RADIO SALARIES (THE LISTENER'S TONQUE)

Sometime in the 1970s my second wife found a huge stack of a magazines from the 1930s called RADIO STARS and gave them to me on my birthday. The vintage magazines went into storage in 1997. Flash forward to 2010, when I was forced by a house fire to move to this new place I'm in. Damn, that means going through boxes of stuff, sorting through aging material of every type possible, choosing what to keep here and what to send off to join my lifetime stash of eclectic acquisitions.

Doing this, I came upon a Xerox I made of the story below and immediately began to type it, letter by letter. Suddenly I found myself channeling the writer with each tap of the keyboard. I was there--in the ambiance of the times, several years before I was born. New York and Los Angeles were the media centers of the US. And I felt I was there, digging the happenings, trying to imagine what these people were like and wondering what they and their programs sounded like. Below is article is about radio 80 years ago, when it was only ten years old, way back, when "Big Bucks" were humungously huge. So let's go back in time . . .

Maybe you don’t believe radio is the highest paying field in the world.

You will, after reading this.

By Jack Foster, Radio Editor, New York World Telegram

Will Rogers (below) made his last commercial radio appearance on CBS with The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air and an amusing situation developed. To put the moral first: His pride was greater than the $7,600 he would receive for the last two of his contracted broadcasts. And so he resigned, resigned because he was cut off the air at the end of six minutes to chatter on his second program.

You see, Mr. Rogers had been signed for four microphone appearances from Los Angeles at $3,800 each. Well, the sponsor felt that six minutes time would be amusing, but that if he strung on he would destroy the tempo of the half hour. That’s exactly what happened on the first program when Will spoke more wordily than well. And following this initial performance he was asked to submit a manuscript so that he might be clocked. No, he said; this would be impossible. He preferred to speak extemporaneously. Therefore, the sponsor before this second broadcast instructed the California announcer to clip him off on top of a laugh if he exceeded his six minutes., well enough, but it wasn’t until he reached home that his best friends told him what had happened. And was he mad! He was through.

It was a strange situation, wasn’t it, in which the employee wanted to work harder than he was paid for and the employer would have nothing of it. Maybe radio stars don’t know anything about money.

Don’t they? Well, that eminent Scotsman, Sir Harry Lauder ought to. And apparently his celebrated Scotch instincts did not desert him when he went about signing contracts for the air because, he too, received several of those $15,000-for-fifteen-minutes assignments. But here is a fact that never has been printed: One of those $15,000 checks he turned over to a Scottish relief organization of New York without a word, least of all to the press.

Will Rogers and Sir Harry are tops so far as salaries for a single radio broadcast is concerned. George Engles, of the National Broadcasting Co., did hold out for $25,000 for a single broadcast by the eminent Polish pianist, Ignace Paderewski, the only great musician who never has broadcast in America, but he found no buyers.

Another unusual wage arrangement is that under which Graham McNamee (right) works. The original radio idol, Mr. McNamee, you might suppose, would receive a huge weekly pay check. But this is by no means the case. The fact is, his salary, which is little more than a retainer, is said to be about $100 a week. Here is how he makes the money that enables him to live in a luxurious apartment in the upper West Side Manhattan:

For each commercial program that he announces—and he has three at present—he receives $250. This, you see, amounts to $39,000 a year. For making Universal news reels he earns $75,000 a year. Altogether, then, even though lots of listeners believe he has passed the peak of his popularity, this is a greater income than he has receive d at any previous period of his career.

He never, you know, was paid a penny, aside from traveling expenses, for his description of sports and other national events. These he covered solely as a means of increasing his prestige, by keeping his name on the listener’s tongue, and they do say that the listener’s tongue said lots about him following the last Sharkey-Schmeling bout broadcast. (This video is like a reverse-karaoke trip, allowing you to announce along. There are other versions that feature German announcer, but no McNamee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcxYoN6-roA ) And by the way, do you know who pays for a fight broadcast? Well, the National Broadcasting Co, gives the Madison Square Garden Corp. $5,000 for the privilege of radioing an important contest. If it can, the NBC then sells the fight to a sponsor at the usual commercial rates plus the $5,000. This was done to the American Tobacco Co., you will recall, in the Sharkey-Schmeling fisticuffs. If, however, the NBC is unsuccessful in bartering the bout, it goes ahead with the broadcast, bearing all expenses itself.

Still another unusual salary arrangements, stranger than Graham McNamee’s, is that under which Arthur Tracy, the Street Singer, functions. Mr. Tracy has been going the rounds of the local New York stations without any great luck until he met up with Ed Wolfe, as booking agent and former manager of Vincent Lopez. Well, Mr. Wolfe saw the possibilities in the Jewish troubadour, signed him under a five-year contract with the guarantee that he would earn $150 a week at the end of a year and he would be entitled to a third of his salary. At the end of six months the Street Singer actually was averaging $52,000 a year and an attempt was made, though unsuccessfully, to break away from Mr. Wolfe.

On the same Columbia network sings Bing Crosby, (below) and his exact monetary status is only known to those in intimate radio circles. When Mr. Crosby came to New York several years ago he tried to induce the National Broadcasting Co. to pay him $150 a week, but they would have none of his type of singing. So he returned to California, sang in the Cocoanut Grove, a Los Angeles night club, earned considerable of a reputation for his boop-boop-a-dooping and returned a year and a half ago to Manhattan to try radio again.

