The Latest Buzz on Buzz

Last week, I told you that in late I970, while I was at KCBQ in San Diego, Buzz Bennet, the new PD, stormed into the station and summarily fired me. He has since disappeared from public view. If anyone knows where he is, they aren’t talking.

Thirty six years have mellowed me. Now, in place of major irk, there is a residue of warmth.

Reminiscing about Buzz somehow reminds me of a Fidel Castro parable, that led to a resultant softening of my hard feelings toward him...

The story goes that two CIA men had been dispatched to Cuba to whack Castro.

Intelligence briefs them that he will be passing by a cross roads outside of Havana at 2pm that day They jump into their low profile ‘54 Chevy, typical of most of the cars in Havana, and chug to the place where he will be passing.

They secret themselves behind a boulder with a broad view of the road where he will pass, take out their sniper rifles, assemble them, zero them for range and windage, then settle down and wait.

2 pm comes…and goes…and no Fidel. They look at each other, and shrug. Maybe he is running a little late. Then 2:30, 3:00 ,3:20 and no Fidel.

Finally one guy, with concern on his face, looks to the other and says, “Gee! I hope nothing happened to him.

That is how I feel about Buzz. I hope he’s okay.

In last week’s rending adventure, I paid off the 1969-70 KCBQ leg of my career by explaining that I had made the mistake of suggesting to GM Dick Casper that he double my salary after two successful years in the morning.

I did this only after a series of conversations with my major friend General Sales Manager Mike Stafford, who wanted to stay out of it, but reluctantly assured me that, yes, I was bringing in a lot of money based strictly on my presence there. Time to pounce.

No one else knew it then, but here I am revealing it 36 years later, that Buzz Bennett, the PD of rival KGB, was holding secret meetings with Casper, telling him that he could bring in five fine jocks for much less money than I wanted. Casper jumped at it

To his credit, Dick Casper tipped me off about his agreement with Buzz, prepping me for my fateful meeting with him. Armed with this foreknowledge, I had girded my loins for the firing, and managed to weather Bennett’s five second purge with great aplomb.

Of course, I felt a sense of loss and a feeling that I had been an idiot for demanding money a doubling of my salary. But it was done, and now what?

That first night I lay beside Carol in a fetal position. I said, “I feel like a fool, darling. What am I gonna do?” It was a cheap petition for pity, but I didn’t care. She sighed, sat up in the bed, looked deeply into my eyes for a moment, then handed me a length of flossing tape. “Here,” she said,” Floss.”

To her, flossing had become a nightly ritual. Scroll to her picture in the chapter titled “Happy Hare’s Trifecta.” Check out her teeth. Perfectly flossed.

Now when young jocks ask me,” What is the most important thing that I should do to get started, Hare?.” I always reply, “Start with Flossing.” My smile is blinding.

By the way, she’s right. Your teeth are connected to your heart.

Fast Forward…

Carol and I spent the better part of that year traveling. Professionally, I wrote and voiced national commercials and liners.

During that year, a number of offers came in from imposing markets, including a plum job in San Diego. In 1971, V.P./G.M. Peter Lund, offered me the morning host gig at KSDO News, which he ran at the time in his preparation for future greatness as President of CBS, Inc. .

I wound up taking another path, but will always be grateful to Peter for his vote of confidence in that down period. Our friendship endures to this day.

Now that I have built you up about the power of my prestige, this is the time to confess to you the truth of how I originally got hired at KCBQ in 1968..

As a preface, I refer you to the words of the writer, Henry James who wrote: “Three things in human life are the most important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”

Flashback! Before the KCBQ gambit, having just returned from a wildly fulfilling seven years in the Midwest I was conflicted about what to do.

Like most true blue jocks. I loved being on the air, cracking a mike and saying things, but no local offers were coming in and going to a station manager with hat in hand was demeaning, so I spent my time percolating and thinking about what else I wanted to do with my life, besides radio.

In 1968, after almost a year, KCBQ’s boss, Dick Casper, unexpectedly called, inviting me to dinner with National PD George Wilson to discuss going on the air mornings. I covered that last week, but not how it came about.

Like I said, it wasn’t because I had returned as “the conquering hero,” or that major ad agencies had called Casper promising big buys if he would hire me.

It was because of Millie.

Millie Mather had been in charge of KCBQ traffic in the latter 50’s when I did mornings. She manually juggled logs long before computers mindlessly logged spots, often in a jumble devoid of spot separation..

Mille stoically took orders no matter how late, say at 5 pm on a Friday, and rearranged the log in order to place the spots in an orderly manner.

