I was out of work for about 6 months when I decided to see if my friends in radio were serious.

They were.

But since I had no experience, they suggusted I take the course offered by the Ohio School of Broadcasting in nearby Independence, Ohio. I had just enough left of my G.I. Bill education benefits to pay for it.

WMMS was Cleveland's first FM rock station. In 1968, the owners of WHK AM/FM decided to try something different. The FM station was a money loser, so why not try something new?

By the mid-70's, WMMS was "THE" FM rock station. Others had come and gone, copycats were popping up, but FM 101 was the station everyone listened to.

By the time I joined WMMS in 1982, the station wasn't the hippy-dippy station I listened to in college. It was big time and commercial. The old mushroom had given way to the Buzzard. The Buzzard had gone through more than a few changes himself, from the almost sinister look he had perched atop the mushroom to the slicker character that became the stations mascot.

What pushes a station to Number One is the morning "drive time" show. WMMS had the team. Jeff and Flash and the Buzzard Morning Crew.

I was the new guy, the Outlaw, Jesse James. I got the midnight to 6 shift, the shift NOBODY wanted. But because there was a large number of late night listeners, I did get some publicity.

Actually, I did get to work with Ed "Flash" Ferrens a little bit because he'd start at 5 a.m. with his news. I never quite understood why he did that. All those years, Flash came in at 5 and Jeff came in at 6.

There were a few advantages to doing the late show. For one thing, the station didn't have a playlist for the hours of 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. What that means is that I could play ANYTHING I wanted to play for those three hours.

So… I played the blues.

No one in management cared and it became a fairly popular segment. I played Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, Muddy Waters, and a lot of John Lee Hooker.

Notice that the station changed from 101 to 100.7. That's because tuners became digital and 100.7 was the real setting.

Since I was the late night jock, I also had time to host some of WMMS's outside events, most notably the Coffee Break Concerts. These were concerts held at around 10 a.m. by local Cleveland bands in in Agora Ballroom in downtown Cleveland. Granted, if it was a popular enough band, Jeff and Flash or Matt the Cat would play host, but I got a fair amount of exposure as the band gained popularity.

I acquired my own little cult following, mostly college kids that partied late or blues fans that worked the night shift. I hosted a few "WMMS Night Out" events that got pretty wild at times.

Radio work doesn't pay REAL well unless you're a star, so I worked the Coffee Break Concerts and Night Out gigs.

I also wrote for Cleveland's Scene Magazine. They had their own Rock Reviewers, but had me write a weekly column on the music scene in general. WMMS was the establishment radio station to these guys and they routinely slammed the station's playlist, but I was the Outlaw, the guy that played the Blues on "Cleveland's Rock Station".

Between WMMS, and the Scene, I made enough that Chrissy was able to scale back to part time work.

Our daughter Laura Christine was born July 12, 1982 and Margaret Mary was born February 23, 1986.

Being the late night jock at WMMS wasn't all that bad.

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