Celebrity Snippets

Larry King

2007-12-14T23:40:00.001-06:00

Larry King is the host of Larry King Live on CNN

By Rick Kaempfer

In the fall of 1993, America was debating the merits of NAFTA. One of the champions of NAFTA was former Vice President Al Gore, and the biggest opponent was Ross Perot. Larry King scored the coup of having the two men on his show to debate the issue on national television.

I scored the coup of getting Larry King to appear on the John Landecker show the day before the debate. He happened to be in Chicago promoting a book, and I booked him to appear in our studio--which I thought was a pretty big deal at the time.

When Larry arrived, I got a call from the front desk of the radio station. I immediately ran out to get him--and when he saw me, he handed me his overcoat and said "cream, no sugar." (Or something like that. I can't remember the exact coffee order--I just remember it was made without even saying hello.)

I brought him right into the studio, and took my usual place--sitting next to John. The interview was off to a pretty good start when I saw the face of our general manager through the glass in the newsroom. He looked incredibly ticked off, which truth be told, was his usual demeanor. He wiggled his finger toward me.

I thought I shouldn't get up and leave in the middle of the conversation because I was sitting between John and Larry, so I signaled with one finger that I would be there in a minute. I was going to wait until the commercial break.

Twenty seconds later, he came into the studio itself--which he had never done while the microphones were on, and gave me the same finger wiggle. This time both Larry and John saw him do it, and they were struggling to stay on topic. I had no choice but to get up, and when I got near him, he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me into the hallway.

"What the f*** are you doing?" he screamed after the door closed behind us.

"What do you mean?" I asked, truly having no idea what he was talking about.

"Larry King?" he spat.

"Yeah, tomorrow night he's got..."

"I don't give a f*** if he's got Jesus F***** Christ on his show tomorrow night. It's after 8:30. We should be playing music right now."

I couldn't believe my ears. I looked at him, shook my head sadly, and walked back into the studio. I knew this dispute wasn't over, but I also knew John needed me in the studio, and this was too big of a deal to be wasting my time in the hallway explaining why. I figured it could be handled after the show. I didn't know our general manager well enough at the time to realize that wasn't going to be an option. (Keep in mind we had only been at the station for a few months when this occurred.)

Sure enough, Harvey wasn't going to just let this drop. This time he waited until the commercial break to come into the studio, but he walked in again. He was obviously pissed off.

"Rick, can I talk to you in the hallway again," he said through gritted teeth. He was trying his best to sound like he wasn't mad, but he was notoriously bad at doing so.

"Harvey," I said. "Have you met Larry King? You guys have something in common. You're both from Brooklyn."

"What part of Brooklyn?" Larry asked.

That started the conversation between these two guys--who were about the same age and from the same neighborhood, and within moments there were smiles all around--Harvey and Larry were laughing and reminiscing. When the commercial break was ending, John practically had to shoo Harvey out of the studio.

"You still need to talk to me in the hallway?" I asked.

Harvey waved me off. "Nah," he said. "We'll talk about it another time."

We never did.

That next night on CNN, Larry King got one of the biggest audiences of all time (a cable television record at the time), and made the front page of every newspaper in the country. Because we had a preview of that historic night on our little local Chicago radio station the day before, excerpts of our interview were quoted in both Chicago newspapers.

But we probably should have been playing "Build me up Buttercup" for the one thousandth time.

Charmian Carr

2007-12-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

Charmian Carr played the part of "Liesl" in the Oscar winning film "The Sound of Music."

Last time in Celebrity Snippets, I wrote about my encounter Julie Andrews, but these are the essential ingredients of the story for you to understand the significance of my encounter with Charmian Carr.

When I was growing up, the Sound of Music was a very important film in our house. My father came from Austria and he forced us to watch it so many times that we knew the film by heart. After he died, The Sound of Music reminded us of Dad even more.

I made the mistake of telling John Landecker about this, and he thought it was hilarious that a 30-something straight male loved that movie. He brought me along to an interview with Julie Andrews to embarrass me. He thought I was in love with her--but I confessed after the interview that I was actually in love with the girl who played Liesl, Charmian Carr.

As it turns out, telling that to John was an even bigger mistake.

I figured the odds of running into her were minimal, but wouldn't you know it, she came to Chicago just a few years later to promote a sing-a-long version of "The Sound of Music." When John heard she was coming, he insisted that I book her to appear on the show.

I did. But I knew I was in for it.

He wouldn't tell me what was going on in the days before the interview, but I heard a lot of whispering between John and the other members of the show. Whenever I walked into the room, they shut up. Or they laughed. I was bracing for the worst.

On the morning of the interview, I was unbelievably nervous. John had even been warning the audience about my childhood love of Liesl, and that something truly memorable was about to occur.

She arrived at the studio about fifteen minutes early, so I met her at the door and brought her to the green room. I must say, she was still quite beautiful. I know she's easily fifteen years older than me, and I know how ridiculous this sounds, but I couldn't even bring myself to shake her hand. I had sweaty palms.

I tried to warn her that something was going to happen. I told her that John had been teasing me about my love of the movie, and described our Julie Andrews experience to her. She seemed amused by it all, but I must admit...I had a difficult time maintaining eye contact.

Take a look at those eyes.

When I brought her into the studio, John was nearly bouncing off his seat with excitement. Within seconds, he was handing each of us a script, and explaining to the audience what was about to occur.

He had transcribed the love scene between Liesl and Rolf, and wanted to know if Charmian would recreate that scene live on the air, with me playing the part of Rolf. I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed in my life.

She was obviously a little taken aback by this, but after looking at me, shrugged her shoulders and said "Sure, what the heck."

John cued the music, and boom, we were acting out the scene. I was sitting five feet away from the real Liesl, and she was calling me "Rolf" with love in her voice. I stammered through my first line, which sent John into convulsions, and onto the floor, but it didn't stop Charmian. She was such a good sport about it.

We did the entire scene. For those two or three minutes, she was sixteen going on seventeen, and I was the blond-haired Austrian teenager she was in love with.

Can I confess it now?

It was probably one of my all-time favorite moments in my radio career because it was such a unique and personal experience.

Don't tell that to John, though. It would ruin the moment for him.

How many people have both of these autographs on their "Sound of Music" soundtrack?

Julie Andrews

2007-11-17T09:22:00.000-06:00

Julie Andrews has won an Oscar for best actress for her performance as "Mary Poppins." The following year she was also nominated for best actress for her role as Maria in "The Sound of Music."

My father grew up in Austria, so the movie "The Sound of Music" was very special to him. He was about the same age as the Von Trapp children during the war, and it struck a chord. We went as a family to see it in the movie theater, and then we watched it together every time it was on television. It was not optional viewing.

In the summer of 1974, he even sent my sister and I to spend the summer with his old school chum in a small town outside of Salzburg…the very same hills that were alive with the Sound of Music. After my father died in the late 80s, the movie took on added significance to me. It reminded me of Dad.

Somewhere along the line during my years with the John Landecker show, I made the mistake of telling John about this. He thought it was hilarious that a 30-something year old straight man loved "The Sound of Music." He filed that little bit of information away, just waiting for an opportunity to use it.

That opportunity came soon enough.

When Julie Andrews came to Chicago in the mid-90s to star in the Broadway-bound "Victor-Victoria," I spent weeks setting up a special one-on-one interview for John. When I finally did secure a taped interview at the theater, he got a little twinkle in his eye.

I knew I was in trouble, but I figured it would be worth it. Our audience was Julie's audience, and vice versa. It was a no-brainer for the show.

The interview was actually quite entertaining. Her husband Blake Edwards, the director of the film Victor/Victoria, was sitting by her side throughout the interview and he was on a comedic roll—totally dominating the discussion. I was enjoying it tremendously as a fly on the wall.

I can still picture it vividly.

I was sitting just a few feet away from Julie Andrews, and I have to say, she looked fantastic. I was so impressed by her in so many ways. She seemed unbelievably nice, plus she was really showing me something by laughing at the ribald humor of her husband. In fact, I was enjoying it so much, I had completely forgotten about the butterflies in my stomach.

They came back quickly, however, when the interview was wrapping up. John pulled a CD copy of the Sound of Music soundtrack out of his jacket, and my face immediately turned bright red. I knew what was coming next.

"That's my producer, Rick," he said, pointing to me, "And he's been in love with you since 'The Sound of Music' came out. Would you mind autographing this CD for him?"

She looked at me and smiled, genuinely flattered. I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl under my chair.

"Do you run into a lot of 30-something year old straight guys who loved the Sound of Music?" he teased.

"Don't let him get to you, Rick," she said, handing me the CD. "He just doesn't get it."

I still have that CD. On the way back to the studio, I didn't even realize I was clutching it tightly to my chest. John laughed out loud.

"You really were in love with Julie Andrews, weren't you?" he asked.

"Actually, no," I foolishly corrected him. "I was in love with Liesl."

Boy, would I come to regret that little confession. In the next "Celebrity Snippets," I'll tell you why.

Mary Tyler Moore & Valerie Harper

2007-11-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

Mary Tyler Moore was the star of the iconic "Mary Tyler Moore" show. One of the co-stars of that show was Valerie Harper. Mary and Valerie are the best of friends off-camera too.

By Rick Kaempfer

I wrote about the joint appearance of Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper on the John Landecker show in my book "The Radio Producer's Handbook." The fun part about that interview was that Valerie knew Mary would be on, but Mary had no clue that Valerie would be there....

Mary Tyler Moore was appearing via satellite on a publicity tour. She had no visual contact with us for what was scheduled to be a ten-minute interview. Mary knew that she was going to be interviewed by a man and a woman (John Landecker & Vicki Truax), but that was all she knew. As soon as the interview started, the female interviewer (going by the name of Vicki) started getting belligerent and questioned Mary Tyler Moore’s sincerity. Mary got upset. She started to go after Vicki, until she began to sense that something strange was going on. After a few more seconds, she recognized the voice. It was her good friend and former co-star Valerie Harper, who happened to be in town doing a play. The awkwardness of the first few seconds of the interview led to a truly special interview that Mary probably remembers to this day.

The visual memory I have of that day is the evil expression on Valerie's face. She was really getting into the "character" of Vicki. The real Vicki was sitting right next to her, enjoying the moment silently.

Michael Dukakis

2007-10-27T00:03:00.000-05:00

Michael Dukakis was the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in the 1988 election vs. George H.W. Bush.

This excerpt from "The Radio Producer's Handbook" details the single worst moment of my broadcasting career. It shaped me for years to come...

Depending on the number of shows on your station, the secret in-studio phone number (commonly called the hotline) may not exactly be a secret. During the 1988 presidential election, Michael Dukakis was in Chicago attending a fundraiser. One of the writers of this book (OK—it was Rick) had unsuccessfully attempted to get him on the show he was producing.

As the traffic reporter was discussing the traffic created by the Dukakis motorcade, the hotline rang. It was someone claiming to be in the limo with Dukakis. He said that Dukakis wanted to get on the air to let Chicago know he was sorry for the traffic delay. Because Rick had made several calls to the Dukakis campaign, he believed the caller.

The hosts (Steve Dahl & Garry Meier) were pleasantly flattered that a presidential candidate would be calling the show, and they believed it too. However, about three seconds into the Dukakis call it became obvious that isn’t wasn’t Dukakis. It was a hoax. If Rick had insisted on speaking to Dukakis himself on the phone before he told the host, the entire situation could have been avoided.

I was lucky that Steve & Garry made a bit out of my stupidity that day. The show wasn't ruined (only my reputation was). However, that moment also turned me into a different producer. I vowed never to let anything like that ever happen again.

About a month later when Steve & Garry were at a live broadcast somewhere, the hotline rang again. I was back at the studio running the controls.

"Hey, who's this?" the caller asked.

"Who's this?" I challenged.

"It's Jim Belushi," he said.

"Right."

"No, really. It's me. Jim Belushi."

"Yeah, and I'm Michael Dukakis."

I hung up on him. He sounded like an imposter to me.

About twenty minutes later I was listening off the air to Steve and Garry during a commercial break. (The sound still came back to the studio, but it wasn't going over the air).

"Hey Garry," Steve said. "Look, it's Jim Belushi."

"Hey guys," Belushi said. "I tried to call you at the station to find out the address of this place, and some guy hung up on me."

Sigh.

I got much better with experience, but every time I hear someone mention the names Michael Dukakis or Jim Belushi the hair still stands up on my neck.

And it's been nearly twenty years.

Elvira

2007-10-20T00:03:00.000-05:00

In the 1980s actress Cassandra Peterson became nationally known as “Elvira; Mistress of the Dark.” She continues to play that role to this day.

The year was 1989.

It was right around Halloween, and I thought it would be fun to have Elvira on the Steve & Garry show to talk about the holiday.

Steve & Garry weren’t exactly huge fans, but I convinced them that it was thematically appropriate to have Elvira on the show during the last week of October. They agreed, but they did so grudgingly.

When she called from her home in Los Angeles the day of the interview, I answered the phone, and the conversation went something like this…

“Hello this is Cassandra calling the Steve & Garry show.”

“Elvira?” I asked.

“That’s a character I play,” she said. “Please call me Cassandra.”

“OK, Cassandra. You’ll be on the air with Steve & Garry in just a minute. Obviously we’ll be talking about Halloween. Please hold.”

