by Randy Reynolds
LOCKED AND LOADED
The mayor pulled his gun,
crouched behind his car door and yelled at the people in the car ahead of him,
“Get out with your hands up! This is your mayor speaking!”
The mayor pointed a gun at
people on many occasions, including at least once at city hall when he
threatened a councilman.
Early in the mayor’s term,
a city councilman who often voted against him was shot to death through the
screen door of his motel—no robbery involved. The killer shot him down and
left. Nobody was ever accused of that crime, but never again did a councilman
stand up to the mayor. Whatever the mayor wanted, they voted for it
unanimously. And when he spoke, the councilmen nodded non-stop like bobble-head
dolls in the back window of a moving vehicle. On my morning radio show, I dubbed
them “The bobbing-head city council.”
He ran roughshod over his
police department, too. When he told a cop in the city parking lot to stop
whistling, the cop disobeyed. “You just ended your career,” said the mayor, who
subsequently had the sergeant fired. (No wonder cops and ex-cops became my
best anonymous sources of stories about the mayor!)
He liked to prove to his
policemen that he was tougher than they were, so he challenged them to
impromptu wrestling matches behind the police department and beat all comers.
The mayor and his sons
often tailed police officers through the night to make sure they were making
their rounds. To prove this was happening, some off-duty cops took me with them
and we tailed the mayor’s sons tailing the cops for more than four hours.
He required the police
department to do a safety check of his property each night at 2 a.m. He called
his home “The Eagle’s Nest” and the inspecting officer was expected to call in,
“The Eagle’s Nest is secure.” If the mayor didn't hear this call at the
expected hour on his bedside scanner, he'd get on the horn to the police
department and berate the officer on duty.
Such antics from the
gun-totin’ mayor were great fodder for my morning radio show (and occasionally
for the front page of the newspaper.) But the cops warned me that he was a
violent and dangerous man, and that I had better be prepared for a
confrontation. When I tried to laugh this off, a prominent local businessman
who was an ex-cop, brought me a handgun and told me to keep it with me at all
times. An officer from a neighboring jurisdiction gave me some basic
self-defense lessons because he was certain the mayor was going to take me down
the next time he saw me.
I was handling all this in
good-humor until the morning on the bridge when the mayor’s son pulled up
beside me and pointed a pistol at me through his window. I pointed the
borrowed Glock at him and he sped up and disappeared into the pre-dawn
darkness.
From then on, a “locked
and loaded” routine was the opening of my morning show. My co-host and I
would go through a checklist: “Headphones… check.” “Microphone
…check.” “Oldies…check.” “Walther P22…check.” (Here we’d noisily
shove in the clip.) “Glock 9…check.” (More noise.) “12-guage…check.” (We’d
chamber a round right next to the mic.) “All right! We’re locked and
loaded, let’s get this show on the road!”
That was just to let the
mayor know we were ready.
When my co-host left on
vacation, my father-in-law sat at the front desk each morning with a loaded
shotgun. Just in case.
Though the verbal war
stayed heated—me holding the mayor to account, the mayor insisting we were
lying about him—no physical altercation occurred that year except for the
mayor’s son kicking me in the shins at a banquet… someone slashing three of my
car tires… and the mayor yelling at me outside a courtroom.
My show got a big boost in
the ratings, the 7-term mayor was beaten in the next election, and—after an ad
agency executive commented on the gun in my belt when she dropped in to visit
the morning show—the station owner suggested we stop bringing guns to work.
A couple of years later
when the Legislative Auditor made some untrue allegations about the ex-mayor, I
came to his defense. Although I’m sure he never forgave me for exposing
and ridiculing his foibles, and I certainly never turned my back when I was in
the same room with him, on the air we carried on like long-lost friends.
Some folks didn’t
understand how I could be so friendly to a character I had derided for being so
bad, but that explanation was easy: I was just sticking with the truth wherever
it led.
