“Just one round, that’s all I’m going for,” we’d tell our respective ladies. “We’re just going out for one round of drinks.”
But that was actually six shots per guy, and within 30 minutes, my knees were ready to buckle. Which was pretty much my condition at the moment when President Summers announced that he was not running for re-election.
There were probably about 100 people in the bar that night and the immediate reaction touched off a miniature version of the wave you see fans do in football stadiums. It began right in front of the TV with the people who’d actually heard what the president said, and then spread toward the back. Once everybody heard the news, Delrios went absolutely batshit. The sort of crazy you’d probably see if the Bucs ever won another Super Bowl, which kinda surprised me. It was the start of a 48-hour grown-up version of “ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead” in much of the country, particularly in the so-called Red states. But Florida isn’t decidedly Red or Blue, it’s more Purple, although certain parts fall decidedly into one camp or the other. I had never stopped to think about the politics of the locals who hung out at my favorite taproom before that moment. To this day, I’m not sure whether they were really anti-Summers or just happy to have an added excuse to tie one on.
The news that night temporarily sobered me like the site of a flashing light in your rearview mirror. While I kept sipping beer and Carl worked on Miss Tubetop, inside I was feeling pretty shitty—and it wasn’t just from too much booze. I felt sorry for the guy. I really did. I had a vague recollection of Summers once telling one of the talking heads, maybe Diane Sawyer, that he’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre twotermer. I figured he meant it. Which only made me feel worse. The former senator from Wisconsin had inherited a disastrous economy and was forever trying to sell a stimulus agenda in an era of austerity. That made it easy for many of us to peg him as a big-spending liberal, just the sort of thing that kept our P1s glued to their radios and ready to buy survival gear.
Then Carl lined up yet another round of kamikazes, sharing one of his with the dental patient, so I quickly decided I’d drown my guilt. This, I later decided, was the equivalent of getting wasted in Times Square on VJ Day while secretly wishing the Japs had not surrendered.
The next morning I was an even bigger shit. I could’ve still blown a 2.0 on a Breathalyzer when I went on the air and rejoiced in the death of “American socialism.” I’m sure listeners misread my drunkenness for exuberance. Or maybe they knew I was shitfaced and chalked it up to celebration, which they also would have approved. Still, I delivered all the talking points, even after having read the transcript of the president’s eight-minute speech from the night before and concluding that Summers was sincere. On the program, I even went so far as to play his words over a music bed of the Soviet anthem with an enormous crowd cheer at the end.
“I can think of nothing more selfish than for me, in the midst of this economic morass, to now spend the next year fundraising and traveling the nation campaigning,” he’d said.
I wondered whether Summers would have regrets. He was a young guy, only 56. It seemed a bit impulsive. And clearly, it would completely destabilize his own party, the Democrats, in the upcoming presidential race. But even though the president’s words cut me to the quick, they didn’t stop Stan Powers from celebrating his political demise with callers.
“Hello, caller, you’ve got Morning Power on WRGT.”
“Stan, good morning, you are a real American.”
“Thank you, you are a real American.”
This was our usual circle jerk, only this time, we congratulated one another and acted like we were Founding Fathers who’d just toppled King George III.
Rod Chinkles, my technical producer, was absolutely euphoric. If I didn’t know he was a holy roller, I’d have sworn he’d smoked or ingested something that morning to give him the buzz that showed in his face. Standing there in his tortoiseshell glasses and pressed white shirt, he would awkwardly fist pump whenever a caller made reference to the news. I felt like he was staring at me while I worked the call-board, weighing whether my enthusiasm for the bloodless coup was legit. Fuck him.
Rod was never my guy. Not even my hire. He was a technical producer, or “board op,” a job usually reserved for the just-out-of-junior-college geeks who’ve majored in radio and TV and see themselves on my side of the glass someday. Not Rod. He’s a fortysomething guy still fighting acne whose father was on the board of directors at MML&J, the Bible thumpers who owned WRGT. Rod liked to tell people that he had “applied” to work in Tampa. My ass. I’d had no choice but to take him when the new ownership took control. As if I would ever have hired a guy who shows up for the early shift wearing a fucking bow tie. But like father like son, I am told—his old man was known to strut around the Atlanta headquarters in three-piece suits. The buzz was that he was light in the loafers, so to speak. Not that I give a shit. But don’t hit me with the self-righteousness if you’re hiding more than a few skeletons in your own closet.
Typical of many I’d met in radio, Rod was both the consummate professional and more than a bit off. He was never late, never absent and rarely fucked up the board. He never played the wrong cart, or let dead air be broadcast. For all this, I was grateful. But he also had more idiosyncrasies than I could count, like the clockwork schedule with which he’d use the bathroom every shift. I could set my watch by him needing to piss when I went to break at 6:30, 7:15, and 8:30 a.m. He was also a true believer in the conservative talk brand, who (correctly) suspected I was not really down with the program. But he was hardcore. He drove some late model American-made car to work each morning (way over the pay grade for a board op) sporting a tricorn hat on the rear window dash that symbolized his support for the Tea Party. He once asked me why I didn’t have likewise in my Lexus.
