Camp David

CAMP DAVID APRIL 2008: RADIO DAZE

By • Apr 20th, 2008 • Pages: 1 2 3 4

Share This:

The man who really ran the radio end of Triangle was a veteran of the network named Spike Chandler; Spike (then in his late thirties) had been a popular DJ in Southern California at one time and gave it all up to work in Radio. Spike looked like a guy in training midway through army boot camp. He dressed in army fatigues 24/7 so after awhile he began to resemble an extra from the TV show M.A.S.H. I could not have survived the experience without his loyalty and kindness. Frank had promised Spike the moon to work the round-the-clock hours he did and I am sure he led Spike to believe he would one day be the director of the station which, in a perfect world, should have been the case.

My best friend at Triangle was a beautiful lady with a kind heart, delicate features, long black hair and a theatrical name to go along with her image – the great Daun De Vore. Her program, which aired just before mine, was called CELEBRITIES AND MORE WITH DAUN DE VORE. Daun was a tireless professional who worked long hours, did her homework on her guests, and it all paid off because her show sparkled with charm and great conversation. She was also, like almost everyone at Triangle except for Spike and yours truly, a practicing attorney.

As we approached the new Millennium, the atmosphere at Triangle was super-charged as Frank Olsen began mapping out elaborate plans for one and all. He brought Daun and I into his office around Halloween and explained that Triangle was branching out to include television. He wanted me to create a character to host a weekly series introducing new and vintage horror films. Frank had signed a deal to broadcast AUCTION TELEVISION on weekends, which went out live throughout the Palm Springs area as well as the internet. He created a huge line of credit with wholesale outlets like SAM’S TOWN purchasing thousands of dollars worth of home appliances to auction off on television. On weekends those of us that wanted to make $75 to $100 a night could answer the phones at the station during AUCTION TV’S bingo/lottery, which Frank supervised personally. At the end of this meeting he grinned at me and promised “I told you from day one I had big plans, and right now I have guys over in the prop dept building you a coffin for your TV SHOW.” Looking back he might as well have made a few more for the rest of us.

Frank arranged a day long photo session for Daun and me for a proposed talk show for the two of us. We went ahead and posed for dozens of stills where we pretended we were Sonny and Cher. Frank was always showing potential backers this material, raising more and more money for programs yet to be produced. At Triangle everything was always just about to happen. Frank kept dangling carrots in front of everyone who worked for him, and it worked almost without fail.

Triangle brought in the year 2000 full of great expectations, and yet every day there was one dramatic incident after another that made you wonder what was really going on. I was moved around in different time shots, first in a one hour time frame, then Frank decided on giving me a full three hours on the air in the evening from 8pm until 10pm, six days a week.

Robert Patrick

Frank would come into the station at all hours of the day and night, bringing no less than a dozen people at a time, walking them through the complex, waving at those of us working in the sound booths with our shows. We were always on display for the backers, and yet after four months none of our shows were being heard in Palm Springs. Whenever one of us would bring this up at staff meetings Frank would hedge the issue or give a date in the next few weeks for our local broadcast. Palm Spring was enjoying some attention with their film festival and I tried to explain to Frank how difficult it was to attract guests with only internet coverage and broadcasts in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest as the audience.

Frank Olsen was not an easy man to pin down and as the weeks went by, he showed up less and less during business hours, deliberately missing appointments. During this period I lost my phone–in callers, and he became more and more irritable regarding the shows and their content.

One evening he came into the station right in the middle of my show and screamed at me to get the fuck in his office. “Listen, this is a gay radio station, understand!? Why are you not talking more about gay sex and less about these fucking old movies and gossiping about these dead movie stars!?” From that moment on he demanded that I keep talking the entire three hours and start getting more guests to come down and talk in person.

Under this new policy I at least got my call-in guests back, and I decided I better start giving Frank a sexually gay show or start looking for another job. I had recently had my old friend author Richard Lamparski on the show, and when I explained to him what was going on with Frank Olsen he gave me the phone number of playwright Robert Patrick, author of the award winning KENNEDY’S CHILDREN, not to mention an encylopedic knowledge in every aspect of Gay porn.

Frank was tuned in full tilt the night I had Robert on the air and after a brief discussion of Patrick’s involvement with the legendary CAFFE CINO in Greenwich Village back in the turbulent sixties, he got right down to business. Robert took full advantage of Triangle’s sexual freedom policy to ask me on the air if he could discuss his favorite sexual pastime. I still was unsure where this was going but whereever we went it was all for Frank, so I gave Robert the floor. At first he was a bit reluctant to come right out with it and finally he asked me if he used the Greek term for what he liked to do in bed would that be alright to say on the air. Still in the dark I said fine, go on with your train of thought. “Well David you see I am a firm supporter of Analingus. I will not apologize for enjoying it in the privacy of my bedroom and by the way I have started a group to give some respect for the men who perform it as well of those of us that like having it done to us”

Continue to page: 1 2 3 4

Tagged as: , , , ,
Share This Article: Digg it | del.icio.us | Google | StumbleUpon | Technorati

Comments are closed.