Voice over

Saying goodbye to the listeners, the callers, and the nuttiness that made the Upton Bell Show

by Upton Bell

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold and the sheen of their spears were like stars on the sea when the blue wave rolls mightily over deep Galilee.

-- "The Destruction of Senacarib" by Lord Byron

It was 4:45 a.m. on Friday July 31st. The sun had not arisen yet, but I could already feel the tenseness in my body. Usually my mood starts off slowly as I know that the show is still five hours away and there is much preparation to be done both physically and mentally.

But today is different and even the mist at this time of the morning is hanging lower than usual outside my window. Fridays at the end of each month have been different for me, especially in the past six months. There was black Friday this spring when Tom Gorham, our morning man for more than two decades, and four other people were fired -- just disappeared like they didn't exist. Set adrift by some huge company that we all barely knew.

I had learned in March that I could be the next to go, the reason given at a meeting between Capstar, myself, and the then-general manager was I cost too much and didn't fit into their new streamlined budget, which corporate captains had determined for each of the monolith's 300 stations nationwide. After all, this is an organization that wants to be known as the Wal-Mart of radio.

I was told I had 30 days to sell my own show, which meant paying my own producer and my own board operators, while still trying to keep myself above water. My reaction turned from shock to what Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross calls "final acceptance of our fate." Subsequently I was given three more dates of survival -- May 1st, June 12, and September 1. But I no longer have any trust of the faceless organization out of Texas.

I have become cynical. In spite of this I must refocus and be disciplined and get ready for the show; after all, it is what I do and what I love.

I jog for an hour and get the papers, turn on my TV and radio, and do all my preparation simultaneously. I have always been able to concentrate in the middle of bedlam; in fact, that's really what the Upton Bell Show is like -- real life -- organized confusion.

I have told the Great Count Wensky I want three to four guests covering everything from Slick Willie's follies at the White House to the problems in the Middle East to Boris the Boozer in Russia to the embarrassment of the state's prospective teachers flunking another test, and, most important, what is happening in Worcester and Central Mass.

I'm running late today; it's not from lingering, it's just I'm busy. I'm really into my rhythm, and I've forgotten about what could await me.

Ricky Machine and the Count will do one of our satirical openings on Clinton and the stained dress. What a fool he is to throw away the greatest job in the world for a dopey White House intern. Then we will get serious with Commander Paul Tuthill about Ken Starr and the investigation. Then at 10:30 Miss Gina the Madonna of the news will deliver her update on nothing particularly important, but I will have some topic for her that will test her mettle, and she will see through it and retort slowly and surely. Yes, the show will have all the elements it's always had over the past seven years: local, regional, national, international interviews, and calls -- a lot of calls -- from all the people I've come to know, real characters, real people from Anne of a Thousand Days to Sid the Squid to Madame X to Sy to the Queen of the Kyber Rifles. They are the people I do the show for, that is my real reason for doing this, not Capstar, not anybody but the listeners and callers.

---

But I never got a chance to say sayonara to Worcester, the region, and its callers and listeners. I would say, the city most typifies the ideal of Thornton Wilder's Our Town America.

---

I've forgotten it's time to leave and I'm late. I run to my car, jump in, and take off before some Cambridge meter maid tickets me again. You see, my car has the Upton Bell Show and WTAG plastered all over it and I'm a sitting duck for tickets, the single digit finger, or thumbs up wherever I go, especially on the Mass Pike -- where most state troopers and tow trucks know me.

I turn the radio on as I normally do and for the next hour and ten minutes I listen to Imus, Stern, news, classical music, and even a dose of the religious stations. After all, I've got to cover God in case I die from one of those crazy nuts on the pike who go 80 miles per hour -- weaving and bobbing in and out of lanes, talking on cell phones. This might be my last ride, but, you know, I don't care if the Angel of Death knocks on my door at high noon. I'm no different from many Americans today living in a corporate country without a soul. As somebody said, welcome to the '90s when firing has become downsizing and nobody is protected whether in radio or TV, whether they are rich or poor -- black or white -- Gentile or Jew. We all share a common bond, we are expendable and biodegradable. As somebody who has lived in the public eye for most of his life, I have tried to accept my fate without rancor. But I am concerned with the weakening of the fiber of this country and the false promise made to people in my business and other businesses. We have lost our sense of community and with my station a sense of what made it great -- local programming.

