January 10, 2025 • 55 mins
Join @thebuzzknight with Bob Rivers, one of Americas great radio personalities of our generation. Bob worked at some of the biggest radio stations in the country including WAAF, WIYY, KISW and others and is a member of The Radio Hall of Fame. Bob is an accomplished musician, and he created the "Twisted Tunes" franchise which entertained his fans for decades.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk again sort of. One of my little
secrets of life is when you encourage talent genuinely, when
you really can look at someone's gifts and say, let
me help you, you know, or you can help me.
It's the old Tom Sawyer. Help me pay this fence
(00:21):
is a lot more fun than here's five dollars you
paint the fence. I'll come back late.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast, where Buzznight is
joined by a very special guest. Bob Rivers a true
radio legend, someone who's left an indelible mark on the
world of broadcasting in comedy. He's a Radio Hall of
Fame inductee, veteran radio personality, and a master of the
art of the parody song. If you ever laughed along
(00:47):
to his hilarious musical creations like the Twelve Pains of
Christmas or What If God Smoked Cannabis, you already know
the genius of Bob Rivers. With a career spanning more
than four decades, Bob made his name as a beloved
morning radio host in major markets like Worcester, mass Baltimore,
and Seattle, where the Bob Rivers Show became one of
(01:08):
the most popular morning programs in the country. Bob Rivers
joins Buzz Night on this very special episode of the
Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's an honor to have Bob Rivers on the Take
Out a Walk Podcast. Hello, Bob, buzz Night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
This is this is like incredible that we are thousands
of miles apart, that you and I have you know,
met professionally a number of times over the years, and
here we are. Let's have an improvisational conversation and see
where it leads. And all I have to do is
(01:47):
push a button and we're in a television studio. Pretty wild,
isn't it when you think about where we began, you know,
with radio, those big giant transmitters, those big towel and
a picture. Oh, you got to call in the union
guys if you're going to have picture.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So what was the first moment you knew you wanted
to be connected with an audience and a community of people.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Love the way you asked that, because the static way
to ask it is when did you know you wanted
to be on the radio? But you put it differently.
I wanted to be connected to an audience, and there
are two different answers. When I was about four or
five years old. My mom had a four grand to
(02:38):
Reno station wagon and we were a very dutiful Catholic
family in the sense that we kept having children and
birth control was not part of the mix. So I'm
the oldest of eight siblings, brothers and sisters. And back
(02:58):
then when we would all pile into the car, there
were no seat belts, you know, there was no right
turn on red. There was kids into the car, and
I would go all the way back into the what
do you call the back of a station wagon the trunk.
It's not yeah, it's not the trunk, it's the it's
(03:18):
the place where kids get killed when they have an accident.
I forget the name of it. Anyway. So so I'm
in the back of the car with brothers and sisters
and some neighbors kids. There's probably six kids. Very against
the law today, and the music is on the radio
and the song was She Loves You, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(03:39):
The Beatles were singing. And also I remember I Want
to Hold Your Hand, two of the you know, the
greatest songs of all time. And by the way, and
now I realize I was in the demo of seven
people care about the demo of seven, but it didn't matter.
It was my most important part of my life was
(04:00):
discovering music. And while we were in the car and
singing along with the Beatles, I don't remember what I said,
but I said something funny and I got the whole
car full of kids to laugh. And I looked around
and I went, well, that sure is a good feeling.
(04:23):
I said something, and everybody's face lit up with joy
and smiled and laughed, and so I actually, you know,
I remember that specific moment as wouldn't it be great
if I could do this and got good at doing it?
And you know, I'm six or seven years old or
four years old. I think it was closer to four,
(04:45):
because the second half of the answer to the question
happens at about six. And that was because I loved
radio so much. My grandfather, whose name was John F. Bruce,
He was politician, worked with Dwight Eisenhower on several important
(05:09):
races as a campaign helper. He also ran for office
himself and lost. He's too nice a guy. Some thing's
never changed anyway. So he bought me a transistor radio.
And the transistor radio was one of those little plastic things.
Boy did they break easy, and it had a dial
(05:34):
on the side that was connected to what we know
of as a capacitor. A capacitor was a tunable electronic
component that would pick a frequency. And I started to wonder,
what's in this radio? What makes it work is you know,
you got wound coils, transformers, capacitors, resistors, and some how
(06:00):
these things connect to an antenna that puts you on
a frequency and connects you to someone who's transmitting on
the other side. So and again, I'm the range here
is between four and seven years old, and these are
the things I'm thinking about as a kid. Anyway, I
(06:20):
the day he gave me the radio, he also gave
me a box of batteries. He said, your parents are
going to tell you turn that thing off. You'll waste
the batteries. Here's a case of batteries. You have fun,
you listen to the radio, and so I did, and
at one point I called in to try and win
(06:40):
a contest and I got through. The radio station was
w a v Z, New Haven, Connecticut. It was a
Paul Drew. I think they had the Drake Jingles, more music,
w av Z, you know all that stuff. And it
was my favorite radio station, And so all of a
(07:03):
sudden I found myself caller number thirteen and I had
to answer a trivia question. Back then, radio budgets were
actually I think we've come full circle there about what
they were back then. Back then the contest was called
phone booth. I forget, I forget the name of it,
(07:26):
but the point was you were in a phone booth
and you were going to quit coins in the machine.
And as the listener, all you had to do is
say how many how much money the thirteen waves does
jockey put into the phone booth? They would be like,
(07:47):
this is the sound of a nickel, and you would
hear better be a nickel. This is the sound of
a dime, think and it would be the sound of
a dime. And this is the sound of a quarterka,
and we'll go all right, are you ready? We're putting
into the wavz phone booth. They put the money in.
All I hear is all these coins rattling around. I
(08:07):
don't know what's going on. My grandfather leans over to
me and it goes eighty five cents. I go eighty
five cents. And they went into the jingle we've got
another winner on Lucky thirteen WA v Z and so
(08:27):
I was on the radio at six years old. So
and I had previously, you know, known that I wanted
to entertain. And then there was a third thing that happened.
And it was a grand opening of a WT Grants
store now quite defunct department store. I think K martish
(08:49):
you might remember, go, yeah, definitely, brand new Grant store
and radio DJ was broadcasting live from there. His name
was Robert W. Morgan. But apparently, like Saddam Hussein lookalike,
there's a lot of Robert W. Morgan's out there around
the country. So this wasn't the famous uh, this wasn't
(09:11):
the famous one from LA but that was his name.
He was the New Haven, Connecticut, Robert W. Morgan. And
and I walked in with my mother and he was
broadcasting live, and I said to her leave me here,
I'm not going shopping with you, you know. And that age,
I don't know what I was then, maybe ten or something,
(09:32):
but but I watched him perform and I heard him
with questions, how does the sound of your voice get
from that microphone to my little radio? And uh, and
he would he would actually explain, he would say, well,
we have a thing called an STL, a studio transmitter link,
(09:54):
and he showed me the little antenna you know there
is sort of like a UHF TV antenna, and it
would hit the building and bring the sound into the
studio and we'd be on the radio. At that point,
I was sure that this was going to be my job.
(10:15):
So after that I started a high school radio station.
I was in Junior Achievement radio, and I wrote to
some of my favorite personalities. Was this in Worcester, Bob, No,
this is all Branford, Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Okay, So Stanford, Connecticut, just so you know.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Okay, yeah, so not far and an hour market buzz
was New York, right. I mean, I consider that a
bit of a blessing that I grew up for someone
who was determined to be on the radio, that I
grew up listening to the New York market because wn
W Scott Muni I miss in the morning. Do you
(11:00):
know that I actually worked at a toll booth for
a little while, and he had an album about someone
ordering twenty thousand cheeseburgers, and I used to listen to
it from my toll booth and consider bits that I
might try and do. Oh, that's awesome. So that's a
long answer to your question. But I believe if it's
at least seven minutes we have, we've got at least
(11:23):
one quarter hour in there.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Well, I grew up in the shadow there of New
York Radio and all those folks. I was able to
spend three years doing weekends at NYW.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
So Scott I knew Scott very well. Yeah, I used
to practice that in front of the mirror. Did you
ever do that? Of course?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Remember remember Scott his famous member, He did the Rods comercials.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, you know, yes, and he probably needed him too.
We all such bad food, such bad greasy you know,
greasy spoon food was that was heaven back then. But yes,
Scott Muni was probably my favorite from rock Jock i'mus
(12:15):
in the morning, easily one of my favorite entertainers. But
there was a guy who was very special, and I
still consider him to be perhaps the biggest influence, not
that I sounded like him or did what he did,
but the biggest influence in terms of authenticity and creativity.
(12:40):
And his name is Gene Shepherd from w o R,
New York.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Amen member Jean Shepard yes, sir, Yes, sir. I used
to probably like you. I have a little transistor radio
and I would listen to his show. I believe it
was ten fifteen to eleven PM on WOR. That's it
after my bedtime.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yep, Robbie, are you in bed? Yes, I'm in bad.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
He would lull us to sleep with his storytelling.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, and do you remember what he talked about. I've
got a box by the way, with like five hundred episodes,
and it's been a while since I took one out.
