So last week I took a business trip to Chicago for this thing called “Morning Show Boot Camp”. For those of you that have never heard of this, here’s what it’s all about. Every year a bunch of Morning Show people from all over the country get together for a few days to share ideas, attend seminars, and do lots of “networking”.What most of you don’t know is that for the last 8 months I’ve been on a new business venture with my past radio boss, Gary Bryan. Gary does mornings on a “Local” Los Angeles Radio station. I’ve been working with him on this new prep service called “Radio Genius”. What is this you ask?? A prep service is a company that provides daily content to radio stations across the country. For example, it’s kind of like a daily newsletter that contains everything you need to know for that day. Celebrity birthday’s, this day in history, the latest news and gossip and other hot topical stories of the day. Gary and I attended this event to do what we refer to in the biz as “networking”.
One of our partners in this new business venture is a friend of mine David Gilbert. David supplies audio content for our service and I used to work with him in Los Angeles. David is also a former resident and radio employee of the city of Chicago! He came with us. Dave used to work this radio guy named “Fred Winston.” Who is he?? Fred is to the city of Chicago what “Robert W. Morgan” was to the city of Los Angeles. He’s been on the air in Chi-Town for over 30 years! If you’ve seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, then you’ve heard his voice. He’s the opening DJ in the beginning of the movie when Ferris’s alarm clock goes off! Dave told Gary and I that he was trying to get Fred to join us for lunch one day while we were out there. Finally, he was able to make that happen.
It was Friday afternoon; we had just sponsored a tribute to another Chicago radio icon, Steve Dahl. He was the dude that blew up all those disco records at a White Sox game between a double-header. It went down in history as “Disco Demolition”. Afterwards the three of us hailed a cab to the Mother Goose Bar in Wrigleyville. That’s about one block away from Wrigley Field. We were expecting Fred to arrive any minute and proceeded to order a pitcher of beer. After about an hour of nursing our pitcher in walks Fred Winston. He had walked about a mile from his place along the shoreline to this bar and was ready to spend the afternoon with us! “Round of shots!” he yells. Gulp…. “Another one!!! And Another!!! Another pitcher of beer!!” The drinks just kept on comin’!! We shared radio stories and he and Gary seemed to hit it off real great.
At one point we were throwing names of a bunch of other radio legends around the table and the name Charlie Van Dyke came up. “I know him!!” Fred says. “We worked together in the 60’s and 70’s”. I proceeded to bust out my cell phone and it just so happens that I had Charlie’s number on me. Long story short, I worked with Charlie in Los Angeles as well and he was the minister at my wedding. He now lives in the Phoenix area working out a studio doing voiceovers for TV and Radio stations across the country. Well anyways, I called him up and passed the phone over to Fred. He played 20 questions with Charlie until he figured out who he was talking to…… wow another radio reunion!! These two haven’t talked for almost 25 years!
5 shots of tequila and 5 pitchers of beer later we headed out towards Wrigley Field. Wow what a sight!!! There’s a baseball stadium in the middle of a neighborhood!!! Nothing I’ve ever seen before! Fred wandered over to a bar named Yak-zees. It’s located in what would be considered the 3rd base side of the ballpark. Another 3 shots and 2 pitchers of beer later we were walking along Waveland Ave. This is the street in the outfield where all of the home runs land. How different this all looks in person. When we got behind the center field area there was another bar called Murphy’s. It’s on the corner of Waveland and Sheffield Ave. Everyone in that bar knew Fred. He was a regular. 2 more shots and a pitcher of beer later it was time to go!We proceeded to walk towards the lake. It was about a ½ mile away. We stopped at this little hole in the wall bar and grill to re-hydrate ourselves before heading back to the convention.
Afterwards we finished our walk with Fred to his condo on Chicago’s “Lake Shore Drive”. He hailed us a cab…. We got in… and the rest is history! Wow!!!
