Living On Air (6 page)

I got lucky and picked up a part-time shift at my dream station, WDRC, in Hartford. Everybody called it The Big D and for me, it was my first little step towards the big time. Coverage of the
two stations overlapped, so I had to come up with another name to use on the air at “Big D.” I was still Tom Collins at WWCO, but at WDRC I called myself Dave Donovan. I was inspired by Dan Donovan at WFIL in Philly, Dale Dorman at WRKO in Boston, and Dr. Don Rose at KFRC in San Francisco. I liked the alliteration of the two “D” names, it just sounded cool to me. Twenty years later, in 1994, I would meet the ultimate Mister Cool, another “Double D.” I’ll get to that story a little bit later.

But for now I was stuck. In the blink of an eye another year rolled by and it was New Year’s of 1975. My life was at a standstill. Johnny Walker had recently left for Q105-FM in Tampa, Florida. Steve Martin was gone too, now the morning newsman at WRVQ-FM in Richmond, Virginia. And I was still at WWCO-AM, doing everything I could to move up and out of my hometown but truth be told, as my friends moved on, I was left behind.

EVERYBODY’S MAKING IT BUT ME

As the music director of WWCO I received boxes of records every week from the record companies, with each song promising to be the next big hit. One day there was a song that landed on my desk that put a lump in my throat. It was actually a country tune by Shel Silverstein and the title summed up my feelings at that time. It was called “Everybody’s Makin’ It But Me.” I tacked it up on my wall as a grim reminder of where my head was. I had been at WWCO for six years now, since I was 14 years old. I was making one hundred and fifty dollars per week. I sent out airchecks all up and down the East Coast, trying to move my career forward, but nothing was happening.

I had somewhat absentmindedly sent my tape to WRC in Washington, D.C. At about the same time, I got a hit from another one of my tapes. A radio consultant named Mike Joseph was starting up a new station in Providence, Rhode Island, called WPJB. He asked me to come to town for an interview, and when I got there he offered me a job, but they wouldn’t tell me what shift I would get. All they said was, that’s the way Mike Joseph works. This was not at all normal. Usually you are hired for a specific shift on the air, but Joseph preferred to keep his new hires on edge. I wasn’t sure I wanted to move to Providence, I had hoped to get to a bigger city, but I wanted out so badly that I
accepted the job. It would be several weeks before the station was up and running, so I kept working at C-O and the Big D, killing time, till I packed my bags for Providence. Then I got a call from Washington, D.C.

“Hello, Tom? This is Gordon Peil, program director at WRC Radio in Washington. We like the tape you sent us but we’re looking for deejays that can perform in a personality format with fewer restrictions than Top 40. Do you have anything else you can send us?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve got a tape from another station I work at up here and I’ll send it right away.”

I sent him a Dave Donovan tape from WDRC, which was more of a free-form, personality-heavy station. One week later I was on the air at C-O when I got another call from Washington. [
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“Hello, Tom? This is Gordon Peil, program director at WRC Radio in Washington. As you know, we like the tape you sent us and we’ve narrowed our search down to three people and you’re one of them. We’re still sorting out things here but we would like to have you come down for an interview in a few weeks.”

I hung up the phone and I was still in a daze when I got a call from one of the secretaries at WDRC in Hartford.

“Dave? I’ve got a message here for you from Gordon Peil in Washington. He wants you to call him back right away.”

If this sounds confusing to you, imagine the state I was in at that moment. I was live, on the radio, doing my afternoon show. I just found out I had a one in three shot at a job in the number eight market in the country, and for some reason they’ve called me again up at WDRC. I called him back right away.

“Hi Gordon, you left a message for me at WDRC in Hartford…”

“Yes of course, WDRC. You must be Dave Donovan, right? This is Gordon Peil, in Washington. I want you to know that you are one of three candidates we’re looking at for the opening at WRC.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I just talked to you about a half hour ago.”

“No, we haven’t talked to you before, Dave.”