But he had such a variety of topics available to him.
He talked a lot about his childhood, so we talked about,
(13:35):
you know, his buddies walking around the woods and finding
things and all the stuff that happens to you when
your kids and the world is magical place, and you
piss off the guy who has the little pond that
stocked with trout because you're in there trying to steal fish,
or you and your parents get upset with you for
something and you have to hide it from him. There's
(13:57):
a again, I thinking about it now, what was my demo?
Thirteen years old? And there was magical radio not just
for a thirteen year old, but it appealed to me
as well as a monstrous New York audience. And he
was one of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I think, iconic in God, we trust all others pay cash, right.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yes, that's right. And I did write a letter to him,
and I did go meet him. You did. I wrote
a letter to him and I said, I'm starting a
high school radio station and I listened to you every night,
and I would like to interview you for the Branford
High School Radio station. And I thought nothing would come
(14:41):
of it, but I got a call from one of
his engineers and said, yes, Jean would love to sit
down with you. And there were some stipulations. You see,
WOR was a union radio shop and so they couldn't
use any of their tape recording equipment. He said, you
have to bring your own tape recorder. I said, well,
(15:05):
I can do that, and he said, and yeah, I
mean here's where war is. And you know, a kid
from Branford can get on the train in New Haven
and get out at Penn Station or Grand Central station
and pretty much walk back. Then. I did mention we
didn't have seat belts back then either, Ryde, So right,
(15:26):
where you're going I didn't. I don't think I told
my parents where I was going. I probably lied. Was
it seventeen seventy Broadway? That sounds very familiar? Not sure? Yeah,
I believe it was. Let's put it this way, New York,
just like I pictured it. It's Coscraper's everything here. Run
(15:48):
this across the street from you, little fourteen year old kid,
which I'm sure I'll take the bag. What's in it?
I don't know. As a Stevie Wonder song. So so
I met him and and we talked, and I, you know,
I wish I still had the recording, but he was
very encouraging and and I had my little wall and
(16:09):
sack real to real tape recorder, and and you know,
that was my first celebrity interview. I love that.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You must have then.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Been a fan of the afternoon show that was part
of that radio station at one point as well.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Let's see they had the morning show was rambling with gambling,
john Gambling, rambling with gambling, right, and I believe john
Son took over, or maybe he partnered with him for
a while, eventually transitioned to the sun. I'm trying to
remember who was on afternoons.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Bob and Ray. Oh, Bob and Ray.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, of course, yeah, And I would you know, I
would tape record some of these people with my little
tape recorder and I would practice trying to be them
in the mirror. And again, I just knew that was
what I was going to do, and I had no
(17:14):
nothing yet. Just that's the kind of a fan price pig.
I'm trying to think of all the nicknames I had
back then. No, we led a very similar path.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I didn't do the radio station in the high school,
but I weaseled my way since I was a big
Bob and Ray fan to get to meet them and
sit in as they were doing their show. I knew
Shepherd was you know, I was a big fan of
Geene Shepherd's obviously, but we could have literally bumped into
(17:50):
each other as we were visiting the w R studios.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Most likely it's more likely than this meeting. Yeah, that
it happen.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Nice. But who were those those people.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
In your career that were those mentors that believed in
you and gave you sort of the practical advice and
experience that helped shape you.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Wow, there are so many. And I can joke around,
I can say because I needed it. I was. I
was complete fuck up, Yeah I was, you know, I
was clearly I was probably that annoying kid who wouldn't
(18:38):
go away to some of these people, but a few
recognized that I had a passion for it. And and
then it just feels like like it was magic how
people came in and out of my career in life
at exactly the right times to say exactly the right thing.
(19:01):
And so if I and I will give you some
of the highlights, but I'll also be leaving out so
many amazing people who who were very generous. And I
will say this, it caused me, as I got smarter
and eventually sober. It caused me to live my life
(19:26):
with such gratitude for that action of encouraging someone with talent.
I now realized that that is one of the greatest
gifts you can give throughout your life to anybody, whether
you're in radio or whether you're in lawn care or
you're operating a dry cleaner. When you look at someone
(19:46):
and say, wow, you do that really well, I'm impressed.
It's the opposite of fighting with someone. It's the opposite
of politics today where everybody doubles down and puts up there,
you know, their or hackles or shackles or whatever you
call it. And so I learned from these people. I
(20:09):
don't know what I consider the secret of life to be,
and that is that whatever you put out, you get
twice as much back when you're being kind to someone.
So to answer your question, the first and most important
name that comes to mind is a gentleman named Steve
Marx who began a company. It was a sales training
(20:32):
company for radio. Radio at that time, was being sold
very primitively. You know, three for five dollars will give you.
You know, we'll throw in some promos and some bumper
stickers and or you know, you know, it was all
very low grade selling rather than customer focused relationships. And
this gentleman, Steve Marx, created a company called CSS, the
(20:56):
counselor Selling System. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
And I knew who Steve was and knew him, not
as well as you, but definitely knew him well.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
He knew me at age fourteen because I was starting
my high school radio station and I needed donations of equipment,
and I went down to w ELI and New Haven,
a radio station that he was the program director. Of
what I didn't know is he was the young program
director that in the building was ruffling a bunch of
(21:27):
feathers because he was taking adult contemporary music and he
was mixing in carpenters and he was mixing in let
me think of another good example. Oh, he brocal Harem
a wider shade of pale. And some of the old
timers of that radio station, who is this kid? He's
ruining our music? And you know, so he was fighting
(21:48):
his own battles to begin managing radio and of course
would become a radio station and company owner of New
City Communications, and that I believe the people from that
have gone on to become Cox or merged with Cox Radio.
And there's a whole group of super smart radio people
(22:13):
that came from him and Dick Ferguson, who was his mentor.
As he would often tell me, well, I learned all
this stuff from Dick, and the bottom line of what
he taught was to have empathy and to care about
all of your clients, including listeners, sales. If you're programming,
(22:37):
you care about the sales department. If you were sales,
you care about programming. And if you were working with
an advertiser, which of course was his focus. You didn't
go in there and try to sell them radio spots.
You went in there and ask them, what are the
problems that your business is having, then we could help
solve if you know, if you could improve your business,
(23:00):
what are the things you would improve, and how can
we help? And that's an approach of course, that opens
people up to be honest with you about their needs.
In fact, he didn't call a first sales call a
sales call. He called it a needs analysis meeting. And
(23:20):
he wanted to make sure you were prepared before you
went in there. And so anyway, all of this was happening,
he hired me at WAAF and he is he was
really coming into his own running the Worcester Boston cluster
there for New City Communications. And everyone was kind of
(23:42):
afraid of him, by the way, because he was one
of those wicked, wicked smart. He was one of those
wicked smart people that I don't know if you have this,
but I do. If someone's super smart, I'm intimidated just
being in the room with him, because I know I
can't think as fast, and I don't have the you know,
the depth of knowledge and information, and I just want
(24:05):
to I just want to, you know, kick the brain
of this person and learn everything I can. And he
liked that. And so I was one of the few
people at the radio station who would just ask the
big boss out to lunch, and he would go out
to lunch with me. And believe me, at that age,
(24:26):
how I'm old, am I now? Like I went through
that building twice. First time I was around nineteen or twenty,
and the second time was twenty five or twenty six,
which we're the WAF years. And he, you know, he
just he had a different approach than just about anybody,
(24:46):
and it was based about empathy, caring and delivering on
whatever your promise is. He was very special.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And the other person you mentioned, who I know, Dick Ferguson,
also a very special person as well.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And Dick, Dick made all of this possible. And now
I've gotten to know Dick only in these last few
years a little bit. Because what's funny is I was
always intimidated by Dick because he's Steve's boss. He must
be ten times smarter than Steve. Uh. One of the
interesting things you figure out you go through life starting
(25:25):
really dumb, which I'm happy I started really dumb. By
the way, I'm really pleased that I wasn't a prodigy,
because it's a better story to uh, not know what
the heck you're doing and then tell how we learned,
you know, by the kindness of various people. But Dick was, Yeah, Dick,
(25:46):
Dick made it all possible. Dick started the American Comedy
Network in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and I was I guess one
of their first experiments they had hired professional writers voice
actors Dale Reeves, Andy Goodman, Bob James, Ed Kelly too.
(26:08):
Was he part of Ed Kelly and I are still
best friends? Yes, and so all of the Again you
asked the question of who were these major influences, And
for me, it seemed like everyone who walked through the door,
I better be paying attention because God is sending me
all career of wisdom if I if I I'm smart
enough to look at it.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Well, that was the rarefied air company, you know, from
the American Comedy Network to the way they ran their stations.
