Two lengthy 1990s appearances of mine in southern California radio

[Dan Druff]

1992: The LA Riots Special

I really wanted to be on my college's (UCSB) main radio station, but both the faculty member in charge and the student manager were super-far-left politically, and they knew I was conservative, so I was denied a show on the station. I had two shows on the "training" station which had very low ratings and a weak signal, but I was never promoted to the big station, which irritated me because I knew I deserved to be there.

I tried to assure them that, while my show would deal with current events on campus and in the world, I would take a centrist tone, and not turn it into a conservative rantfest. They almost gave me a shot, and were super-close to giving me my talk show. However, upon further consideration, they recalled a guy who had a show three years earlier, who wasn't even a student at the school, who promised measured conservatism, and then turned it into a full-blown right wing program. They fired him after a ton of controversy (lol 1980s cancel culture), and told him he had no future in radio. What was this guy's name? Sean Hannity -- yes, the same one.

Seriously. Sean Hannity indirectly prevented me from getting a show on that station.

Anyway, I was shocked when I got a call at 1am on a cool April 1992 night. It was the student station manager. "You wanted a shot at doing your talk show, well you can have it now", he said.

"When?", I asked.

"Right now," he replied. "Be here before 2am. You'll have the 2-4am slot. The usual host called in sick. I was just going to put on a rerun of a music show from earlier, but I thought of you. If it goes well, you can have a regular show on here."

Wow! I didn't expect this! And I had the perfect topic -- the LA riots, which were going on that night, in response to the "not guilty" verdict in the Rodney King beating.

I came down to the station, and I was the only one there. It was a bit spooky -- like out of a horror movie where a place you expect people 24/7 has been abandoned. I had expected the guy was going to be there, but I guess he called me from home or something. I figured he did this more because he didn't feel like getting out of bed at 1:30am than because he wanted to give me a shot, but I was happy to take it.

But was I going to get any calls from 2-4am on a Wednesday morning? I had listened to the station before, and while it had a good signal and a wide reach, it just didn't have very good ratings. I assume this was because it had all student programming, which was mostly just introverts playing their eclectic music. The station had no talk shows, and no real "personalities". The reach of the station essentially went along the southern California coast -- from northern Santa Barbara County down to southern LA county, but not reaching inland at all. Still, about 1.5 million people could hear it.

The clock struck 2, and I got on the mic. This was it! I was finally going to have my talk show, even if it was at 2am on a Wednesday.

While I had zero prep time, it went surprisingly well. I didn't have to talk very long before getting phone calls. Then the phone started ringing off the hook. Whenever one caller hung up, there was another one right behind. I had never heard a show on that station get hammered with calls like this. Everyone was very respectful to one another. We actually had an interesting mix of conservatives, centrists, and liberals calling the show. Even Master Scalir called in for a bit, and was well-behaved.

As the show was winding down, several callers asked how they could get this show as a regular feature. I told them to call or write the station. They told me they would. I felt like I was going to have a regular show there very soon, after this good performance. Furthermore, true to my word, I played the part of the centrist. I gave my own opinions, but made sure they weren't too right-leaning, while also not saying anything I didn't really believe.

Surprisingly, I got no calls from station management. I called in and asked if they had received calls or letters in support of my show. They said yes, but that they were "reviewing the situation". Weeks passed, and no call. I gave up. Eventually I saw the student manager around town and asked why nobody ever called me, and why he "lied" about giving me a full time show if everything went well. He got in my face and said he didn't like being called a "liar", and that he never promised anything. He then went on to say that, while I was "insightful on the mic", he still "didn't think I was ready", and that it was his call to determine that, not mine.

So again, it came down to politics. Master Scalir later told me that he heard that some influential lefties on campus thought it was a "right wing" show (which it wasn't), and complained, and these people were promised it wouldn't continue. He was part of student council, where apparently the topic briefly came up when some libs there were ranting about it.

I was very disappointed, but I dropped the matter and never set foot in the station again during my time at the school. When I visited again long after graduation in the year 2000, I dropped by the station again, and laughably they were promoting that Sean Hannity was an alumnus of the station.

[Dan Druff]

1996: Steven Seagal is in Trouble!

