Episode 51. Tom Barnard

This week: the inimitable Tom Barnard, Minnesota radio legend. 
Reed runs the gamut with Tom: from their time together at KQRS, to the importance of community engagement, the value of authentic human connection…and Tom’s forthcoming return to the airwaves. 

Transcript

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Hi everyone. Welcome back. It's another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries. My name is Reed Endersby. I am the regional director for the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, as well as Minnesota Masonic Charities. Switching things up a little bit this week. My guest has a long and storied radio career. In fact, he's one of my former colleagues and good friends. I'll skip the long intro and let's just let's just get into this because yeah, we could do that We have so many years of stories to tell too But tom bernard welcome to minnesota masonic histories and mysteries. What were you like 17 when I first worked with you? I got hired in 1995 and I was 23 at the time. There you go started in may of of 95 God Where did that time go? I've been, yeah, I started there in 1986. Can you believe that? No, How old is your son, Andy, by the way? He just turned 38 on Saturday. I have a distinct memory of the summer of 1995 and I was pre programming, scheduling music in the programming office. And this little dude came in and hopped up. He started, he pointed at the monitor. He said, what Beatles song are you going to play? And I said, well, who are you? He said, I'm Andy. Oh, so he kind of sat up, sat up on the chair with me and then told me of it has very young age of his, love of the Beatles and how the song I, the song I chose was not his favorite. He's like, come on, don't, don't play that one. Did you remember what song it was? I think it was, I've got a feeling. I got a feeling. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. He, he was obviously well, well trained. So as we talked about off air already, we could tell stories of the KQ days, the glory days of radio from the nineties. You have them from before that, but. For our listeners that obviously know who you are, may not know the story. Was it W D G Y where you started originally? No, actually I said, well, I started at a couple of different, I worked at a fifth, a 500 watt day timer in St. Paul called K D A N. And I worked there for about six months. Then I got fired. I know it's hard to believe. Then I went up to Grand Forks, North Dakota for about a year, which was great. I loved Grand Forks, North Dakota. My hometown. Oh, I hate Grand Forks. I didn't know that. No, Grand Forks is a wonderful town. I think it gets, it doesn't get as much praise as it should because it's very nice people, really nice town, very safe area for, you know, and you gotta be concerned about that these days too. So I was there for a, uh, for about a year, maybe even a little bit longer than that. And then I was, uh, there was a guy named Jim Chanel, who unfortunately just died last year. Jim Chanel was the program director at 1500 KSTP, which went from a talk station, which was going up against WCCO, a couple of AM stations going out to talk and all the rest of it, and then Hubbard decided to change it over to a music station. Hired, um, Chuck Knapp and Charlie Bush hired all these wonderful, wonderful people to run the show. And Jim Chenelle was hired as the program director. I called Jim Chenelle and kept saying, I don't care what job you have, I want to work at your radio station. He goes, well, we don't really have anything. I said, well, it doesn't matter. I don't care if you need a janitor, whatever it is. I am really impressed with your radio station and all the rest of it. And he finally hired me after 82 phone calls. I called him 82 different times. He finally said, okay. I came in to do the, uh, the religious tapes on Sundays. Uh, this is true that I won't say what I said, but Everything was real to real back then. No carts, none of that stuff back then. But, uh, I came in and I was to play the Polish, Jesus hour or whatever they called it, something like that. And so I didn't realize cause I don't spoke, I don't speak Polish. that the real was tails out, but I didn't know that. Meaning that for her listeners that don't know what that means. The real was put on backwards. That's correct. Yeah. So I play it sounds like Polish to me. Okay. Uh, you couldn't believe the amount of complaints I got. Because I was, you know, thought I'd be a smart guy and all the rest of it. I hope you're enjoying the Polish hour, ladies and gentlemen. It's like, you think this is funny? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea what you're talking about. So that was my first go at, uh, at, uh, 1500 KSTP. And then I did, I started doing weekends. And then I started doing overnights. And then I started doing 10 to 2. And then I started doing 6 to 10. Because everybody kept getting fired or moving or doing whatever they were doing. But I was there, it was like the greatest, the greatest. I guess bootcamp you could ever run across. I mean, it's kind of like being at KQRS when you were there at such a young age. I mean, where could you have been that would have taught you more about the business in that place? No place. I mean, it's unbelievable. So I got very lucky. Uh, what had happened was, you know, after working at KSTP for a long time, I went to WDGY then in 1975, I think that was. I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly. Then I got fired from there. I know it's hard to believe, but I got fired from there. Oh, the reason I left KSTP, I