June 1, 2023 • 63 mins
Consider this... the Exit Interview...
n this heartfelt and poignant episode of his iHeartRadio podcast, renowned broadcaster Toby Knapp holds a captivating conversation with the legendary Lisa Baden, a true icon of DC traffic reporting.
As Lisa signals her final exit towards a well-deserved retirement, Toby and Lisa reflect on their unique journeys, intertwined histories, and the inevitable highs and lows of DC radio.
Over the years, while Toby sculpted his "anti-Baden" style of traffic reports on Hot 99-5, it was Lisa who set the gold standard of combining traffic updates and entertainment seamlessly. Despite their differing styles, the two formed an enduring professional bond that witnessed countless stories, epic adventures, and even the occasional misadventure in the pulsating heart of DC radio.
Listen in as they delve into their five-plus years of working together, recounting memorable incidents, personal anecdotes, and the shared wisdom they've gathered along the way.
With an outlook towards Lisa's impending retirement, the conversation takes a turn towards the future and what it holds for the beloved traffic reporter.
Lisa, ever the guiding light, imparts some sage advice to Toby and the listeners, in a way that only she can.
This farewell interview is as much an end as it is a new beginning - a testament to Lisa Baden's indomitable spirit and her unwavering commitment to guiding the listeners of iHeart's Total Traffic Weather and News Network, among others, during her iconic tenure in the Nation's Capital.
Don't miss this emotional, moving, and powerfully charged conversation as Toby Knapp speaks one final time with the incomparable Lisa Baden.
Recorded on 5/31/2023, this episode is an @iHeart+Toby Knapp Original Podcast Production. Tune in and join us on this farewell journey, as we bid adieu to the irreplaceable Lisa Baden, celebrating her extraordinary career and looking ahead to her new adventures.
n this heartfelt and poignant episode of his iHeartRadio podcast, renowned broadcaster Toby Knapp holds a captivating conversation with the legendary Lisa Baden, a true icon of DC traffic reporting.
As Lisa signals her final exit towards a well-deserved retirement, Toby and Lisa reflect on their unique journeys, intertwined histories, and the inevitable highs and lows of DC radio.
Over the years, while Toby sculpted his "anti-Baden" style of traffic reports on Hot 99-5, it was Lisa who set the gold standard of combining traffic updates and entertainment seamlessly. Despite their differing styles, the two formed an enduring professional bond that witnessed countless stories, epic adventures, and even the occasional misadventure in the pulsating heart of DC radio.
Listen in as they delve into their five-plus years of working together, recounting memorable incidents, personal anecdotes, and the shared wisdom they've gathered along the way.
With an outlook towards Lisa's impending retirement, the conversation takes a turn towards the future and what it holds for the beloved traffic reporter.
Lisa, ever the guiding light, imparts some sage advice to Toby and the listeners, in a way that only she can.
This farewell interview is as much an end as it is a new beginning - a testament to Lisa Baden's indomitable spirit and her unwavering commitment to guiding the listeners of iHeart's Total Traffic Weather and News Network, among others, during her iconic tenure in the Nation's Capital.
Don't miss this emotional, moving, and powerfully charged conversation as Toby Knapp speaks one final time with the incomparable Lisa Baden.
Recorded on 5/31/2023, this episode is an @iHeart+Toby Knapp Original Podcast Production. Tune in and join us on this farewell journey, as we bid adieu to the irreplaceable Lisa Baden, celebrating her extraordinary career and looking ahead to her new adventures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm talking to you live from thecouch in my living room. This is
a very bittersweet conversation we're about tohave. And before we jump into this
and I tell you who I'm talkingto on their last day, I wanted
to say a couple of things.Number One, this is completely unscripted.
You know me, sometimes I flybest when I don't plan, even though
those around me can't stand it.But I think with the person I'm talking
(00:23):
to today, there really doesn't needto be a script because what she has
to say, well, we'll justcome up in the course of conversation.
So that being said, I wouldlike to welcome Lisa Baden to this conversation,
the DC traffic icon, who I'vetalked to before. You can listen
to our previous conversation we had oncea minute ago when we talked about so
many different things in life and howyou got into this career. And here
(00:46):
we are now on your last day. So let's consider this to be the
unofficial exit interview. Lisa, howmany years how many years were you have
you been on the radio in Washington, DC reporting traffic and take us through
all the stations that you worked foras well. Okay, So when you
(01:07):
first said how many years have youbeen on the radio, I was thinking
over forty and as a traffic reporter, thirty two of those. And yes,
I didn't think I would last thislong, right, thirty two years
as a traffic reporter. It's beena journey too, I'll tell you it
really has. But it's been awesome. I've met some wonderful people like you.
(01:29):
Oh and it's crazy because we hadnot met when I came to town.
And the company did a bunch ofresearch, and you know, the
company's always trying to All companies aretrying to come up with new ways to
do things. And you know,I mean, I knew of you because
look, you're iconic and growing upas a radio geek, you get to
learn everything about the market you're goinginto. This person is the queen of
traffic in this town. This personis the king of news in this town.
(01:53):
And this is the number one stationin this town PGC, this is
this in this town. And youknow, you do all of your homework.
And then they did some research.When they came up, they came
back to me and they said,we think you need to do traffic reports.
And I'm like, people don't cometo us for traffic. They don't
come to Hot Night nine five tohear traffic reports. Then they tested it.
They had me go into production roomand cut a bunch of bass traffic
reports, and I tried to tankand the test by being everything that you
(02:16):
weren't, y'all thought y'all were gonnaget real traffic. What y'all want,
Lisa Baden, I'm not Lisa Baden. I mean I as much as said
that. And it tested number onein the company. And so we had
not met at that time, andyou know, I'm glad we did because
I remember thinking when I crossed overfrom Hot to wash and they're like,
(02:37):
and by the way, Lisa Baiden'sgonna do your traffic I go, well,
isn't this just a fun turnabouts ofevents? But that being said,
when you first heard those traffic reports, was it disrespectful? No? I
had people tell me that. Theywere like, they're like, dude,
you're making fun of what they do. And you know, colleagues of ours
(02:59):
would be like, you're making funof what we do and all of this,
So what did you think? Andthen let's get back to talking about
your career, life and history.I tuned in just to hear those I
thought it was excellent. It wasfun. I totally got what was happening,
right, I mean, you knowyour audience number one, number one
in radio is who am I talkingto? Right? And you know your
(03:23):
audience and the demographic of the audiences, they're not really interested in traffic really,
and so you totally nailed it.Man, it was awesome. I
mean, you know there are timesI miss it, and you know,
it's funny you and I talking likethere were times when you would be out,
or we'd have a technical glitch orsomething would go wrong, and I
(03:44):
would be like, well, I'lldo it. I would look across the
way at my co host at Chiliand she would be like, you could
just see the shutter, and I'mlike, don't worry. I've grown up
a little bit. You know.Well, no, that's not true.
Stay who you are that you werelike, don't worry. I know this
is a different audience. Yeah,that's very true. So speaking of audience,
(04:06):
like, you've had your finger onthe pulse of this city for so
long, when did you get it? Because I remember from our last conversation
you came up in this radio worldthrough PGC, right, correct. I
started at WPGC just to help outon the morning show, like answer phones,
go get their breakfast, you know, make copies, pull carts because
(04:30):
back then we had carts and weactually had records, that's you know,
real records. And then it kindof morphed into doing a bit with them
every once in a while. Andthen the next thing you know, I
was sitting in a chair and thenthey had me start rip and read,
rip and read, which means thatinformation comes over like computer or not.
(04:53):
Yeah, prints out off correct,right, and you rip it off and
then you read it on the air. They had me do traffic that way,
and the next thing, you know, it just kind of stuck.
They really liked traffic that way.So and then we had a gigantic blizzard.
(05:14):
This was back in the late eighties. It was huge, and so
I worked twenty four hours a day, I mean twenty four hours that day
and I just was ripping, readingand watching television and seeing reporters out on
the street and reporting things. Youknow. So I knew what the conditions
(05:38):
were like, and I was totallygreen, but I managed to throw it
all together and here I am,who is there at the times that Don
Geronimo. No, that was JoelDenver in that day. That was oh
my goodness, Jeff Baker, ScottWoodside, remember Baker and Woodside anyway,
(06:02):
Yeah, yeah, before my Yeah, I was, I was. I
was still in Texas, trying tofigure out how to tie my shoes.
You know, it's like, umno, but that's that's insane twenty four
hours. I mean yeah, becauseit was horrible. I mean, we
slept at the station, I'll tellyou. But we had the best time
(06:24):
we did because we were all workingtogether. We were all excited to be
in radio, and we wanted tomake a difference. What an adrenaline rush
too when you had those things likeback in the day, like when there
was a blizzard and you were snowdent or in Tampa when we had hurricanes
and we I was on the hurricaneteam because you know, my operations are
(06:45):
our VP of Programming in DC Capugia. I was his second in command down
in Tampa, and you know,he of course was riding at the storm
at home and guess who got tobe on site. But you know,
we lived for that kind of stuff, yes, And and you know,
here's the thing, then that wasjust we didn't care. We didn't bunch
of time card. We weren't concernedabout going to the union to grieve about
you know, they're making me workmore than eight hours. We just wanted
to get information to the people whoneeded it most, and that's what radio
(07:10):
was all about. You have seenso many changes in your career to radio.
First things. First, tell mewhen you had the Eureka moment when
you knew that traffic was going tobe your thing and you realized that everything
just clicked. And then let's talkabout some of the changes you've seen and
what you kind of think are maybesome of the pivotal moments that have evolved
(07:30):
during your career. And I'd bevery curious to hear your observations on that
Eureka moment was I was hungry andunemployed, and Metro traffic was hiring,
and I thought, Okay, I'lldo this for a little while and see
how that goes. And the younglady who used to report traffic on news
(07:54):
Channel eight got a job doing trafficin Philip Delphia, so she left,
and even though I had only beenthere less than a year, they put
me in that seat and I reportedtraffic for Channel eight slash w JLA TV
for twenty one years on camera,not the whole time. It was in
(08:20):
and out, in and out,always voice over in some way though.
So I'm on news Channel eight andon WJLA TV seven. So I took
the chair and I didn't give itup to anybody, you know, twenty
one years. Hellas, that's massive, that run. Do you miss it?
The TV side of things, well, you know, radio's my first
(08:43):
love, and they tried to getme on camera for years, but I
didn't want to. I fought it, and then when I started on camera,
I felt I felt at home.I felt relaxed, right, you
(09:05):
know. So it all worked outlike it was supposed to, and I
was on television and then I turnedthis way and I'd be on the radio
TV radio, so I got tosit in my seat, and it just
didn't do what you ended up lovingdoing. I mean, what did you
realize you fell in love with doingthe whole traffic thing about the same time.
(09:30):
I'm a radio personality who reports thetraffic, right, Okay. I
My philosophy is that we're an entertainmentindustry, right, Okay, We inform,
but we entertain first. Sure,Okay, So when I had a
(09:56):
manager who wanted to encourage the entertainmentside first, is when I took it
and ran. Really who was thatmanager, because it sounds like they were
pivotal Jim Farley from TP, Yes, the Icon, Yes, yeah,
(10:18):
like people, you know, nocompetition here, like you know, they
at TP do what they do andthey do it well. But that man
did and does and consults that formatbetter than probably anybody else on the planet.
So I understood. I understood fromJim Farley how important traffic is,
(10:43):
right, Okay, So I didn'tdisrespect it, as you were saying.
I was informative and respectful, butI also knew that we're entertainment first,
right, And that's a balance tobe because you're talking about people's lives changing.