A friend of mine got a spot on a dating show on KIIS-FM, a major LA radio station. I wasn't interested in the dating show, but I said I'd accompany him down to the station, and see if I could get on the air and screw around. I feigned being also interested in the dating aspect of it, but gave a fake name and made up phony details about myself. I don't remember much about the show itself. I know some girls called in, but I basically sat back and let my friend talk to them, and I think he got a few phone numbers. They didn't sound like my type anyway.

After our segment was over, surprisingly we weren't escorted out. The host said we could "hang out and watch, leave, whatever you want", and had on his next male guests. My friend elected to sit there and watch, but I was already bored.

Instead, I wandered around the station, because I had always been curious about what it was like inside. Nobody was there at that time of night except the host and a board operator, so the "office" part of it was abandoned.

As I was milling around, I heard the fax machine printing something. The nosy side of me had to go see. My excuse, if caught, was that I was going in there to get the fax to give to the host, in case it was important.

The fax coming through was something I didn't expect -- a warning that the mafia was extorting Steven Seagal, and that he was in serious danger!

I kind of wanted to keep the fax and read it in more detail later, but I was afraid they would catch me swiping it, and I would be banned from the station forever. So I went to the board operator and told him that I walked by as a "large fax was coming through" and that perhaps he should read it in case it's important. He went to go take a look, and muttered something about it being "crap", as he threw it in the trash. I asked him if I could have it, and he told me I could. I grabbed it out of the trash and took it home.

I read the whole thing later on, and it was basically a whole story about Steven Seagal being threatened by the mafia. The paper was poorly written, was somewhat confusing, and was overly detailed. The takeaway was that Seagal was involved with the New York Mafia, and that he was being threatened and intimidated by them. After reading the erratic, incoherent ramblings in the fax, I wasn't sure what to think. While the author of a fax appeared to be nuts, it was a highly detailed story, and it would be odd for him to have made up the whole thing in such intricate detail, especially about a B-list star like Seagal.

I eventually threw the fax away and forgot about it.

Then, in 2002, I saw this: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/13/ny...hollywood.html

Here is a more detailed account of the situation: http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal...gal/index.html



Part of me thought at the time that there was a good chance it was true. However, there wasn't anything I could do, and even if I could get the right people's attention, I didn't really want to be the one attempting to mess with the NY Mafia.

I decided to pass on further pushing this story.

By the way, the DJ present that night, Anthony "Domino" Lini, just passed away at age 61: https://www.insideradio.com/free/leg...74373c2eb.html

His death was unexpected, and he was not known to have any major health issues.

[tgull]

1996: Steven Seagal is in Trouble!

A friend of mine got a spot on a dating show on KIIS-FM, a major LA radio station. I wasn't interested in the dating show, but I said I'd accompany him down to the station, and see if I could get on the air and screw around. I feigned being also interested in the dating aspect of it, but gave a fake name and made up phony details about myself. I don't remember much about the show itself. I know some girls called in, but I basically sat back and let my friend talk to them, and I think he got a few phone numbers. They didn't sound like my type anyway.

After our segment was over, surprisingly we weren't escorted out. The host said we could "hang out and watch, leave, whatever you want", and had on his next male guests. My friend elected to sit there and watch, but I was already bored.

Instead, I wandered around the station, because I had always been curious about what it was like inside. Nobody was there at that time of night except the host and a board operator, so the "office" part of it was abandoned.

As I was milling around, I heard the fax machine printing something. The nosy side of me had to go see. My excuse, if caught, was that I was going in there to get the fax to give to the host, in case it was important.

The fax coming through was something I didn't expect -- a warning that the mafia was extorting Steven Seagal, and that he was in serious danger!

I kind of wanted to keep the fax and read it in more detail later, but I was afraid they would catch me swiping it, and I would be banned from the station forever. So I went to the board operator and told him that I walked by as a "large fax was coming through" and that perhaps he should read it in case it's important. He went to go take a look, and muttered something about it being "crap", as he threw it in the trash. I asked him if I could have it, and he told me I could. I grabbed it out of the trash and took it home.

I read the whole thing later on, and it was basically a whole story about Steven Seagal being threatened by the mafia. The paper was poorly written, was somewhat confusing, and was overly detailed. The takeaway was that Seagal was involved with the New York Mafia, and that he was being threatened and intimidated by them. After reading the erratic, incoherent ramblings in the fax, I wasn't sure what to think. While the author of a fax appeared to be nuts, it was a highly detailed story, and it would be odd for him to have made up the whole thing in such intricate detail, especially about a B-list star like Seagal.

