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The Big O Podcast - Episode #10: Gerry Callahan · The Big O Podcast

• Glenn Ordway: Well, today we're reconnecting with an old friend. And when I say old friend, this one goes back to the early eighties. He was a writer for the Lowell Sun. He was covering the Celtics. And so, yeah, we got to be friends. Driving in along in buses, riding in airplanes, going to playoff games. I'm talking about Jerry Callahan. Hello, Jerry. How are you, buddy? GC: Hey Big O, how are you? Congratulations on the show. It looks good. It sounds good. I'm a little surprised you don't have you know, a big sponsor for this didn't Ozempik give you call? No no call from Ozempik? Glenn Ordway: Well, I appreciate the the nice remarks. I re I really do. GC: You look good, man. You look trim. Glenn Ordway: I have dropped about fifty. I've got another thirty-five GC: Fifty. Glenn Ordway: to go. Yeah, I dropped fifty. I was obese. I don't know if you noticed, but GC: Ha ha ha. Glenn Ordway: I was obese. And it wasn't working well. I had a couple hip replacements and I finally said to myself, you know what? It's it's time. You know, can't be a fat shit for your entire life. You know, let's just cut it back and And so I'm healthy. I go to the gym. I do all of stuff that you did for for for years. I wanna GC: Yes. Glenn Ordway: start I wanna start with with obviously your voice issues, because people are going to hear it, and you have gallantly fought through this now for for years, and you do a daily show podcast with with Newsmax, and I applaud you for being able to fight through it every single day, but it certainly sounds like it's a challenge for you. GC: Yes, it is. It sucks. But you know, I will never be singing in the church choir and you know, that's I've known that for nineteen years now, but it's the you know, it's the long term effects of radiation and I just battle through it some days. I can't do a show and other days it's fine. So you do what you can do, brother. That's all that's that you know, that's where I am. It's it's it's a daily issue but I will battle through. Glenn Ordway: Well, never affected Johnny most. He was able to get through that the gravelly voice, you know, for his entire career. GC: Yeah, and I'm I'm a rare one though. I didn't smoke and I I would go when I Glenn Ordway: I know. GC: went to the doctor mass INER, I would be in a room full of people, all of you know, heavy smokers. And I just I don't know I I just bad luck, as my doctor says, sometimes it's just bad luck. Glenn Ordway: Yeah, I think you're right. I I there's no question about it. So this when I was first putting together the big show, you were one of the first people that I wanted. One, you were willing to throw out opinions, you were willing to laugh at yourself, which was part of the criteria of being on that program. And, you know, the other thing was that you were willing to say controversial shit. You you weren't shy about throwing something out there. Sometimes it got you in a little bit of trouble, but you weren't shy about doing it. So you were the perfect guy for that big show. And I think you did it for like a little over a year. And then GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: they put you together with Dino and you started midday, right? GC: Yes, we started ten to twelve. it was in the fall. We did that for two years. and then then six to ten, which was a big surprise. They called us, yeah, went to lunch with Jason Wolfe, and we thought they were gonna put Eddie and Dale in the morning and they were gonna ask us to take Eddie and Dale's shift. And they said, We want you to replace Imus, who sucked at that point. He was terrible. They had to do something. so we had the honor of replacing The fabulous sports babe, your old friend, in the ten to twelve slot, and then replacing Imus. And I must say, I know she was a nice lady, but we did not have tough acts to follow. It was it was it really to our advantage that we were following Imus, who was on his last legs and just mailing it in. So we weren't sure if it would work, you know, in the morning, but it did. And it did pretty quickly too, because people wanted you know, local show and they wanted some energy. IMIS was was just tapped out at that point. So it worked, you know, it was a little rough start at times. Dino, I heard Dino tell you, you know, it was an odd mix. He was used to that filter in his head. So he was reluctant to say things initially. And we literally had a meeting. He might not remember this, but we had a meeting with Jason and we were trying to teach him or remind him how to interrupt, you know, because he was trained with the mic to speak and not the other guys speak and then you speak, which is not natural. Interruptions, as you know, raise the energy level. Int Glenn Ordway: Tell me about it. GC: interruptions are part of a big part of successful talk radio. So once Dino learned to interrupt, you know, we were on our way. Glenn Ordway: Yeah, there there's no question that interruptions are part of it. And I have been accused of being an interrupter for my entire career and I accept it proudly because I think that's how you create good radio. Sometimes you get long-winded people that and and and I'm one of those people, you know. But you get long winded people and you sit there and say, Well, wait a minute, I want to attack what you're saying right now. And as you know, that creates that tension on a radio GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: show. GC: And you know what's amazing, Glenn? People still Glenn Ordway: You know, a lot of people think what's that? GC: don't understand that. I listen the the best, you know, cable news shows have some disagreement, perhaps even some, you know, disruption or or real, you know, real butting heads. and in TV especially, people still don't want to go there. Like to me, the best show on CNN is that Abby Phillips show. She brings on Scott Jennings. And another conservative, and then yell at him, and he yells back, and it goes viral on on Fox. The best show or the highest rated show in cable history is the five. And the best shows are when, you know, Glenn Greg Gutfeld and and Jessica Taroff are yelling at each other. People still don't understand that that is good. that that that's that's good radio, good TV. I had a conversation, I used to have Buck Sexton. on my show and I would go on his show and he was paired after Rush died with Clay Travis. And they're still together and they're still successful. So I have him on the day they started, he was on my podcast, and he said, You have a lot of experience in a you know two man booth. Now what what's it take? He was asking me and I said, You gotta disagree. I mean you gotta fight and he said, No, we're not gonna fight. We we get along great. And I go, it doesn't matter if you get along great. You gotta fight, you gotta raise that tension level. And to me, it's a very successful show and I like both those guys, love buck. But I w I listen occasionally and I want them to fight. I want them to disagree. I mean, I know we're gonna talk about Dino and Minahan, but we fought all the time and it didn't often usually didn't carry over into the breaks. It never with Menahan, it never carried over into the breaks. We got along great. But we would have these screaming matches. We'd go to break and we'd be fine. We'd get back on the air and we'd just go right back at it again. That's that works, as you know. That worked on the big show. And it worked in on our shows. I mean, you gotta disagree. That's what people do in real life. You know, they don't take turns talking when you're with your friends. You don't take turns. You talk over each other and you and you disagree, and occasionally you fight. That's that's the way people are. Glenn Ordway: I I I think it's far more difficult in the political world now, and that's where you are in the political world doing the podcast with Newsmax. It's much more difficult. People forget when Fox first put Hannerty on the air, they had a GC: Right. Glenn Ordway: guy by the name of was that Alan Cole, I think was his name, and he was a liberal. Yeah, Combs. GC: Yeah, co comms. Glenn Ordway: And they had a liberal on there, and it was a liberal and a conservative. Well, you could do that years ago. As you know, Jerry, there's more separation now than we've ever seen in our lifetime. You know, everybody to the right stays with the right, everybody to the left stays to the left. They don't talk in between. I think you're right. Abby Phillips show does have Scott Jennings, and they have a couple of other conservatives on there and they argue that point. But in sports, it's totally different. I don't know why, you know, we don't have more of that stuff. And when I was starting it at EEI as program director. You may remember this. I put Eddie and Dale together. Eddie hated GC: Yes. Glenn Ordway: the fact that I was putting in with Dale because he had nothing in common with Dale. And Dale hated the fact that I was putting Eddie in there with him because he had nothing in common with Eddie. And that was the main reason I was putting the two together. You know, this, you know. GC: It was your best move, Glenn. It was it was your best move. It was a great move. They both hated it and they both I'm not I don't necessarily think they wanted it to fail, but they didn't want to to to give in to the formula of of two guys button heads and they couldn't help it. They hated each other and it it was daily, daily. There was tension, there was fights and and we know they stormed out of the studio and they didn't you know, get along, but it worked. That was your best move. I mean there was others that were questionable but that one worked and it kind of set the tone. I I I I think that about all the shows. When when Dale needed a partner, I forget whether it was Holly or knew me, I was pushing Jason, I believe it was Jason at the time, to put Falgar with him because I know they wouldn't get along. I mean they're both hockey guys. But I said this would work because Dale wouldn't like it. Felga probably wouldn't like it, but the the tension would be real. That's the diff I mean, you can have fake tension. You see that, like on Stephen A. Smith's show, but it would be real. You would have real, you know, real hate, which works, which is good radio. Guys that just, you know, genuinely, you know, have a real, you know, animosity for each other. Eddie and Dale was a great show. Glenn Ordway: But chemistry it and when people talk about chemistry, chemistry doesn't necessarily mean that you have a love fest between the two hosts of three people in a studio. That doesn't necessarily mean chemistry. Sometimes chemistry can be the friction that goes back and forth between the two. Th what I always was looking for w with radio, and we tried to do with the big show, is I wanted it to be unpredictable. And you guys, I think Did the same thing. There was, it was, you never knew what was going to happen next. You never knew what was going to come out of Dino's mouth. And then when you added Kirk Minahan into the equation, all bets were off as to what was going to happen next. They're talking about being unpredictable. But being unpredictable to me is the reason that you almost forced the listener. I gotta, I gotta hear that show today because I'm afraid I'm