THE NFL IN LOS ANGELES?

November 3, 2010. Today much has changed in American politics and all its implications, manifestations and considerations. Media has been stuffed with statistics and speculations about a GOP “wave,” Barack Obama’s future and, already, the run towards the 2012 elections.

This morning, during my online wanderings, I came across this headline in today’s Duluth News Tribune: “GOP takes over Minnesota Legislature after 38 years.” After the obvious observations of the election's consequences, came the speculation, “Republican tidal wave could carry Vikings to L.A.”

This was the theoretical scenario: “With multiple [stadium] projects in L.A. unfolding and London now on the map to get a team, the Vikings will migrate to the top of the to-move list if they don't get a new stadium in Minnesota. Legislative majorities will confront a projected $6 billion deficit, address a push for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium ... ”

With the combined drama of both election results and the Vikings on and off-field, Minnesotans must now worry about their NFL franchise pulling up and moving to Los Angeles, the largest city in the U.S. without a pro football team.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

The Los Angeles Rams, by then playing in Anaheim, played their last game in Southern California back in 1994. The Oakland Raiders played in the same stadium, the L.A. Coliseum that was the Rams home field from 1946 through 1980, before moving to nearby Orange County. The Oakland Raiders, shifted south to L.A. in 1982, making the Coliseum their home arena; they moved back home in 1995. Los Angeles has been without a pro football team since then.

Me? I became a Rams fanatic in 1965, courtesy of the comp tickets, perks that came with my job at KHJ radio. Maniacally, I have never missed watching a single Rams game, live or broadcast, since I witnessed my first one in the summer of ’65. Win, lose or tie, I resolutely planted my butt on Seat 115, Row 72, and Tunnel 11, along with five other equally crazed buddies, all of whom became Rams fans the moment their tickets were free, and the team played well for a spell.

To discourage anyone who might think that this might have been glamorous, sitting there amongst movie and TV stars, bigtime recording artists, major politicos, Gypsy Boots and the well-heeled from Beverly Hills, wheeled to the games in their limousines stocked with booze and appetizers, I dug up the following, unpublished, recollection of attending Rams games in the Coliseum for 11 years.

For those in Minnesota, I hope they get their new stadium and don’t lose their team. For those who might think attending NFL games in the Swinging Sixties was excitement, enthusiasm and extreme Hollywood personified, here is--to quote the immortal Paul Harvey--“The Rest Of The Story.”

The Pro Football Hall of Fame

August 7, 1999

This is probably the PEAK day of my pro football life, if I live to be 100. On the same day, the best Ram runner and the best Ram O-lineman ever saw play were enshrined in the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

I watched Eric Dickerson run for SMU and Tom Mack block at Michigan; saw every play they both ever played for the Rams. Today was really moving for me. Watching film of #65 in his blue and whites annihilate defenders or blasting holes in the middle and #29 pulling away from the DB's with that smooth stride second only to Sayers was always a thrill.

We sat in the Coliseum when people were INTO it. Creaming the friggin’ Niners twice a year. At least one O-lineman in the Pro Bowl annually. Dick Enberg calling the play-by-play on KMPC, pre-FM Radio. The world's most disgusting "hot dogs," which you knew were indeed made from erstwhile house pets from East L.A.

Commander Chuck Street checks out RJ's seat, 40 years later.

Intermission was the time to fight a battalion of other macho men squeezing their sphincters, trying to hold it in until reaching one of the concrete bunkers euphemistically called "Men’s Rest Rooms."

Ah, the compacted, compressed, crushed, mashed-together herd; sweating and pissed-off because they haven't beat the spread-yet; beer drunk, standing at the trough in a half-inch of urine soaking into your soles. Yuck!

The accompanying stench wafted up. A polluted putz dumping beer down your back; some schmuck with a Fidel Castro El Maximo cigar shoved into the nape of your neck, while an acid-freaked Hell's Angel glares at you, easing in close enough to shiv you in the back.

This claustrophobic tomb made Halawa Jail seem like the Beverly Hilton, fuming out of sudden death from drowning in a puddle of beer-and-Coke puke with swirling, foul fecal aromas there in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's "Men's Rest Room" close by Tunnel 7.