This being a period when so-called trick and personality singers were the vogue, the Columbia Broadcasting System was eager to sign him. The salary figure given to the press was $1,500. But, the fact is, Columbia guaranteed him only $350 a week. However, he was soon hired by a commercial sponsor at $2,500 a week and shortly won a vaudeville contract at a salary something above this.

Now that Bing has made good he has returned to Los Angeles. It paid him to come to New York and will pay him to return to the home town. For they are counting heavily on him becoming a moving picture star. And, if what a film executive tells me is on the up and up, he has signed a most amazing contract. He will receive, they say, $300,000 for three movies to be made within a period of five years, the first of which will be The Big Broadcast. His theme song was not poorly chosen—“The gold of the day.”

Then there’s the story of Virginia Rea, whom you probably know best as Olive Palmer. Miss Rhea was receiving about $1,500 a week for the two or three songs she offered on the Wednesday night Palmolive Hour. But when time came for the renewal of contracts last fall she demanded $1,750, and Frank Munn, Paul Oliver to you, was after an increase, too. Well, the sponsor wasn’t sure he wanted to continue the series, anyhow, and when Miss Rea’s request came before the board of directors—of course, it may have been only a coincidence—but a decision was made there and then to drop these broadcasting activities. And Miss Rea’s dainty soprano was entirely off the air until July, when she signed for one series with Paul Whiteman and another with a commercial program.

But I have rambled on abominably long in telling you these stories, and I’ve amplified only a few of the notes on my desk. I haven’t told you about the Boswell Sisters (right), who receive $1,800 a week on the air and $4,000 to $5,000 a week on the stage; about Guy Lombardo, $1,500 on the air and $5,000 in vaudeville; about Eddie Cantor, $3,500, who wants the ante raised when he returns from picture making; about Morton Downey, $3,000 a week when he is on the air; about Harry Richman. $3,000; about Lawrence Tibbett, $4,000; or about Mme. Frances Alda, $4,000 for each of six broadcasts.

Yes, I must have a word about Mme. Alda. She had been signed, the studio legend goes, for $3,000 on each of those happily remembered Puccini Opera programs. But on the day before her first broadcast she announced that, if you asked her, her salary ought to be $1,000 higher. Well, there was nothing to do to meet here request. He picture had been published widely in the press, and the program could not go on without her. The series would cost $225,000 anyhow, and so, I suppose, an extra thousand here and there didn’t make a difference.

$1.00 in 1932 had about the same buying power as $14.79 in 2010. Which means that every thousand bucks back then, in the days before income tax, was worth $14,790. The 25 grand mentioned above was worth $369,750 today. My favorite example are those 15 big ones for a quarter-hour. That’s a 15-minute gig that paid $221,400 ... or, $885,600 an hour. Minus the infernal lights, wardrobe, makeup and Hi-Def to put up with, Seacrest and you'all AFTRA brothers and sisters.

PIGSKIN PARTIES PAU!

"Hawaii is is the home of the Pro Bowl. Over time the game has become a tradition and our residents should not grow accustomed to seeing it played away from Aloha Stadium." Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona - January 27, 2010

While America’s football fans ignore, or sleep through, the 2010 Pro Bowl, to be contested this year in Miami, most NFL players are even less enthusiastic about the move of this annual all-star game to—Florida?

Who dropped the ball? Was it the National Football League, PR purveyors of the “National Pastime,” they who operate the most sophisticated and pervasive hype machine in the history of media? Or, was it the Hawai’i officials who somehow fumbled this tradition, letting it slip away? Or, at this point, does throwing the flag even matter?

The fact is, that somehow, something awful has happened, in reverse. Like moving the Statue of Liberty to Manana Island. The Saint Louis arch to MacDonalds in Makakilo. Or the Golden Gate bridge over Kipapa Gulch? From global glamour to bush league demotion—and for what?

Players selected to this year’s Pro Bowl who happen to play for the Miami Dolphins will be honored for their achievements by traveling all the way—to work. The biggest stars have protested the move of their all-star game away from paradise. All season, announcers said things like, “Great play by #74! That might earn him a trip to Hawah ... uh, er, Miami this year.”

Since 1980, the Pro Bowl had been as synonymous with the 50^th state as are Diamond Head, hula-hula girls, lava flows, rainbows, the whole ten yards. Of more importance, the wondrous video views of Hawai’i featured during the four-hour Pro Bowl telecast were seen by millions of deprived football fans going cold turkey, some buried in snow or other freezing climes. Those 15-second bumper shots of “natives” blowing conch shells, riding the wild surf or jumping from cliffs, cost “nothing.”

Well, maybe not so if one is a bean counter. But, if the state paid “too much” for the privilege of hosting the Pro Bowl, all the “money spent by visitors attending the game” has to be many times more than what we taxpayers shelled out to bring the event here all those years. It was a feast in a state starved for a national professional franchise. Now, the game is a pupu preceding pigskin’s premier performance.

If the Pro Bowl annually “broke even,” by any calculation, in today’s Global Village how many positive “impressions” were made by the game while telecast from here with all its pursuant hype? It will be missed, in more ways than one. The NFL has its own network. Add up how much time this week is devoted on-air there, plus other sports channels and all other media. I have been to Miami. I have worked in Miami. It, to paraphrase a politician, “Is no Hawai’i.”