going to miss something. And I GC: That's the key. Glenn Ordway: think that is what worked, Jerry. GC: I mean, when I was writing columns, somebody told my my old sports editor, my mentor, Bob Sayles said, as soon as they know what you're gonna write, they stop reading. You know, you have to I mean, they know where you stand, like on issues. They know, you know, I'm a right wing zealot. But if they know what you're gonna say, they stop reading. If they know what you're gonna say on a talk show, they stop listening. You have t there has to be the element Of unpredictability and I'll take it a step further. There has to be some danger. They have they have to wonder, is this the day he steps in it? Is this the day, you know, he goes to the line and crosses it? And I mean, Minahan did that better than anyone. I mean, he did it he to his detriment at times, but he you weren't sure if this was the day that he would get fired or this was the day he'd get, you know, the globe would come come, you know. organize a protest and and and chase him off the air. I mean there was always a little danger in the air. And Dino was the same way to an extent. You never knew if the he was he I mean, let's be honest, my two partners, Dino and and Kirk, were they were both crazy. I mean they were both they were both unpredictable in that way because you weren't sure if this was the day they would say something that was just a little too far. And That really works. They were they were both great at keeping keeping peop keeping people guessing. Would they would they, you know, break the rules today? Glenn Ordway: Well, it it didn't start that way with Dino. it got that way with Dino. He became very unpredictable. GC: it got well yeah, you're right. You're right. Glenn Ordway: When you when you started with Dino, he came over from TV. He was the anchor at Six and Eleven on Channel Seven. And he so he's doing three and a half minutes. He's playing clips, of the game and post-game interviews And it's funny because I took him to task on when we had him on on his episode. About the statement that he made, because we not only rolled our eyes, we basically said to Jason, What the fuck are you doing putting Dino in there? He's a TV guy. He just told Jim Baker that he's going to raise the bar. And we're sitting there going, What are you talking about, Dino? That's you're getting into the wrong business. But he admitted that he was just trying to appease the writer, suck up to the writer. He admitted that very quickly he found out. That wasn't working. And I think you could tell, Jerry, within two weeks, Dino was figuring out what you were doing. And you I I'm wondering what you were doing to kind of pull that out of him because he became much different and was very, very successful with you. GC: Like Glenn, I seriously on the first day, I said, we are not raising the bar. We are not. That's not what we're doing. And he said, at the same time, he said he wanted to be a show that the players and coaches could listen to. And I said, no, we want to be the show everyone listens to. This is broadcasting, not narrow casting. We want everyone to listen. And you're right. He was trained in TV, and TV guys, you know, have that filter. They have that. voice in their head to not not go there, not say that. And I was worried at the time. Let me tell you something. You might remember this. The first guy they called to pair with me was Michael Barcan, who was a good friend of mine and great guy. I am so lucky that Barcan turned him down and moved to Philly. He would have been fine. It would have been forgettable. It would have been a good show. Okay. I don't know how long it would have lasted. I am so lucky that he turned it down and they and they went to Dino, who was you're at at the beginning who was careful and he had the filter, but man, when it came off, it came all the way off. And he became, you know, one of those guys who made you wonder, is he gonna lose his mind today? Is he gonna, you know, rip Jerry a new one? Is he gonna get in trouble? And the all the whole TV training that went by the wayside, and I'll say this, I think he mentioned this. I've said this a million times. Radio and TV are so different. In TV, you can fake it. You can pretend to be someone you're not. Guys do it all the time. You know, you know who I'm talking about. They can do two minutes and seem like just the most normal, and then off the air, they're a whole different person. In radio, because you're on four hours, it's spontaneous, you're taking calls, you're arguing, debating. It's you know 20 hours a week. You see who the person is. You you see the real person. You know, you see that IMAS is a mean old man, you know, you seem the only guy who could be someone off the air and someone totally different on the air was Eddie. Dino, we got to see the real Dino after he got comfortable. It was, you know, it w he was you know, loud and and and and a little crazy and he could laugh and have fun. He had energy, opinions, he wanted a debate to fight. That guy that wasn't a T V guy anymore. That was a radio guy, you know? You, everybody, you know, you name it, they're we all know who they are from radio. In TV you don't you don't know who that person really is. They're reading the script, they're doing two, three minutes, and that's it. Radio, they're they're they're standing there naked for all the world to see. Glenn Ordway: Well, that's funny because they always tell you, you know, when you go to any of these broadcasting conventions, the first thing some management person will say is if you're going on the air, you've got to be yourself. And yet you're right. There GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: are so many other guys out there that maybe they they look at themselves much differently. Then we look at them, but they really don't become their selves. And I think if you are the same person off the air that you're on the air, and obviously you got FCC regulations, so you can't drop the F bomb an awful lot. I I I I just think you're far better off with the audience because you're on for so many hours, you're on for twenty hours a week. You just can't fool the people. Eventually they're gonna figure you out. And yet that's the lecture you get. all the time about it. So the show was taking off and you got rid of writing. You were a great writer. Not a good writer, Jerry. You were a great writer. You were one of the best writers Sports Illustrated had, and yet you decided on putting down the the pen or putting down the the laptop or the old typewriter for this radio business. Well why did you give up on writing? GC: Well, I didn't give up on it. I continue to write for the Herald like twice a week, but thanks for noticing. I the two years we did Tender Noon, I was a senior writer at SI and they sent me on the road every week, somewhere. Just I mean, that's that's the part of the job which sucked. I mean, you were always on the road. And they had this little thing. These were this was long before, you know, Zoom. And it was called the hotbox. Maybe you used it once or twice, you hook it up to the phone. And it's and you have good audio. And I would do half the shows from a you know hotel room, which was hard, but Dino and I made it work. I remember one time, who the hell was it? I should remember this. And it was a really uncomfortable interview in studio. Dino and the guy, if you give me a minute, I'll think of it. And it was it was uncomfortable and tense. And I'm sitting in a hotel room, you know, in my underwear, and I'm participating in the interview. But Dino was forced to sit with the guy. And we it was over. We said goodbye, and he just says, You asshole, you leave me here by myself. I go, hey, you know, that's the way it is. He was not serious, but and then six to ten, I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't be on the road all the time. So I had a choice to take the radio gig and give up Sports Illustrated. And a lot of people were like, Are you nuts? It's Sports Illustrated. And I go, I'm getting about a eight hundred percent raised here. I'm and I don't have to travel. I have to I can't sleep anymore, but it was an easy decision. The money and radio was so much better. And the you know the life the lifestyle was better. I was no longer, you know, spending five days a week in Seattle. I was I was home with and my kids were young. It was it was a great move and it was it was it was not a tough decision. Glenn Ordway: Well, and course that as you said, the the money in in radio was great. I I don't think people realize, especially on a local level right now, how little money some of these sports writers make. I mean, it's it's a especially the this day and age when digital technology has taken over and there are sports websites everywhere out there, that these guys aren't making an awful lot of money. So you were getting along great with with Dino. There were probably days like All of us when you're sitting there saying, shit, I gotta go in there and work with this guy or whatever. But the show was really getting unbelievable ratings. You were owning the market. Now here we were an AM radio station. You were number one in the morning, not just in men, not just in men twenty-five fifty-four. You were number one in adults. All right. And we were doing the same in afternoon drive. And those ratings were through. The roof on an AM radio station, which was unheard of at the time. I I heard Fred Tutcher talk about this recently, and he was talking about how it was not really fun in the days at EEI. I don't know where he picked this shit up from. He was comparing it to music stations and you know, so many women in music stations or whatever. I don't know about you, but I had a blast during those days. And was there tension? Yeah, there was tension from show to show. Certainly a lot of it worked for us. So when you would go and say something or rip me or make fun of me in the morning, I was gonna go right back at you at two o'clock in the afternoon because I thought it was great for the radio show. You and I both had thick skin. I think Dino did at times. you know, and Minahan used it, I think, to play his shtick, to play his role in the show. But I enjoyed that back and forth. We didn't take it personally. You and I would have phone conversations all the time and we'd sit there and say, hey, that was pretty funny what you did today. You made fun of me about this, or you made fun of me about that. By the way, I do remember 2016, you made fun of me because I said on the radio in the primary I was gonna vote for Marco Rubio. right now you're probably 100% in agreement for with me for GC: Ooh. Glenn Ordway: 2028. 