At that time. I was working in Connecticut for a
station called I ninety five. It was Danbury Fairfield County
(26:51):
Radio station.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I remember that, yeah, and it was it was a
ninety five point five and it was a kind of
a hit station, ninety five point one. It was a
rock station basically, so it was rock like PLR, like yeah,
like DRC.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Okay, yeah, yeah yeah. I never worked there.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It's like one of the few stations I haven't been
fired from in Connecticut. There's so many.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Oh, we looked, We looked at what you guys were
up to, and we were just emulating and probably stealing
everything we could from what was going on there. You know,
big ideas and how to how to have fun, and
how to make make things happen.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
You know, you just said the three things too, big ideas,
have fun, make things happen. We really are brothers from
a different mother, but those things. And I'm not going
to rag on radio today because I know it's a
whole different business and it's very challenging, and I love
so many people who are in it fighting the good
fight still, but nowadays to have an idea feel like
(28:01):
you're in the way of normal business. In other words,
if you have an idea, it means everyone has to
stop what they're doing and figure out how to implement
that idea. And when I got to Seattle, I wanted to,
you know, bond with this new city, and I wanted
to do I wanted to be edgy, but I was
(28:23):
not the personality of a Howard Stern. Oh, I love him.
I think he's he gets enough praise, so we'll just
put him to the Yes, he was a huge influence pile.
But I wanted to connect and and so I remember
going into a promotion meeting and saying it was like
the end one of the anniversaries of Woodstock or whatever,
(28:44):
and I said, I'd like to do a one day
promotion on a Saturday. I think we ended up doing
it on Friday to be live on the air. And
I wanted to call it nude Stock, and it would
be a clothing optional park and we would say, you know,
the best way to get to know new people when
(29:04):
you're new in a city is to strip it down
to the bear essentials. And so we're going to party
with your naked now if I And again, it's a
different time in so many different ways, but I I
don't know how many people would be receptive to an
idea like that today, just so many problematic aspects of it.
(29:29):
But they were like, really, so, how do you let's say, well,
we'll use the Marti transmitter and we'll you know, basically
have an outdoor rock concert with people who volunteer. We
can tie it to some charity. Here's the name of
the clothing optional park. It was called Fraternity Snow Qualmi.
(29:49):
It's not about sex. They are just about feeling free.
And you know, without clothing, it's not going to be sleazy.
It's not going to be you know, we're not and
I have, with all due respect to my shock jock friends,
we're not going to have you know, nipple contests or
you know, we're not going to do anything but relax
(30:12):
naked and sit by the pool. And they said yes,
And I said, oh, and I'd like to get a
helicopter to fly over because I would like all the
naked people to spell out our call letters KISW and
a giant peace sign from the air. So we get
(30:33):
a message and we have, you know, a picture that
they can put in the papers of two thousand naked people.
And I said, yes, that's a great idea. So again
the question of you know, how who were the people
that helped you succeed everybody? Everybody at that time about
radio had a passion or even fun, being entertaining, connecting difficulties,
(30:59):
following rules and all of that. But but mostly you
don't remind me a little of some of the daring
shows on cable TV today where you know, they go
naked in the woods with that guy whatever his name is.
But but those, you know, those supposedly edgy shows. Today,
we're all done on morning radio.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I think the lawyers with all no no disrespect meant
for lawyers. I think the lawyers have unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Give them respect. You just gave them no disrespect. I
did catch up keep them saying.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
The lawyers, I, you know now are too concerned and
these companies are too concerned about taking taking risks in
any way, When I think of your work over the years,
you became this great one to communicator, You became this
musical comedic wizard. You became this master of spreading viral content,
(32:11):
you became this creator of showbiz moments. I'm guessing this
was really stuff that happened organically rather than intentionally.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Is that fair? Well, I'm not sure of the Branford
High school. Remember, I'm not sure what the difference would
be between organic and intentional, but let me take a
stab at it from the gut. What's going to work? Yeah,
that's kind of organic. Intentional is all right? I need
a promotion for the fall. I've got to get in
the newspaper. I've got to, you know, figure out the
(32:48):
different ways. And I would say, I would say that
we did both. That I had a staff. I mean,
because we were reasonably successful in Seattle. We had leverage.
And I don't mean leverage like making people do stuff
they don't want to do. I mean we had credibility
that if I said, all right, here's this crazy idea,
(33:11):
let me run with it, they'd go, how much rope
do you need? Mister Rivers? Is this new spin off?
Would just go for it. But I also was able
to do that because I had a team, and this
is the biggest blessing. I always had a team of
people who got it, who were having just as much
(33:31):
fun as I was. And by using those tactics some
you know, from early people who encouraged me, like Steve
Marks or even Geene Shepherd, I knew how to. I
looked at it as like conducting an orchestra. I knew
(33:52):
of all the people who would be involved, and some
would just be musicians doing a project once. Some would
be the show co hosts, some would producers, others would
be people we interacted with in the community, and so
again sort of One of my little secrets of life
is when you encourage talent genuinely, when you really can
(34:17):
look at someone's gifts and say, let me help you,
you know, or you can help me. It's sti old
Tom Sawyer. Help me paint this fence is a lot
more fun than here's five dollars. You paint the fence.
I'll come back later. So we're all working on these
projects as a team. So the ideas and the which
(34:38):
ones to do first, and you know, and how to
go about it, that's all from the gut. But then
afterwards you have to do the work. And the work
is work. I used to joke when I was doing
very well in mornings, you know, people would say, well,
you're making good money, and I would and I would say, yeah,
it's king's wages for slaves labor. Because I last night
(35:06):
couldn't get to bed and it was almost midnight because
I was thinking about the interview I have today with
someone from Saturday Night Live. And I was up late
watching their clips last night so that I could convey
to them that I had just been enjoying, you know,
their bits, because that's how you get into someone that
(35:26):
you know you are incredibly caring about them, and then
they'll give you back some thoughts. One of my other mentors,
I have to mention it was Larry King. And for
some odd reason I kept crossing paths with Larry King
at conventions or wherever. And and I was petrified early
(35:50):
on in my career about interviewing people. Is it really
fed my social insecurity? And and I'm not. I mean,
I don't have a good memory. I don't have. There's
a lot of skills I don't have, which is why
we have a team of people on your show who
can answer the question you don't know the answer to.
(36:11):
But but what Larry did is he made every guest
who was ever on his show feel like the most
important person in the universe as he introduced them. In
my case, I was doing a promotion with the Baltimore Orioles.
(36:32):
They had lost twenty one games in a row of
breaking a major League record and I was doing an
on air radio marathon, and about three quarters the way
through it, Larry King's people called and said Larry would
like to interview Bob on his late night show, and
I of course said yes, And then immediately the flop swat,
(36:54):
holy shit, I'm gonna be in the Larry Kings show.
What a ray? How can I make this entertaining? It's
just a dumb radio bit, you know, all those inside
voices of insecurity. And I remember the countdown like they're
doing the network news sounder at midnight, and I didn't know, like,
who's going to be on with Larry tonight and they
(37:16):
introduce Larry for his show and say with us tonight
Joe Garagiola and Bob Costas from NBC, and I went, holy,
double fucking shit. Now I how do I belong in
this sentence? And so I was actually quite nervous, and
(37:40):
Larry started to introduce me. He said, tonight we have
someone very special on the show. He has taken lemons
and made lemonade out of it in a very unique way.
The Baltimore Oriols are starting off as one of the
worst teams in the history of sports. Going oh in
twenty one, and he's vowed to stay on the air
(38:00):
until they win a game. He's got people wearing underwear
on the outside of their pants. If you drive through Baltimore,
all the headlights are on throughout the city to show
support for the team. And I was doing satellite feeds
with sixty evening news programs. They do this thing where
(38:22):
they ask you a question, but your answer goes to
all their affiliates. So he's talking about this, He's on
the front page of headline, front page in Australia and
this and that, And as he's doing this, I'm like,
maybe I do believe that I belong here. Maybe maybe
this is a really cool you know what I mean.
(38:44):
And so by the time he finished the introduction, I
was cool as a cucumber and relaxed and grateful, and
we just laughed for twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
And to this day, that promotion stands as one of
the greatest radio promotions of all time.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
It and partially and I'm not gonna why would I
argue with you, but I am going to say this.
It was a different time in that if you turn
on TikTok today there are six gazillion kicker story potentials
that are out there. There is so much media to
(39:26):
choose from. But back then, this one little story about
a hapless team that couldn't win a game wasn't just
a story that a few people would hear. It became
the story globally that made you know, the kicker spot
(39:47):
on the evening news. And so all of a sudden,
you know that light is there and it's happening. You
can't plan for that to happen now, and I don't
think you could even plan then. So it was very
much a lot of luck, but we took full advantage
of it and had a blast. Yeah, to this day, there's.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Morning show talent that will get up on a billboard
to do the charity fundraise or you know, variations of
that to kind of, you know, make some noise. But
you made some noise there, sir, on that on that
thanks promotion. How special was it for you getting into
(40:34):
the Radio Hall of Fame?
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Ah, well, I'd love to be cooler than I am
and say something like you know that it's it's very
nice and all, but really it was. It was the
cherry on top of the ice cream cone. For me.
