THE ARENA

I am big on slogans, phrases and blurbs. Much of my time has been spent motivating people. Stimulating those in the biz, to draw attention to one of our enterprises. Or one-on-one, to people I'm giving advice, whether solicited or not. When I arrived in L.A. in 1965, the job was to get KHJ out of the gutter. And we indeed actually went from worst to first. In a field of over 40 stations in May, KHJ came out of the toilet to become the #1 station in "Boss Angeles" by October.

When I was assigned a cubicle called an office at 5515 Melrose Avenue, the small size meant nothing. I was there. It was my opportunity, the shot, that mattered. I was finally in the Big Game: time to put up or shut up. First thing I did was hang some stuff on the wall. I knew it was going to be a battle. Good to have some motivational material displayed in the bunker. I posted a copy of the L.A. radio ratings. In those days ratings were compiled by a company called C. E. Hooper. How unsophisticated they, compared with today's methods and resulting displays. Hooper hired people to call anyone listed in the phone book. "What radio station are you listening to?," they asked. The time of day and name of the station were noted and written down. That was it. There were no "demographics." No one knew what the word meant, back then.

Hooper issued three numbers for each station in a town, before they were called "markets." One was for alleged morning listening, from 7:00 am till noon. Afternoons were defined as from noon till 6 pm. Night time comprised 6 pm till midnight. The respondents' numbers were converted into an "Average Share (of 100%)" and that was how ad budgets and programming were determined. Period. 

I made a chart showing KHJ's average number. It was a 0.3. Which meant one-third of every 100 people in the area listened to the grinding, stiff 1940s-type programming the station was broadcasting. (I guess, considering KHJ was one of the nation's first stations, coming on in 1922, that could be considered "modern.") One program originated from the bedroom of Steve Allen and wife Jayne Meadows. Now, Steve Allen was and is one of my all-time major idols. But by '65, when the Beatles breakthrough was already a year old, a breakfast-in-bed show was a bit, uh, moldy.

As program director, one of my first assignments was to fire Michael Jackson. No, not that Michael Jackson. The perfomer-turned-Weird-Creature was all of six-years-old then. The elder Mr. Michael Jackson, was and is, one of radio's pioneer talk show hosts. The classy Brit simply moved to another L.A. station when released and was a major radio force there for years. (Rush Limbaugh was 14-years-old at the time Jackson was stylishly inventing two-way talk radio).

My Hooper chart showed the previous ratings and then, like a baseball scorecard, had blank slots for the next 12 months. Next I put up a picture of my mentor, guru and idol. When it came to drawing crowds and shining the spotlight on the object of his choice: Colonel Thomas A. Parker, the manager of Elvis, was in a class by himself. By being in the right place at the right time, something for which I thank God daily since it's happened so often, my buddy Tom Moffatt and I met Presley and Colonel in 1957. How we did it is indeed another story. A wild one, which I finally wrote and was published, first in a magazine, then online. But, that's another subject for another time.

The fact is that within 24 hours of meeting Colonel and his only client, the most amazing performer I've ever seen--and that includes a whole bunch over the years--Moffatt and I emceed Elvis' two shows in Honolulu Stadium, November 9, 1957. The biggest crowds ever in this then-territory (statehood was still two years away) went, as it was then called, Ape Shit. I witnessed mass hysteria. People turning berserk over a raw electric performance by a swinging cat in a gold lame jacket and his three backup musicians. Young girls going orgasmic in ways I never imagined. And the men and boys cheered as if their football team had come back to win at the final gun after being down three touchdowns going into the final quarter.

I'm always interested in process. The part of me that wasn't also rockin' like never before, studied the Colonel and how he ran the entire operation. Elvis was as spontaneous as any performer I've seen. But much of his show was a careful, oft-rehearsed drill, which was run as if Vince Lombardi was driving the great Green Bay Packer teams over-and-over through their basic plays, down to every movement and when it would  happen. No coincidence that the Pack destroyed their opponents in the first two Super Bowls ever played.

Our local NFL team served as a metaphor for what we were attempting. The 1964 Rams stunk. Soon a new coach with a new system was installed. They became winners and were playing for championships within two seasons. And the Lakers, Dodgers, USC Trojan and UCLA Bruin teams were not doing badly, either. My job perks allowed me to watch NBA playoff games from courtside, sit behind home plate during a World Series, attend a few Rose Bowls and see O. J. Simpson when his name was synonymous with grace, speed and elusiveness on the football field.

Most people don't realize--and why should they--that a radio station's "team" of deejays are never together at the same time, in the same place. When the all night man is sleeping the midday jock is on the air, etc. But we held DJ meetings every two weeks during my years there. KHJ had great swing men 0n my watch. When our meetings took place, usually around 10:oo am, in a wood-paneled conference room, the swing guy filled in on the air. The meetings were taped so that he could get a sense of both the information and the mood of the event.

The last item I posted on my office wall was something I remembered from long ago, first reading it in Punahou School's Cooke Library. To me, "Roosevelt" first was the president in office when I was born: Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was a deity to my parents and almost every adult I knew. Then there was Roosevelt High School, the mortal rival down Nehoa Street from Punahou's large, lush campus. When I finally shifted there from the "elite private school" (whose most famous grad currently is Barack Obama), I learned that the place was named after the 26th president of the United States, who preceded FDR and was his major role model. The public school's teams were called the Rough Riders. This I learned when history was taught seriously and the Internet was inconceivable, let alone available to instantly Google anything one needs to know.

I began at KHJ after coming off 30 days in Honolulu's Halawa Jail. Sounds dramatic but it was a now-ridiculous drug bust (possession of three milligrams of marijuana) on a federal charge, no less. But that, too, is another story. In Hollywood I was out to prove everything, to everyone. I remembered "Teddy" Roosevelt's exploits, especially his winning battles in the Spanish-American War. He was a Leader. He inspired his troops. And he was a winner. At the neighborhood library, off Sunset Boulevard, I found a copy of perhaps TR's most famous quotes. Copied it down. Back at the office I typed it in capital letters and tacked that sheet of paper to the wall, where it stayed during my four years there. 

The Hooper ratings turned into winning numbers in the fall of 1965 and remained on top. But whenever something seemingly tough, an "overwhelming obstacle" was tossed in our path, I read President Roosevelt's kickass words of wisdom, and came out of my office fighting. Here they are, from a speech that TR gave in Paris on April 23, 1910.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points our how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory not defeat.

I didn't print that out and put it on the wall when we began WhodaguyHawaii last July. I know those words by heart now. I also know that they are the stone cold truth. So many mahalo to my pen pal over many years, Marc Schoenitzer in Northern California, for the email he sent. It reminds me of all my personal ups and downs. I've had a bunch of  both. Trust me, up is better.