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DEACON'S BLADE
5:45 a.m., my fingers hover near the mic button. I'm about to punch it and go
live on the air to talk about the next song and to promote Shirley Q. Liquor,
the nurse's aide who's going to tell us one of her funny stories--this one
about the Holy Ghost Revival, Catfish-fry and Liquor Throwdown coming up at her
church. I'm groovin' to the Al Green song that's about to end,
when--suddenly--the worst thing that can be heard on a morning show fills my
earphones....
.....silence!
I rip off the headset and lurch out of my chair yelling, "Crap! Not again!" (I think I said 'Crap.' I'm not sure.)
I burst through the soundproof door to the other studio, startling the almost-naked man standing on a folding chair with his head above the frame of the drop-ceiling.
"Deacon, you did it again!"
The groggy d-j who is a dead ringer for Samuel L. Jackson, bends down from the crawl space and says, "Whassup?"
"You messed with the wiring again!" I yell. "You gotta quit doing this, man!"
Deacon, one of the best deejays I have ever worked with, waves an open switchblade. "Thought it was a snake."
"I told you there's not any snakes in that ceiling! There's nothing up there but wires!"
"I hid sumpin' up here. Lookin' for it. Saw a snake."
"Sumpin' important. And I turned around and it was a snake."
"Why don't you go to the roof, man? Get ready for your space ship?"
Deacon becomes animated, nearly falls off the chair but catches a loop of wire and steadies himself. "You seen it? You seen it, man? It's really there! Between two stars and gettin' bigger every night. It's comin', man!"
"Well, go wait for it on the roof, then. And be careful climbing up the drain pipe."
"You comin', too, Randy? You a good man. You deserve to get out of this place."
"Yeah, I'll be there a little later."
"And I.B? And Plucker? And Mr. Winky? And Shirley Q. Liquor?"
In Deacon's state at this particular time, it would do no good to remind him that I.B. Flyin', Plucker and Mr. Winky are all just different versions of me--figments of my imagination presented on my show as separate individuals--and that Shirley Q. Liquor is an Internet comedian.
"You think there's enough room for all of us, Deacon?"
"I'll make room, man. You good folks. You deserve to escape."
"Thanks, man. We'll be there. But first you've got to get your clothes on."
"I forgot where I left 'em."
"Well, I'll help you look after I call the engineer to come see what you did. Now give me your knife before you fall and cut yourself."
"Nobody gets my blade, man." Deacon closes the switchblade against his pubic area and steps off the chair. "Nobody gets my blade."
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MAGIC
On a spring night in 1986
Louisiana State Police get a strange call. There’s a traffic jam, a big one, on
a remote stretch of highway in a sparsely-populated area between Lake D’Arbonne
and Arkansas. There are only 3,000 people in the nearby town of Farmerville,
Louisiana—but there are more people than that partying at the lake with a radio
station from West Monroe.
For two days and one night during the Magic 106 “Weekend On The Lake,” Lake D’Arbonne seems more like a Florida beach during spring break than a lake in the woods in North Louisiana. The State Police send reinforcements to handle traffic.
Magic 106 is the station people listen to even when it’s off the air. (Before we pull the plug to install a new antenna and transmitter, we promise a free camcorder to the first person who calls when we go back on the air. Days later, the moment we resume broadcasting, the phones start ringing... proof that people were listening to our static--waiting for us to come back on the air-- rather than listening to our competition!)
We have a 1961 Pink
Cadillac named Gertrude. “When you see Gertrude in traffic, if
you roll down your window and yell, 'My radio sticks to 106!' the
deejay driving Gertrude will give you $50.” Drivers follow Gertrude
everywhere. Every time we take her out, it’s like a parade! People drive down
the street trying to get our attention, leaning out their windows
yelling, "My radio sticks to 106!"
We send housewives, librarians, preacher’s wives and the like to rock concerts. We call it our “Wild Women’s Tour” and they eat it up.
We bring the rock group Cinderella to town just to have lunch with a girl who wins a Magic 106 contest. We get a gold record from 10,000 Maniacs for being the first station to play their hit “In My Tribe.” We’re apparently the first station outside of Florida to play “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and other stations nationwide follow our lead.