Men wearing Rams gear, transvestites, cross-dressers, walk right over you, unzipped, their black, brown, red, yellow and white pulsing penises dangling at the ready, waiting for the sucker who's been standing at the troth farting to DO SOMETHING!

DAMN IT! THE SUCKING CROWD ROARS FROM ABOVE GOES NUTS. NO ONE IN THE VOMIT-INDUCING BUNKER KNOWS IF GABRIEL JUST THREW IT RIGHT TO SOME GREEN BAY DB WHO IS RUNNING IT BACK 56-YARDS FOR A TOUCHDOWN WHILE SOME RAM O-LINEMAN GOES NUTS BECAUSE HE GETS TO "PLAY DEFENSE, ONLY TO BLOW OUT HIS KNEE IN SOME RIPLEY'S "BELIEVE IT OR NOT" PLAY THAT INSTANTLY TURNS THE GUY INTO A PATHETIC PARAPLEGIC. OR, MAYBE IT WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD PLAY BY THE RAMS THAT CAUSED THE ROAR.

YOU STAND PLANTED THERE AT THE STAINLESS STEEL RUNOFF, WITH YOUR GENITALS SHRUNK, AS IF THEY WERE PROCESSED IN AN INDUSTRIAL LAUNDROMAT WITH EVERYTHING TURNED UP TO MAXIMUM HEAT. BERSERK FANS LEAKING OUT SLOW TAMALE & BEAN FARTS, BUT DOING NOTHING RESEMBLING TAKING A REAL LEAK; EVERYONE BEHIND YOU SHOVED FORWARD LIKE CRAZED TOKYO COMMUTERS CRAMMED INTO BULLET TRAINS,

IT'S SOME KIND OF TESTOSTERONE CAVE MAN GRIDLOCK. YOU KNOW THAT THE SHTUNKIN' RAMS ARE GOING TO DO THEIR ONE GOOD THING FOR THE YEAR WHILE YOU EXPIRE IN THE JOHN. YOU WILL DIE, IGNORED IN THIS MEDIEVAL PIT, YOUR EXCREMENT-MARINATED CORPSE TO BE CASUALLY DISCOVERED THE NEXT MORNING BY A BLASÉ CLEAN UP CREW DRAGS A CITY OF LOS ANGELES STANDARD ISSUE MOP. THOSE WHO DEAL WITH THE DETRITUS OF DEFEAT HAVE SEEN IT ALL. PERHAPS ONE MIGHT CALL 911 AFTER HIS A BULL DURHAM CIGARETTE BREAK.

Alas, I would go through every millisecond of it again, if I could, just to be there in that time, in that place, when KHJ was kicking ass, whether LA’s football team was or not. Then I could live the boss life for the other 164 hours before the next game kicked off. I want all of it: the ritual arguing about where to pick up the bagels, Canter's or Ma Gordon's ("Ma" being a retired pro wrestler.)

Arguing about whether the NO LEFT TURN sign would be up by the time we hit Santa Barbara, with five pot-smoking riders, all backseat drivers hollering over the Four Tops blaring out of the Caddy radio "Sugar pie honey bunch..."

Trying to look cool driving through entire blocks of Watts burnouts; every kind of street-legal machine on wheels arriving from all of Southern California as we argue about whose turn it was to pay off the Lebanese Underground that controlled the South parking lot so that we'd get one of the six Hoover Street getaway spots, next to the old Olympic pool, and parking behind Mayor Tom Bradley's limousine,

Through the tunnel, up the cement steps, hauling the Bushnell Safari Masters (wide angle enough to eye the offense on one side, the defense on the other) and climbing up to Row 72, shady side, to the left of the press box, getting one’s game setup together under seat 114. Mandatory binocs, program, peanuts, hot dog, soda. And then, checking out the kickers warming up amd the incredible T&A show of the Hollywood babes who came to the games--most of them not knowing whether they were there to watch cricket or a miniature race riot involving men in plastic armor pounding the crap out of one another for nine seconds.

Then the standing around restlessly, adrenaline pumping, during the TV commercials, which seem like they are 25-minutes long when you are actually are at the game. And the shabby but Official Los Angeles Ram Band, off in their corner, playing forget your troubles, come on, get happy!

