trying to hire you back.” Don Draper to Peggy Olson...MAD MEN
(PART ONE)
So..this was just another chance to do a talk radio program...back in Miami...and back with my old comrade in arms...Uncle Neil.
I don’t know who called me at the family home on the farm. I think it was WINZ Program director Mark Kuhn but I’m sure it was after Neil’s insistence. I flew down...and Mark and I had lunch in the restaurant that overlooked Calder race track. This too was representative of Neil’s influence. Or maybe it was it the only decent eating and hiring place near the studios of WINZ.
I don’t even know why we met...just a formalty...as I it was obvious I had the slot after Neil’s show sewed up. and it just seemed to be a matter of salary...nothing else.
He offered...I accepted and history in radio was about to made.
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You can’t find a better friend (when you’re working with him) than Neil Rogers. Congenial, friendly almost to a fault....but a good companion.
Now remember...he’s an out of the closet gay...and like I said in an early post (I like this quote) “I’m more obsessed with women than anyone on the planet!” So..we were the odd couple in that respect.
It took me one or two shows...for him to convince me (or for me to see the writing on the wall) that issue talk was to be...no more.
I heard Neil’s show a day or two and took his advice to forget that crap...politics...news stuff...guests...and just walk in sit down and shoot the shit with what seemed like the millions of Miami radio listeners that he left me with when he exited each day and I came on the air to do my thing.
Neil said just read the paper for the real stuff..the crazy...the stupid...whatever lights a fire for response and that’s what I started to do.
We were going through the infamous “Monkey Business” scandal surrounding Senator Gary Hart...which actually happened in our area and both Neil and I jumped on it. It was easy to do...everybody wanted to chime in and let the snobbish Senator, hoping to be President, get his just desserts.
Neil even came into my studio (he would often drop in) and we had a phone number for Donna Rice..Hart’s throb....but she never answered the phone.
Hart dropped out, of course, but we milked it for all it was worth!
Neil was still giving it to the old folks....with comic carts that he allowed me to use. He was getting some good stuff....and I think it was mostly free of charge as the guys putting it together just liked the publicity of doing it. Rogers was a superstar and if a little of that rubbed off on them (or me) so be it.
Miami Vice was the hottest show on the tube and they were filming in Miami when I hit the city. I loved that show and it did influence me in a small way to come back to Miami to work. So I started talking about it alot and would get tips on where they were filming and announce it on the air.
It didn’t take long for the cast and crew to start listening to my show. Michael Talbott (Switek) told me they always had me booming out in the “grip truck” whatever that is.
Neil got jealous of all this (tongue in cheek) and as he hated the show he started ranting about it and me and Don Johnson etc.
My producer made contact with the Miami Vice office and invited any of them to call in or come in if they had time. Eddie Olmos (Lt. Castillo) and Michael Talbott (Detective Switek) along with the “Noog Man.”..Charlie Barnett...responded as studio guests and Don Johnson called in. This was heaven.
Neil was fit to be tied! But it was ok...he was into other stuff and just made fleeting references to the “Major’s Vice obsession”.
While he was continually knocking Miami Vice he was playing the hell out of a comedy bit which was a take off on the two cops...Crockett and Tubbs busting some old farts for stealing sweet and low from the local diner. The guy doing Johnson sounded just like him.
I found an IMDB webpage that lists all the cast members and guests on all the shows which is incredible. Keep going down the list...you’ll be surprised at who did Miami Vice! That included Julia Roberts and Helen Bonham Carter and about a thousand others. G Gordon Liddy too!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086759/fullcredits
end Part One...return to Miami
stanmajor@aol.com
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