A full hour of reminiscing on the air in Sacramento.
November 10, 2009
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
ANNOUNCER: (2001 A Space Odyssey Opening score) It started here: 1984, from the Studios of KFBK in Sacramento -- the only station in America powerful enough to give birth to a movement!
MODULATED VOICE: Rush! Rush! Rush! Rush! Rush! Rush! Ruuuuuush!
RUSH ARCHIVE: The most dangerous man...in America.
ANNOUNCER: Twenty-five years on the air in Sacramento, and now...
CALLER: Major dittos, Rush. I've been listening to you since KFBK.
ANNOUNCER: ...we celebrate...
RUSH ARCHIVE: 1984, that's forever.
ANNOUNCER: Live from the same studios on Ethan Way, the only person to work side-by-side with Rush for 25 continuous years: KFBK's Kitty O'Neal! Live from the heart of Media Mecca, your favorite midday talker, and all-around good guy: KFBK's Tom Sullivan! And stay tuned because live form the Southern Command but northernmost in our hearts: The Big One! The reason we listen! America's Anchorman! Maha Rushie! El Rushbo! Our guest to honor, Rush Limbaugh, is coming up! (cheers)
RUSH ARCHIVE: This is going to be so much fun.
ANNOUNCER: All brought to you by NoMoreSnoring.com and Steve Luth, The Worker's Comp Guy. Here now your host for the 25th anniversary celebration of Rush Limbaugh on the air in Sacramento, KFBK's Kitty O'Neal and Tom Sullivan! (My City Was Gone theme song)
KITTY: Well, I'm high-fiving all you listeners as we're running through your radios. (laughing) Yeah, this is a very, very special hour. We are commemorating 25 years for the one-and-only Rush Limbaugh, who started here, humbly, at KFBK. Oh, how things have changed. Tom Sullivan, as you heard, is also on deck. So let's welcome in the gentlemen right now. We've got Rush Limbaugh and Tom Sullivan. Hello, guys!
TOM: Hello, hello. Welcome. Welcome, Rush, to your 25th anniversary show.
RUSH: See, I was waiting to see who would go first and you notice who jumped in there? Tom. (laughing)
TOM: That would be me. (laughing)
KITTY: Just like that. Just like that.
TOM: I'm the cohost, you're the guest. So I'm trying to cohost here.
RUSH: Now, that's true.
TOM: Yeah!
RUSH: That's absolutely right. You are correct. I take it back.
TOM: All right.
KITTY: You are the guest, exactly.
TOM: Just a second. Let me mark that down on the accuracy rating here.
RUSH: Yeah. (laughing)
TOM: I want to mark it down.
RUSH: No, no, no. That wasn't an opinion.
TOM: That's right.
RUSH: The Sullivan Group only audits opinions.
TOM: Yes, and we -- through the disgronificator -- have been able to figure out through my brother Floyd who runs the group. It's true. I mean, I've had people from all over the country call me and ask me about your accuracy ratings over the years. So...
RUSH: Well, it's a great business that you do and a great service that you provide, and it's also exclusive to me, so it's even better.
TOM: It is.
KITTY: Well, I'm glad you're here.
RUSH: Reasonable fees, too, I might add. (laughing)
TOM: Well, we'll change that. (laughing)
KITTY: The accuracy is going to be important here because we were trying to recreate the early days and when everybody started. Now, I'll just start because I remember my part -- and then Tom and Rush, you're going to have to fill in the gaps. When I started here at KFBK, it was in '84, and Morton Downey Jr. was doing what became Rush's show. I remember taking the call that eventually got him fired. I went away for a little bit because I was filling in for an ailing Dawna Bailey -- a lovely young woman, Miss Black Sacramento, who has sadly passed.
RUSH: Ahhh, yes.
KITTY: Remember?
RUSH: Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KITTY: She started off, and then when she left the job permanently, then I came back to KFBK. And, Rush, I remember coming into the newsroom, and they said, "This is the new talk show host that you're going to be working with. (laughing) His name is Rush Limbaugh." And you gave me a huge bear hug. I don't know if you recall this. But I thought, "Wow, this is a friendly guy. This is going to be fun," and that was my start with you. So I predated you, but then I left, and then I came back, and you were here.
RUSH: And it was a simultaneous start. And I do remember the hug. I remember every hug of you that I have made.
KITTY: (giggles) Well, and there were many, so have a good memory.
RUSH: (laughs) Yes, there were.
KITTY: And, Tom --
TOM: I don't remember getting a hug.
KITTY: I don't even remember you, Tom, when I first started. I hate to say that, but I think we didn't have the same shift or something.
TOM: No. You know why?
KITTY: Why?
TOM: It's because I was a suit!
KITTY: Oh.
TOM: And you looked at suits like, you know, there was something wrong with people that wore a uniform. You had the thing back then.
KITTY: I had a thing?
TOM: And we became very good friends. But in the beginning, I think you looked at suits like they were from a different world. You were a rock 'n' roll babe.
RUSH: Absolutely right.
KITTY: Yes, I was.
RUSH: Absolutely right.
TOM: Yeah!
RUSH: She was an FM type: longhaired, maggot-infested FM type back then.
KITTY: (laughing)
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
KITTY: Yeah, okay. But when I did become friends with you, Tom, we became fast friends and hit it off really, really well.
TOM: Yes.
KITTY: And the same with Rush. So that's what I recall from the beginning. And then, Rush, you came how long -- Do you remember? -- that Morton Downey Jr. had been gone that you came to KFBK? Do you remember that?