Enough of this, I'm at the station and it's time to roll -- maybe one more time. Hit it, Ricky Machine, bring up the Upton Bell theme song. Don't forget the Bill Clinton double zipper sound effect for first-time callers.

I'm sweating already, it's 80 degrees in the studio. It's always 80 degrees in the studio and 30 degrees in the executive offices. You see, this air conditioning has been off for months, but heat won't bother us today. Count Wensky, get Andrew Cohen from CBS ready for the legal update on Monica Lewinsky. Where's Julio Julio our Spanish Latin Lover? Will he be in for advice to our listeners on love and "monogamy"? Where's the Greek Chorus and our Texas Chainsaw Cheerleaders? The question of the day will be a good one, a former female reporter for Time magazine has been quoted as saying she wouldn't hesitate to have sex oral or otherwise with the President, because he is so powerful and sexy. We will take a poll of our listeners to see if they would like to have sex with Bill Clinton.

Well it was a wild ride till 11:45. I am talking when I see out of the corner of my eye the visage of the general manager, looking through the glass partition and motioning to me.

She waits for the commercial break and then enters. With that corporate smile she tells me to see her after the show. The last time this happened five people vanished from the official WTAG-WSRS roster -- in fact, many people have disappeared into the radio Gulag in the past seven months.

We finish the show with my favorite commercial -- Fearless Freddie Pandiani and National Glass with Luciano Pavarotti in the background. I am tempted to say goodbye, but I'm not sure. After all, they told me September, and I half believe them. We end as usual with out little "Bye Bye Now" bit from Porky Pig. And that was it.

At 12:03 I enter the General Manager's inner sanctum. I am read the official statement prepared by Capstar, midway through the statement I tell the general manager to put the paper down and talk to me like a person.

It's funny, I feel more sorry for her than myself. It's a scene right out of a Woody Allen movie. Bullets Over Broadway or maybe Love and Death.

I find myself laughing inside. If they only knew how ridiculous they look.

Well it is time to say goodbye, and it takes me almost five hours. It is tough to part with the most dedicated, hard-working, underpaid people I've ever known. I will never have an opportunity to work with people like this again. I feel like Mr. Roberts leaving his ship only to realize how much he missed it.

---

pulAs somebody who has lived in the public eye for most of his life, I have tried to accept my fate without rancor. But I am concerned with the weakening of the fiber of this country and the false promise made to people in my business and other businesses.

---

But I never got a chance to say sayonara to Worcester, the region, and its callers and listeners. I would say, the city most typifies the ideal of Thornton Wilder's Our Town America.

Proud, funny, quirky, envious with a sense of community that is lost. You are Big Town -- Small Town America.

Goodbye, Airport, Konnie and the City Council, Mayor Ray on the Bat Phone, the "Hoover Vacuum Cleaner," Dead City, Spencer, and the annual "Upton Bell Talent Show," Count Wensky, and the Mad Machine. We had more characters and real life stories than the Prairie Home Companion.

In fact, one of the first things I did when the Knights hired me was establish that the Upton Bell Show would have three to five guests everyday plus calls and all of that in two hours. We called it the fastest two hours in radio.

We jumped from Worcester to Boston to New York to London, Paris, Rome, the Middle East to Russia, and it was all live -- nothing canned from us. We worked seven days a week lining up guests from all over the world, and the only rule was they must be compelling.