Even after I become General Manager, I continue my old job of programming the music for Magic 106. Unlike other stations, we play no slow songs. My secret formula, never before revealed: I play music to please one person--the lonely, bored housewife that my wife Sherry used to be (in our younger days) when she would call me while I was on the air and beg me to "play something fast." Common wisdom was that "housewife music" was the smooth, slow, calming, middle-of-the-road stuff, but Sherry had taught me different. She'd say, "I feel so bad. Play something to get me going. Play Crocodile Rock." And I'd play one fast song after another. She said that always helped her through the day. So, all these years later, when I am in charge of KNAN's music, I select the songs we play based on how I think the 'old' Sherry would have responded.
We play only the fastest, funnest dance tunes, the hot hits. No oldies! No soft stuff! We grab the listener, pick her up, squeeze her, shake her, never let her go. (Figuratively, of course.) Roger, the owner, hates it. He calls me into his office and berates me for playing “Oh, Sheila" (by Ready For The World) and says he never wants to hear anything like that on his station again. The next morning his wife and daughter come to the breakfast table singing “Oh, Sheila” and Roger comes to work and apologizes to me and never interferes with music selection again.
I convince him to subscribe to the ratings, which cost more than the salary of a fulltime employee. When he doesn’t see an immediate increase in advertising revenue, he calls me in for an ass-chewing. “We haven’t made one red cent from national advertising because of these ratings. I was stupid to take your advice and I promise you it won’t happen again.” At this moment—this very moment—our lovely red-haired secretary pops in and says, “Randy, Lay’s Potato Chips wants to buy some advertising. Do you want to call them back?” Roger never reins me in again.
When I’m spending $19,000 per month running his station, we're bringing in $40,000 in sales. When I spend $40,000 per month, we make $60,000. When I increase spending to $60,000 per month, our income rises to $165,000 per month.
January is the toughest month for selling ads. But, in consecutive Januarys, we bill $19,000, $42,000 and $126,000. These increases aren’t due to Monroe being a thriving, growing market, because it isn't. We succeed because of our creative ideas and
winning
attitudes –which are the main ingredients in the “magic” of Magic 106.
One of our January campaigns is “A Winning Attitude Is Magic,” in which we talk about business owners’ winning attitudes and then run their ads. “Joe Sixpack started with a wheelbarrow and two shovels and now he owns shops in six states….” Followed by, “Shop at Joe Sixpack’s store today for….” whatever. That one idea results in a 150% increase in business in one month.
I hire a country disk-jockey, Chuck Redden, for the morning show. He thinks he’s supposed to be laid-back, sophisticated on an Adult-Contemporary station. I tell him to be himself—act a fool. He does. Which makes him a phenomenon. Chuck, who can imitate the heavy Cajun accent of crooked but popular Governor Edwin Edwards, writes a song about Edwards (“The Edwin Shuffle”) and we sell hundreds of copies of it on cassette. “The Edwin Shuffle” gets noticed as far away as Dallas. The Dallas Morning News does a story about it.
Imagine a little station in a converted laundry building in West Monroe,
Louisiana, getting press coverage from the Dallas Morning News! Damn! Geez!
What’s going on? (It was a big deal as this was decades before TikTok, Instagram, Faebook, et al. This was before texting, email and even beepers
Our news guy Clifton Riley writes news that flows like poetry.
Clifton does a perfect imitation of Ronald Reagan. So does Steve Cannon, my midday host. Together, they become the Reagan brothers, pretending that Ronald Reagan is twins. They do hilarious spoofs of the bumbling old President.
Our night man, Paul Piro, sounds like a fire-and-brimstone preacher. We name him the Piro-maniac and he sets the night-time on fire with the highest ratings on the station--more than 40% in all age-groups.
Tom Ross (Tom Gombossy) is a Hungarian refugee with a Psychology degree from Louisiana Tech. I hire him as a deejay but he’s so good at making people like him that he drifts into sales and makes the transition from $6.00 an hour to (sometimes) hundreds of dollars an hour, from the slums to a big house in a fine subdivision in less than a year.