'Cause I didn't like the fact that Trump was this egomaniac that had to get out there in social media and some of the stuff he was he was putting out there was driving me crazy. I said, Marco Rubio is a statesman. He's the adult in the room, he's the guy we want in the White House. You probably agree with me now, don't you? GC: Yeah, yeah, he gave a great speech today in Greece. And I believe at that time I was supporting Ted Cruz. And but my my logic as always was I want to win. You know, like I I don't deny that I supported Ron DeSantis. Nothing against Trump at the time, but Trump was 35 years older. He was facing, you know, a million felony charges, and he could only serve one term. And I said, DeSantis. has no baggage, no dirt, and he could serve two terms. I was being practical and people still come at me and say, yeah, you didn't support Trump. I I I supported Trump in twenty sixteen, of course, against Hillary. And in every general election, I was just thinking I wanted to win. And I thought DeSantis had a good chance to win. Turns out I was wrong. Trump was right. and I support him again, of course. But I forgot about that, Marco Rubio. But you want me to tell the The Jeff Brown story now, since you're talking about the election in in and you know, politics. I I know our former GM Jeff Brown, who was just the worst. And he was brought in to cut to cut costs and fire people, and he fired or essentially fired Meter Perel from our show, who we loved, you know, meter. He was great, he was funny, he was a big part of the show. And I thought his contract was up and I thought He was gonna get a raise. I thought he deserved a raise. And he comes to me and says, What am I supposed to do? I What do you mean? He goes, Jeff Brown just offered me a like a fifty percent pay cut. I said, What? And I literally I asked and they said, Yep, we're we're cutting costs. I said, meter. I you know, I can't tell you to take it. That's that's brutal. That's that's unfair. And he didn't. He said, Screw you, and he left. but Jeff Brown, the the famous or to me, the most memorable moment with Jeff Brown was in the twenty And I and we had a good relationship with Mitt Romney. That's how times have changed. I can't stand Mitt now. But he was almost president. He was, in fact, leading in the polls at one point. So it's the New Hampshire primary day in November. I think it's that day, the Tuesday. I mean, not New Yeah. Is it no, that was the election day. It was the he'd won the primary, he was the candidate. Anyway, it's election day. And we're on the air. And Mitt calls in to our show. And he says on the air, this is my favorite radio show. Love you guys, John, Jerry. And we got along good with Mitt. And we talked to him about the election. He told people to get out and vote. Good, you know, good interview, little, you know, kissed a little ass, but we thought this might be the president. And he was, you know, on a first name basis. So we're like talking to him and appreciate the call and all that. Show ends. We get called into Jeff Brown's office and he just blows up. He's in my face, pointing at I'm in his face. He is screaming at me. I told you no politics on the show. And we go, What? That that's the that that could be the president. And he's calling into us. Are we supposed to not take his call? And he says, Yes. I go, You gotta be kidding me. And I'll never forget this. He's swearing. He goes, I don't fucking care if a helicopter lands right there. He points to the courtyard in front of the building. says in and Barack Obama gets out of that helicopter, walks in your studio, you kick him out, you do not interview him. I go, Are you fucking out of your mind? What are you he goes, No more politics. And that's when I knew, you know, this guy was just bad news and it wasn't and and either he was gonna go or we were gonna go. He was just the worst. Glenn Ordway: He was the worst general manager I ever, ever remember. And the fact that they didn't want you guys to talk politics, you were kind of defying them all. Because let's face it, Jerry, you know, Massachusetts is a is as blue a state as you're gonna find. You and Dino were quite conservative. I actually said it to Dino, I thought he kind of passed you if you're going through the the The middle, the center, the left, the right, he kind of passed GC: Yeah, you can. Glenn Ordway: you to the right. But he was he was more of a middle of the road guy early on in that show. But you were doing it in a blue state. I live most of the year in Arizona. We go back and forth, but I'm in a purple state. It is so totally different in that you can actually have conversations with Democrats and people across the aisle. Republicans can do that. But you but they were frightened of that because they were frightened of being in the blue state, and yet you were getting phenomenal ratings. So obviously it was translating to the audience, at least the audience that you wanted to to to secure. GC: And we would put people on, take calls, put put you know, we'd put people on and fight with them, argue with them. I mean, that's something you don't see very often anymore. We you you pr Yeah, Glenn Ordway: Marty Walsh. Marty Walsh. Yeah. GC: we're Marty Well, we would put them top of the line top of the list. In if we took calls, if you wanted to disagree, if you wanted to fight, you went to the top of the list. You went you were you know, would get right to you. We wanted that. And Dino and I would look For things to disagree about, disagree on and and fight about it. I mean, it was it's what we wanted. I mean, the idea that you wanna agree on everything, again, who wants to hear that? Who wants to listen to that? And I know I didn't I don't. Glenn Ordway: Okay. So then after the Kevin Winter experiment, Kirk Minahan becomes the third guy on the on the show. it's funny because I even brought this up last week that I remember Kirk being in the hallway and he seemed to be the shy type of guy. He was a very, very good writer. He was writing for the website and he was coming up with some really interesting, I think, topics and and theories and whatever. But he was really a a quiet guy. I'd worked with him a little bit on the air. Now suddenly he becomes the third guy. So, how quickly did he find his footing on that show? Because there was no question, there was a point somewhere early on where he said, I need to step up. I need to be the guy. He talked about this with us, and he said that he had to find his holding on there, and then suddenly seemed to grab and take the whole show in his direction. Right? GC: Yeah, I mean, it was I d I don't know the exact moment of the show, but it was a great move. You know, Kevin Winter just, you know, didn't work. we hired him because of ESPN. They were trying to make some deals with ESPN and he was an ESPN guy, but he wasn't on the same page as we were. He was totally sporty and he didn't want to fight anyway. Then we tried out a few people and Minahan, you know, was the choice. And I think You know, he told you the story that he didn't want to be in a separate booth. He wanted to be in the room with us. And it worked. I mean, there was it it it you just never knew. It never knew what we was gonna say, which is good radio. And he was like I think one one thing we we had in common, Kirk, Dino, me, was we were all, you know, really, you know, competitive driven, and we wanted to win. You know, we wanted to win. The weekly, we want win the monthly. We wanted to win that day. You know, we wanted every segment to be good radio. And Kirk knew that right away. And we would at times feel like it was a little lull or a little, you know, kind of boring segment. And we would he would immediately just say something outrageous. We'd fight, we'd laugh, would the energy level would go up and it just worked. And he would show up the next day and do it again. I I always I tell this to people's, you know, it's amazing. I did twenty years in the morning, six to ten. Dino did whatever it was, eighteen and Kirk was there, how many, four or five? None of us was ever late. You know, none of us was ever late, you know, which was amazing because down the hall was our good buddy Lyndon Byers, who was running in late every day. He was great, but I mean he he was just a fun guy. But and you hear lots of People show up late. We were never late. You know, we were always there, always ready to go, always, you know, had the the energy and sometimes it was a little, you know, maniacal, you know, sometimes it was a little Glenn Ordway: Little. GC: over the top, but every all you know, we all came, you know, ready to go that day. And Kirk was just I mean, it was just fun. You know, we had Toucher is wrong. We had a blast. We laughed every day. We were never sure what he was gonna do. He he pulled some, you know, great stunts. I'll tell you one. I'll never forget this one. remember Peter King was on the midday all the time with Dale. Well, Pete Glenn Ordway: Yes. He was a regular. Yeah. GC: Yeah, Peter King was famous for long-winded answers, and we would make fun of it. He'd tell this, give this answer to a question, would go for five minutes. So one day, we the he'd been on the day before and he had this ridiculously long answer. So Kirk comes up with something. I think I might have actually thought of it, but he did it. He was he was willing to do anything. And the answer starts. Kirk leaves the studio, down the stairs, across the street to the New Balance gym. We have a camera chasing him. Gets on the bench, does a set of bench press, not a lot of weight, but does like five reps back on the bench, across the street, up the stairs, back in the studio before Peter King finished. One answer. It was great. Glenn Ordway: he did some crazy, crazy shit. I mean the the Fire Felger protest in front of the ninety eight point five building was just absolutely unbelievable theater. And he did it for the whole period. He was online with you during the whole period he was doing it and you guys got all the video. So now Kirk is kind of becoming really a a force here. On your show. Kirk talked about the fact that you and he were this tight. I knew it because I you guys were inseparable. All right. He called you a big brother. Was there now a separation? Were you starting to see that Dino was because he talked about this and how the last year was the worst year of his life of that show? Did you start to see Dino's dissatisfaction? Dino kind of separating from the two? Did that become a tense? situation behind closed doors. GC: Yeah, but I don't think I don't remember it being that bad. Dino and Kirk were not like good friends. I was good frick and I were good best friends. and they just had disagreements on how to do, you know, the show and Kirk was kind of dominating and taking over. And I didn't know Dino was that miserable. I didn't. And honestly, you were there when he left for rehab. I thought he was coming back. I thought you and Tangwei and maybe one or two other guys were gonna fill in. I mean, we had like a month. I I we weren't planning, plotting replace him with you. 