“Well, yeah, you called me here at WWCO where I’m Tom Collins.”

“You’re Dave and Tom? You’re both the same person?” he asked. “Well then, whoever you are, it looks like you are two of the three people we’re considering for this job. How soon can you get down here for an interview?”

“Right away!”

I never knew who the third deejay was, but I do know there were discussions that turned into arguments about who was the better candidate, Dave Donovan or Tom Collins, before the folks at WRC knew we were the same person. That next week they flew me down to DC. I was 20 years old and yes, I’m a small-town guy, so it was my very first time on an airplane. It was surreal.

I landed at Washington National Airport where there was a car waiting to take me to 4001 Nebraska Avenue, the home base of NBC in Washington. That’s where WRC was located. I had never seen anything like it. It was a sprawling complex on more than seven acres in Northwest D.C. When I walked into the lobby there was a picture on the wall of David Brinkley, one of the most famous newsmen in the world. The hallways were noisy with people scrambling back and forth, everybody looked important, everyone was in a hurry, including cameramen who
lugged equipment over their shoulders as they hustled to their news cars in front of the building. It took me back to that first time I walked off the elevator at 65 Bank Street, when I realized my life was about to change forever. I felt that exact same thrill as I walked off the elevator at NBC.

I had a big smile on my face when I thrust out my hand to meet Gordon Peil. He looked just like what I expected a corporate executive to look like at NBC. He had trim brown hair, wire-rimmed eyeglasses, and he wore a brown suit with a brown tie. His office was pristine, with papers neatly stacked on his desk, and airchecks from disc jockeys were alphabetized on a shelf against the wall. Standing next to him was one of the tallest men I have ever met in my life, a radio consultant from New York, Bob Henabery. He was completely different from Gordon. Well over six feet, six inches tall, Bob had stark white hair and a full beard to match. He sometimes hesitated when he talked and emphasized every thought. We later nicknamed him the Great White Rabbit, in honor of the invisible rabbit in the Jimmy Stewart movie, “Harvey.” (Look it up, it’s a classic.) [
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] Looking at these two very different men somehow put me at ease. If they could work together, why not me? I was relaxed and my interview seemed to go well. It was easy and fun and they told me they would call soon to let me know the outcome.

Back home, I was walking on air. I couldn’t wait to find out the verdict, but the Providence, Rhode Island, job that I accepted was getting close to being ready for my arrival. One morning before going into work at WWCO, the phone rang at my house. Both my dad and my mom were home. Mom answered the phone and called upstairs to me, “It’s that Gordon guy from Washington.” Holy crap. This is big. Will he say, “Sorry, kid, somehow we made a big mistake. There is no way NBC would ever consider a 20-year-old who lives with his parents in Oakville, Connecticut. But don’t
worry, we take the responsibility for the error. There must be something terribly wrong with our system here in looking for new talent.”

I picked up the upstairs hallway phone, then paused for a moment realizing it was the very same phone I used to call Jerry Wolf six years earlier.

“Hello?”

“Hi Tom or Dave or whatever your name is, Gordon Peil here from NBC in Washington.”

“Yes, hi Gordon how are ya?”

“I’m good but not as good as you. I’ll just cut to it. I wonder, Dave or Tom…would you be interested in coming to Washington to work with us?”

What the hell did he just say? “Uh, yes I would. Is this a trick question?”

Gordon laughed. “No of course not. Listen we loved your Tom Collins tape and when we heard your Dave Donovan tape we were over the moon. We really want you for our new station, would you consider it?”

“Yes, I would consider it. I mean yes!”

“Great, we’ll send you some paperwork and give you two weeks to give notice at your current job. Sound good?”

Sound good? I had never left a job before. I never had another full-time job other than WWCO. Just then I heard my dad who was listening in on the extension downstairs say in a loud whisper, “Ask him how much they’re going to pay you.”

Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. “Uh, Gordon, uh…let me
ask you something here…uh, how much will I be paid for this job?”

He laughed again, “Oh, that’s right we haven’t talked about that. This will be good. How much do you make now?”

This will be good? I thought, what did he mean by that?

I knew exactly how much I made. I was pulling in a respectable $7,800 a year, that’s $150 a week, plus I had a free gas trade that the station set up for me instead of giving me a raise that year. It was with a gas station 30 miles away. And at 30 cents a gallon, it wasn’t worth the drive for the free gas. My dad, covering the mouthpiece once again, called up to me, “Tell him you make $170 a week.”

Good old Dad, pumping up my wage, from $150 to $170 to help negotiate more money for me. It was a sly move I thought. Probably the way they do things in Washington all the time. “Uh, I make $170 a week, Gordon,” I said with confidence.

“$170, huh.” He laughed. There was a lot of laughing going on here, I thought.

“Let me just get my calculator.” I heard him punching in some numbers. “Well, Dave or Tom, you’ll be in AFTRA here and we have a minimum scale that we have to pay our disc jockeys.”

This was way over my head…I heard “Dave” and “Tom” then blah blah blah something about “after” and then something about a “scale.” A couple more stabs at his desktop calculator and he said, “We’ll be paying you $26,500.”

My dad made a strange noise on the extension phone, a combination of a gasp and a giddy laugh. I was confused. I had read about athletes getting a three-year deal, maybe this was going to be spread out over a few years.

“26,500…dollars…every year?” I said.

“Yes, $26-5 a year and you’ll be paid for personal appearances and commercial endorsements which will bump that up over 30.”

I said, “Oh, that will be fine. Thank Gordon you, Mr. Peil, me good, I’ll phone talk in the tomorrow.” There was a confused silence on his end of the line and then with a smile in his voice he said, “OK then.”

There was a stunned quiet in the Cipriano house on Sunnyside Avenue for a couple of beats and then I think I screamed first and I think my dad screamed and then my mother screamed and then the three of us all screamed. What the hell? Who in the world makes twenty-six thousand dollars in one year? My Dad made $15,000 and that was a family wage. It felt like I had won the lottery and I was in some sort of shock. I caught my breath and called Mike Joseph in Providence and said, “Mike, thank you so much for the offer, but I’m sorry something came up and I’m going to Washington, D.C., instead.”

He was not happy. “Washington, D.C.? Well, if that’s what you want. But I’m telling you, you’re making a big mistake.”

I thanked him for his thoughts and wished him well. And all I could think of was, what would it be like to move to the nation’s capital? I couldn’t fathom it.

My last day in Connecticut was a Sunday. I went to my brother’s house for one of our big, Italian, middle of the day family dinners. When it was time to leave, after so many hugs and kisses, I remember backing out of the driveway looking at my folks, my brother Henry, his wife Eileen and my little niece and nephew, Christine and Mark. All of our emotions were right on the surface. You could see it on everyone’s face. A mixture of happiness, sadness, apprehension, and pride. My car, a Chevy
Camaro, was loaded with most of my stuff and enough of my mom’s tomato sauce to get me through the next few months. I was leaving home for the first time. Six years had gone by since I called my favorite disc jockey at WWCO. When I stepped out of that ancient elevator on 65 Bank Street, I stepped into the land of imagination, the wonderful world of radio. I met the right people at the right place and the right time to help a 14-year-old kid make his dreams come true. It was magic. With one last look, I beeped my horn, waved goodbye to my family, and said goodnight to WWCO. Then I hit the road for my new job at NBC.

GOOMBA

Washington, D.C., transformed my life. I lived there for five years, and during that time I worked at two different radio stations, got fired for the first time, met my best friend, and also met my best girl. I learned about the kind of man I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life. You could say I grew up in Washington. Most people have that kind of experience in college, but I did it another way. Sort of like on-the-job training. My education took place in a beautiful, vibrant, exciting city, the nation’s capital. It was the mid-seventies, the Vietnam War was finally over, President Richard Nixon had resigned from office after the Watergate scandal, the country had started to gear up for its bicentennial celebration. This was, absolutely, the big time.

