College & Miami Vice!

           College time and jumping around to Miami Vice!

While working at radio station WIRL in Peoria...I was also taking classes at Bradley University...a school where size didn’t matter except for their red hot basketball team.  Number 1 ranking back then!

Two of my classmates became All American players and one, Chet Walker, would lead the Chicago Bulls to many victories.

Bobby Jo Mason on the other hand chose to go to the famous Harlem Globetrotters for his professional career.

Chet sat next to me in English Lit and was a good student and friendly.  We helped each other in the class.  

I went to a Bulls game once and walked down to the bench to say “hello”...he turned and immediately recognized me by name and we had a nice chat for a minute.

Bobby Jo sat next to me in a huge auditorium for Psychology lectures and had trouble staying awake.  He was all American first string guard and didn’t really have to worry about grades much, you know. But he was a nice guy.

At the radio station we promoted a lot to grab and maintain listeners to our soft rock format (if you can call Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis soft rock!) 

We had a lot of rock stars come through and I grabbed each of them to do interviews and promos for the station.  They all complied...including Fats Domino who had a problem reading and saying one simple line...which was kinda sad.

In later years at WIOD Miami after interviewing Rodney Dangerfield for an hour on my talk show, I ask him off the air to cut a quick short promo and he refused to do it!  First time I’d run into that after all my years talking to stars on the air. 

Of course I ask Don Johnson to say 

“Freeze Major, Miami Vice, your under arrest” 

but he refused to do it. While they were in Miami shooting the show I had several MV cast members in the studio including Eddie Olmos who had convinced Don to call in.  

But Dangerfield was not in the same superstar league as Johnson...but Don did say “Stan, your the greatest” before he hung up...and both Neil Rogers (who hated Vice) and did the show before mine each day, and I used that clip over and over.  

Eddie Olmos said the Vice crew always had my show on in the “grip Truck” whatever that was. 

I pissed them off because each day we’d get a Miami Vice spy report on where they were shooting and I’d plug it on the air.  They finally ask me not to do that...way too many folks were showing up and impeding the shoot.

I loved the show and plugged the hell out of it which made Edward Olmos very happy and friendly and the only time he got ticked off at me was when I didn’t invite him to my wedding in 1988.

Despite my continued obsession for dark haired brow-eyed beauties I married a good looking blond...Lauri..who had two fantastic kids...Morgan and Jeffery.

The wedding was private...only Neil was there as best man and Lauri’s sister was bridesmaid. 

After the honeymoon in Acapulco when I went back on the air...Olmos called the show to bitch me out about not inviting him.  He wasn't really angry. I love that guy.
      Another guy on the Vice show who was hot was “Noggie”...the noogman played to the hilt by Charley Barnett.  He came in for the show and was great!  It’s sad to report he died in 1996 from a drug overdose.  He was a fun guy.

stanmajor@aol.com