I also attended the 1971 Pro Bowl played in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The score was East 36, West 7. Jimmy Brown starred for the winners; Vince Lombardi coached the losers. The alleged crowd of 60,124 looked small in that vast arena built for the 1932 Olympics, which seated 101,574 people. It resembled a high school game played in Aloha Stadium. And attendance further shrank, until Hawai'i called. Driving to and from that boring Pro Bowl meant maneuvering through South Central L.A. onto multiple freeways. You think the H-1 is bad?

In 1969 I was in Miami when the Jets won Super Bowl III in the seedy Orange Bowl. Believe me, the palm trees, the sunshine and most of all the ocean there, can’t hold a Kindle to a Postcard from Paradise. Super Bowl XLIV will be, if nothing else, cost-effective; the Big Game will also be played a mere 160 hours later in Sun Life Stadium. It is located in on Dan Marino Boulevard in beautiful, downtown Opa-Locka, the population of which is 15,287, smaller than crowds at University of Hawai’i football games.

Will the businessmen, bureaucrats, ballplayers and broadcasters come to their senses and bring the Pro Bowl back home to Halawa—and stop this unexplainable madness? Or, alas, will some people never see the lehua for the ohia.

Sunday, since you will not be in Aloha Stadium, or maybe not watching the “big game” on TV, contemplate why the NFL, hopefully for just one year, insists on this reversal of fortune. And please let me know.

ALOHA, BIG KAHUNA

Chris "The Big Kahuna" Varez with his former wife and son Harry

December 2009

HONOLULU, January 24, 2010—Christian Eberhart Varez, 69, once known to millions of Southern California radio listeners as “The Big Kahuna,” died this morning on the island of Kaua’i.

Broadcast veteran Don McCoy, who attended the University of Southern California when “Boss Radio” signed on in 1965, calls the promotion, “The biggest and best external listener event in the history of L.A. radio.”

I have a been a friend of Chris and his older brother Dietrich, the noted Hawai’i Island print maker, for a half-century. The two brothers were born in a Berlin neighborhood when Hitler was on his way to taking Germany to Hell. Their father, Friedrich Donat, was a high-ranking civil engineer who designed landing fields for the Luftwaffe (the German air force), as well as Hitler’s underground headquarters, called Führerbun. Although not a member of the Nazi party, Donat could not leave the country in fear of Hitler’s wrath.

Father Friedrich and mother Ursula, a schoolteacher, clearly envisioned their homeland’s future. Leaving Herr Donat, she smuggled her sons out of Berlin in a large baby carriage. It also contained valuables and a gun under the blankets. She remarried Manuel Varez, a U. S. Army sergeant from Hawai’i. He supervised housing at Fort Kamehameha, on the banks of Pearl Harbor. Living there amongst the families of high-ranking officers, the young, German-speaking boys fell in love with the ocean, its creatures and ships of every type.

I met the Varez brothers when my new 1958 Pontiac Bonneville coupe was O'ahu’s king of the road. The beast was “souped up” in every manner possible until it was achieving about five miles a gallon, which cost 28 cents. Chris and his brother had moved to Kailua, on O’ahu’s windward side. The younger Varez’s part time job was working the late shift at the village’s only service station.

When word spread through Andy’s Drive-In that “Da Bonneville” was heading for Kailua town, usually at three o’clock in the morning, Chris raced back to work and turned on a gas pump for us. Back then, new racing parts required 200 miles of slow driving to break in, which meant cruising around the island several times, usually in the middle of the night.

Chris and I next encountered each other when I cast him to play the role of KHJ Radio’s “Big Kahuna.” Former KHJ listener and groupie, Kevin Gershan, now a producer for Entertainment Tonight and other TV shows, says, “At one point the Big Kahuna was bigger than all the Boss Jocks combined. Now, several of those deejays have stars on Hollywood Walk of Fame, but in the summer of 1966, in every high school from Santa Barbara to San Bernardino to San Diego, the Big Kahuna was king.”

The character was based on my Honolulu roots, plus dealing with a mythical machine that our competition presented during the 1963 Fresno County Fair. The clanking low-tech device was named the KYNO Money Monster. It handed out dollars bills while traipsing through the crowds. He was looked down on upon by our presentation: KMAK’s “Sunny Jim” Price, who was suspended five stories above the event, living for a week inside the KMAK Kruiser. Price went unnoticed because everyone on the midway was chasing the metallic monster.

Most West Coast native Hawaiians were concentrated in and around Orange County. These folks are typically shy types, with little desire for outlandish theatricality. Most of them could not visualize the weird things about to happen in the name of a kahuna (priest, sorcerer, magician, wizard, minister, expert in any profession, whether male or female.)

There were trepidations. Never would I use that word in a commercial context back home in Hawai’i. Fearful that I was bandying about the word in a rock’n’roll context would bring bad luck from across the Pacific Ocean, to Hollywood. In common usage today, the word kahuna has been replaced by kahu (honored attendant, guardian, nurse, keeper of ʻunihipili bones, regent, administrator, warden, caretaker, master, mistress; pastor, minister, reverend, or preacher of a church; one who has a dog, cat, pig, or other pet.)

Dreaming about all this in my office at 5515 Melrose Avenue, the big problem was finding an actor to play the part. Nowhere in the Screen Actor's Guild was a young dude who could pull this off. The gig would pay $400 a week plus use of a new Boss Mustang. But, I knew no one of Polynesian descent in the area. The character must speak authentic Hawai’i Pidgin English—and the quasi Polynesian, or Honolulu street names, that would become scripted words by Promotion Director Don Berrigan and myself: fake grunts, growls and giggles–in scripts to come. These lines had to be read in a studio or from a pay phone booth being knocked over by screaming teenagers. I located Chris in Chicago, where he was a roadie traveling with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. He instantly accepted my offer, flew to L.A., spent hours in a tanning salon and was outfitted at Western Costume to look as if he had just emerged from the mysterious jungle.