I put her on hold for a second and stared at the phone. I had that queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I picked up the phone again.

“You will be going by ‘Elvira’ on the air, right?” I asked.

“That’s not my name,” she said. “My name is Cassandra. If they want to discuss the character of Elvira, and how I get into the character, I’d be happy to do that.”

“OK, thanks,” I said. “Please hold.”

That’s when I knew it was going to be a horrible train wreck. Steve & Garry had an incredibly low threshold for actors who took themselves too seriously. I walked into the studio during the commercial break, and prepared to take my punishment.

"Elvira's on hold," I said.

“Tell her we’ll get to her after the commercials,” Steve responded, barely looking up at me.

I cleared my throat.

“Actually…there’s something you should know before we put her on.”

Steve looked up. His radar was beeping.

“What?”

“Um…well, she wants you to call her... Cassandra.”

Steve gave me the classic “Bye Bye Now” flight attendant wave.

“Get rid of her?” I asked.

"No," Steve said. The sarcasm was dripping. "I'm sure our listeners would love to hear all about someone named Cassandra."

And that was that.

I thanked Cassandra for calling and apologized that we had run out of time.

Mike Royko

2007-10-13T00:03:00.000-05:00

Mike Royko was a legendary newspaper columnist in Chicago for the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune. He passed away in 1997.

In the mid-90s the John Landecker show was co-hosted by Vicki Truax, who was married to legendary Chicago TV sportscaster Tim Weigel.

Through Vicki, Tim became a friend of mine. Tim was a gregarious guy, and it seemed like we were invited to parties at his huge Evanston mansion all the time. The guest lists at these parties read like a who's who of Chicago's media, including one of Tim's very best friends; Mike Royko.

I grew up reading him, and I considered him one of America's greatest living writers, but he was not exactly known as a warm and fuzzy guy. I was actually scared to death of him. Whenever I got into a conversation anywhere near the man, I just prayed I didn't say anything stupid. I respected his talent so much it would have killed me if he thought I was an idiot. (And he thought just about everyone was an idiot—he was famous for his ability to slice and dice with an effortlessly tossed barb.)

Therefore, whenever Royko was around, I was mute. I just liked standing near him and listening to his stories. I was pretty sure he had no idea who I was, and I liked it that way, but I was pretty sure it couldn't last forever.

I was right.

At one of these shindigs I was talking to Tim about something we had done on the radio show that week. It was a wacky parody song about John Wayne Bobbitt, the most famous man in America at that time. (Remember him? He was the guy who had his thingee cut off by his wife.) Tim really thought the song was funny, and asked me if I wrote it.

While I was in the middle of openly admitting that I wrote a wacky parody song about a guy who had his penis cut off, I didn't see America's most respected newspaper columnist walk up next to me. When I saw him, my heart sank. He was clearly listening in on the conversation.

At that moment I knew I would no longer be able blend into the walls and just listen to Royko.

"You wrote that Bobbitt song?" he asked me.

I gulped and braced myself for the slapdown king's inevitable slapdown.

"Yes he did," Tim answered for me. "Did you hear it?"

Royko nodded. "Yeah, my wife had it on in the car," he said. I could hear the disdain in his voice. I knew he wasn't a regular listener of the show.

Tim asked him the one question I never would have asked in a million years. "What did you think of it?"

Royko looked at me, and just for a second, a crooked little grin formed at the corner of his mouth. "I thought it was genius," he said.

I don't remember anything else that happened at the party that night. I don't even remember leaving the party, or getting home. I might have flown home, I'm not sure. But I'll always remember that one little moment when the wacky parody song writer was given the momentary seal of approval from one of his idols.

On the other hand, as my wife always points out when I tell this story, "He was hitting the gin pretty hard that night."

As if that matters.

Chubby Checker

2007-10-06T00:02:00.000-05:00

Chubby Checker was a huge recording star in the early 60s, thanks to his hit songs "The Twist," "Pony Time," "Let's Twist Again," and "Limbo Rock."

By Rick Kaempfer

In the mid-to-late 90s WJMK did a huge free concert at Lambs Farm every summer, bringing in big name Oldies acts to play for up to 100,000 people in a wonderful farm setting in Libertyville. All of the proceeds from the concessions were donated to Lambs Farm, a non-profit organization serving people with developmental disabilities. It was always our biggest event of the year.

One year we booked Chubby Checker to be one of the headliners. Chubby still does an incredible live show, and our listeners were very excited to see him.

The day before the concert, however, Chubby made an appearance on the John Landecker show. He didn't much care for getting up early, but he made an exception for us because our station was paying him a lot of money to appear in concert.

The Chubby Checker interview was our first encounter with a phenomenon we would encounter countless times during our WJMK run: Oldies-phobia.

Chubby did talk about the good old days with John for awhile, but he kept turning the conversation back to his brand new album. He was holding it in his hand, and kept telling John how good it was, asking John to play it.

"Fine," an exasperated John finally said, "What kind of music is it?"

"It's country," Chubby said.

"We're an Oldies station," John reminded him.

"But I'm not an Oldie," Chubby said. "I've got new stuff here."

I can't remember if John played any of Chubby's new album (I want to say he did play a small sample of a few songs), but I do remember what happened at the end of the interview.

John asked Chubby to record a liner for our show. You've probably heard a million of these on radio stations around the country. They usually go like this: "Hi, this is Celebrity Q, and you're listening to Radio Station X." Chubby has probably done hundreds of them over the years.

We gave Chubby a script, he read it once, and then nodded.

"OK, roll tape."

John started the tape, and Chubby read the liner. "This is Chubby Checker and you're listening to John Records Landecker on 104.3."

John thanked him, but asked him to do it one more time.

"We're actually called 'Oldies 104.3'" John said, pointing to the word on the script.

"I won't say that," Chubby replied. "See you at the concert."

He took off his headphones, and off he went.

We later ran into the same problem with Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Paul McCartney, and many others.

I'll cut both Love and McCartney some slack. After all, Paul is a Beatle, and the Beatles truly do transcend musical labels. Sure, Paul hasn't had a hit in more than twenty years, but at least he has continued to release new albums every few years, and those albums continue to sell pretty well. Nevertheless, I think it was a little weird he wouldn't say the word "Oldies."

As for Mike Love, he wouldn't even agree to be interviewed on an Oldies station because he didn't want to be associated with that label. In his defense, at least the Beach Boys had a hit with "Kokomo" in 1988. While I still think it was a stretch to consider the Beach Boys as anything other an oldies act, I could see why he didn't think so.

But Chubby Checker?

No offense, the man did a very good concert the next day and our listeners loved it, but that concert was a classic oldies act. The most recent song in his act ("Let's Do the Freddie") was released in 1965, a few weeks after the first Vietnam War demonstration in Berkley.

I mean, honestly, when he sings "Let's Twist Again like we did last summer," he's actually singing about the summer of 1960…forty-seven summers ago.

I wasn't born until three summers later.

John Mahoney & Virginia Madsen

2007-09-28T22:54:00.001-05:00

John Mahoney is probably most famous for his role on the long-time hit show "Frasier", for which he was nominated for an Emmy. He got his start in Chicago theatre at the Steppenwolf. Virginia Madsen is also a native Chicagoan, and has been in countless films, including the recent hit "Sideways", for which she nominated for an Academy Award. They appeared together in the film "Almost Salinas"

This John Mahoney & Virginia Madsen interview took place during the bad old days at WJMK when the studio was literally falling apart around us, the station was cutting back in ridiculous ways (only one engineer for three radio stations), and the powers that be were trying to force us out. Nevertheless, we continued to try to put on a first class radio show. Some days it went better than other days. On the day John and Virginia were in the studio, we hit a new low--although it was certainly not their fault.

The following story about John Mahoney & Virginia Madsen is taken from my first book "The Radio Producer's Handbook," (co-written by John Swanson) which, by the way is still available at amazon.com. It comes from Chapter 3 "Crafting a Great Interview", page 30, in the section about live in-studio interviews...

There are times when even an in-studio interview can derail for technical reasons. John Mahoney and Virginia Madsen were appearing live in John Landecker’s studio to promote their film Almost Salinas. By a fluke of nature, the transmitter of the radio station malfunctioned about a minute after the interview began. The station was not on the air at all.

However, the producer of the show, Rick Kaempfer, was the only person in the room who realized it. The headphones were not plugged into the on-air monitor because the show was in delay, and therefore, the host and the guests had no idea that something was wrong. Instead of telling everyone and ending the interview, Rick calmly walked out of the studio and called the Chief Engineer.

While the engineer worked on getting the station back on the air, and Rick flop sweated like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News, the interview was completed. None of it aired live because the transmitter wasn’t fixed for another twenty minutes. However, the interview was recorded on a DAT (Digital Audio Tape), and it was replayed on the air the following day, just as it originally occurred.

Sigh.

I think this was the day I decided that when the plug was officially pulled from the John Landecker show, that I would not be returning to radio.

The plug was mercifully pulled only two months later.

Bob Newhart

2007-09-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

Bob Newhart is one of the most popular comedians in American history. His comedy album from the 60s: "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" is one of the top selling comedy albums of all time.

The following Bob Newhart story is taken from my first book "The Radio Producer's Handbook," which, by the way is still available at amazon.com. It comes from Chapter 3 "Crafting a Great Interview", page 34, in the section about phone interviews...

Recording phone interviews in studios that aren’t normally used for recording interviews can present all sorts of logistical problems. Normally, you have to kick a production person out of his studio to do this, and he has everything set precisely the way he wants it. A few years ago, Rick was attempting to tape a phone interview between John Landecker & Bob Newhart.

The production director had no idea how to set up his control board to record a phone call. The first two times Newhart got on the line, the production director accidentally hung up on him. By the time the studio was properly set up, Newhart had been waiting on the line for twenty minutes. Luckily, he had a great sense of humor about it. He thought that they were trying to do a phone bit like the ones that made him famous.

When we finally got him on the air, he and John had a great conversation. They talked about his breakthrough album that John memorized when he was a kid, and Bob's two most successful television series.

We also played John's all-time favorite Bob Newhart bit: This one about Abraham Lincoln.

And, of course, the clip of one of the most memorable moments in television history.

Richard Lewis

2007-09-08T00:03:00.000-05:00

Richard Lewis is a stand up comedian. He currently stars in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO.

I’ve always considered Richard Lewis one of the funniest humans on the planet. I became a fan in the 80s when he started making appearances on David Letterman’s show. His angst-y neurotic humor always made me laugh.

I finally got a chance to meet him in the late 80s when I was the producer of Steve & Garry’s show on the Loop, and I wasn’t disappointed. He was as funny in person as he was on television or on stage.

I also discovered, however, that his comedic persona is not an act. He really is that angst-y neurotic guy. I could tell by the way he sought approval after each interview (“How did it go? Was it funny?”), but I really found out for sure the day he came in to guest-host the show for Steve and Garry.

Hosting a 4 ½ hour comedy talk show isn’t easy for anyone. Without a partner to help out, it’s even more difficult. That’s the dilemma Richard faced that day. The only person he had to help him was me. My job was to run the controls, and keep the show moving.

This was pretty early in my career, and to be honest, I wasn’t yet that confident in this role. Steve normally ran the controls for the show. The only time he allowed me to do it was the first fifteen minutes of the show every day, when he was inevitably late. I had never run an entire show before Richard walked in that day.

I only mention this to point out that I was probably as nervous as Richard was. I always had one eye on the clock, and one eye on the controls. I was responsible for getting the guests on the phone during the commercial breaks, and for running the commercial breaks. I was responsible for getting the traffic, news, and sports reports on the air too, which required calling each of the people involved and making sure they were ready to go before we went to them. And I was responsible for screening the listener phone calls, which I had to do in the studio.

If this had occurred just a few months later, all of it would have been second nature to me. Unfortunately for Richard, that wasn’t the case during his guest-hosting gig. That’s not to say that I messed up any of those duties during the show—I didn’t. The technical part of the show went off flawlessly.

The problem was that while I was so worried about performing my duties, I had forgotten who was on the other side of the console…a very angst-y neurotic comedian. It started to unravel almost immediately. He told a joke and I didn’t laugh. The next twenty minutes of the show were about the fact that he had to do a show in front of a stone-faced man.

“Are you alive?” he said. “Can we get somebody in here to check this man’s pulse?”

After he exhausted that line of material, he began to doubt himself.

“It’s because I’m bombing, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m not funny. I can’t believe it. I’ve got four more hours to go, and I’ve got nothing here.”

I tried to concentrate on laughing, and I tried to tell him how funny he was during the commercial breaks, but I had so many other things going on, he wasn’t buying it. In fact, during the commercials I realized that he wasn’t doing a bit at all—he really was depressed because he really thought he was bombing.

And even though I’m one of his biggest fans, it was my fault.

Sigh.

It was a long 4 ½ hours.

I will say this, however. After getting to know him a little better, and after booking him dozens of times over the next twenty years, I came to admire his comedic ability even more.

Especially now that I know it’s not an act.

Boy George

2007-08-18T00:03:00.000-05:00

Boy George was the lead singer of the Culture Club.

By Rick Kaempfer

The year was 1985.

Boy George was one of the most famous singers in the entire world, and his band The Culture Club had just released their third album.

