Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Without further ado, Mike Rosen here in studio, sir, So
good to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Great to be with you, Jenny, excuse me, Jimmy, and
I take some pride in being something of a mentor
to your career.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
You have.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Absolutely you really have been going back early early on
for me. And not only did you give me my
first interview, you were kind enough to give a speech
at Regis University when I was a student there leaving
the college Republicans, and have always just been so generous
with me when I have wanted advice or thoughts, an
(00:36):
input or come to you for what have you? And
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
About that twenty bucks I lent you thirty years ago,
I mean I'm still wait there you go with interest.
You understand compound interest. Yes, it's forty thousand dollars now
justice for inflation.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Oh my goodness, Mike Rosen, so goodness.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I think we need to begin with the history of
this station of Koa. Let's do that, because it is such,
there is such longevity here.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Where do we begin. Let's begin at the beginning. It
sounds logical.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
December fifteenth, nineteen twenty four. By the way, I was
a talk show host then too, that's how long.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I do I know? I know you've always been on
this station from the start.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Now we're known as the fifty thousand what blowtorch. Well,
back in nineteen twenty four we were the five thousand
watt candle compared to fifty thousand watts. KOA was owned
by General Electric to start with, and several years later
they became an affiliate of NBC. It wasn't NBCTV because
(01:42):
there was no TV. They took up took over operations
from General Electric. In nineteen thirty four, the power was
raised to the current level of fifty thousand watts. And
this is a clear channel station, Clear channel. I think
there a dozen or so clear channel stations in the country.
(02:04):
They're called clear channel station not because of a clear
channel which became my heart media. It's because at night,
other radio stations around the country have to bring in
their signal to make way for the clear channel heritage stations,
as they're called. So you could hear this station in California,
(02:25):
I've heard it in something like thirty states in the
Union or heard about it in that regardless.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Mike, we talk for just a second about how significant
that is.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
For a station.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I mean, especially in terms of building up the gravitas
over the years and the following.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I mean, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
By the way, from its inception where the letters KOA
come from, what does that stand for?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Stands for King of Agriculture.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Now, Colorado was a lot more rural in nineteen twenty
four than it is now. As a matter of fact,
even in the nineteen sixties, seventies, eighties, I think we
were still doing a farm report in the morning. People
longtime listeners may remember Evan Slack, people like Pete Smyth.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
That of course.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Gave way, but it changed hands quite a few times.
In nineteen fifty three, it was sold to the Metropolitan
Television Company, whose principal.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Stockholder was Bob Hope.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So Bob Hope was an owner really of sorts of
the station back then.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Seems right, It just feels like it should be.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Then that same year, on Christmas Eve, they became a
sister TV station, the KOATV that's Channel four here in Denver.
Once upon a time, even as late as the nineteen eighties,
kowa's studio was on Lincoln in that Channel four building,
if you remember, the next step was the ge repurchasing
(04:05):
of the station in nineteen sixty eight. They continued to
own it until nineteen eighty three. Then Jacore Communications came on.
Excuse me below, Corporation came on first as the owners JCRE,
and when I came to the station, J cor was
the owner.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I first came here in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
They purchased KOA and Clear Channel Communications bought it the
nineteen ninety nine. Clear Channel changed its name to iHeartMedia
in twenty fourteen, and they're the owner's owners today too.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Now, when you look back in that timeframell remind me
which year did you start here on KOA?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty six, So in.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
That time it was a moment where talk radio was
having a real moment of blossoming across the country, and
you saw the growth in a expansion around that time
of Rush Limbaugh nationally, which certainly brought a lot in
terms of local talk radio and adding a little bit
(05:08):
to there. When you look back at that time period
here on KOA, what stands out to you the most.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, Rush was doing local radio.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I think he was even a dish Shocky sometime and
then he came in to talk radio. But when I
made my crossover from my business career to radio, and
that was to get involved in the war of ideas. Yes,
this was before Rush Limbaugh was doing a national show. Yes,
and people with a background like mind educationally, I've at
an MBA, I'm an economist, I've got I'm a military
(05:41):
veteran active duty in the Army. I worked at depending
On in the Navy department for the Assistant Secretary of
the Navy for Financial Management. What I wanted to bring
into the war of ideas in media was someone with
a conservative perspective, and there were hardly any conservatives doing
talk radio back at that point in time. Rush going
(06:02):
national changed everything. Today and even in the last twenty years,
the most successful talk radio individuals and networks have been conservatives,
not lefties. We once owned a station that was part
of Air America. It was a left wing stations.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I remember they couldn't keep.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Sponsors because business sponsors didn't want to contribute to a program.