Kickoff in one hour!

(For Kelly, Peter, Bob and Mama Cass)

EPILOGUE: The 1999 season began a month after this was written. The lowly Rams, by then in St. Louis, morphed into the Greatest Show on Turf, went from worst to first. On January 30, 2000 in the Georgia Dome the Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV. The gun went off just after a “miracle” finish. The game, one of the most exciting championship games ever, featured "The Catch" and "The Tackle." The Rams, finally, were winners.

My memories of the L. A. Coliseum's nauseous innards were washed away by tears of joy.

KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO ~ Part 19

Humble Harve compares the other cat's whiskers

Humble Harve: Johnny Williams once said that when you go in the conference room for the jock meeting you check your ego at the door. Well, it better be that way because the whole idea was that if one spoke comes off the wheel, the wheel’s eventually going to fall apart and everything crashes. That was the whole idea that was generated. But if anybody else would have been there other than Jacobs, I don’t think we would have been one tenth as big as we were. We would have had a nice format but it would have gone the way that other formats go. It wouldn’t have lasted more than, I don’t know, a year. ’Cause it wouldn’t have been executed properly.

Don Berrigan: I remember with particular interest the talk that Tiny Tim’s handler gave us, prior to Tiny Tim’s entrance into a jock meeting, as we were building up to a big promotion centered around him. I have echoed to others over the years that Tiny Tim was not an act, but what you saw and heard was the real Tiny Tim. In working with him during the promotion, I was moved and refreshed by the sense I had of his total lack of guile and games. I have a vivid image of the expression of disbelief on the face of The Real Don Steele when Tiny Tim whipped his ukulele out of a shopping bag and began his “thank you” serenade. I found it interesting because I had the sense that, despite Don Steele’s vaunted super-double hipness, this was a new one to him.

Gary Mack: Every week at the jock meetings Jacobs was like George Allen exhorting the Rams in the locker room. There was some picking of nits but always a lot of positives. Jacobs did a lot of fine-tuning in these sessions. More adrenaline pumping than any radio meeting I’ve been to since. Then Jacobs would unveil the latest promotion. There was a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing when he’d roll out the latest promos he had written and Robert W. Morgan had recorded. What amazes me, listening to them now, is the quality of those spots. They’re still better today than anything you hear done on the new digital production consoles.

And all of it done on quarter-inch mono tape! I’ll bet we went through a ton of splicing tape and razor blades. And what is so unbelievable is that KHJ’s studio and production facilities were really rudimentary. But the meetings — they were good!

Shelley Gordon: There’s a perception of Ron coming down on the jocks all the time, probably based on the memos and some emotional jock meetings, but he complimented and encouraged them also. Those compliments didn’t come easily. They had to be earned. When they did come they carried a lot of weight.

Everyone bitched and moaned about jock meetings but Ron scheduled them anyway. He told me that having all the Boss Jocks together at the same time in the same place was as important as any operational details that had to be explained and it gave them a chance to interact. Radio is different, he said, in the sense that these guys were on the same team, but not really working together or even listening to each other because of their hours. Johnny Williams coming off the air at 6 a.m., Harvey just getting started at 6 p.m.

The meetings were a chance to connect, though sometimes they got pretty heated, a lot of egos in the same room. But they were effective in that everyone knew exactly what was expected of them in terms of performance — not just the mechanics of the new contest or promotion. The jocks knew Ron listened at all hours and they dreaded the red phone ringing when they screwed something up. But it could just as well be him calling to say something was great if he really dug something you did.

Charlie Tuna in radio's analog AM days

Charlie Tuna: Boss Jock Humble Harve was the designated “cool cat” — with the black shades, incense, peace-sign, love beads and the “hip” persona to go with all those props. Meanwhile, Jacobs was truly democratic and did not discriminate. He would put down anyone. All our jock meetings were behind closed doors. It was like Jacobs wanted someone to take him on. He started as a Gatling gun-tempo morning man in sleepy Honolulu. None of us knew he was also moonlighting as a Roller Derby announcer in the summers. His only chance to be “on” was during our jock meetings. They made Friar’s Club roasts look like a séance. Morgan and Jacobs had been going at it since back in Fresno in 1962.

