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Speaker 1: I can't play. If you're new to the Taking a

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Speaker 1: Walk podcast, welcome to our sampler. It's a way to

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Speaker 1: get a flavor of some of the guests. Buzz takes

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Speaker 1: a Walk with the Media Sampler. During the early days

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Speaker 1: of the pandemic, when there was no games, those shows

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Speaker 1: and showing a lot of the of course, the Last

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Speaker 1: Dance everybody watched locally, they were showing selfish classics of

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Speaker 1: the eighties, and I kept seeing my young self sitting

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Speaker 1: at the press table back in the days in the

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Speaker 1: lowly media was allowed to sit right down next to

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Speaker 1: the bench because they weren't selling those for one thousands

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Speaker 1: of dollars. They didn't figured it out yet, and we

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Speaker 1: were still essential to what the enterprise was. So when

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Speaker 1: I was doing it, I was head down and being

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Speaker 1: a tough guy and recording and breaking stories and not

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Speaker 1: caring about who liked me or didn't, and it created

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Speaker 1: some tensions and it wasn't as much fun the Abrams.

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Speaker 1: Where do you see the state of media today, Well,

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Speaker 1: generally speaking, I think there's a you know, it's very corporate,

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Speaker 1: and you know that's not necessarily bad, but it does

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Speaker 1: come at the expense of extreme creative. I think particularly

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Speaker 1: in radio and television news, which are Chris two areas

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Speaker 1: I'm really interested in. There's just a tendency to be

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Speaker 1: working off a playbook that's thirty and forty years old

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Speaker 1: at a time when we're going through mess of cultural, social,

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Speaker 1: and technological change. Jimmy Coppersmith. First week on a job,

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Speaker 1: I was wandering around introducing myself, and I went up

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Speaker 1: to an agency and a woman said to me, I'm

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Speaker 1: so glad you're here. I've got an order for you.

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Speaker 1: And I said, missus Rader, that was her name, wrote

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Speaker 1: a Raider. I said, I don't know even how to

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Speaker 1: take an order. I said, I'm new. She said, don't worry,

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Speaker 1: I'll fill it out for you. She filed it out

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Speaker 1: for me. It was five thousand dollars a week for

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Speaker 1: thirteen weeks. Brought it back to the station. The general

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Speaker 1: manager's name was Larry Freiberg. His secretary said, mister Fraberg

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Speaker 1: wants to see you, and I thought, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to get fired. I walked in his office

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Speaker 1: and he said, Jim, He said, this is quite unusual,

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Speaker 1: so to get in order of this size first week.

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Speaker 1: He said, tell me what was the genesis of that

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Speaker 1: Sam And I said, mister Freberg, let me be honest

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Speaker 1: with you. I was wandering around k Street, missus Rader

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Speaker 1: threw it out the window and it hit me on

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Speaker 1: the head, and he came out from behind his desk.

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Speaker 1: He gave me a kiss, and he said, you're going

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Speaker 1: to be great, Richie Balls. But and you know, it's

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Speaker 1: interesting you had asked questions a little while ago about

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Speaker 1: doing something bigger and better. Well, the Kiss Concert became

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Speaker 1: that bigger and better thing and nobody, nobody could ever

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Speaker 1: equal it because it was our thing. You know, these

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Speaker 1: wrec companies in the art. We're going to do it

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Speaker 1: for another radio station, you know, we created it. We

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Speaker 1: did it for the Genesis Funds. There was a charity

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Speaker 1: and they were they were they became a part of it.

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Speaker 1: So groups actually would call me managers and say can

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Speaker 1: we play the Kiss Concert? Which was bizarre. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one one notable was was Eddie Money. He came up

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Speaker 1: here himself and he went to Berkeley and put together

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Speaker 1: a band to play, and you know, it just was

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Speaker 1: one of those kind of things. But that's what became

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Speaker 1: bigger and better. So so during the you know, the

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Speaker 1: couple of months up to the Kiss Concert, and then

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Speaker 1: I created the jingle ball to do it another time.

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Speaker 1: But what what really worked was that nobody could compete

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Speaker 1: with that. You could give away whatever you wanted to

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Speaker 1: and nobody you couldn't. You couldn't get tickets for the

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Speaker 1: Kiss Concert. Mark Chernoff. This is a central part. For

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Speaker 1: many years it was the home of the Schaeffer Music Festival,

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Speaker 1: and you know, great acts would play here. There's been

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Speaker 1: great concerts here, whether it's been you know, Paul Simon

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Speaker 1: and Parkar Funkal Samber put together Simon just you know,

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Speaker 1: I can't even begin to tell you how many great

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Speaker 1: acts on the Great Lawn have been out Here is

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Speaker 1: the famous skate rink that's out here. The New York

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Speaker 1: City Marathon ends in Central Park. It's just an amazing

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Speaker 1: place to be. You know, you think of New York

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Speaker 1: City as just apartment buildings, businesses, stores, and then you

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Speaker 1: come to this great park that goes from fifty ninth

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Speaker 1: Street to one hundred and twenty fifth Street. You know,

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Speaker 1: it cuts off the east side of Manhattan and the

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Speaker 1: west side of Manhattan. There are some transverses for cars

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Speaker 1: to drive through, but on a beautiful day like today.

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Speaker 1: What more could you ask for than to be walking

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Speaker 1: around in Central Park. It's just an absolutely amazing place,

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Speaker 1: Greg Hill, So when did you first get the bug

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Speaker 1: and realize that this was going to be a career. Well,

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Speaker 1: I so I grew up listening to Larry Glick. I

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Speaker 1: loved radio. I loved I listened to WBC ANA. I

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Speaker 1: was really into music. We had a room off my

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Speaker 1: house in Stowe where I grew up, like an old

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Speaker 1: garage room essentially, and I went out pat bought myself

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Speaker 1: two turntables, and I would go out and buy I

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Speaker 1: went to the the Woolworths which was in Maynard every

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Speaker 1: week and bought the top twenty forty fives. And I

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Speaker 1: would go every day after school and legitimately do a

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Speaker 1: radio show in that room which no one was listening to.

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Speaker 1: And you know, as I at times during my career

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Speaker 1: there were only two or three more people listening that

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Speaker 1: were listening in the garage. So I would find all

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Speaker 1: episodes at taking a Walk dot com