A spate of talk show host that hate capitalism. So
the domination of the media byliberals still exists, but it
isn't nearly what it was Once upon a time. A
Fox News channel is great, but they only have about
(06:43):
three and a half million viewers.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, and now you have podcasting and so many other
aspects of the media space that it's so diverse in
a way we haven't seen before.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so the gatekeepers of information, the dominant liberal establishment
mass media as I call it, Yes, don't have the
power that they used to have. Do you know that
CNN now has fewer viewers than the Food Channel.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I saw not in the Food Channel, but so many
other stations where you'd be like great, really, so a
food channel makes sense, but really shows just the decline
of that station. And also the cable news network of MSNBC,
I mean both of them. They are just so lagging behind,
not just Fox, but so many other cable channels.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
MSc is going broke by the way the salaries they pay.
I hear regional Matto makes thirty million dollars a year. Well,
Comcast owns MSNBC, and that MSNBC may not be around
any longer as a left wing beacon. So when I
say that, I'm glad that Fox is there for three
million viewers during primetime, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, if you will,
(07:58):
CN and THROW and a few others. Their combined audience
is twenty five million people compared to Fox's three million.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, but that's where talk radio has really filled a
lot of that gap.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So looking back down memory lane, some of the people
I had on my.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Show, Yes, we were going to talk about this.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
You've in your storied career, Mike Rosen interviewed countless folks.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
So give us some highlights.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Now, I was on radio starting in nineteen eighty, so
I was on radio for forty two years from start
to finish, twenty five years doing the nine to noon
show here.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Thirty six in all on Kawa.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So during that period of time, I had presidents, had
President Jimmy Carter on just the two of us, George Bush,
George H. W. Bush, a first Lady Barbara Bush by herself,
a General Norman Schwartzkoff, Treasury Secretary Donald Reagan. During the
Reagan administration. I had the Secretary of the Navy, James
Webb on the show, William F. Buckley, Junior, George will
(08:58):
Milton Friedman. Wow, three or four times. I am so
proud to say that not only did I get to
know Milton Friedman, but we were friends.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
As what was he like in one on one, especially
because he's to me as far as free market economics.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
He is my icon mine too, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I've read Adam Smith, I've read the Austrian Schools, Schum, Peter,
Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and you remember that television
series he did called Free to Choose, patterned after his book.
By the way, I have an autographed copy of Free
to Choose Milton Friedman and his wife Rose Friedman. Not
too many people have both of those signatures together. He
(09:41):
made it so understandable, yes, the people.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
It was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
He wrote a bevy of books, and it was wonderful
to have him on the show and just go back
and forth and lower my profile as much as I could,
because I wanted him to get every minute of it.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You'd listed presidents, you listed secretaries, you listed a start
a economous like Milton Friedman. Just real briefly, Mike Crosen,
When you're preparing for an interview of that sort of caliber,
what was your sort of mindset and approach to those interviews?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I read the books. Why is that so important? We're laughing,
but why is that so important?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Well, I'm thinking of what was the name of that
talk show host who was on for so many Harry
King Night, Larry carry King.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I was on his show once as a guest.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
By the way, Larry King used to brag about, you know,
when I have a guest on, I don't read his
book because I want to have an interview with him,
just like the listeners who don't know what he wrote
in the book.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
I think that was an excuse for laziness research.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I worked sixty five to seventy hours a week for
forty years, and so much of it was just staying
on top of things, gathering information, actually read reading the
books as show prep. And by the way, I didn't
just do politicians and political figures and heads of state
and things like that. I grew up in New York
(11:08):
City in Brooklyn, but I was a Yankee fan. Would
you like to know the New York Yankees that I
had on the show?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yes? Please?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Okay, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Barra, Barbie Richardson, Gil McDougal, Jim Bowten,
Ryan Durham, Phil rizzutto Goose Goslin. I even had Joe
Garagiola on the show opening day course Field every year.