Unfortunately, their third album was a flop. The record was floundering, and the crowds were not coming out to see the concerts. I think the best way to describe how badly it was going for them was this--one day the program director of a radio station in Champaign-Urbana received a phone call offering up Boy George as an in-studio guest.

That program director was me.

I accepted the offer immediately, of course. I was also doing the afternoon show on WPGU at the time, and Boy George was far and away the biggest celebrity I ever had the opportunity to interview. I researched his controversial career diligently, and had a long list of questions ready.

He was scheduled to arrive at 4:00 p.m.

Around 3:15 one of the WPGU staffers came into the air studio to tell me that a huge crowd was forming outside the radio station door. That was certainly a new phenomenon for us, and only made me more nervous.

Around 3:45 the same WPGU staffer told me that a limo had pulled up to the door, seen the big crowd and left.

By 4:30 it was pretty clear that Boy George had been spooked by the rabid fans, and had decided to cancel the interview without telling us.

I did what any professional broadcaster would have done at that moment. I asked my friend Dave to come into the studio and pretend like he was Boy George. We were having a great time goofing around. Dave talked in the worst British accent you’ve ever heard, jokingly referred to himself as “Oy George” (Dave is Jewish), and began describing his favorite sandwiches in ridiculous detail.

Imagine our surprise when a newspaper photographer arrived at the studio about ten minutes later.

“I was listening on the radio and heard you had Boy George here,” he said.

“Did he sound like this?” I asked, pointing to Dave, who used that same horribly fake British accent in front of the photographer.

“Yeah,” the photographer said. “Where is he?”

Joan Collins

2007-08-04T00:03:00.000-05:00

Joan Collins is probably most famous for her role as Alexis in the 1980s television series "Dynasty".

To me, the most memorable interviews aren’t the great ones. They’re the terrible ones.

Whenever I think of the worst interviews I’ve ever been associated with in my career, there’s one name that always comes to mind first: Joan Collins.

In the mid-90s, one of the big radio syndicators was experimenting with offering satellite interviews from New York. The idea was that a celebrity could sit in a radio studio, and do ten minute interviews in virtually every major market, and it would sound as if they were in the studio with each host.

The radio stations liked the idea because the sound quality was better than phone interviews. On the other hand, the split second satellite delay had a tendency to throw off the timing of the interviews. The host and guest often talked over each other, stopping and starting sentences; waiting for the other to continue. (You’ve probably seen the same phenomenon in satellite television interviews. Annoying, isn’t it?)

If only that was the problem with the Joan Collins interview.

Joan Collins arrived for her morning interviews with freshly done hair, and she made it known to the producers in New York that she absolutely would not wear headphones. I could hear the negotiations over the satellite as we prepared for the interview. The producers told her that she wouldn’t be able to hear the questions without her headphones, but she wouldn’t budge from her demands.

Instead of telling her she had no choice, they decided to rig up a tiny speaker so that she could hear the questions without mussing her hair.

Unluckily for us, we were the first interview.

As soon as John Landecker asked her a question, we heard the feedback. When she tried to answer the questions, we heard feedback. When we tried to play an audio clip of the movie she was promoting, we heard feedback. It had been going on for about a minute, but it seemed like an hour. It was horrible radio.

John finally said to her, “Listen, lady, you’re gonna have to put on your headphones and turn off that speaker. This is ridiculous.”

When she wouldn’t do it, John ended the interview.

We went to a commercial break, and listened in on the satellite to hear what she was saying about the interview to the people in New York. The first thing we heard her say was: “Well, he was a rude little bastard, wasn’t he?”

Yeah, Joan.

John was the rude one.

This story (and scores of others) can also be found in my first book “The Radio Producer’s Handbook,” which is still available at amazon.com

Walter Payton

2007-07-28T00:03:00.000-05:00

Walter Payton was one of the greatest football players of all-time; a member of the NFL Hall of Fame. When he retired in 1987 he held the record for most rushing yards in NFL History. If he were still alive, he would have turned 53 years old this week.

By Rick Kaempfer

Walter Payton was simply my all-time favorite football player. Growing up in Chicago as a Bears fan, there was no one even close.

I didn’t actually meet him in person, however, until a few years after he retired from the game. It was 1993, and our radio station (WJMK) was doing a remote broadcast from Carson’s, a large (since departed) department store in downtown Chicago. The sponsored remote was to promote the new line of throwback football jerseys for sale, and three all-time NFL greats were on hand to sign autographs; Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, and Walter Payton.

We were excited about the possibilities about doing a show with these three guys, but discovered quickly that it was going to be a little different than we were told. The players made it quite clear to us that they didn’t consider participating in a radio show part of their paid appearance. As far as they were concerned, they were strictly there to sign autographs.

Every time John Landecker put the microphone in front of them, he got nothing. Dick Butkus was particularly nasty about it. He looked like he was going to punch John. Ray Nitschke, who had previously been on our show and seemed to be a pretty cooperative guy under other circumstances, merely grunted, or gave one or two word answers to John’s questions.

Walter Payton treated the appearance of the microphone as an excuse to pinch John. It got a good laugh in the store, but it wasn’t exactly spellbinding radio. In fact, we were beginning to think this was going to go down as one of our all-time worst broadcasts.

Luckily, just as were about to throw in the towel, John noticed that while the Sam Cooke song “Bring it on home” was playing on the radio, Walter Payton was singing along.

John grabbed his live microphone, and said. “Stop the music. Stop it for a second.”

The board operator back at the station did as he was told. John continued. “Good. Now start the Sam Cooke song again. This time we’ve got a special treat for you. This time Sam Cooke will be accompanied on lead vocals by Chicago Bears Hall of Famer Walter Payton.”

The song started again, and sure enough, Walter Payton grabbed the microphone from John and really got into it, belting out Sam Cooke with all of his heart.

He got a standing ovation in the store, but more importantly for us, his singing went out over the airwaves.

It was such a big hit, in fact, we eventually released Walter’s version of the song on our sixth Landecker & the Legends CD, 20th Century Hits and Bits.

The Dixie Chicks

2007-07-21T00:03:00.000-05:00

The Dixie Chicks are American recording artists who stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the months before and after the beginning of the Iraq War.

By Rick Kaempfer

One question I’ve heard more than a few times from people who have read my novel $everance is this: What event in your radio career inspired the political subplot in your book?

I usually just say that it wasn’t one event; it was just witnessing the events around me. As a producer of an entertainment-based show, I wasn’t often confronted with political restraints. In fact, it only really happened once. But it was memorable.

After September 11th, 2001, the John Landecker show began the show every morning by playing the National Anthem. We played all sorts of different versions looking for the one that would be our regular choice, but none of them seemed quite right. A few months later, however, The Dixie Chicks sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl, and their version absolutely blew us away. Beginning the next morning, we started the show with their version of the song every single day.

Every day, that is, until Natalie Maines made her comments about George Bush on the eve of the Iraq War.

John Landecker is about as apolitical a person as you will find, and he disregarded the anti-Dixie Chicks fervor making it's way around the country via conservative talk radio and Fox News Channel. It never occurred to him to stop playing their version of the National Anthem. We weren't making a political statement by playing it--in fact, we believed that because we had been playing it every day before her comments, it would have been a political statement only if we stopped playing the song.

Plus, we weren't getting any complaints, and our listeners were definitely not shy about complaining when they were upset.

That’s probably why we were both so blindsided by our program director ordering us to stop playing it. We thought he was just being ridiculous, and assumed the whole mess would blow over in a day or two.

When we played it again a few days later, he convened a meeting of the entire morning show.

“I told you to stop playing the song,” he said.

“But that was last week. What’s the big deal?” John responded.

“If you don’t stop playing it, you’re fired,” he said.

None of us were prepared for that.

“You’re going to fire us for playing the Dixie Chicks version of the National Anthem?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?” we all wanted to know.

“It’s not in our format,” he lamely attempted to explain.

“But we’ve been playing it every day for more than a year,” John pointed out. “What’s the real reason?”

“That’s the real reason,” he insisted.

There wasn’t a single person in the room that believed him. I couldn’t help myself; I had to call him on it.

“Baloney,” I said. “What’s the real reason?”

He wouldn’t respond. I asked him to put that order in writing. I wanted it as a keepsake. I was going to frame it and put it up in my living room.

He refused, and wouldn’t back down. “The next time I hear that song on the air, every one of you is fired.”

After the meeting was over, John and I had a long talk about it. I must admit, I was encouraging him to play it again. “If we’re going to get fired,” I said, “this would be the way to go—playing the National Anthem.”

John agreed in theory, and he went back and forth in his mind whether or not to defy this ridiculous order. In the end, he decided it just wasn’t worth it.

A few months later we fired anyway.

Over the next year, I began to follow the politics of this story very closely. I watched how the so-called “free marketplace of ideas” conspired against the Dixie Chicks and anyone else who dared to talk out against the war or the president.

Whenever I heard someone say: “They’ve got a right to speak their mind, but we’ve got a right to stop supporting them,” I thought about that meeting with the program director. Were they being banned by popular demand, or was it something else?

Maybe I just don’t understand the concept of the free market, but wouldn’t the fact that the Dixie Chicks continued to sell tons of albums and sell out arenas, but were being banned from the airwaves by radio management be the exact opposite of the free marketplace of ideas?

Minnie Minoso

2007-07-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

Minnie Minoso was one of the all-time greatest Chicago White Sox players. He set a major league record in 1980 when Bill Veeck brought him back for two at-bats, allowing him to have played in the major leagues in 5 different decades (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s).

During this baseball All-Star week, it only seems fitting to write about my encounters with a former All-Star--former White Sox great Minnie Minoso.

Minoso was the center of controversy last year when a special Hall of Fame committee decided that he was not qualified to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. This caused quite a bit of outrage amongst White Sox fans (and several baseball historians), because it was probably Minoso's final chance to get in the Hall.

I've met Minnie many times over the years. He lives in Chicago, and every time I called him up and asked him to appear at one of the John Landecker Show's live broadcasts, he happily agreed. He would show up with a pile of promo pictures and patiently autograph them for anyone who wanted one. He is a heck of a guy.

Now if you've ever heard Minnie speak, you know that his English is very shaky--even after living here for more than fifty years. (He was supposedly the inspiration for the SNL character who always said "Baseball has been berry berry good to me.") So why would we have someone who could barely speak the language on our radio program? Well, the event we invited him to every year was our annual Mini-Golf fund raiser. We invited several local celebrities to participate, but Minnie was always our star attraction. Bob Sirott from "Fox Thing in the Morning" always sent over a TV crew to simulcast Minnie's portion of our show. Why? Same joke every year.

Bob: Is that Minnie Minoso there, John?
John: Let me ask him. What's your name?
Minnie: Minnie Minoso.
John: What are you playing?
Minnie: Mini-Golf.

Here's a picture from our first tournament. Standing from left: John Landecker, White Sox organist Nancy Faust, Santa Claus, WJMK afternoon man Scott Miller, Sidekick Vicki Truax and her daughter Teddi, Barry Newman (singer from the Crests), Radio hall of famer Larry Lujack, Carl Giamarese (singer from the Buckinghams), Minnie Minoso, Late sportscaster Tim Weigel, Ronnie Rice (singer from the New Colony Six), Elvis, and Ronald McDonald (This was a benefit for Ronald McDonald House). Kneeling in front holding the sign: Rick Kaempfer & WJMK Promotions Director Michelle Dirks.

I'm not qualified to render an opinion about whether or not Minoso belongs in the baseball Hall of Fame, but I will say this...

Minnie has been berry berry good to me.

Ringo Starr

2007-07-07T00:06:00.000-05:00

Ringo Starr was the drummer of the greatest band that ever lived; The Beatles.

I’m a Beatle-maniac.

In 1968, I bought my first Beatles 45 RPM. I bought it for “Hey Jude,” but I was blown away by the flipside “Revolution.” I was five years old at the time.

On my seventh birthday my aunt Trudy bought me “Sgt. Pepper.” There was no looking back from that point.

I have since bought every Beatles album and movie. Of course, I was forced to replace the original collection with CDs and Laserdiscs (I know…shut up.). Now I also have every Beatles song loaded on my iPod, and all of my laserdiscs (shut up) have been replaced with DVDs.

I have an insane collection of memorabilia and keepsakes too, including Beatles posters, photographs, books, cards, dolls, magnets, and even a Rubber Soul cigarette case (yes, I know, I don’t smoke—shut up.)

But my all-time most treasured Beatles memento is my Ringo Starr autograph.

How did this autograph come into my possession?

The year was 1989. Ringo was touring the country for the first time in many years, and he assembled an “All-Star Band.” Among the band members was Joe Walsh, the guitarist for The Eagles and The James Gang. Joe Walsh also happened to be a good friend of Steve and Garry at the time, and I happened to be their producer.

When Ringo and his All-Star band came to Chicago, Joe Walsh stopped by the Steve & Garry show as he always did when he was in town. This time, however, both Steve and Garry were giving him a hard time about not bringing Ringo along with him.

“Hey man, I guess I could call him at the hotel, if you want,” Joe said.

Steve handed him the phone.

“Hey Ringo, it’s me Joe,” he said. We could only hear Joe’s half of the conversation. “Listen, remember those guys Steve & Garry I told you about. Yeah. Well I’m going on the air with them in a few minutes and they wanted to know if you would go on with them.”