After that long drive from Connecticut, pulling into the city was like a dream. All the monuments were lit up in bright white lights against the dark sky. Honestly, it took my breath away. Or maybe that was the weather. Have you ever been to Washington in the summer? At nine o’clock in the evening the temperature was 99 degrees and the humidity was 99 percent. It was like being under water, I was gasping for air. Coming from the Northeast I didn’t have air conditioning in my car but after that first night, I decided to get a new car, with air conditioning, as soon as possible. I took a quick tour of the city, then went back to my hotel room in Georgetown and cranked up the air to a cool 68 degrees.

The next day, I reported for work at 4001 Nebraska Avenue. The NBC News Bureau was based in the same building as the radio station, along with the local television studios of WRC-TV. Radio was in the basement along with WRC-AM and my new home, WKYS-FM. My first day on the job I saw the one and only David Brinkley in the hallway, the anchor of the NBC Nightly News. I had just walked by his picture in the lobby. He actually said “hello” to me. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents. “Meet the Press” was broadcast just up the stairs from our radio studio. There was even a commissary down the hall with a chef making fresh food each day. Everything about the place was “first class,” but I was still a “coach class” kind of guy. I had a lot to learn.

Right away I had to get used to a new name. When my boss, Gordon, told me they were going to change it up, I said that was fine, I had never used “Cipriano” on the air, anyway. But my last name wasn’t the problem. He liked “Cipriano.” He didn’t like “David.” Like so many things at the network level, my new name was a group decision between Gordon and the consultant, Bob Henabery. Apparently it took hours and hours of debate before they came up with the answer. They liked the “oh” sound at the end of Cipriano and thought “Joe” fit perfectly. It was catchy. That’s how I became Joe Cipriano. Joseph is my middle name, but they weren’t even aware of that at the time. For the next few weeks, walking around the building, whenever anyone called out to me, “Joe!” I wouldn’t respond. “Joe? Hey Joe!” “Oh, yeah…what?” I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that they were talking to ME.

Then there was the studio. At NBC the disc jockeys didn’t play their own records. They had engineers who sat in another room, running the commercials, jingles, and turntables. We called them “board-ops.” It highlighted just how different small-town Waterbury radio was compared to big city, Washington, D.C., radio.
The on-air personality and board-op faced one another, sitting at our own consoles, separated by a thick glass window, and every time we wanted to talk to each other, we had to push the intercom button. Whenever I wanted the engineer to start up a record during my on-air rap, I had to give him a signal by pointing at him, cueing him for the next element. I was used to running my own show, with all the controls at my fingertips making last minute adjustments, but now, working at a union station, all I was allowed to do was turn my microphone on and off and adjust the volume of my headphones. Timing was more critical than ever.

Fortunately, the guy I was hired to replace was still around at the station, happy to show me how it all worked. He was moving on to another position at NBC, giving up radio to work full-time upstairs in television. He was a big bear of a guy, with a huge smile that showed off the space between his two front teeth. When we first met, I went to shake hands, but he pushed my arm to the side, grabbed me tight, practically lifted me off the ground, and then planted a wet kiss on my forehead. I thought, is that what you do in the big city? But no, that’s what you do if you’re Willard Scott, the most warm, wonderful, bundle of love person you could ever hope to meet.

I spent one week with Willard, the up-and-coming weatherman and future “Today Show” contributor. I had been hired to take over his midday shift, ten a.m. to two p.m. Later, after his show, I followed him to the commissary where he stopped to hug every single woman who came our way, giving them a big kiss on their forehead. Men, too! Willard was an equal opportunity kisser. There was no fear of sexual harassment or political correctness. People loved bumping into Willard. Down-to-earth, kind, friendly, that’s the sort of guy I wanted to emulate. Someone people were happy to see. I never, ever, forgot that. Even today, when I walk into a room, I try to always have a smile on my face.

