Steve Jaxon and Gilbert Gottfried on The Drive.

Gilbert Gottfried, in Santa Rosa yesterday afternoon for a performance later in the evening, walked into the The Drive’s refrigerated radio studio for an interview and in a few seconds had everyone laughing about Steve Jaxon’s preferred cold studio temperature. Then Steve began by asking Gilbert about his origins in comedy and we learned that he started doing stand-up as a kid and found success despite the odds being stacked against anyone seeking a career in entertainment.

Gottfried recalled his time on SNL, which was right after the original cast left, which was a hard act to follow and the critics were merciless. “It would be like if in the middle of Beatlemania, you said John, Paul, George and Ringo are gone and we’ve got these other four schmucks, and just pretend that they’re the Beatles… Even before we were on the air they were already panning us, saying, how dare they continue the show…”

Gabe Moline, also visiting The Drive, asked for the story of how the SNL writers made him play dead in a sketch, and Gilbert told, “To show how much they hated me, there was a funeral sketch, and rather than just put a mannequin in it, they put me in the coffin. Yeah, so they couldn’t stand me.” Gabe mentioned that Gilbert is friends with Norm Macdonald and he said, “He may have had a miserable time (on SNL) but his season was more respected, I think,” followed by a spot-on impression of his friend.

When Steve asked about what kind of work he has been doing, we heard about Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast, on www.gilbertgottfried.com. “Right this week is Chevy Chase and I think next week is Artie Lange.”

Jim Murphy (operations manager and head of programming for KSRO) joined the group and brought a photo of him with Gottfried and others which elicited some memories and stories.

Then Gabe brought up Gilbert’s special called Dirty Jokes, and the fact that since they are on the radio they are subject to FCC rules so they could not tell any: “But what I love about your dirty jokes and your clean jokes is the economy of them. There’s a great joke where the punch line is, the wife says, ‘Stop trying to put words in my mouth.’ But maybe the one that we can recall on the air is the patient that goes to the doctor and the doctor says, I’ve got bad news for you, you’ve got cancer and you have Alzheimer’s. And the patient says…” After a perfect pause, Gilbert finished it with, “Thank God I don’t have cancer!”

The Gilbert Gottfried DVD Dirty Jokes.

Gilbert suggested, “Let me try to say punch lines of filthy jokes that are clean punch lines.” And Steve remembered, “You know we used to do this! Give us your favorite punch line to a dirty joke and we’d do it on the air, on other radio stations.” Gilbert was ready with a few: “Oh, here’s one: ‘That’s it, I’m calling the police!’ Or, ‘OK, OK, I’ll do the dishes!”

Gabe asked, “What I wonder about, is this a practice of yours, do you try to make jokes as short and economical as possible?” Gilbert answered, “No, sometimes, I stretch out bits to the breaking point,” and that led to the story of the famous post-911 performance where Gilbert ended his monologue with the Aristocrats joke.

“It was shortly after, just a couple of days, and it was in New York and it was like, just a weird feeling around the planet, let alone just being there in New York. So I figured I wanted to be the first one to make some bad taste… I wanted to go further, and just break the ice here. And I said, ‘I have to leave early tonight. I have to fly to LA. I couldn’t get a direct flight, we have to make a stop at the Empire State Building.’ And people were booing and hissing and gasping and one guy yelled out, ‘Too soon,’ which I thought meant I didn’t take a long enough pause between the setup and the punch line… If you had told me at that point I was on stage for 200 years, I would believe you. And then I figured that I can’t lose them any further, and I go into The Aristocrats, and that’s all incest and bestiality, and they were howling and applauding and cheering and stamping their feet. And so it means, that terrorist attack, bad taste, incest and bestiality, good taste!” Gabe added, “Thanks for being the first person to make a joke about that because I think humor healed us a lot, post 9-11.”

We heard a bit about Gilbert’s book “Rubber Balls and Liquor” and then Steve mentioned the video of Gilbert reading from Fifty Shades of Grey. “It’s like, so awful, writing… you read one sentence and you go, what crap this is?… They just asked me to read passages of Fifty Shades of Grey. I think it’s on YouTube still… It’s called ‘Gilbert Gottfried reads Fifty Shades of Grey.’ It’s an imaginative title.”

So the interview ended, after everyone had walked close to the edge of what they can say on the radio, without anybody falling off the FCC’s cliff.

Visit Gilbert Gottfried’s website www.gilbertgottfried.com for access to his podcast and more.

The cover of Mitch Albom’s new novel, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto.

Yesterday’s edition of The Drive featured a Steve Jaxon interview with best-selling author Mitch Albom. It was an interesting conversation and a great example of how The Drive covers subjects that are of national as well as local interest, since Albom is appearing in Santa Rosa later this week on the promotional tour for his new novel, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto.