I did a Baseball Show, and I had Madeline and
Joe Garagiol and people like that. Mickey Mantle was my
boyhood idol as a kid growing up in New York,
(11:36):
and Mickey Mantle and I became friends.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That is amazing. I played golf with him.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
To me, For me, my passion is music, especially blues.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
And classic rock.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And whenever I can interview some extraordinary musicians like Warren
Haynes and the Allman Brothers band as one example, there's
something exciting about that, but also that listeners can take
away that's different from the North.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I also had people from show business, the best of
which ever was Mel Allen. I did an interview with
him for forty five minutes. It was fantastic. Also, Michael
Caine in the studio. Do you remember a movie he
was in called The Hypacrist File.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I have not watched that one.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
In that movie, he was taken prisoner by the bad guys.
He was in a warehouse. They had him in a
cubicle suspended from the ceiling and they bombarded the cubicle
with deafening noises to weaken his resistance and in order
to maintain his focus. He had found a nail on
(12:43):
the floor of the warehouse. It was a bent nail
and he dug it into the palm of his hand
in the movie.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
So, when I'm interviewing him again, I read the book.
He had written a book, That's why he was here
in the studio.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I talked about some of his role, and I brought
up the Hypgrist file. I said, can you remember dialogue
from the movies and things like that, even though you've
done so many of them.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
He said, oh, sure I can. Could I get you
to recreate a scene from a movie?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
He said, sure, really V I said the hYP Gris file,
and to help you, I brought a prop and I
gave him this nail that I had been.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
He thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So that's less especially when when a guest is willing
to go there with you.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It's too much fun.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Chelton Hessen had him on the show, who was an
outspoken conservative in Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
You'll remember that. I've had Newt Gingrich, Peter Jenny's Dan Rather.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Dan Rather was on the show, not in the studio,
over the phone, because he was in town to do
a promotion for the local affiliate. And they asked me
if i'd like to have him on. I think that
was probably to help promote his appearance in town. I said, sure, well,
(14:02):
we disagreed, and I identified his liberal bias as typical
and the impact he has on public opinion because of
his stature, but that it's a shame that so many
people like you have a liberal bias and it's reflected
in your so called reporting. And he denied that he
(14:23):
was a conservative. He said, I'm a excuse me, he
did not a liberal? Yeah, yes, and he said he
was hard money and YadA, YadA. Anyway, a couple of
people at the network here, the network affiliate, never forgave me,
never forgave me for challenging Dan.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Rug them off. How dare how dare now give us
a couple more?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
A lot of people will remember some of the longtime
figures here at KOA like Bob Martin, who was a
great sportscaster for the Denver Broncos and he did sports
for us for years. Rick Barber did our overnight show
for twenty five or thirty years. Then in the more
there was Gus Murkis and Lorie Parsons and Steve Kelly
and Chris Olinger, Andrew Van Steenhouse did a psychologist the show.
(15:12):
Alan Berg was on KOA and Alan Berg was on
KOA when he was assassinated by the way Kevin Flynn,
a Denver City councilman who wrote the book about the
order and the assassination of that.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
The movie is Yes is out. I believe it publicly.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Peter Boyles was on our sister station, KHOW and that
was my first Gigan radio you know, when I made
my crossover Yes in December of nineteen eighty, after I'd
come back from working at the Pentagon. Ronald Reagan had
been elected in the prior November and he was going
to be inaugurated, and I'm on with Peter Bowles. K
(15:56):
w b Z was the station. This was my radio debut,
and my pitch was there's a program in Washington, d C.
