“Breaking news from the Middle East today where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is brokering peace talks,” I once said with a mock, Ted Baxter-like voice. “Madam Secretary was actually captured on film by paparazzi wearing a dress.”
I looked at Alex who took my visual cue and recognized it as her invitation to jump in, in this case, defending the sartorial choice of the former first lady.
“That is so sexist, Stan. And you never once commented on something Condi Rice wore.”
“Why would I? ‘Dr.’ (with great emphasis added) Rice always comported herself as a lady while representing the affairs of the United States of America.”
The telephone lines would light up, and I’d be off into an eight-minute segment on whether a pant suit was ever appropriate dress for our secretary of state as she engaged world leaders. Of course, my view was that anything this secretary of state was doing was wrong, in contrast to her predecessor, the aforementioned “Dr.” Rice, to whom I would invariably give a pass.
Things changed at the stroke of 7 a.m., prime time for morning drive radio. Now I would take it up a notch and hit hard on the front-page items of the day. The lead political story commanded my attention and this was where I tried to pack a punch. In campaign season, it was always something political. National healthcare (bad), illegal immigration (worse), and the federal deficit (atrocious) had been my stock-in-trade for the last few years. I’d spell out an issue, cue Rod to run some sound bytes that corresponded to that news, then offer my take, and finally go to the phones.
“Ignore those blinking lines until they serve a purpose,” Phil would constantly drum in my ear. Still, it was hard not to be pleased by the instant feedback.
“Remember, those callers are your props. Nobody gives a fuck what that guy says except that guy. If his old lady cared, he’d be telling her not you. But she doesn’t give a shit. So you’re the only outlet he has. The only reason you let him on your air is that he gives you fodder to say more.”
Phil also timed my callers like they were running the 40 at an NFL combine. I swear he would sit on his ass in Taos with a stopwatch and shout whenever any caller was on the air for more than two minutes. No caller was ever worth two minutes of airtime according to him. At first I didn’t see any harm in letting someone ramble as long as I thought they were interesting.
“Isn’t it supposed to be a talk program?” I would sometimes counter.
“It is… and you are the one who is supposed to be talking.”
Over time, I saw his point.
“Callers are there to give you something to play off of, to give you material to say something and appear smart, or acerbic. And let me tell you something else—nobody wants to hear callers who say ‘Stan, you are so right about this.’ Booooring.”
In no time we were routinely flooded with callers regardless of the subject, and it took quite a skill set for Alex to juggle 12 ringing lines at once. Her job was to not only get some bare bones information about who was calling and why, but also to type that data on her computer, which in turn put it on a screen in front of me. At the same time she needed to ascertain whether the callers could put together sentences and were younger than Stonehenge. Nothing sucks more oxygen out of a program that an old-timer who dodders when you punch up his call.
Our focal point every morning was the 7:30 segment, during which I would often do interviews with hard news guests. Newsmakers, like elected officials, or nationally known politicians or pundits or authors of right-wing screeds would usually be heard then. Again, with a short call segment to follow.
“Welcome back to Morning Power, on the line, it is my privilege to be joined by former Governor Mike Huckabee. Huck, thanks for being here.”
“You’re welcome Stan, and good morning to all in the I-4 corridor….”
In the final hour, having already covered the hard news of the day, I tended to do more shits and giggles. You know, some pop culture, sound from American Idol, and the other water cooler stuff that gave the show balance. This was the Seinfeld part of the program as Phil liked to refer to it, and handling these subjects came more naturally to me than politics. If you asked me to describe some of my favorite radio that I have done in Tampa, I would not describe my interview with Governor Palin in 2008, or Senator McCain in that same cycle, or my Scott Brown and Marco Rubio interviews in 2010, or Romney in 2012. Not even the time that I broadcast from a Tea Party rally surrounded by 5,000 listeners. Instead I would probably tell you about my tutorial on how to beat a speeding ticket (immediately fess up, ‘Yes officer I know I was speeding and boy am I embarrassed,’ cause it catches them by such surprise that they will let you go), or the time that Alex was driving her 12-year-old niece from a birthday party with her young friends and accidentally popped in a CD with Estelle featuring Kanye West singing “American Boy” with some highly explicit lyrics.
We did a half-hour on the issue of whether she was then obligated to call each girl’s mother and advise them of what their daughter had inadvertently heard in the car. The telephone lines melted. Alex later told me Rod had asked who Kanye West was.
When the program went dark, I’d often record some post-show interviews, meet an advertiser or two and then begin planning the following day. Then I’d head home and try to catch a nap. All day long I’d stay in touch with Alex by email, culminating at night in my final missive of the day which contained my thoughts about what the nighttime cable shows had covered. I’d say that on a typical day, about 50 percent of the next program was set by the time I’d go to sleep, and the other 50 percent was determined before sunrise based on the morning newspapers, blogs and talking points from affinity groups like the RNC, NRA, and Human Events. Each of them had me on an email alert list, and not a day went by when they weren’t alerting me to something sneaky that the Democrats were up to.
