Stories From Sam – “The Sign Off” Part 1 & 2

The Sign-off

My radio career began in the Summer of 1963 when I attended a broadcast school in San Francisco, and I got my first paying job ($110 for a 6-day week) in February of 1964, at the tender age of 17. My first shows were nervous comedies-of-error, but as I settled in, I thought that, just like my favorite DJs, I needed to have a sign-off. My idol Don Sherwood would sign off with “Out of the mud grows the lotus”, and Emperor Gene Nelson first signed off with “Put on the coffee, Bubbles – I’m coming home”. And after Bubbles wasn’t home anymore, he said “Totskiddaha”, the meaning of which is unclear to me but probably means something like “good life”. My absolute favorite sign-off is my friend Brian Copeland’s:

“Be kind to your neighbor – he knows where you live”. Admittedly mine wasn’t all that original: my idol Dick Clark signed off from American Bandstand with “Dick Clark – so long”. So, I decided mine would be “Take care and so long.” Over 50-plus years, this was how I said goodbye at the end of my shift. Through stints at KPER, KTEO, KDON and KCBS-FM in San Francisco, I said goodbye with those words. It wasn’t until I had been doing PM Drive at KIOI for five years that a “consultant” decided to change things. Renowned radio programmer Al Casey decreed that nobody cared about the personalities, just the music, so we would no longer be allowed to say hello or goodbye on our shows at KIOI. My first time being “signed off” – fired – came later in 1981 when Casey decided that I wasn’t a team player.

Sam At KYA WithGene Nelson & Gary Mora

My next stop was up the street at KYA “The Personality Station,” where I was once again allowed to be myself, and where personalities were still respected. I was happily working there when KYA’s Ken Dennis signed me off in 1984, saying he wasn’t sure how to replace me, but he would have to figure it out. To be fair, I had made Ken’s job difficult with my own erratic behavior, and shortly after being fired, I entered a drug rehab facility in Oakland to straighten myself out before I was most certainly going to be signed off by the risky lifestyle I had been living. For the next ten years, I signed on and off at KNEW in my usual way: “Take care and so long”. KNEW was a top-rated Country Music station, and the perfect fit for someone who was trying to settle his life down and rehabilitate. It was an awesome time for me, supported by some broadcast talents I had admired for years, like Frank Terry, who had been a big-time Boss Jock at KFRC and KHJ, and the unstoppable Steve Jordan, who had worked with me at KYA and KIOI, and seemed to bring the ratings up wherever he landed. I learned a great deal just by observing them. After a decade at KNEW, I was offered a spot at KBBG “Big 98”.  Big 98 was a rock station that focused on the biggest hits of the 1980’s, and after years at a bucolic job on a mellow Country station, I was uncomfortable with Big 98’s frantic pace. The great Oldies programmer, Bob Hamiltion, decided to sign me off in 1996, replacing me with the legendary John Mack Flanagan, who was an iconic “name” in the Oldies format. How Bob did it was special: I had heard rumors and instinctively sensed that I was on the way out, so when Bob ordered a new jingle package, I went to the Production guy and asked to hear mine. He could not find it, so I went to Bob, who denied that he was replacing me. On the day he fired me I went to the General Manager, who also denied any knowledge of it. That day at 5 O’clock, in the middle of my 3-7PM shift, Bob came in and said “OK Sam, you know the drill – come with me. Poor Steve Garland was hiding in a doorway, stuck with having to take over. I had cued up “Shaft,” because I knew I was getting the shaft, and for my last act on Big 98 I played it as my non-verbal sign-off. I was five days from my 50^th birthday – scary-old in radio back then.

Next stop, KFRC, where I did fill-in and Public Affairs off and on for several years. In the middle of that period, I took a job doing a morning show in Sacramento for three years, and the way we were “signed-off” was fairly typical of radio in the 90’s. Clear Channel owned COOL-101 in Sacramento and our “Breakfast Club” had taken the morning ratings up from ninth to third in the demographic when Clear Channel decided to dump Oldies from their portfolio of radio stations. A programmer with the pseudonym “Steve Rivers” made the decision. It was a Monday morning and my producer, T-Rex, said he heard we were finished.