RUSH: Yeah, I think it was a month or maybe a couple of months. And there's a name here that I have to mention. He passed away in San Francisco. His name is Norman Woodruff.
KITTY: Yes.
RUSH: And Norman was consulting a radio station in Kansas City which fired me for being too controversial. (chuckles) I was doing commentaries about the '84 Democrat primaries, and they didn't like that. But Norman was consulting at the station. He was there. And after I'd been gone for a week or week and a half, trying to find another job, he called me at home and asked me how I'd like to be a star in California. And I said, "Whoa! A star in California? Where is it?"
He said, "I'm not going to tell you until you say yes."
I said, "Well, this is not good. It must not be Los Angeles or San Francisco."
He said, "Sacramento," and then he laid out what the job would be and what the opportunity would be -- and, you know, I weighed it pretty heavily because I'd never been to California. I'd never been there. It was a frightening thing. But I said, "Okay, I'll do it," and Norm Woodruff is the man singularly most responsible for watching my back and making sure that the way I wanted to do my show out there happened. There was all kinds of pressure when I got there to have guests and to do a formulaic talk show like everybody else in the business was doing. And I had told Norm that I wanted to find out if I, once and for all, could be the reason people listened to radio. I didn't want to invest in a bunch of guests that didn't care about my success or any aspect of my success.
He and a guy named Bruce Marr, who came in later, who really had my back on this. And one of the most fortunate things that happened was that shortly after I got there, the management stole from -- I even forget the name of the station. There was a competing talk station across town. They stole the morning team, Dave and Bob -- and of course when they got Dave and Bob, for those of you sophisticated listeners (most of you are) -- the morning show is where everybody focuses their attention. That's what matters. That's primetime in radio. So they forgot about me. They forgot about the formula; they forgot about what I was doing. They were focusing everything on Dave and Bob, which is the best thing that could have happened to me because then I had three to four months to establish myself, and when the ratings came out after the first three or four months, they were better than I'd ever had anywhere. So Norm's, you know, having my back and just a natural flow of events there allowed all this to happen as it did. And if it hadn't been for Dave and Bob being hired, and Norman Woodruff, none of the rest of this would have happened because I wouldn't have cut it as a host who had to have guests. I would have blended into the crowd and been, you know, no different than anybody else.
KITTY: Well, I do remember fighting that. Yeah, as a producer.
TOM: Yeah, but there was one thing that needs to be said here that you haven't said, and that is Norm... Also I grew to have a wonderful relationship with Norm Woodruff. And because of him, you got that break, and because of that, the rest is history. Norm died of AIDS, and he was a gay man. And it always has driven me crazy when people say, "Rush Limbaugh doesn't like gays," when this man was somebody that you and I both loved, and it just goes to people that don't know you or don't know the story or don't listen you and the complaints that they have that are unjustified.
RUSH: That's a cliché, that conservatives are racist, sexist, bigot, homophobic and so forth. My opposition is to liberals. I don't care what they are, who they are, where they coming from. That's my opposition. Norman was a liberal, but he was more than that. He was a radio programmer. He had, as his desire, the success of KFBK. Since you bring this up, the first two weeks I was there, I lived at the Red Lion. And then after those two weeks was over, I got kicked out to a Motel 6. Seriously. And Norman would take me to dinner every night. And one night he took me to dinner, and he looked at me in the eye, and he said, "Do you understand what fear is?" And I didn't know where that was going.
I said, "What are you talking about?" And that's when he started talking. That's when he told me that he was gay and that AIDS was ravaging San Francisco and that he was deathly afraid of contracting it. And he did. And I've never... He just spoke to me openly about it. It was chilling, and it was extremely sobering. You know, he lived with two men in San Francisco, and I remember when he got sick, they both quit their jobs to stay in the house with him and go down to see him, and he was just putting up a valiant fight, but it was really unfortunate. And you're right, Tom, to bring this all up, because he was so full of life. I remember the first week when I showed up, I showed up in a pair of brown slacks (I think they were Sansabelt slacks_ and a yellow sweater -- crew neck, long sleeves, no shirt. He came up to me, and he said, "Unacceptable attire, sir. We wear natural fibers in California," and then demanded I wear a coat and tie.
TOM: (laughing) You sound like him. That's exactly how he talked. Yeah.
RUSH: He demanded I wear a coat and tie every day if I was going to take my job seriously and be perceived as a professional. So he was a godsend for me.
KITTY: I'm going to have to do a PS about Norm. He hired me as well, and if anybody is trying to visualize this man, we often compared him to Lou Grant, the character from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show.
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
KITTY: Because he was gruff, he was a little heavy set, had a shock of hair, and did kind of like speak like that. He had a toughness to him, no question.
RUSH: Oh, yeah!
KITTY: Oh, yeah. He was tough.
RUSH: I remember one day in the newsroom, there wasn't a copy of the New York Times, and he just lambasted everybody in there. "You can't do a broadcast without reading the New York Times first!" and so forth. It was funny. (laughing)
TOM: (laughing) I will tell you what. Another story about this, is that when you first got there, I've had people come up to me, because I'd been doing business reports there for four years. So I was a senior guy.
RUSH: Yeah.
TOM: I'd been there since 1980.
RUSH: Wearing a suit! (laughs)
TOM: Yeah, I was wearing a suit. And people said, "What's with this new guy? What happened to the old guy? You know, I liked Morton Downey Jr. I don't know about this new guy. Where's Morton? I don't want this new guy." I mean, it was a typical reaction. You had to prove yourself.