I watched her take late orders, maybe several 20 and 30 spot orders, or even 10 Premium rated spots demanding priority attention, handling all with smiling grace, because, it was her job and she took pride in it,

I was often the culprit who generated those pesky orders and out of admiration and gratitude, took to bringing her flowers, sincerely telling her how lucky the station was to have her.

I gave her a heartfelt humble thank you dinner when I left for New York in 1960.

I also admired Mike Stafford, then the Local Sales Manager, who daily left his desk, to venture out and sell. He wasn’t just a dynamic executive, but the best “street fighter” I ever saw.

Mike was a beach boy type with shoulder length golden tresses, a deep tan set off by his shining white teeth who looked like he had just jumped on a surfboard and was looking for that next big one. In his case, the next big one was an order.

All the buyers, nationally and locally, melted before him. There was one very tough national New York buyer who controlled a fortune.. He owned her. A devout Catholic, she said he reminded her of those pictures of the young Jesus. Of course, she gave the Lord a lot of orders.

Mike was my one confidante. We all need at least one. He knew about my untimely demand of Casper that he cough up more money. He cautioned me about Casper. that Dick was no one to toy with. But the deed was done, and my demand was firmly in place..

I trusted Mike, because we had a lot of history together. When I was a “star,” and he was a street salesman I went with him on calls, helping him for the best of reasons. He was special, and fun to be with. More about him next week.

As I have told you. my return to the air was not due to Dick Casper being aware of my vast potential, He had never heard of me…until Millie first approached him in the hall and began sweetly suggesting that he was missing a great opportunity.

“Happy Hare is in town,” this radiant woman would coo to this tough minded guy. She promised that I would push the station over the top in the ratings. I was unaware that she was lobbying for me.

At that time in 1968, KCBQ was ranked fifth having bogged down from #1, since I had left for the Midwest in 1961. After several weeks of Millie’s relentless campaigning, he buckled.

Millie Mather, not I, was the one who got me the job. While I treated her kindly as a matter of course, I did not realize what a powerful spiritual force I was unleashing.

Next week I will tell you about more “Be Kinds” which greatly enhanced my life. Henry James was right.

Within a year of my scourging, both Casper and Bennett were mysteriously ousted .Through the years, I have heard a number of conflicting versions of the fate that befell both, told by sincere honest co-workers claiming to have been on-the-scene witnesses.

It is like they were all characters in the Akira Kurosawa movie,

“Roshomon”, in which a prominent Samurai was murdered and his wife raped by Tajomaru, a notorious bandit. Four eye witnesses, including the ghost of the murdered man appeared at the murderer’s trial, and they all disagreed greatly on the details of the murder.
Most “truths” don’t spring from corporal humans, but from their egos attempting to shape the best version of what happened in order to protect their host bodies. That is the driving force of humanity..

The 36 year old cover story is that Dick Casper was unfairly fired within a year after having fired me, and that Buzz Bennett resigned out of loyalty to Casper, the man who had hired him, and that his faithful jock followers, joined him in mass protest. It is a drama straight out of “Roshomon.“

Next week, I will reveal the facts, but now, a “Tease.”

Bring up the music and fade)

Hare: “Time has dulled the original patina, revealing the unvarnished truth about Casper and Bennett which I will reveal to you next week.”

(Hit the post)

Trivia Question answer from last week….

The question was, “Who was the young guy who picked Dick Casper’s music when Casper left San Diego, and managed WMYQ in Miami?

The first respondent was Rollye James who wrote,” It was Lee Abrams. We thought he was a college kid. We didn’t know he was still in high school.”

Jerry Coleman scores the National Radio Hall of Fame

You may recall my piece on Jerry Coleman a few weeks back. I turned out to be prescient. Jerry has been elected into the National Radio Hall of Fame. He will, no doubt, handle this the way he does all his accolades. To hear him tell it, he booted every slow roller that ever came his way, despite being known as one of the all-time great Yankee second basemen playing during the DiMaggio, Mantle, Whitey Ford era. Jerry was a highly decorated dive bomber pilot during WW11 and Korea, who tries to duck out when his war record is mentioned publicly He is a hugely revered San Diego Padres play by play man.. Scroll down a few chapters under this one, and click onto, “Oh Doctor! Hang a Star on Jerry Coleman.”

Randy Michaels checks in with:

A 2007 study shows that the average American walks 900 miles a year, drinks 22 gallons of beer per year, giving him an average of 41 miles per gallon.