankie Valley and they said, I have a
Speaker 1: present for you. Guys, I have a present for you.
Speaker 1: About a week later, they came up with a five
Speaker 1: inch reel of real to real tape. A lot of
Speaker 1: the audience might not remember what tapers that little uh.
Speaker 1: It's on a plastic reel, round reel and it's like
Speaker 1: maybe a quarter inch stick and you played it on
Speaker 1: a tape recorder. They brought me this thing and they said, play.
Speaker 1: This is for you. It's a gift. That's how it happened.
Speaker 1: They gave me a gift. Now that gift has followed
Speaker 1: me everywhere I go, no matter if I even do
Speaker 1: a guest spot out of station, if I do interviews.
Speaker 1: You probably have that song the four season singing, right,
Speaker 1: go go cousin, Brucy, that was a beautiful gift. How
Speaker 1: I came about and you know, I never really found out.
Speaker 1: It's a very good question, Brucy. This has been wonderful.
Speaker 1: You're a fount of knowledge. In addition to telling your story,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of wisdom. I learned certain things. You know.
Speaker 1: I love talking to you. I look forward to talking
Speaker 1: to you in the future. This has just been wonderful. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: this is only part one. You think you hurt stories
Speaker 1: listening more stories, We'll do part two. Bob, Really, I
Speaker 1: know about you. Your reputation really precedes you. You have
Speaker 1: a great, great reputation. I congratulate you. I love to
Speaker 1: meet people who love broadcasting, and you are a broadcaster.
Speaker 1: And I'm thrilled to be part of your your family. Now, well,
Speaker 1: to hear that from cousin Brucy himself, I'm cpelling. It's
Speaker 1: like unbelievableing. That's Greek. I know that work. Listen. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna let you do any more. Stick right now
Speaker 1: until next time. This has been Bob Left since