I eventually threw the fax away and forgot about it.

Then, in 2002, I saw this: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/13/ny...hollywood.html

Here is a more detailed account of the situation: http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal...gal/index.html



Part of me thought at the time that there was a good chance it was true. However, there wasn't anything I could do, and even if I could get the right people's attention, I didn't really want to be the one attempting to mess with the NY Mafia.

I decided to pass on further pushing this story.

By the way, the DJ present that night, Anthony "Domino" Lini, just passed away at age 61: https://www.insideradio.com/free/leg...74373c2eb.html

His death was unexpected, and he was not known to have any major health issues.

Back in 2005 or so my cable got turned off due to lack of payment. It was when I was severely addicted to online poker and and alcohol and all I had to resort to was radio on the internet. A couple weeks later, I had plenty of money to get my cable turned back on, but elected not to. Why? Because I preferred listening to AM radio stations throughout the country and calling in. I would take the most extreme positions left or right just to get a rise out of the host and the audience. This went on for months, it was incredibly entertaining. There was one radio station in the greater Phoenix area and I would call in saying climate change was a hoax which would rile up the audience because Phoenix was experiencing record high temps. When I called in, I was referred as "our favorite climate denier is on the line". People then would debate me on air for literally multiple segments and one guy said I was also a Holocaust denier. I remember one lady said she got her tubes tied to help the planet, really sick people but it was fun. Eventually the screener said they were getting too many complaints about me and they would no longer take my calls.

What I later found out from someone I met in the industry was most of the late night radio hosts made little if any money. It was more of a volunteer position or someone trying to make a name for themself and getting a national role.

[BCR]

Weird. Did Hannity have a syndicated talk show across college radio? You said he didn’t go to your school. He never even graduated college and is like around a dozen years older than you. How was he on college radio pushing 30?

The way the title read, I thought you had audio clips. The riot one would have been interesting trip down memory lane.

[Dan Druff]

Weird. Did Hannity have a syndicated talk show across college radio? You said he didn’t go to your school. He never even graduated college and is like around a dozen years older than you. How was he on college radio pushing 30?

The way the title read, I thought you had audio clips. The riot one would have been interesting trip down memory lane.

I recorded the riots show, but it's on an audio cassette tape somewhere. I doubt I'll ever find it, and even if I do, it probably deteriorated in the 32 years since being recorded.

I do wish I could hear it again. It was a good show, especially given that I was only 20.

I found it bizarre that they wouldn't give me a regular show, since mine was an instant hit (even at 2am unannounced), and the callers were all respectful. It's not like this was shock radio. I guess they preferred to have zero-rated shows with students spinning super-eclectic music which nobody wanted to hear. The station had a policy that you could not play any music heard on LA mainstream stations, which basically encompassed anything people would want to hear.


Regarding Hannity...

He was not a UCSB student. He lived in the Santa Barbara area, was a building contractor, and hosted his first show at UCSB at the age of 27 or 28, in 1989. People who lived in the area were allowed to have shows on the station, though students were supposed to get priority. By his own admission, the show sucked, and much of it was offensive for the sake of being offensive. The liberals on campus freaked out, and demanded the station cancel him, which they did. This did whet his appetite for conservative broadcasting, and here we are.

At the time, they hesitated to give me my talk show "because of that guy 2 years ago" (before I was at the school), and I hadn't heard of the controversy. Only later, when I read about Hannity's beginnings, did I realize he was the guy who indirectly prevented me from getting that show.

I thought I had done a great job separating myself from "that guy 2 years ago", acting the centrist role, and taking calls from liberals, centrists, and conservatives (all of whom were very civil with one another, surprisingly). I heard later that the main reason I was denied the show was because some liberal girl in student government hated it, as she was black and was offended that I dared take any calls criticizing the riots. She had some influence, and apparently her yelling at the station was enough to spook them. Or at least that's the story I heard from a third party. The station did acknowledge to me that they got calls and letters urging them to make my show a regular feature. It's too bad I didn't get to do that. I would have enjoyed it.

BTW, the show already had a title. It was called "That's Your Opinion", and I called it that when I went on the air. My parents lived close enough to the coast to be able to hear it, and I give them credit for getting up at 2am to listen.

[NickyPipes]

Have you ever called a phone sex line?