KITTY: Don't like change, yeah.
TOM: You had to prove yourself. And you did not prove yourself, Rush Limbaugh, until three months in -- which I've always believed it takes 90 days for a show to have a personality. I think you taught me that one time.
RUSH: Right.
TOM: When you went and did the show, you were talking about things like the Soviet Union and all these serious topics, and you went up to Yuba City to do a show, and you banned the people from Yuba City from ever being on the show because they smoked --
RUSH: No. No.
TOM: -- or smokers, or something along those lines.
RUSH: Yuba City had been found by some magazine to be the least desirous place to live in California, something. I forget what it was. So I went on the radio and said, "There are refugees pouring out of the place," and I banned all calls from Yuba City because if it's the worst place to live, what could they possibly have to say to be interesting?
TOM: So that's what it was. All right. All right.
RUSH: And so they got all offended up there, and Norm and I drove up. We actually did a show from City Hall. That's exactly right.
TOM: Well, it was the first schtick that you had done on KFBK --
RUSH: Yep.
TOM: -- and it went over hilariously. And that is when your humor and your using your techniques in broadcasting came through for the first time.
KITTY: It's true. And I'm going to have to play traffic cop here, because this is commercial free, but yet we have to get some sponsors in here. So I just want to say add a P.S.
TOM: What?
KITTY: (laughs) Yeah, I know. Imagine.
TOM: How can it be commercial free if you have to get sponsors in?
KITTY: Well, you know. When you mentioned ratings in the morning, this is what I remember is things changed with Tom and Rush when suddenly midday ratings became bigger than morning ratings. And this doesn't take anything away from what was on the morning, but a credit to you guys. All right. We have a little station identification business here. It's Rush and Tom live on KFBK.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH ARCHIVE: I moved to Sacramento in 1984, and I was to start my show there October the 15th. So I got there a couple weeks early, and I drove around to try to familiarize myself with the community about which I was going to soon be speaking. So I'm driving around, and I went up to one of the Air Force Bases, I think there were two of them out there, and I now get them confused, but I think this was McClellan. Anyway, I'm driving around out there, and, all of a sudden, I come across this one-lane or two-lane road leading into what looks like oblivion, and the population sign or the city designation sign says "Rio Linda" and there's no number there in terms of how many people live there. You know, most population signs always say the population, at least they did when I grew up. So I figured, "Nobody is willing to admit living there, so let me go look at it." I'm driving down this two-lane road, and I see houses with refrigerators, the door is open on the porch.
I see cars jacked up on concrete blocks in the front yard, dogs running around chasing garbage in the front yards, and I said "Whoa, what is this place?" So I went back and I asked people at the radio station, KFBK, "What is this Rio Linda place?" And they said, "Well, it is what it is. There are some nice areas of it, too, but you just happened to go through the bad part." So I offered, after having seen the place -- and I used to have a shtick back then of always picking a local community and making fun of it just as a broadcast technique. So I offered to move there to elevate property values if they would rename the place Limbaugh, California. They refused, of course. I also tried the same thing with West Sacramento...
KITTY: That's right, celebrating Rush's 25th anniversary, and that takes you back a little bit. Yes, I remember as the caller screener for Rush, getting all kinds of complaints from people who lived in Rio Linda: "What does he have against us? Why is he picking on us?" But I think eventually, Rush, you became their hero, because look at the recognition you gave them.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. The recognition, the property values skyrocketed. Any number of wonderfully positive things happened.
TOM: Ha! But the thing about it is, you still use it as your schtick, and it's a very local thing, but it says something to your national audience.
RUSH: Yeah. And you know something, 25 years -- well, 21 years -- on this show and people still ask. Because there are new arrivals every day, the show is still growing by leaps and bounds, people say, "What is this Rio Linda stuff?" And you know, every now and then I have to take time to explain it, which I always love doing.
KITTY: Absolutely. And, you know, Rush, there are so many things we could bring up: The trips, the Rush-To's, the people that we've known. Actually, the studio is filling with people, and I guess we should probably bring a couple in here while we still have a minute just to kind of bring back some fond memories. Why don't we start here, because, Rush, one of the very first radio remotes I ever went to was with you, and it was Natomas, and it was this store. There was only one of them at the time. It was called the Sleep Train. Remember that?
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
KITTY: And in studio we do have Mr. Dale Carlson.
DALE: Hey, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Dale! How are you, my man?
DALE: I'm doing fantastic, thanks to you. (laughter)
RUSH: (laughing)
KITTY: Did you single-handedly do this, too, Rush? Did you make...?
DALE: He did. He did. Without Rush I wouldn't be where I'm at today.
RUSH: But, you know something, I was talking about this on the radio today when I was mentioning I was going to be doing this hour on KFBK. I figured out, after talking to Sullivan -- and Sullivan was the business guy, the money guy, and we'd sit around and just chew the fat about radio. Finally it dawned on me, or he mentioned to me, "You're going to have to find your way into the revenue stream. You gotta put your name, your hand on X-amount of dollars you generate. That will give you ratings insurance and so forth," and out of the blue, there was a salesman, first name Frank. I forget his last name.
KITTY: Paluch.
RUSH: Frank Paluch.
KITTY: Yeah.