But the funniest was when Jacobs got on Harve’s case, usually for no other reason than to get to play Don Rickles with Harve’s wonderful, but neurotic, personality. Supposedly when Jacobs met Harve for the first time he called him something like, “The most drab looking nebbish who has ever attempted to make it in show business, even as a ticket taker.” Harve was ordered to wear solid black shades at all times. Indoors, outdoors, day, night, always. “Then,” Jacobs supposedly told the bewildered Harve, “you got a shot, like maybe people will think you’re Ray Charles or Roy Orbison.”

See, Morgan and Jacobs were one another’s greatest fans when it came to putting people down. So when Jacobs starting in on Harve he wouldn’t stop until Morgan was choking with laughter.

Jim Mitchell: Working at KHJ was like going back to Colgreene. At KGB in 1963 or at KCBQ in 1965-66, somebody would say, “Let’s have a contest” and we would kind of limp through it with formulaic routines and bored promos. With Jacobs, it was like everything rode on THIS promotion. There would be major brainstorming, hours in the production studio — usually with Jacobs, Morgan, and Mouzis — doing tracks over and over again, long after I thought it was perfect. I was doing news, but I couldn’t resist wandering in for those sessions. And the jocks kept up the enthusiasm as long as the event or promo ran. Over the years, we all had enough 3 a.m. calls to know that there was no hour when the boss might not be listening.

Steve Clark: Those hotline calls from Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs were always a threat. Bill would call late at night happy on "winky-poos" (booze), always in a good mood, never upset, usually asking for a song to be played “next.” Even if I just played it to impress some chick he was with, it was “You got it, Bill.” You always did what was necessary to keep Drake pleased, fuck the format that was the legendary Bill Drake. He was always nice, a real gentlemen. We got along, always joking around, and we had much in common — those California girls.

When Ron called on the hotline, you knew you fucked up, or some precise instructions were coming. No mistakes, no questions, just do it exactly as Ron told you. Nothing less than perfection was accepted from Ron Jacobs. Ron’s memos were verbal road maps with every detail covered, nothing overlooked. Sometimes you had to read them over and over to make sure you’re clear in your head what Ron wanted. He wasn’t tolerant of fuckups — not even a little tolerant. Boss Radio was perfect radio.

Charlie Tuna: I have Robert W. Morgan to thank for, among many other things, teaching me early on about working “outside the box.” Sure, KHJ had a format, but it really was just a guideline or a safety net to fall back on during one of those days when you were less than on top of your game. The rest of the time you could be as creative as you wanted to be. And no, there were no stopwatches clocking how long you talked. “If you have something to say, say it or do it,” was a simple enough rule. We all got the concept of what KHJ was supposed to be. We attempted to deliver seven different personalities with each of us using our own style of executing the format.

Humble Harve: And it wasn’t just format. It was constant promotion. The thing that I liked best of all was the brainpower put behind it by Jacobs because every day there was a new contest or promotion. There was a new shtick to promote — it was Jimi Hendrix at the Hollywood Bowl, tie-ins like the “Laugh In” TV show, the world premiere of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” flick, the “Christmas Wish” giveaways — it was this, it was that.

Every day there was something else to hang your hat on so there was more than just you on the radio. The whole station backed you up with money, with contests, with this, with that, and this was unique and that was different. I’d never had that at any radio station. It was the first time that I recall a radio station that bent over backwards to promote everybody at the radio station in huge promotions, nonstop! When KHJ came on, KFWB didn’t know what hit ’em. And they couldn’t compete because they didn’t know how. It was a brand new way to do everything.

Ripped Ron Jacobs ruminates on Rams and radio

Robert W. Morgan: Jacobs would write all this great shit at night when he was ripped, and I’m half asleep. He’d call up with some off-the-wall deal, “You gotta dig this, man. Dig this, dig that.” And I’d think, ‘Wait a minute. Where did all this come from?’

It was one contest after another. A new one began before we had a chance to physically give the prizes away. KHJ started that. I don’t think any station ever did that before. Ours was an accident. I think we did a second one right away and Jacobs put up a liner, “Boss Radio, where the contests never stop,” or something like that. That really pissed him off after like the first 20, you know, having to segue entire contests.

2 B continued . . .

http://www.93khj.com/