There was a long silence as he listened to Ringo.

“OK man,” Joe said. He looked at me. “How do I put this thing on hold?”

I grabbed the phone from him before he accidentally hung it up (no offense, but Joe had a few brain cells that were no longer with us). I listened in to make sure Ringo was still there.

“Mr. Starr?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. The Liverpool accent was a dead giveaway. I know this sounds completely pathetic, but I actually got a little weak in my knees when I heard his voice.

“Um…you’ll be on the air with Steve and Garry right after these commercials,” I said. At that point I had to start breathing through my mouth because my normal breathing functions had completely abandoned me.

“Right, then,” he said.

“Please hold.”

My hand was shaking as I hit the hold button. Steve looked at me to confirm it really was Ringo. I nodded.

When the commercial ended, Steve & Garry immediately put one of the four most famous humans on earth on the air.

“Do you have a delay system?” Ringo asked him right out of the box.

“Yes,” Steve admitted.

“You don’t trust me?” Ringo asked. “I’ve done thousands of interviews. Don’t you think I can be trusted?”

“Of course,” Steve said. He leaned over and hit the delay button, taking the show out of delay.

“Is it off?” Ringo asked.

“Yes it is,” Steve said.

“SHIT!” Ringo said.

I don’t remember anything that happened after that. I only remember that nobody was upset with him (this was in the pre-FCC crackdown days), and that it was a very cordial interview. Later that night he appeared in person at the radio station for a national radio call-in show called “Rockline,” which broadcast from the Loop studios that week.

Just before that show aired, Ringo signed my Ringo’s Greatest Hits LP for me.

I’ll treasure it forever.

Coming back in July

2007-05-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrity Snippets is going on hiatus until July so that I can work on promoting my novel $everance.

I'll return with more stories about celebrities on July 7th.

In the meantime, check out my daily blog at http://rickkaempfer.blogspot.com

--Rick Kaempfer

Dennis Hopper

2007-05-12T00:03:00.000-05:00

Dennis Hopper is an iconic film actor. He is celebrating his 71st birthday this week.

By Rick Kaempfer

One of the first big movie stars I booked to appear on the Steve & Garry show was Dennis Hopper. This was during his BlueVelvet/Hoosiers era, when he was one of the hottest stars in Hollywood.

It took quite a bit of convincing to get him on the show, because his schedule was booked solid with television and print interviews. The local PR firm handling his media tour finally succumbed to my begging.

“OK,” the PR guy said. “But you’ve only got him for fifteen minutes. Not one second longer, because we have to get him over to the TV stations.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

In my own defense, I honestly had no idea that I was promising something beyond my ability to control.

“We’ve only got him for fifteen minutes,” I told Steve. He laughed.

When Hopper and the PR man arrived, I whisked Hopper directly into the studio so that we could maximize our short amount of time. The PR man came into the studio with me.

“Fifteen minutes, right?” he asked sternly.

“Of course,” I agreed.

At the ten minute mark, Hopper was telling great stories about his eight day marriage to Michelle Phillips. Steve and Garry were spellbound.

At the twelve minute mark, the PR guy started pointing to the clock. “Be sure to tell them to wrap it up.”

“I can’t do that from here,” I said. “It’ll have to wait until the commercial break. I’m sure they’ll wrap it up any second.”

At the fifteen minute mark, Hopper was telling a great story about Natalie Wood. When the story ended, I got up to walk toward the door, thinking it was over. That’s when Steve started asking him about his days hanging out with James Dean. It was obvious that there was no way this conversation would be ending anytime soon.

“Go in there and tell him to end the interview,” the PR guy said.

“It’s out of my hands,” I explained.

“But you promised that we would be out in fifteen minutes. We have to get to the TV stations.”

He was doing his best to scare me, but nothing he could say or do could scare me more than the prospect of Steve’s reaction to my ending the interview. I was mute. At the twenty minute mark, I looked over at the PR guy, and could see the veins sticking out in his neck. He kept looking at his watch over and over again, sighing, pacing, and tapping his foot.

At the thirty minute mark, he blurted. “I’m going in there.”

“No you can’t do that,” I said, blocking his way.

That’s when Steve mentioned to Dennis Hopper on the air that they had gone over their fifteen minute allotment.

“Oh,” Hopper said. “Is that it?”

“No,” Steve said. “I’m not letting you leave. We have more people listening to this show than those TV stations have watching theirs. I’m doing this for you.”

“Whatever you say,” Hopper replied, ever the friendly guest.

I thought the PR guy was going to have an aneurysm. He got on the phone and called the next interviewer up, saying some not-so-nice things about Steve & Garry. After he hung up the phone, he said to me: “You know-- you’re not making a very good impression on me here.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m sorry,” I said. “If there was anything I could do, I would.”

Steve finally ended the interview a few minutes later. The PR guy grabbed Hopper and whisked him to the next interview without even saying goodbye.

Over the next fifteen years or so I saw that same PR guy (who I’m intentionally not naming for his sake) dozens of times, and every time I saw him he mentioned that first time we met. He is still doing publicity in Chicago, in fact he’s one of the most prominent PR men in town, but to his credit, he never held this Dennis Hopper incident against me when it came to booking future guests. In time, he even came to trust me again.

As for the interview itself, I really had no idea how it went until I replayed it during the Best of Steve & Garry a few years later. It’s just the postscript to this story, but I must say, once I could listen to it without an angry face staring at me, I really enjoyed it. I consider it to be one of the best interviews that Steve and Garry ever did.

George Carlin

2007-05-05T00:07:00.000-05:00

George Carlin is one of the most successful comedians of all time. He has done more comedy specials on television (mostly for HBO) than any other comedian in history, and has appeared in countless films and television shows. Ironically, my kids know him as the narrator of Shining Time Station on PBS, and the voice of "Fillmore" in the movie "Cars." This week he turns 70 years old.

By Rick Kaempfer

President Bush takes a lot of heat for accusing his opponents of “Pre-9/11” thinking. I never thought I would be writing these words, but I feel I must defend President Bush. Pre-9-11 thinking does exist, and it can have a detrimental effect...especially in the world of comedy.

My story involves comedian George Carlin.

I’ve always considered him on the finest comedians that ever lived. He is courageous, utterly unafraid of saying what he really thinks, and has been consistently funny for five decades now.

When we had him on the John Landecker show, I was not disappointed. He came into the studio with guns blazing, trying out brand new material that he hoped to include in his upcoming HBO Special.

The tentative name of the special at the time? “I kind of like it when a lot of people die.”

The date of his appearance on our show? September 4, 2001.

His routine was shocking even then (in a pre-9/11 world), but it was laugh out loud funny. We were holding our sides as he recounted the way he cheers when stupid people die doing stupid things and how he roots that they take down as many stupid people as possible with them.

Landecker and Carlin began riffing about stupid ways for people to die, and after the hilarious segment was over, George asked if he could have a tape of it so that he could use some of the material in his special.

Our station management thought it was such a funny interview, they submitted the tape for that year’s Achievement in Radio Awards. The tape went into the mail on September 9, 2001.

Needless to say, we weren’t nominated that year.

When Carlin’s special eventually did come out on HBO, it had a brand new name. It was called “Complaints and Grievances.”

Not quite as catchy, is it?

Timing is everything.

Jay Leno

2007-04-28T00:02:00.000-05:00

Jay Leno is the host of the Tonight Show on NBC. Today is his 58th birthday.

Before I get to my Jay Leno story, I must say that I consider Jay Leno to be one of the nicest and most approachable people I've ever met in show business. In my first few years with the Steve & Garry show, he appeared on the show several times and couldn't have been nicer.

Any time I called him up, regardless of what he was doing (even after he started hosting the Tonight Show once a week for Johnny Carson), he was willing to take a few moments to come on the air and chat with the guys. He always remembered who had him on before he hit the big time, and was more than willing to repay the favor.

Of course, it was a little easier getting Jay to appear on an afternoon show than a morning show. With the time difference in LA, and the way Jay likes to stay up late, an early morning call was really impossible.

That's why I never booked him to appear on the John Landecker show when I moved to WJMK. On the other hand, he did book himself once.

Let me explain.

When Jay Leno did the Tonight Show in Chicago for a week, we sent his show a tape of our first OJ song (a parody of YMCA--called "YDNA"), along with a description of a wacky new concept we were doing in our stage act, the Dancing Itos. We thought he might find it funny and use it on the air. Well, imagine our surprise when his version of the Dancing Itos emerged the following week--dancing to a parody of YMCA. Their song was called "OJLA".

(I couldn't find a video of that original appearance, but I did find this: VIDEO: Their second TV appearance on Leno)

John and I tried to convince ourselves that it was a coincidence. After all, they didn't mention us or the show--so they must have come up with it themselves, right? Our listeners, however, wouldn't hear of it. They flooded our phone lines the next morning, outraged at the theft.

That led John to write the following letter to Jay Leno.

April 11, 1995

Jay Leno
NBC-TV

Dear Jay,

Early last week, I overnighted a package to you that contained a parody of The Village People’s “YMCA” called “Why DNA?” I’ve been playing this parody for a while now, and it is by far the most asked for song on our station. I also enclosed a lyric sheet and a letter.

In the letter, I explained that I had been using the Dancing Ito’s on stage since January. Although I didn’t ask for it, I fantasized that you would mention my program, play the song, the nation would love it, my ratings would go up and my contract would be renewed!!

Cut to last Thursday night. I’m watching NBC prime time, and Bingo! a Tonight Show promo hits the air. It’s some sort of Ito/Village People/O.J.L.A. thing! I can’t believe it!!

I got on the air Friday morning at 5:30 am. The first call comes in... “John, did you see Jay Leno last night?” For the next 4½ hours, it was pretty much non-stop on the fax machine and the telephone. Did the Tonight Show take our idea? Why didn’t Jay mention you? and on and on.

I said on the air, in my opinion, you didn’t even see the package that I sent. Some writer grabbed it and used it, or maybe it was just a coincidence.

At any rate, I’m still a desperate radio personality pleading for plugs. Can I get a) a mention, b) an appearance, c) an interview d) all of the above, or should I just go f**k myself?

Say, did I ever tell you I really like motorcycles?

Love and kisses, your pen pal,

John Records Landecker
Oldies 104.3 WJMK

Well, a strange thing happened after they received our letter. I was taking a nap at home after the show one day, and Bridget came in to wake me up.

"Jay Leno's on the phone," she said.

"Shut up."

"No seriously," she said--holding the phone up. "He's on the phone right now."

It was him. The station had given him my home phone number. In the call he told me how they had been flooded with complaints and he swore that he hadn't even opened our package--that they have a policy against it.

I told him that I believed him, but our listeners didn't. Would he agree to come on the show to talk to John and answer all of our questions? To his credit, he agreed.

The next morning we had a ten minute interview with Jay. He said that he would never steal an idea--especially from someone who could publicly bust him for it. He said it was just a coincidence--that this sort of thing happens all the time. People looking at the same stories come up with the same jokes. He would much rather pay someone a few hundred or thousand bucks for a great idea, than deal with the hassle.

I thought he was pretty convincing. Our listeners didn't. Our families and friends didn't. Twelve years later...I'm still not sure.

Many give the Dancing Itos and the way Leno handled the OJ trial credit for his surge past David Letterman in the ratings. Letterman has never come close to beating him since. The John Landecker show also rode a wave of popularity for several years. We had a good run.

To tell you the truth, it doesn't even matter to me anymore if he stole it or not.

It's a fun story to tell.

Ann Margret

2007-04-21T00:03:00.000-05:00

Ann Margret is an Academy Award and Emmy nominated actress. She turns 66 years old later this week.

I always knew that Ann Margret was one of John Landecker’s dream guests.

He had a crush on her when he was in his teens, and despite John’s long high-profile radio career, he had never met her, and never interviewed her.

Shortly after I was named John’s producer I began to investigate angles to convince Ann Margret to come on the show, but nothing worked. She really doesn’t like to be interviewed, and no matter what I said or did, her people wouldn’t budge.

The breakthrough came when she was cast in the lead role of “Annie Get Your Gun.”* The show was playing in Chicago for several weeks, and I knew that I would never get a better chance to book her.

Even though we had a host who clearly loved her, an audience which was demographically perfect for her (we were an Oldies station), and I had a great relationship with the publicity department of the show (Broadway in Chicago), the best we could get was a short recorded phone interview.

If it had been anyone else, I would have refused the offer. We almost never did recorded phone interviews during our ten year run on WJMK. Our first choice was always live and in the studio (we accepted less than that only for the biggest celebrities). Our second choice was taped in person, face to face. And our third choice was live on the phone. There was no fourth choice.

Nevertheless, John agreed to return to the radio station in the middle of the afternoon to record this phone conversation with her.

This required technical assistance. Unlike most major market radio stations, we only had one production studio that could record phone calls. Recording a phone call required kicking the commercial production director out of his studio to do it. Luckily for us, Al Urbanski—our commercial production director at the time—was one of the only radio production directors in the country that wasn’t grumpy and bitter. He was always positive, always happy, always had a smile on his face.

In this case, Al was especially excited. He happily turned over his studio for an interview with the great Ann Margret.