RUSH: That's right. Frank Paluch. And he said, "There's a guy with a mattress store who wants to advertise," and I went out and I met Dale, and I just jumped at the opportunity to do it. I mean, it was called Sleep Train! It was just made to order for this. And at the time you guys, you remember, there was a lot of controversy, and Dale was getting a lot of heat from people. "I am never going to shop at your store as long as you are using Limbaugh!" He stuck with it. And you know, that begot a whole bunch of others like it, and this kind of success I've never had. I'd never had that kind of investment by a sponsor, and me specifically and in my talent. And I've never forgotten it. That stuff, everything that you can remember and bring up -- even that I may have forgotten -- that happened in Sacramento was crucial. It was just... Without doubt, everything that happened out there was what prepared me for what happened later on. That's why I called it my adopted hometown. It was the first place in my whole life, except my hometown, where I really felt like a member of the community, like I actually had roots out there. I was only there three-and-a-half years, but I look back on it, and I still feel like I've lived there longer than anywhere else.
KITTY: Interesting. And, you know, Rush to have somebody in a commercial venture just starting out put their eggs in your basket and, despite all the controversy, keep them there and stand by you, it really paid off in so many ways. But I think it was just so encouraging for you, as you just said, when you were just starting out. And look at how it's turned out. (laughing) Sleep Train. How many Sleep Trains do you have, Dale?
DALE: About 230 stores in different brands and so forth.
KITTY: Yeah.
DALE: But, you know, Rush, he's done the same thing for me. When he left town to go to New York, you know, he told me, "Dale, the people you meet on the way up are the same people on the way down. I'll always take care of you," and the man's been true to his word, and you've continued just to be a godsend to me, Rush, and a great friend, and I appreciate everything you've done.
RUSH: Well, and vice-versa. Thank you. You know, there's so many people that I owe who enabled me to enjoy success that I've never been able to repay and probably won't be able to repay properly. So I'm glad that they had you in here, Dale, so I could tell you this personally again, 'cause he sends me a cheap bottle of wine every Christmas.
ALL: (laughing)
DALE: Something cheap. I can't afford your budget, Rush.
ALL: (laughing)
KITTY: Who can? Gee whiz. Absolutely.
TOM: Was that about the time, because of that, Rush, that you traded in that old Pontiac or Buick or whatever you had?
RUSH: Ohhhh, yeah.
TOM: Remember that thing? Did that thing even work?
RUSH: I arrived in California with a Pontiac Bonneville that was my dad's that was falling apart. I had traded him my falling-apart Buick Riviera. I showed up out there and it just died, I guess within a month or two. And I remember walking to and from work two or three days just because I didn't have the money. I didn't have the money to go get a new car, and I didn't know enough about the town. And they finally introduced me to a car dealer out there that had been a sponsor and ended up getting a (laughing) -- Tom, you'll remember this -- a four-cylinder Chrysler something or other. And I came over and I showed it to you. You're driving your SL 360 or whatever --
KITTY: Mercedes.
RUSH: -- Mercedes. And Tom said, "Oh, wow this is really pretty." He's faking it, you know?
ALL: (laughing)
RUSH: "Look at all these lights inside on the dashboard!"
TOM: No, you got like a really nice, nice Chrysler.
RUSH: Yeah.
TOM: It was a nice model.
RUSH: It was.
TOM: Yeah.
RUSH: It was a four-cylinder turbo. And it got up the hill to Tahoe like anything. It was great. I loved the car. It was the first --
TOM: But see, that wasn't that all that part about again building that confidence in you that just brought you up to the next level -- and then one thing after another, one thing after another -- and like you said, it prepared you for when you hit New York?
RUSH: Exactly. But, you know, when you look back on nostalgic things, your memories always end up being positive. But I mean there were... You know, radio is typical. There are a lot of egos in it, a lot of jealous people, and there were a lot of people not happy that my success was happening. There was some guy... At the time the FM station on the other side of the hall was country, and they had this really mean SOB that was the morning guy in there, and he invited me over to his house for dinner one night with his wife, and I think Dave Williams was there. I'm not sure Dave Williams was there or not. But, anyway, this guy just mocked me all night: "Do you really believe this garbage? Do you really think you're going anywhere? You are so idiotic and stupid" and so forth. You know, I left after about an hour and a half. I said, "I don't need to put up with this." But all of that, every aspect of it was preparatory to dealing with criticism and people that don't like you.
You know, I had to learn to take that. One of the things I tell people that ask me about it is, "You know, we're all raised to want to be loved and liked, and we go out of our way to make people like us." We'll sometimes, you know, modify who we are to adapt to what we think somebody wants us to be just so they'll like us. Nobody ever hated me growing up. Nobody who knew me personally ever hated me, nor did they think I hated anybody. But after I started in New York, in six months I'm a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. I had to learn to take that. This was a big psychological challenge. It took me three years to do this. I had to learn to take, as a measure of success, being hated by -- what? -- 20% of the country, audience, whatever it was. But now I've learned how to tweak that hate and embellish it and just drive those people nuts. And it's fun. But all of that stuff that happened in Sacramento, good and bad, was totally preparatory.
KITTY: It is. We were your prep school. And now you're just experiencing many of the same things but just on a grander level, I guess.
RUSH: Yeah, but with much more maturity and ability to deal with it.
KITTY: Yeah. Well, of course. I mean, you've grown as a person, no doubt.
RUSH: I mean, Mary Jane Popp, even. I loved Mary Jane Popp, but she was doing carrot cake recipe shows in the afternoon and this sort of stuff.
