Aged like a fine single malt...

There isn't much left of the radio business.

Kids don't pay much attention. The Internet is the tribal drum of a new generation and radio, to them, is ancient history. I was always aware of the ephemeral nature of the business when I joined the band of radio gypsies who made their living pushing the hits on a series of frequencies "town to town...up and down the dial". It was a lot of fun and, once you made it to the "bigs", a decent buck. When the call letters you were selling belonged to major market stations that boasted legendary histories you knew that you had made it and all you needed to hang on was to get decent ratings.

Bad ratings meant getting fired and spending time on the "beach" or, if you were lucky, a second chance at another station in the same market. Most of the time it required a move to a new city and the hope that the new station and its listeners dug your act and good ratings kept you there for a long time. The competition was brutal and true friends hard to find.

In 1976 I managed to escape from what was escalating into a bad situation with a radio station in Tampa. The place was in turmoil and under new management. I was hosting the morning show and had good ratings but knew lots of change was brewing. Time to start calling friends, sending out tapes, and looking for a safe place to land...

That August I stood in the office of Jerry Jackson, the general manager of KOGO in San Diego. Jerry had hired me after surreptitiously spending a week in a Clearwater, Florida motel listening to my show on WDAE in Tampa. It was one of the luckiest breaks of my life. Jerry was the finest person I ever worked for...period. He was a man of his word and a true friend who, sadly, died much too young. Standing next to me on that day in August was another new hire for KOGO named, Bill Moffitt. Bill had recently been canned from San Diego's KCBQ and Jerry, knowing real talent, had scooped him up almost immediately. I was 28 years-old and Bill was 32. It was the beginning of a lifetime friendship.

Bill and I worked side by side for nearly four years at KOGO. He handled the midday show and I followed in afternoon drive. We were just a couple of young guys who spent our formative years in Iowa and grew up dreaming the same dream of having a beautiful time on the radio. And...we did. Though we no longer partake, there was a glass or two of whiskey shared by the two of us in those days. (We called it "liquid show prep".)

(Bill Moffitt rolls his eyes as Lenny Mitchell sinks into his Lazy Boy)

KOGO was sold to a new group of owners in late 1979 and Bill jumped at the chance to return to KCBQ rather than endure the mindless stupidity of the Visigoths who were now in charge. I left for a morning job in San Francisco shortly after. Bill took some vacation time to help me relocate to "Halloween-by-the-Bay" and some serious fun ensued. (Maybe I'll write a book about all of that when most of the participants are dead.)

In 1986 I returned to San Diego to take the midday show on KCBQ where Bill was now happily doing afternoon drive. We made that last for nearly six years, an eternity in the radio biz. Both of us got blown out in late 1991 by one of the most incompetent buffoons I have ever met. Naturally, he is still running a station in Phoenix. The buffoons run everything these days. Bill took a video camera to his firing and recorded the stammering nincompoop as he was being dismissed. It was priceless!

Bill Moffitt is 65 tomorrow! Happy birthday pal! Where are the last thirty years?

Thanks for the laughs. Thanks for being one of the finest disc jockeys who ever honked the hits.

And thanks for being my friend...