Pat Buchanan and Tom Braiden. Buchanan's a well known conservative,
Braiden's a liberal. They do a four to seven pm
talk show every day. Everybody in Washington listens to that
because politics it's a company town, and politics is the company.
(16:17):
What's more, here's the comparison. Political talk is to Washington,
d C as Bronco Talk is to Denver.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yes, so.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I said on w RC Brandon and Buchanan do this,
did this wonderful conservative liberal talk show.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
That's what I would like to do.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Peter Boyles at that time was doing the six to
ten am show in k WBZ, and I pitched this
to station management. He said, okay, you can be his
partner is conservative opposite number.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And that was my start in radio. Pete and I
back then.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's such a wonderful story, it really is, especially since
for many years elsewhere he was a colleague of mine
as well. So I have a soft spot for Peter Boyles.
We just have a couple of minutes left. Is there
somebody else that you want to mention? Mike from the
history here on KOA from your time?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Well, I should also mention Dave Lower.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Dave was my producer for you should for almost thirty
five years at KAWA. He's retired now also, and Dave
stayed with Mandy Connell for a while after after I
was gone. Dave and I was just like Dragon is
(17:35):
to Pete to you, and Ross Ross over to and
Lee Larson too, who was the big boss here at
kay Lee's the one that hired me in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I had come from kin Us, where I was working
for several years.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And I wanted to I said, if I wanted to
make a big splash, I've got to go to the
fifty thousand blow torch.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
That's KOA. Leehired me, and he's.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
The best manager I have ever known in the radio business.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Really, we got to run but thirty seconds. What would
you say is the legacy of KOA micros.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
So many of the people that worked here and went
on to other things, The impact that's had not only
on the city of Denver, but with this huge signal
that it has, people all over the country know KOA.
The combination of being the host station for so many
great sports teams, and there's so many great personalities over
the years, the best news staff obviously there's no comparison
(18:36):
now he plays else in phenomena in radio or even TV.
I would note, Yeah, it's made a major impact on
people's lives.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
That's so true.
Without further ado, Mike Rosen here in studio, sir, So
good to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Great to be with you, Jenny, excuse me, Jimmy, and
I take some pride in being something of a mentor
to your career.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
You have.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Absolutely you really have been going back early early on
for me. And not only did you give me my
first interview, you were kind enough to give a speech
at Regis University when I was a student there leaving
the college Republicans, and have always just been so generous
with me when I have wanted advice or thoughts, an
(00:36):
input or come to you for what have you? And
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
About that twenty bucks I lent you thirty years ago,
I mean I'm still wait there you go with interest.
You understand compound interest. Yes, it's forty thousand dollars now
justice for inflation.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Oh my goodness, Mike Rosen, so goodness.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I think we need to begin with the history of
this station of Koa. Let's do that, because it is such,
there is such longevity here.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Where do we begin. Let's begin at the beginning. It
sounds logical.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
December fifteenth, nineteen twenty four. By the way, I was
a talk show host then too, that's how long.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I do I know? I know you've always been on
this station from the start.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Now we're known as the fifty thousand what blowtorch. Well,
back in nineteen twenty four we were the five thousand
watt candle compared to fifty thousand watts. KOA was owned
by General Electric to start with, and several years later
they became an affiliate of NBC. It wasn't NBCTV because
(01:42):
there was no TV. They took up took over operations
from General Electric. In nineteen thirty four, the power was
raised to the current level of fifty thousand watts. And
this is a clear channel station, Clear channel. I think
there a dozen or so clear channel stations in the country.
(02:04):
They're called clear channel station not because of a clear
channel which became my heart media. It's because at night,
other radio stations around the country have to bring in
their signal to make way for the clear channel heritage stations,
as they're called. So you could hear this station in California,
(02:25):
I've heard it in something like thirty states in the
Union or heard about it in that regardless.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Mike, we talk for just a second about how significant
that is.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
For a station.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I mean, especially in terms of building up the gravitas
over the years and the following.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I mean, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
By the way, from its inception where the letters KOA
come from, what does that stand for?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Stands for King of Agriculture.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Now, Colorado was a lot more rural in nineteen twenty
four than it is now. As a matter of fact,
even in the nineteen sixties, seventies, eighties, I think we
were still doing a farm report in the morning. People
longtime listeners may remember Evan Slack, people like Pete Smyth.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
That of course.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Gave way, but it changed hands quite a few times.