It meant a lot and and part of why it
(40:58):
meant a lot, is because I started rating making content
for other people the American Comedy Network. Even before then,
I would the first Christmas songs I made that became
the album. You know, I ran off a reel to
reel recording of the twelve Paines of Christmas, and I
(41:19):
sent it to Rick D's, to Scott Shannon and probably
a half a dozen other big radio guys in the
country because I wanted them to hear it, and I thought,
this is good. They're gonna love playing it. And so
that's the same part is I knew I was doing
something that would be useful for everybody in radio, and
(41:42):
I just loved everybody in radio. And then I could
drive to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where there was a five hundred
watt AM daytime station playing the Twisted Christmas Songs, and
I'd introduced myself and they did, boys, what thank you
for making these songs? These are so great? And you know,
(42:03):
when I went back to Hawaii for Christmas time, the
songs were being played, so so I had this feeling that, yeah,
I did do something that was giving back, you know,
to all the people who gave me kindness of bringing
material to people who were doing. What I was doing
was struggling to find great stuff to do every day,
(42:26):
and so to get recognized for that, it was good
half of it, and recognized by industry professionals who I all,
you know, I worked with still the people from ABC
that you know syndicated the Twisted Tunes are still at
the Hall of Fame dinner. So it meant something a lot.
(42:49):
But but the other part of it is, and yes,
I'm I believe I have an ego, and it's it's
reasonably healthy, despite all my protestations of insecurity, et cetera,
et cetera. But but there was a thing about our
show that I could never really fully explain to anyone
(43:10):
who wasn't in the Pacific Northwest. And and I was told,
when you moved to Seattle, you know, people will forget
about you in the industry because you're way up in
that corner of the country there, and you're not going
to be in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago.
And the first few times I was nominated, actually the
(43:33):
guys who won were Mark and Brian and Jonathan Brandmeyer
in Chicago, who I stole some ideas from him. I
had a radio station band that was huge. We played
big concerts. So these are people that that I super admired,
and I thought, yeah, well they deserve it, and they're
(43:54):
and you know, and then Harry Harrison won one year,
and I'm such a fan of such a fan of
Top forty radio fact that that's really what I wanted
to be, a flame throwing Top forty guy. You know,
I didn't have the correct voice for it, and I
you know, I didn't really have the personality either. So
(44:16):
I'm glad I did what I did. But the thing
about Seattle, what happened there is we created a team
that was so much like a family. And you'll hear
this from other shows. In fact, even now when my
wife watches CBS, you know this morning it's a morning
(44:38):
radio show with pictures. You know, they're all like a family.
They sit and discuss everything every day. And so we
created this. It's hard to describe because it wasn't it
wasn't fitting into any of the typical kinds of radio show.
So it was classic rock. I mean, we were on
a classic rock station, we were on an active rock state,
(45:00):
and we were on a oldies station. Over the course
of twenty five years, but it was a talk show
almost all of that time, and it was about families.
It was about the reason your kids. It was about
the advent of the internet. It was about all of
the things that were going on in the world. And
(45:22):
most of them, many of them, I should say, were
coming out of Seattle, Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Costco. The brilliant corporate,
creative tech software. But also airplanes. We make the world's airplanes.
(45:45):
Seattle was this vibrant, incredible city with so many stories
to tell. And I had this group of really amazing
I'd like to feel that part of why they were
good is that I coached them well, so I'll take
that part of the trophy. But they were really also
just incredibly special people who were full of love. And
(46:08):
every morning, you know, they put that out over the
airwaves and the show was you know what radio shows
always dream of, being special and dispensable to the people
who are listening to it, relatable, you feel like family,
and then very good and very clever to that extent,
(46:29):
you know, my abilities to produce stuff very well and
have it sound larger than life. You know, the helicopter
over nudestock plants a picture, It plants it firmly and
you will never be able to unsee it. So winning
also meant that everyone on that show can proudly say
(46:52):
they were on a radio Hall of Fame show. And
when we received the award, I asked the folks on
the committee if they would please put the Bob Rivers
Show on the trophy instead of just my name, because
you know my name is still there. It wasn't really
(47:13):
giving up anything, but I was. I wanted to make
sure that I made the statement that teamwork and encouraging
talent is how you multiply talent.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Wow, Bob, I want to I want to ask here
as we close, the most important thing, how are you doing?
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I'm feeling very good. It's common knowledge because I'm not
quiet about it, that I, you know, have a serious
health issue and that I've faced down esophageal cancer about
three years ago was the diagnosis. And it's one of
those Yeah, it's a it's not an easy one, and
(48:05):
I have defied all of them. You know. I'm like
Valerie Harper here, I should not be here being able
to have this interview with you, but but I've had
really good luck with treatments and but some bad luck too.
I've had, you know, little twists and turns in the road.
But and when that happened, it's so funny because I
looked to other celebrities for inspiration always. By the way,
(48:28):
I don't know if I have any original thoughts, but
I pick and choose from the people that inspire me
the most. And you know, there's a Norm MacDonald, perhaps
one of my favorite comedians of all time, and he
chose to not tell anybody that he was ill because
he didn't want it to interfere with him. He did
(48:49):
want to be looked at differently. He wanted to get
on stage and just do his comedy and have tremendous
respect for that. And I've actually thought I might just
keep it secret at first, but then I thought, you know,
of the people I might impact. You know, say, there's
thousands that still follow the podcast, and there's maybe a
(49:10):
couple of tens of thousands. I don't know when you
add them all up. You know, I can play with
the ratings numbers and tell you whatever story I want,
but you know, it's just a small little podcast. But
then I thought they're all going through the same thing.
They've all got an uncle, spouse, a husband to wife
with cancer, and I thought, you know, my thing is
(49:31):
just relating to people. So I think I got to
just not hide it. And I sort of made it
one of my declarations that I was going to have
a fun final act. I was going to have a
fun ending and that since there's nothing special about being
(49:55):
a mortal human being. I mean, we're all mortal human beings.
One of us get out of here on a magic carpet.
And I thought it will be considered a little odd
if I'm open about it and don't mind talking about it.
So I like being a little bit odd, and who
knows what I'll discover doing that. So and I also
(50:16):
felt like I need to do some projects. If I
only have limited time and I don't know how much time,
what do I want to do? I want to do?
I want to do some projects. So I've been working
on a bunch of things. I'm doing a film soundtrack
about Alan White, the drummer for Yes for fifty Years,
(50:38):
which was recorded at his celebration of life two years ago.
I'm recording an EP and album with my two brothers,
Michael and Richard. Michael and his wife Schandra play Little
folk bars and coffee shops, and he's a good little songwriter,
and you think about, oh, there are things you wish
(50:59):
you did in your life. I wish I had recorded
something with my brothers. Well, I have the time now,
so we're doing that. And and the way I explain
it to friends of mine, because I do have friends
of mine going, how come you're not stressed out depressed,
I've never seen anybody, And I'm well, I can be.
(51:21):
I mean, I can make that choice anytime a shit
gets really bad. But why not have fun? I know
very little Shakespeare, in fact, pretty much none. But and
I'm not well read, and I don't have a degree.
I have more in common with the guy at the
(51:42):
auto park store who's changing my muffler than I do
with really educated people. But I look at life as
like it's a show. All the world's a stage, and
we're performers, and I'm in them. I'm at inn Rey
reality series. By the way, I think the whole freaking
(52:04):
planet is a reality series. Right now. This Trump reality
show is the best global reality show of all time.
You know it's a drama, but uh, anyway, I look
at it as I'm hosting. I'm in a reality show.
I'm in my sixty eighth season. There are three hundred
(52:25):
and sixty five episodes per season, and so every day
when I wake up, and this is how every morning
show host feels anyway, doing the morning show. Right, every
day when I wake up, it's a new episode, and
I can't control. There's a lot of it I can't control.
Apparently there are higher powers that send people in and
(52:46):
out and create various stresses and hassles for me. But
I can control how I interact with everybody and what
I do. And so, you know, it makes life seem
long to be in your sixth the eighth season. I
would have got sick of mash and cheers way before that,
and you know, and it gives me a mission every day,
(53:09):
which is to do what I've always done, which is
to have fun and hopefully help and empower some other
people to have some fun as well.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
You're amazing. Your career has been absolutely amazing and still
is amazing. You're so inspiring, I have to tell you.
Doing this podcast and being able to connect with people
I have no business connecting with, and.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
I love that part about morning radio. By the way,
isn't that the greatest yea.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
And reconnect with people who I've admired and certainly watched
and emulated is one of my great joys. You mentioned
how you and you would have that big interview you
the next day, you know, be up late prepping, but
(54:05):
really being anxious as well in a good way. Well,
my friend, was that was me last night in anticipation
of really wanting to be at my best for you and.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Thank you, and you were much appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
I just I'm so grateful that you took the time
and words can't express how appreciative I am of it.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Well, Buzz, that's super kind of you. And you know
I did more or less discover that a lot of
that worry was well, it's good. It's good to stress
out for a good cause. But a lot of it,
of course melts away and disappears the moment you're on stage,
the moment you're having a conversation. And that's the hardest
(54:55):
thing to learn as a performer, is to truly be
in the moment and be willing to be intimate, to
let your guard down, to take a risk that you
might not look good. In fact, it's not even a
risk someone's gonna hate you. I figured that out now.