'Cause I mean, eventually he left and we didn't have try to replace him with you. You know, we didn't need anyone else. but I didn't know he was that miserable. I didn't realize he gave up a year's salary or was willing to to get away because Glenn Ordway: Said he was miserable for a year. GC: It I mean, but we were still doing a good show and we were still having a good time and you know, Dino had his issues, but I didn't know he was that miserable. I know they disagreed a lot, but mostly on the air. You know, it was not we weren't hiding it. It wasn't one of those deals where Dino was, you know, all smiles on the air and and miserable off the air. They were we were battling it out on the air. They just disagreed on how to do the show at times and you know, Kirk was kind of forcing, you know, us to do it his way and I was agreeing with him and we were getting good ratings and having a good time. So I I thought Dino could have come back. I I don't remember him being that unhappy, but I guess he was. Glenn Ordway: He claims that when he went to rehab, I came in actually to fill in for him for two weeks, which GC: Right. Glenn Ordway: we we talked about, which was absolutely hysterical because you and Kirk had been trying to get me back to the into the radio station again. And I appreciated that by both of you guys. But then when you finally did get me in, Kevin Graham, we talked about this. Kevin Graham, the program director, wanted nothing to do with me. And when I showed up On that Monday morning at six AM to do the the the broadcast with you guys, he shows up about two hours later, about eight o'clock, and he's freaking out because I'm suddenly in the studio and he's supposedly running the programming department. But so Dino goes now for a couple weeks for rehab. He claims that during that period of time that you and Kirk conspired to go to Phil Zachary and say, when he comes back, can we move? into another direction without Dino. Did it ever happen? GC: I don't remember that. No. Yeah, I didn't do that. No, no. But I w I was you know, the I I'm the one that snuck you in the back door when you they didn't want you even filling in. And I didn't understand why. So we didn't tell didn't tell anyone, and we didn't even want to take you in the front door where the you know, security could see you and stop you. So you came up the back Glenn Ordway: Right. GC: steps and we sneak you in right at like six five, we do the show. Kevin Graham calls us in, flips out. I don't want him. And I and I honestly, Graham was a good guy. He was just naive. He was a hick. And he thought you were Pete Shepard. He honestly, you know, he thought you were, you know, gonna be this guy, this bomb tosser who would who would rip the station and, you know, sink in ship and all the things. Pete said he thought that was you. That's how bad it was. And eventually we convinced him that you're not Pete Shepard and you weren't, I mean Kirk would flat out say, you know, y you would love this guy. He's sporty Mackenzie. He's not gonna get in any trouble. And and Graham eventually understood that you weren't Pete. but when there there was no I never conspired to get Dino, you know, kicked off the show. That never happened. Glenn Ordway: Yeah, I know he he after that, Kevin Graham was fine with me. And you're right, he was a nice guy, but he didn't understand the market. He was another one of those guys that intercom said, we can take anybody in any market, move them to Boston. Can't do that. Boston is a very unique market and Philadelphia GC: Dino, Dino, Glenn Ordway: is yeah. GC: Dino would say when he was retiring, he would say on the air, I got eight more months till I retire. And so we just thought, I thought we got eight more months, you know. And I forget how much time he had left when he left, and when he quit or, you know, got bought out or whatever. But he was planning on leaving, you know, not that long after he, you know, went to rehab and came back. So I don't think There was ever a point where we said, like, he's gotta go. That didn't happen. Glenn Ordway: All right, there were some bizarre things that happened in the years with your show, and I need some answers on this one because I do remember the stories. I just don't remember the particulars. You had a stripper in the studio one day. I think Dino was off that day. And GC: Yes, he was off. Glenn Ordway: there were he was off, right? Yeah, there was a GC: Yeah, Fellager was filling in. Glenn Ordway: Felger was filling it. GC: Belga was filling in. We had the most beautiful stripper. She was blonde. She was from like Iowa. And she set her breasts on fire. She like put whatever on them lighter fluid and set her and it burned a hole or like a patch in the mall in the studio. And it was wild. But Glenn Ordway: Yeah, it was a carpeted wall and GC: remember that? We had that that brown patch from the burn that this stripper. And she was beautiful. She ended up Glenn Ordway: Yeah, yeah, it was there for a long time. GC: she died of something, you know, strippers, you know. OD'd or something, but so it was fun. We had some laughs and I think she got Felger to actually light the torch for her. anyway, you know, it was fun, funny, and but there were people at the station that didn't like that. And I was yeah. Glenn Ordway: no, no, no. They were pissed. GC: And right, we put up paper so you couldn't look in the window. So they didn't see her. Only we saw her, and they were offended. So I found that kind of puzzling. You heard her. So you heard a stripper and it offended you? And then we pretended it was some, you know, five foot, three inch, three hundred-pound woman who didn't strip, just pretended to be a stripper, and they had nothing. What are you gonna say to that? there wasn't actually a stripper in the studio. It was just a woman, some old ugly woman pretending to be a stripper. And yet Dale and a few others still thought that was so offensive that we pretended to have a stripper in the studio. Glenn Ordway: Well, Dale had to Dale had to see that big burnt spot on in the s on the wall of the studio for GC: Yeah, that's true. Glenn Ordway: months after that. I listen, I I got some scrutiny, obviously, from some of the stuff we did, but I think you guys got far more scrutiny. They were scared shitless of some of the stuff you were doing. I remember when you first brought this guy on, Mr. Skin, and Mr. Skin GC: yeah. Glenn Ordway: was a guy, yeah, who would watch movies, not porn movies. These were movies, you know, regular movies that you would you would You would see out in the public. And he would find some scene that had nudity. And he would go back into old records and find like female, you know, actresses that did a nude scene that people totally forgot about. And you guys would do a regular segment and they didn't like that. The station didn't like that. It was a it was again, it was a thing where they were sitting there saying, you know, we're gonna get a lot of shit for this. GC: He was amazing. Any movie. Any movie. He didn't have notes. He didn't look up things. You could mention a movie from, you know, the fifties or sixties or some obscure movie. He will tell you how Glenn Ordway: Yeah. GC: long the nude scene is, who's in it. that was just a nip slip. That's it he would say. there was a nip slip at the end of that movie, and he would tell you who the actress was, and we would take calls. And he you couldn't stump You name a movie, he would tell you the nude scene, who it was, how long it was. It was amaz it was great radio. Stern took I don't know if we found him and s I think we f we discover I don't know, I don't know who did it first, but he was a regular on Stern also. Got I was gonna say we beat three times. We were on AM radio and we beat him three times. Stern on FM. That was perhaps the the greatest accomplishment of the of the Dennis and Callahan show, beating Stern while on AM. It's hard to believe that was even possible. Glenn Ordway: Well, I get shit from people sometimes when I sit there and talk too much about the main failure with a radio station. If you're looking for one significant fact because we're talking about EEI, a legacy radio station, legendary radio station, and then it all fell apart. If you want to know the number one reason, and there are ten reasons, there's not just one, but if you want the number one reason, is that they decided on staying on the AM dial. When FM had taken over and nobody under the age of 40 was listening to AM radio, and we were trying to attract an audience of twenty-five to fifty-four. So we only had about fourteen years of that that demographic group. And it was stubborn on the part of our CEO, David Field, because they were making think about this. Four million dollars from the ninety-three point seven signal, which was Mike FN. They were playing automated music, didn't have a single employee on the air. No disc jockeys, just automated music, but they were making four million a year. They ended up losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of the demise of WEEI, because at one time WEE was one of the top billers in the country. We were billing over $50 million a year. In this day and age, $25 million a year. Is an accomplishment. But I do remember, Jerry, the Boston Globe of all papers, and we'll get to our conflicts with the Boston Globe. But the Boston Globe in 2009, and this is when 98.5 was coming on the air, they did a magazine, Boston Globe Sunday magazine feature on how AM radio is dying. Now, our CEO loved the Boston Globe. He was very liberal. That was his political persuasion. And they did a whole piece and said that only 18% of the public under the age of 40 still listens to AM radio. And so here we were out there trying to get every one of the 18% that were listening to AM radio. It was the most foolish argument in the world. We tried challenging the CEO. Everybody on our floor, Julie Kahn. Jason Wolf, all of the people that we were working with, management people, they were with us. They believed in it. It was all that one guy, David Field, and he needed the four million bucks. GC: It was it's amazing to think back to that. We were on AM and we were competitive and times we were number one while on AM going against FM, going against Howard Stern and other FM signals. And he had the FM signals. He could have made the switch at any time. And you knew he was eventually gonna do it. He was just too stubborn. He just wouldn't give it up, put us on FM and let us, you know, do our thing. It was so frustrating. I remember this too. I I I'm you know, I'm bragging here, but they were wondering what to do with Mike. Was it Mike 937? And I pushed hard. I said, You should go country. And they're like, What? This is New England. I said, Country is is common, man. I was getting into country music. I still like it. and I implored, I said, You gotta go country. That's where it's at. And they said, No. And look back now, all the top rate, top Billing stations in the country are are are are country stations now, including in Boston. But he he had terrible instincts. He was a terrible CEO, as you know. Hell, his father's company went bankrupt and he sold it to George Soros. That's quite the ignomin ignominious end for our CEO. Glenn Ordway: Unbelievable. And that was, I think, the FM, not going to FM was number one. Now there are tons of other things. But I do want to get back to the stripper thing because I wanted to bring up a story that I remember quite well. It was a prank that the guys are down the hallway at WAAF pulled on us. And then it it was you, Greg. It was you. Greg Hill. It was you. I know it was you. So they had a stripper in the studio, woman with a quite large breast. And they had her on the air on AAF and they said, We're gonna prank the guys down at EEI. We were on the air at the big show in the afternoon. And so they sent this stripper down. She walks right into the studio, because as you know, there's no security once you're in the building. You can walk into any studio. She walks into the studio. Now I was the target, but she's they told her you want to go for the big O. So she, I think, is looking for the largest person in the studio. The largest person in the studio happened to be Larry Johnson. Okay? Now, GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: Larry Johnson, as you know, was a devout Christian. He was a