ALL: (laughing)
KITTY: And Roger, her producer. I remember that.
RUSH: Oh?
KITTY: Remember that?
RUSH: They were good.
TOM: I'm saying nothing. Nothing! (laughter)
KITTY: Okay. This is probably a good time for a break. We're gonna regroup here. We are, of course, talking with Rush Limbaugh and Tom Sullivan, 25 years celebrating Rush's career here on KFBK. We are talking about the good old days. We have another special guest who will be joining us in the next half hour, an old friend of yours, Rush, and Tom's and mine; and you'll know the voice as soon as you hear it. So, ladies and gentlemen, there's much more to come. Don't go anywhere. They're here 'til four. It's 3:30 now at KFBK.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
KITTY: Yes indeed, 3:33 now at KFBK, celebrating 25 years of Rush Limbaugh at KFBK -- and we do have the self-proclaimed little fuzzball. You have a lot of names for yourself, Rush, and a lot of slogans and things that were just singularly you. And there were a lot of things that changed once you got to KFBK, and Dale Carlson was reminding me. I remember taking a call. You had made fun of some show called Supertanker when I was back screening your calls, and you'd made fun of the caller on the air (laughing) because of the way he said "Supertanker." And so you, you know, mimicked him for some time. Then he showed up at the front door with a knife and made it almost down the hall, until our two engineers tackled him. Do you remember that?
RUSH: No.
KITTY: You don't?
RUSH: No! My gosh!
KITTY: Maybe this is the first time you've heard it.
RUSH: Wow. Maybe. See? Nostalgia only reminds me of the good things. (laughs)
TOM: Whoa!
KITTY: Well, we remodeled the building. Remember when we got the more secure doors? I mean, before you could just kind of walk through, but not after that.
RUSH: Wait a minute. Now, it is starting to click. Now, when you say remodel the doors, that I remember, and now it's starting to come back. But I never saw the guy, I don't think.
KITTY: Remember Mark Stennett, the little engineer?
RUSH: Yeah.
KITTY: Nice guy.
RUSH: Yeah.
KITTY: He tackled him with somebody else.
TOM: I never heard that.
KITTY: You didn't?
TOM: Never heard that story.
KITTY: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: Try this one. Now, you guys all know this if you remember it, but of course I have never, ever divulged this on any air. But I mentioned Mary Jane Popp a moment ago. Shortly after I got there, six months ago or so, you could go on one of these cruises with Mary Jane Popp. Look, this is just factual. I'm not trying to be critical of anything here. The sales were not going all that great, and this was while the Sleep Train stuff was working great, so the general manager at the time whose name we won't mention came to me and said, "Look, I need you to show up at some McClatchy building at the newspaper. We're going to have a bunch of people, and I want you to do a big sales pitch on Mary Jane Popp's cruise." And I said, "Am I going on it?" "No. No."
KITTY: (laughing) So you endorsed it?
RUSH: "I have to go down there and tell people why it's a fun deal to go on Mary's cruise?" "Yes, you do." I said, "Why are you doing this to me?" So I refused to do it, in an act of insubordination, and he came in the studio one morning, during a commercial break, and said, "I'm not leaving here until you tell me you'll go," and he waited until a commercial break, and there was dead air for two minutes while he's standing in there waiting for me to answer. That's the way he dealt with it. The same general manager wanted me to check into an insane asylum in San Francisco to try to get them as a sponsor. And he tried to tell me that I was exhibiting traits of depression and so forth and it really would help if I took a couple weeks to go down there and then come back and sell it. You know, that I just refused to do.
KITTY: Well, I'm glad you drew the line somewhere. (laughing)
TOM: And that's the guy, that's the guy who I'm not going to give out numbers, but I mean you weren't making a whole lot of money, and you were asking for some small raise, and he kept putting you off and putting you off. And I remember you and I went to breakfast, you said, "I'm all excited. He's going to meet with me. We're going to go in. I'm going to talk to him about getting that raise," and he stiffed you. He said, "I don't have an appointment with you."
RUSH: Yeah, I got in there.
TOM: As a result of that, you met the people that put you in New York.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were more concerned about re-upping with the Kings, the basketball team.
TOM: Yeah.
KITTY: Yes, we know.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's been a fortuitous thing.
TOM: Yeah.
KITTY: Well, and you mentioned the going to breakfast. Maybe we can talk a little bit about the social aspect, because, Rush, you did spend a lot of time out in the community, and there was a little bit of a club, I have to say. I wasn't a part of all of it because you guys kind of formed a little boys club. And one of the boys, if I may use that term, is in studio now, and you're going to know the voice as soon as you hear it who wants to congratulate you on your 25th anniversary, Rush.
STAN: Yeah, but you were the best mascot we could ever have. (laughter)
RUSH: Stan Atkinson.
STAN: Hey, Rushbo. Hello, Tom.
TOM: Hello, Stanley.
STAN: Great to be with you. I can't believe it's 25 years --
RUSH: I can.
STAN: -- especially when you're only 35 years old, Rush.
RUSH: I know. (laughing) That's a quarter of a century. I have to tell you another Norm Woodruff story. He would take me to dinner every night at 7:30, eight o'clock, seven o'clock, something like that, and the old Alhambra Fuel and whatever it was.
KITTY: Feed.
TOM: Oh, yeah.
KITTY: Fuel and Feed. That's right.
