MarxLennon's Gratuitous Image Page

Well, it's pretty amazing how rumors start, reputations form, and the stories grow.

Yes, I admit it. I autographed a college girl's breast. It was a "WMMS Night Out" at the Brothers Lounge on W.117^th and Detroit. It was the first "Night Out" to feature the local blues band Moko Bovo. It was a silly thing to do.

But, sheesh, who knew it'd mushroom? And I can thank the boys in publicity for this one.

That ad was the first in a series of ads, all just short of soft core porn. Fortunately, this one didn't last long. A number of groups objected to it for a number of reasons, all fairly obvious.

Of course, once the ad boys get an idea, they'll beat it to death.

So, they came up with this great idea.

Suddenly, I was getting this reputation as late night radio's stud, the heart throb of Northern Ohio's college coeds. In reality, my blues hours were popular on campus, but most listeners were guys.

Chrissy found this whole thing endlessly amusing. Just how sexy would my listeners find me as I changed dirty diapers or took out the trash on Thursday mornings?

But when the ratings came out first quarter of '88, I was the guy to beat between midnight and 6 a.m. This got me a little more money and the freedom to play the blues all night long, well, as long as I turned in a playlist the morning before.

It also allowed me to give some air time to local blues bands every Friday night (okay, Saturday morning). So, Cleveland bands like Moko Bovo, Mr. Stress, Colin Dusault's Blues Project, Blue Taxi, and Crazy Marvin had a show. "The Cleveland Blues" was what I called the segment. It was on from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. The timing worked, because the bands could come by right after a gig. Most had either a tape or CD they were pushing. On occasion I was able to talk the station into taping a show if the band had a big enough following.

It was around June of '88 when the Cleveland Plain Dealer offered me a deal. They wanted me to write a column on the local blues and jazz scene for their Friday magazine. That was basically what I'd been doing for the Scene since 1986. I felt some loyalty to the Scene, they'd kept me going quite awhile. What I did was a first in Cleveland. I cut a deal with the Plain Dealer and the Scene to use the same column. The two decided they weren't really competing for readership and both wanted my column. SO… I wrote one column that was published in two papers.

Meanwhile, WMMS itself was faced with something new. The old pop station at 98.5 turned into WNCX, Cleveland's "Classic Rock Station". In an effort to stay Number One, WMMS had made changes. They were playing more new rock and less "classic rock". The had been a bit of a protest by the baby boomers, but WMMS was as good as they got. Well, until WNCX started up. 98.5 FM was on the rise, Number Two with a bullet.

In the late summer, I had another interesting offer. WUAB, one of the local UHF TV stations asked me if I'd be interested in translating "The Cleveland Blues" into a half hour TV show. Channel 43 had recently moved their nightly news back to 10 p.m. and wanted to run something different on Friday nights from 11 to 11:30 p.m. They were willing to shoot video of the bands in the bars. They sponsors lined up and everything. I said "YES!".

So, in September of 1988, I became a local TV host.

Surprisingly enough, it was the same week WNCX started playing the Howard Stern Show in the morning.

By the end of the year, Howard had beat Jeff and Flash and became the Number One morning show.

WMMS freaked out. They dumped Jeff and Flash. They switched to all new rock.

And they dumped me. I'd just signed a new contract (with that small raise) and they decided to buy out my contract.

My popularity made it pretty easy to land the midnight job at 90.3 FM, WCPN. It's the National Public Radio station in town. Except for all the news programming during both the morning and evening "drive time", they're a jazz station for the most part. They had some blues shows from NPR, but nothing local.

And so it goes. I've been at WCPN for just about ten years now. I still write for both the Plain Dealer and the Scene. I still do my little TV show for Channel 43. I'm part of almost every blues event in Cleveland. Both B.B. King and Eric Clapton stop by when they're in town. It's kind of a strange life, but it's comfortable.

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