Our first guest was the man who exposed the then-candidate Bill Clinton as a draft dodger, then there were the early-morning calls to Grace Slick in California to talk about animal rights and life without the Jefferson Airplane. In fact, there were a slew of interesting interviews. Sen. Al D'Amato on his mother's cookbook. Sen. John McCain on Bill Clinton's morality. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell on the plight of Native Americans. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick on Bosnia, Henry Kissinger on China, Jackie Mason on the art of telling a joke, Jay Leno, who agreed to do funny promos for the show. Frank McCourt, Pulitzer-prize author of Angela's Ashes, who was introduced by Irish tenor John McDermott, who sang "Danny Boy." Alan Dershowitz -- ripping apart Mike Barnicle, and giving us a scoop on the O.J. trial.

David Halberstam on America's TV generation. David McCullough, Pulitzer-prize author, on Give 'Em Hell Harry Truman. Linda Lovely from Liverpool giving us live updates on dead Beatles. George Bush on the pressure of the White House. ABC's Sam Donaldson on the inside secrets of Washington. Johnnie Cochran talking about his childhood and the slights he faced in his early life. Mark Fuhrman telling stories about the facts missed at O.J.'s home. The Super Bowl, Nantucket Film Festival, Hugh Downs on aging in America. Robert Pinsky, America's poet laureate. The fabulous one, Michael Blowen, live from the Cannes Film Festival, from Buckingham Palace, and, most important, from Jack Nicholson's home.

There were many more but some of the most important stories were local and regional and the people who did the shows, such as Joel Palmer who played Ronald Reagan and Ross Perot. Ricky Machine who played Bill Clinton and Al Bore Gore. Julio Julio who will remain a mystery. Lynne the Lionheart. Count Wensky as Marv Albert. Commander Paul Tuthill without his tank. Miss Gina. Hammerin' Hank Stoltz and the weeping women of Jerusalem. No show in America had more talent and cost less.

The "Upton Bell Talent Show" had all the elements of Star Search, Johnny Carson, and the original amateur hour. We had judges, sound system, the Worcester Common complete with bicycle police, bums, and comedians. Just before the show one of the local squatters in the park threatened to kill me and only the swift actions of Jason Bailey and the police saved your master of ceremonies from missing his appointed moment with show-biz immortality. We had pre-selected 25 acts for the show, but in the middle of this great contest an unregistered contestant, Bob Berube, showed up and begged me to let him enter. He said that he had stopped to get a ham sandwich and heard the show on the radio in the sub shop and thought his ability far outweighed the others. I asked him what his specialty was and he said Sinatra.

I should have known.

Anyway I let him enter as contestant 25B.

Needless to say he belted out "My Way" with a cigarette in one corner of his mouth and a half a sandwich in the other. I can tell you if it were up to me instead of the judges, he would have won. He since died and I will forever miss him. He had the biggest heart of any performer I've seen.

There was the discussion with Queen Elizabeth's private secretary in Buckingham Palace about the Queen's "annus horribilis" speech to Parliament and how the secretary thought I was a friend of the Queen even though I identified myself and the station. I can only tell you the gossip was fantastic.

But the show that stood out most in my mind is the one I did in 1993 with a couple that met in the death camp of Auschwitz. They both survived Dr. Mengele. They fell in love surrounded by unspeakable horror. They and the great souls around them were psychologically and physically subjected to things that only could be explained in Dante's Inferno. Yet through all of this they maintained their great dignity. It was the most difficult two hours of my life in this business. You could feel in their presence that there might really be a God.

All of this is memory now, and it's back to reality.

I get into the Upton Bell Mobile and head down Asnebumskit Road. It is a very long road but I'm in no hurry. I want to savor it one last time, since I always raced up and down it much too fast. I turn onto the highway and make a final stop at the Express Line for Russell's chicken-salad sandwich. And then I head home. But I am home, I say. For seven years, Worcester has been home.

I get ahold of myself and head east. It's been a long day and when I get home maybe I'll go to sleep. And maybe as Shakespeare said, "To sleep per chance to dream."