minister. the last thing that Larry Johnson wanted to see is a couple of large breasts walking into the studio. Not only did she come into the studio, once she realized this must be the big old, the biggest guy in the studio, she goes right over him. She nestles the breast right up into his face GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: and does the old motorboat right in Larry Burr Larry Johnson, excuse me, Larry Johnson's face. The expression, the look on LJ's face was priceless, Jerry. It was priceless. And we laughed our ass off for the rest of the show. And we started making bits about it. And Larry, I think, was very uncomfortable about the bits that we were doing about it. GC: telling you, I didn't hear what f fr when when Fred Tutcher said this, where do you say this on the air, that we didn't have fun? I mean, that's Glenn Ordway: Yeah. Yeah. GC: that's insane. I mean, we had a blast. We had a blast for years. We had I mean, I right up till the end, Minahan and I had a great time. We laughed our asses off every day. I mean, there were pranks, stuff like that, and the Fire Felger that were just hysterically funny. I mean we I I can't tell you how many times I I couldn't talk. I couldn't because I was laughing so hard. There were some just great, great times. I mean good times. It was I miss that. I mean I do a podcast Glenn Ordway: Yeah, I don't GC: every day. I miss I miss that team, you know, of having guys that are that are on the same page, you know, fighting for the same thing and having a good time while they're doing it. I mean it was that was what it was all about, you know. You you can't listen to a radio show where the hosts are laughing their asses off and not laugh. I mean, like we forced Gary Tangway to storm out of the studio twice, twice. And it Glenn Ordway: Why's it? GC: was hysterical. I mean, he was mad. I forget even what it was about. And we just couldn't, we needed a someone to come in to talk because we couldn't talk. We were laughing so hard. And, you know, the station manager, I think it was Zachary, wanted to fire him. For storming out. You don't do that. It's unprofessional. I go, it's good radio. It was funny. It was what we were looking for. And we didn't want them fired. We love Tang Wei. But we could push the buttons and get them all flustered and get them pissed and force them to walk out, which was just perfect radio. You know, if you're listening to that, are you changing the station? That you're you're a guy's getting so upset and so flustered that he storms out? Genuinely not a stunt. Genuinely. That's that's what you're looking for. That's what you're striving for, like that kind of radio. Glenn Ordway: Yeah, the spontaneity. I mean, that is what worked. was some of it forced? Yeah, probably some of it was forced. Once you knew something was working, you stayed with it. You know, you d beat up on it until, you know, there was there was nothing there was no life left to the joke. when management in the last few years took over it EEI, one of the things they wanted to do, Mike Thomas went over there and he he was told these stories about how everybody hated each other at EEI. They didn't get along, and that was so far from the truth. A lot of that stuff was played up, and as I said, most of it was real, maybe exaggerated a little bit. It was spontaneous. But the only issue that there ever was is some of the people in there, like Dale Arnold, and we all like Dale. But Dale had a different approach to doing sports talk than the rest of us. So okay, we let Dale do what he wanted to do. And it worked for Dale. He was successful there. We did what we wanted to do as well. But I don't think there was this great hatred. Now I think at the end with Minahan, you know, and Kirk admits it now. You know, he pissed off a lot of people. He understands why people hated him during that period because He was trying to find himself. He wanted to be the number one guy. You know, there are many shows that you guys did in which he screamed and said, I hate Tino. I hate Jerry. I want to be the number one guy. That was part of him trying to advance his career. And so I think there was some of that then with Kirk at the end. But overall, you're right. It it was a fun atmosphere and we couldn't wait to yeah. GC: It was it you know, you know what? I that wasn't real. I honestly. Kirk and I fought on the air every day. We never fought off the air until, you know, we were fired or he was forced out, whatever, and then I was fired. And then things, you know, went sideways. But we never fought off the air. We agreed like this is what we want to do, the direction of the show. And I don't remember Dino, you know, really you know Disagreeing on that, he laughed too. Dino was the best laugher in the business. You could make a joke that was marginally funny, and he would laugh, and the energy level would go up. That's what you want. There's nothing worse, and you know this, than being in the studio with someone and you say something funny, and they just look at you and you like this isn't working. You need to sell the joke. And Dino was the best at that. And Kirk was a, you know, a funny bastard no matter what. I was genuinely laughing, you know, I wasn't faking, but you kinda amplify it, you know? And I think we had thick skin. I did, Kirk did, Dino for the most part did, and you had the thickest skin of all, which is what it takes. Dale didn't. Dale didn't want to do it that way, which is fine. And he didn't want to play along with all our, you know, intramural, interf you know, intrafighting. but but that was fine. there was some real hate. Eddie and Dino. I mean, he I heard him tell you it was real. he used to like me too. Eddie and I were friends until I teamed up with Dino. And I don't know if he thought we were some kind of threat, but he never talked to me after that. He didn't hate me like he hated Dino. I was in the hall, I an eyewitness, and he slams his shoulder into Dino, just walking by. And Dino looks at him and goes, What is wrong with you? And Dino and Eddie just goes, fuck you, fuck you. He was just, he hated, he hated. We had Upton Bell on. Upton Bell's a great guy. Just everyone liked Upton Bell. Eddie hated him for some reason. So we have him on. He does a segment. And I walk to the elevator with him. He's waiting for the elevator. We're just talking. Eddie comes out of his office, follows us, looks at Upton, goes, You're a fucking piece of shit. Upton looks at him and goes, What? He goes, You're a fucking and he walks away. And Upton looks at me, he goes, What was that about? I go, I don't know, man. He just doesn't like you. He was I'll say this. Eddie was fearless. He told he wanted to beat up Fred Smurless. You know that. He went in the studio, said he was gonna Glenn Ordway: Yes. Yes. GC: kick kick Fred Smurless. Fred, Fred's like one of the ten toughest people in the world in his prime. I mean, he was Glenn Ordway: So I was I w I'll tell you, Cherry. I'll tell you that one. I was there for that one. It was on a Sunday afternoon. We were doing real post-game show on Sunday afternoon. Eddie is in there. I don't know why. He wasn't on the air. He was in there with his wife, Fabulous Judy, and they were up and down the hallway. And I even waved to him, you know, and he out of nowhere, we're doing the show. We go to a commercial break. Eddie comes storming into the studio. He had to go to the producer's booth first in those old days. Down in Huntington Avenue studios. Then he came bursting into the studio, and Fred has got his feet up his legs on the on the table. He has to because he had bad knees and still does. He can hardly walk now. And so he had to elevate his legs when he was sitting for long periods of time. Eddie yells at him, get your fucking feet off that table. And Fred goes, Excuse me? He says, get GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: them off the table right now. He said, why? Because they're smelly socks and I have to come into the studio on Monday and have to deal with that. Like, deal with what? Like leftover marks that he's leaving on the table? So I I gotta tell you, Fred Smerlis handled it so well. He said, Eddie, I grew up listening to you. I am a huge fan of yours. I loved. The the old Huddle, I love your show now. I have no idea why you're turning on me out of absolutely nowhere. I have problems with my knees and need to keep them elevated. At that point, Eddie said to him, If you don't take your legs, your your feet off that table right now, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you. Eddie, what are you doing? He's 310 pounds. He played in the National Football League for 13 years. GC: And and Andy's got a gun in his and his fanny pack. Glenn Ordway: Right, and he had a right and he was carrying, he was carrying at the time, I'm sure he had his pistol with him. And at that point, we got in between, and and Eddie was literally shaking. And thank God, Judy, his wife, who was a sweetheart, sweetheart, thank God she came in and she calmed him down and got him away. But something just triggered Eddie off out of nowhere. There was no con there was no GC: I Glen it was the same thing but Glenn Ordway: conflict at all, Jerry. He just came in the studio. And he threatened Fred Smurlis. my god. GC: It was the same it was the same with Dino. He bumps him, shoulders him into the wall. And I'm standing there and I go, my God, Dino's gonna kill him. And Dino handled it great. I'm saying he he would I mean, he was big and, you know, crazy. I said, Eddie was old and, you know, fat. I said, Dino's gonna crush him. And I'm gonna have to pull him off him. And Dino just looks at him and goes, What the hell is wrong with you? Fuck you, you piece. And I'm going, God, this guy's out of his mind. And He couldn't do any of the you know, it here's here's an interesting one. You know how we used to do crossovers? You know, you, me, whatever, Dale. Glenn Ordway: Yeah. Yeah. GC: De you could never do a crossover with Dino. He wouldn't all with Eddie, he wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't he didn't even want that small little exchange at the top of the hour that we all did to promote the next show. He won he wouldn't talk to you when you walk by him in the hall. He didn't want to be part of the team. He did his own thing. And he just hated certain people like Fred and like Dino for whatever reason. Glenn Ordway: He was he was for some reason very jealous of the success of the radio station and he should have been proud of it GC: Right. Glenn Ordway: and happy because he he was part of the success. And there probably wouldn't have been a W E I talk radio if Eddie Anderman had not been successfully doing it in the past, doing the Sunday sports huddle and doing his his his show. But the the The the landscape was changing at the time. And you couldn't sit there and do single host shows anymore. They became extremely boring. You had to have, as we said earlier, conflict with with multiple people. But I remember the first meeting I had when I brought him into a a meeting and I said to him congratulations, we just got the ratings. And this was the first time they had been number one. Now remember that shift had been, I don't know, number eight or nine or ten. Kind of similar to where they are right now with some of their some of their shows over at EEI. But that's where they