Kramer
Instead of sitting here typing out some cute, witty crap, I'm just going to tell you about myself. I just think people's explanations of themselves are silly when they try to be witty and clever. That should be reserved for the shows and other stuff.
I'm 38. I was born in Sheffield, Alabama on June 29th, 1970. My dad is Kenneth. My mother is Judy. I never really knew my dad, as my mother left him when I was 5. He died over the summer from complications to alcoholism. I got to know him a little before he died over the phone. Most of my family lives in the South, and I embrace my Southern roots. Its a great place to live, raise a family, and its beautiful.
During school, from an early age, I was a band nerd. It was all that I spent my time doing outside of computer programming. Wow. Actually, looking back on it, I was kind of a nerd all around. When I was a senior, I decided to go to college to get a degree to become a music teacher. I grew up in a small town, so anything outside of something conservative like that was kind of a pipe dream, at least in theory. I'd actually, my entire life, wanted to be a stand up comic, but I was very good at music. After the first year, the classes were kicking my ass. I've never seen a basic college degree harder to learn than music education. It isn't worth it unless it all comes naturally to you! I had a friend who worked part time at a radio station. He mentioned that I should go audition because they had an opening. On a whim I went down one day. They wanted me to read a news report as my audition. I'd never done anything like that in my life. I read the news, and for some unGodly reason they hired me.
After I started, I knew instantly that radio was something I wanted to do, be serious about, get better at, and to go further in. I had people around me that really knew nothing about radio. This family had bought the radio station for fun, and had never done radio before. I sent an audition tape to any radio station I could get the address for. Keep in mind, the first station I worked for, WNUZ, in Talladega, AL probably had an audience, literally of about 20 people. I tolled around other smaller Alabama cities on FM radio stations, and slowly began to develop my personality. In the South, everything is EXTREMELY conservative, so anytime you say one thing out of the way, which could be anything, you get into trouble. I eventually made my way to a big FM with a huge signal in Gadsden, AL. It was WQEN, Q104. It was a top 40 radio station, and I did weekend overnights. My full time job was at a hospital in the purchasing department. I'd get off work at 6pm on Friday, get a nap, drive an hour and be on the air from 12m-6am. I never complained once. It was great! One night about 2:30, I was doing the weather and I said, "Its colder than a witches boob in a brass bra on Halloween." The PD called and I was fired the following Monday.
This began my turmoil in radio with Program Directors. People really do get fired for saying something as simple as that? What the Hell was so appalling about a BOOB IN A BRASS BRA? I couldn't believe it.
I went around to other stations. I started making some noise because I really taught myself to be better at radio in general. I played by the rules because if I didn't, I'd never have any kind of future, so conservative chit chat was the name of the game. It was never satisfying though. I kept thinking there was something more to radio than just introducing songs to people with some type of little ZINGER mixed in. It always sounded boring to me, and it started boring the shit of ME as well.
I'd worked in Talladega, AL--Gadsden, AL--Alexander City, AL--Centre, AL--when I got hired part time at a great radio station in Birmingham...again, weekend overnights...but it was a radio station with a BIG attitude, and the DJ's actually got to have a personality. This got me a great job at a radio station in Panama City, FL. It was 1991. I actually turned 21 there, and had the party of my life. 21 years old, in Florida, DJing at night on the big top 40 there. Great huh? No. Fired. This time not for anything crazy, he just said, "You're not very good."
Whoa?
This sucks.
BACK to Talladega, AL. Then to Gadsden again. THEN to Huntsville, AL on WZYP. It was 1995, and I'd gotten married to my first wife. This was a good job, and I started to really grow up some and find my radio feet. I really blossomed at WZYP. It was a Top 40 station, and the owner was an extremely Religious man. I'd started having a psychic on my show on Thursday nights for a few hours. The phones blew up for him and he was actually funny and entertaining. One night the owner, Bill, showed up, flung the door open (While the psychic guy was on with me), and said, "Kramer, come here. I need to talk with you." He said, "Psychics are OF THE DEVIL." I said, "Well okay, so what do you want me to do, tell him to leave?" "Yes," he said, "Get him out of this building right now." I had to go back to this dude and tell him to get out of the building because he was a Satan spawn.
Ugh.
Within a year, one of the heads of Clear Channel was driving from Cincinatti back to his familes house in Montgomery during the Holidays. He heard me and called me on the request line. He asked me if I'd like to move to Tampa to take over for some guy named BUBBA THE LOVE SPONGE at WFLZ. Um, "yes." I made my way to FLZ and Bubba moved over to the rock station. In Tampa, I couldn't go anywhere without people knowing who I was. I shined and really came out of any shell that I was in. Bubba was VERY blue and dirty, so it wasn't like I was going to do anything that really shocked many people. I surpassed Bubba's ratings and everytime the ratings came out, I was number one in almost every demographic. I'd truly carved out my niche and had an incredible show. One night a little kid called and asked me for Hanson's telephone number. I said, "911-0942" and like that (snap) I was fired. Every kid in the city called 911 and tied up the 911 lines for HOURS!