Sure, sure, some you know, dramatically. Some even if you're
(11:07):
just an a fender bender, it'sstill a pain. And that took us
because you've gotta go, oh mygosh, the body and fender guy,
and you gotta do insurance. Imean, you know, but I don't
know that people really understand too.You have a what you think is a
simple fender bender on the beltway,it could potentially cause backups that that are
cataclysmic, you know what I mean, Like you know, you're you're over
(11:28):
by the Legion Bridge and you breakdown in the right lane, something goes
wrong, you get a flat.Next thing, you know, nobody can
go back to northern Virginia or becausethe help came to help you out and
you're out on the shoulders. Soyou've got you know, I mean,
one little thing goes wrong in thenation's capital on the roadways, and everything
else goes sideways with it. Imean, it is so important in this
(11:50):
town. And you know what wetalked earlier about the onion version of Lisa
Baden that I was doing. Youknow, it's kind of based on you.
And then this guy named Jeff Roperwho used to do whether in Charlotte,
and he was sack religious, buthe entertained first, probably did a
little too much of the entertainment andthen got to the weather. But for
me, what I tried to dowas make sure that I hit the things
(12:11):
that were key and then if youknow, everybody knew what was typically jammed,
you know what I mean, youalways know that sixty six is going
to be bad in the afternoons toseventy norths a nightmare. If you're taking
twenty nine back to Columbia, goodluck. You know. We want to
talk about the Baltimore Washington Parkway today, really do we? People know the
majors, and they just want toknow the things that are abnormal so that
(12:33):
they can plan around it. SoI tried to do that, and then
I tried to, you know,throw in sac religious stuff like we'll see
you should move inside the beltway.I can't afford it. That'll move near
a metro, I can't afford it. Well, that sucks, good luck,
you know. Or the breakdown,some car broke down, call it
a hoop tie. You know,it's you know it. But to your
point, the entertainment thing is important, and I don't know that people realize
(12:56):
that because I know that when youknow, and this was telling what you
just said, when radio personalities gettold to do news or traffic, they
feel like that's out of their wheelhouse, when to your point, it's not.
You're an entertainer who happens to deliverthe traffic in your own unique way,
and I think in doing so,you changed the game. I don't
(13:20):
think that that you know, there'snobody that's gonna ever do it like you
again, or they could do itlike you. But I hear other people
try to be like you. Well, I appreciate that, But there's someone
like that in every market, therereally is. There's a lot of talent
out there. There's tons of peoplea lot, a lot better than I
(13:41):
am. I just happened to beunique in this market. But somebody's gonna
fill that seat soon. And sono, no, no, I'm not
doing anything. They're not gonna fillyour seat. They're gonna retire your seat
well, and they're gonna wheel itout of the TTWN studio and I'm gonna
be like, nobody sits here.That's gold Well. In the beginning,
(14:03):
we didn't even have cameras, youknow, when you look. Now,
almost every corner in DC has acamera. In Prince George's County, in
Montgomery count Montgomery County is the bestcamera system and that has been extremely helpful
in discerning what's going on and backupsand all kinds of things. But sure,
(14:24):
coupled with the people on the frontline, which are the truck drivers,
the limo drivers, the soccer moms, the slugs, member slugs,
yeah, uh you know so yeah, I mean COVID, COVID felled the
slugs, you know that. Butyou know, we have people calling and
(14:46):
saying what they see, or evensomebody calling and saying, you know,
I'm in an unusual backup right now, Well what happened? What am I
missing? Right? That tells yousomething right there. That's so you start
investigating. So it's cameras, it'speople involved, and that all kind of
(15:07):
helps put together the story. Andyeah, it's been awesome. I've met
some wonderful people too, Toby.I mean limo drivers from you know,
people who drive down around people inCongress or the state Department of the Governors,
patrols, all kinds of things.We have a lot of people who
(15:33):
are running companies CEOs and they havedrivers, so they're working while they're sitting
in traffic. You know, they'rein the back of the limo working and
they've been very helpful to calling andnumber one asking I've got to get my
package, the principal package from hereto there, What what does it look
(15:58):
like? Or calling me and saying, hey, we hit something you know
along the way. Um, I'vemet soccer moms, taxi drivers, Um,
long haul truck drivers would call allthe time, right because they knew
the roots and the roads and youknow, um And the thing that strikes
(16:19):
me the most out of all thesedifferent types of people I've just named,
everybody gets stuck, right. Itdoesn't matter. I don't care if you're
in a Lincoln town Car or ifyou're in a Hoopda or whatever you say.
(16:40):
If you're in a hoopdie, you'restill gonna you're stuck, just like
everybody else. Right, you're drivingthe bread truck or you're driving the limo,
doesn't matter. How many motorcades wouldyou say that you've encountered in your
reporting, travels that have caused morenightmares than you can remember, dude,
I can't even go there. Andyou know a lot of times we can't
(17:02):
say it's a motorcade all right,no executive movements, or hear the exactly
or you gotta be kind of dancearound it. Or if you hear the
suit Limb parkway is closed, thattells you right there, well duh,
why would they close the suit limpAnd it's not because of a wreck.
I mean they're on their way Andrews, come on right, yeah, right,
(17:22):
and all the parkways are for theexit for the high ups. You
know, that's why they're here,right to get them to airports. So
anyway, that happens a lot ofit. Have you ever gotten a call
from the Secret Service about some sortof something or is that something you can't
really talk about? No, theyhave, And I'll tell you one time.
(17:44):
We got a call during the sniperincident, because remember the sniper thing.
Do Yeah, that's even saying that. It is scary to think about
being on the knee on the Beltwayand not knowing, you know, yes,
or at a gas station. Everybodywas afraid to get gas. And
initially we thought it was a whitevan or a white truck or some kind
(18:07):
and people were calling. We'd getthree hundred calls in like an hour from
people saying, I saw a whitetruck, I saw a white van.
Anyway, there was some activity onthe Beltway and the state police closed the
Beltway in both directions near the AmericanLegion Bridge because it was believed that the
(18:30):
sniper was there. And we aregiven play by play on the air,
you know, interrupt sports, stopthe music every station, We're talking about
what's happening and why you're not moving, and the reason you're not moving and
ring ring there's the state police sayingplease stop talking about it, wow,
(18:52):
because they're listening too. Right.It was like, Wow, how many
you those stories do you have fromthis? Not many? Just that sniper
thing really kind of stands out,yes, because I know that, I
know that, you know with someof the news events we've seen and heard
about recently, not just when itcomes to traffic, but you know when
(19:14):
it comes to say, active shootingsituations where they haven't caught an active shooter,
they're like, please don't report aboutit, Please don't talk about it.
Please, kind of squelch the informationright now because in doing so,
you're telegraphing this information to other people. So how do you balance reporting what
you've got to report? Like whenyou were at TP, you guys were
legendary for traffic and weather together onthe EIDs. You know, every eight
(19:36):
minutes you've got to deliver something,You've got to fill the expectation. But
you've been asked to preserve public safety. So how do you walk that tight
release activity there's police activity going onin the area, or we have some
action going on in Northwest BC inthis area, you'd be kind of vague.
And people aren't stupid. You know, we've lived here, they've traveled
(20:00):
there, worked there for years.They kind of get what's going on.
And if we say that a crashis being documented or investigated, that's telling
the public that it's a fatal crash. But they don't want us to say
the word fatal because all of theloved ones have to be contact at first.
(20:22):
You don't want somebody here right onthe radio. So right now,
but let's talk about the real Let'stalk about the real heroes here. Okay,
okay, that's not the people reportingthe traffic. We're just describing what's
happening on the front line. Theheroes of the highway workers, the people
(20:48):
who are number one working in theconstruction zones even overnight, scary and people
are going at like seventy eighty milesan hour, probably you know, some
under the influence. Sure, Imean scary. You're putting your life on
the line to keep the road smoothand clear and open. Construction workers,
(21:11):
you've got first responders who are goingto these horrific scenes, and then you've
got to go home and you know, be like dad and like nothing happened,
right, I mean, so they'rein the trench and we're just describing
for ways to get you around sothey can do their job. Right,
(21:33):
right, you get the idea.I do know you're right, and that's
and that's I think, you know, to your point about heroes, that's
why we do what we do,whether we uh, you know, talk
on a microphone and play songs anddosanny bits for two or three minutes,
or deliver traffic news or weather orwhatever. You know, it's it's for
those people who are the everyday heroes, the ones that are unsung, who
(21:56):
you know, to your points,provide for these They maintain these roads,
oftentimes putting their lives at risk sothat we can traverse them starting at what
five am. Because the city,you know, people don't know this,
but like even I talked four,DC has two distinct rush hours. There's
the blue collar rush hour, thenthere's the white collar rush hour. And
by the way, that happens inthe morning and in the afternoon. So
(22:19):
it's like we get four rush hoursevery day times five days in a work
week. That's twenty different rush hours, where most cities can't even comprehend that.
So that I think is a thingthat is so important that you did
and do better than most as youfocused on the listener and where they were
(22:41):
at and what they needed to know, and you delivered it in a very
unique way that was entertaining and funto listen to. During the course of
your career, there have been alot of changes. You know. Now
we've got people that go to theWays app or Google Apps or or Apple
Traffic or app maps, and youknow, you've seen multiple evolutions of the
(23:03):
dissemination of traffic type information. Tellme about a couple of those that you
thought were really noteworthy or pivotal.And did you ever worried any given time
that all of this technology was goingto you know, cost or compromise the
way you do your job, orput it at risk. Maybe it enhances
it. First of all, itdoesn't replace it yet. Okay. The
(23:30):
first and most important step where thecameras on the interstate the highways now in
every county city town. I mean, they started out big and then they
have worked in right so we cansee, maintain, know what's going on.
(23:53):
So that was number one. Cellphones, you know, that's kind
of you know, they're they're safeexactly right now, I mean hundreds of
thousands of lives. But also getoff the phone man, don't text with
you so that you know. Yeah, um, ways, I cannot say
(24:21):
enough good things about ways. Iuse ways. It's phenomenal, it's great.
However, they don't tell you whatto expect yet. That's why you
still need traffic reports. Right,if you're going on a route, it
tells you the route, but it'llsay slow traffic ahead. Well, you
(24:44):
know you're already there, You're alreadycommitted, right, So it's not quite
there yet. I'm sure it'll getthere, but fortunately not in my lifetime,
you know. But you bring upa good point, and I was
thinking about this on the drive home, actually knowing that you and I were
going to chat for a few Thereare a lot of cases nowadays where we've
(25:11):
not outsourced traffic, but where trafficreports for a city might be coming from
a city across the country. Andto your point about ways, you know,
heavy traffic ahead. That happened tome going up the road from Corpus
Christi to San Antonio because everybody wasleaving the beaches and they're all going back
to Austin or San Antonio. Andthe only way to get to Austin or
(25:32):
San Antonio is Interstate thirty five inTexas, and you best believe on Memorial
Day it was packed. You know. My first instinct was to go find
a local radio station that maybe babyit's on the A M band or something,
I don't know, but they specializein traffic. And then I'm like,
well, I don't even know whereI would go for that right now
because I'm not from here, soI'm just trusting ways. And then you
know, you end up having topull the map back and okay, well
(25:56):
is there an alternate route I cansee whatever? You know, do you
think that that's a dangerous thing,like delocalizing local traffic reports? I don't
well, I don't know about dangerous, but we may be local. Otherwise
it doesn't work, like like likewhen you have people who aren't from Washington
(26:19):
trying to communicate Washington stuff. Imyself, I'm a victim. First day
on the job, first day doingtraffic, and I call Sam. I
call sam Ig Highway sam ELG.Well, sure that happens. And you
know what, once in a while, like if a station in another market
there they lose power. They've hadsome kind of a storm or something and
(26:41):
they go down, we may beasked to pick up. You're right,
we're going to mispronounce things, butwe're going to try to keep the ball
rolling somewhat and talk about tree,you know, kind of help them out
until they're back up and running that. But yeah, it's got to remain
local. I mean, yeah,I think that there's something to be said
about the trusted voice, you know, and ways can do a lot of
(27:02):
voices. But I'm not just becauseI think having Samuel L. Jackson do
my traffic for me, or SnoopDogg or Martha's Stewart it is funny.
It doesn't necessarily mean that those youknow, those voices know that instead of
taking two seventy north, I canyou know, you can slum it up
three fifty five and deal with thelights, or you can shride, maybe
(27:22):
ride the local lanes. But ifyou get in the main langer screwed.