RUSH: And we'd go in there, we'd go in there and Norm would get a strategic table waiting for Stan to walk in. And he said, "Now, I want you to watch how this man carries himself. This is a star. This man is a star. Watch him work the room. Watch the love for this man." And he did. He did. That's where I first saw you in person. Of course, you didn't even know I was in the room watching.
STAN: Yeah, and that was, you first approached me. We were both in the locker room, the men's locker room at the Alhambra Health Club.
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
STAN: And you came up, and you said, "Hey, Stan, I've seen you on TV. I'm Rush." And I said, "Oh, yeah. I've listened to you. I think you'll really good." And that was all it took. And we started having dinner at Mesa's. We would work our way through either the menu at the Alhambra or Mesa's from top to bottom for about three hours every night.
RUSH: Skirts steak at Mesa's, right.
STAN: Every three weeks or so, and that's how our friendship began.
KITTY: Well, Rush you had a lot of friends here, absolutely. And I know Stan was one of them. And Tom probably really guided you along to the three of you, I think, huh?
STAN: Well, and there was another one, and I talked to him last night, Rush. It was Tom Hazlett, of course, who was a professor of economics at Davis at the time, and that was back east at George Mason University. And we did some reminiscing of our own. And we were recalling something that, if I use the word CompuServe, what does that bring up for you?
RUSH: Oh, CompuServe. That was the first Internet service where you could access the news wires.
STAN: And you were the original. We couldn't remember anybody who ever used the computer in that manner.
RUSH: No.
STAN: But you started stuffing your head every single night with whatever you could pull down from CompuServe -- which is something, by the way, you still do as a matter of prepping for the shows.
TOM: We used to talk to each other on the phone, Rush and myself, and I had a CompuServe account, and he did, too. And I would say, "All right," and we would go through this big setup to figure out if we could send a message through our computers to each other. (laughter)
RUSH: Yeah. (laughing)
STAN: It was a big deal.
TOM: It worked, and it worked. And the other part -- this is a funny part. I had a Macintosh, one of the early Macs. And Rush was looking around for some sort of computer. And I said, "Well, go over and get one of these Macintoshes." You've been a big Mac fan ever since, but I'll never forget, you said, "You mean you just bought it without asking your wife?" (laughter) I said, "Yeah."
KITTY: Yeah. Just did.
STAN: Rush, always the dutiful husband.
TOM: At the time that was a big deal, yeah.
KITTY: You know, Rush, I remember before even computers, when I was working with you, and I can remember coming in the door every day, and you would be sitting at your desk near the back door there in the newsroom, and you'd have on your tie; you always dressed up for the show; and you'd have your stack of newspapers and your single-edge razor blade, and you'd be slicing out articles, remember, for your show.
RUSH: You know, it's amazing. I used the Chronicle, the Bee, sometimes the New York Times, and the LA Times. Back then, you know, you could prep a show with three newspapers. Today, you can't do that. With all that's out there, the Internet, one person can't do it anymore. You need a couple people helping you find stuff off the Internet. Yeah, the explosion of information that's available has been incredible.
KITTY: Yeah.
RUSH: And Tom, I asked him, "When you buy a new car, what do you do?" He said, "I send them a wire." I said, "What's that?" He said, "I just wire them the money from my account." "You mean you pay for the whole thing at one time?" (laughter)
TOM: You were amazed.
RUSH: You don't know what an inspiration you were. (laughter)
STAN: Do you remember our argument over the man who owned Sacramento? That was something the Bee had called me, and as your fame began to spread --
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
STAN: -- far and wide in this marketplace, you finally went on the air and made some comment about, "Yeah, the Bee thinks that Atkinson is the man who owns Sacramento, but in fact I'm the one who owns the banks." (laughter) It was all you cared about, right, Rush?
RUSH: Well, at a certain point, yes.
STAN: Not today, by the way. (laughter)
KITTY: Rush, when you were getting ready to go -- see, you were here from '84 to '88; is that correct?
RUSH: Seven, summer of '87.
KITTY: And I remember having lunch with you before you left, and I remember you saying, "I am scared to death to do this, but I absolutely have to. This is an opportunity I just cannot pass up." And why don't you tell us a little bit about how you felt as you were getting ready to make that transition to New York.
RUSH: Well, Sacramento was my home. I had friends, more friends there than anyplace I'd ever lived. I had, you know, a life outside the radio station. I had success. And I was making at the time $45,000 a year, which was more than twice what I had ever made. This was '87, so I'm 36 years old, but this opportunity has been presented and everybody that had tried it in the daytime had failed. It just hadn't worked. And I figured, "Even if it doesn't work, I'm going to expand the number of people in the business who know me, and I'll at least, if all else fails, be able to come back to Sacramento or maybe go someplace else." But it was scary because I'd been to New York only once, when I worked for the Kansas City Royals, and the amount of money -- you know, the big thing that I did was take a percentage of the net profits versus a draw, against a draw without a full salary. And therefore it depended on performance. And the draw, as it turned out, was not enough for me to equate the lifestyle that I'd had in Sacramento, which was nice, but it wasn't top drawer. It wasn't enough to live in Manhattan. So that begot the Rush to Excellence Tour. Every weekend for the first two years I'm traveling around to all the new affiliates doing appearances and charging for it. I think I charged $10,000; the station got to keep whatever else there was and donate it to charity, just to supplant my income. But, oh, I was scared to death, because my most common experience in radio had been failure. Sacramento was the only place I'd succeeded.