One day, KHJ chief production engineer Bill Mouzis (left) and I brought The Big Kahuna to Dodger Stadium to see the hottest team in baseball, led by their twin Hall of Fame pitchers, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. When the crowd first spotted Chris in his multi-colored feathered cape, whale bone neck pieces and tapa cloth sarong, most everyone took their eyes off the playing field and tried to get a look at, or autograph from, L.A.’s biggest radio star. The promotion ran for two dozen Bossterical weeks.

It all remains well remembered to this day by those drawn into the spell of the character played by Chris Varez . KHJ’s Big Kahuna was the original, followed by copycat radio stations, surf shops, graffiti, bumper stickers, restaurants, clubs and endless products wishing identification with Hawai’i. Kahuni filled the airwaves, but there was no Chris Variez in the copycat towns. To me, still the most puzzling fact about those times was that no one ever questioned why the "kahuna" was Caucasian. WTF?

After eloping with a KHJ secretary from the promotion department, Varez headed for the Virgin Islands. By then, thinking he had acquired personal super powers, Varez ended up in jail for “Piracy on the High Seas,” a story that I never got 100% straight.

In the late 1970s, Varez returned to the islands to become a fisherman in Kona on the Big Island. There a neophyte captain speared Varez’s foot, leaving him partially disabled. Varez returned to O’ahu after the turn of the century. A bit after Y2K Chris was my roommate for two years in the hilltop house where I lived in Kane’ohe. That house recently burned down. Now I live 800-feet makai (towards the sea.) The last thing I took with me on the way out the back door was the wishbone for the turkey Chris made on Thanksgiving 1998, which had hung there ever since.

Chris Varez is survived by brother Dietrich and wife Linda, several children from two marriages and other family members. Varez spent his last days in Koloa, Kaua’i with a former wife, who tended to his needs until he recently was admitted to Wilcox Memorial Hospital. He quietly passed away this morning. The cause of death apparently was the continuing loss of oxygen. He was breathing with assistance of an oxygen tank the last time I hung out with him in Kailua, in 2007 (upper right.)

When today’s NFL games are finished—I froze them on TiVo when Dietrich called me with the news as Jordan King sang the national anthem, at 9:55 a.m. HST. When today’s football is pau, I am driving to Kailua Beach Park and jump into the Pacific Ocean, to remember my dear friend and consummate showman, the immortal, one-and only Big Kahuna.

Ron Jacobs

Kaneohe, Hawai’i

For more information: Google The KHJ Big Kahuna, check out the work of D.Varez on eBay and/or contact Ron Jacobs at rj@hawaii.rr.com.

PS - It is now 6 p.m. and the sun is setting behind the Ko'olau Mountains. When I went to finally watch football, I discovered that I failed to hit "record" for the Viking-Saints game.

Which bounced me back to our times together, me and Chris. Many things were re-aligned in both our brains as we synched up and survived, depending on each other. Kahuna Chris was a great cook, grilled ahi fresh from He'iea Pier being his ono speciality.

THE FAN THEY LEFT BEHIND

On Saturday I stupidly made four NFL picks, in print, breaking a long-standing rule never to do that. If you bother to have read that blurb, you will notice I went 0-4. However, to possibly make up for that, this chapter of my probably never-published bio FROM DOO-WOP TO DUOPOLY. It was written in 1995. One must be "old school" to pursue this piece to the end. However if you are a part of that hard core group dedicated to Top 40 Radio on AM or the erstwhile Los Angeles NFL team known as the Rams, I submit the following to wherever stuff goes in the blogosphere.

I am the fan the Rams left behind. Our relationship began in 1965 when I took over as Program Director of KHJ Radio in Los Angeles. Among the job perks: Six Ram season tickets. Harlan Svare was in his third and last year as the team’s head coach them The glamour and victories of the Fifties had vanished. The Rams had plenty tickets available to pass out to the media.

Coming from Hawaii, I thought a bigtime football game was the high school Thanksgiving Day Doubleheader played yearly in the old Honolulu Stadium. How old was the place? By the 50s it was known as the "Termite Palace." But that didn’t hold down attendance. Crowds of over 20,000 jammed into the place, which officially held 17,500. Arch high school rivalries like Punahou vs. Kamehameha, which dates back to the 19th century, would be fought out, often in the autumn mud.

When I first moved to California in 1962, after a few months in San Bernardino, I moved to Fresno for two years. (I had seen enough of the Fresno State Bulldogs in their visits, playing the University of Hawaii. The crowds were much smaller at UH games than for the high school battles.) Roommate Frank Terry and I drove north from the San Joaquin Valley early Sunday mornings, to Kezar Stadium to watch the 49ers play under the seagulls and their droppings.

But it was the Rams that hooked me. On my first trip to Los Angeles in March of ‘62, while scouting for talent for a new radio station, I often hung out at the Gaiety Delicatessen on Vine Street. That was the gathering place for disc jockeys who were “on the beach” – radio jargon for unemployed. One such was Bill Watson, a L.A. native who grew up in the San Fernando Valley when the Rams were the most glamorous team in the ascending sport of professional football. They won the league championship in 1951 with a team packed with future Hall of Fame players.