were. And suddenly we're number one, and they're number one. And I said, Congratulations. And I handed them the the at the time it was called Arbitron. Here are the Arbitron ratings. So you can go over them and take a look at them. And he pushes them back in my face, says, I I don't care about those. I take my own ratings. And let me tell you GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: something. We're in ninth place right now with with my show. With Dale. You need to do something. You need to make some changes. And so I was trying to be polite. I was trying to get along with them. So I said, Well, I tell you what, could you bring your ratings in tomorrow? I'll sit down, I'll compare them to the arbitron, and we'll see if we can we can kind of figure this thing out, Eddie. And of course he never brought the the arbitron ratings in again. GC: That was amazing. That was a great show, a successful show. They got rating bonuses and neither guy was happy. You know, Dale, you know, Dale was probably happy to get the bonus, but Eddie didn't care that it was working. He wanted to be solo. You put him with Dale. It worked because there was real tension and they couldn't s stand their own success. Just that is an amazing thing when you think about it. Glenn Ordway: I g I give Dale all the credit in the world because Dale was as prepared as any sports talk show GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: host I have ever seen in my life. Okay. He had answers for everything. Okay. Now he knew hockey inside and out, really knew football. He knew baseball, but even basketball. He really studied it, watched games, and did some play by play with the Celtics eventually. But he was really well prepared. Eddie, on the other hand, had his shtick, had his angle, had it he was Very quick to jump on somebody. He always had opinions, didn't always necessarily have the stuff to back them up, but that's where the tension exists in the studio. So Eddie would come up with, and I don't give a shit what your opinion was about anything, just have an opinion. Okay? I don't care what it is. Have it. Eddie always had one. So he would throw it out there. And then what Dale would do is Dale would sit there and he would pick it apart. And that drove Eddie crazy. And Dale would be right. 98% of the time because he did all the research, right? He did all the study. Tell me the truth GC: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it was it worked. Glenn Ordway: on this one. Yeah, it worked. Tell me the truth on this one, because I we we joked about marketing dollars. We never had marketing dollars to do anything with that radio station. If we had it it's amazing what we would have been able to to to do. Well, that and FM. But when you came aboard, you also had a deal with the Boston Herald. And if I remember correctly. We got advertising in the Boston Herald because it was part of your personal service contract GC: Yes. Glenn Ordway: with the Boston Herald. You were able to promote your show and the radio station in the Boston Herald, true? GC: Yes. I got I got part of the deal was the station got, I don't know, half page ad three times a week in the Herald for I don't even know, was a discount or free? And I would get half the money. It was a great deal. My agent was the former general manager of the station, so he knew he knew what he was doing. And I got this deal where I would write for the Herald, get paid by the Herald, and the Herald in exchange would give the station these ads and they were the only ads the station ever took out. I once made I think I was with Dino and we became friendly with a guy who owned the billboards, owned billboards all around Boston. And he liked the show and he told us, you know, you should get some billboards. And I said, yeah, the station thinks it's too much money. He gives us this unbelievable discount. I want to say half off. He writes it up. Here's the billboards. Here's how much is the Regular price, here's what I'm gonna give you. I walk in, we walk in a GM at the time was Tom Baker, you know, who was another disaster, but nice guy, but totally afraid of his own shadow. we hand it to him, we tell him what we got this deal, check this out. He didn't even look at it. He says, Yeah, we're not interested. I mean, like they had no interest in advertising promotions. It was just not something they they wanted to do for us. It was very frustrating. Glenn Ordway: It it's amazing to me. The talent on the air were out there using their own personal services deal to get promotion and advertising for the radio station. It it's just hard to believe. Dino brought this up. I had heard this before dealing with the Metco incident. We talked a lot with Dino about that. And that when that Metco incident came up, the radio station was willing to salvage Dino. And save you. And you were the one that came to them and said, wait a minute. I was in the conversation as well. So, and you guys didn't believe that you did anything wrong because you didn't approach it as if it were a racial situation. You didn't connect the dots at the time. But you, they wanted to keep and they figured they would go and get somebody else to replace Dino. And you said, Nope. If I he go if he goes, I go, is that true? GC: Yeah, that's that's true. I I was the hero of that situation. I was in fact, I think I deserve like maybe a medal of freedom for that. I was in incredibly Glenn Ordway: Maybe maybe may hold on, maybe the globe will give you man of the year this year. You never know, Cherry, you know? GC: Yeah. Yeah, it could be like one of the you know, what are they call those globies every year. Glenn Ordway: Right. GC: it was totally unfair. Everybody who talks about this and including the globe, who drove the whole narrative, they know we didn't intend anything racial, they know that. But, you know, we used un unfortunate word or words and they pounced and they thought they could get us fired. And they almost did. I mean It's absurd. Of course we didn't mean it as some racial thing. Or you know what? We wouldn't have said it. And Dino's right. I mean, it just it was a it was a gorilla at a at a Metgo bus stop and we just said he was getting on the Metgo bus or whatever. Of course there was nothing racial intended. They knew it. No one said a word for what was it, ten days? Something like that. Didn't come up. And then they got s somehow got a recording, went to the globe, and all the usual suspects came out of the woodwork. I'll never forget they had a little protest and outside the station and the ADL, the Jewish l organization was out there. And I said, What the hell are they here for? What we're we're not we don't see anything anti-Semitic, we're just the opposite. I think, you know, we had we very pro, you know, Israel show. they, you know. They they want to be part of this. I'm like, the ADL wants to be part of trying to get us fired for this made-up controversy that the globe is is is blowing up. And I'm like, Jesus, this is like you know, bonfire the vanity stuff. They just wanted to pounce. Obviously, politically, we were not their favorite show. So all the liberal activists came out of the woodwork and TV stations and and the globe and tried to get us fired. And if it were twenty You know, nineteen, we would have been fired. But we weren't, thankfully, and we survived and that book was the first time we beat Howard Stern. So it backfired on him. And I don't think the globe ever recovered from that. They hated us from that moment Glenn Ordway: Well, GC: on. Glenn Ordway: yeah, I will tell you this. That the the biggest rise, because when we started all of this in ninety six, the the biggest rise we had, and we were every month we were moving up in the ratings slowly. And I like that. I liked the slow approach because I'd you don't want to blast out of the gate and then start to have a downfall. So it was working out perfectly for us. But the biggest boost we got is when the Boston Globe banned their writers. GC: Right. Glenn Ordway: And basically said that we were unacceptable for media in the town. And it it really stemmed, it started with our show and then it went to your show. And it really was one of their own writers. It was Ron Borges on the big show. He was trying to talk about Hadeki Matsui and what George Steinbrenner had said. And instead of calling him a fat pussy toad, he called him a fat pussy Jap. Okay? That was Borges's words. So now we're responsible, W E E I. Is responsible for Borges' actions. Borgis doesn't get slapped on the wrist. Instead, the vehicle that he was on at the time, WEEI, is the GC: Right. Glenn Ordway: problem. And so I ended up going over with Julie Kahn, with Jason Wolfe, and I think somebody else joined us as well. We might have had a lawyer with us as well, to meet with the editors over at the Boston Globe because they had banned all the the their writers and then We banned the writers as well and said, okay, you want to play? We'll play a two-way game. So we went over, had this meeting, Jerry, with the whole board of the editors. And I must tell you, not a single one of them, I don't think, had ever listened to our radio station. They had no idea what we were talking about. I don't know if Dan Shaughnessy, because he escaped during that period and got another gig over a TKK, if you remember. GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: I don't know if he was leaking to the editors, hey, listen. Because I had Globe Writers call me pissed off that Shaughnessy had known about this, that they were going to do this days before, got out of EEI and got a job at TKK and didn't inform the other Globe Writers. So there were numerous Globe Writers that were pissed off about that. But when I got in there, I said to them, they talked about the language and the winer line. You've got to get rid of the winer line. I'm sitting there going, it's the it's the It's the right now the highest rated 15 minutes of radio in this town. How am I going to get rid of it? Why would I get rid of it? And so anyway, they they even brought up the word sucks. They did not like it. It was like Ted Serantis. I don't like it when you say something sucks, my man. And and the Globe was pissed off about that. But you want to know something? Our ratings took off after that. Because they GC: Yeah. Glenn Ordway: were no longer allowed on my show, no longer allowed on your show. And I think Dale was pissed off because he liked those globe guests and they couldn't come on his show anymore. GC: I'll never forget one thing about that that Metco. I was home suspended for a week or whatever it was, and I'm listening to PCN. And Howard Stern is using, he used to do this, the N-word. And that's just one of the things. He's he would say it like openly. And I'm going, wait a second. This is our competition. This obviously it's syndicated, but in the globe. says nothing. He would use the N word. He would use other words like F slur for for gay. He he was wild at that time. I mean he's he he would do blackface. It was nuts. And there was not a word in the globe. But you know they thought they had us. They smelled blood and they they almost did because we had a very weak GM at the time and Dino n was absolutely right. They gave this list of demands literally he was right. They wanted all the money From our golf tournament, which went to the Jimmy Fund to go to the