TOM: Yeah, but at the same time -- you know, the audience doesn't know this; you know this, but is this business about the fact that everybody said, "No, you gotta have a local show. We don't want no syndicated radio show," and you broke that barrier to where now syndication is standard.
RUSH: That's one thing. Yeah, that's true. I forgot about that. By the way, I remember Mickey Luckoff down the road at KGO saying, "We wish you well, but this isn't gonna work. Syndication, national shows only work at nighttime. You gotta have local numbers, local hosts, local issues. You're not going to have any meaningful stations care about it." And I said, "Well, you know, I'll give it a try anyway." I mean, it was satellite time that was available, two hours of it to start, from noon to two. Turned out -- here's another fortuitous thing -- noon to two Eastern time is nine a.m. Pacific, and it's 11 a.m. Central, and so it was out of drive time. It would have been impossible if I were asking stations to pick me up in drive time either morning or afternoon. So those two hours that were available from noon to two turned out to be fundamental in having this all work out.
TOM: Yeah. Wasn't it your first book where you said that? I mean, it was the stars literally lined up because you couldn't have planned it.
RUSH: No, couldn't have planned it. And as Kitty mentioned earlier, or you did, if it hadn't been for the fact that they were playing hardball on a contract with me and pretending that they had not had meetings when they did and focusing on re-upping with the Kings. I had a clause in the contract that if I got an offer from a top-ten station, I could get out of it in 30 days. And that happened because part of the moving to New York was working on WABC. I had to do two shows, two hours local and then two hours national. And that was like for the first year, year-and-a-half. And if that hadn't happened, nobody would ever have heard of me.
TOM: And because of that, when I filled in on your show, Johnny Donovan did a little bit, a recorded bit that Kit put together that said that Rush Limbaugh gave Tom Sullivan his big broadcast break. And it's true because KFBK was the only station in the nation that had a problem. We had you for three hours. All of a sudden we had you for two hours, and Tyler almost-the-boss Cox said, "Tom, go in there and do a one-hour talk show, the hour that Rush isn't on," and that started that.
KITTY: The Tom Sullivan Show.
TOM: Yeah.
KITTY: Ah. The genesis of it at all.
TOM: So it was. I mean it was my big broadcast break because of the fact you did two hours instead of three.
KITTY: Amazing. Well, let's take a quick break here. And, Rush, I have to insert this. No question, I'm not overstating the case to say that you, I think, single-handedly changed talk radio, and to some extent broadcasting.
TOM: No question.
KITTY: Yeah, absolutely, Tom. We can talk about that more when we come back. We have, of course, Tom Sullivan here, Rush Limbaugh. We're celebrating his 25th anniversary on KFBK. I'm talking to him on the phone here in studio. We have special guest Stan Atkinson, also Dale Carlson from the Sleep Train, all to weigh in on this amazing 25 years. It's 3:47 at KFBK. We'll be back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
(Montage: The Bush Family's Call to Rush on his 20th Anniversary Show, August 1, 2008)
KITTY: That's right, 3:49 now at KFBK. And to pick up where we left off, you know, Rush, I remember starting with you, and you were so different. No callers, condom updates, Slim Whitman's records played backwards. I mean, this morning Ed Crane on KFBK asked me, he said, "When you were working with Rush, did you think that maybe he would ever achieve the kind of success that he has?" "Absolutely not." And who would have? Not even you, I don't think. Who could have done that? But what I did say was that you were absolutely singular in your talent then, and you've gone on to prove that in spades. And the thing is, as Stan was saying -- and, Stan, you can weigh in on this if you want, and Tom, too -- it's all generated by you. It was all your ideas. There's nobody coming to you and saying, "Hey, Rush! Hey, Rush! I think you should do this." No, these crazy things out of that own brain of yours.
STAN: Every show of every single day comes out of your head and nobody else's. And people who do what you do usually have a phalanx of writers and producers who pump them up and get them prepped for the next day and for the show. And it was so interesting because when you started doing the nightly TV show from New York, you were so frustrated by it because you'd leave the radio studio, you'd go over to the TV studio, your staff had already prepped the show for you. You said every single night you'd have to tear it up and start all over.
RUSH: That is true, because... Well, my whole career in radio has been spontaneity. I've never had one meeting with anybody for this iteration of the show. I mean, back when I was a deejay, I had them all the time. But I mean this talk show starting in Sacramento, never had one meeting with anybody. It was just whatever I wanted to do when I felt like doing it, based on what I thought would work at the time, even when the show started off and I didn't know what the first item would be. Television was so confining that I just felt constrained by it because I'd had so much experience with what I call improv. TV just didn't allow for it because whatever video you were going to use had to be put in a certain order, had to be used that way, and the floor director had to know where the cameras were going to be, and the first year of that show was extremely frustrating.
TOM: Yeah, I remember.
RUSH: As you remember.
TOM: I feel the same way about it. But I've gotta ask you a question. We never talked about this. When you were in Sacramento, Rush, you did all kinds of things, and there was a lot of humor, and the comedic side of you was there in various different kinds of topics. When you went to New York, it became more and more a political show; and I don't know how that happened or why it happened or if you found that that gave you better success. Because it seemed like your topics were all over the map in Sacramento as compared to New York.