The Internet is a good teacher of that. So I
appreciate that very much. Buzz, and you know, the ability
(55:18):
to come on with a very well respected and well
watched and listened to industry executive and speak a little
just of off the cuff is a blessing.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
Thank you, Bob Rivers, the great Bob Rivers on Taking
a Walk.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk again sort of. One of my little
secrets of life is when you encourage talent genuinely, when
you really can look at someone's gifts and say, let
me help you, you know, or you can help me.
It's the old Tom Sawyer. Help me pay this fence
(00:21):
is a lot more fun than here's five dollars you
paint the fence. I'll come back late.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast, where Buzznight is
joined by a very special guest. Bob Rivers a true
radio legend, someone who's left an indelible mark on the
world of broadcasting in comedy. He's a Radio Hall of
Fame inductee, veteran radio personality, and a master of the
art of the parody song. If you ever laughed along
(00:47):
to his hilarious musical creations like the Twelve Pains of
Christmas or What If God Smoked Cannabis, you already know
the genius of Bob Rivers. With a career spanning more
than four decades, Bob made his name as a beloved
morning radio host in major markets like Worcester, mass Baltimore,
and Seattle, where the Bob Rivers Show became one of
(01:08):
the most popular morning programs in the country. Bob Rivers
joins Buzz Night on this very special episode of the
Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
It's an honor to have Bob Rivers on the Take
Out a Walk Podcast. Hello, Bob, buzz Night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
This is this is like incredible that we are thousands
of miles apart, that you and I have you know,
met professionally a number of times over the years, and
here we are. Let's have an improvisational conversation and see
where it leads. And all I have to do is
(01:47):
push a button and we're in a television studio. Pretty wild,
isn't it when you think about where we began, you know,
with radio, those big giant transmitters, those big towel and
a picture. Oh, you got to call in the union
guys if you're going to have picture.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So what was the first moment you knew you wanted
to be connected with an audience and a community of people.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Love the way you asked that, because the static way
to ask it is when did you know you wanted
to be on the radio? But you put it differently.
I wanted to be connected to an audience, and there
are two different answers. When I was about four or
five years old. My mom had a four grand to
(02:38):
Reno station wagon and we were a very dutiful Catholic
family in the sense that we kept having children and
birth control was not part of the mix. So I'm
the oldest of eight siblings, brothers and sisters. And back
(02:58):
then when we would all pile into the car, there
were no seat belts, you know, there was no right
turn on red. There was kids into the car, and
I would go all the way back into the what
do you call the back of a station wagon the trunk.
It's not yeah, it's not the trunk, it's the it's
(03:18):
the place where kids get killed when they have an accident.
I forget the name of it. Anyway. So so I'm
in the back of the car with brothers and sisters
and some neighbors kids. There's probably six kids. Very against
the law today, and the music is on the radio
and the song was She Loves You, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(03:39):
The Beatles were singing. And also I remember I Want
to Hold Your Hand, two of the you know, the
greatest songs of all time. And by the way, and
now I realize I was in the demo of seven
people care about the demo of seven, but it didn't matter.
It was my most important part of my life was
(04:00):
discovering music. And while we were in the car and
singing along with the Beatles, I don't remember what I said,
but I said something funny and I got the whole
car full of kids to laugh. And I looked around
and I went, well, that sure is a good feeling.
(04:23):
I said something, and everybody's face lit up with joy
and smiled and laughed, and so I actually, you know,
I remember that specific moment as wouldn't it be great
if I could do this and got good at doing it?
And you know, I'm six or seven years old or
four years old. I think it was closer to four,
(04:45):
because the second half of the answer to the question
happens at about six. And that was because I loved
radio so much. My grandfather, whose name was John F. Bruce,
He was politician, worked with Dwight Eisenhower on several important
(05:09):
races as a campaign helper. He also ran for office
himself and lost. He's too nice a guy. Some thing's
never changed anyway. So he bought me a transistor radio.
And the transistor radio was one of those little plastic things.
Boy did they break easy, and it had a dial
(05:34):
on the side that was connected to what we know
of as a capacitor. A capacitor was a tunable electronic
component that would pick a frequency. And I started to wonder,
what's in this radio? What makes it work is you know,
you got wound coils, transformers, capacitors, resistors, and some how
(06:00):
these things connect to an antenna that puts you on
a frequency and connects you to someone who's transmitting on
the other side. So and again, I'm the range here
is between four and seven years old, and these are
the things I'm thinking about as a kid. Anyway, I
(06:20):
the day he gave me the radio, he also gave
me a box of batteries. He said, your parents are
going to tell you turn that thing off. You'll waste
the batteries. Here's a case of batteries. You have fun,
you listen to the radio, and so I did, and
at one point I called in to try and win
(06:40):
a contest and I got through. The radio station was
w a v Z, New Haven, Connecticut. It was a
Paul Drew. I think they had the Drake Jingles, more music,
w av Z, you know all that stuff. And it
was my favorite radio station, And so all of a
(07:03):
sudden I found myself caller number thirteen and I had
to answer a trivia question. Back then, radio budgets were
actually I think we've come full circle there about what
they were back then. Back then the contest was called
phone booth. I forget, I forget the name of it,
(07:26):
but the point was you were in a phone booth
and you were going to quit coins in the machine.
And as the listener, all you had to do is
say how many how much money the thirteen waves does
jockey put into the phone booth? They would be like,
(07:47):
this is the sound of a nickel, and you would
hear better be a nickel. This is the sound of
a dime, think and it would be the sound of
a dime. And this is the sound of a quarterka,
and we'll go all right, are you ready? We're putting
into the wavz phone booth. They put the money in.
All I hear is all these coins rattling around. I
(08:07):
don't know what's going on. My grandfather leans over to
me and it goes eighty five cents. I go eighty
five cents. And they went into the jingle we've got
another winner on Lucky thirteen WA v Z and so
(08:27):
I was on the radio at six years old. So
and I had previously, you know, known that I wanted
to entertain. And then there was a third thing that happened.
And it was a grand opening of a WT Grants
store now quite defunct department store. I think K martish
(08:49):
you might remember, go, yeah, definitely, brand new Grant store
and radio DJ was broadcasting live from there. His name
was Robert W. Morgan. But apparently, like Saddam Hussein lookalike,
there's a lot of Robert W. Morgan's out there around
the country. So this wasn't the famous uh, this wasn't
(09:11):
the famous one from LA but that was his name.
He was the New Haven, Connecticut, Robert W. Morgan. And
and I walked in with my mother and he was
broadcasting live, and I said to her leave me here,
I'm not going shopping with you, you know. And that age,
I don't know what I was then, maybe ten or something,
(09:32):
but but I watched him perform and I heard him
with questions, how does the sound of your voice get
from that microphone to my little radio? And uh, and
he would he would actually explain, he would say, well,
we have a thing called an STL, a studio transmitter link,
(09:54):
and he showed me the little antenna you know there
is sort of like a UHF TV antenna, and it
would hit the building and bring the sound into the
studio and we'd be on the radio. At that point,
I was sure that this was going to be my job.
(10:15):
So after that I started a high school radio station.
I was in Junior Achievement radio, and I wrote to
some of my favorite personalities. Was this in Worcester, Bob, No,
this is all Branford, Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Okay, So Stanford, Connecticut, just so you know.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Okay, yeah, so not far and an hour market buzz
was New York, right. I mean, I consider that a
bit of a blessing that I grew up for someone
who was determined to be on the radio, that I
grew up listening to the New York market because wn
W Scott Muni I miss in the morning. Do you
(11:00):
know that I actually worked at a toll booth for
a little while, and he had an album about someone
ordering twenty thousand cheeseburgers, and I used to listen to
it from my toll booth and consider bits that I
might try and do. Oh, that's awesome. So that's a
long answer to your question. But I believe if it's
at least seven minutes we have, we've got at least
(11:23):
one quarter hour in there.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Well, I grew up in the shadow there of New
York Radio and all those folks. I was able to
spend three years doing weekends at NYW.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
So Scott I knew Scott very well. Yeah, I used
to practice that in front of the mirror. Did you
ever do that? Of course?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Remember remember Scott his famous member, He did the Rods comercials.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, you know, yes, and he probably needed him too.
We all such bad food, such bad greasy you know,
greasy spoon food was that was heaven back then. But yes,
Scott Muni was probably my favorite from rock Jock i'mus
(12:15):
in the morning, easily one of my favorite entertainers. But
there was a guy who was very special, and I
still consider him to be perhaps the biggest influence, not
that I sounded like him or did what he did,
but the biggest influence in terms of authenticity and creativity.
(12:40):
And his name is Gene Shepherd from w o R,
New York.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Amen member Jean Shepard yes, sir, Yes, sir. I used
to probably like you. I have a little transistor radio
and I would listen to his show. I believe it
was ten fifteen to eleven PM on WOR. That's it
after my bedtime.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yep, Robbie, are you in bed? Yes, I'm in bad.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
He would lull us to sleep with his storytelling.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, and do you remember what he talked about. I've
got a box by the way, with like five hundred episodes,
and it's been a while since I took one out.
But he had such a variety of topics available to him.