Right around the time I got the call for WFLZ, I'd also gotten calls from radio stations in Cincinatti and Chicago. I chose Tampa out of the three. FLZ was then, and still is, one of the most influential radio stations in the Country. When I'd gotten the call from Cinci, I made a friend in Jimmy Steal, who was the PD. By this time, he was a Program Director in Dallas, TX. The day I got fired in Tampa, I called Jimmy in Dallas, to say hi. He said he had an opening. He flew me there and we rapped up the deal in about 10 minutes. In Tampa I'd embraced a prank caller to my show. His name was Tony.
Enter Kramer and Twitch.
Tony would call me on FLZ and do preacher bits as a crazy Southern preacher. During his rants as a preacher, he'd curse and say "GD" a lot. (A LOT) It was very funny. He'd call everynight doing something. One night I asked him to come down to the station, and that I'd help him get an internship there. He came walking in with a button up shirt that was about 2 sizes too small, complete with some stain on the front of it. Instant love right there. He went on to become my phone oper. He'd answer my phones. I used him in bits and stuff all the time. He had no shame and would do absolutely anything we asked him to do. He was 300 pounds, but everyone who ever met him fell in love with him. He was a little sweetheart. (Big...sweetheart.) When I got the job in Dallas, my only want and stipulation was to bring Tony. After a little while on the HOT ADULT CONTEMPORARY, KDMX, they moved us to the EAGLE, which was a really hard ROCK station. Within the first ratings period, we'd became #1 in every single male demographic and was getting National attention every week. We went on to become syndicated in many markets all over the place, including back in Tampa where I'd been canned.
We got promoted to do afternoons in San Francisco, and while there still did the night show back for Dallas. In California, its legal for motorcycles to do something called, WHITE LINING. Its where people on motorcycles can go between cars to the front of the line at red lights. I didn't know that was legal, and it seemed like everytime I was at a redlight, motorcycles would whizz right by me. It started pissing me off. I went on the air one day and jokingly said, "We should just open our car doors on them, whack a few, and then this will stop." It was clearly a joke.
The next day there were hardcore bikers setting off smoke bombs at the radio station, and there was a National cry from bicyclists and motorcyclists to do everything up to slicing our throats. They had to suspend us for a week, so we literally wouldn't get killed. That was pretty much what lead to our demise in California. So back to Dallas we go, and that was after about 5 or 6 months. Imagine moving that far, that often in 6 months!
After getting back to Dallas, one night we conjured up a false story that Britney Spears had been involved in a car crash in L.A. Justin Timberlake, her boyfriend then, was also in the accident. We'd reported that she'd died. It hit the internet, and within the first 5 minutes of our "announcement", we had calls from TV stations in every major city in the Country. We even got a call from the BBC. The next morning I heard Howard (Stern) talking about it, and I even saw a news story ON ME on CNN. It had blown up into the top story of the day. I still have the USA TODAY article FROM THE FRONT PAGE about it. It was supposed to be funny haha, but it was also supposed to be an experiment on how the media plays on people's reactions to things. TV stations were reporting it as a FACT and had never talked to the LOS ANGELES PD, THE AP, KRAMER AND TWITCH, or ANYONE - but they went right ahead and reported it because it got ratings. Pretty sad isn't it?
Of course we got fired, but it took about a week to secure another job. This time in the anarctic that IS Detroit. After 3 or 4 years there, it was on to Orlando. After being there in Florida, I'd had enough. Clear Channel let Howard Stern go, and they were going to move him to the CBS station that we were on. I was burnt. That's putting it mildly. I bowed out of the show and went home to Alabama. I'd been all over the Country in a matter of 9 or 10 years. I missed my family and I couldn't take the rat race with radio, the media, and moving anymore. I was done. Period.
I'd met Christy, my wife, in 1998 in Dallas. We've been together since. She's been right there, with me, the entire step of the way. She believes in me, this show, us, and my future like no one could ever believe in it. In 2004 (March 2nd), we had our son, Cash. We named him after Johnny Cash. In the same year we moved to Little Rock for my show to return to radio. After 2 years there, I found myself on the way to St. Louis, via the revolving door known as KTRS. After being let go for no specific reason, I was unemployed for TWO YEARS until being here in Illinois.
My interests include doing stand up, computers, my son, my family, radio, music, film, technology, and more.
If you'd like to know anything else, you'll find it eventually. I'm an open book.
Kramer