Watson was the perfect age to go crazy over that. He was a jock – not a radio deejay – he ran track high school. Watson raved on and on about the Los Angeles Rams the way an L. Ron Hubbard disciple proselytizes about Scientology. We went to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to see his idols play. I can’t remember the details. The place seemed huge enough to hold the population of the island of Lanai – about 20 times over. The action on and off the field was too fast for me.

But actually I identified with the team in many ways. They were born the same year as me, in 1937. Their record was as bad as the ratings of the L.A. radio station that I joined up with in 1965. In 1966, George Allen arrived to coach the team and vowed to turn things around—fast. (He accomplished that but we actually did it even quicker. KHJ went from the cellar to the top of the L.A. radio ratings in five months. You can look it up.)

The mid-60's were energized. Indeed, "The times they were a-changin'." KHJ presented Bob Dylan at the Hollywood Bowl for his first "electric" performance. The Doors were a local house band, playing the Sunset Strip. A record company gofer and his acne’d angular teenage wife hung out at our radio station, eager to promote their first record—after changing their name from "Caesar and Cleo." The are now known as U.S. Congressman Sony Bono and the glamorous Cher. On KHJ the hits just kept on comin' as "Boss Radio" became a national fad.

Longtime Rams announcer Bob Kelly – he came West with the team from Cleveland — died of a heart attack in 1964. He was replaced on KMPC, the Rams flagship station, by a rookie play-by-play man, Dick Enberg.

At work I met people like Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and the rest while trying to play it Hollywood cool. On Sundays,five other allegedly mature men and I motored to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in what was then known as Watts; now it’s usually called South Central. We’d turn over our complimentary tickets (valued at $6.00), pass through Tunnel 7, traipse up the stairs from to Row 72 and climb over people to Seats 124-129.

We'd sit down still gripping one of the world's most revolting hot dogs, a cuppa over-fizzed Coke or putrid coffee — and go berserk for four hours screaming for Merlin, Deacon and the rest of the Dee-Fense to make the big play again. And we'd holler ugly slurs at the offense (led by Roman Gabriel) when they sputtered, which happened much too often for our liking.

L.A.'s pro football fortunes were changing fast. Previously anonymous defensive linemen became the "Fearsome Foursome." In the mid-60's, during the NFL season, traveling to Ram home games was an adventure. Every Sunday always started with the same argument: Where to stop for bagels? Which delicatessen, Canter’s or Ma Gordon's? The bagels were better at Canter’s, but Ma Gordon's was the perverse alternative because the proprietor was a retired, bald professional wrestler.

Next came the debate over which route to take to the Coliseum? I was the designated driver. Why not? I had a new Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Lovin' Spoonful on the radio. KHJ – BOSS Radio. Rams gonna win today? Do You Believe In Magic? The five others smoked unauthorized cigarettes and tried to out-bellow the other navigational suggestions. "Hey, man, you know Santa Barbara's screwed every time they put the 'No Left Turn' sign up on Santa Barbara, man." Puff, puff. "Hey man, take the Harbor Freeway. Stay left, cut in at the last second and come off on Figueroa. Then you got the parking lot on the right, no sweat." Toke, toke.

After the route argument was resolved we'd pull into the parking lot — and become really frustrated. We heard the pre-game show on KMPC. We looked up and saw the rear of the press box where the program was coming from. And we waited for what seemed like forever to be shunted into the spot the Parking Gestapo had chosen for us. It was always a space that meant waiting long after the final gun before we even got the car out of the huge lot and onto the jammed surface streets.

1966. Our second preseason opened with the traditional Los Angeles Times Annual Charity Game. The L.A. Rams vs. the Cleveland Browns. Just as I pulled into the Santa Barbara parking lot one of our gang, Chuck Stein, a sly accountant, demanded that I stop at the entrance. He got out of the car and walked up to the first parking lot attendant he encountered. Mumble, mumble. Handshake. Friendly waves to one another. Chuck returned smiling. For a mere twenty dollars he had permanently ingratiated us with "The Lebanese Underground," our name for the stadium's parking crew. We repeated this opening day ritual every year until the team moved to Anaheim. You know what they say, "If you wanna slide, you gotta grease."

• • •

For the rest of the Rams' Coliseum games we parked in just about the best spot available. It was on the sneaky little alley on the south side of the stadium, next to the old Olympic swimming pool. We'd usually end up behind the limo that brought the Mayor of Los Angeles to the games.

During the fourth quarter, the parking crew let down the chain that kept anyone from pulling into the alley. This gave the Mayor, ourselves and a few others a direct shot right out of the lot. While thousands of other Ram fans were still crammed in the Coliseum aisles and tunnels or searching the lot for their cars, we were on Hoover Street and heading home. Cruisin' through Watts, the Caddy windows wide open, we screamed with what was left of our voices: "L. A. Rams, baby! We're Number One!" We were at one with James Brown. I Feel Good!

Being a radio guy, I was impressed with one player's voice, class and intelligence during post-game interviews. He also remains my all-time favorite Ram player on the field. That's when I discovered how articulate Merlin Olsen was, besides possessing a resonant radio voice and always remaining a gentlemen, no matter what had transpired on the field. After his Hall of Fame career he became as good a broadcaster as he was a defensive tackle.

During their last season in Southern California, two other Ram greats from the 60's served as color analysts for their radio broadcasts on KMPC, which continued airing the games through to the bitter end. Those former players were Deacon Jones and Jack Snow.