As the conversation began, they talked about their love of music and how both of them once had ambitions as musicians. At first, Steve asked Mitch to describe the band he occasionally plays in. “It was about twenty-something years ago that an escort up in your area there named Cathy Goldmark, put together a bunch of authors who she had been driving around, who had told her that when they were younger they played in a band. And eventually she put together a jam, the jam led to a larger band and we’ve been together ever since… We play old rock and roll and we raise money for literacy… It’s mostly for fun. My background is in music, originally, so myself and a couple other guys in the band can at least handle a few chords and we try to hold up the rest of the band.”

When Steve asked him to explain the name of the band, The Rock Bottom Remainders, he replied, “In the book world, you know, when you get discounted, they cut the book down from $20 to 10, and 10 to 7, and 7 to 4, then eventually they throw you into the bin where they’re all but giving it away, and they call that the rock bottom remainders, where they’re just trying to get rid of the stock, in a book store that will be the cheapest priced thing you can get, and that’s about the monetary equivalent of our music.”

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Before getting into the stories of his more recent books, Steve asked for the story of the blockbuster best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie: “Well… I happened to see an old college professor of mine on television talking about what it was like to die from Lou Gherig’s disease. I had lost touch with him as I had become very ambitious and I didn’t have time for that kind of thing in my life, at that point in my life. I called him up and he kind of convinced me to come see him, I went to see him, one visit led to another and another and another, and I ended up seeing him every Tuesday for all the Tuesdays he had left in his life, which was about seven or eight months. I wrote a book to pay his medical bills, which was based on the conversations that we had during those visits. And every week, we sort of took on a different topic seen through the prism of, what do you understand about your life once you really know you’re going to die, as he did.” He went on to tell how the book’s success changed his life.

Steve then asked about “The Five People You Meet In Heaven,” which he mentioned is the most successful hardcover first adult novel ever. Mitch replied, “Yeah, I was very lucky with that, because it’s not often that you can make that switch from non-fiction to fiction, but I sort of knew that after Morrie, and it had been 6 years since Tuesdays with Morrie had come out, that anything I wrote non-fiction was just going to be held up against that. ‘Ah, well, it’s not Morrie, it’s not that good…’ I didn’t want to do that to myself and I didn’t want to do it to whatever subject I would have chosen. And so I decided to just go the total opposite route, and write a novel, and while I was at it, write a novel about heaven and amusement parks, and things I knew very little about.”

Mitch Albom’s first novel.

Both men are from Detroit and they shared stories about their early experiences in radio in Detroit and their love of The Detroit Free Press. Albom mentioned that he still does a daily talk show on WJR in Detroit and said, “I’m still there largely because of that same feeling of tradition in Detroit, which I’m very proud to call my home.”

He then explained how he arrived at the story of his new novel: “You know… I was going to be a musician also and that was going to be my goal, that was my dream. And I tried it and I lived in New York, and banged on doors, and it didn’t work out for me. And while it wasn’t working out for me during the day, I volunteered for a local newspaper, for free, and found that I had some aptitude in that, and sort of shifted over to writing. And as much as I love music and still do, my gift is probably more in the area of writing.

“This new book, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, is sort of based on that concept, that everybody has a talent, a particular talent, that can influence other people’s lives. In this case, it’s the story of a musician, a guitar player, who is like the greatest guitar player to ever walk the earth. He is so gifted and he suffers to much in his young life that he gets this guitar when he is 9 years old and he has these magic strings that he can play over the course of his life. And when he really needs to, he can actually change somebody else’s life with his playing. And when he does it, the strings turn blue, then it’s used up and it’s gone… And while there’s a whole story to it, obviously, with an entertaining plot and all that, the metaphor is that everybody has a talent that affects other people. Yours obviously lay in radio, although you thought it was going to be in music, but with your voice, I don’t see how you could do anything else. And mine was obviously meant to be in writing. And other people’s in other areas and they’re not always entertainment things. Sometimes your talent is in teaching, or in nursing or being an electrician. But if you are true to your gift, you can really affect other people’s lives. And it’s for us to sort of accept what our gifts are.

“Because while Frankie Presto is fictional, the backdrop of the book is very much like Forrest Gump or Zelig, he moves through everything that’s real, so he’s in Duke Ellington’s band when he’s a kid, and he meets Hank Williams and sells him a car, and he’s with Little Richard in the studio and he’s Elvis Presley’s backup guitar player and one night he takes over for Elvis when Elvis can’t make a show and nobody knows it’s not Elvis because he looks like him and sounds like him. He becomes the world’s first Elvis Presley impersonator, and he goes to Woodstock.

“I mean, all the people, including real musicians, actually participated in the book, from Tony Bennett to Burt Bacharach, to Darlene Love to Lyle Lovett, Wynton Marsalis, Roger McQuinn… they’re all in the book, they’re friends of mine that I’ve known over the years, and they let me write as them for a few pages, when they come to Frankie’s funeral, which is where the book actually takes place, and they look back on his life, and each of them has a memory of when Frankie Presto was with them… So it’s all part of that spirit of music that we celebrate together.”