He talked a lot about his childhood, so we talked about,
(13:35):
you know, his buddies walking around the woods and finding
things and all the stuff that happens to you when
your kids and the world is magical place, and you
piss off the guy who has the little pond that
stocked with trout because you're in there trying to steal fish,
or you and your parents get upset with you for
something and you have to hide it from him. There's
(13:57):
a again, I thinking about it now, what was my demo?
Thirteen years old? And there was magical radio not just
for a thirteen year old, but it appealed to me
as well as a monstrous New York audience. And he
was one of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I think, iconic in God, we trust all others pay cash, right.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yes, that's right. And I did write a letter to him,
and I did go meet him. You did. I wrote
a letter to him and I said, I'm starting a
high school radio station and I listened to you every night,
and I would like to interview you for the Branford
High School Radio station. And I thought nothing would come
(14:41):
of it, but I got a call from one of
his engineers and said, yes, Jean would love to sit
down with you. And there were some stipulations. You see,
WOR was a union radio shop and so they couldn't
use any of their tape recording equipment. He said, you
have to bring your own tape recorder. I said, well,
(15:05):
I can do that, and he said, and yeah, I
mean here's where war is. And you know, a kid
from Branford can get on the train in New Haven
and get out at Penn Station or Grand Central station
and pretty much walk back. Then. I did mention we
didn't have seat belts back then either, Ryde, So right,
(15:26):
where you're going I didn't. I don't think I told
my parents where I was going. I probably lied. Was
it seventeen seventy Broadway? That sounds very familiar? Not sure? Yeah,
I believe it was. Let's put it this way, New York,
just like I pictured it. It's Coscraper's everything here. Run
(15:48):
this across the street from you, little fourteen year old kid,
which I'm sure I'll take the bag. What's in it?
I don't know. As a Stevie Wonder song. So so
I met him and and we talked, and I, you know,
I wish I still had the recording, but he was
very encouraging and and I had my little wall and
(16:09):
sack real to real tape recorder, and and you know,
that was my first celebrity interview. I love that.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You must have then.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Been a fan of the afternoon show that was part
of that radio station at one point as well.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Let's see they had the morning show was rambling with gambling,
john Gambling, rambling with gambling, right, and I believe john
Son took over, or maybe he partnered with him for
a while, eventually transitioned to the sun. I'm trying to
remember who was on afternoons.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Bob and Ray. Oh, Bob and Ray.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, of course, yeah, And I would you know, I
would tape record some of these people with my little
tape recorder and I would practice trying to be them
in the mirror. And again, I just knew that was
what I was going to do, and I had no
(17:14):
nothing yet. Just that's the kind of a fan price pig.
I'm trying to think of all the nicknames I had
back then. No, we led a very similar path.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I didn't do the radio station in the high school,
but I weaseled my way since I was a big
Bob and Ray fan to get to meet them and
sit in as they were doing their show. I knew
Shepherd was you know, I was a big fan of
Geene Shepherd's obviously, but we could have literally bumped into
(17:50):
each other as we were visiting the w R studios.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Most likely it's more likely than this meeting. Yeah, that
it happen.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Nice. But who were those those people.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
In your career that were those mentors that believed in
you and gave you sort of the practical advice and
experience that helped shape you.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Wow, there are so many. And I can joke around,
I can say because I needed it. I was. I
was complete fuck up, Yeah I was, you know, I
was clearly I was probably that annoying kid who wouldn't
(18:38):
go away to some of these people, but a few
recognized that I had a passion for it. And and
then it just feels like like it was magic how
people came in and out of my career in life
at exactly the right times to say exactly the right thing.
(19:01):
And so if I and I will give you some
of the highlights, but I'll also be leaving out so
many amazing people who who were very generous. And I
will say this, it caused me, as I got smarter
and eventually sober. It caused me to live my life
(19:26):
with such gratitude for that action of encouraging someone with talent.
I now realized that that is one of the greatest
gifts you can give throughout your life to anybody, whether
you're in radio or whether you're in lawn care or
you're operating a dry cleaner. When you look at someone
(19:46):
and say, wow, you do that really well, I'm impressed.
It's the opposite of fighting with someone. It's the opposite
of politics today where everybody doubles down and puts up there,
you know, their or hackles or shackles or whatever you
call it. And so I learned from these people. I
(20:09):
don't know what I consider the secret of life to be,
and that is that whatever you put out, you get
twice as much back when you're being kind to someone.
So to answer your question, the first and most important
name that comes to mind is a gentleman named Steve
Marx who began a company. It was a sales training
(20:32):
company for radio. Radio at that time, was being sold
very primitively. You know, three for five dollars will give you.
You know, we'll throw in some promos and some bumper
stickers and or you know, you know, it was all
very low grade selling rather than customer focused relationships. And
this gentleman, Steve Marx, created a company called CSS, the
(20:56):
counselor Selling System. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
And I knew who Steve was and knew him, not
as well as you, but definitely knew him well.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
He knew me at age fourteen because I was starting
my high school radio station and I needed donations of equipment,
and I went down to w ELI and New Haven,
a radio station that he was the program director. Of
what I didn't know is he was the young program
director that in the building was ruffling a bunch of
(21:27):
feathers because he was taking adult contemporary music and he
was mixing in carpenters and he was mixing in let
me think of another good example. Oh, he brocal Harem
a wider shade of pale. And some of the old
timers of that radio station, who is this kid? He's
ruining our music? And you know, so he was fighting
(21:48):
his own battles to begin managing radio and of course
would become a radio station and company owner of New
City Communications, and that I believe the people from that
have gone on to become Cox or merged with Cox Radio.
And there's a whole group of super smart radio people
(22:13):
that came from him and Dick Ferguson, who was his mentor.
As he would often tell me, well, I learned all
this stuff from Dick, and the bottom line of what
he taught was to have empathy and to care about
all of your clients, including listeners, sales. If you're programming,
(22:37):
you care about the sales department. If you were sales,
you care about programming. And if you were working with
an advertiser, which of course was his focus. You didn't
go in there and try to sell them radio spots.
You went in there and ask them, what are the
problems that your business is having, then we could help
solve if you know, if you could improve your business,
(23:00):
what are the things you would improve, and how can
we help? And that's an approach of course, that opens
people up to be honest with you about their needs.
In fact, he didn't call a first sales call a
sales call. He called it a needs analysis meeting. And
(23:20):
he wanted to make sure you were prepared before you
went in there. And so anyway, all of this was happening,
he hired me at WAAF and he is he was
really coming into his own running the Worcester Boston cluster
there for New City Communications. And everyone was kind of
(23:42):
afraid of him, by the way, because he was one
of those wicked, wicked smart. He was one of those
wicked smart people that I don't know if you have this,
but I do. If someone's super smart, I'm intimidated just
being in the room with him, because I know I
can't think as fast, and I don't have the you know,
the depth of knowledge and information, and I just want
(24:05):
to I just want to, you know, kick the brain
of this person and learn everything I can. And he
liked that. And so I was one of the few
people at the radio station who would just ask the
big boss out to lunch, and he would go out
to lunch with me. And believe me, at that age,
(24:26):
how I'm old, am I now? Like I went through
that building twice. First time I was around nineteen or twenty,
and the second time was twenty five or twenty six,
which we're the WAF years. And he, you know, he
just he had a different approach than just about anybody,
(24:46):
and it was based about empathy, caring and delivering on
whatever your promise is. He was very special.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And the other person you mentioned, who I know, Dick Ferguson,
also a very special person as well.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And Dick, Dick made all of this possible. And now
I've gotten to know Dick only in these last few
years a little bit. Because what's funny is I was
always intimidated by Dick because he's Steve's boss. He must
be ten times smarter than Steve. Uh. One of the
interesting things you figure out you go through life starting
(25:25):
really dumb, which I'm happy I started really dumb. By
the way, I'm really pleased that I wasn't a prodigy,
because it's a better story to uh, not know what
the heck you're doing and then tell how we learned,
you know, by the kindness of various people. But Dick was, Yeah, Dick,
(25:46):
Dick made it all possible. Dick started the American Comedy
Network in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and I was I guess one
of their first experiments they had hired professional writers voice
actors Dale Reeves, Andy Goodman, Bob James, Ed Kelly too.
(26:08):
Was he part of Ed Kelly and I are still
best friends? Yes, and so all of the Again you
asked the question of who were these major influences, And
for me, it seemed like everyone who walked through the door,
I better be paying attention because God is sending me
all career of wisdom if I if I I'm smart
enough to look at it.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Well, that was the rarefied air company, you know, from
the American Comedy Network to the way they ran their stations.
At that time. I was working in Connecticut for a
station called I ninety five. It was Danbury Fairfield County
(26:51):
Radio station.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I remember that, yeah, and it was it was a
ninety five point five and it was a kind of
a hit station, ninety five point one. It was a
rock station basically, so it was rock like PLR, like yeah,
like DRC.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Okay, yeah, yeah yeah. I never worked there.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It's like one of the few stations I haven't been
fired from in Connecticut. There's so many.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Oh, we looked, We looked at what you guys were
up to, and we were just emulating and probably stealing
everything we could from what was going on there. You know,
big ideas and how to how to have fun, and
how to make make things happen.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
You know, you just said the three things too, big ideas,
have fun, make things happen. We really are brothers from
a different mother, but those things. And I'm not going
to rag on radio today because I know it's a
whole different business and it's very challenging, and I love
so many people who are in it fighting the good
fight still, but nowadays to have an idea feel like
(28:01):
you're in the way of normal business. In other words,
if you have an idea, it means everyone has to
stop what they're doing and figure out how to implement
that idea. And when I got to Seattle, I wanted to,
you know, bond with this new city, and I wanted
to do I wanted to be edgy, but I was
(28:23):
not the personality of a Howard Stern. Oh, I love him.