One of the first homemade banners ever displayed in the Coliseum read, "Deacon—for Secretary of Defense." Prophetic. In retrospect, it turned out that David Jones' Pro Football Hall of Fame career positively shines, compared with that of the actual Secretary of Defense at that time, Robert McNamara. Revelations in McNamara’s autobiography about his role in the Vietnam War qualify him for the Political Hall of Shame.

Then there was Jack Snow, whose little boy would grow up to be major league baseball standout J. T. Snow. According to Dick Enberg, then the Rams' radio play-by-play announcer, Jack Snow was “never caught from behind." In the 1960's, until Bernie Casey arrived from the 49ers, Snow was the closest thing to a deep threat the Rams had. But "Bullet" Bob Hayes he was not. Each game, Snow, the All-American from Notre Dame, would somehow get open, gather in a bomb thrown up by Roman Gabriel and take off for the goal line—only to be tracked down and tackled by some speedy 49er, or Colt or Packer defensive back. This was glossed over by Enberg. The next week, it was the old, "never caught from behind" routine again. Ah, radio, "the theater of the mind." We guys in Row 72 really dug Enberg, so we just ignored his snow job descriptions of #84’s prowess year after year.

It was during the next-to-last game of 1967, against Green Bay, winners of Super Bowl I, that we learned a major rule: Never, ever, leave a game early. The Packers and Rams were in the same division back then. The Pack’s nefarious head coach, Vince Lombardi, symbolized all that was evil in The Universe. As usual Lombardi’s team was kicking the Rams’ butts. So with just minutes left in the season’s penultimate game and Green Bay beating the Rams who managed only a lackluster offense that day, we headed for the exit.

We nearly reached the car. Following the silence of a time out we suddenly heard an ecstatic roar rise out of the Coliseum. Huddled around our portable radio we heard Enberg scream that Rams linebacker Tony Guillory had blocked a Packer punt near their own goal line. Chaos! Confusion! Incomplete Ram pass. Then, on second down, Enberg described Gabriel’s perfect lob pass to Bernie Casey in the corner of the end zone. Touchdown! Rams win, 27-24. Riding home, we were too pissed off at our disloyalty to fully savor the victory. It was George Allen's greatest moment. And where were we? In the parking lot, listening to it on the radio. Thereafter our crew remainded in our seats, even if the Rams were down by four touchdowns.

Win or lose, we always listened to the post-game shows on KMPC while driving away from the games. From the very start of my Ram addiction in1965, there was always a consistent sound in the background of every Ram locker room interview. We began to call the unknown person who made it, "The Whistler." No matter if it was a chat with Jack Pardee before the game, or an interview with Dick "Scooter" Bass after a great rushing performance, there was always one constant: The same haunting melody, whistled in the background.

We spent years trying to figure out who was doing it. Was it an equipment man, a coach, a player—what? Out best guess was that "The Whistler" was that bulwark of the offensive line, guard Joe Scibelli. He had been with the Rams since 1961. Was it just coincidence that the background whistling came to a stop in 1976, the year after Scibelli the former Golden Domer retired?

The identity of "The Whistler" was the big ongoing mystery and the subject of much debate for years, until it was replaced by a much more ominous and perplexing question: "What was the real story on the death “by drowning” of team owner Carroll Rosenbloom?”

• • •

Superstition and voodoo. There are certain rituals we fans partake in to assure (or at least encourage) victory for the team. Well, I have a confession to make. The Rams would be undefeated right now [five games into the 1995 season, after suffering their first defeat] if it wasn't for something really stupid and masochistic I did this summer.

This story has its origins in 1967. George Allen took over as head coach of the Rams in '66 and in one season turned the team from losers to winners, just like Rich Brooks has been doing with the Rams this year. Allen inherited a seventh place team with a 4-10 record and finished the next year at 8-6. In his second year, he took the team to the old Western Conference championship game before losing to the Super Bowl-bound Green Bay Packers. Still, Allen's sophomore record was 11-1-2 . (Ties counted in those days.)

In 1967 I was still the Program Director of KHJ Radio, a job that came with six Rams season tickets. Mitchell Fisher, the first friend I made when I arrived in LA.,, also worked at the KHJ. He was in charge of promotion, and also one of the original Boys In Row 72 who went to all the Ram home games with me.

The year before, the Rams lost the final game of the season to Vince Lombardi's fucking Green Bay Packers. In '67 it all came down to the final game of the year, against the Colts—the Baltimore Colts. The Rams under Allen had played the Colts fairly even since he took over. But the Colts possessed perhaps the single most deadly offensive weapon in the NFL: Quarterback Johnny Unitas, #19.

Unitas broke our hearts as often as any opponent. And on December 17, 1967, Johnny U. was coming to town for the last regular season game. Fisher and I were young, crazy and totally committed to the Rams by then. We read in the newspapers that the Baltimore team would be staying at a hotel near our radio station, which was located on 5515 Melrose (before that street became famous.) Further, the papers said the Colts had scheduled their Friday practice at the Hollywood High School football field, just a few blocks away from KHJ.

Mitch and I, both of us being "executives," decided we would wander over and heckle the Colts. We got there before the team's busses arrived. Separated by a chain link fence from the bus stop, we positioned ourselves just five feet away from where Unitas and his team mates would depart the vehicle and trot onto the field. The first bus pulled up and the players disembarked. Linemen appeared much bigger than they did on TV. Up close, runners and linebackers looked like Superman. Then a frail, pale guy with a crew cut and high top black shoes stepped off the bus.

