Not right, said Fred

"Wheelchair Fred" is mad as hell and off the air

By Chris Kanaracus

According to Fred Shearer, a/k/a "Wheelchair Fred," the popular hard-rock radio station WAAF (107.3 FM) was perfectly happy to let him take part in several years' worth of skits and personal appearances that exploited his massive speech impediment. But when he asked to be compensated for his efforts -- even in the form of a free CD -- the station cut off his microphone and sent him packing. He hasn't appeared on the station since late December.

Shearer, 37, has been confined to a wheelchair since August 17, 1984, when he was involved in a horrific motorcycle accident in Long Island, his birthplace. An elderly driver took a blind left turn directly into the path of Shearer's oncoming Harley Davidson, sending him flying some 50 feet off his bike and into a telephone pole. The wreck left Shearer's leg shattered in five places and damaged his spinal cord, resulting in the loss of use of his legs and a tortured, grating speaking voice.

"Most people think I'm either retarded or drunk. I'm cognitive, but not a genius," says Shearer, laughing. He's recently begun carrying small cards which explain his condition. Indeed, Shearer's speech impediment is so bad, an initial call he placed to Worcester Phoenix in early January didn't spark a story, mainly because managing editor John Michael Dobies couldn't figure out what Fred was talking about. Only a second call placed last week by Fred's case manager Kyla Dickson -- who acted as an interpreter -- did the trick.

Of course, one man's misfortune is some else's boon. In this case, the "someone else" was WAAF and its listeners. It all began around 1996, when Fred began calling in to the station's Opie & Anthony Show, and soon became an on-air fixture. After Opie & Anthony were fired in April 1998 for falsely claiming Boston mayor Tom Menino had died in a car crash as an April Fool's "joke", Fred disappeared for a while.

Fred resurfaced, though, in late 1999, with the semi-regular "What Said Fred?" segment. In the bit, midday DJ John Osterlind would play a recording of Fred saying a sentence or two or reciting the weekend's weather forecast. Then, callers would attempt to decipher his message for cash and prizes. Few actually succeeded.

Sometimes things got a bit more risqué. On one show, Fred was spanked on-air by a dominatrix, his cries of pleasure (or pain) captured on mic and sent across New England. For the most part, his appearances were done over the phone from his Framingham apartment. But occasionally, Fred also made appearances at various station events, signing autographs and generally just hanging around.

It was what happened after one such event last Halloween at Boston's Roxy that was the beginning of the end for WAAF and Fred's relationship. According to Fred, he and station management had an unofficial agreement that he'd be provided with transportation home after the party. Instead, he says, he was left alone at the end of the night and had to beg club patrons for the $40-50 cab ride home, an expenditure he says his meager SSI check can't cover very easily.

Shearer says when he asked the station to provide such a service, he was rebuked on grounds it would be too expensive. And he says he's been requesting a copy of the station's latest CD, Survive This, on which he appears, for four months, to no avail.

"I live like a dog already. They wanted me to do all this stuff, and I did. I worked there voluntarily, yes, but I couldn't afford the transportation."

The station's cries of poverty, on the other hand, ring somewhat more hollow. WAAF is one of the Northeast's hottest rock stations. While still somewhat behind bitter rival WBCN (104.1 FM) in the ratings, since moving their studios to Boston from Westborough in 1999 WAAF has moved up the charts. In the Arbitron rankings for the fourth quarter of 2000, WBCN nailed a four-way tie for seventh place with a 4.0 average rating. WAAF came in at #14, but with a respectable 3.0 rating.

The station has attracted new listeners with a testosterone-driven mix of the heaviest bands in mainstream rock, and the promise that when listeners tune in, they'll get a heaping helping of potty talk and sleazy laughs to go with the main dish of Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock.

Yet there's a certain yin-yang quality to WAAF: it's also one of the Worcester-Boston area's most committed stations when it comes to charity events and promotions. Morning host Greg Hill's annual "Walk For Change," in which Hill walks Route 9 from Worcester to Boston, garnered more than $50,000 last year to help feed the homeless. And the station has shown remarkable staying power in its support for the families of the six Worcester firefighters who died in the December 3, 1999 Worcester Cold Storage building fire, running a series of fundraisers.