The interview itself, unfortunately, wasn’t memorable at all. Ann barely spoke above a whisper, which made it very difficult to record. The content was nothing special either. She wouldn’t speak about Elvis, which was John’s first question. She also didn’t have a great sense of humor, so John’s prepared material didn’t go over so well, and she wasn’t even really that flattered by John’s lavish praise and love.

After we finished editing it together, the interview was no more than five minutes long. We considered not airing it all.

The reason I remember the interview so well, however, really has nothing to do with Ann Margret or John Landecker.

A few hours after the interview was taped, our production director Al Urbanski collapsed at the radio station and had to be taken to the hospital. He died later that night. One of his last acts on this planet was recording that Ann Margret interview for us.

The next morning when we played the interview on the air, the room was somber. To be fair to Ann Margret, the interview might have been much better than we remember, but it will forever be tainted in our minds.

To think of that interview, is to think of Al.

We still miss him.

*The same morning the interview aired, the Chicago Sun-Times reviewed “Annie Get Your Gun.” If I remember correctly, they gave it the worst review in the history of the Broadway in Chicago series. Ann Margret, in particular, was singled out for her weak voice and lack of stage presence.

Marilu Henner

2007-04-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

Marilu Henner celebrated a birthday last week. The multi-talented actress is probably best known for playing the role of Elaine in the hit television series "Taxi" from 1978-1983.

One of our all-time favorite guests on the John Landecker show was Marilu Henner.

Over the ten years the John Landecker show aired on WJMK, Marilu was probably on a dozen times. She was always entertaining, friendly, and personable…in short, a dream radio guest.

Marilu is a Chicago girl, born and bred, and has never taken on the airs of Hollywood. Her Chicago roots still run deep, and we found out just how deep that first morning.

“This is my niece,” Marilu said, introducing her to John. “She used to baby sit for you when your daughters were kids.”

“You paid me in record albums,” her niece replied. “I thought that was so cool.”

With that immediate connection established, Marilu had guaranteed smooth sailing for any and all interviews on our show.

Some of those interviews were truly memorable, too. I tell a story in the Radio Producer’s Handbook about one of those times.

The first thing John said to her on the air was: “We’ll be right back after these commercial announcements. Marilu and I are going down to Michigan Avenue in a taxi and we’ll be conducting the interview from there.” Marilu was completely thrown off, but went with the concept. She still got to plug the book she was promoting, but she also talked to a taxi driver about her show Taxi and had a wonderful time doing an interview that was completely different from the ten other interviews she had to do that day.

The taxi bit was so memorable we actually released it on our final CD: Landecker & the Legends, 20th Century Hits & Bits. The taxi driver was from Nigeria and had never heard of the show, so we gave him a Taxi multiple choice test. We played a clip from the show, and he had to guess the next line of dialogue among three possible choices. Marilu was not only a great sport about it, she really seemed to have a great time.

After that interview, she gave us her cell-phone number and told us we could call anytime. I only took her up on that one time—on John’s 50th birthday. She was pumping gas in LA when I reached her. I told her it was John’s birthday, and without prompting, she sang Happy Birthday To You ala Marilyn Monroe. The visual of her doing this sultry song in front of the other customers at the gas station was something that still sticks in my head all these years later (John turned 60 this year).

I have memories of one other Marilu interview, too, but only because it was so personally embarrassing. One year when Marilu came into town, John thought it would be funny to see if she did any nude scenes, and if so, to play the audio on the air and see if she could identify the scene.

This was in the days before celebrity nudity internet sites or YouTube or Google. I had to go to the video store and rent all the R-rated movies she appeared in to see if there were any nude scenes. My last choice, The Man Who Loved Women, contained her only nude scene. She was topless in a scene with Burt Reynolds for about five seconds. I dubbed off the audio and brought the clip into the show so John could play it on the air.

However, I hadn’t considered that I would also be sitting right across from her when this audio clip was played. It took her only a split second to figure out what was going on, and she looked right at me.

“So, which one of you sickos watched that videotape to get this clip?” she asked. I’m told that she had a smile on her face, but I can’t confirm that because there was no way I could look her in the eye. She guessed correctly anyway. “It was Rick, wasn’t it?”

“He insisted,” John replied helpfully. “He said he had to watch it a dozen times just to make sure he got it right.”

Marilu thought that was funny, and I laughed too, but I must admit…that was an awkward moment.

(Marilu was so nice she even did an endorsement for my advertising agency: Marilu for A.M.I.S.H. Chicago Advertising)

Sam Kinison

2007-04-07T00:07:00.000-05:00

Fifteen years ago this week, legendary comedian Sam Kinison died at the age of 38.

One of the first in-studio guests I ever booked to appear on the Steve & Garry show was Sam Kinison. I'll be honest. It wasn't exactly difficult to do. It went something like this. My phone rang.

"Hello, Steve & Garry show," I answered.

"Who is this?

"Rick."

"Rick, it's Sam Kinison. Tell them I'll be up to the studio just after 4 today."

"OK."

Booked.

Sam obviously already had a relationship with Steve and Garry before I joined the show, and it was just understood that whenever he was in town, he would come on the show. Over the next few years I got to know him about as well as any guest we had on the show. He was a warm and friendly guy--a teddy bear--not at all like his on-stage persona.

But I didn't know that the first time I met him.

In the old Loop studios, the AM 1000 air studio was only a few steps away from the receptionist's desk. The receptionist was trained not to make the really famous guests wait at all, so she would simply open the door leading to the short hallway, and the guest would bump right into the producer.

In the late 80s, at the height of the stand up comedy boom, no comedian in America was more famous or popular than Sam Kinison. He had made a big splash on his first Letterman appearance, and had stolen the scene from Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Back to School.

His star was on the rise. I thought his stand up act was just about the funniest thing I had ever seen. I taped his HBO special, invited friends over to watch it, and we watched it over and over again. It was revolutionary.

Well that day, Sam was late. He wasn't just a little late, either. He was more than an hour late. Steve and Garry kept asking me if I had heard him correctly. After about twenty minutes or so it became another "I bet Rick screwed this up somehow" moment. In fact, I was even starting to believe it myself. Had I written it down wrong? Was it somebody just pretending to be Sam Kinison? Did I just dream the whole thing?

I was so upset about the berating I was receiving on the air, that I didn't even notice Sam walk past me. The receptionist had let him in like she was supposed to do, but because Sam was so late, he didn't bother checking in with me. He just walked right into the studio.

Not realizing he was on the air, Sam started swearing about the things that made him late. If you've ever seen his stand up act, you know what impressive tirades he could go off on. This was one of those profanity-filled tirades. Steve had to scramble to hit the delay button.

Unfortunately, the delay system wasn't really designed to get rid of more than one obscenity. After the button is hit, it takes another few seconds to re-engage. Until it does, you are live on the air without a safety net.

Unfortunately, Sam was so revved up about being late, and what had caused his tardiness, that it took him more than a few seconds to realize he was on the air. By then it was too late--quite a few unmentionables escaped into Chicago radios everywhere.

I think I actually saw my life flash before my eyes during those moments. I knew it was my fault that Sam wasn't stopped before he came in the studio. I began to flop-sweat. I figured that the legendary verbal beatings I had already received would pale in comparison to the one I was about to receive.

I was in the middle of composing my Last Will and Testament when something incredible happened.

Steve and Garry both laughed. Then Sam laughed. Within a minute, it was just another bit. They didn't break for a commercial for a good forty five minutes, and it was some of the most hilarious radio I had ever heard.

When they finally went to commercials, however, I stopped laughing and buckled up. I put my tail between my legs and went into the studio to accept my punishment. Before either Steve or Garry could say a single word, Sam jumped up to greet me.

"Hey, man," Sam said, "I'm totally sorry. That was completely my fault. I didn't check in with you. I was just so f***in late, and I knew these f***in guys would be pissed--I wasn't thinking."

He held out his hand, and I shook it. Steve and Garry didn't say a word.

Over the next few years as Sam's career kept rising (Wild Thing), he appeared on the Steve and Garry show probably another half dozen times. One time he brought Guns & Roses guitarist Slash with him. Another time he stayed on for almost two hours. Every time he saw me, he apologized again for almost getting me in trouble that first time.

A few years later he was gone.

I was doing an overnight shift on the FM station the night it came across the wires. Sam Kinison, a man that had lived life on the very edge of the cliff, had died outside of Las Vegas.

Sam was about as self-destructive as anyone in show business--it almost seemed like he was daring God to take him. Ironically though, when it was his time to go, it wasn't self-inflicted. A drunk driver had swerved into Sam's lane and crashed into his car head on. He never had a chance.

15 years later he's almost forgotten.

In my mind, however, he's one of the all-time greats.

Jose Cardenal

2007-03-31T00:07:00.000-05:00

Jose Cardenal was an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs in the mid-1970s. He was known for his giant 'fro, his sneaky speed, and his bad excuses for missing games. (He was too tired to play one day because a cricket kept him up all night.) He also happened to be one of my favorite players when I was a kid.

By Rick Kaempfer

Every year as opening day approaches, I start drinking that Cubbie Kool-Aid, and while I'll never admit it openly to my White Sox friends...I start thinking that "this could be the year." I know it won't be, but hope springs eternal.

I can't help it. I've been afflicted since 1968 when my Uncle Manny took me to my very first Cubs game. Since then I've seen well over a hundred games, and met many of the Cubs players, managers, and broadcasters; but all of those encounters occured in places you'd expect: at the ballpark, at the radio station, at station promotions or events. My Jose Cardenal story happened in a place you'd least expect it: Jewel.

I was grocery shopping with two of my boys, following my usual routine of breaking up fights and castigating unkind comments about the vegetables, when I saw him. He was holding an onion and looking for a plastic baggie. I know this sounds completely ridiculous given the number of celebrities I've met, but my heart started pitter-pattering and I became so nervous I walked in the other direction to regain my composure.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to talk to him. I was plotting a way to confront him casually, when I saw him rip a plastic baggie off the plastic roll. That’s when I made my move. Leaving the yelping youngsters near the oranges where they couldn’t do any damage, I strolled up to the baggies to get one for myself.

“I don’t want to embarrass you,” I said, my voice squeaking with fear, “but aren’t you Jose Cardenal?

He looked at me and smiled. “Yes,” he said with his Cuban accent. He offered his hand for a handshake.

“Good Ol' #1,” I said, shaking his hand. “I was your biggest fan. We used to sit out in the right field bleachers at Wrigley so we could cheer you.”

“You must have been pretty young,” he said. This wasn’t just a scrappy former ballplayer—he recognized youth when he saw it.

“Well, yes I was,” I said.

I knew he was the first base coach of a team in another city and hadn’t been part of either Chicago team for thirty years, so that led to an obvious question.

“What are you doing in town?” I asked.

“I never sold my house,” he said. “I still spend my off-seasons here. I love it.”

That was pretty much our entire conversation.

My kids, as you might imagine, were less than impressed by our brush with greatness, and not just because I left them by the oranges. They weren’t even impressed when I showed them the Jose Cardenal baseball cards I keep in a shoebox in the basement.

I can understand that. They weren’t born yet when Jose played for the Cubs. But I was impressed big-time. Not because I’m a geeky Cubs fan. Not because Jose is such a big celebrity, or because he was so nice, or because he knows a good onion when he sees one. I was most impressed that he actually still lives here...in the Chicago suburbs.

How cool are we?

A Cuban millionaire spends his winters here.

That should be in all of our brochures.

Martin Short

2007-03-24T11:50:00.000-05:00

Martin Short, the gifted comic actor and former star of SCTV and Saturday Night Live, is celebrating his 57th birthday this week.

By Rick Kaempfer

I’ve only had one contact with Martin Short in my entire career, and it went so badly I can’t even watch him anymore.

Let me explain. It’s really not his fault.

In 2003 our radio station WJMK moved into brand new studios. This was a process that took months and was fraught with peril at every step. The engineer designing our studios was actually quite talented. Unfortunately, he was a one-man staff. He had to try to keep our old rotting studios on the air, while at the same time designing and building new studios.

Oh, and he was also our IT guy at the time. If someone’s computer malfunctioned, and this happened every second of the day, he was the one who had to fix it.

I was the executive producer of the John Landecker show at the time, and we were struggling to maintain the quality of the program under incredible technical restraints. Our production studio was dismantled piece by piece and moved to the new location. The parts that remained broke down constantly. Truth be told, if our technical producer wasn’t also working on the show—fixing things as they broke, we would have turned into a computerized music jukebox. As it was, we were putting in three times the effort to produce a show that was only half as good as it once was.

We didn’t know it at the time, but it was only going to get worse. The show didn’t reach a breaking point until we moved into the brand new studios.

This is where Martin Short comes into the picture.

We were so excited to be moving to the new studio after working in the broken down studio for several months, that we planned a big celebration. We thought we would be able to go back to doing a real radio show…with celebrity guests, listener phone calls, and fully produced bits. I was so excited, that I booked one of my all-time favorite comic actors, Martin Short, to call into the show. I wanted that first guest in the new studio to be great.

The morning started off badly. The first thing we discovered was that the production studio was not done. Therefore we couldn’t do any produced bits, or play any new audio. Secondly we discovered that they had forgotten to set up the choke lines for listener calls…so that wasn’t going to be ready either (listener phone calls were a crucial ingredient of the show). After seeing that everything else wasn’t working right, I decided to double check the hotline.