We went nuts, bellowing things like: "You'll get yours Sunday, Johnny U!." "Hey, hot shot, the Fearsome Foursome is waiting to eat you alive." These exclamations were also liberally sprinkled with expletives, which we felt safe shouting, since we were separated from the target of our derision by that chain link fence. We felt like spectators at a zoo, jeering the dangerous beasts, hoping to not show the deep-seated secret fear we felt if the fence ever gave in. One of the NFL's earliest monster defensive linemen, Bubba Smith, glowered at us. We were harassing the great Unitas and Bubba snarled, anxious to wring both our necks— simultaneously. The Colts jogged off and Fisher and I went back to work, knowing we had favorably influenced the outcome of the game in favor of the Rams.

And, of course, we did. Final score on Sunday: George Allen's Rams 34, Johnny Unitas' Colts 10. Los Angeles finished in first place. We were on Cloud Nine—for six days—until the Rams went to Lambeau Field and were blown out by the Pack 28-7. But we had won something, first place in the division, and beat the Colts to get there.

• • •

Cut to July 15, 1995. The Rams have left California and I'm looking forward to the new season in a new city with a new coach. Believe me, after seeing most of their games at Anaheim in ‘94, both the team and the crowds couldn't have gotten more apathetic. I was ready to watch them win on satellite rather than sit there in person and watch them self-destruct.

On this July day I drove to Anaheim again, but it was to attend a big Sports Card and Memorabilia Show. (My current obsession is to collect every Ram card ever issued.) These shows feature big name star, there to sign, for a fee, various items: photos, balls, bats, helmets, gloves, etc. At this show, signatures ranged from $14 (Kellen Winslow) to $135 (Magic Johnson.) In between were superstars, from Dick Butkus to Stan Musial.

I spotted a beautiful magazine—Legends Sports Memorabilia, November-December 1994 issue—which featured color paintings of the Rams great "Fearsome Foursome," which Sports Illustrated had just proclaimed one of the two greatest defensive lines of all time. (The Vikings' "Purple People Eaters" were the other.) The magazine that caught my eye showed Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones in the Rams' late-60s blue-and-white uniforms and Roosevelt Grier and Lamar Lundy in the in the early-60s blue-and-gold jerseys. The magazine was autographed by all the guys. I didn't think twice. Bought it for $90 on the spot.

Later, while sorting through thousands of cards displayed by a dealer from Houston, looking for obscure Rams, I heard an announcement on the P.A. system: "Johnny Unitas will be signing for 15 more minutes." Suddenly I flashed on all those thrilling moments in the Coliseum, the Foursome charging, Unitas standing firm in the pocket, releasing the ball at the last second.

I was under the influence of a higher power. I walked out the lobby and purchased a $30 ticket for a Unitas autograph. Looked like a computerized concert ticket. I checked out the 8x10 photos of the Hall of Fame QB, on sale for five bucks each. The one I bought showed Johnny U. standing alone in a field, with trees scattered in the background. There he stands, ball cocked over his right shoulder, left arm extended, stoic look on his face. Perfect.

I walked back to the autograph area. There was Unitas, alone with one autograph dealer, signing 8x10's with a blue Sharpie pen. Like a production line, one every ten seconds, headed for fans all over the country, completely impersonal, just a scrawled "Johnny Unitas." I strolled up and mumbled something like, "How's it going, Johnny?" Without looking up or stopping his routine, he said, "Great." I started to blabber about how the last time I "talked" to him in was in 1967, when he was getting off the team bus at Hollywood High School. The man at Unitas' side stiffened, like I was some sort of deranged Colt-hater with a 9mm pistol in my pocket.

So I quickly began to ooze things like, "Hey, John, you were the greatest the Rams ever had to play against. Remember those games in the old Coliseum?" Unitas, who has huge, gnarled hands and sports a large gold ring, actually stopped and looked up. His companion relaxed. The great quarterback looked up at me and said, "Yeah, those were good times." I asked him if he would write something personal on my picture. "Sure," he said, "what should I put." My mind froze. All I could remember was this immortal passer in the white helmet with the blue horseshoe on it. I recalled how many times we drove away from the Coliseum, disconsolate because Unitas had whipped the Rams on the last series of the game. How unstoppable he was. Unitas was staring at me. So I blurted out my request.

Now, I have the photo, neatly framed, on the wall right next to the Fearsome Foursome magazine cover. It's a great metaphor. Four monsters trying to claw their way at him, while the legendary QB stands there with impunity, poised to burn the Rams secondary. That's cool. It looks like I could start a sports bar with the other stuff on the walls: Autographed Jerome Bettis picture, 1994 Rams Throwback poster, etc.

It's just the inscription on the Unitas photo that I KNOW cost this year's Rams to lose their one game so far. By three points at that. Forget Marshall Faulk ripping off those long runs. Don't blame Johnny Bailey and Todd Kinchen for dropping key passes. Un-unh. Blame ME, the guy with the picture of the greatest Colt of all-time up there on my wall. And written in bright blue ink, "To R.J. — Loved Beating Those Rams. Johnny Unitas. 7-15-95."

• • •

Since this is being written after the 1995 Ram-Bear game, it's an appropriate time to recall some previous meetings between the teams. But first some background.