In nineteen fifty three, it was sold to the Metropolitan
Television Company, whose principal.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Stockholder was Bob Hope.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So Bob Hope was an owner really of sorts of
the station back then.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Seems right, It just feels like it should be.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Then that same year, on Christmas Eve, they became a
sister TV station, the KOATV that's Channel four here in Denver.
Once upon a time, even as late as the nineteen eighties,
kowa's studio was on Lincoln in that Channel four building,
if you remember, the next step was the ge repurchasing
(04:05):
of the station in nineteen sixty eight. They continued to
own it until nineteen eighty three. Then Jacore Communications came on.
Excuse me below, Corporation came on first as the owners JCRE,
and when I came to the station, J cor was
the owner.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I first came here in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
They purchased KOA and Clear Channel Communications bought it the
nineteen ninety nine. Clear Channel changed its name to iHeartMedia
in twenty fourteen, and they're the owner's owners today too.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Now, when you look back in that timeframell remind me
which year did you start here on KOA?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty six, So in.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
That time it was a moment where talk radio was
having a real moment of blossoming across the country, and
you saw the growth in a expansion around that time
of Rush Limbaugh nationally, which certainly brought a lot in
terms of local talk radio and adding a little bit
(05:08):
to there. When you look back at that time period
here on KOA, what stands out to you the most.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, Rush was doing local radio.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I think he was even a dish Shocky sometime and
then he came in to talk radio. But when I
made my crossover from my business career to radio, and
that was to get involved in the war of ideas. Yes,
this was before Rush Limbaugh was doing a national show. Yes,
and people with a background like mind educationally, I've at
an MBA, I'm an economist, I've got I'm a military
(05:41):
veteran active duty in the Army. I worked at depending
On in the Navy department for the Assistant Secretary of
the Navy for Financial Management. What I wanted to bring
into the war of ideas in media was someone with
a conservative perspective, and there were hardly any conservatives doing
talk radio back at that point in time. Rush going
(06:02):
national changed everything. Today and even in the last twenty years,
the most successful talk radio individuals and networks have been conservatives,
not lefties. We once owned a station that was part
of Air America. It was a left wing stations.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I remember they couldn't keep.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Sponsors because business sponsors didn't want to contribute to a program.
A spate of talk show host that hate capitalism. So
the domination of the media byliberals still exists, but it
isn't nearly what it was Once upon a time. A
Fox News channel is great, but they only have about
(06:43):
three and a half million viewers.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, and now you have podcasting and so many other
aspects of the media space that it's so diverse in
a way we haven't seen before.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so the gatekeepers of information, the dominant liberal establishment
mass media as I call it, Yes, don't have the
power that they used to have. Do you know that
CNN now has fewer viewers than the Food Channel.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I saw not in the Food Channel, but so many
other stations where you'd be like great, really, so a
food channel makes sense, but really shows just the decline
of that station. And also the cable news network of MSNBC,
I mean both of them. They are just so lagging behind,
not just Fox, but so many other cable channels.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
MSc is going broke by the way the salaries they pay.