It took me about a year to get my mental grasp of the issues and feel comfortable spouting what Phil was telling me to say about politics. Morning Power didn’t hit its stride in time for the 2008 presidential election, but things really clicked in the fall of 2010, a watershed election featuring the Tea Party which provided me with radio gold on a daily basis. Nearly two years into the Obama Administration, the “hope” hype had worn thin with listeners, most of whom never liked him to begin with. The economy sucked. Spending seemed out of control. The deficit was growing. And unemployment was nearly 10 percent. Our listeners were super pissed, and licking their chops for the chance to throw out of office the man many of them figured was born in Kenya and secretly a practicing Muslim. After all, that’s what I’d told them. But at the time, we thought that would have to wait two years. So instead our collective sights were set on Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and anyone who had ever been in their company. The voter angst spawned the Tea Party movement, and I was there from the start. We all were—those of us taking our cues from Phil. It often made me wonder whether the whole thing was his creation.
Around that time, Phil came up with this ingenious idea for me to do a slew of personal appearances at businesses that promised to fly the Gadsden flag, the distinctive historical marker with a rattlesnake against a yellow background with the words “Don’t Tread on Me”. This publicity campaign was a huge hit. And WRGT’s head of sales, Don Fortini was ringing the register every time I would venture out. For a payment to the station that was initially just $500, I’d show up in the afternoon, having mentioned the visit on Morning Power, and standing next to the owner of the business, I’d hoist the flag. At first, tens of listeners would show up to watch me hoist a flag and leave with one of their own with WRGT emblazoned across the bottom. Then the crowds started building, and the WRGT price for advertisers kept rising. Next it was $750, then $1,000. Eventually it would grow to $5,000, not chump change for a mid-sized market, especially when we were doing these daily. One day outside a gun show, we crossed the 1,000-attendee threshold. And by the time the election rolled around, I was routinely drawing crowds in the few thousands. These Gadsden
flags were everywhere around Tampa Bay, and the beauty of the effort was that people gave the station, and my program in particular, credit for any yellow flag they saw, even if the flag’s owner had never heard the show.
It wasn’t long before the local network affiliates took note. Every time we did a hoisting, they were there with a camera. Eventually their film footage of thousands of Floridians demanding relief from the federal government made its way to nightly national newscasts, and the cable stations. And more times than I could count, I was asked for comment. The whole thing got a bit scary. I’d MC these rallies where crowds got worked into a frenzy with their opposition to the White House. The mere mention by me of words like “socialism” and “Obamacare” would rile the troops. Although they didn’t run the same flag campaign, it was the same frenzy being created by Phil’s guys across the country.
“We need to take back our country,” I’d rail outdoors, never explaining exactly from whom or what I was talking about. It didn’t matter.
“Maybe our president needs a history lesson. There is precedent for how the citizens of this country will act when confronted with a detached government which tramples on our God-given freedoms” was one of my standards from the flag events. The crowd would roar.
And people went crazy. Some crossed the line and said some nasty shit about the president while cloaking themselves in a misunderstanding of the Founding Fathers. Because I knew that I was partly responsible for inspiring them, I felt publicly obligated to defend their behavior, which only caused my stomach to turn. Good thing none of them was peering over my shoulder after I closed the curtain and cast my own ballot.
Not that I was thrilled with two years of Obama’s change, if what it meant was that one out of ten Americans would remain unemployed and that entitlement spending wouldn’t be reigned in. One thing I meant when I said it was that government spending was way out of control.
But what I firmly believed and didn’t say was that eight years of George W. Bush’s spending, including an unfunded drug mandate, with Republican concurrence, and the initiation of two wars without end were what put us in the economic crapper. That, and all those pinstriped thieves on Wall Street who took advantage of deregulation and caused the bottom to fall out of the banking business while continuing to pay themselves record bonuses. Yes, Obama inherited a shitstorm. But I didn’t dare express that view, especially as the passion from the public outbursts continued to drive my ratings through the roof.
The most amazing part was that a guy like me, admittedly a quick study but still with a very limited understanding of government, could so quickly be taken seriously as a political commentator. Somehow the possession of a microphone in this country confers Ph.D.-like powers on its wielder, regardless of the subject. (What exactly did four years of high school in Ft. Myers, pouring beers at Shooter’s and eventually spinning vinyl in Pittsburgh teach me about global warming? Thank Christ no one ever asked.) Think about the big names in the business and go online and check out their backgrounds. You’re not going to find a depth of education and experience in the subject area for which they are now known. Instead, you’re going to find individuals who didn’t vote, did serious drugs, and worked construction. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making a holier-than-thou pitch. I’m just saying the minute you have a microphone in front of you, a portion of the public believes you to be eminently qualified to offer expertise on anything, and that’s a scary thought. For my program, I had lots of help. Phil initially schooled me daily, and then at a reduced schedule of several times a week in the early months. Alex would email to him our show outlines in advance and he’d weigh in on what issues to drive, and which to avoid. His advice was consistently about consistency.
“Read the Huffington Post and Salon.com only so you know what never to say,” he’d caution.