The Cleveland Rams fifth game in franchise history was played against the Chicago Bears on October 10, 1937. The week before, the Rams took on the Windy City's other team, the Chicago Cardinals, which as readers of this journal surely know, would become the St. Louis Cardinals in 1960. In the Rams' inaugural year, they lost to the two Chicago teams by a combined score of 26-2.

So you see, the Ram's rivalry with both the Bears goes way back. But, the 1985 Chicago Bears, coached by Mike Ditka, have Super Bowl rings to show for those 58 years. The closest the Rams have come to winning it all, since their 1951 pre-merger NFL championship, was on January 20, 1980 at the Rose Bowl. As time ran out in the third quarter, they led the Pittsburgh Steelers 19-17 in Super Bowl XIV. Sorry, but I have a permanent mental block about the remainder of that game. (However, I do suffer recurring nightmares of John Stallworth running wild with Terry Bradshaw passes.)

Back to 1995's fourth opponent. I remember many things from watching Ram-Bear battles in the L. A. Coliseum from high up in Row 72. Consider the second game of the 1965 season. Ram owner Dan Reeves (not the ex-Cowboy who now coaches the Giants, but the Real Dan Reeves), had stolen away George Allen from the Bears to coach his team. "Papa Bear" George Halas, the Chicago team’s founder—and coach spanning 34 years—was enraged. He complained to the league office and threatened to sue the Rams. George Allen had directed the Bear defense, winning recognition in 1953, the year Chicago won the NFL title with its strong D. After that championship game, the players carried Allen, not Halas, off the field.

As Halas' protégé, it was assumed Allen would take over when the Old Man retired. But George Halas seemed destined to coach until he died—he kept doing it until the age of 72—so Allen left for Los Angeles. Southland fans were still reeling from Harland Svare's previous three seasons as head coach, during which he won 13 games and lost 41. We didn't know it, but George Allen was about to turn a 4-10 team around in one year, going to 8-6 in his first season as head coach of the Rams. (Sound familiar?)

The first game between teacher and pupil was a long-awaited, much-hyped affair. The Rams lost their first game under Allen the week before, on the road against the Detroit Lions. The Rams were shut out 20-0. Didn't score a point. No one gave L. A. a chance in their next game, the home opener against Halas' "Monsters of the Midway." When the Bears hit town for the September 26, 1965 match up of mentor versus disciple, Chicago was still employing George Allen's ferocious defense.

In those days, the Bears wore jerseys with very small numbers. I guess Halas didn't think TV would last. But no one needed a "#51" to spot Dick Butkus. Greatest middle linebacker I ever saw. On offense there was #40, the immortal Gale Sayers. The day everyone had been waiting for arrived at last. Los Angeles held its breath. What revenge would Halas extract on his mutinous former disciple?

The Old Man, who always wore a rumpled dark suit, stalked the sidelines. George Allen, who during games always appeared on the verge of a massive heart attack, implored his new Ram team to shut down the Bears. The Ram defensive line—not yet christened the "Fearsome Foursome"—help hold Chicago to 28 points. Somehow, the Rams scored two more than that. Halas, sulked off the field. In Row 72, we went nuts. Los Angeles finally had a winner.

The next year, during a Bear game in the Coliseum, a spectator did the stupidest thing a fan can do: He jumped onto the field in an attempt to prance 100 yards across it to impress his friends and the huge crowd. (It was the late-60s, who knows what substances he consumed before this act of madness?)

Starting in the West end zone, this kid pranced around the Ram defense, which looked on bemused. The officials stood in place, hands on hips, waiting for the folly to finish. The fool thought he had it made—he merely had to dance past the team in the blue jerseys with the orange trim. As he ran by the Bear huddle, a very big guy with a very small "89" on his jersey leaned out of the Chicago huddle and delivered a forearm smash to the throat of the poor fan, who had been running at full speed. The victim dropped like a Scud missle. Yes, Bear tight end Mike Ditka—who played even tougher than he talks—had knocked the interloper out cold. The game was delayed for what seemed like an hour, as the crowed booed deafeningly each time the Bears lined up to resume play.

Then, there was the most surrealistic series of downs I've ever seen in an NFL game. It happened when the Rams were played the Bears in the Coliseum in 1968. By then, Los Angles was a serious contender in the old Western Division. They would finish the season in second place with a 10-3-1 record. But—it would have been 11-2-1 and possibly first place, but for the last Ram offensive series of the game. Los Angeles was just inside Chicago territory, trailing 17-16, with little time remaining. Quarterback Roman Gabriel, in his blue-and-white #18 jersey, stood back in the pocket and tossed three long passes into the Bear end zone, all tantalizingly close, all incomplete. Then, with seconds left in the game, the offense trotted off the field and the Bears ran out the clock.

Only my friend Bill Kelly spotted it instantly. "Fourth down, fourth down!" he screamed. The Rams radio announcer, Dick Enberg, didn't notice anything odd. The P. A. announcer merely announced, "First down, Chicago." I focused my Bushnell wide-angle Rangemaster binoculars on the Ram bench in front of us. The players and coaches were hanging their heads. I swear we weren't hallucinating. It was "Three and REALLY out." Now, even though L. A. was the capital of the psychedelic world at the time, I swear this TRULY happened. An NFL professional football team's pivotal game of their season, threw three diffused bombs into the Chicago Bear end zone—-and left the field. Bears 17, Rams 16. Remember that the next time you hear about George Allen, stickler for details and coaching “genius.”

Under Coach Dick Vermeil and quarterbacked by Kurt Warner, the 1999 St. Louis Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV.