BILL MOUZIS ~ 45 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

(L to R) Bill Mouzis, "The Big Kahuna" (Chris Varez), Ron Jacobs

Dodger Stadium, Summer 1966

When I arrived at KHJ Radio in March 1965 I wasn't ready for how huge the physical plant was. There we were in an anonymous pink bunker surrounded by the Desilu, Columbia and Paramount Studios. The address was 5515 Melrose Avenue--before that street got "hip." Of all the employees I dealt with as a member the new management team, the longhaired, grass smoking, rock and roll, Top 40 crew brought in to conquer Los Angeles Radio--no one was more driven than I to make it to the top. And then, much more difficult, to hold the #1 ratings we drove ourselves so hard to achieve during my watch as Program Director, through the summer of 1969.

As with all theatrical illusion, the radio that stirred people's imaginations in the 1920s through the end of the Second World War was something that hooked me as a kid. It blew my mind that I had a Big Time L.A. AM Radio to play with for the entertainment of Boss Angeles and all of Southern California—and the pride of leading a winning team.

As I have said for the past 45 years, the person who convinced me that I had really arrived in Hollywood, the man who taught me so much about life while perfectly executing his role as the Old Pro was Bill Mouzis, Chief Production Engineer on our Production Team: Ron Jacobs, Writer/Director and Robert W. Morgan, Chief Announcer.

Mouzis, now past the meridian of octogenarianism, has adapted to 21st century technology as quickly as he learned to operate a telegraph key that transmitted and received Morse code. I have written elsewhere of my great respect for the man who, since his retirement and lack of golf, has assiduously issued email proclamations, historical reminiscences, radio anecdotes, forwarded Old School “humor,” political rants, war stories, tales of the tundra where he was born, all the obligatory Hallmark holidays and his (at least) monthly letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times.

And he remembers stuff, his hits keep coming. Below is an email I just received from Mouzis. He and Nancy still live in the same house he bought when he joined KHJ after serving in the United States Navy in the Atlantic Theater. It is a pleasure to post Bill Mouzis' thoughts about Boss Radio on its 45th anniversary this week.

The date May 5^th, 1965, the place Los Angeles, California, the time 3pm. Pioneer radio station KHJ, 930 on your AM radio dial since 1922 goes “rock and roll”. It is now “Boss Radio-93/KHJ.

Forty-five years ago today the biggest quake ever to hit Los Angeles was felt throughout the entire area when Boss Radio hit the airwaves with a thunderous presence, the likes of which never heard before. It all began with The Real Don Steele rock and rollin’ up a storm as the hits just kept on comin’. We soon learned that Tina Delgado was alive, alive, and that there were fractious Fridays with Anita O’Day and Francis Faye. Morning listeners were being entertained and Morganized by irascible Robert W. Morgan. Roger Christian followed with the aura of The Beach Boys enveloping his very soul. Then there was Gary Mack with that boyish grin and a peanut butter sandwich safely tucked in a brown paper bag. The volume was next turned up a few decibels as the Real Don Steele came at you like a hurricane with a handcrafted air product all his own for three solid hours. After-shocks came in the evening with professorial Dave Diamond continuing to play the hits for those on their way home. Channel Nine TV star and genial host Sam Riddle followed Dave with the sincerity and warmth of a real pro. Finally, Johnny Williams, who had a loft of his own and a heart of gold, kept us rock and rollin’ in our sleep all night long.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it was the new KHJ and listeners knew who we were once we hit the airwaves with the quickness of a panther. Under the brilliant leadership of genius Program Director Ron Jacobs and Consultant Bill Drake the station captured the hearts and minds of thousands of Angelinos, the sounds of which blanketed beaches, blasted through transistor and car radios and achieved market superiority in ratings within six months. It was not only phenomenal but fresh, exhilarating and entertaining. What a gas to hear that program directors from all over the country were flying into the city to air-check the station, intent on copying it. They never quite figured it out but nevertheless DJ monikers of Morgan and Steele soon popped up at stations all over the country.

As the production engineering supervisor for 93/KHJ and the RKO chain of stations nationwide I was fortunate enough to have filled a niche in the station’s ten year run as the top radio station in the country – probably the world. In these the golden years of my life, I remember it all so vividly and fondly and to a great extent sadly. Forty-five years cannot erase the inseparable bond that developed between all of us involved during this memorable period - a lifetime experience. The sadness I feel is shared with Ron Jacobs, who as a homey, born and raised in Hawaii, remains happily entrenched these days amid the beauty and sunshine of Paradise. He and I speak often of the very talented and dedicated people who played such a pivotal role in the success of Boss Radio, too many of whom have passed away over these 45 years. We all shared a friendship that went far beyond simply a working association and we miss them everyday of the year. I can’t help but think they are having a ball cavorting with our good Father in “rock and roll heaven”

To hear the 1965 intro by The Beach Boys

“It’s The New KHJ” go to www.93khj.com.

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.