This is the third in a gripping series about my experiences on an internet radio station called SignOnRadio.com

Right off, I am going to throw a fast one down the middle when I tell you that a major, major mystery guest called me and signed in on “SignOn” for this Wednesday’s show.

He is the hottest man on the tube, and the fact that he took the time to call is a sensory overload. You will agree when I reveal his identity on my show, Wednesday the 19th at 1p-3p. Pacific Time.

As a bonus with cheese I will now give you the scripted “bit” that he and I perform.. Then, I will tell you his identity later in this piece. You are an insider so I am letting you in on this.


The “bit” is: I start off the show Wednesday the 19th by telling my audience, “Just call me toll free at 866 818 6384 and tell me any problem that is jerking your chain, and I will solve it for you.”

I already had this guest on the line to prevent an overload of the phone calls, and after a minute or so, I pick up the phone and “Hello, You are LIVE on the line.” Here follows the scripted “bit.”

Caller: Is this Happy Hare?

Hare: Yes

Caller: I heard you say that you could solve any problem. Is that ANY problem?

Hare: Yeah. What’s happening?

Caller: Well, I was in my garden when I saw this MEDfly, Happy Hare and she’s…..pregnant. I love her. I even gave her a name. Say hello, Bertha.

Bertha (SFX, sounds like a whoopee cushion)

Hare Hello Bertha

Caller: You gotta help me, Happy Hare

Hare: Well I don’t think I ever solved a pregnant medfly problem before. Is she in pain?

Caller: No, I gave her some MEDiprin. But, I don’t know what to do about her.

And when the neighbors heard about her, they started demanding that I swat her. But, she’s a mother and all. I don’t know what to do.

Bertha: (SFX)

Hare: She sounds depressed. I think She needs to get away. Give her a trip. I know. Call Club MED.

Caller: (indignant) That’s not funny.

Bertha (SFX)

Hare: I’m sorry, but I don’t have any idea about what to do for a pregnant MEDfly.

Caller: I thought maybe you could give me the name of someone who could help deliver her baby.

Hare: I never heard of anyone who could deliver Medfly babies.

Caller: I think they call ‘em MEDwives.

Bertha SFX

Hare (suspicious) Hey wait a minute…(It dawns on me) Regis?

Regis: What?

Hare: It’s Regis Philbin…

Regis: Howja guess?

Regis and I will have a brief adlib exchange, then I’ll gratefully send him on his way to prep for his new show, “Million Dollar Password,” coming up soon.

He has lined up Brad Pitt, the hottest man in the known world to guest with him and Kelly in their Christmas Special. And…and…

Regis will man the Red Carpet this coming year at the annual Academy Awards.

Despite being one of the most in-demand performers on television, he has never turned me down when I call asking for his help. His aide, Barbara Warren, tells me that he has a standing order to let him know when I want anything.

This included his getting Kelly Ripa on camera with him during a break in their “Live with Regis and Kelly” show and congratulating me on two occasions: my Lifetime Achievement Award in San Diego and the 2006 induction into the Radio Television Hall of Fame of Ohio..

We go back. I was often on TV with him here in San Diego where he was just beginning his dazzling career He was the host of a weekly television show in which he did much the same act as he does now, simply walking on and charming the audience. Actually it was no “act.” He is really like that.

Launched in San Diego, his own personal JATO has soared him to heights yet to reach their zenith.

He has not changed personality through the years, and his audience has never tired of him. He defies the standing show biz rule that you have to reinvent yourself occasionally in order to stay on top. Not so with Regis. Thanks, Reege.

I am looking forward to having Mark Ramsey as my SignOnRadio.com guest in mid-January. He is the president of both hearz2.0 and Mercury Radio Research.

Mark, a weekly contributor to Radio Daily News, is gifted with a clairvoyance into the media future..

Ramsey is the oracle who will tell you about the tools that are rapidly approaching the market that will put the power in your hands. In his most recent RDN piece, he predicts that, with the proliferation of Ipods and other tools of the devil, music radio will fade.