“I have one in my other car,” I’d deadpanned. “The Volvo.”
He had zero sense of humor and whereas I could always push the intercom button and joke with Alex, my executive producer, about the topics and guests during commercial breaks, Rod would have none of it. He would sit there, stone-faced, and take to heart his responsibility of riding the “dump button,” which would mute anything inappropriate for the air as long as it got pushed within seven seconds of the utterance. Sometimes callers would get worked into a lather and let fly with a “shit” or “pussy” and Rod would spring into action. One expletive drowned out by the “dumper” and he’d glare for the rest of the morning like somebody had farted in church.
But Alex was an entirely different story.
Alex Hausen had proven herself to be the best surprise at WRGT. When Steve Bernson, the VP from MML&J who brought me to Tampa, first told me they planned to hire a proven talk producer because all they had in the a.m. was a woman who was a “wannabe classic rock DJ,” I’d asked to meet her before he made a move. I knew a little something about wannabe classic rock DJs. Not surprisingly, we clicked immediately.
“Look, I know more about AC/DC than Afghanistan,” I told her when I began, which made her laugh.
I also told her that I did not expect to last, that I was trying talk on a flier, so she could look at the next 30 days as a paying experiment while searching for a more suitable job. As far as I know, she never did. Since then, no shortage of politicians have arrived at WRGT for interviews and prejudged her based on the color of her hair (that day) or her multiple piercings, not to mention the ink and the way she swings (assuming they can tell). But if they spend any time with her, they quickly realize that she is an extraordinarily able radio producer. Several of our competitors have even tried to hire her away. She is a type A, organizational freak and news junkie who has a knack for knowing exactly when it’s appropriate to speak without interrupting my flow. She quickly learned how to play the role of an on-air foil in a way that was both challenging and respectful of our audience. Privately, though, during a commercial break, she’d come into the studio, on the other side of the sound-proof gl
ass from Rod, and blast the conventional conservative wisdom.
“Stan, you don’t really believe that shit?” I’d simply roll my eyes.
On air, in limited doses, I’d call upon her to provide a feminist response to my boorish banter. Frankly, she had the easier job because she got to say what she really thought.
Me: “The Gov-er-na-tor’s relationship with his maid is none of anybody’s business. All that matters is that he acted with propriety while running the affairs of California.”
Alex: “Stan, you really disappoint me. He was a man in a position of power who took advantage of a female employee. Next you’ll be telling me hookers cannot be raped.”
Me: “Hookers can be raped, but anyone applying for that job needs to know it’s a recognized employment hazard.”
And so it went. The audience really seemed to enjoy the interplay, without any clue as to what either of us was really all about. That would have been too much for most of them to handle.
But above all, her most important quality was pure and unadulterated competence. She had a knack for getting shit done. And in radio, as is the case in any other workplace, that skill was always in short supply.
Straightlaced Rod had a difficult time dealing with Alex, whom he sat next to in a confined area for four hours a day. For the most part, he kept his opinions and any discomfort to himself, save for one time a few election cycles ago when his coping skills became particularly problematic. As we got close to that November election, we had a daily onslaught of surrogates in the studio and on this particular day, we were expecting Mary Cheney, the daughter of former Vice-President Cheney, who was now a pundit. For once in her life, Alex was legitimately excited about one of my Republican political guests.
“Stan, I’d like to bring Becky in tomorrow to watch some of the program if that’s ok,” she said, referring to her roommate with whom I was already acquainted.
“Sure thing,” I responded.
It didn’t occur to me until the interview began why both Alex and Becky revered Mary Cheney. Becky sat between Alex and Rod while I was conducting the interview, and when the segment was over, the two women had a photo taken with Mary as I looked through the glass and took note of Rod’s disapproving scowl. Well, the following day, Alex called me after I’d just gotten home.
“Some freak leafleted my car.”
“Huh?”
“When I came out to my car, Stan, someone had left a printed card on it that said: ‘Even if you were born gay, you still need to be born again.’ ”
“So what. That shit happens. I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
But the following day it happened again. Only this time Alex had the presence of mind to look at the other cars in the WRGT lot, and none of them had anything similar on their windshields.
“I know it’s the Chinkster,” she said that day, meaning Rod. “I don’t think he got me until he met Becky.”
“Do you want me to speak to him?”
“I don’t want you to get involved. I know his old man is important. I just want you to be aware of it because he scares me sometimes. This is Westboro Baptist sort of shit, Stan.”
I debated whether to discuss it with my boss, Steve Bernson, but pussied-out. If I said something to him, I feared he’d say something to Atlanta which might get back to Vernon Chinkles, and I couldn’t afford that. Plus, I didn’t want Alex to take any heat. Thankfully nothing further came of it, but it was a wake-up call regarding Rod. We continued to exist, our odd little trio, held together by the one thing we had in common: our dedication to the program, and the goal of producing the finest four hours of conservative talk in the country. And many days, we did.
The day after the Summers shocker, Alex was her usual, stoic, competent self. Her mannerisms, as usual, gave no hint as to what she was really thinking, although she may have been sporting more black in her attire than usual, I couldn’t tell for sure.