I did one time with this girl in college, I had a $50 gift card and I think back then they had phone sex infomercials late night and she saw it and said let’s call

So I did and I think the $50 gift card paid for like 4 min or something crazy

Was sort of funny, of course I fucked you didn’t need to ask

[Dan Druff]

Have you ever called a phone sex line?

I did one time with this girl in college, I had a $50 gift card and I think back then they had phone sex infomercials late night and she saw it and said let’s call

So I did and I think the $50 gift card paid for like 4 min or something crazy

Was sort of funny, of course I fucked you didn’t need to ask

Never called a pay phone sex line, but I knew various girls personally who worked on them. I also knew the guy who wrote a lot of the software which ran the '80s phone sex lines.

Couldn't really get into the whole thing myself. Just felt too fake, because I knew the woman on the other end wouldn't be at all turned on by me, and it was just a job.

However I did have phone sex with various chicks I met off chats and party lines over the years. I would call them up, just talk normally for awhile, and would just naturally let the conversation drift into sexual topics. I would let the girl make the first move as far as it turning into phone sex from there, which was smart because she felt much more comfortable that way. If you reek of desperation or come off like a pervert, it's a huge turn off to women you've just gotten to know. If she lived within a reasonable driving distance, I would sometimes go meet up in person and try to parlay the phone stuff into more. I found that almost every girl who had phone sex with me also was happy to meet in person. Some even pressed me to do so. It was just a matter of whether they were close enough, and if I felt like doing it.

[BCR]

Weird. Did Hannity have a syndicated talk show across college radio? You said he didn’t go to your school. He never even graduated college and is like around a dozen years older than you. How was he on college radio pushing 30?

The way the title read, I thought you had audio clips. The riot one would have been interesting trip down memory lane.

I recorded the riots show, but it's on an audio cassette tape somewhere. I doubt I'll ever find it, and even if I do, it probably deteriorated in the 32 years since being recorded.

I do wish I could hear it again. It was a good show, especially given that I was only 20.

I found it bizarre that they wouldn't give me a regular show, since mine was an instant hit (even at 2am unannounced), and the callers were all respectful. It's not like this was shock radio. I guess they preferred to have zero-rated shows with students spinning super-eclectic music which nobody wanted to hear. The station had a policy that you could not play any music heard on LA mainstream stations, which basically encompassed anything people would want to hear.


Regarding Hannity...

He was not a UCSB student. He lived in the Santa Barbara area, was a building contractor, and hosted his first show at UCSB at the age of 27 or 28, in 1989. People who lived in the area were allowed to have shows on the station, though students were supposed to get priority. By his own admission, the show sucked, and much of it was offensive for the sake of being offensive. The liberals on campus freaked out, and demanded the station cancel him, which they did. This did whet his appetite for conservative broadcasting, and here we are.

At the time, they hesitated to give me my talk show "because of that guy 2 years ago" (before I was at the school), and I hadn't heard of the controversy. Only later, when I read about Hannity's beginnings, did I realize he was the guy who indirectly prevented me from getting that show.

I thought I had done a great job separating myself from "that guy 2 years ago", acting the centrist role, and taking calls from liberals, centrists, and conservatives (all of whom were very civil with one another, surprisingly). I heard later that the main reason I was denied the show was because some liberal girl in student government hated it, as she was black and was offended that I dared take any calls criticizing the riots. She had some influence, and apparently her yelling at the station was enough to spook them. Or at least that's the story I heard from a third party. The station did acknowledge to me that they got calls and letters urging them to make my show a regular feature. It's too bad I didn't get to do that. I would have enjoyed it.

BTW, the show already had a title. It was called "That's Your Opinion", and I called it that when I went on the air. My parents lived close enough to the coast to be able to hear it, and I give them credit for getting up at 2am to listen.

What a rather late career boon for Hannity. I’m guessing he was inspired by Limbaughs emergence about that time and got incredibly lucky with Fox emerging after.

Not a lot of guys in media without a degree getting mega rich after 30. He really must love Limbaugh. Limbaugh came up the more traditional radio route and just found his niche.

Without his success, Hannity likely is still building houses. I can’t think of any other major media personality without an education. Even the beauty queens went to school for something. Limbaugh and Hannity are unique in that regard and I’m sure Hannity was deeply inspired by Limbaugh doing it.

[NickyPipes]

Back when I posted as this guy Is what some woman used to FaceTime me to masturbate almost every Friday at 3 am