For more information about Mitch Albom visit http://www.mitchalbom.com/.

For more about The Drive, visit its page on this site.

John O’Hurley, A Man With Standards.

Yesterday Steve Jaxon had the pleasure of interviewing actor and singer John O’Hurley on The Drive, and talking about O’Hurley’s one-man show A Man with Standards, which he is performing this weekend at the Hotel Nico in San Francisco.

In just a few minutes of impromptu conversation, Jaxon had his guest telling all about himself, from his background as a classically trained singer, to his role as J. Peterman on Seinfeld, to the music of the great American songbook and the rebirth of supper clubs in big cities around the country.

The interview began with John O’Hurley revealing the story of his early musical training, saying, “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t sing. It just came very naturally to me… It wasn’t until college, the head of the music program said, ‘I hear a voice in there and I’m going to drag it kicking and screaming out of you.’ And I went back to study classically.”

When Steve asked about the show “A Man with Standards” we learned what O’Hurley means by standards: “I talk about the standards of the great American song book, as well as the idea of standards being manners. Back in the ’40s the ’50s and the ’60s they were indistinguishable and went along with each other, a sense of style and swing.”

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When Jaxon mentioned being a fan of Seinfeld and of O’Hurley’s character J. Peterman, O’Hurley mentioned that he is now an investor in the company and talked about how much fun it was to play Peterman: “…they just wanted him to sound the way the catalog was written. And over the character arc of the four seasons that I was on Seinfeld, he became kind of a corporate Mr. Magoo, he was a bit of a raving lunatic, and more and more fun every time I did it. They enjoyed writing for him, I think.”

Jaxon mentioned what a great room he will be performing in, the Michael Feinstein room at the Hotel Nico in San Francisco. For O’Hurley, beside being a great performing space, it represents something more: “This is an idea that’s coming back now. You see it happening in New York, you see it happening now in Los Angeles and Chicago, the concept of a supper club, where you go and someone comes in and does an evening of great music, that you sit down and listen to. They tell you a story, while they’re singing. It’s a wonderful wonderful idea, that disappeared for so many years, kind of like ballroom dancing, come to think of it. It’s all been discovered again and I’m glad so see it.”

Steve Jaxon, host of The Drive.

Here is an example of what we mean when we say that listening to our daily flagship show The Drive with Steve Jaxon is like sitting in on the official round-table of Sonoma County. A look at the roster of local guests from the last few months reveals a who’s who of illustrious local office-holders and leaders.

Host Steve Jaxon always gives each guest an unobstructed platform to speak to the local stakeholders and constituents, who listen in large numbers. The hottest topics in local affairs are always on the agenda and the listeners get to hear these leaders speaking directly to them. For instance, when Lt. Gov. Newsom announced his support for a ballot initiative for gun control on October 15th just last week, he called in to The Drive and delivered his message directly to KSRO’s listeners.

Steve Jaxon says, “The local angle is one of the most important aspects of our show, since we are right here in Santa Rosa. We are always aware of our duty to our listeners, to keep them connected to their local representatives and officials and we don’t shy away from any issues. This is an important part of what keeps our listeners coming back for more every day and every week.”

Over the last year, we have visited with all of these:

• California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom,
• Santa Rosa Chief of Police Hank Schreeder,
• Mark Landman of the Cotati City Council,
• Santa Rosa City Council members Tom Schwedhelm, Gary Wysocky and Chris Coursey (at different times),
• Dr. Dave McCuan, professor of Political Science at Sonoma State University,
• Editor Stett Holbrook of The Bohemian,
• Kevin McCallum and Chris Smith of the Press Democrat,
• Michael Gillotti representing the Sebastopol Living Peace Wall,
• Anne McBride of Sonoma County Animal Services who brought in Sweet Rhona The Cat,
• Mike Yates of Teamsters Local 665,
• Santa Rosa Junior College President Dr. Frank Chong,
• Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane,
• Windsor Mayor Bruce Okrepkie.

The Drive is heard weekdays in the Bay Area, 3-6pm on KSRO 1350 AM, 103.5 FM and on line at www.ksro.com.

Lanny Davis

Lanny Davis has been a frequent guest on The Drive. Whenever we talk to Lanny, he always brings his uniquely qualified perspective to our discussions of national political news. He has had a long career as a top Washington lawyer and served in the Clinton White House.

Says The Drive host Steve Jaxon, “Our friend Lanny is an amazing dude. We’ve enjoyed having him on The Drive many times but we never had him on a regular schedule. But we like having him on so much that we have now made a new regular weekly feature, “Mondays with Lanny.”

We will hear his comments and opinions on the 2016 Presidential race, what’s going on in Washington and whatever else is in the news each week.

Tune in to The Drive on KSRO 1350 AM and 103.5 FM in the Bay Area, or at www.ksro.com, where you can hear “Mondays with Lanny,” in the 3:00 hour or later, as Lanny’s busy schedule may dictate.