And good old WRGT never missed an opportunity to turn news into a promotional/sales event, so programming immediately created a new station jingle that was put in rotation every hour. Set to a fife-and-drum music bed, it said:
“WRGT, where freedom-loving Americans assemble and lay claim to the rights that make America great. We’re already praying for our next president!”
It was over the top. I mean, you’d think they could spare a few prayers for our current president given the state of the country. But the listeners were loving the tumult and you’d think they had wintered at Valley Forge instead of on the Gulf of Mexico. Don Fortini, our head of sales, always anxious to turn a national crisis into coin, quickly expanded the ad campaign to include a list of sponsors who were willing to pay just to be tied to Summers’ downfall.
“WRGT, where freedom loving Americans assemble and lay claim to the rights that make America great. Among those already praying for our next president are Fred Pork’s family of auto dealerships, Dr. Horace Furston, the man you call when it doesn’t last four hours, The Survivalist Shops, and Gary’s Gold Emporium.”
The one person who wasn’t caught up in the euphoria was Phil, who called me the minute I signed off the air the morning after the announcement. He’d been on the phone nonstop with his talk radio host clients across the country and by the time he got to me, he was spitting blood.
“This is really bad, Stan. We just killed the golden goose.”
“Huh?”
“All you guys have been getting a free ride. Summers was a gift from the talk radio gods, better even than Clinton after his blow job or Obama post-healthcare, but it went too far. I had a feeling he’d bit off more than he could chew with the spending requests, but I never figured he’d pull a Palin on us.”
Through what was left of my kamikaze haze, I reminded Phil that Sarah Palin had quit halfway into her term whereas Summers was saying he would fulfill his, just not run for another so he could focus on the economy instead of campaigning.
“Today’s not a day for your persnickety bullshit, Powers. Better you instead spend your time putting on your game face. Our whole business is in fuckin’ free fall.”
In the world of talk radio, Phil was worried that this was the day the music—well, talk—died. So much of the nation’s talk material, my material, was based on kicking the crap out of Summers’ presidency. He wasn’t sure there’d ever be another Summers. He also predicted trouble for cable TV.
“Fox is fucked,” he railed into his phone. “No amount of leg shots of those lipsticked blond bimbos can make up for what they had going with Summers. And those commie bastards at MSNBC aren’t much better. Time for them to find a new butt boy.”
I took that as pretty much an admission from Phil that the whole media world had become a circus, even though he’d never admit it. For some time now, the media outlets on the left—having seen the big business generated by conservative perspectives on the right—had been employing a similar model. I could almost stake my career on the fact that there was some lefty Phil clone who had whispered in Keith Olbermann’s ear when he was kicking the shit out of George W. Bush with all of his “special comments” in the last few years of W’s term. Hey, the guy might have fucked up by taking us into Iraq, but since when do we say that a president should be prosecuted as a war criminal? In the same way the right was now lockstep and predictable, so too was the left. Each had their own media outlets and pundits who in turn had a stranglehold over politicians. In fact, not only did I suspect there was a left-wing Phil out there, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was Phil himself. He was all business, and in our many conversations he had never once pretended to have any real concern for the country, much less for its chief executive. Now, however, he was intently focused on the implications of the president’s decision on the talk radio world. For me, he had a plan.
“Stan…” he was breathless now. I thought I heard him gasp for air. “You’re the only one in the country for whom there could be a silver lining.”
That line would be my hair of the do
g. Phil Dean now had my undivided attention.
“My advice is that you immediately go on the warpath against Bob Tobias. He’s got a real shot to win the Democratic nomination with Summers out. He’s perfectly positioned to jump in quickly and grab the mantle. And you’re perfectly positioned too—to be his chief nemesis. Own that turf.”
My head was still spinning so much from Summers’ LBJ move that I hadn’t even had a chance to think about who would replace him as his party’s nominee. On the Republican side, the race had already been going on for months, with the five candidates sparring in a flurry of early debates. But Phil Dean had just changed my focus. Bob Tobias had just been re-elected as governor of Florida, despite the unpopularity of his party nationally. He was a moderate guy who had survived due to a combination of constituent service and avoidance of the political extremes. Responding quickly to coastal storms and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had really earned him stripes with residents along the coast. It’s didn’t hurt that he was a football hero in a state where pigskin was king.
“Think about it Stan. He’s the young, handsome governor of a swing state who defied the odds in a GOP year. When this hangover ends, both parties are gonna figure out that he’s the man.”
Fuckin’ Phil was right. Sitting in that adobe shack in Taos, probably stuffing his 400-lb frame with Tex-Mex between calls, he had a more keen insight into the politics that were about to unfold than I did, and according to him, I was sitting at ground zero.
“Focus on that wife of his,” he frothed.
“Susan Miller? Floridians love her, Phil.”
Susan Miller was Bob Tobias’ other half. She was a homegrown beauty he’d met in college who’d proven to be his greatest political asset. She was smart and assertive, but not in a way that was threatening to men. She had previously been one of the state’s top-notch lobbyists. Often I’d heard people say they’d rather have her running Florida than him. But to Phil, she was a talk radio prop.
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