Not to downplay those good works, but it's more likely WAAF's penchant for bad taste has garnered most of its notoriety, even with the notorious Opie & Anthony gone (in an interesting side note, the pair has returned to Boston radio on a limited basis with a syndicated version of their successful New York city show, this time on WBCN).

For example, in late October boorish afternoon drive hosts Rocko and Birdsey played tape recordings of what they claimed were actual confessions given at area churches. Listeners heard a man discuss his gambling problem, a woman cop to an extramarital affair, and a father admit to beating his child. After an instantaneous uproar from Boston's religious community, station management insisted the tapes were phony. But the Boston Herald reported rumors that Rocko and Birdsey were telling friends and acquaintances the confessions were legitimate.

Phony or not, WAAF's pranks have gotten more and more outrageous over the past few years. And don't expect that to change: in today's crowded radio market, what they produce -- entertainment for listeners and free publicity in other media -- are valuable commodities.

WAAF's midday host John Osterlind -- on whose show Fred made most of his recent appearances -- forsakes that formula somewhat, leavening his show with plenty of classic hits to go with the heavy rotation stuff and delivering extended monologues on a given song or band. Osterlind even offers the occasional negative opinion, a true rarity in today's commercial radio world. He's also one of the only on-air talents at the station who consistently took the time to explain Fred's condition to the audience and stress his clear mental faculties.

A call placed to Osterlind resulted in a return call from WAAF program manager Dave Douglas, who was hesitant to attack Fred but essentially dismissed his claims. "Here's the reality. We've paid Fred hundreds of dollars [over the years]. He's benefited greatly from his relationship with us." According to Douglas, the station has picked up Fred's cab fare on other nights or garnered him rides home after special events, and often springs for his drinks. Douglas says he was previously unaware of Fred's Halloween night plight, and will send Fred a check for $50. Also, says Douglas, the station has paid Shearer $200 for his appearance on the station's latest CD, Survive This, something Fred confirms.

"Apparently, he's asking us to up the ante," says Douglas. "We've had fun [working with Fred], but we're not prepared to put him on the payroll. We've been fair to him. For him to go to the press is just insulting."

While it seems Fred and WAAF's simmering feud amounts to an unresolvable, "he-said, they-said" exchange, Douglas does make a salient point. "We've had many people on, but not given them a thing. He chose to be a part of what we do. It's his choice."

Indeed, Fred isn't the only radio-show hanger-on out there. One doesn't have to look any further than the self-proclaimed King of all Media himself, Howard Stern, whose show regularly features a rogue's gallery of colorful characters (some would call them freaks), all of whom seem so eager to join Stern's cult of personality, they'll do and say practically anything.

While individuals like the crazed, pint-sized Beetlejuice, the mentally chicken-fried Crackhead Bob, and Fred the Elephant Boy (who, like Wheelchair Fred, gets laughs from a monstrous speech impediment) may make a few bucks here and there from personal appearances, they aren't on Stern's payroll. Neither are any of young women who often allow Stern and his cronies to, among other things, throw lunch meat at their bared buttocks.

But Stern's show -- and, in turn, stations like WAAF -- wouldn't be quite the same without the inclusion of an "extended family." Yet it's just as easy to pose another question to people like Fred: why would he submit himself to ridicule at such lengths?

"Because I enjoy the attention," he says half-jokingly. "If I didn't laugh at myself, I'd go insane. But partly it's to prove to the world that a person who sounds messed up may not be retarded or brain damaged or a drunk."

But did WAAF's listeners laugh with Fred, or at him? According to Fred, the likelihood it was the former doesn't matter to him. "Frankly, I don't give a damn."

Yet he does hold out some hope of a reconciliation with WAAF, albeit just barely. While he recently landed a part-time job at a Bertucci's restaurant in Wellesley, for the most part Fred is housebound. And with his family scattered around the country in New York, Florida, and South Carolina, it seems the semi-stardom he gained through WAAF meant a great deal.

"I've enjoyed the hell out of WAAF. I'd love to stay on the air. I like being a clown. . .[but] I've been screwed over by life in general. When this happened, I was like, "So what else is new?"