Today, Keith is the Production Director for WIHT, Hot 99-5 in DC.

Keith writes:

I was there from May of '75 thru the strike of '77. When I got there it was Columbus in the morning, Jim Elliott middays, Jim Collins afternoons, Dan Steele nights, me, then Kevin James overnights. Dino Del Gallo replaced Dan.

On Dan Steele & Glenn Potter:

It seems the GM Glenn Potter (who's main claim to fame was being the college room mate of one of the owners) wanted a block of 50 tickets for an upcoming Diplomats (Washington's original Soccer team) game. Dan Steele was the booth announcer for the Dips games, so Glenn asked Dan to get him the tickets, for free of course. Well Dan did it. But before he had a chance to deliver them, the ratings came out and Dan was #1 again, beating his chief rival Brother Love at WRC.

So Dan took the opportunity to ask for a raise. Mr. Potter's response was to tell Dan if he wanted more money, go find another job. That night Dan tore up the Dips tickets into little pieces and put them in a pile in front of Potter's door along with his resignation. After WPGC Dan became PD of WKBO in Harrisburg PA. He tried moving to Texas, but the 3 Mile Island thing made it impossible to sell his house, so he moved back. That's the last I heard of him.

On Columbus:

And I'm sure someone knows more about this than I do, but in the production room, right next to the door in magic marker it said, "Don't hit here, steel stud". It seems Columbus took karate lessons, and when he was really mad one day (bad show I guess) he put his fist thru the wall.

And in case you wondered, at the request of John Gehron (then WLS PD, my college PD, and now GM of Clear Channel Chicago) I taped Columbus without his knowledge. John used the tape to get him to Chicago as his production director. A year later, he resigned, saying that the production work was getting in the way of his free lance business, which was (and from what I hear is) quite successful.

On Jim Collins & Dino Del Gallo:

I remember the night Jim Collins came in to Dino Del Gallo, holding a stack of albums. He asked Dino to check thru em and try to find a single for this group that just couldn't seem to buy a top 40 hit, but was doing fine in concert. So Dino went thru the albums, and went back to Jim with his pick the next day. When Collins realized what the selection was he told Dino, hey, they already released that and it died. Dino came right back saying.... no they didn't, they released the studio version and it died... they need to release the live version. So Collins took the recommendation back to the record company. They released the live version... "Rock & Roll All Night", and Kiss finally got their top 40 start.

The NAB Convention was in DC that year. Jim Collins went, and met up with an old friend (who's name I won't mention). Anyway this old friend was back in town for the convention and had called a very pretty and somewhat notorious radio groupie to be his date. Collins didn't know her, but assumed she must work in radio... so sometime during the evening he gave her an invite for a tour of the station.

Surprise, surprise the following Monday she shows up for the tour. So Jim gives her the quick once around, but has to go on the air as it's 2:00pm. Well, she asks to 'borrow the phone' in his office. So Jim tells her to dial 9 to get an outside line and heads to the control room. Five minutes goes buy and Jim gets a call on the inside studio line. She can't get her call to go thru, and wants his help. Jim has a long record on, so he heads for his office to fix the problem. Just outside the control room he runs into Glenn Potter and Bill Prettyman.

A brief conversation ensues, and Jim explains the problem as he's walking down the hall to his office... with the Potter and Prettyman a few steps behind ready to help. Jim opens the door and there she is ... NAKED on his desk... legs spread wide... and she says "Just wanted to give you a preview of what you can have later". Jim, never missing a beat, pulls the door mostly closed, leaving his head inside just long enough to whisper loudly... "get the @#$# out of here"... and then loudly says... "Yes, It's 9 you need to press then wait for the dial tone". He then has to almost push Potter and Prettyman back the hall...."No problem" "Phone is fine" "She wasn't dialing 9" or some such.

Well no one would ever have known about this.... except that when he got back to the control room, he realized some naked crazy woman was in HIS office, and might not leave. So he called Carla who was working on public service stuff, told her what happened, and asked her to go throw this woman out. Of course before she went to Jim's office she called a few others. By the time Carla got around to it the woman was gone.

On Kevin James:

But my favorite story is about Kevin James. Seems Kevin was single, and he and his dog Wilbur lived mostly out of his van. So Kevin ran most of his social life out of the control room. If someone called in the middle of the night who sounded interesting, he'd invite them to breakfast. He once told me you can invite anyone to breakfast... then if he was still interested he could invite her to dinner and a movie or whatever.

But Kevin didn't know when to quit. Some days he had a date for breakfast, another for lunch, and yet another for dinner and a movie... and well, he'd return to the station two hours before his shift, without any sleep at all. He'd ask me to tell everyone he wasn't there... then he'd fall asleep standing up, leaning against the cart racks in the back of the control room. Never met anyone before or since who could do that... but Kevin claims he still can.

Anyway one night this girl calls...and she hims and haws around and asks me how well I know Kevin, and will I answer a personal question about him. So I asked her what she wanted to know... She says "Is Kevin gay?" I nearly busted out laughing. "What makes you think Kevin might be gay" I said. Her reply was priceless.... "Well whenever Kevin comes over for dinner, I want to, you know, mess around, and all he wants to do is sleep" If she had any idea!

On 'The Great Strike That Struck Out'

Here's the real strike story:

The Marriott brothers owned WPGC... it was the only Union company owned by the Marriotts anywhere, and they wanted the union gone. The union minimum in '77 was around 18k. We where hopeful of maybe 20k. The company negotiated everything but salaries, refusing to do so till 11pm on the final day of the contract. Then with 1 hour to go they offered 7k immediately, 7k more at the start of year 2 and 5k more at the start of year 3. Thus we would go from 18k to 37k in 2 years. Wow!

Only one catch.... we had to give up the 'deem to be live clause'. What? We didn't know what that was. So in the hour left on the contract Evelyn Fryman (DC Union chief) explained to us how it was the clause on which AFTRA was founded. Seems jocks in New York were being paid for 5 day weeks, but had to record shows for air on the 6th and 7th days. The clause said, that if you record a show, and it airs out of shift, you get paid for the time it takes to record it, and the time it airs.

And as they left the room, they told us that with or WITHOUT the union, the offer was on the table... HINT HINT HINT. Well, we spent the rest of our hour trying to figure out just how the company planned to use this. I mean it must be a big deal if it's worth 19k a year per jock. What were they up to?

Well it turns out we were missing the forest for the trees. The only reason the company wanted this clause gone, is because National AFTRA would not approve the contract without it. They figured we'd see the light, decertify the union, and take the deal. They get no union, we get big bucks.

Evelyn must have known that was what the Marriotts wanted, but she never said so. She just kept telling us all the awful stuff that might happen without 'deem to be live'.... and pretty soon our hour was up... and we were on strike. Oh and once you're on strike... it's illegal to decertify a union. So to talk the deal then, we had to cross a picket line, and give up union work forever. As a result Jim Elliott, who figured this was his last radio job anyway, took the deal... the rest of us found new employers.

This strike was not about raises or benefits or clauses, it was about union busting on the Marriott's part, and a bunch of DJ's who didn't see the light till too late.

 

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7/31/76

1/15/77

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(Special thanks to Jonathon Wolfert at JAM for the above).

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