“The Sign Off” Part 2

At 9:30 we were told we had to assemble for a meeting at 1PM at a local hotel (Ruh-Roh!!).  So I went to the PD – I had a personal appearance to do at noon and a tee-time at 3 – “Hey Randy, will this meeting take very long?”. Randy’s reply was that it shouldn’t take too long. When I got to the meeting at ten past one, my partner, Jennife Steele, was crying, and my other partner, Jim Raposa, was looking sad. We never got the chance to say goodbye to our listeners or our co-workers, as we received our severance package, including ratings bonus, at the hotel and were sent packing. So for me, it was back to KFRC doing fill-in and Public Affairs for the next five years. By that time I had also taken a job with the CBS-TV show Candid Camera as their announcer/gag guy, which ended when Candid Camera was canceled in 2004. I juggled that and KFRC along with some side-hustles, for several years. Then, in the Fall of 2004 I got a call from Joe Armaio, the General Manager of KBAY in San Jose, asking me if I would consider moving to that station. KBAY was a CBS-owned property like KFRC, so switching to KBAY was a simple matter, and I began a twelve-year run doing a morning show there with Lissa Kreisler, a solid talent who had been established as a morning fixture there for years. I never really signed off at KFRC. No “Take care and so long”.

Sam, Lisa & Mayor Sam Licardo

But over the years, signing on to do mornings at KBAY turned out to be a fortunate decision. On KBAY, Lissa and I had a great run and great fun – the natural difference in our personalities made for interesting radio and we enjoyed solid ratings for about ten years. In fact, we were so successful that our contracts were adjusted to make it nearly impossible to get a ratings bonus. Our show needed to be rated number one for each week of the ratings period, and if we slipped to second place for even one week, bonuses were out. Steve Dinetz was the owner behind that decision. Over time, Steve “signed off,” but the contract clause remained. After a long run at the top, and after receiving a scary cancer diagnosis at the age of 70, I decided it was finally time for me to sign off for good, so I wrote a letter of explanation/resignation and gave the boss three months’ notice. Unfortunately, management saw this as an opportunity to make substantial changes, and that meant that after 29 very successful years, Lissa was being let go as I left. So we signed off together.

The night before our last show, the Hotel De Anza, where I’d given my first speech to a Lion’s Club group at fifteen, gave me the penthouse suite for the night. It truly was a “dark and stormy night” as I pondered how I would say goodbye after fifty-four years in radio. The next morning about four, the storm had passed and I walked from the De Anza to KBAY to do our last show. It was a mixed-up show for sure – Lissa was leaving and listeners were sad, so we spent the morning airing their comments, broken up by a visit from Mayor Sam Liccardo and coverage by the excellent San Jose Mercury columnist, Sal Pizzaro. Hectic doesn’t describe the pace – it was frenetic, with myself fielding and editing calls and slowly realizing that this sign-off would not be anything like the ones I’d done through the years. Forces were at work: the sales and marketing people were putting together food and flowers for Lissa’s farewell party after the show, and others were gathering outside our studio to hear our final words. At 9:55, Lissa said her tearful farewell, and it was my turn to sign off for the last time. As I pointed out, the mood was sad and almost funereal.

No Pressure! My last words as co-host of the Sam & Lissa Show-and my radio career – were brief. I said that radio is a lifetime love that is difficult to end, so, like it goes in an old favorite song, I wouldn’t say goodbye. The song goes, “Though we must part, there’s no reason to cry. Just say ‘so long’, because lovers never say goodbye,” And then I wrapped up my crazy, adventurous, exciting, depressing, demanding, blessed career with “So long”.

As I write, this story, I have recently turned 80 years old and was given a beautiful farewell/birthday party to put a cherry on the top. Like the old gag goes: “Radio has been berry, berry good to me.” But all things must pass, and after ten years in retirement, I need to turn the page. Over the past few years, I have volunteered for the worthy, incredible California Historical Radio Society, and other nonprofits, and supporting the entity that supported me all those years has been a real joy. I’ve met radio greats that I would not have met otherwise, as well as the awesome engineers who got us on the air and kept us there. It has truly been a pleasure to get to know them all. The same goes for the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame which invited me into their ranks in 2014. And now, at 80, it’s clear that there are fewer and fewer pages left to turn in my book, so I feel a need to explore new things with the remaining chapters. From humble beginnings as the only English-speaking announcer on KPER Radio in Gilroy, to the joy of wrapping up my career in my hometown, San Jose, it’s been a heck of a ride. And at last, the time has come for me to sign off.

Take care and so long.