And he was forever drawing comparisons to my prior work as a DJ.
“Your job hasn’t changed,” I remember him telling me one day. “Just keep playing what they want to hear.”
CHAPTER 8
My iPhone rang the moment I walked in my condo. I looked down, relieved to see that it was Carl and not Phil. The moment I said “hello” it hit me that I’d have to explain why I couldn’t hang out with him and Clay tonight, even though I was hoping to keep a low profile at the same bar with an important guest. The call was awkward.
“What do you mean you’re not coming to Delrios?”
“Well, actually I might be there, but I have some radio horseshit to deal with.”
Weak. Clay and Carl knew I valued Delrios for the exact opposite reason. Because it was an oasis where I did not have deal with any radio horseshit.
“Oh.”
Pause.
“Everything okay?” Carl asked. “This will be the second time in a few weeks that you’ve ditched us.”
“Yeah, it’s some work-related shit about the election,” I said, trying desperately to make it all sound uninteresting, and probably failing. But good guy that he is, Carl let me off the hook.
The usual drill was for Carl, Clay and me to meet sometime around 8 o’clock. That was when Susan was due to arrive, so tonight, I made sure to get there by 7:30 so as to increase my odds of grabbing a booth way in the back, which is where she told me to be. By 7:35, I was secure in a fairly private spot, clutching the first of many Buds and staring at an empty shot glass. I had my back to the rear wall with a clear view of the front door. The place was three-quarters full, which was typical for a Tuesday night because of the drink specials. And like clockwork, at the stroke of 8, the door opened and in walked my usual drinking buddies. They saddled up to the bar about 50 feet from me, which meant they had a clear view of the door and sightlines all the way to the men’s room, near where I sat. There were plenty of people standing and drinking, so the view wasn’t unobstructed, but it made me nervous just the same. I had no idea how’d I’d explain my guest if they spotted me and dropped by the table.
By 8:15, nothing had changed. But when my watch said 8:17, the door opened and in walked a woman who was trying desperately to look nondescript without success. She was wearing jeans and a baseball cap pulled down to her ears, with her dirty blond hair in a ponytail. She paused inside the door, presumably to let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting and then walked toward me with a sense of purpose pretending not to notice the eyes that looked up from the bar. My eyes immediately went to Clay and Carl. Lucky for me they were busy talking to two women I didn’t recognize. Susan Miller had been all over the news but always in much different attire. The only person who I detected doing a double take was the bartender, Ralph, who never missed a trick. He looked at her, then looked at me, and then quickly averted his gaze like he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to have. Maybe I was reading into it. Maybe not. Either way, that was going to cost me an extra C-note at Christmas.
I watched Susan draw near with her fitted t-shirt and designer jeans tightly hugging her chest and thighs, and tried to act nonplussed as she slid into the wooden banquet. Holy shit it wasn’t easy. Especially when the intoxicating green eyes I remembered so well settled in less than 24 inches from mine. Very lightly made up. Jesus, she was still beautiful.
I told her that I’d had a head start and she obliged by ordering a chardonnay. I couldn’t help but ask if she’d had trouble finding the place, again wondering why she’d been so familiar with the neighborhood.
“Nope, not at all,” was all she said.
I pushed.
“You’ve been here before?” I asked incredulously.
“Stan, I’ve been all over Florida,” she laughed. “Do you know how many events I attend?”
Oh come on, I thought. There was no way she’d ever done a political event in this dive. If I’d offered to meet her at the Pinellas County Court House, a few blocks over, and she said she knew the place, that’d be understandable. If I’d said we’ll grab a drink at Bob Heilman’s Beachcomber, and she’d responded, “Oh yeah, over on Mandalay,” I’d get it
. There were plenty of iconic spots with which a Florida first lady would be familiar. But for her to say she knew Delrios, a place notable only for its cross section of bikers, hookers, and professionals looking to get lost, that was significant. In fact, the only thing noteworthy in this neighborhood was the Church of Scientology.
And then it hit me. That proximity could explain a lot. And maybe the proof had been staring me right in the face.
The item had come to me like so many other tidbits of information on which I had traded. Listeners were always handing me stuff when I would appear at events. All sorts of chatchkas: political buttons; bumper stickers, looooong typewritten letters mostly about their legal plights, books they hoped I would read (both the published and unpublished), t-shirts advertising bars and restaurants, and lots of business cards were the norm. Same as the mail that came to the studio. In the mail, I’d also receive many birthday and Christmas cards from total strangers, a nice gesture from some who listened to Morning Power and felt a proprietary interest in the program and me. Sometimes nice, handwritten notes would arrive thanking me for particular radio segments. And there was always a steady stream of postcards with simple messages like “You are a jerkoff” or “I will always remember your name.” Additionally, people were always mailing or handing me conspiracy stuff. There was always a tendency to just shit-can it all, but much like sorting through Phil’s advice, it was important to pay attention to all of it, lest I miss a nugget of information worthy of discussion on air. After all, I need to fill 20 hours of content per week, so I always need to be on the lookout for new material.
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