I hear regional Matto makes thirty million dollars a year. Well,
Comcast owns MSNBC, and that MSNBC may not be around
any longer as a left wing beacon. So when I
say that, I'm glad that Fox is there for three
million viewers during primetime, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, if you will,
(07:58):
CN and THROW and a few others. Their combined audience
is twenty five million people compared to Fox's three million.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, but that's where talk radio has really filled a
lot of that gap.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So looking back down memory lane, some of the people
I had on my.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Show, Yes, we were going to talk about this.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
You've in your storied career, Mike Rosen interviewed countless folks.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
So give us some highlights.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Now, I was on radio starting in nineteen eighty, so
I was on radio for forty two years from start
to finish, twenty five years doing the nine to noon
show here.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Thirty six in all on Kawa.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So during that period of time, I had presidents, had
President Jimmy Carter on just the two of us, George Bush,
George H. W. Bush, a first Lady Barbara Bush by herself,
a General Norman Schwartzkoff, Treasury Secretary Donald Reagan. During the
Reagan administration. I had the Secretary of the Navy, James
Webb on the show, William F. Buckley, Junior, George will
(08:58):
Milton Friedman. Wow, three or four times. I am so
proud to say that not only did I get to
know Milton Friedman, but we were friends.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
As what was he like in one on one, especially
because he's to me as far as free market economics.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
He is my icon mine too, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I've read Adam Smith, I've read the Austrian Schools, Schum, Peter,
Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and you remember that television
series he did called Free to Choose, patterned after his book.
By the way, I have an autographed copy of Free
to Choose Milton Friedman and his wife Rose Friedman. Not
too many people have both of those signatures together. He
(09:41):
made it so understandable, yes, the people.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
It was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
He wrote a bevy of books, and it was wonderful
to have him on the show and just go back
and forth and lower my profile as much as I could,
because I wanted him to get every minute of it.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You'd listed presidents, you listed secretaries, you listed a start
a economous like Milton Friedman. Just real briefly, Mike Crosen,
When you're preparing for an interview of that sort of caliber,
what was your sort of mindset and approach to those interviews?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I read the books. Why is that so important? We're laughing,
but why is that so important?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Well, I'm thinking of what was the name of that
talk show host who was on for so many Harry
King Night, Larry carry King.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I was on his show once as a guest.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
By the way, Larry King used to brag about, you know,
when I have a guest on, I don't read his
book because I want to have an interview with him,
just like the listeners who don't know what he wrote
in the book.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
I think that was an excuse for laziness research.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I worked sixty five to seventy hours a week for
forty years, and so much of it was just staying
on top of things, gathering information, actually read reading the
books as show prep. And by the way, I didn't
just do politicians and political figures and heads of state
and things like that. I grew up in New York
(11:08):
City in Brooklyn, but I was a Yankee fan. Would
you like to know the New York Yankees that I
had on the show?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yes? Please?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Okay, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Barra, Barbie Richardson, Gil McDougal, Jim Bowten,
Ryan Durham, Phil rizzutto Goose Goslin. I even had Joe
Garagiola on the show opening day course Field every year.
I did a Baseball Show, and I had Madeline and
Joe Garagiol and people like that. Mickey Mantle was my
boyhood idol as a kid growing up in New York,
(11:36):
and Mickey Mantle and I became friends.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That is amazing. I played golf with him.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
To me, For me, my passion is music, especially blues.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
And classic rock.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And whenever I can interview some extraordinary musicians like Warren
Haynes and the Allman Brothers band as one example, there's
something exciting about that, but also that listeners can take
away that's different from the North.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I also had people from show business, the best of
which ever was Mel Allen. I did an interview with
him for forty five minutes. It was fantastic. Also, Michael
Caine in the studio. Do you remember a movie he
was in called The Hypacrist File.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I have not watched that one.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
In that movie, he was taken prisoner by the bad guys.
He was in a warehouse. They had him in a
cubicle suspended from the ceiling and they bombarded the cubicle
with deafening noises to weaken his resistance and in order
to maintain his focus. He had found a nail on
(12:43):
the floor of the warehouse. It was a bent nail
and he dug it into the palm of his hand
in the movie.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
So, when I'm interviewing him again, I read the book.