Don't do it. Don't do it, you know. So what I want
everybody to know is before you getthe on the road, before you head
out to you should check first.And everyone has access to the cameras that
we look at, you know,M DOT v DOT d DOT just start,
(27:44):
you know, go on Google thatand type in cameras and it'll take
you to where you want to go, so you can look at it before
you leave, and then listen totraffic reports so you'll know what to expect
ahead, because again the GPS systemsaren't quite there yet to help you with
that. But that's why you havea trusted traffic reporter. That's right you
do, that's rights you do.Speaking of trusted traffic reports, let's let's
(28:07):
take people through a walk through someof the stations you worked for. You
mentioned WTOP. You were there fora long long time. Oh my goodness.
I couldn't even begin to name becauseI think I've been on every station
in this market except for Classical.Never been on a classic not in this
market. We better called w ETAnow she has some free time, you
(28:30):
know. But I mean Ammune,the Balted, the card. I was
in Baltimore for five years, youknow, did Baltimore? I mean,
so I'm not even going to beginto name call letters. And it's been
such an honor really to see there. Again, we go back to what
we were talking about before. Everybody'sequal, right. It doesn't matter whether
(28:55):
you like country music, you're aheadbanger, you know, you like well,
electronic mus music, whatever it is. You know, you're all gonna
need traffic reports. You're true gonnaget stuck somewhere. Tell me about the
day that the plane flew into thebridge. You were doing traffic for Howard,
right or no? I don't knowthe timing on that, but no,
(29:18):
that was before I started doing trafficwhen the plane hit the fourteenth Straight
bridge, right, And yes,that was before I started. Yes,
that was Stacy Ben was the numberone traffic reporter in the Washington metropolitan area
when that plane hit the fourteenth Straightbridge. Yes, and I worked with
(29:40):
Stacy Ben for a long time untilshe retired. Yes, phenomena that day.
How was that? Yeah? Itwas horrible. It was awful,
And you know at that time you'rejust trying to tell people alternate routs.
But you know what that you've gota number one story, but you've also
(30:00):
got hundreds of thousands of people whoaren't even going anywhere near that, who
like, wait a minute, hello, I'm over on two seventy. I'm
not even close to that. Youknow, you can't forget that, you
know, so as a news story. That's huge. It did impact traffic,
but you got to remember, you'vegot a lot of other people.
We covered northern Virginia, the Districtof Columbia, and Maryland. That's it's
(30:25):
a unique market. That's a lotof Yeah, you get I absolutely do
nine to eleven. Tell me aboutthat, Oh dear, that was horrible.
It was awful because I was onthe phone with someone and they said,
oh, there's a plane flying atthe Pentagon, and do you know
(30:47):
what's going on? And then Ijust heard a scream and the phone,
you know, the person hung up. Wow, And oh I got goosebumps.
Of course, we were all watchingon television like other people were.
Everybody knows where they were that day. Everybody has a story. And people
(31:07):
were abandoning their vehicles on the bridgesand just walking trying to get out of
DC as fast as they could.It was impossible to keep it straight.
But I will say that every radiostation went to a network program. And
as far as traffic reports that no, I don't think we did a traffic
(31:29):
report for hours and hours that day, wow, because it was all about
what was happening. You know,you understand, sure, absolutely absolutely tell
me about the day the Washington Monumentbroke because you know, Kane, who
is no longer with us, andI ended up on the air at the
same time together after that happened,because it was just such a seismic thing.
(31:51):
It's something we had never encountered before, you know, the fact that
an earthquake breaks the Washington Monuments.And because there's an earthquake, it's like
everybody just got sent home all atonce, creating this weird rush hour.
Yes, text, Yes, howdid that day? How did that day
(32:12):
kind of fall into the whole schemeof things with everything you've covered over the
course of your career. That wasan afternoon event and I was in the
mornings. You were like, hallelujah. I was asleep. I was at
home feeling my house rumble like everybodyelse right, right right, and I
was wondering, like, I wonderwhat's happening in there? You know,
traffic wise, so sure I missedthat one. I missed that one worst
(32:37):
down delivering the traffic. Would yousay it was the sniper stuff. Yeah,
the sniper definitely, And of coursewell nine one one was just but
we've had I'd say the thing thatstands out for me as one of the
most challenging days was the day thatI took a phone call from a guy
(32:57):
on the Wilson Bridge driving out ofMaryland toward Virginia, and he said,
a tar truck just turned over onthe Wilson Bridge. Aren't like what and
he said, and people are tryingto go around it. Oh my gosh,
they're getting tar slapped up on undertheir cars and there it's everywhere,
and wow. So I wanted togo on the air with it so bad,
(33:22):
Toby, but I'm a professional andbroadcasting one on one. No,
no, no, you have toconfirm that right, right right. It
was so hard up so it wastotal bs. So have you had that
happened? Really haven't? Did thathappen a lot to you guys, like
(33:45):
where people would call it the youknow, the say the TLP traffic tip
line or the TTWN traffic tip lineand report bogus traffic. There's baby born
on the side of the road.Yeah. No, We've had maybe people
working used about what loop they wereon or what direction they were in.
But I'd say I'd say nine anda half people out of ten took it
(34:08):
as seriously and that tart truck reallydid turn over, and we did get
it confirmed, but we had towait to report that, you know,
I mean that was hard. Itwas so bizarre. I mean, we've
had overturned trucks and fires and ohmy goodness, just on and on motorcades.
(34:32):
Like we were talking about demonstrations.Remember when they put a boat in
the middle of an intersection, Imean seriously, Or they do these protests
now where they all just intentionally slowdown, try to bring the bell Way
to a crawl. I don't thinkpeople realized that, you know, that's
not I mean, look, I'mall about a good, peaceful protest,
(34:53):
and I'm all about raising up tofight for what you believe in. But
that's not something that's number one,very safe. Number two gonna make too
many friends or fans of your cause, not in this town, not at
five thirty in the afternoon or ateight o'clock in the morning, you know.
I mean, I don't think thatpeople stopped to realize, like we
talked about earlier, one small thingcan be cataclysmic to the nation's capital's roadways,
(35:19):
and in rush hour especially. Let'stalk about some of the personalities you've
worked with along the way here inDC, because you've worked with pretty much
everybody. I mean you said earlier, you've been on a virtually every frequency,
standout personalities, unsung hero personalities,people that you were very endeared too
(35:42):
along the way, people that tookthe time to understand what you do.
Tell me some of those stories,Well, I think it Tim Brandt and
Andy Parks, okay, and theydid a morning show on WMAL and Andy
Parks blew for traffic I don't knowtwenty thirty years prior to getting out of
(36:04):
the plane doing the morning show onWMAL, So I was nervous doing traffic
for the guy who flew traffic inthe airplane for thirty years, right would
you be? And Tim Brandt,I mean good heavens the guys and icon
and he's done sports forever and whatever. So this was quite some time ago,
(36:25):
and I had met a man thatI was starting to date, and
they were would ask me look questionslike oh, would you do this weekend?
And I said, oh, Iwent on a date with somebody and
I think I'm pretty interested in him. And so then they would ask me
questions like that, right, Andso things were progressing with this person and
(36:52):
they said, oh, would youdo this weekend? And I said,
well, this sky i'm dating hasa boat. Oh, well did you
go out for I said, now, I haven't been on a ride yet,
but we waxed the boat, andI'm sure one day I'll be able
to go for a ride on theboat. But so far, I wax
on and he wax off, andTim Brant fell out of his chair and
(37:22):
they went straight to commercial. Itwas that he came out a punch out.
From then on they referred to himas mister Miyagi. So then they
say, how's mister Miagi. Well, I had a nice woman called me
(37:44):
one day and she said, I'mso glad to hear that you're dating an
Asian fellow. My hut, I'mAsian and I have a nice son.
In case it doesn't work out withyour say, he's really good at waxing
the boat. So that that happened. Do you have tape of that anywhere?
(38:07):
That now hilarious? Nowhere for you. I was thinking too, U
Toby, that I've had a fewcalls along the way of dads who are
on their way to the hospital becauseher water broke and this is their first
(38:30):
and they were asking like, what'sit like. I'm stuck on the beltway
and I need to get the HolyCross Hospital. I remember this one guy
in particular, and so I gavethe description of I said, tell me
what your car looks like, whatcolor is it? Where are you now?
And in the next report, I'mgiving the description it's a red car.
It's a Toyota Corolla, and he'sright here. Get out of the
(38:52):
way so this guy can get tothe hospital because his wife's going to have
their first baby. And we kindof people were moving and had helped him
along the way, and he sentme a picture of he and his wife
and their son in the hospital justto say thank you, and it was
something that their family will always remember. I mean, there's a lot of
(39:15):
good stories like that, and goodstories of people who took the time to
stop to help someone who needed helpon the side of the road. I
mean, we hear about the negatives, which kind of bums me out that
most of the time we're talking aboutmisfortune, but there's so many good stories
(39:36):
and people who take the time outof their data change a flat tire for
someone, or help somebody out inthe rain, or you know, somebody
whose cars broken down, kind ofpick you up and take you to get
gas because you ran out of gasin the middle of a rush hour.
What are you thinking? You know, all kinds of good stuff's happening out
there too, so I think weneed to focus on that part because we're
(40:00):
all in it together. Yeah,you know, there are I think a
million stories that happen probably every dayduring rush hour that we never hear about,
but they're a big deal to theperson that had happened too. From
a baby being born on the sideof two seventy two. You know,
that man trying to get the HolyCross, whom you helped clear the way
for. I mean, he'll neverforget that, nor will his son forget
(40:23):
it, because that's obviously how thesun came to be. Do you think
we in this business realize at times? I mean we say we do,
but do you think we really trulyrealize how many lives we impact every time
we turn on a microphone? Ihope not, because that's what keeps a
symbol. Amen well said. Doyou think humility is a forgotten thing in
(40:51):
this business these days? I don'tknow if it's just in this business,
but there's a lot of social mediais about me. Oh yeah, this
is what I did today. Thisis what I had for breakfast. Here's
a picture of my food. Youknow, no, look around, just
take put it down and just lookaround. Somebody around you needs help,
(41:16):
Somebody around you needs kindness. Justjust a nice word to say, Gosh,
that color looks good on you.It doesn't take much. You know
what if somebody has their blinker onand they need to get in front of
you and merge over, let themright? Is that simple? But everybody's
(41:37):
got to go, Oh, Ican get one more car ahead, right,
really, let that person merge?Come on, do you think the
pandemic worsened thing? It seems itseems it's odd, isn't it. I
don't think anybody saw that coming.Yeah, no, you know, And
(41:59):
then I mean, god knows.I don't know how you did traffic every
day while that was going on,because I remember you, you know,
you were doing traffic for us onthe on the on Toby and Chile.
I h you know, you knowthat I was not going to stay cooped
up in my house and I wouldtake the opportunity to just go drive and
get the hell out of Dodge andThe thing that just shocked me the most
(42:20):
was how few cars were on theroad. And you know, it was
great because you could get from pointA to point B, but for other
people who had the same idea asme, not that I was doing this,
but like, uh, the ICC, the inter County Connector in DC
became the auto bonn, you know, and and and then you know,
when things started slowly opening back upagain and people started getting back out on
(42:43):
the roads or people were moving aboutthe cabin while still working remotely, it's
like it stayed the auto bonn.And I you know, I remember thinking
to myself as people were flying byme and north of one hundred miles an
hour and stuff, I'm like,God, this is going to be extremely
dangerous when things get back to whateverthe new normal is going to be.
(43:04):
Tell me a little bit about whatyou observed during that time and you light
it off and how you pulled itoff when nobody was on the roads.