I think he's he gets enough praise, so we'll just
put him to the Yes, he was a huge influence pile.
But I wanted to connect and and so I remember
going into a promotion meeting and saying it was like
the end one of the anniversaries of Woodstock or whatever,
(28:44):
and I said, I'd like to do a one day
promotion on a Saturday. I think we ended up doing
it on Friday to be live on the air. And
I wanted to call it nude Stock, and it would
be a clothing optional park and we would say, you know,
the best way to get to know new people when
(29:04):
you're new in a city is to strip it down
to the bear essentials. And so we're going to party
with your naked now if I And again, it's a
different time in so many different ways, but I I
don't know how many people would be receptive to an
idea like that today, just so many problematic aspects of it.
(29:29):
But they were like, really, so, how do you let's say, well,
we'll use the Marti transmitter and we'll you know, basically
have an outdoor rock concert with people who volunteer. We
can tie it to some charity. Here's the name of
the clothing optional park. It was called Fraternity Snow Qualmi.
(29:49):
It's not about sex. They are just about feeling free.
And you know, without clothing, it's not going to be sleazy.
It's not going to be you know, we're not and
I have, with all due respect to my shock jock friends,
we're not going to have you know, nipple contests or
you know, we're not going to do anything but relax
(30:12):
naked and sit by the pool. And they said yes,
And I said, oh, and I'd like to get a
helicopter to fly over because I would like all the
naked people to spell out our call letters KISW and
a giant peace sign from the air. So we get
(30:33):
a message and we have, you know, a picture that
they can put in the papers of two thousand naked people.
And I said, yes, that's a great idea. So again
the question of you know, how who were the people
that helped you succeed everybody? Everybody at that time about
radio had a passion or even fun, being entertaining, connecting difficulties,
(30:59):
following rules and all of that. But but mostly you
don't remind me a little of some of the daring
shows on cable TV today where you know, they go
naked in the woods with that guy whatever his name is.
But but those, you know, those supposedly edgy shows. Today,
we're all done on morning radio.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I think the lawyers with all no no disrespect meant
for lawyers. I think the lawyers have unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Give them respect. You just gave them no disrespect. I
did catch up keep them saying.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
The lawyers, I, you know now are too concerned and
these companies are too concerned about taking taking risks in
any way, When I think of your work over the years,
you became this great one to communicator, You became this
musical comedic wizard. You became this master of spreading viral content,
(32:11):
you became this creator of showbiz moments. I'm guessing this
was really stuff that happened organically rather than intentionally.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Is that fair? Well, I'm not sure of the Branford
High school. Remember, I'm not sure what the difference would
be between organic and intentional, but let me take a
stab at it from the gut. What's going to work? Yeah,
that's kind of organic. Intentional is all right? I need
a promotion for the fall. I've got to get in
the newspaper. I've got to, you know, figure out the
(32:48):
different ways. And I would say, I would say that
we did both. That I had a staff. I mean,
because we were reasonably successful in Seattle. We had leverage.
And I don't mean leverage like making people do stuff
they don't want to do. I mean we had credibility
that if I said, all right, here's this crazy idea,
(33:11):
let me run with it, they'd go, how much rope
do you need? Mister Rivers? Is this new spin off?
Would just go for it. But I also was able
to do that because I had a team, and this
is the biggest blessing. I always had a team of
people who got it, who were having just as much
(33:31):
fun as I was. And by using those tactics some
you know, from early people who encouraged me, like Steve
Marks or even Geene Shepherd, I knew how to. I
looked at it as like conducting an orchestra. I knew
(33:52):
of all the people who would be involved, and some
would just be musicians doing a project once. Some would
be the show co hosts, some would producers, others would
be people we interacted with in the community, and so
again sort of One of my little secrets of life
is when you encourage talent genuinely, when you really can
(34:17):
look at someone's gifts and say, let me help you,
you know, or you can help me. It's sti old
Tom Sawyer. Help me paint this fence is a lot
more fun than here's five dollars. You paint the fence.
I'll come back later. So we're all working on these
projects as a team. So the ideas and the which
(34:38):
ones to do first, and you know, and how to
go about it, that's all from the gut. But then
afterwards you have to do the work. And the work
is work. I used to joke when I was doing
very well in mornings, you know, people would say, well,
you're making good money, and I would and I would say, yeah,
it's king's wages for slaves labor. Because I last night
(35:06):
couldn't get to bed and it was almost midnight because
I was thinking about the interview I have today with
someone from Saturday Night Live. And I was up late
watching their clips last night so that I could convey
to them that I had just been enjoying, you know,
their bits, because that's how you get into someone that
(35:26):
you know you are incredibly caring about them, and then
they'll give you back some thoughts. One of my other mentors,
I have to mention it was Larry King. And for
some odd reason I kept crossing paths with Larry King
at conventions or wherever. And and I was petrified early
(35:50):
on in my career about interviewing people. Is it really
fed my social insecurity? And and I'm not. I mean,
I don't have a good memory. I don't have. There's
a lot of skills I don't have, which is why
we have a team of people on your show who
can answer the question you don't know the answer to.
(36:11):
But but what Larry did is he made every guest
who was ever on his show feel like the most
important person in the universe as he introduced them. In
my case, I was doing a promotion with the Baltimore Orioles.
(36:32):
They had lost twenty one games in a row of
breaking a major League record and I was doing an
on air radio marathon, and about three quarters the way
through it, Larry King's people called and said Larry would
like to interview Bob on his late night show, and
I of course said yes, And then immediately the flop swat,
(36:54):
holy shit, I'm gonna be in the Larry Kings show.
What a ray? How can I make this entertaining? It's
just a dumb radio bit, you know, all those inside
voices of insecurity. And I remember the countdown like they're
doing the network news sounder at midnight, and I didn't know, like,
who's going to be on with Larry tonight and they
(37:16):
introduce Larry for his show and say with us tonight
Joe Garagiola and Bob Costas from NBC, and I went, holy,
double fucking shit. Now I how do I belong in
this sentence? And so I was actually quite nervous, and
(37:40):
Larry started to introduce me. He said, tonight we have
someone very special on the show. He has taken lemons
and made lemonade out of it in a very unique way.
The Baltimore Oriols are starting off as one of the
worst teams in the history of sports. Going oh in
twenty one, and he's vowed to stay on the air
(38:00):
until they win a game. He's got people wearing underwear
on the outside of their pants. If you drive through Baltimore,
all the headlights are on throughout the city to show
support for the team. And I was doing satellite feeds
with sixty evening news programs. They do this thing where
(38:22):
they ask you a question, but your answer goes to
all their affiliates. So he's talking about this, He's on
the front page of headline, front page in Australia and
this and that, And as he's doing this, I'm like,
maybe I do believe that I belong here. Maybe maybe
this is a really cool you know what I mean.
(38:44):
And so by the time he finished the introduction, I
was cool as a cucumber and relaxed and grateful, and
we just laughed for twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
And to this day, that promotion stands as one of
the greatest radio promotions of all time.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
It and partially and I'm not gonna why would I
argue with you, but I am going to say this.
It was a different time in that if you turn
on TikTok today there are six gazillion kicker story potentials
that are out there. There is so much media to
(39:26):
choose from. But back then, this one little story about
a hapless team that couldn't win a game wasn't just
a story that a few people would hear. It became
the story globally that made you know, the kicker spot
(39:47):
on the evening news. And so all of a sudden,
you know that light is there and it's happening. You
can't plan for that to happen now, and I don't
think you could even plan then. So it was very
much a lot of luck, but we took full advantage
of it and had a blast. Yeah, to this day, there's.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Morning show talent that will get up on a billboard
to do the charity fundraise or you know, variations of
that to kind of, you know, make some noise. But
you made some noise there, sir, on that on that
thanks promotion. How special was it for you getting into
(40:34):
the Radio Hall of Fame?
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Ah, well, I'd love to be cooler than I am
and say something like you know that it's it's very
nice and all, but really it was. It was the
cherry on top of the ice cream cone. For me.