Metco. And one of the demands was they want interns, like two interns on every show. And I we had this meeting and there was like parents there. They weren't supposed to be. They were supposed to be just the kids and us, and all these parents show up. And I said, Wait a second, you want your kid to be an intern on a show that you want banned that you think is racist? Yeah, we think it'd be a good opportunity. It was just a chance to you know, leverage us to the to to blackmail us and it worked. They got a lot out of that. But they didn't get the all the money from the golf tournament, but they got a lot. Glenn Ordway: Yeah, and the Jimmy Fun and the annual radio telethon was near and dear to all of our hearts. I mean, we we worked a lot at putting that thing together during the course of the year. You guys went over, I went over, spent time with the the kids over in the in the hospital and whatever. And I it was a You know, Lisa and all of those wonderful people that the Jimmy found. It was a labor of love for us, but I don't know about you. I got more out of it, I think, than they get out of it. And ironically, isn't it the ironic that both you and I end up becoming cancer survivors? And yet we were doing this for years and sitting down and talking to all of these other cancer patients. But it it's something I still miss, Jerry. I I really do. It was one of the it was the next to last show. I ever did and I purposely wanted to make sure it was the next to the last show because it was it was so important to me and I know it was you and everybody at that radio station. It was. GC: It was. It was, you know, one of the highlights every year. It was extremely emotional. I remember forgetting my little friend Avalana painting my mm painting my fingernails. She wanted to paint Glenn Ordway: Fingernails, yeah. GC: on on Nesson on on the T V and I and I left the pa I I I had painted nails in one hand for, you know, a couple of months after that. I and a lot of the kids we knew, we met Like like Miles Goldberg, who was a good friend, he became our, you know, part time producer. And there, you know, he passed away. Kirk and I went up to the memorial up in Durham, New Hampshire. There was probably two thousand people there. it there was just a lot of stories that would just rip your heart out. And it was tough because sometimes you met these kids and you knew they weren't gonna make it. And you would just it it would just rip your heart out. And Avalan is no longer with us and Miles and so many others, but God, they they save a lot and it is just an amazing place. I miss that a lot. Glenn Ordway: All right. So what happened at the end? I remember the last show with you and Minahan. Minahan was talking about how he was gonna take over the world with radio.com. He didn't realize it at the time, but I think he realized it in the months after that. They were literally holding him hostage. They were paying him a huge ransom to stay off the air. They did not want the controversy. It was cheaper for them to pay him off than it was to, Have dissatisfied advertisers on the radio station. I don't know if you realized it at the time. I realized it pretty quickly. Kirk eventually figured it out. So now you do the last show, you're done there, and they put you in there with Mutt. And that didn't that just didn't have the same vibes of the show. And it wasn't Mutt's fault. It it just you were expecting something that you couldn't get out of. The personnel that were in the studio. Is that fair to say? GC: No, Mayance right. They people knew that the station was gutless and got rid of them. You know, put them on whatever, radio.com, but they knew that day that the station had lost its balls. And I I you know, he doesn't remember this maybe or doesn't appreciate it, but I would go in there every day and and to the GM or the program director and try to, you know, find a way to get back, you know, because it it worked and I And I missed that show. That show was fun. That show worked and it was a blast. And I I don't know when exactly I realized it wasn't gonna happen. I guess, you know, when he announced he was going to bar stool. And then the CEO calls me. I'll never forget. I was on my back deck and he says, you know, we had to do it, you know, Kirk's moving on. but I'm gonna get you the best guy. We're gonna save this show. We're gonna put together the best show. He says, Money's no object. I'm gonna hire the best guys and we're gonna. This was in June and July. You know, July twelfth, they called me and saying, We're moving on. So he was full of shit till the end. but he, you know, he there was gonna be other people, and at least one other person in there with us. It was Mutt and I temporarily. But the biggest thing, I think Kirk is right, they it wasn't just losing Kirk. It was a signal that this station has no balls. They're gonna get rid of this guy because he was dangerous and even though it worked, even though it was good radio and we made money and had ratings, they didn't want to deal with it anymore. And I sat there with Kirk, with that Tim Murphy, who was a corporate hack, and we're in the office, I'll never forget it. And he says, and we're talking about our good ratings. And he literally says, We don't care about ratings. We don't care. We don't care where you finish. We don't want any more trouble. And Kirk and I look at each other and I said this. I said, You gotta be kidding me. This is radio. You know, we you no, we don't care. We don't care if you're number one, we don't care about ratings. And that's what I knew. When we were done. You you have a boss telling you they don't care about ratings, about success, about revenue. They just don't want any more trouble. They don't want the globe. They don't want the activists. They don't want the phone calls. So they pulled the plug, even though, you know, we were. Kick an ass in the ratings. Glenn Ordway: Th I said the number one reason the station ended up failing is because of staying on AM far too long when the rest of the world was all listening on FM. The second reason was they were gutless. And they were gutless, you know, dealing over the years. The one time they stood up to somebody, they stood up to the Boston Globe, as I mentioned, and their ratings took off, skyrocketed. Okay. And if you can look at the history of the globe, the the the globe is not gutless. They fight for their causes. They'll stand up for their causes. When they wanted to get rid of EEI, they teamed up with Murchison, And they started getting out to the advertisers. And and so the globe was doing just the opposite of what EEI corporate was doing. EEI corporate was caving. And that is the second reason, biggest reason. That EEI failed. It's a very simple. I hear all these people saying, How could this legacy radio station? I talked to people out of town, how could this legacy ra radio station fail? It said very simple. Number one, stayed on AM. Number two, no balls. No balls. They wouldn't stand up to anybody. And when they did, they succeeded. When they didn't, they failed. GC: you you you have what people used to think was a newspaper. It's it's not. It's a you know left-wing activist group. Literally a a it's our competition, you know, for the for the advertising dollars. Calling advertisers, a globe reporter, Shirley Lung and others, you want young and lung, whatever it is, calling companies and telling them not to advertise on our station because we're Sextist and racist and everything else, homophobic, transphobic. This is a reporter, quote unquote, calling companies to try to dissuade them from advertising on our station. Think how unethical that is. And yet people still pretend like the globe is a newspaper, a news outlet. It is not. They did team up with Murchison, who is the activist, the trans rights activist, whatever you want to call him, who was insane, who woke up every day and harassed our advertisers to the point where I mean, literally when they fired me on July twelfth, twenty nineteen, they sat me down. It was surprising. I was shocked. And the GM Mark Cannon said, We can't afford this anymore. And I what do you mean? He goes, We've lost eight million dollars in the last two years. Eight million dollars in national advertising because of one man. One man in one, you know, newspaper. Who harassed our advertisers to the point where they were just losing so much money. They had to get rid of us to placate this one lunatic. And once we were gone, he was gone. I mean, he wasn't gone. He followed me. He followed Kirk. He would call when I was doing I did a podcast solo for a while, just me, you know, independent. And he's calling advertisers. You know, famously my my brother in law. Shay Concrete was a big advertiser on AEI, I should have him on here. He's calling my brother in law, trying Glenn Ordway: Give a plug. There you go. GC: to get him to pull advertising. He so then I go to pod, I go to Podcast One, which is a pretty big podcast company. It's Adam Corolla. And I was on there. And I'm there two weeks, three weeks, and the GM calls me, said, Who in the hell is this Murchison guy? And I explain it. This is a California based podcast company, and he's calling them And my advertisers. And they they didn't fire me, but they were glad when I left for Newsmax because they were like EI, they were gutless and they couldn't stand up to him. And now I'm at like one of the only companies I could work for. Newsmax, who doesn't care, ignores him, and maybe he's given up. I don't know. But he was relentless for three years, every single day, because I said initially, because I said that a person a family in Malden who was transitioning their boy who was four years old into a girl. I said, that's crazy. Glenn Ordway: Right. I remember. GC: And we mocked it. You know, we like anyone would, any decent person said, that's insane. Literally, that is insane. Taking a four year old boy and dressing him as a girl. That set him off and he just was on the war path for the next three years. And did Did other people get swept up? You know, whatever mutt and the producers and everything. Yeah, but I would say it again. I I could say it now. It's insane what this family did to their child. And this nut, because one of his kids is pretending to be his daughters pretending to be a son, went nuts and just came at us nonstop for years. Glenn Ordway: But i Jerry, it's it it's all in how the station handled it, okay? They could have sat down with Murchison, they could have listened to him, they GC: They did. Glenn Ordway: could have said, listen, we yeah, the problem was the the the problem was that they didn't sit there and say, Okay, I understand what you're dealing with with your own family. I can understand you're sensitive to what they said, but listen. We're a radio station. We've got to do what we've got to do. And then you move on. I'll give ninety-eight point five credit. Felger got himself in a lot of trouble when Rory Halliday went down in that little single engine plane if you remember, and he said he deserved it or something like that, you know, because he was up in a little f flimsy plane Then Tony got himself into trouble with again a racial comment. Okay, that Tony didn't connect. Similar to the fact that Dino and you didn't connect it at the time, and yet they got a little suspension, they were back on the air because the company supported them