Although he has, for some time, predicted this apocalypse, he most recently saw his stygian vision reinforced at a Sean Hannity appearance at Arbitron’s consultant fly-in.

Hannity proclaimed, in his strident tones, that music radio was on the way out and talk would be “in” with even greater presence..

I agree, sort of, and this is why I am blazing a new trail that will meld both talk and music radio.

Music, talk and news. I call it “Newsic Radio” for want of a better name.

Music and talk combined: I have been advocating this approach for some years, along with a broadening of the narrow music lists that constrict most of radio presently.

Write this down. There is no reason why you can’t play music in a talk show or talk during a music show. If you listen to most talkers, they run out of gas during their shows, and begin to repeat themselves. Time to take a short music break so they can oxygenate

Talk radio will continue to grow beyond its current dimension. Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh will soon have company they didn’t anticipate………. you and others with long repressed desires to express their opinions beyond the confines of their living rooms.

It is only a slight exaggeration that two out of three people in the country will soon have a talk show. Right this very minute, if you are standing in the company of two others and they don’t have one, you will soon have one and don’t quite know it yet. I am almost not kidding.

Currently. there are roughly 5% on the right and slightly less on the left that is represented by a talk show. That leaves 90% of this country that has not yet been served by talk radio. I’m waiting for the gifted talker who can explain things with an even hand.

Do those two extremes choke off opinion? Here is a simple test. Call Sean Hannity and ask him to predict on the air who will win the presidency in the upcoming election.

As daring as he was about foretelling the death of music radio, you would have to water board him to make him name either Hillary or Barack.

By the way, I admire Hannity and Rush, just making a point.

Soon, there will be a third political party or even more, composed of people who have felt left out of the process. They want to be heard.. My efforts on SignOnOnRadio.com will be aimed at empowering them .

The way this internet radio station came together is a story unto itself. Ron James, the newly appointed Content Manager of the San Diego Union Tribune’s SignoOnRadio.com produced a salute to a cadre of jocks who had created a blast that turned out to be not just from the past, but to this very day.

Ron is the Syndicated Wine Columnist for the Copley News Service. He’s never been in radio, which turns out to be a virtue.

We were…the nationally renowned team of Charlie and Harrigan, Ken Copper, Clark Anthony, and me in a gala al fresco afternoon at San Diego State, in which fine foods and wine, created by the leading gourmet chefs in southern California, were served to a vast gathering of former listeners.

To our surprise, hundreds showed, cheering lustily as we came on stage to be saluted. It was like time had stood still all those years.

Witnessing the reaction we got, despite our many years of absence away from the airwaves, Ron gathered us up and turned us loose to do our thing on their new internet radio station.

Chris Jennewein is the Union Tribune’s Vice President of Internet Operations.

I devoted extra space to this because it is an historic event: a newspaper company, launching an internet radio station.

On another burning issue, I will soon suggest a solution that may well clear the logjam between the record companies and radio music streamers.

The music people insist on getting paid for their music by streamers, many of whom can barely pay their electric bill. That way lies madness. The solution is so simple.

Both sides are like those two prehistoric beasts fighting on the edge of the cliff in the old movie “King Kong, ” There’s that scene where they lock in mortal combat and heave each other over the cliff in a prehistoric no-win..

Haven’t we evolved in thousands of years? I realize that we haven’t risen above killing each other in mortal combat, but I had hoped that this tragedy did not extend to the matter of music royalties. There is a civilized solution. More next week.

I like to evoke a broad perspective, sometimes stealing from the best. Randy Michaels checks in with what we were saying only 52 years ago.

"I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00."

"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"

"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage."

"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."

"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying “Damn” in “Gone With The Wind”, it seems every new movie has either hell or damn in it."

"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President."

"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."

"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."

"Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more, those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."

"I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."

"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."

"If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."


“Everybody’s talkin’ at me. I don’t hear a word they’re sayin.”….. Harry Nilsson