When I called the hotline from my cell phone, it lit up. Good first step. Next, I asked our technical producer to see if it would come up through console.

Nothing.

We had no way of broadcasting anything through the phone lines, and Martin Short—who we had been promoting all morning—was about to call.

And call he did—right on time. I asked Martin if he would mind calling twenty minutes later, but he told me he had another interview scheduled—if we wanted to talk to him, it was now or never.

“Give him my cell number,” John said.

When the commercial ended, John conducted the entire interview on his cell-phone. He asked the questions into a combination of the microphone and the cellular phone, so Short and the listeners could hear, then he held the cellular phone up to the microphone for Short’s answers.

I don’t remember what they talked about in the interview except for the first few seconds, when John explained the situation to him. Short thought it was a bit because the concept of a major radio station in Chicago holding a cell-phone to the microphone was so ridiculous.

“Are you serious?” Martin finally asked.

“Totally serious.”

“Who owns you guys?” Martin asked.

“CBS, the second biggest radio company in America.”

“And you guys are in Chicago?” he asked.

“Yup. Third biggest media market in America.”

“And I thought I had seen it all,” he replied.

It was actually a pretty funny interview, considering. I gained even more respect for John Landecker that day. He took a potential disaster and turned into a memorable radio moment. I bet Martin Short remembers that very bizarre interview to this day.

I actually think those new studios were the perfect symbol of the company. On the surface they were shiny and impressive. Any sales client or stockholder would have been impressed. Beneath the surface, however, there wasn’t anything there at all, and nobody cared.

How little did they care?

Shortly after this disastrous debut, the engineer was fired. Not for his incompetence, mind you, but because the corporation consolidated the engineering department. That’s right. They decided to cut back the engineering department even more-- to one man covering three radio stations.

You can imagine how bad it got then—one morning we even went off the air for more than hour. Those were the conditions we faced for the final year of our contract. That’s why there were no tears when they decided not to renew us, opting for a cheaper morning show. In fact, we’re all in a much better place now.

Unfortunately for Martin Short, however, every time I see him on television, I think of those last few miserable months in those shiny new studios at WJMK.

It’s nothing personal. I just have to change the channel.

Richard M. Daley

2007-03-17T00:03:00.000-05:00

Richard M. Daley has been the mayor of Chicago since 1989. If he completes the term he was just elected to serve (with 71% of the vote), he will set the record for longest serving mayor in Chicago—surpassing his own father’s record.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and nobody is a bigger symbol of the Irish Catholic holiday in Chicago than Chicago’s very own Irish Catholic Mayor Richard M. Daley.

I’ve met the Mayor several times over the years during my radio career. The first time I spoke to him was actually before he even became the Mayor.

It was 1989. At the time I was the producer of the Steve Dahl & Garry Meier show on WLUP AM 1000. Steve & Garry were celebrating their ten year anniversary together that year.

Unlike most radio personalities, Steve & Garry actually thrived on surprise. It brought out the best in them because they were both gifted improvisers. Periodically during this year-long anniversary celebration, I would get people from their past or well-known celebrities to make surprise phone calls during the show.

After a few of these “surprise” calls, they began to trust me. Whenever I would walk into the studio and point at the blinking hotline they knew it was going to be a call worth taking on the air. They didn’t know if was going to be a celebrity like Jay Leno or Albert Brooks or someone from their past—especially a person they had feuded with, or someone who had fired them, but they knew it was going to be interesting.

During the election campaign of 1989 when Richie Daley was running for Mayor, two of his biggest fans were Steve & Garry. They often played audio clips of Daley’s common sense wisdom, his tortured syntax, and his big hearty laugh.

When I called the future Mayor’s campaign headquarters, I didn’t think there was a chance he would come on the show. After all, Steve & Garry had a reputation. They were naughty. They had been fined by the FCC. They were considered “shock jocks.” Politicians usually avoided the show like a plague because they feared being associated with them.

Plus, Daley didn’t strike me particularly as a risk-taking politician. In fact, he was widely known as being exactly the opposite. I was lucky, though. Someone on his campaign staff was a regular listener of the show. He knew that Steve and Garry had been overwhelmingly positive, and he advised Daley to do it—to connect to the young voters.

The day he called I could hear how nervous he was on the phone. He asked me if it was OK to congratulate them on their anniversary. I said yes. He asked me if was OK to say something about Hawaiian shirts (Steve’s trademark at the time), and I said yes. He took a deep breath, and I put him on hold.

The call itself lasted only a few minutes, but it turned out to be great move by the Mayor. He didn’t slip up, he laughed heartily at everything Steve and Garry said, and he got off the phone before they said anything too controversial. Steve & Garry were thrilled that he called. The next day it also got a positive write up in two of the biggest gossip columns in Chicago. The man who was widely mocked for being an overly-cautious intellectually-challenged political lightweight had passed the test with flying colors.

Four years later I was producing the John Landecker show on WJMK. By then it was almost impossible to get Mayor Daley to do a radio appearance. His schedule was booked ridiculously far in advance, and he avoided any appearance that had even a whiff of trouble. We were just getting the Landecker show off the ground at the time, and I knew an appearance by the Mayor would give us instant credibility, so I pushed hard for an in-studio visit.

It took almost six months, but he finally agreed. We had him for thirty minutes, which doesn’t sound like much—but ask any producer in Chicago how many of them have gotten the Mayor to come into the studio for a thirty minute conversation. It simply doesn’t happen.

That morning he was relaxed and amazingly comfortable. John had classic tapes of Daley’s father, and the two of them talked about what it was like growing up in that household, what it was like at the ’68 convention, and what kind of rules and regulations they had in the Daley house. Landecker & Daley formed an instantaneous generational bond. It really was an entertaining interview—and the mayor was candid, warm and friendly.

A few years later, on the day John was given a special tribute by the Museum of Broadcasting in Chicago, Mayor Daley declared it John Records Landecker Day in Chicago. I believe he did the same for Steve Dahl a few years later when Steve celebrated his 20th year in Chicago radio.

I’ve heard all the horror stories about how hard it is to work for Mayor Daley. Rumor has it that he possesses a hair trigger temper. Judging by the incredible staff turnover, it’s probably true. I’m also not blind to the corruption in City Hall. His administration, especially in recent years, has been ethically challenged to say the least. Judging by how closely he worked with the people who have been indicted and/or sent up the river, he must be involved too. At the very least, he turns a blind eye.

For those reasons, if I still lived in Chicago, I probably wouldn’t have voted for him this time around—although his opponents weren’t exactly Abe Lincoln and FDR.

On the other hand, I’ll always appreciate those two times he let his hair down a little and took a risk by appearing on the Steve & Garry and John Landecker shows.

That’s the Mayor Daley I salute on this St. Patrick’s Day in Irish Catholic Chicago.

William Shatner

2007-03-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

William Shatner is best known as Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. He currently stars in Boston Legal on ABC. He turns 76 years old later this month.

By Rick Kaempfer

My one and only William Shatner encounter occured in the late '80s.

At the time I was working for Steve & Garry at WLUP-AM, as well as doing an overnight disc jockey shift on WLUP-FM. One of the perks for my seven day work week was the occasional “personal appearance.”

I was under no illusions that people were clamoring for a Rick Kaempfer appearance. The entire concept was laughable. During the Steve & Garry years I was best known for being “the idiot” who didn’t get Steve & Garry what they wanted fast enough. The extent of my personality during my FM air shifts involved new and interesting ways to introduce Led Zeppelin. I knew the score. When I was sent out to a personal appearance by the radio station, it only meant that they were contracted to provide a radio personality for an event, and everyone else on the staff had said no.

They didn’t say “no” for no reason.

Any “non-star” who has ever done one of these appearances knows what I’m talking about. It’s not exactly a rip-roaring good time. It’s a couple of hours of schmoozing the client, saying hello to maybe a dozen people, and watching the clock.

Luckily I didn’t bring my dignity with me the day I was sent out to the Chicago Auto Show for a personal appearance. It would have just gotten in the way every time I had to answer the question: “Who are you?”

The only thing that saved this day from being a complete loss was that William Shatner was scheduled to make an appearance on the same day. Shatner’s setup was no more than fifty feet away from mine.

I had a tiny 5’ X 7’ booth. He had a roped off area in front of an elevated stage.

I had a metal folding chair. He had a fully stocked trailer attended to by three Teamsters.

I had an 8 ½ by 11 paper sign that said: “Meet Loop DJ.” He had a large poster with his picture under the headline: “MEET WILLIAM SHATNER!”

On the other hand, almost nobody was there to see him either. About fifteen minutes before his appearance was set to begin, there were maybe a half-dozen people in this gigantic roped-off area. Since nobody was there to see me, and nobody was there to see him, I left my post by the “Meet Loop DJ” sign, and got in line. I figured, “What the heck? I’ll never get another opportunity like this.”

Minutes turned into an hour, and still, there was no sign of William Shatner.

By then the throng had grown to maybe twenty people. When he finally poked his head out of the trailer and made his way up to the stage, the crowd let out frenzied cheers at the sight of him. He nodded politely and walked up to the microphone.

“Thanks for coming out today. I’m looking forward to talking to each and every one of you. Unfortunately, I won’t be signing any autographs, but I will shake your hand, press the flesh, and say hello.”

Since I was seventh in line, I heard what he said to all six people in line ahead of me.

“Hi, I’m Bill. Nice to meet you.”

That was it. Within seconds it was my turn. That’s when I smelled him. He reeked of wine.

“Hi, I’m Bill. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” I said.

He shook everyone’s hand in maybe five minutes. With that, boom, he was gone—back into the trailer.

I had never really been to a celebrity personal appearance before so I didn’t know what to expect, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be that lame. On the other hand, I looked around at the rest of the people in the audience and they didn’t seem that upset. I heard one husband and wife talking on their way out.

“What did you think of his piece?” the husband asked.

“I like the fluffy TJ Hooker one better,” the wife said.

I went back to my “Meet Loop DJ” sign, and watched that trailer for twenty minutes from my metal folding chair.

Nobody came, and nobody left.

Unless there was some sort of an escape hatch beneath the trailer, William Shatner was spending several hours on Sunday afternoon hanging out with some Teamsters in a trailer in the middle of an almost empty Chicago Auto Show.

I eventually picked up my “Meet Loop DJ” sign, folded up my metal folding chair, and left. Shatner was still there.

My pay for that afternoon was an electric can opener and two tennis rackets.

Don’t let anyone tell you that showbiz isn’t glamorous.

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin

2007-03-03T21:07:00.000-06:00

By Rick Kaempfer

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin may seem like an odd choice for Celebrity Snippets, but I think it’s appropriate for three reasons.

1. It’s Lent and I’m Catholic.
2. The Cardinal really was a celebrity in Chicago.
3. I have a story that proves it.

In the 1980s and 90s, Bernardin served as the Arch Bishop of Chicago. I met him three times during those years, and each time made an impact on me.

The first time was at a church dinner at St. Constance church on the northwest side of Chicago. My grandmother went to that church and when she heard that Cardinal Bernardin was going to be coming, she was beside herself with excitement.

When she “invited” us to come, we knew it wasn’t one of those “come if you can make it” moments. It was more like an order. I was 20 years old at the time, and let’s just say I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be there.

Cardinal Bernardin made his way around the hall, making a special point of talking to every table. When he came to ours, he stood behind me and put his hand on my shoulder as he spoke in his calm and gentle voice to my grandmother.

I have never seen her more excited in her entire life.

I know this is going to sound strange, but that moment in time is forever frozen in my memory banks. I can conjure it up at will (and I often do) whenever I want to see that expression on my grandmother’s face. But that isn’t the strange part. The strange part is how I conjure up the memory.

I look at my shoulder. When I look at my shoulder, I can see Cardinal Bernardin’s hand there, and I can remember the warmth I felt from his presence. When I feel the warmth again, the image of my grandmother’s smiling face immediately comes to me.

I know it’s odd. But I swear it’s true.

Ten years after that first meeting, I became Cardinal Bernardin’s neighbor. My wife and I lived almost exactly equidistant from the holiness of the Cardinal’s mansion and the debauchery of Rush & Division streets.

One morning I was returning from an overnight shift at the radio station, and he was out for an early morning walk. Instead of waving as I did the first few times I saw him in the neighborhood, I walked up and shook his hand. My grandmother had recently passed away, and I told him how much it meant to her to meet him that day. He smiled and thanked me. I know this is going to sound strange, but I felt that same warmth when we shook hands that morning.

Which brings me to the moment I realized that he actually was a celebrity.

It happened the third and final time I saw him--- at O’Hare airport, a year or so before he died. He was waiting to check his baggage, and my wife and I were rushing toward our gate. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted him as we walked by.

“There’s Cardinal Bernardin,” I said to my wife, who had never met him.

“WHERE?” she asked, turning around.

When I pointed him out to her, she was barely able to contain her exuberance.

“Cardinal Bernardin!”

He turned around and smiled. “Yes, hello.”

She smiled back at him and stared for a moment, not knowing exactly what to say, before she shook his hand and said: “I’m your biggest fan!”*

Doesn’t that sound like something a celebrity might hear? I thought so too, and that’s why I’m including him in Celebrity Snippets today.

That, and I figure it can’t hurt to spread some good will during Lent. I can use all the help I can get.