How did you guys do traffic?Number one, I appreciate that stations continued
to take traffic because there were manypeople who still had to commute, okay,
and that showed a respect to them, right. Number Two, I
(43:27):
appreciate the stations that continue to taketraffic because we need the money. You
know, we got bills to paytoo. But for those truckers, those
essential workers, right, they didn'tstop driving, you know. If anything,
there were more of them on theroads to try to meet what happened
was and they needed to know whatthey needed to know. That is right,
(43:49):
And what was scary and sad isthat with a lighter volume of traffic
there is an increase in vote andspeed. You're right, you go faster,
but it also increased severity of thecrash. And I bet you we
had more fatal wrecks during that timethan when people have to go slowly,
(44:12):
guaranteed, because man, it washorrible. So we focused on you know,
we didn't say, oh, nothinggoing on this road. We talked
about how travel times there, ifthe road is open or closed, how
long would it take you to getfrom here to there? You know,
(44:35):
there were still construction projects that hadto be done and potholes that had to
be patched and this kind of thing. So it was business as normal to
try to keep a sense of normalcyon the highway, right, right,
yeah, yeah, And it's interestingtoo when you think about it, because
you know that infrastructure did not stopworking. There was no pandemic shut down.
(44:59):
You know, I don't think peoplerealized that, you know, but
people were still going to Dallas,they were still going to Reagan, people
were still flying. Then you hadyou know, emergency workers who were flying
from here to there or vice versa. And you know, you had the
executive movement, if you will.And you know, even though the world
was shut down and we were allworking from home and our you know,
pajamas and slippers and stuff, therewas still a world that counted on the
(45:21):
nation's roadways. And I don't thinkat times we consider that, but I
know that when we were in thattime, I thought about you guys who
did what you you know, yourteam over there at ttw INDU and I'm
like, how are they putting wordstogether for this? And there's really no
words to describe it. So that'sinteresting to hear you say that. Um,
(45:43):
thinking back you at the beginning ofyour career, a young you,
there are people who we both knowwho have already put their hands up to
be the next Leasta Bayed and theywant to take that job, They want
to sit in that chair, theywanted to do good happen. Well,
absolutely, But but are there anycautions or warnings you would give to the
(46:06):
next Lisa Baden, to the nextany one of your colleagues who's done this
sort of a thing. I thinkof our friend Carlos who works over at
Tilpina, who used to work withus, who prides himself as being you
know, you know, mentored byyou. Um, what would that advice
be and what cautions would you havefor those people? Be yourself, go
(46:29):
for it, be yourself, butgo for it. Remember we're entertainment first,
right, and informative. Be respectfulof who you're talking to and what
you're talking about, but entertainment first. Yeah, don't try to be like
(46:49):
somebody else. So don't go sayingget and that's done. Try your own
thing. You ask anybody when I'mwalking around in the radio station and i'm
you know, just say, Isay half fun today, right, half
fun. It's supposed to be fun. We're on the radio. We're fun,
(47:15):
you know. Don't be so serious. Don't take it so seriously.
Relax, have fun no matter whatyou're doing, no matter where you are
in the grocery store, you know, working at the gas station, relax,
have fun today that you know,a smile? Be kind? How
(47:37):
can I be kind to somebody today? Right? What can I do to
make that person stay even if you'venever met them, even if you know.
All all they've got in their mind'seye is this impression of what you
might be and they hear your voice. You never know what a person's going
through in their life. True,don't be judgment be kind, It doesn't
(48:01):
it's not hard. You get somuch back from that. So go on
the air and have fun, beyourself, go for it, and I
think it all just kind of worksout. Yeah. Now let's speak to
the caution. Is there anything thatyou know, maybe you wish someone would
(48:22):
have told you along the way thatyou had to learn maybe the hard way
when it comes to this business forthis game, learn everything the hard way?
Well, you did tell me theSchool of hard knocks over there at
your station. I learned everything inlife the hard way. And pain is
a motivator. Sure. Yeah,if if it's painful, I'm gonna make
(48:43):
some changes. But until it getspainful, I'm going to keep doing the
same thing. Right, isn't thathow humans are? That's I think that's
how we all are you know whatwe deal with the pain up to a
point. Correct, Well, whenwe break, be ready because it means
a change is going to come.How do you know when that change is
going to come? Like, whenwas there ever a breaking moment for you
(49:06):
when you thought to yourself, youknow what if this keeps going this way
and this traffic thing? Well,okay, so I refer to myself as
miss Bee, Lisa Bee. Andlast time you saw me, I had
bees all over me. I hadstickers and bees because many years ago I
(49:30):
went into a review, my annualreview, and I was already you know,
I had really prepared as to whyI'm a good employee, I show
up on time, I'm a hardworker. These are the reasons that you
should keep me and give me araise. Right, So it's my turn
(49:52):
and I go in there and he'ssitting behind the desk, and I start
my spiel and these are the reasons, and he stops me. He says,
you gotta understand, there's two kindsof people here. There are stars
and they are and he named threepeople and I was not one of the
(50:12):
names. And there are worker bees. Now, don't get me wrong,
we need our worker bees. Andat that point in time, I'm like,
too late, too late, alreadyinsulted you, too late? What.
I saw his lips moving, soI know he was still talking,
but I didn't hear word he said. I was thinking to myself, Wait
(50:36):
a minute, how do I handlethis situation? This has never happened before.
What am I supposed to say?What do I What do I do?
Okay? What do I do?And I land both hands on the
desk and stood up abruptly, andhe stopped talking because he was like,
(50:57):
oh crap. And I waved myI figure in his space and I said,
if we have this conversation again nextyear, I will not be a
worker bee. And I left theoffice and I left crying. I cried
for months. I called my girlfriends. I told them all I have been
(51:20):
called a worker bee, and theysaid, meet us for dinner. I
went into the restaurant and they weresitting around table and they all had headbands
on with worker with antenna Bee antennaon and they were bobbing. And since
then, anytime anybody sees something witha bee, they get I've got bee
(51:43):
stuff everywhere. Gott I keep.It's right here stuck to my computer.
I look at it every day toremind me I am a worker Bee.
And it was that pivotal moment,Toby, Hm, I said, I'm
just gonna be me. I'm gonnago for it. You know, I've
(52:08):
been doing like what I think theywant and just you know, like Charlie
Brown's teacher boring right, and Ijust thought, what do I got to
lose? And that turned it around. And when it came to the review
(52:30):
next year, I was in aworker Bee. Hmm. I was one
of the stars and there you are. Just now do you think that that
person who he says he did iton purpose? But I question you know
better? You know better? Now, how do you think this person likes
(52:52):
you? Now? Looking back thisintremendous run you've had, he takes a
lot of credit for it. Ohplease, he needs some stuff that Bee
up as you know what's like?You didn't you didn't you know what you
didn't You didn't fire her? Youfired her up? You didn't you know
motivated, motivated? You made herchange the game. And if you want
(53:15):
to spin it that way, sir, I don't know who you are,
and I'm not going to ask,because vengeance is not something that I know
about Lisa Baden, but I doknow this. She'll remember because here she
is with bees on her computer.She told us the bee story. I've
worked with you directly daily for almostfive years, you know, you know,
for five years years now, andI never heard that story. But
(53:36):
I do know this. Everybody hasa moment where somebody bet against them,
or somebody made them feel less thanthey were or like maybe they weren't cut
out to do it. And Iknow this, and I think you and
I might be cut from a bitof the same cloth. Uh, you
know, although different signs of sethide um when that happens to me,
(53:58):
you better watch out when things likethat go on, because I'm not going
to make it just a thing thatfires me up. I'm going to make
any mission from God to come afteryou, and then guess what. I'm
not going to come after you directly, but I'm gonna come after you with
success, and then I'm going toshow you after I've after I've done these
things, I'm going to consistently showyou what you either missed out on,
(54:22):
you've passed on, or doubted right. You never should have doubted me.
Deon Sanders Junior used to have aT shirt once, and I bought it
because first of all, I thoughtit was Deon Sanders, but it was
actually his son. But I thoughtthe saying was so perfect. Never should
have doubted me. Wow, Andnow look at now, look at you.
(54:43):
You're sitting back, You're about tonot right off into the sunset,
because I have a feeling we haven'theard the last of you. Looking back
at all of it, Is thereanything you would have done differently? Not
a thing, Not a thing.I needed to go through every bump and
pothole. Every one of us needsthat. At the very beginning, Toby,
(55:07):
I wanted to be somebody. Iwanted to be the polished person,
the person that people wanted to haveon their air. But you know what,
I needed to go through the bumpsand the scrapes and the disappointments and
the successes to build to where youhad enough experience to do that, you
(55:34):
know what. And I still amlike that at times. I think we
all are. I want to bethere, But to get there, you've
got to go one wrong of theladder at a time for reason. So
when you get there, you canhandle it, and you've got enough under
your belt to go for it.Am I right? You are right?
(55:58):
And did you ever have a momentalong the way where you doubted yourself or
multiple times, or maybe you doubtedyourself, because I know that that's something
that I wrestled with a lot,especially after the brain surgery, you know,
right before I started working with youon WASH, when I came back
out of it, I you know, tried to cloak myself in this almost
(56:19):
superman mythological kind of a thing.But in reality, I you know,
looking back at it, I wastotally my confidence was totally shaken. You
know, I was totally you know, afraid of what life had next because
I had almost lost it, youknow. And then I get back into
saddle, I'm warming up, andyou know that felt familiar, all this
(56:42):
stuff, and at the same pointin time, you know, the transition
from hot to wash happened at thesame time. And if I'm being honest,
you know, I never really triedto reveal the doubt. I internalized
the doubt, and I think indoing so, it caused me to have
even more doubt. And I thinkthere are a lot of people who,
you know, like you said,who are trying to be polished, who
are trying to do the perfect ripand read? Who are trying to be
(57:05):
the perfect little executing soldier? Theperfect work would be if you will,
what do you say to people whoare coming up in this business? Who
do what you do, who wantto do what you do, who do
what I do? Who well weboth entertain you know when it comes to
dealing with that doubt, because Ihave a feeling maybe once upon a time
or so, maybe you might havehad some of that at some point.
Never try to figure it out onyour own, right, because the committee
(57:30):
in there that they don't know everythingand that they're stuck sometimes. So throughout
my career, from the very beginning, I would call DJ's and say,
can I come sit in on yourshow? Sure, just to see how
(57:52):
you do it. I would bequiet, I sit in the back,
but I really want to learn.Call people you admire, whatever your career
is, Go to people that youwant to be like or have something that
you want to have, right,and they're really good ones want to help
(58:13):
you succeed. They're not threatened byyour talent. They want to help you
grow and be nurtured. Right,right, So that's my advice is,
don't keep it to yourself, talkabout it with people. Thank you for
sharing what you just shared. That'simportant. And I think you went through
(58:35):
all that with the brain surgery andeverything, Toby. If you keep that
to yourself, the whole experience waslost, right. You know how many
other people are going through trials likeyou went through. Oh, it was,
it was. It was horrible.I think about it every day.
So that's why you made it tothe other side. You're a determined man,
(58:58):
and if you don't share it,you're doing yourself and others a disservice.
Right, excellent stage advice by awoman who's lived her life well,
who served her community well, who'schanged the game of traffic. You've said
it all to quote Howard Stern.I still can't believe you did traffic for
(59:19):
hour. I mean we could talkfor hours about that. Tell me before
we part about the craziest, mostridiculous anything you've ever been a part of.
I know we heard about the waxOn wax Off story. Is there
anything else from a personality? Maybeit was Howard, maybe Geronimo, maybe
Don and Mike back in that incarnation, any of these stations you've been on
(59:40):
that still sticks in your head.You're like, can I just to this
day, I can't believe I wasa part of that. Oh. I'd
say each experience was different and uniquein its own way, and it's important
to be adaptable. Yeah, becauseit's not my show. I'm just there
(01:00:04):
to enhance it. Lisa Baden withthe wisdom you know, when Chili's out.
I hope I can maybe coach youout of retirement at once. It
would be fun to saddle up.Well, I appreciate that would be.
Like, let me check with mypension. I know some people on the
(01:00:25):
fund committee because we're in the sameunion. Um, maybe I can get
them to look the other way anything. Um, I'm not doing anything to
Jeffard. I want I worked myass off for my pension. Son.