I embraced everything about my new city, going to museums, eating at all the ethnic restaurants, I didn’t even mind getting lost around those crazy traffic circles. Not much, anyway. Even though D.C. is big, I was impressed by how green it all was, with plenty of open space, parks, and sprawling lawns. Because there’s a height limit to the buildings downtown, it didn’t feel overwhelming to me, unlike New York or Chicago. On my own for the first time, Washington was a good fit, almost like a small town. It felt comfortable. When it came time to find a place to live, I went out to the suburbs, something else that felt more manageable to me. Our afternoon guy at the radio station, Eddie Edwards, took me under his wing, and suggested I move out to his apartment complex in Wheaton, Maryland. With no idea where else to go, that’s exactly what I did, renting a brand-new, modern, one-bedroom. I didn’t have any furniture so I popped into a local chain store and bought the entire living room set they had on display in the showroom, complete with a very ’70s orange shag rug and a brown plaid sofa made out of what the salesperson told me was the fabric of the future, Herculon.

Now it was time to get down to work. I had been on the air since I was 16 years old so that part was great, I was confident I could do the job. I was so happy to be in a top ten market that every day felt fresh and exciting. But I wasn’t playing the Top 40 hits anymore. I knew when I was hired, the station was going to change formats. It happened one week after I got there. WKYS-FM turned into “Disco Stereo, 93-K-Y-S.” Yep, disco. We played it all. “YMCA” by the Village People, Gloria Gaynor and “I Will Survive,” Donna Summer, ABBA, Barry White, The Commodores, so many others. The station even paid for me to take dance lessons so I could do “The Hustle” like Van McCoy. We mixed those songs in with jazz tunes from Grover Washington Junior, George Benson, and Manhattan Transfer. That kind of format had never been done before. It was eclectic, unique, and
completely surprised me when we quickly leaped to the top of the ratings, beating out every other established station in the city. Two years later, when our ratings started to sag, along came John Travolta in the movie “Saturday Night Fever,” dressed up in that white suit, dancing to the Bee Gees. The film was such a huge hit it helped put us back on top again. But for now, that summer of 1975, we were the first 24-hour disco station in the country and we killed the competition. [
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On top of all that, the promotions department at the station set me up with a weekly gig at a hotel, just across the Potomac River, in Crystal City, Virginia. I hosted a live show every Sunday night from nine until midnight, and earned more money in those three hours than I did for an entire week back at WWCO. Those paychecks actually stacked up on the desk in my apartment. Life was good and about to get even better.

A few months after I started at NBC the station hired a new morning man, Stoney Richards from KIIS-AM in Los Angeles. I couldn’t understand why anyone in his right mind would leave a radio gig in L.A., so I was anxious to meet this guy. From day one, we were pretty much inseparable. Stoney is a writer, an actor, and has a great sense of humor. At least I think he’s funny, probably because we laugh at all the same things. I had never worked with anyone who prepared for his show as thoroughly as Stoney did, certainly not me. He was on the air from six to ten in the morning and then I took over with my shift. Except for those days when I ran late. Unlike Stoney, I never got to work early. I always cut it down to the very last second. I did the same thing at WWCO in Connecticut. Like that time I thought I could make it to Arby’s and back while I was on the air. What an idiot! But I had a good reason for doing it that way. I thought if I got to the station too early, even five minutes early, it would ruin my show, my spontaneity, change the momentum and excitement I had going for me.

I know exactly where that idea got burned into my twisted brain. It came from a TV Show in the ’60s called, “Good Morning World,” a sitcom about two Los Angeles morning DJs. I loved the opening sequence of that show. Every week one of the disc jockeys woke up to the clock alarm, jumped out of bed, then ran to his car. He drove down Mulholland Drive to the radio station, raced up the stairs, and dashed into the studio. Just as the clock ticked the last second to the top of the hour, he reached for the microphone and flicked the switch to say, “Good Morning World,” and the theme music would start. I wanted that. [
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] That was big-time radio to me, exciting, and dangerous. It worked in Connecticut, but I only had a ten-minute drive back then and living in a small town, there wasn’t any rush-hour traffic.