It meant a lot and and part of why it
(40:58):
meant a lot, is because I started rating making content
for other people the American Comedy Network. Even before then,
I would the first Christmas songs I made that became
the album. You know, I ran off a reel to
reel recording of the twelve Paines of Christmas, and I
(41:19):
sent it to Rick D's, to Scott Shannon and probably
a half a dozen other big radio guys in the
country because I wanted them to hear it, and I thought,
this is good. They're gonna love playing it. And so
that's the same part is I knew I was doing
something that would be useful for everybody in radio, and
(41:42):
I just loved everybody in radio. And then I could
drive to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where there was a five hundred
watt AM daytime station playing the Twisted Christmas Songs, and
I'd introduced myself and they did, boys, what thank you
for making these songs? These are so great? And you know,
(42:03):
when I went back to Hawaii for Christmas time, the
songs were being played, so so I had this feeling that, yeah,
I did do something that was giving back, you know,
to all the people who gave me kindness of bringing
material to people who were doing. What I was doing
was struggling to find great stuff to do every day,
(42:26):
and so to get recognized for that, it was good
half of it, and recognized by industry professionals who I all,
you know, I worked with still the people from ABC
that you know syndicated the Twisted Tunes are still at
the Hall of Fame dinner. So it meant something a lot.
(42:49):
But but the other part of it is, and yes,
I'm I believe I have an ego, and it's it's
reasonably healthy, despite all my protestations of insecurity, et cetera,
et cetera. But but there was a thing about our
show that I could never really fully explain to anyone
(43:10):
who wasn't in the Pacific Northwest. And and I was told,
when you moved to Seattle, you know, people will forget
about you in the industry because you're way up in
that corner of the country there, and you're not going
to be in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago.
And the first few times I was nominated, actually the
(43:33):
guys who won were Mark and Brian and Jonathan Brandmeyer
in Chicago, who I stole some ideas from him. I
had a radio station band that was huge. We played
big concerts. So these are people that that I super admired,
and I thought, yeah, well they deserve it, and they're
(43:54):
and you know, and then Harry Harrison won one year,
and I'm such a fan of such a fan of
Top forty radio fact that that's really what I wanted
to be, a flame throwing Top forty guy. You know,
I didn't have the correct voice for it, and I
you know, I didn't really have the personality either. So
(44:16):
I'm glad I did what I did. But the thing
about Seattle, what happened there is we created a team
that was so much like a family. And you'll hear
this from other shows. In fact, even now when my
wife watches CBS, you know this morning it's a morning
(44:38):
radio show with pictures. You know, they're all like a family.
They sit and discuss everything every day. And so we
created this. It's hard to describe because it wasn't it
wasn't fitting into any of the typical kinds of radio show.
So it was classic rock. I mean, we were on
a classic rock station, we were on an active rock state,
(45:00):
and we were on a oldies station. Over the course
of twenty five years, but it was a talk show
almost all of that time, and it was about families.
It was about the reason your kids. It was about
the advent of the internet. It was about all of
the things that were going on in the world. And
(45:22):
most of them, many of them, I should say, were
coming out of Seattle, Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Costco. The brilliant corporate,
creative tech software. But also airplanes. We make the world's airplanes.
(45:45):
Seattle was this vibrant, incredible city with so many stories
to tell. And I had this group of really amazing
I'd like to feel that part of why they were
good is that I coached them well, so I'll take
that part of the trophy. But they were really also
just incredibly special people who were full of love. And
(46:08):
every morning, you know, they put that out over the
airwaves and the show was you know what radio shows
always dream of, being special and dispensable to the people
who are listening to it, relatable, you feel like family,
and then very good and very clever to that extent,
(46:29):
you know, my abilities to produce stuff very well and
have it sound larger than life. You know, the helicopter
over nudestock plants a picture, It plants it firmly and
you will never be able to unsee it. So winning
also meant that everyone on that show can proudly say
(46:52):
they were on a radio Hall of Fame show. And
when we received the award, I asked the folks on
the committee if they would please put the Bob Rivers
Show on the trophy instead of just my name, because
you know my name is still there. It wasn't really
(47:13):
giving up anything, but I was. I wanted to make
sure that I made the statement that teamwork and encouraging
talent is how you multiply talent.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Wow, Bob, I want to I want to ask here
as we close, the most important thing, how are you doing?
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I'm feeling very good. It's common knowledge because I'm not
quiet about it, that I, you know, have a serious
health issue and that I've faced down esophageal cancer about
three years ago was the diagnosis. And it's one of
those Yeah, it's a it's not an easy one, and
(48:05):
I have defied all of them. You know. I'm like
Valerie Harper here, I should not be here being able
to have this interview with you, but but I've had
really good luck with treatments and but some bad luck too.
I've had, you know, little twists and turns in the road.
But and when that happened, it's so funny because I
looked to other celebrities for inspiration always. By the way,
(48:28):
I don't know if I have any original thoughts, but
I pick and choose from the people that inspire me
the most. And you know, there's a Norm MacDonald, perhaps
one of my favorite comedians of all time, and he
chose to not tell anybody that he was ill because
he didn't want it to interfere with him. He did
(48:49):
want to be looked at differently. He wanted to get
on stage and just do his comedy and have tremendous
respect for that. And I've actually thought I might just
keep it secret at first, but then I thought, you know,
of the people I might impact. You know, say, there's
thousands that still follow the podcast, and there's maybe a
(49:10):
couple of tens of thousands. I don't know when you
add them all up. You know, I can play with
the ratings numbers and tell you whatever story I want,
but you know, it's just a small little podcast. But
then I thought they're all going through the same thing.
They've all got an uncle, spouse, a husband to wife
with cancer, and I thought, you know, my thing is
(49:31):
just relating to people. So I think I got to
just not hide it. And I sort of made it
one of my declarations that I was going to have
a fun final act. I was going to have a
fun ending and that since there's nothing special about being
(49:55):
a mortal human being. I mean, we're all mortal human beings.
One of us get out of here on a magic carpet.
And I thought it will be considered a little odd
if I'm open about it and don't mind talking about it.
So I like being a little bit odd, and who
knows what I'll discover doing that. So and I also
(50:16):
felt like I need to do some projects. If I
only have limited time and I don't know how much time,
what do I want to do? I want to do?
I want to do some projects. So I've been working
on a bunch of things. I'm doing a film soundtrack
about Alan White, the drummer for Yes for fifty Years,
(50:38):
which was recorded at his celebration of life two years ago.
I'm recording an EP and album with my two brothers,
Michael and Richard. Michael and his wife Schandra play Little
folk bars and coffee shops, and he's a good little songwriter,
and you think about, oh, there are things you wish
(50:59):
you did in your life. I wish I had recorded
something with my brothers. Well, I have the time now,
so we're doing that. And and the way I explain
it to friends of mine, because I do have friends
of mine going, how come you're not stressed out depressed,
I've never seen anybody, And I'm well, I can be.
(51:21):
I mean, I can make that choice anytime a shit
gets really bad. But why not have fun? I know
very little Shakespeare, in fact, pretty much none. But and
I'm not well read, and I don't have a degree.
I have more in common with the guy at the
(51:42):
auto park store who's changing my muffler than I do
with really educated people. But I look at life as
like it's a show. All the world's a stage, and
we're performers, and I'm in them. I'm at inn Rey
reality series. By the way, I think the whole freaking
(52:04):
planet is a reality series. Right now. This Trump reality
show is the best global reality show of all time.
You know it's a drama, but uh, anyway, I look
at it as I'm hosting. I'm in a reality show.
I'm in my sixty eighth season. There are three hundred
(52:25):
and sixty five episodes per season, and so every day
when I wake up, and this is how every morning
show host feels anyway, doing the morning show. Right, every
day when I wake up, it's a new episode, and
I can't control. There's a lot of it I can't control.
Apparently there are higher powers that send people in and
(52:46):
out and create various stresses and hassles for me. But
I can control how I interact with everybody and what
I do. And so, you know, it makes life seem
long to be in your sixth the eighth season. I
would have got sick of mash and cheers way before that,
and you know, and it gives me a mission every day,
(53:09):
which is to do what I've always done, which is
to have fun and hopefully help and empower some other
people to have some fun as well.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
You're amazing. Your career has been absolutely amazing and still
is amazing. You're so inspiring, I have to tell you.
Doing this podcast and being able to connect with people
I have no business connecting with, and.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
I love that part about morning radio. By the way,
isn't that the greatest yea.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
And reconnect with people who I've admired and certainly watched
and emulated is one of my great joys. You mentioned
how you and you would have that big interview you
the next day, you know, be up late prepping, but
(54:05):
really being anxious as well in a good way. Well,
my friend, was that was me last night in anticipation
of really wanting to be at my best for you and.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Thank you, and you were much appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
I just I'm so grateful that you took the time
and words can't express how appreciative I am of it.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Well, Buzz, that's super kind of you. And you know
I did more or less discover that a lot of
that worry was well, it's good. It's good to stress
out for a good cause. But a lot of it,
of course melts away and disappears the moment you're on stage,
the moment you're having a conversation. And that's the hardest
(54:55):
thing to learn as a performer, is to truly be
in the moment and be willing to be intimate, to
let your guard down, to take a risk that you
might not look good. In fact, it's not even a
risk someone's gonna hate you. I figured that out now.
The Internet is a good teacher of that. So I
appreciate that very much. Buzz, and you know, the ability
(55:18):
to come on with a very well respected and well
watched and listened to industry executive and speak a little
just of off the cuff is a blessing.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
Thank you, Bob Rivers, the great Bob Rivers on Taking
a Walk.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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