Thank you for the union. Ilove love the Union. Yeah. Yeah,
(01:00:47):
no, you know, I thinkpeople and I know that we're we're
talking way fourth wall, broken down, behind the curtain kind of stuff.
But I don't think this young generationcoming up like we're old whipper snappers.
I just sometimes I wonder if theyrealize, like what you just said is
powerful. You've got a paycheck forthe rest of your life. You earned.
It may not be everything you wantit to be. But it's consistent
(01:01:12):
and combined with other things, you'regoing to have a pretty good time living
your life. Yes, I'm goingto be able to pay for quality health
insurance and maintain a lifestyle. Andyou're right. I did work for it,
but if it weren't for the union, it would be a different story.
(01:01:34):
And so you know what, doyou keep working hard? Just and
be kind to people. That's thekey. I don't know that we have
enough kindness in this business these days, but maybe we'll find some inspiration from
you, Lisen. We'll stoke itback up. Thank you for your kindness,
Toby, and thank you for anopportunity to do this exit interview.
(01:01:57):
Yeah, and so speaking of which, the last word take us home.
What would you say to those listeningthat hasn't already been said radio radio?
What would life be? Ladies andgentlemen, Lisa Baden the icon riding off
into the sunset. You'll find herat the beach Saint Michael on a boat.
(01:02:17):
Wax on, wax off. God, bless you, Lisa Bading.
You are the best. Thank you, thank you and done? All right?
That was pretty you sir. No, you're welcome I'll send you you
know, we get audio this too, so i'll send you that as well,
or video, so I'll send youthe raw. I'll get cleaned up.
(01:02:37):
I'll post it this afternoon at somepoint and uh and I will give
you my personal email, okay,well email it to me Toby Nappen Gmail.
That's my personal okay, I willright now, all right, thank
you, love you, talk toyou soon. Bye,
I'm talking to you live from thecouch in my living room. This is
a very bittersweet conversation we're about tohave. And before we jump into this
and I tell you who I'm talkingto on their last day, I wanted
to say a couple of things.Number One, this is completely unscripted.
You know me, sometimes I flybest when I don't plan, even though
those around me can't stand it.But I think with the person I'm talking
(00:23):
to today, there really doesn't needto be a script because what she has
to say, well, we'll justcome up in the course of conversation.
So that being said, I wouldlike to welcome Lisa Baden to this conversation,
the DC traffic icon, who I'vetalked to before. You can listen
to our previous conversation we had oncea minute ago when we talked about so
many different things in life and howyou got into this career. And here
(00:46):
we are now on your last day. So let's consider this to be the
unofficial exit interview. Lisa, howmany years how many years were you have
you been on the radio in Washington, DC reporting traffic and take us through
all the stations that you worked foras well. Okay, So when you
(01:07):
first said how many years have youbeen on the radio, I was thinking
over forty and as a traffic reporter, thirty two of those. And yes,
I didn't think I would last thislong, right, thirty two years
as a traffic reporter. It's beena journey too, I'll tell you it
really has. But it's been awesome. I've met some wonderful people like you.
(01:29):
Oh and it's crazy because we hadnot met when I came to town.
And the company did a bunch ofresearch, and you know, the
company's always trying to All companies aretrying to come up with new ways to
do things. And you know,I mean, I knew of you because
look, you're iconic and growing upas a radio geek, you get to
learn everything about the market you're goinginto. This person is the queen of
traffic in this town. This personis the king of news in this town.
(01:53):
And this is the number one stationin this town PGC, this is
this in this town. And youknow, you do all of your homework.
And then they did some research.When they came up, they came
back to me and they said,we think you need to do traffic reports.
And I'm like, people don't cometo us for traffic. They don't
come to Hot Night nine five tohear traffic reports. Then they tested it.
They had me go into production roomand cut a bunch of bass traffic
reports, and I tried to tankand the test by being everything that you
(02:16):
weren't, y'all thought y'all were gonnaget real traffic. What y'all want,
Lisa Baden, I'm not Lisa Baden. I mean I as much as said
that. And it tested number onein the company. And so we had
not met at that time, andyou know, I'm glad we did because
I remember thinking when I crossed overfrom Hot to wash and they're like,
(02:37):
and by the way, Lisa Baiden'sgonna do your traffic I go, well,
isn't this just a fun turnabouts ofevents? But that being said,
when you first heard those traffic reports, was it disrespectful? No? I
had people tell me that. Theywere like, they're like, dude,
you're making fun of what they do. And you know, colleagues of ours
(02:59):
would be like, you're making funof what we do and all of this,
So what did you think? Andthen let's get back to talking about
your career, life and history.I tuned in just to hear those I
thought it was excellent. It wasfun. I totally got what was happening,
right, I mean, you knowyour audience number one, number one
in radio is who am I talkingto? Right? And you know your
(03:23):
audience and the demographic of the audiences, they're not really interested in traffic really,
and so you totally nailed it.Man, it was awesome. I
mean, you know there are timesI miss it, and you know,
it's funny you and I talking likethere were times when you would be out,
or we'd have a technical glitch orsomething would go wrong, and I
(03:44):
would be like, well, I'lldo it. I would look across the
way at my co host at Chiliand she would be like, you could
just see the shutter, and I'mlike, don't worry. I've grown up
a little bit. You know.Well, no, that's not true.
Stay who you are that you werelike, don't worry. I know this
is a different audience. Yeah,that's very true. So speaking of audience,
(04:06):
like, you've had your finger onthe pulse of this city for so
long, when did you get it? Because I remember from our last conversation
you came up in this radio worldthrough PGC, right, correct. I
started at WPGC just to help outon the morning show, like answer phones,
go get their breakfast, you know, make copies, pull carts because
(04:30):
back then we had carts and weactually had records, that's you know,
real records. And then it kindof morphed into doing a bit with them
every once in a while. Andthen the next thing you know, I
was sitting in a chair and thenthey had me start rip and read,
rip and read, which means thatinformation comes over like computer or not.
(04:53):
Yeah, prints out off correct,right, and you rip it off and
then you read it on the air. They had me do traffic that way,
and the next thing, you know, it just kind of stuck.
They really liked traffic that way.So and then we had a gigantic blizzard.
(05:14):
This was back in the late eighties. It was huge, and so
I worked twenty four hours a day, I mean twenty four hours that day
and I just was ripping, readingand watching television and seeing reporters out on
the street and reporting things. Youknow. So I knew what the conditions
(05:38):
were like, and I was totallygreen, but I managed to throw it
all together and here I am,who is there at the times that Don
Geronimo. No, that was JoelDenver in that day. That was oh
my goodness, Jeff Baker, ScottWoodside, remember Baker and Woodside anyway,
(06:02):
Yeah, yeah, before my Yeah, I was, I was. I
was still in Texas, trying tofigure out how to tie my shoes.
You know, it's like, umno, but that's that's insane twenty four
hours. I mean yeah, becauseit was horrible. I mean, we
slept at the station, I'll tellyou. But we had the best time
(06:24):
we did because we were all workingtogether. We were all excited to be
in radio, and we wanted tomake a difference. What an adrenaline rush
too when you had those things likeback in the day, like when there
was a blizzard and you were snowdent or in Tampa when we had hurricanes
and we I was on the hurricaneteam because you know, my operations are
(06:45):
our VP of Programming in DC Capugia. I was his second in command down
in Tampa, and you know,he of course was riding at the storm
at home and guess who got tobe on site. But you know,
we lived for that kind of stuff, yes, And and you know,
here's the thing, then that wasjust we didn't care. We didn't bunch
of time card. We weren't concernedabout going to the union to grieve about
you know, they're making me workmore than eight hours. We just wanted
to get information to the people whoneeded it most, and that's what radio
(07:10):
was all about. You have seenso many changes in your career to radio.
First things. First, tell mewhen you had the Eureka moment when
you knew that traffic was going tobe your thing and you realized that everything
just clicked. And then let's talkabout some of the changes you've seen and
what you kind of think are maybesome of the pivotal moments that have evolved
(07:30):
during your career. And I'd bevery curious to hear your observations on that
Eureka moment was I was hungry andunemployed, and Metro traffic was hiring,
and I thought, Okay, I'lldo this for a little while and see
how that goes. And the younglady who used to report traffic on news
(07:54):
Channel eight got a job doing trafficin Philip Delphia, so she left,
and even though I had only beenthere less than a year, they put
me in that seat and I reportedtraffic for Channel eight slash w JLA TV
for twenty one years on camera,not the whole time. It was in
(08:20):
and out, in and out,always voice over in some way though.
So I'm on news Channel eight andon WJLA TV seven. So I took
the chair and I didn't give itup to anybody, you know, twenty
one years. Hellas, that's massive, that run. Do you miss it?
The TV side of things, well, you know, radio's my first
(08:43):
love, and they tried to getme on camera for years, but I
didn't want to. I fought it, and then when I started on camera,
I felt I felt at home.I felt relaxed, right, you
(09:05):
know. So it all worked outlike it was supposed to, and I
was on television and then I turnedthis way and I'd be on the radio
TV radio, so I got tosit in my seat, and it just
didn't do what you ended up lovingdoing. I mean, what did you
realize you fell in love with doingthe whole traffic thing about the same time.
(09:30):
I'm a radio personality who reports thetraffic, right, Okay. I
My philosophy is that we're an entertainmentindustry, right, Okay, We inform,
but we entertain first. Sure,Okay, So when I had a
(09:56):
manager who wanted to encourage the entertainmentside first, is when I took it
and ran. Really who was thatmanager, because it sounds like they were
pivotal Jim Farley from TP, Yes, the Icon, Yes, yeah,
(10:18):
like people, you know, nocompetition here, like you know, they
at TP do what they do andthey do it well. But that man
did and does and consults that formatbetter than probably anybody else on the planet.
So I understood. I understood fromJim Farley how important traffic is,
(10:43):
right, Okay, So I didn'tdisrespect it, as you were saying.
I was informative and respectful, butI also knew that we're entertainment first,
right, And that's a balance tobe because you're talking about people's lives changing.
Sure, sure, some you know, dramatically. Some even if you're
(11:07):
just an a fender bender, it'sstill a pain. And that took us
because you've gotta go, oh mygosh, the body and fender guy,
and you gotta do insurance. Imean, you know, but I don't
know that people really understand too.You have a what you think is a
simple fender bender on the beltway,it could potentially cause backups that that are
cataclysmic, you know what I mean, Like you know, you're you're over
(11:28):
by the Legion Bridge and you breakdown in the right lane, something goes
wrong, you get a flat.Next thing, you know, nobody can
go back to northern Virginia or becausethe help came to help you out and
you're out on the shoulders. Soyou've got you know, I mean,
one little thing goes wrong in thenation's capital on the roadways, and everything
else goes sideways with it. Imean, it is so important in this
(11:50):
town. And you know what wetalked earlier about the onion version of Lisa
Baden that I was doing. Youknow, it's kind of based on you.
And then this guy named Jeff Roperwho used to do whether in Charlotte,
and he was sack religious, buthe entertained first, probably did a
little too much of the entertainment andthen got to the weather. But for
me, what I tried to dowas make sure that I hit the things
(12:11):
that were key and then if youknow, everybody knew what was typically jammed,
you know what I mean, youalways know that sixty six is going
to be bad in the afternoons toseventy norths a nightmare. If you're taking
twenty nine back to Columbia, goodluck. You know. We want to
talk about the Baltimore Washington Parkway today, really do we? People know the
majors, and they just want toknow the things that are abnormal so that
(12:33):
they can plan around it. SoI tried to do that, and then
I tried to, you know,throw in sac religious stuff like we'll see
you should move inside the beltway.I can't afford it. That'll move near
a metro, I can't afford it. Well, that sucks, good luck,
you know. Or the breakdown,some car broke down, call it
a hoop tie. You know,it's you know it. But to your
point, the entertainment thing is important, and I don't know that people realize
(12:56):
that because I know that when youknow, and this was telling what you
just said, when radio personalities gettold to do news or traffic, they
feel like that's out of their wheelhouse, when to your point, it's not.