In Washington, I thought I had it planned out perfectly. It took me 30 minutes to drive from my apartment in Wheaton, Maryland, to the station at NBC. I cut it down to the last second but I couldn’t predict the traffic. So, OK, I was late to work more times than I like to admit, but being the time freak I am, I knew EXACTLY how late I was. I had an excuse for every time, but not surprisingly that didn’t go over well with my boss. Truth is, I was an immature 20-year-old kid who liked to gamble with the clock. Finally, Gordon called me into his office.

“Goomba, I want to talk to you.”

Yes, he called me Goomba, and I didn’t mind the reference. He also once told a reporter that he discovered me after I had fallen off of my father’s fruit cart, another reference to my Italian heritage. Remember, those were the days before people talked about being politically correct. Anyway, I went to his office, with another excuse ready to go.

“Goomba, I don’t know what to do with you. You can’t seem to get into work on time. What is the matter with you?”

“Gordon, I just got hung up behind a stupid truck today, or I would have been here on time.”

“Well, this can’t go on. I don’t know what else to do, so I’ve decided…to call your mother.”

“What!? Call my mother??”

“Yes, maybe she can talk some sense into you.”

I knew Gordon wasn’t going to call my mother, but he had made his point. I was acting like a child. Many 20-year-olds exhibit that kind of behavior and the worst that happens most of the time is they’re late for a college class, but when you’re a 20-year-old, late for your radio show on NBC’s multimillion-dollar broadcasting property in the nation’s capital, a few people notice. It was time to grow up, to act like a professional, but I had a hard time taking that last step. I think meeting Stoney had a lot to do with changing my mind. We were such good friends and honestly, I didn’t want him to be mad at me. [
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] Besides, I finally admitted to myself that it was rude for me to be late for my show. That meant Stoney had to stay on the air longer until I ran in the door. And then there was one more incentive for me to shape up. I guess it was also possible, I may have been just a little bit worried that Gordon might actually call my mom, after all. So out of respect for Stoney, and nightmares about Mom chasing me down Wisconsin Avenue with a wooden spoon, I made my choice. I was never late again.

At the ripe old age of 21, I decided to take myself more seriously, become more dependable, even dress a little sharper. I was ready to become the kind of man I hoped to be, a good change to make since I was about to meet the most important person in my life, my future wife.

It started out like any other day. I was on my way to the
commissary, during one of those long disco songs, when I bumped into a pretty girl in the hallway. I introduced myself, thinking she would be incredibly impressed to meet the famous deejay “Joe Cipriano,” but apparently she had been living under a rock somewhere and had never heard of me. Poor girl, I thought, probably doesn’t get out much. She told me her name was Ann Gudelsky, a local girl from Bethesda, Maryland, and it was her first day on the job. She was a writer for All News WRC-AM radio, so I gallantly escorted her to the newsroom. The FM studio was right next door to the AM station, and we got to see a lot of each other. [
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] I did my best to get Ann to notice me, dropping in after hours when she was on the overnight shift, even coming in early when she moved to morning drive time. After more than a few tries, Ann finally agreed to have dinner with me and we started dating. A college-educated, nice Jewish girl from the big city going out with a high-school educated, Catholic boy from a small town. Add some luck, mixed in with a little charm, and the timing would turn out to be just right. Even though our backgrounds were so different, we shared the same values. Both of our parents were together forever, my mom and dad were married for 60 years. Ann’s parents made it to 56 years before her dad passed away. We were in good company. Stoney was also dating a girl who worked at NBC, Barbara Grieco. Together, the four of us became the best of friends, sharing a connection that continues to this day.