RUSH: Well, part of that was the explosion of information that was available once the Internet kicked up and once cable TV expanded beyond CNN. But, you know, I'm listening to some of these clips that you're playing here during the billboard segments, and I've forgotten that I ever said half this stuff. Tom, it is a brilliant thing you bring up, because radio is a constant -- for me, a constant -- evolution. And it's always been about my passions. And I was just saying the other day, just saying the other day on the radio that I really used to put together a Lighthearted, Human Interest Stack of Stuff that was nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with anything other than just people behaving stupidly and laughing about it. And the evolution that we're in now, what's happening in the country, to me, is deathly serious. And it's hard to laugh at it. I try to find ways because I think that's the fastest way to persuade people, you know, is to ridicule and make fun of the people that you're having problems with. But every day I wake up, I feel like I'm in the trenches of a war without bullets flying back and forth. And it's a struggle. Not... Well, yeah, it is a struggle to keep as much entertainment value in it, because I feel compelled to be serious about what I think are really serious, destructive things happening in the country.
KITTY: 'Cause I remember you used to say that you were first and foremost an entertainer. Do you still feel that way?
RUSH: Yeah, because I think that radio is a show biz medium, and you have to cut through all the noise to be heard first. It's first a business. You have to stay on the air business-wise. There has to be a profit made, because the rest is academic if it doesn't happen. But, yeah, of course it's entertainment. I think what's happened to me is that, partly because the Republican Party's crashed and burned and doesn't have anybody that's singularly identifiable charismatically as a leader, that I'm looked to now as a political figure more than I ever was. But you have to adapt. You have to adapt to what things are and the way they happen. And, you know, I was worried for a while some years ago when the tone of things changed and got a little bit more serious, but we haven't yet had a down financial year from the previous year. We haven't lost any significant ratings at all. We're still growing. So it's all worked out. I think the reason for that is because, in the early days, I really have a deep bond. I think all of us who succeed in media do. Stan had it on Channel 3; you've got it, Tom. We all have a deep bond with the audience. And if the media doesn't make us, they can't destroy us. And I've had a lot of personal problems that have been publicly known and aired. The media has jumped in and chimed on and tried to do everything they can to discredit me, but because of the bond of credibility I have with the audience, they haven't been able to do it. So whatever the credibility is, however it started: Me being honest, treating them with respect, respecting their intelligence. They're loyal. It's something that I, you know, pinch myself every day for.
KITTY: I wonder that sometimes, Rush, how you must feel, and in our remaining moments here, when you look at where you started and where you've ended up. I mean, your salary's in the stratosphere. You're internationally known. You could have every material thing you possibly could want. You're a huge success. Are there times you still wake up and say, "How did this happen to me?" Or did you feel you were destined for it?
RUSH: Well...
KITTY: How do you assess all this now?
RUSH: I always thought, even in the early days when I was a disc jockey and being fired, I always had a confidence that I would succeed. In fact, I always -- and my mother was largely responsible for this by continuing to urge me on, and she made me feel special and talented at what I was doing. And I always knew I was going to be one of the biggest in this business, but I didn't have any idea how it would manifest itself. I didn't know what. I didn't know talk shows or anything of the sort. Now, the honest answer to your question is, "I never phone it in." I am so focused on tomorrow that I don't think about yesterday or where I am. I am so focused on meeting audience expectations and exceeding them that I don't stop to think of that. Look, I'm thankful for what I have, don't misunderstand. I don't take it for granted. I don't have my head in the clouds over it. It's something I think I have to earn every day.
KITTY: Got it.
TOM: So the question that the audience always asks me: How long is he going to do this?
RUSH: Ah. I've always said to myself, "If I get up one day and I don't care what's in the news, then that's the first red flag, maybe a yellow flag," and if that happens repeatedly, if I wake up and don't care, then that's when I'll know. But I have no intention of going. I'm still happier doing this than I've ever been. I enjoy it more than anything. It's become a part of my identity. And I know time is dwindling down here, and I just want to say a couple of things. Stan and Dale came in for this thing tonight, and Tom from New York. I really love all of you people. You have no idea the importance you have all played in my success, my being who I am as a person. And I cherish it. I'll never forget it, ever.
KITTY: Well, they are still here to say good-bye, Dale and Stan.
STAN: Tom, good seeing you, talking to you as well, Tom.
TOM: Likewise. Likewise.
DALE: Rush, Rush, thank you so much again, and God bless you, and thanks for what you do for all of us.
RUSH: Thank you, Dale.
STAN: Keep on trucking, Rush. Keep on trucking.
KITTY: And, Tom, you want to weigh in in the last minute?
TOM: I just thought... I was just thinking from the very beginning where I sat in that production room with Don Wright, and you came in with this song from The Pretenders, and you wanted him to cut it up a certain way. It's your theme song, and you've kept it all this time.
RUSH: Yeah, but now it costs me a hundred thousand dollars a year, because back then Chrissie Hynde had no idea who I was.
KITTY: I remember asking her that at an MTV ball, I said, "How do you feel about Rush using your song?" And she said, "Who's Rush?" (laughter)
RUSH: Her parents happen to like me. Her parents like me.
KITTY: Well how about that? Well, Rush, Tom, it's just been a pleasure, Rush. We could talk for hours, but suffice to say happy anniversary.
TOM: Happy anniversary, big guy.
KITTY: You've exceeded everyone's expectations. Congratulations.
RUSH: Thank you all very much. This hour has flown by. And only one political comment, too, which I absolutely loved.
KITTY: Excellent. You maintained it. Rush Limbaugh, Tom Sullivan also Dale Carlson and Stan Atkinson. Thanks, everybody. It's 3:59 at KFBK.
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
|
| • KFBK: Rush Limbaugh 25th Anniversary Show |