You're an entertainer who happens to deliverthe traffic in your own unique way,
and I think in doing so,you changed the game. I don't
(13:20):
think that that you know, there'snobody that's gonna ever do it like you
again, or they could do itlike you. But I hear other people
try to be like you. Well, I appreciate that, But there's someone
like that in every market, therereally is. There's a lot of talent
out there. There's tons of peoplea lot, a lot better than I
(13:41):
am. I just happened to beunique in this market. But somebody's gonna
fill that seat soon. And sono, no, no, I'm not
doing anything. They're not gonna fillyour seat. They're gonna retire your seat
well, and they're gonna wheel itout of the TTWN studio and I'm gonna
be like, nobody sits here.That's gold Well. In the beginning,
(14:03):
we didn't even have cameras, youknow, when you look. Now,
almost every corner in DC has acamera. In Prince George's County, in
Montgomery count Montgomery County is the bestcamera system and that has been extremely helpful
in discerning what's going on and backupsand all kinds of things. But sure,
(14:24):
coupled with the people on the frontline, which are the truck drivers,
the limo drivers, the soccer moms, the slugs, member slugs,
yeah, uh you know so yeah, I mean COVID, COVID felled the
slugs, you know that. Butyou know, we have people calling and
(14:46):
saying what they see, or evensomebody calling and saying, you know,
I'm in an unusual backup right now, Well what happened? What am I
missing? Right? That tells yousomething right there. That's so you start
investigating. So it's cameras, it'speople involved, and that all kind of
(15:07):
helps put together the story. Andyeah, it's been awesome. I've met
some wonderful people too, Toby.I mean limo drivers from you know,
people who drive down around people inCongress or the state Department of the Governors,
patrols, all kinds of things.We have a lot of people who
(15:33):
are running companies CEOs and they havedrivers, so they're working while they're sitting
in traffic. You know, they'rein the back of the limo working and
they've been very helpful to calling andnumber one asking I've got to get my
package, the principal package from hereto there, What what does it look
(15:58):
like? Or calling me and saying, hey, we hit something you know
along the way. Um, I'vemet soccer moms, taxi drivers, Um,
long haul truck drivers would call allthe time, right because they knew
the roots and the roads and youknow, um And the thing that strikes
(16:19):
me the most out of all thesedifferent types of people I've just named,
everybody gets stuck, right. Itdoesn't matter. I don't care if you're
in a Lincoln town Car or ifyou're in a Hoopda or whatever you say.
(16:40):
If you're in a hoopdie, you'restill gonna you're stuck, just like
everybody else. Right, you're drivingthe bread truck or you're driving the limo,
doesn't matter. How many motorcades wouldyou say that you've encountered in your
reporting, travels that have caused morenightmares than you can remember, dude,
I can't even go there. Andyou know a lot of times we can't
(17:02):
say it's a motorcade all right,no executive movements, or hear the exactly
or you gotta be kind of dancearound it. Or if you hear the
suit Limb parkway is closed, thattells you right there, well duh,
why would they close the suit limpAnd it's not because of a wreck.
I mean they're on their way Andrews, come on right, yeah, right,
(17:22):
and all the parkways are for theexit for the high ups. You
know, that's why they're here,right to get them to airports. So
anyway, that happens a lot ofit. Have you ever gotten a call
from the Secret Service about some sortof something or is that something you can't
really talk about? No, theyhave, And I'll tell you one time.
(17:44):
We got a call during the sniperincident, because remember the sniper thing.
Do Yeah, that's even saying that. It is scary to think about
being on the knee on the Beltwayand not knowing, you know, yes,
or at a gas station. Everybodywas afraid to get gas. And
initially we thought it was a whitevan or a white truck or some kind
(18:07):
and people were calling. We'd getthree hundred calls in like an hour from
people saying, I saw a whitetruck, I saw a white van.
Anyway, there was some activity onthe Beltway and the state police closed the
Beltway in both directions near the AmericanLegion Bridge because it was believed that the
(18:30):
sniper was there. And we aregiven play by play on the air,
you know, interrupt sports, stopthe music every station, We're talking about
what's happening and why you're not moving, and the reason you're not moving and
ring ring there's the state police sayingplease stop talking about it, wow,
(18:52):
because they're listening too. Right.It was like, Wow, how many
you those stories do you have fromthis? Not many? Just that sniper
thing really kind of stands out,yes, because I know that, I
know that, you know with someof the news events we've seen and heard
about recently, not just when itcomes to traffic, but you know when
(19:14):
it comes to say, active shootingsituations where they haven't caught an active shooter,
they're like, please don't report aboutit, Please don't talk about it.
Please, kind of squelch the informationright now because in doing so,
you're telegraphing this information to other people. So how do you balance reporting what
you've got to report? Like whenyou were at TP, you guys were
legendary for traffic and weather together onthe EIDs. You know, every eight
(19:36):
minutes you've got to deliver something,You've got to fill the expectation. But
you've been asked to preserve public safety. So how do you walk that tight
release activity there's police activity going onin the area, or we have some
action going on in Northwest BC inthis area, you'd be kind of vague.
And people aren't stupid. You know, we've lived here, they've traveled
(20:00):
there, worked there for years.They kind of get what's going on.
And if we say that a crashis being documented or investigated, that's telling
the public that it's a fatal crash. But they don't want us to say
the word fatal because all of theloved ones have to be contact at first.
(20:22):
You don't want somebody here right onthe radio. So right now,
but let's talk about the real Let'stalk about the real heroes here. Okay,
okay, that's not the people reportingthe traffic. We're just describing what's
happening on the front line. Theheroes of the highway workers, the people
(20:48):
who are number one working in theconstruction zones even overnight, scary and people
are going at like seventy eighty milesan hour, probably you know, some
under the influence. Sure, Imean scary. You're putting your life on
the line to keep the road smoothand clear and open. Construction workers,
(21:11):
you've got first responders who are goingto these horrific scenes, and then you've
got to go home and you know, be like dad and like nothing happened,
right, I mean, so they'rein the trench and we're just describing
for ways to get you around sothey can do their job. Right,
(21:33):
right, you get the idea.I do know you're right, and that's
and that's I think, you know, to your point about heroes, that's
why we do what we do,whether we uh, you know, talk
on a microphone and play songs anddosanny bits for two or three minutes,
or deliver traffic news or weather orwhatever. You know, it's it's for
those people who are the everyday heroes, the ones that are unsung, who
(21:56):
you know, to your points,provide for these They maintain these roads,
oftentimes putting their lives at risk sothat we can traverse them starting at what
five am. Because the city,you know, people don't know this,
but like even I talked four,DC has two distinct rush hours. There's
the blue collar rush hour, thenthere's the white collar rush hour. And
by the way, that happens inthe morning and in the afternoon. So
(22:19):
it's like we get four rush hoursevery day times five days in a work
week. That's twenty different rush hours, where most cities can't even comprehend that.
So that I think is a thingthat is so important that you did
and do better than most as youfocused on the listener and where they were
(22:41):
at and what they needed to know, and you delivered it in a very
unique way that was entertaining and funto listen to. During the course of
your career, there have been alot of changes. You know. Now
we've got people that go to theWays app or Google Apps or or Apple
Traffic or app maps, and youknow, you've seen multiple evolutions of the
(23:03):
dissemination of traffic type information. Tellme about a couple of those that you
thought were really noteworthy or pivotal.And did you ever worried any given time
that all of this technology was goingto you know, cost or compromise the
way you do your job, orput it at risk. Maybe it enhances
it. First of all, itdoesn't replace it yet. Okay. The
(23:30):
first and most important step where thecameras on the interstate the highways now in
every county city town. I mean, they started out big and then they
have worked in right so we cansee, maintain, know what's going on.
(23:53):
So that was number one. Cellphones, you know, that's kind
of you know, they're they're safeexactly right now, I mean hundreds of
thousands of lives. But also getoff the phone man, don't text with
you so that you know. Yeah, um, ways, I cannot say
(24:21):
enough good things about ways. Iuse ways. It's phenomenal, it's great.
However, they don't tell you whatto expect yet. That's why you
still need traffic reports. Right,if you're going on a route, it
tells you the route, but it'llsay slow traffic ahead. Well, you
(24:44):
know you're already there, You're alreadycommitted, right, So it's not quite
there yet. I'm sure it'll getthere, but fortunately not in my lifetime,
you know. But you bring upa good point, and I was
thinking about this on the drive home, actually knowing that you and I were
going to chat for a few Thereare a lot of cases nowadays where we've
(25:11):
not outsourced traffic, but where trafficreports for a city might be coming from
a city across the country. Andto your point about ways, you know,
heavy traffic ahead. That happened tome going up the road from Corpus
Christi to San Antonio because everybody wasleaving the beaches and they're all going back
to Austin or San Antonio. Andthe only way to get to Austin or
(25:32):
San Antonio is Interstate thirty five inTexas, and you best believe on Memorial
Day it was packed. You know. My first instinct was to go find
a local radio station that maybe babyit's on the A M band or something,
I don't know, but they specializein traffic. And then I'm like,
well, I don't even know whereI would go for that right now
because I'm not from here, soI'm just trusting ways. And then you
know, you end up having topull the map back and okay, well
(25:56):
is there an alternate route I cansee whatever? You know, do you
think that that's a dangerous thing,like delocalizing local traffic reports? I don't
well, I don't know about dangerous, but we may be local. Otherwise
it doesn't work, like like likewhen you have people who aren't from Washington
(26:19):
trying to communicate Washington stuff. Imyself, I'm a victim. First day
on the job, first day doingtraffic, and I call Sam. I
call sam Ig Highway sam ELG.Well, sure that happens. And you
know what, once in a while, like if a station in another market
there they lose power. They've hadsome kind of a storm or something and
(26:41):
they go down, we may beasked to pick up. You're right,
we're going to mispronounce things, butwe're going to try to keep the ball
rolling somewhat and talk about tree,you know, kind of help them out
until they're back up and running that. But yeah, it's got to remain
local. I mean, yeah,I think that there's something to be said
about the trusted voice, you know, and ways can do a lot of
(27:02):
voices. But I'm not just becauseI think having Samuel L. Jackson do
my traffic for me, or SnoopDogg or Martha's Stewart it is funny.
It doesn't necessarily mean that those youknow, those voices know that instead of
taking two seventy north, I canyou know, you can slum it up
three fifty five and deal with thelights, or you can shride, maybe
(27:22):
ride the local lanes. But ifyou get in the main langer screwed.
Don't do it. Don't do it, you know. So what I want
everybody to know is before you getthe on the road, before you head
out to you should check first.And everyone has access to the cameras that
we look at, you know,M DOT v DOT d DOT just start,
(27:44):
you know, go on Google thatand type in cameras and it'll take
you to where you want to go, so you can look at it before
you leave, and then listen totraffic reports so you'll know what to expect
ahead, because again the GPS systemsaren't quite there yet to help you with
that. But that's why you havea trusted traffic reporter. That's right you
do, that's rights you do.Speaking of trusted traffic reports, let's let's
(28:07):
take people through a walk through someof the stations you worked for. You
mentioned WTOP. You were there fora long long time. Oh my goodness.
I couldn't even begin to name becauseI think I've been on every station
in this market except for Classical.Never been on a classic not in this
market. We better called w ETAnow she has some free time, you
(28:30):
know. But I mean Ammune,the Balted, the card. I was
in Baltimore for five years, youknow, did Baltimore? I mean,
so I'm not even going to beginto name call letters. And it's been
such an honor really to see there. Again, we go back to what
we were talking about before. Everybody'sequal, right. It doesn't matter whether
(28:55):
you like country music, you're aheadbanger, you know, you like well,
electronic mus music, whatever it is. You know, you're all gonna
need traffic reports. You're true gonnaget stuck somewhere. Tell me about the
day that the plane flew into thebridge. You were doing traffic for Howard,
right or no? I don't knowthe timing on that, but no,
(29:18):
that was before I started doing trafficwhen the plane hit the fourteenth Straight
bridge, right, And yes,that was before I started. Yes,
that was Stacy Ben was the numberone traffic reporter in the Washington metropolitan area
when that plane hit the fourteenth Straightbridge. Yes, and I worked with
(29:40):
Stacy Ben for a long time untilshe retired. Yes, phenomena that day.