and said, you know what? We're not gonna let somebody destroy our product. You know, even if our people make a little mistake, we're gonna accept it, we're gonna understand it, and we're gonna come back and we're gonna tell our audience what happened and what they meant by it. That's what you do, that's how you handle it. Do you remember? And the and the the one thing I'll say about the globe, say whatever you want. I Kirk said it. Murchison won. The globe won. They got rid of WEEI. They destroyed WEEI and they won. Why? Because they had a pair of balls. And EEI and ENTERCOM just the opposite. They lacked that, Jerry. That's the difference. GC: It was it was shameless. The Globe is owned by John Henry Pizzutti's and the Globe is and so as you know, EI, you know, ETICOM is giving what twenty million a year to the Red Sox? And the owner of the Red Sox tried to destroy and did succeeded in destroying his own radio station. I mean, it's fair to say John Henry doesn't just own You know, the Red Sox and and Nesson, he owns EEI. I mean he controls it. And that's how bad it got. And they were thrilled to get rid of us. Even though even though we had good numbers and we you know I think we treated the Red Sox fairly. We Kirk and I we went to lunch with Sam Kennedy. I don't know, just before it all blew up, and he was our friend. And he was asking us what he can do to improve ratings in on on Nesson and you know talking about EEI. And then we find out he's working behind the scenes to get us fired. That's the kind of people who run the Red Sox. And they disemboweled their own radio station because they hated us so much because cl because the globe hated us. That's I mean, these are not good people. These are really despicable people. Glenn Ordway: You you bring up an interesting point in that the CEO, David Field at the time at EI, and John Henry had a business arrangement together. And at one time it was twenty million dollars a year. I don't know what they're paying for rights fees now. But when you had controversy like that, and usually this is what companies do, they try to find a way of getting in the back room, and let's try to solve this so that neither one of us gets damaged. Right, so that we can continue the relationship. Here was the problem. The intercom side of it just wasn't willing to fight for it, Jerry. They weren't willing GC: No. Glenn Ordway: to fight for you. They weren't willing to fight for Kirk. They weren't willing to fight for it. And that was the difference because I think since they had a business arrangement and there was a lot of money that was crossing hands there, they could have found a way of solving that problem where everybody is satisfied by it. You know? And They didn't do that, they weren't willing to do that. And GC: They were handing they were handing the Red Sox twenty million a year and their balls. You would think the company paying the money would have, you know, the some say in this. But the Red Sox controlled EI and David Field and, you know, the whole station, even though the station was the one given the money. And it it just was a bizarre relationship. Why would they they would never stand up to them? Stand up. to John Henry or Pazuti or Kennedy or any of them. They allowed. I mean that's I assume the way it is now. I assume, you know, Sam Kennedy and Red Sox control anything and everything said on the station. They don't own it, but they may as well have they may it i it it's it's as if they own the station, they control it. Glenn Ordway: Well, we had major problems t even trying to get Red Sox guest on our program. It eventually we just gave up and said, screw it, we won't do it anymore. I mean, Dan Roach was over there every day. He didn't they didn't have any business relationship, but Dan was very likable, friendly. He wasn't gonna ask any difficult question that a player was gonna be pissed off at. So he was able to get guests. We couldn't get guests on morning or afternoon drive with Red Sox. You would go down to spring training. And you would struggle to get Red Sox guests GC: Right. Yeah. Glenn Ordway: on the air. And yet the two sides, Entercom and the Red Sox, had a major business relationship. It was impossible to work with. I know you're getting together with Dino. You're going to Dino's house with some big get-together coming in this month. So that sounds like you two are reconnecting, which I like to hear. And Kirk said to me that he would like to reconnect. So if I could get the three of you now to come on and do this podcast in let's say a month or two from now, would you be willing to do it? GC: Sure. I you know. Chacha's been trying to get us to do a Dennis and Callahan reunion podcast for a while now. It hasn't happened. Dino's in the f in Florida in the winter. I'm in Maine in the summer, so it hasn't happened. But if we could do this, we could do whatever we're calling this, Zoom. Sure. Haven't talked to Kirk lately, but I talked I'll talk to anybody. I don't he's Glenn Ordway: Are you talking to Kirk at all? GC: No. I mean, we've texted Glenn Ordway: He he mentioned there was a text exchange recently, yes? GC: Yes, yes. Glenn Ordway: That's good. So good. See, I'm making see GC: Mean, it w it's it's too bad. I mean Glenn Ordway: this podcast, you you told me already you like this podcast and where it's going, but now I'm bringing peace to the world, Jerry. I am bringing people together with one GC: It is I have to ask you this though, Glenn. Glenn Ordway: big hug. GC: How how disappointed are you that you've talked to Dino Kirk and me and there's been no hate? How disappointing was that? You thought you were gonna get the hate from from all of us and you got none? Surprising, right? Glenn Ordway: I and I'll tell and I'll tell you why. Because I think that when you're in the heat of it, there's all sorts of shit that happens. But now that you're all separated from it, you're looking back at that time and saying, Man, those are pretty good times. And you're appreciating a lot more what each one of you brought to the table and to the success of that radio station, despite Unbelievable obstacles. We've brought a few of them up. You do we we need we haven't even scratched the surface. That's why I need to get all three of you together. We haven't scratched the surface of the obstacles, but I think that's what it is, Jerry. I think you all now have taken a few steps back and you appreciate what each one of you brought to that table. So we're gonna bring all three of you to the table here on one of the big old podcasts, future podcasts here in the next month or so. And let's do it. This was a go ahead. GC: Hey, I was lucky, you know? I was lucky. I was lucky. I got hooked up with two of the most insane friggin' guys I've ever known in my life. I've known some crazy people. People might not believe this, but Dino might be crazier than Kirk in a way. And you need that, honestly. Like I said, Michael Barkhand, great guy. We've seen many guys come and go on radio. They were too normal, you know? It doesn't work. You gotta be a little out of your mind, especially in the morning. Someone had this theory about Stern or Imus. They said years of sleep deprivation drives you insane. And then that translates to good radio. When you sleep four or five hours a night for, you know, twenty years, you tend to get a little off balance. And I was fortunate because I was with Dino for many years and then along comes this skinny little lunatic that just took the the the whole thing to another level and I've you know, honestly I can say I never laughed so much in my life. I never had so much fun. I had a blast. I had a blast. Toucher Toucher doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He said we had no fun. Glenn Ordway: No fun. Toucher said no fun. No. He I he was GC: No fun. Glenn Ordway: kind of comparing it to music stations because there were women on the floor. I mean, we've already talked about the stripper lighting the wall up on fire. What are you talking about? He had women in the studio. I I don't know what he was talking about. I really, I really don't. Again, if you if you weren't there, Jerry, GC: I'll leave you with one I'll leave you with one more. Glenn Ordway: but Jerry, if you weren't there on the floor, you didn't know a lot of the shit that that that happened. You just you you didn't know. And and GC: Yeah, but it might Glenn, see, I disagree. I see I think most of it was on the air, you know. If it wasn't on the air, you know, the next day Kirk and I would talk about it. It w there was not a lot of stuff hidden from from the view of the public. Glenn Ordway: no. GC: At least not it was it was all out there for all the world to see and hear for as far as I Glenn Ordway: No, well, hidden, but did you know, hidden didn't work. So if we were having an issue, especially when we were doing the big show, if we had an issue somewhere GC: Right. Glenn Ordway: behind the scenes, guess what? If Shaughnessy was sitting there literally balancing his checkbook while we're doing a show, I'm not gonna hide that. We're gonna expose that. And what most shows do is they hide that. There's a there's there's in front of the curtain, there's behind the curtain. We always opened up the curtain for everybody. And I think it just made for a far more. interesting and entertaining show. We could do this for five we could do this for five or six hours, Jerry. GC: I mean, you had Kirk Kirk talked about Curtis and Curtis, this was the wildest show we ever had. We were in at a golf tournament in Connecticut, I think. And the Johnny Damon and and Curtis says, I don't even know why, but tells us that he was an alcoholic and he was drinking gin in big handle of gin a day. He was drinking before the show and we never noticed. We never smelled it, we never saw it. We just thought he was dumb and sloppy. It was and he said this on the air and we reacted to it spunt you know, genuinely. We said, What in the hell are you talking about? And he explains he would sit there with a cup of gin in the studio. And we never noticed. It was wild. Wild times. Glenn Ordway: I I I I I will tell you this, I have no idea how you guys did not figure any of that out. I to this day I am dazzled by all of it. I just GC: Hey p guy, some guys Dino, I will say Dino was amazing. I mean, he could get drink a bottle of vodka the night before and we would think he's not gonna make it. He'd be the first one in studio. He'd have his yellow sweater vest and he would be ready to go. He was a a machine. I mean he just and he was and you know, it got bad toward the end. But he could he could go hard, man. He could play hard, but he would be the first guy ready to go and be like, Are you okay? And he'd be like, Yeah, why? I mean he there's it was Glenn Ordway: Why? GC: it was nuts. Glenn Ordway: As I said, we could do six hours on this, but we will do another session with the three of you. Dino, Jerry, and Kirk, because I think people want to hear the interaction as you guys bring up some of the crazy stories that happen at that time. I really appreciate you spending some time. You're a great friend, and I really appreciate you doing this and and fighting through everything with your your dart. And I wish you continued success with your podcast as well. And we'll talk down the road here, Jerry, with all three of you guys. GC: Thanks, big old. Good talking to you.