*Just because someone is a fan of the Cardinal doesn’t make her a Cardinals fan. That’s an important distinction.

Bonus Snippet: Harry Caray

2007-02-26T00:01:00.000-06:00

The late great Chicago sportscaster Harry Caray would have been 90 years old today (according to some reports--he was never 100% sure of his birthdate, and never 100% honest about his age. It's possible he would have been 93 today).

Last year I wrote about a few of my numerous Harry Caray encounters. My take on the Hall of Famer is here.

Dan Quayle

2007-02-24T00:05:00.000-06:00

The Academy Awards are tomorrow night. For the first time ever, a former Vice President of the United States could win an Oscar. I never met that Vice President (Al Gore), but I did meet the man who held the office before him: Dan Quayle

Dan Quayle had been out of office for less than a year when I met him at a Marshall Field's book signing. I was the only member of the press to show up.

I'm not kidding.

To be fair, the press was told in advance that former VP Quayle wouldn't be taking any questions--he was just there to sign books and meet the public. That scared off everyone else. That, and the fact that he was already considered old news. He had just become an ex-Vice President.

Of course, I went for comedy reasons. I figured that I would get him on tape, or I would get someone on tape telling me to get lost. It was win-win.

When I arrived at the store, the PR person told me politely that there wouldn't be any questions. I promised her that I didn't have a lot of questions...only one. It would literally take one minute. The Vice President overheard me say that, sighed, and nodded to her. I had the go-ahead.

Unfortunately, I didn't really have a question ready. I was certain I would get the brush off--so I hadn't properly prepared for success. It wasn't until moments before the Vice President waved me up, that I finally thought of a question. His first question to me, however, changed my plans.

"Are you with a wacky morning show?" he askedwhen he saw my microphone and recorder.

I admitted I was.

"Is your question going to be crude?" he asked, his eyes looking for the PR person to intervene, just in case.

"No," I promised. "Nothing crude."

"Are you going to make fun of me?" he asked.

"No," I promised, and frantically searched my brain for a replacement question.

"OK," he said. "What is your question?"

It came to me at the last second--only because as far as I'm concerned--I had never heard a good answer to the question. I knew he was from Indiana, so I asked...

"What is a Hoosier?"

He smiled, and launched into his answer without hesitating or stumbling. It was a lengthy answer, with many layers, about a contractor named Hoosier from the 1800s, who preferred hiring stout and sturdy workers. He found that those kind of men tended to come from Indiana, so over time, "Hoosier" became shorthand for 'Indiana workers.'

(When I was writing this, I went on the Internet to find out if Quayle's definition was correct or not. Apparently no-one can answer that question definitively, there are several different definitions, but I did find his definition elsewhere. At least he wasn't making it up.)

When he finished answering the question, he leaned over and hit the stop button on my tape recorder. Then he smiled and said "Thanks. You had me nervous there."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I was the one that was nervous. I was talking to the Vice President."

He waved his hand modestly. "Happy to do it."

I have to be honest, my overall impression of the man was very positive. Of course, I still had comedy obligations, so when he officially retired from politics just before the 2000 Presidential election, I still wrote the following song...

AUDIO: "So Long Dan Quayle"
(Vince Argento on vocals, Dan Quayle on malaprops)

It's nothing personal. Just doing my job.

John Travolta

2007-02-17T00:08:00.000-06:00

John Travolta turns 53 years old tomorrow. He is a world famous television and film actor, best known for his roles in "Saturday Night Fever," "Grease," "Pulp Fiction," and "Welcome Back Kotter."

Since my first book "The Radio Producer's Handbook" came out in 2004, I've given several speeches at colleges and radio conventions. Whenever I take questions from the crowd, I'm inevitably asked about my John Travolta story.

Radio hosts love that story.

Radio producers hate it. One producer pulled me aside at a convention in Florida, and said "Hey man--ever since my boss read your book, he has been bitching because I don't get these movie stars on his show. He highlighted your Travolta story for me. Thanks a lot."

Sorry.

That host and everyone else should know that the Travolta story was a one-in-a-million shot, and it was much more likely to result in hours and hours of wasted time.

Let me explain. This story actually begins thirty years ago.

The show Welcome Back Kotter had just debuted a few months earlier, when John Travolta made his first visit to Chicago to promote it. My future boss, John Records Landecker, was the night jock at WLS-AM 890 at the time, and was given the job of interviewing Travolta.

Since Travolta was also in town to make a personal appearance at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Landecker tagged along to record the interview, and play it back on the air later that night.

The two men hit it off, and had already become friendly when they arrived at Woodfield. Neither of them had the slightest idea what was waiting for them there. Instead of a few hundred fans waiting for the teen idol, there were 50,000. The mall was overflowing.

Landecker captured the entire terrifying event on tape, and played it back on WLS that night. It became one of the most memorable Chicago radio moments of the 1970s. You have to listen to this: AUDIO: Travolta and Landecker at Woodfield

After that day, Landecker & Travolta formed a bond. Every time Travolta came to town over the next five or six years, he appeared on Landecker's show. They became friends, exchanged home phone numbers, and talked on the phone occasionally. This was during the years Travolta's career was soaring, with movies like this...

VIDEO: Grease ("You're the one that I want")

Then, after Landecker moved to Toronto in 1981, and Travolta moved around while his career went into a slight tailspin, the two men lost touch.

When I started producing Landecker's show in 1993, I remembered that connection. I also saw the pictures of the two men together, and listened to the old interviews, and realized that they really were good friends who had simply lost touch.

So, shortly after Travolta was nominated for an Academy Award for Pulp Fiction in 1994, I started trying to track him down. Of course, he had a publicist who promised he would deliver the message, but I could tell he was making the wanking motion with his hand while he promised me. It was a dead end. If I could just get someone to mention Landecker's name to Travolta, I just knew he would come on the show.

I finally saw my break in one of the local gossip columns here. Travolta was scheduled to come to Chicago to film portions of the movie Michael. I immediately called the Chicago film office. Since the film was only scheduled to film for a day or two in Chicago, and the film office had no way of knowing if Travolta was even going to be part of it, they gave me the number of the film office in Texas where the movie was currently being filmed.

This is where the story starts in the book "The Radio Producer's Handbook." I found out the name of the person who handles publicity "on set," and started calling her. She politely refused me the same way Travolta's publicist had. But this time I sensed it was different. I could tell she didn't have the same kind of experience the veteran Hollywood guy did, so I thought I might have a chance.

I sent her copies of the Landecker-Travolta pictures. I sent her copies of the Landecker-Travolta interviews. I sent her a photocopy of John's old phone book with Travolta's long-defunct home number.

The last time I spoke to her, I could hear the irritation in her voice.

"Look," I said. "I promise I will never call you again if you just mention Landecker's name to Travolta. If he doesn't show the slightest flicker of recognition, it's all over. You win, I lose. If he smiles or looks happy, give him this number. That's all I ask."

The next day was Landecker's birthday.

John Travolta called him on the air to wish him well.

After that day, every time Travolta came to town to promote a movie, he insisted that Landecker's name be put on the interview list. (The first time they saw each other in person, Travolta gave Landecker a great big hug and kiss.)

So that's the Travolta story. I only included it in the book to show that miracles can happen if all the stars are aligned. I didn't consider that some hosts would expect it to happen all the time.

I owe all my fellow radio producers an apology. Please forgive me.

Michael Jordan/Ernie Banks

2007-02-10T00:01:00.000-06:00

Michael Jordan and Ernie Banks are probably the two most famous and popular athletes to ever play in Chicago. Through a very odd twist of fate, I met both of them on the same day.

By Rick Kaempfer

In the early days of the John Landecker show on WJMK, I was often sent out in the field to cover big events and/or interview celebrities. Nobody was bigger in Chicago than Michael Jordan. When he retired from basketball the city was in collective shock.

When he announced that he had signed with the White Sox and was going to play baseball, we were even more shocked.

On February 7, 1994, I went to the press conference announcing Michael’s baseball contract. There was a media throng there unlike any I’d encountered before. So many credentialed members of the press were there, they had to set up bleachers for us.

This was the only time in my career that I had a chance to speak with Michael Jordan. I wish I could report to you what I asked or what he answered, but to be completely honest with you, I don’t remember. That wasn’t the most memorable moment of the day for me.

It also wasn’t watching Michael hit the ball in a batting cage, although I did take pictures of that for posterity. (That’s him in the White Sox uniform above.)

For me, the memorable moment occurred while the press was cataloguing every moment of Michael’s batting practice. I got bored after about five pitches, and looked around the room. I thought I was seeing things when I saw a familiar face about ten feet away from me. Since I already had the camera in my hand, I snapped a photo. (Yes, I know. I'll never be a professional photographer)

I must have been mistaken.

Was that my childhood hero Ernie Banks standing there? What would he be doing at a White Sox press conference?

I walked over and introduced myself. It really was him. He was wearing his “Mr. Cub—Ernie Banks” hat, and was watching the press reaction to Michael.

“What are you doing here?” I asked after I shook his hand.

“The Sox asked me to stop by,” he said.

“Do they usually ask you to stop by?” I asked.

“No, they don’t,” Ernie said. “But Michael is a friend, and I wish him the best.”

When other members of the press heard Ernie’s voice and saw that I was interviewing him, they all started to mosey over for a quote. I knew I wouldn’t have much more time to talk to him, and I had a million questions to ask him, but I was in professional mode—trying to get something for us to use on the air the next morning.

“So, how do you think he’ll do in baseball?” I asked.

“I think he’s going to be one of the all-time greats,” Ernie said.

With that, the press surrounded him, and I was slowly pushed aside. I never got a chance to talk to him about those incredible Cubs teams of the late 60s; my childhood heroes. I never got a chance to tell him how his upbeat and rosy outlook in the face of adversity was a lesson for us all.

On the other hand, I did discover why the White Sox asked him to come to the press conference. He was the only "expert" there who thought Michael was going to be a great baseball player.

Even the White Sox need that kind of optimism once in a while.

Buddy Holly/Niki Sullivan

2007-02-03T00:03:00.000-06:00

By Rick Kaempfer

On this day in 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Clear Lake Iowa. Buddy Holly was only 22 years old when he died.

Video: About day of the plane crash

Obviously, since I was born in 1963, I never met Buddy Holly. I have, however, met quite a few people who were important in Holly’s life.

Among the people who joined us on the John Landecker Show over the years was the original guitarist of the Crickets, Niki Sullivan. He came to Chicago in the 90s as part of The Buddy Holly Story stage show. He was kind enough to get up real early one morning while he was in town to spend the better part of an hour on the John Landecker show.

We could have listened to Niki’s stories all day long. One of my favorite stories, because it involves two of the biggest stars in rock and roll history, was the story about the day Elvis Presley came to Lubbock, Texas. Buddy had won a contest as the best vocalist in Lubbock, and the prize was performing as opening act for Elvis. Niki was there that day too, and described what happened.

“Boy, Buddy was excited. You have to understand, it was 1955, and Buddy was already pretty well known in the Lubbock area at the time, but just hadn’t been able to break through nationally. Well since he was the opening act, he had access to the backstage area, and he approached Elvis—who had a couple of hit songs at the time--and asked Elvis if he had any advice. Elvis said sure, and invited Buddy into his dressing room. Well, he and Elvis went into that dressin’ room, and when Buddy came out a few minutes later—he was a different person. We asked him what they talked about, but he wouldn’t say. He just smiled. Whatever it was, and he never did tell us, after that night he was even more driven to succeed. It wasn’t too long after that he did.”

Recently, a home movie of Elvis backstage at that concert surfaced. Take a look at this clip, and you’ll see Buddy at the very end. This is supposedly the very first known footage of Elvis.

Niki was there for the recording of Buddy’s first big hit: “That’ll be the day.” He’s the other guy with the funny glasses playing the guitar in this video from those days.

He toured with the band the whole year of 1957, including a famous show at the Apollo Theatre. The black audience there that night had no idea what to think when they saw this group of good ol’ white boys, but the band won them over. It was a critical moment in Buddy Holly’s career, and was
featured in the movie The Buddy Holly Story starring Gary Busey. Unfortunately for Niki, it wasn’t portrayed accurately in the film because it shows only three men on stage that night. The Cricket they omitted was Niki Sullivan.

“It’s because I didn’t talk to the guy who wrote the first biography of Buddy. I was at the hospital because my kids were being born, so I wasn’t around when he came to town. Well, sure enough, when that book came out, I wasn’t a part of the story anymore.”

Sullivan was still part of the Crickets when they performed “Peggy Sue” on the Ed Sullivan Show. He told us what happened when Sullivan met Sullivan.

“He talked to Buddy before the song, but then during ‘Peggy Sue’, I heard him yell ‘Hey, Texas boy, do it!’ So I did a little dance. If you ever see that performance, watch the reaction of our bass player Joe.”

I never saw that performance until I listened back to the tape of our interview to write this column. In the 90s when we talked to Niki, YouTube doesn't exist, and it wasn't so easy to track down some of that old TV video. Now you can, and here it is.

Niki Sullivan left the group just a few weeks after this performance in December of 1957, because he couldn’t take the rigors of touring anymore, and he wanted to be home with his family. He wasn’t part of the band for their biggest year of 1958, and he wasn’t part of Buddy’s tour in 1959. That turned out to be a lucky break.