How was that? Yeah? Itwas horrible. It was awful,
And you know at that time you'rejust trying to tell people alternate routs.
But you know what that you've gota number one story, but you've also
(30:00):
got hundreds of thousands of people whoaren't even going anywhere near that, who
like, wait a minute, hello, I'm over on two seventy. I'm
not even close to that. Youknow, you can't forget that, you
know, so as a news story. That's huge. It did impact traffic,
but you got to remember, you'vegot a lot of other people.
We covered northern Virginia, the Districtof Columbia, and Maryland. That's it's
(30:25):
a unique market. That's a lotof Yeah, you get I absolutely do
nine to eleven. Tell me aboutthat, Oh dear, that was horrible.
It was awful because I was onthe phone with someone and they said,
oh, there's a plane flying atthe Pentagon, and do you know
(30:47):
what's going on? And then Ijust heard a scream and the phone,
you know, the person hung up. Wow, And oh I got goosebumps.
Of course, we were all watchingon television like other people were.
Everybody knows where they were that day. Everybody has a story. And people
(31:07):
were abandoning their vehicles on the bridgesand just walking trying to get out of
DC as fast as they could.It was impossible to keep it straight.
But I will say that every radiostation went to a network program. And
as far as traffic reports that no, I don't think we did a traffic
(31:29):
report for hours and hours that day, wow, because it was all about
what was happening. You know,you understand, sure, absolutely absolutely tell
me about the day the Washington Monumentbroke because you know, Kane, who
is no longer with us, andI ended up on the air at the
same time together after that happened,because it was just such a seismic thing.
(31:51):
It's something we had never encountered before, you know, the fact that
an earthquake breaks the Washington Monuments.And because there's an earthquake, it's like
everybody just got sent home all atonce, creating this weird rush hour.
Yes, text, Yes, howdid that day? How did that day
(32:12):
kind of fall into the whole schemeof things with everything you've covered over the
course of your career. That wasan afternoon event and I was in the
mornings. You were like, hallelujah. I was asleep. I was at
home feeling my house rumble like everybodyelse right, right right, and I
was wondering, like, I wonderwhat's happening in there? You know,
traffic wise, so sure I missedthat one. I missed that one worst
(32:37):
down delivering the traffic. Would yousay it was the sniper stuff. Yeah,
the sniper definitely, And of coursewell nine one one was just but
we've had I'd say the thing thatstands out for me as one of the
most challenging days was the day thatI took a phone call from a guy
(32:57):
on the Wilson Bridge driving out ofMaryland toward Virginia, and he said,
a tar truck just turned over onthe Wilson Bridge. Aren't like what and
he said, and people are tryingto go around it. Oh my gosh,
they're getting tar slapped up on undertheir cars and there it's everywhere,
and wow. So I wanted togo on the air with it so bad,
(33:22):
Toby, but I'm a professional andbroadcasting one on one. No,
no, no, you have toconfirm that right, right right. It
was so hard up so it wastotal bs. So have you had that
happened? Really haven't? Did thathappen a lot to you guys, like
(33:45):
where people would call it the youknow, the say the TLP traffic tip
line or the TTWN traffic tip lineand report bogus traffic. There's baby born
on the side of the road.Yeah. No, We've had maybe people
working used about what loop they wereon or what direction they were in.
But I'd say I'd say nine anda half people out of ten took it
(34:08):
as seriously and that tart truck reallydid turn over, and we did get
it confirmed, but we had towait to report that, you know,
I mean that was hard. Itwas so bizarre. I mean, we've
had overturned trucks and fires and ohmy goodness, just on and on motorcades.
(34:32):
Like we were talking about demonstrations.Remember when they put a boat in
the middle of an intersection, Imean seriously, Or they do these protests
now where they all just intentionally slowdown, try to bring the bell Way
to a crawl. I don't thinkpeople realized that, you know, that's
not I mean, look, I'mall about a good, peaceful protest,
(34:53):
and I'm all about raising up tofight for what you believe in. But
that's not something that's number one,very safe. Number two gonna make too
many friends or fans of your cause, not in this town, not at
five thirty in the afternoon or ateight o'clock in the morning, you know.
I mean, I don't think thatpeople stopped to realize, like we
talked about earlier, one small thingcan be cataclysmic to the nation's capital's roadways,
(35:19):
and in rush hour especially. Let'stalk about some of the personalities you've
worked with along the way here inDC, because you've worked with pretty much
everybody. I mean you said earlier, you've been on a virtually every frequency,
standout personalities, unsung hero personalities,people that you were very endeared too
(35:42):
along the way, people that tookthe time to understand what you do.
Tell me some of those stories,Well, I think it Tim Brandt and
Andy Parks, okay, and theydid a morning show on WMAL and Andy
Parks blew for traffic I don't knowtwenty thirty years prior to getting out of
(36:04):
the plane doing the morning show onWMAL, So I was nervous doing traffic
for the guy who flew traffic inthe airplane for thirty years, right would
you be? And Tim Brandt,I mean good heavens the guys and icon
and he's done sports forever and whatever. So this was quite some time ago,
(36:25):
and I had met a man thatI was starting to date, and
they were would ask me look questionslike oh, would you do this weekend?
And I said, oh, Iwent on a date with somebody and
I think I'm pretty interested in him. And so then they would ask me
questions like that, right, Andso things were progressing with this person and
(36:52):
they said, oh, would youdo this weekend? And I said,
well, this sky i'm dating hasa boat. Oh, well did you
go out for I said, now, I haven't been on a ride yet,
but we waxed the boat, andI'm sure one day I'll be able
to go for a ride on theboat. But so far, I wax
on and he wax off, andTim Brant fell out of his chair and
(37:22):
they went straight to commercial. Itwas that he came out a punch out.
From then on they referred to himas mister Miyagi. So then they
say, how's mister Miagi. Well, I had a nice woman called me
(37:44):
one day and she said, I'mso glad to hear that you're dating an
Asian fellow. My hut, I'mAsian and I have a nice son.
In case it doesn't work out withyour say, he's really good at waxing
the boat. So that that happened. Do you have tape of that anywhere?
(38:07):
That now hilarious? Nowhere for you. I was thinking too, U
Toby, that I've had a fewcalls along the way of dads who are
on their way to the hospital becauseher water broke and this is their first
(38:30):
and they were asking like, what'sit like. I'm stuck on the beltway
and I need to get the HolyCross Hospital. I remember this one guy
in particular, and so I gavethe description of I said, tell me
what your car looks like, whatcolor is it? Where are you now?
And in the next report, I'mgiving the description it's a red car.
It's a Toyota Corolla, and he'sright here. Get out of the
(38:52):
way so this guy can get tothe hospital because his wife's going to have
their first baby. And we kindof people were moving and had helped him
along the way, and he sentme a picture of he and his wife
and their son in the hospital justto say thank you, and it was
something that their family will always remember. I mean, there's a lot of
(39:15):
good stories like that, and goodstories of people who took the time to
stop to help someone who needed helpon the side of the road. I
mean, we hear about the negatives, which kind of bums me out that
most of the time we're talking aboutmisfortune, but there's so many good stories
(39:36):
and people who take the time outof their data change a flat tire for
someone, or help somebody out inthe rain, or you know, somebody
whose cars broken down, kind ofpick you up and take you to get
gas because you ran out of gasin the middle of a rush hour.
What are you thinking? You know, all kinds of good stuff's happening out
there too, so I think weneed to focus on that part because we're
(40:00):
all in it together. Yeah,you know, there are I think a
million stories that happen probably every dayduring rush hour that we never hear about,
but they're a big deal to theperson that had happened too. From
a baby being born on the sideof two seventy two. You know,
that man trying to get the HolyCross, whom you helped clear the way
for. I mean, he'll neverforget that, nor will his son forget
(40:23):
it, because that's obviously how thesun came to be. Do you think
we in this business realize at times? I mean we say we do,
but do you think we really trulyrealize how many lives we impact every time
we turn on a microphone? Ihope not, because that's what keeps a
symbol. Amen well said. Doyou think humility is a forgotten thing in
(40:51):
this business these days? I don'tknow if it's just in this business,
but there's a lot of social mediais about me. Oh yeah, this
is what I did today. Thisis what I had for breakfast. Here's
a picture of my food. Youknow, no, look around, just
take put it down and just lookaround. Somebody around you needs help,
(41:16):
Somebody around you needs kindness. Justjust a nice word to say, Gosh,
that color looks good on you.It doesn't take much. You know
what if somebody has their blinker onand they need to get in front of
you and merge over, let themright? Is that simple? But everybody's
(41:37):
got to go, Oh, Ican get one more car ahead, right,
really, let that person merge?Come on, do you think the
pandemic worsened thing? It seems itseems it's odd, isn't it. I
don't think anybody saw that coming.Yeah, no, you know, And
(41:59):
then I mean, god knows.I don't know how you did traffic every
day while that was going on,because I remember you, you know,
you were doing traffic for us onthe on the on Toby and Chile.
I h you know, you knowthat I was not going to stay cooped
up in my house and I wouldtake the opportunity to just go drive and
get the hell out of Dodge andThe thing that just shocked me the most
(42:20):
was how few cars were on theroad. And you know, it was
great because you could get from pointA to point B, but for other
people who had the same idea asme, not that I was doing this,
but like, uh, the ICC, the inter County Connector in DC
became the auto bonn, you know, and and and then you know,
when things started slowly opening back upagain and people started getting back out on
(42:43):
the roads or people were moving aboutthe cabin while still working remotely, it's
like it stayed the auto bonn.And I you know, I remember thinking
to myself as people were flying byme and north of one hundred miles an
hour and stuff, I'm like,God, this is going to be extremely
dangerous when things get back to whateverthe new normal is going to be.
(43:04):
Tell me a little bit about whatyou observed during that time and you light
it off and how you pulled itoff when nobody was on the roads.
How did you guys do traffic?Number one, I appreciate that stations continued
to take traffic because there were manypeople who still had to commute, okay,
and that showed a respect to them, right. Number Two, I
(43:27):
appreciate the stations that continue to taketraffic because we need the money. You
know, we got bills to paytoo. But for those truckers, those
essential workers, right, they didn'tstop driving, you know. If anything,
there were more of them on theroads to try to meet what happened
was and they needed to know whatthey needed to know. That is right,
(43:49):
And what was scary and sad isthat with a lighter volume of traffic
there is an increase in vote andspeed. You're right, you go faster,
but it also increased severity of thecrash. And I bet you we
had more fatal wrecks during that timethan when people have to go slowly,
(44:12):
guaranteed, because man, it washorrible. So we focused on you know,
we didn't say, oh, nothinggoing on this road. We talked
about how travel times there, ifthe road is open or closed, how
long would it take you to getfrom here to there? You know,
(44:35):
there were still construction projects that hadto be done and potholes that had to
be patched and this kind of thing. So it was business as normal to
try to keep a sense of normalcyon the highway, right, right,
yeah, yeah, And it's interestingtoo when you think about it, because
you know that infrastructure did not stopworking. There was no pandemic shut down.