I first hire Tripper Lewis (Louis Lowentritt III) when he’s 17. The kid does superb production, runs a tight show and has incredible sales abilities. He does so many different things so well, I sometimes have trouble deciding which slot to use him in, but—one way or the other—I’m counting on him for the long-haul. The kid’s practically a genius. How could I go wrong with a genius? His one big drawback is insecurity—constantly asking if I’m going to fire him. Fire him? Hell, that’s the farthest thing from my mind. I’d never fire him in a million years. Except for the power of suggestion.... except he never lets up. Before I realize it, I'm thinking about it as much as he is so I have to fire him. Seven times in six years. However, I hire him eight times in those same six years and he’s still there when I get fired by new owners.
Although I’m GM and don’t have an air shift, I write and produce many of our commercials. (My record is 136 in one day.) (Steve did 35 that same day.)
We develop a “sharp angle” sales pitch in which our sales rep says, “Mr. Businessman, if I can get a commercial for you in the next five minutes that makes you laugh or gives you chill bumps, will you spend X amount of dollars with me next month?” To prove there’s no pre-recorded spot, we let the customer—not my sales rep—call and give me a few details. I write and produce the spot and call him back within five minutes. If he laughs or gets chill bumps, we get the sale. It never failed.
We’re good at selling our customers. We’re even better at selling OUR CUSTOMERS’ customers. Some examples, from one of our brochures at the time….
IDEAL APPLIANCE: “The remote we ran on 106 DOUBLED the largest day we ever had!” (Martin Thibodeaux)
ARCTIC SCOOP: “More than 1100 people came in and asked for our special IN ONE DAY, after 21 ads on Magic 106!” (Don Spatafore)
TRENTON HOUSE BRIDAL REGISTRY: “After 16 spots on Magic 106, over 700 people
attended
on Saturday, when normally about 40 come in!” (Martha Rogers)
SUBWAY SANDWICHES: “Our customer count increased by 125% when we did the remote with Magic 106. The following day doubled!” (Shane McOmber)
TWIN CITY HONDA: “Spending $2,000 per week on a Magic 106 promotion, we did over $415,000 of business in 4 weeks…doubly impressive since it occurred during and after the stock market crash.” (Lannie P. Henley)
No other station got results like this. Because no station was ever as exciting as Magic 106—the station people listened to even when it was off the air.
When I find out that Roger has secretly sold the station, after promising me throughout the past five years that he’d never do so, I tell him how disappointed I am. Then I get the biggest break of my life when Roger gets sued by some former employees, forcing him to postpone the sale until he settles the suit. He tells me if I’ll stay till the sale goes through, he’ll let me do everything my way. And he keeps that promise. He goes back to the tire business and I run the radio station.
I do everything I ever wanted to do in radio—with billboards, giveaways, hot
music, fun-loving deejays, commercials that are so good they’re part of the
entertainment, not an interruption of it, huge promotions (like the
afore-mentioned Weekend On The Lake.)
We toss 10,000 wooden nickels from our float in the Monroe Mardi Gras parade. The nickels are numbered and one is worth a new car, which we give away a week later at Pecanland Mall. The giant mall is swamped with Magic 106 listeners. There’s standing room only—barely breathing room—around the Magic 106 stage where we announce the winner of the car. There are so many people in attendance that mall merchants close their doors and lock their grates to keep our crowd from standing in their stores. The whole event is broadcast on live TV
In the first ratings period after Roger has given me complete control of the station, something incredible happens: the ratings company (Birch Radio) refuses to release the survey on the announced date because one station’s ratings are so high they can’t believe it. They review the data, double-check with respondents, re-calculate and, finally, announce that Magic 106 has scored the highest ratings ever tabulated in a 12-station market: 37.2% .
In those days—Chuck, Tom, Tripper, Steve, Clifton, The Piromaniac, me and Sherry, walked on water. We were magic.