He had written a book, That's why he was here
in the studio.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I talked about some of his role, and I brought
up the Hypgrist file. I said, can you remember dialogue
from the movies and things like that, even though you've
done so many of them.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
He said, oh, sure I can. Could I get you
to recreate a scene from a movie?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
He said, sure, really V I said the hYP Gris file,
and to help you, I brought a prop and I
gave him this nail that I had been.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
He thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So that's less especially when when a guest is willing
to go there with you.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It's too much fun.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Chelton Hessen had him on the show, who was an
outspoken conservative in Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
You'll remember that. I've had Newt Gingrich, Peter Jenny's Dan Rather.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Dan Rather was on the show, not in the studio,
over the phone, because he was in town to do
a promotion for the local affiliate. And they asked me
if i'd like to have him on. I think that
was probably to help promote his appearance in town. I said, sure, well,
(14:02):
we disagreed, and I identified his liberal bias as typical
and the impact he has on public opinion because of
his stature, but that it's a shame that so many
people like you have a liberal bias and it's reflected
in your so called reporting. And he denied that he
(14:23):
was a conservative. He said, I'm a excuse me, he
did not a liberal? Yeah, yes, and he said he
was hard money and YadA, YadA. Anyway, a couple of
people at the network here, the network affiliate, never forgave me,
never forgave me for challenging Dan.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Rug them off. How dare how dare now give us
a couple more?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
A lot of people will remember some of the longtime
figures here at KOA like Bob Martin, who was a
great sportscaster for the Denver Broncos and he did sports
for us for years. Rick Barber did our overnight show
for twenty five or thirty years. Then in the more
there was Gus Murkis and Lorie Parsons and Steve Kelly
and Chris Olinger, Andrew Van Steenhouse did a psychologist the show.
(15:12):
Alan Berg was on KOA and Alan Berg was on
KOA when he was assassinated by the way Kevin Flynn,
a Denver City councilman who wrote the book about the
order and the assassination of that.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
The movie is Yes is out. I believe it publicly.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Peter Boyles was on our sister station, KHOW and that
was my first Gigan radio you know, when I made
my crossover Yes in December of nineteen eighty, after I'd
come back from working at the Pentagon. Ronald Reagan had
been elected in the prior November and he was going
to be inaugurated, and I'm on with Peter Bowles. K
(15:56):
w b Z was the station. This was my radio debut,
and my pitch was there's a program in Washington, d C.
Pat Buchanan and Tom Braiden. Buchanan's a well known conservative,
Braiden's a liberal. They do a four to seven pm
talk show every day. Everybody in Washington listens to that
because politics it's a company town, and politics is the company.
(16:17):
What's more, here's the comparison. Political talk is to Washington,
d C as Bronco Talk is to Denver.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yes, so.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I said on w RC Brandon and Buchanan do this,
did this wonderful conservative liberal talk show.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
That's what I would like to do.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Peter Boyles at that time was doing the six to
ten am show in k WBZ, and I pitched this
to station management. He said, okay, you can be his
partner is conservative opposite number.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And that was my start in radio. Pete and I
back then.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It's such a wonderful story, it really is, especially since
for many years elsewhere he was a colleague of mine
as well. So I have a soft spot for Peter Boyles.
We just have a couple of minutes left. Is there
somebody else that you want to mention? Mike from the
history here on KOA from your time?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Well, I should also mention Dave Lower.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Dave was my producer for you should for almost thirty
five years at KAWA. He's retired now also, and Dave
stayed with Mandy Connell for a while after after I
was gone. Dave and I was just like Dragon is
(17:35):
to Pete to you, and Ross Ross over to and
Lee Larson too, who was the big boss here at
kay Lee's the one that hired me in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I had come from kin Us, where I was working
for several years.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And I wanted to I said, if I wanted to
make a big splash, I've got to go to the
fifty thousand blow torch.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
That's KOA. Leehired me, and he's.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
The best manager I have ever known in the radio business.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Really, we got to run but thirty seconds. What would
you say is the legacy of KOA micros.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
So many of the people that worked here and went
on to other things, The impact that's had not only
on the city of Denver, but with this huge signal
that it has, people all over the country know KOA.
The combination of being the host station for so many
great sports teams, and there's so many great personalities over
the years, the best news staff obviously there's no comparison
(18:36):
now he plays else in phenomena in radio or even TV.
I would note, Yeah, it's made a major impact on
people's lives.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
That's so true.
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