(44:59):
You know, I don't think peoplerealized that, you know, but
people were still going to Dallas,they were still going to Reagan, people
were still flying. Then you hadyou know, emergency workers who were flying
from here to there or vice versa. And you know, you had the
executive movement, if you will.And you know, even though the world
was shut down and we were allworking from home and our you know,
pajamas and slippers and stuff, therewas still a world that counted on the
(45:21):
nation's roadways. And I don't thinkat times we consider that, but I
know that when we were in thattime, I thought about you guys who
did what you you know, yourteam over there at ttw INDU and I'm
like, how are they putting wordstogether for this? And there's really no
words to describe it. So that'sinteresting to hear you say that. Um,
(45:43):
thinking back you at the beginning ofyour career, a young you,
there are people who we both knowwho have already put their hands up to
be the next Leasta Bayed and theywant to take that job, They want
to sit in that chair, theywanted to do good happen. Well,
absolutely, But but are there anycautions or warnings you would give to the
(46:06):
next Lisa Baden, to the nextany one of your colleagues who's done this
sort of a thing. I thinkof our friend Carlos who works over at
Tilpina, who used to work withus, who prides himself as being you
know, you know, mentored byyou. Um, what would that advice
be and what cautions would you havefor those people? Be yourself, go
(46:29):
for it, be yourself, butgo for it. Remember we're entertainment first,
right, and informative. Be respectfulof who you're talking to and what
you're talking about, but entertainment first. Yeah, don't try to be like
(46:49):
somebody else. So don't go sayingget and that's done. Try your own
thing. You ask anybody when I'mwalking around in the radio station and i'm
you know, just say, Isay half fun today, right, half
fun. It's supposed to be fun. We're on the radio. We're fun,
(47:15):
you know. Don't be so serious. Don't take it so seriously.
Relax, have fun no matter whatyou're doing, no matter where you are
in the grocery store, you know, working at the gas station, relax,
have fun today that you know,a smile? Be kind? How
(47:37):
can I be kind to somebody today? Right? What can I do to
make that person stay even if you'venever met them, even if you know.
All all they've got in their mind'seye is this impression of what you
might be and they hear your voice. You never know what a person's going
through in their life. True,don't be judgment be kind, It doesn't
(48:01):
it's not hard. You get somuch back from that. So go on
the air and have fun, beyourself, go for it, and I
think it all just kind of worksout. Yeah. Now let's speak to
the caution. Is there anything thatyou know, maybe you wish someone would
(48:22):
have told you along the way thatyou had to learn maybe the hard way
when it comes to this business forthis game, learn everything the hard way?
Well, you did tell me theSchool of hard knocks over there at
your station. I learned everything inlife the hard way. And pain is
a motivator. Sure. Yeah,if if it's painful, I'm gonna make
(48:43):
some changes. But until it getspainful, I'm going to keep doing the
same thing. Right, isn't thathow humans are? That's I think that's
how we all are you know whatwe deal with the pain up to a
point. Correct, Well, whenwe break, be ready because it means
a change is going to come.How do you know when that change is
going to come? Like, whenwas there ever a breaking moment for you
(49:06):
when you thought to yourself, youknow what if this keeps going this way
and this traffic thing? Well,okay, so I refer to myself as
miss Bee, Lisa Bee. Andlast time you saw me, I had
bees all over me. I hadstickers and bees because many years ago I
(49:30):
went into a review, my annualreview, and I was already you know,
I had really prepared as to whyI'm a good employee, I show
up on time, I'm a hardworker. These are the reasons that you
should keep me and give me araise. Right, So it's my turn
(49:52):
and I go in there and he'ssitting behind the desk, and I start
my spiel and these are the reasons, and he stops me. He says,
you gotta understand, there's two kindsof people here. There are stars
and they are and he named threepeople and I was not one of the
(50:12):
names. And there are worker bees. Now, don't get me wrong,
we need our worker bees. Andat that point in time, I'm like,
too late, too late, alreadyinsulted you, too late? What.
I saw his lips moving, soI know he was still talking,
but I didn't hear word he said. I was thinking to myself, Wait
(50:36):
a minute, how do I handlethis situation? This has never happened before.
What am I supposed to say?What do I What do I do?
Okay? What do I do?And I land both hands on the
desk and stood up abruptly, andhe stopped talking because he was like,
(50:57):
oh crap. And I waved myI figure in his space and I said,
if we have this conversation again nextyear, I will not be a
worker bee. And I left theoffice and I left crying. I cried
for months. I called my girlfriends. I told them all I have been
(51:20):
called a worker bee, and theysaid, meet us for dinner. I
went into the restaurant and they weresitting around table and they all had headbands
on with worker with antenna Bee antennaon and they were bobbing. And since
then, anytime anybody sees something witha bee, they get I've got bee
(51:43):
stuff everywhere. Gott I keep.It's right here stuck to my computer.
I look at it every day toremind me I am a worker Bee.
And it was that pivotal moment,Toby, Hm, I said, I'm
just gonna be me. I'm gonnago for it. You know, I've
(52:08):
been doing like what I think theywant and just you know, like Charlie
Brown's teacher boring right, and Ijust thought, what do I got to
lose? And that turned it around. And when it came to the review
(52:30):
next year, I was in aworker Bee. Hmm. I was one
of the stars and there you are. Just now do you think that that
person who he says he did iton purpose? But I question you know
better? You know better? Now, how do you think this person likes
(52:52):
you? Now? Looking back thisintremendous run you've had, he takes a
lot of credit for it. Ohplease, he needs some stuff that Bee
up as you know what's like?You didn't you didn't you know what you
didn't You didn't fire her? Youfired her up? You didn't you know
motivated, motivated? You made herchange the game. And if you want
(53:15):
to spin it that way, sir, I don't know who you are,
and I'm not going to ask,because vengeance is not something that I know
about Lisa Baden, but I doknow this. She'll remember because here she
is with bees on her computer.She told us the bee story. I've
worked with you directly daily for almostfive years, you know, you know,
for five years years now, andI never heard that story. But
(53:36):
I do know this. Everybody hasa moment where somebody bet against them,
or somebody made them feel less thanthey were or like maybe they weren't cut
out to do it. And Iknow this, and I think you and
I might be cut from a bitof the same cloth. Uh, you
know, although different signs of sethide um when that happens to me,
(53:58):
you better watch out when things likethat go on, because I'm not going
to make it just a thing thatfires me up. I'm going to make
any mission from God to come afteryou, and then guess what. I'm
not going to come after you directly, but I'm gonna come after you with
success, and then I'm going toshow you after I've after I've done these
things, I'm going to consistently showyou what you either missed out on,
(54:22):
you've passed on, or doubted right. You never should have doubted me.
Deon Sanders Junior used to have aT shirt once, and I bought it
because first of all, I thoughtit was Deon Sanders, but it was
actually his son. But I thoughtthe saying was so perfect. Never should
have doubted me. Wow, Andnow look at now, look at you.
(54:43):
You're sitting back, You're about tonot right off into the sunset,
because I have a feeling we haven'theard the last of you. Looking back
at all of it, Is thereanything you would have done differently? Not
a thing, Not a thing.I needed to go through every bump and
pothole. Every one of us needsthat. At the very beginning, Toby,
(55:07):
I wanted to be somebody. Iwanted to be the polished person,
the person that people wanted to haveon their air. But you know what,
I needed to go through the bumpsand the scrapes and the disappointments and
the successes to build to where youhad enough experience to do that, you
(55:34):
know what. And I still amlike that at times. I think we
all are. I want to bethere, But to get there, you've
got to go one wrong of theladder at a time for reason. So
when you get there, you canhandle it, and you've got enough under
your belt to go for it.Am I right? You are right?
(55:58):
And did you ever have a momentalong the way where you doubted yourself or
multiple times, or maybe you doubtedyourself, because I know that that's something
that I wrestled with a lot,especially after the brain surgery, you know,
right before I started working with youon WASH, when I came back
out of it, I you know, tried to cloak myself in this almost
(56:19):
superman mythological kind of a thing.But in reality, I you know,
looking back at it, I wastotally my confidence was totally shaken. You
know, I was totally you know, afraid of what life had next because
I had almost lost it, youknow. And then I get back into
saddle, I'm warming up, andyou know that felt familiar, all this
(56:42):
stuff, and at the same pointin time, you know, the transition
from hot to wash happened at thesame time. And if I'm being honest,
you know, I never really triedto reveal the doubt. I internalized
the doubt, and I think indoing so, it caused me to have
even more doubt. And I thinkthere are a lot of people who,
you know, like you said,who are trying to be polished, who
are trying to do the perfect ripand read? Who are trying to be
(57:05):
the perfect little executing soldier? Theperfect work would be if you will,
what do you say to people whoare coming up in this business? Who
do what you do, who wantto do what you do, who do
what I do? Who well weboth entertain you know when it comes to
dealing with that doubt, because Ihave a feeling maybe once upon a time
or so, maybe you might havehad some of that at some point.
Never try to figure it out onyour own, right, because the committee
(57:30):
in there that they don't know everythingand that they're stuck sometimes. So throughout
my career, from the very beginning, I would call DJ's and say,
can I come sit in on yourshow? Sure, just to see how
(57:52):
you do it. I would bequiet, I sit in the back,
but I really want to learn.Call people you admire, whatever your career
is, Go to people that youwant to be like or have something that
you want to have, right,and they're really good ones want to help
(58:13):
you succeed. They're not threatened byyour talent. They want to help you
grow and be nurtured. Right,right, So that's my advice is,
don't keep it to yourself, talkabout it with people. Thank you for
sharing what you just shared. That'simportant. And I think you went through
(58:35):
all that with the brain surgery andeverything, Toby. If you keep that
to yourself, the whole experience waslost, right. You know how many
other people are going through trials likeyou went through. Oh, it was,
it was. It was horrible.I think about it every day.
So that's why you made it tothe other side. You're a determined man,
(58:58):
and if you don't share it,you're doing yourself and others a disservice.
Right, excellent stage advice by awoman who's lived her life well,
who served her community well, who'schanged the game of traffic. You've said
it all to quote Howard Stern.I still can't believe you did traffic for
(59:19):
hour. I mean we could talkfor hours about that. Tell me before
we part about the craziest, mostridiculous anything you've ever been a part of.
I know we heard about the waxOn wax Off story. Is there
anything else from a personality? Maybeit was Howard, maybe Geronimo, maybe
Don and Mike back in that incarnation, any of these stations you've been on
(59:40):
that still sticks in your head.You're like, can I just to this
day, I can't believe I wasa part of that. Oh. I'd
say each experience was different and uniquein its own way, and it's important
to be adaptable. Yeah, becauseit's not my show. I'm just there
(01:00:04):
to enhance it. Lisa Baden withthe wisdom you know, when Chili's out.
I hope I can maybe coach youout of retirement at once. It
would be fun to saddle up.Well, I appreciate that would be.
Like, let me check with mypension. I know some people on the
(01:00:25):
fund committee because we're in the sameunion. Um, maybe I can get
them to look the other way anything. Um, I'm not doing anything to
Jeffard. I want I worked myass off for my pension. Son.
Thank you for the union. Ilove love the Union. Yeah. Yeah,
(01:00:47):
no, you know, I thinkpeople and I know that we're we're
talking way fourth wall, broken down, behind the curtain kind of stuff.
But I don't think this young generationcoming up like we're old whipper snappers.
I just sometimes I wonder if theyrealize, like what you just said is
powerful. You've got a paycheck forthe rest of your life. You earned.
It may not be everything you wantit to be. But it's consistent
(01:01:12):
and combined with other things, you'regoing to have a pretty good time living
your life. Yes, I'm goingto be able to pay for quality health
insurance and maintain a lifestyle. Andyou're right. I did work for it,
but if it weren't for the union, it would be a different story.
(01:01:34):
And so you know what, doyou keep working hard? Just and
be kind to people. That's thekey. I don't know that we have
enough kindness in this business these days, but maybe we'll find some inspiration from
you, Lisen. We'll stoke itback up. Thank you for your kindness,
Toby, and thank you for anopportunity to do this exit interview.
(01:01:57):
Yeah, and so speaking of which, the last word take us home.
What would you say to those listeningthat hasn't already been said radio radio?
What would life be? Ladies andgentlemen, Lisa Baden the icon riding off
into the sunset. You'll find herat the beach Saint Michael on a boat.
(01:02:17):
Wax on, wax off. God, bless you, Lisa Bading.
You are the best. Thank you, thank you and done? All right?
That was pretty you sir. No, you're welcome I'll send you you
know, we get audio this too, so i'll send you that as well,
or video, so I'll send youthe raw. I'll get cleaned up.
(01:02:37):
I'll post it this afternoon at somepoint and uh and I will give
you my personal email, okay,well email it to me Toby Nappen Gmail.
That's my personal okay, I willright now, all right, thank
you, love you, talk toyou soon. Bye,
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