“But I’ll still never forget that day,” he told us, his voice still choking up nearly forty years later. “I’ll never forget it.”

Niki Sullivan died in his sleep in 2004, 45 years after his good friend Buddy Holly perished in that Clear Lake Iowa cornfield.

***************************************************

We talked to several other people who were a part of the Buddy Holly experience, including a man whose entire career was launched because of that plane crash; Bobby Vee.

We also talked to Bob Hale, who was the announcer at the concert in Clear Lake Iowa on the night of Buddy’s last show.

Both of those stories are fascinating in their own right. One of them will be my choice for next February’s Celebrity Snippet.

***********************************************

If you were reading this blog last year, you might have seen Bob Dearborn’s famous assessment of the Don McLean song “The Day the Music Died”, which was inspired by the death of Buddy Holly. If you missed it, click here.

I’ve since found a pretty good video of Don McLean singing the song. If you watch the visual images, you'll see that whoever put this together, probably read Dearborn’s analysis from 1972. Don McLean himself still refuses to explain it.

Here’s a few more video clips for Buddy Holly fans. Some of these are pretty old, and some are pretty odd…

VIDEO: Buddy Holly & The Crickets: "Oh Boy"

VIDEO: Olivia Newton John, Andy Gibb, Cliff Richard and Elton John doing “Oh Boy”

VIDEO: Interview of the real Peggy Sue

VIDEO: John Denver & David Essex doing a Buddy Holly medley

VIDEO: Leo Sayer and Justin Heyward of the Moody Blues doing a Buddy Holly medley

Gennifer Flowers

2007-01-27T00:03:00.000-06:00

Gennifer Flowers celebrated her 57th birthday in obscurity last week. Her notoriety forever faded after Monica Lewinsky’s “special internship” officially became public knowledge in 1998. In the years before Monica, however, Gennifer was a well known name in America. She had publicly claimed to be Bill Clinton’s mistress, and even had answering machine messages to prove it. Her claims were such a big story during the 1992 campaign that it caused Bill and Hillary to consent to their famous side-by-side 60 Minutes interview.

By Rick Kaempfer

During the 1996 campaign, Gennifer was out on the interview circuit again. She had a book called “Passion & Betrayal” in which she chronicled the details of her affair with Bill. After leafing through the book, I knew we had to have her on the John Landecker show. She agreed to come into the studio one morning, and I’ll never forget it.

The first thing I noticed about her was how short she was. She claims to be 5’2”, but if she is, my wife is five or six inches taller than she claims to be (5’3”). Gennifer is a tiny, tiny woman.

She arrived moments before the interview, so I didn't have a lot of time to talk to her, but she was very pleasant and professional in the green room.

When she got into the studio, however, she and John hit it off immediately. He didn’t start the interview by warming her up with softball questions, he leapt right in. Some of his questions even shocked me, but to her credit, she not only answered them, she answered them flirtatiously.

My lasting visual of that day is the image of John pulling her to his microphone to ask some of the most personal questions. He lowered his voice and nearly whispered. It was as if he was saying to her, “hey, this is just between the two of us—no-one else will never know.”

When she answered John’s question about the size of Bill’s “political caucus,” it made several of the local gossip columns in the newspapers the next day.

I happen to have an audio clip of that interview. We used a small portion of it to introduce our most popular Bill Clinton song on the last Landecker & The Legends CD: “20th Century Hits & Bits.” The song is about Monica, but Gennifer will always be our favorite presidential mistress.

AUDIO: Gennifer & Landecker/"He's the President"

Ellen DeGeneres

2007-01-20T00:03:00.000-06:00

Ellen DeGeneres turns 49 this week. She has hosted The Emmy's twice, and her very popular TV-talk show “Ellen” is on the air every weekday on NBC.

In 1989, I was working as the producer of the Steve Dahl & Garry Meier show on WLUP AM, but I was also helping out another show at the same station: The Kevin Matthews Show. For the most part, my help was only needed at his live stage shows.

Kevin hosted a series of what he called “Comedy Jams” in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. He recruited comedians from around the country to appear at these shows, and one of them was Ellen DeGeneres.

At the time, Ellen was an up and coming comedian with a quirky sense of humor. Her stand up act was polished, but she wasn’t nationally known.

I was working backstage when I had my one and only encounter with her. She was in her dressing room minding her own business, when a co-worker of mine (I won’t embarrass him by publicly revealing his name) knocked on her door. This co-worker had earlier told me: “There’s something about Ellen that really turns me on.”

He saw me watching him knock, and winked to let me know he was going to be turning on the charm. Ellen was 31 at the time. My co-worker was around 25.

I knew he had no chance, but I didn’t know he really had no chance.

Ellen was very polite and allowed him to enter her dressing room, but she stood in the doorway in a way that wouldn’t allow the door to be closed. That was too bad for my co-worker, because I heard the entire awkward conversation.

He asked her what she was doing after the show, and wondered if she wanted to “party.”

Ellen told him that she never went out after shows--she preferred to go back to her room and chill out. I was expecting my co-worker to ask if he could come back to the hotel with her, but even Romeo realized he was striking out. He sheepishly told her to “break a leg,” and then left her dressing room.

He was embarrassed when he saw that I had heard the entire conversation, so as he walked by me, he said: “I bet she’s a lesbian.”

"Sure, pal," I joked. "If she’s not into you, then she’s gotta be a lesbian."

When Ellen "came out" on her television show in 1997, I was probably laughing harder than anyone else in the country.

She really is a lesbian.

Although between you and me, I’m betting that even if she wasn’t, she still would have given my co-worker the exact same brush off.

Bill Maher

2007-01-13T00:03:00.000-06:00

Bill Maher is the host of "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. He celebrates his 51st birthday later this week.

By Rick Kaempfer

In April of 1994, Bill Maher was still a touring stand up comedian who appeared occasionally on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno as a “reporter” from political events and speeches. It would be another few months before he got his show “Politically Incorrect.” Suffice it to say, at that time, he wasn’t exactly a household name.

I had seen his very funny stand up act many times, so when I heard he was coming to town, I booked him to appear on the John Landecker show.

Before I go any further I should explain that this was during the first year of the John Landecker show on WJMK. The station had never had an actual full-service personality morning show before, and management was still adjusting to our different brand of radio.

For instance, their idea of an interview was as follows…ask a few questions (preferably about the music we play), play a song, and then go back to the interview after that. “That’s fascinating, Mr. Guest, and we’ll have more of your insight after ‘Do Wah Diddy’ by Mannfred Mann.”

Ten minutes of no music was considered outrageous.

That still doesn’t fully set the stage.

How about this? At our first aircheck session (listening to a show tape with management), we spent most of the meeting debating how many “time checks” were necessary during an interview. Management’s point of view was clarified to us with this example of perfect execution: “It’s 8:22, that's 22 minutes after 8, Mr. Guest. Tell us more after Do Wah Diddy by Mannfred Mann at 8:22 on Oldies 104.3.”

Mind you, John Landecker was a few months away from being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the time. He wasn’t exactly new to this whole radio game, but he calmly listened to the advice of his superiors as if this all made perfect sense. When our general manager asked him point blank if interviews were necessary at all, John asked him to name a single big-time radio show that didn’t have any.

“Fine,” our general manager said, “it’s your funeral.”

This was the environment Bill Maher unwittingly entered during the spring of 1994. It was early in the morning, and Bill is not exactly an early riser, so he arrived a little crabby. His mood wasn't improved by what he heard coming from the other end of the hall: The general manager screaming at the program director in his office. We heard him clear as day.

“Who the f*** did he say is on the show today?” he screamed. “I’ve never heard of this f****n guy!”

I started to explain the situation to Bill Maher, but I could tell he was in no mood to hear it. I seriously considered cancelling on the spot, but I thought, no…he’s a comedian. Funny is funny. He's a pro, John's a pro, and I'm not going to worry about. I'll just clean up the mess after the show.

By the time I brought Bill into the studio, however, I could tell by the look on John Landecker’s face that he had also gotten wind of the rampaging boss down the hall. John was already altering the interview in his mind to avoid the nasty confrontation after the show.

This was not going to be pretty.

The Beatles song ended, and John started the interview by asking Bill Maher if he was a Beatles fan.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Bill said. “Isn’t everybody?”

“What’s your favorite Beatles song?” John asked.

“What is this? Tiger Beat?” Bill responded.

It went downhill from there. When Bill finally got to some of his stand up material he did a bit about how much he loved drunk drivers. As he was calling for the installation of bumpers in “drunk driving lanes," I actually thought I heard the screaming in the hallway through the sound proof door.

The interview was short.

It wasn’t short enough.

As I walked Bill Maher back to the elevator, he looked at me and said: “I think I was just in the Twilight Zone.”

I said: “If you think this was the Twilight Zone, you should come back for our post show meeting.”

He was still shaking his head when the elevator door closed.

Sir George Martin

2007-01-06T02:03:00.000-06:00

The famed Beatles producer, Sir George Martin, celebrated a birthday this week. He is now 81 years old.

By Rick Kaempfer

Sir George Martin is an icon in the music business. If he had done nothing else in his career, the fact that he was the producer of every Beatles album except “Let it Be” would have been enough to cement his place in rock and roll history.

His contributions to the Beatles were significant. He helped the four of them get the most of their extraordinary talents, and played an important role in creating that famous Beatles sound. He was their mentor, and they were my heroes.

When I received a phone call in December of 1995 alerting me to George Martin’s availability for radio interviews to promote the Beatles Anthology project, I was speechless for a moment. I cleared my throat, booked the interview, and bounced off the walls for twenty minutes or so before I told the host of the show—John Landecker. I wasn’t prepared for John’s reaction.

“You should interview him,” he said.

“Why me?” I asked. “It’s your show.”

“Because you’re the Beatles fanatic,” he said. “I want you to do it.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but John had a master plan. He figured his normally unflappable German producer would turn into a stuttering, stammering fool if he was forced to interview one of his heroes. In John's mind, that had much more potential than a straight interview.

When he started promoting the interview a few days later, he laid it on pretty thick to make me even more nervous.

“Don’t blow this Rick,” he said. “There are millions of Beatles fans in Chicago, and since we’re the only station that gets to interview him, you have to speak for all of them.”

Gulp.

Outwardly I wasn’t showing it, but it was getting to me. I called all of my Beatles friends across the country and asked them to submit questions to me. I carefully considered each of them, crossed off the ones that seemed “too inside” or “too geeky,” and prepared diligently. I knew we only had ten minutes with him, so I couldn’t waste a moment with frivolous questions.

The morning of the interview I came to the studio with a list of questions in my cold sweaty hands.

When the hot-line rang to alert us that Mr. Martin was standing by at his microphone in London, the color left my face.

“Look at Rick,” John joked. “He’s white as a ghost.”

“Am not,” I said. My voice cracked.

John couldn’t stop laughing. “Maybe I better start the interview,” he said. “Sir George…are you with us?”

We couldn’t hear anything for a moment and then there he was. His lovely British accent responded: “Hello, John. How are you this morning?”

“I’m great,” John said. “I hope you don’t mind, but we’re going to do something a little different this morning. My producer Rick is a gigantic Beatles fan, and he badgered me to let him do this interview, so I’m turning it over to him now. THis will be fun--Producer interviewing Producer. Sir George Martin, this is Rick.”

He was silent for a moment again before answering politely: “Hello Rick.”

I almost fainted. I realize how pathetic this sounds in retrospect, but I don’t think I can find the proper words to explain how excited and nervous I was to be speaking with this man.

George Martin was the producer of the Beatles! He had been sitting across the glass from John Lennon when he sang “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Hell, he pieced that song together for Lennon, and made suggestions, and…oh my God…I could barely breathe.

It didn’t help that John Landecker was rolling on the floor laughing at me, but I ventured on. I knew I would impress Sir George with my knowledge of the Beatles. I knew he would warm to me instantly when he heard my insightful questions. So I launched right into them.

That’s the last thing I remember.

No, actually, that’s not entirely true. I do remember his response to my first question—even though I don’t remember the question itself.

Total silence.

That’s when I started flop-sweating. I lost all my confidence instantly. If I had my wits about me I would have realized that his silence was caused by the slight satellite delay, but I was too far gone by then. The only thing going through my mind was… “YOU IDIOT! HOW COULD YOU HAVE ASKED HIM THAT STUPID QUESTION? HE’S ICING YOU, AND YOU DESERVE IT, YOU WORTHLESS EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!”

He eventually answered me, but I didn’t even listen to his answer. I just waited for his silence, and then squeaked out another question.

After my second or third question, Landecker jumped in to rescue me.

John loved every second of the experience. I needed an IV to replenish my fluids.

When I listened back to the interview a few days later, I realized it really wasn’t that bad. Of course, that interview never aired again.

The real interview was forever replaced by John’s version of what the interview sounded like in Rick's mind. He had our technical producer Vince edit out my parts of the interview, and replace them with his impersonation of a stuttering and stammering Rick. That became the George Martin interview that was replayed on the air a dozen or more times over the years.

I was eventually able to laugh about it.

But I can admit it now. I’m the Bill Buckner of Beatles interviewers.

Coming January 2007:

2006-12-04T13:14:00.000-06:00

Celebrity tales from Rick Kaempfer