should tell you this, this would be good. I get called in Jack Nugent was the general manager's name. I like, I was like, Jack, he was just a straight ahead guy. And, you know, he used to threaten to beat people up. And then he'd always point at me and go, except for you, Tom, cause I was a lot bigger than him. So. No, actually, he played, uh, I don't know if he played in the NHL or not, but he played, he played at North Dakota, Notre Dame, excuse me, he played hockey there. And, uh, he may have played in the, in the NHL as well, I'm not really sure, but, He came to me once to Tom because I was a part timer, by the way, through running the Polish tapes between doing weekends, between doing overnights, between two and 10 to two. So they put me on six to 10 said, Tom, we're going to give you a contract. So I go into his office. He goes, I got your contract. I'll say, he hands me the contract. I look at it. I said, what is this? He goes, it's your contract. It's guaranteed money, man. Okay. I said, it's 11, 000. So I quit. Oh no. 11, 000. It's like, really? This is my yearly salary. Is there a typo? Less than a thousand bucks a month. Which, you know, it's about how much I'm making now, you know. Sure. Um, So I left KSTP, which I did not want to do, but they wouldn't, they would not pay me any more than that. So I went to W. D. G. Y. They're paying me almost twice that amount to do 6 to 10 at night. And then I don't know who I upset over there, but I got fired from there, too. I know it's hard to believe I got fires well, it may be for context in the 70s even into the 80s and even the 90s for that matter the radio industry was Unpredictable. Oh personalities would you know I'm gonna I'm gonna make a name for myself or I'm going to say what I'm going to say and I don't really care and that was No, no question about that. Uh, so I go to WDGY for a while, and then I, I don't even know how this happened, but I got a call one day. Like I said, I got fired from there. I got a call, there was a place called areola records, which is not the same as the areola you're thinking of. It was spelled differently. I remember this. Yes. You remember, I remember the record label. Yeah. Yes. Well you would, but I, uh, I got hired over there and had a nice time working there. But I was there for about six to nine months, something like that. And then, uh, the guy Cliff, Cliff Schultz was doing Capitol Records in the same office. And he wanted to get transferred down to Dallas. So he came to me and said, Tom, do you want to do Capitol Records? I said, Do I want to do the label with the Beatles and Bob Seger and Steve Miller? No, I don't want to do that forget it No, so I got hired by Capitol Records and I was there until 1986 And in the meantime, I don't remember who approached me somebody somebody was listening Earlier on or whatever, but they approached me about doing a commercial for them So I recorded the commercial and the commercial was a big hit. So then all of a sudden I got a call from all these agents across the United States wondering if I would do some voiceover for them. And back in those days, you had to fly from Minneapolis to Chicago to Los Angeles to New York to wherever, St. Louis, Milwaukee. There was no, we'll just record you, we'll take it, there was none of that. You had to go where they were. So I spent a ton of time in Chicago, because that was, you know, an hour and fifteen minute flight, so I could get off the air, I could go, not get off the air, but I could, you know, get off, done with my work day at, uh, at Capital, and fly out of town, come back, and it was, it was wonderful. The whole thing was absolutely fantastic. And then I moved to New York because I was doing so much voiceover. I was living in New York at 20th Street and 2nd Avenue. Catherine and I were living there. And in early, I would say it was probably late February, early March 1986, I got a call from Dave Hamilton, who you and I worked with for quite some time. he asked me if I had any interest in doing the morning show at KQRS. And I said, what? He goes, yeah, you want to do the morning show? I'd love to hire you to do the morning show. I said, I've never done morning radio in my life. He goes, that got nothing to do with it. He said, you'd, you'd fit in perfectly here. So he hired me, obviously. And I, by the way, he said, you could still fly back and forth to Chicago all you want, because you're done by, you know, 10 o'clock in the morning. So that worked really well, because I could be in Chicago by about one o'clock in the afternoon, record spots all afternoon, then fly back, get home about six o'clock. So it worked out really, really well. So, Hammy was there for a long time, and the station just, well, you remember this, the station went from no listeners, well, it was the number one morning show in America quickly. Yeah. Number one morning show in America. And they, after 37 years fired me. Because apparently, the general manager thought that she had all the answers and all the rest of it. Now, of course, the station is in 17th place. And I just, I want to hold that thought because when you It was a quick rise to popularity. It was very quick, yeah. I was a college kid in Grand Forks working part time in radio. And truly I can't think of a better word or a more accurate word than idolize KQRS. my co workers and I were fans of, obviously, of the show, all the personalities, Wally, Garth Kemp, May Young, and what Dave Hamilton had done in designing that. We wanted our little station to be just like that, and To have the opportunity and getting that phone call from Dave Hamilton saying, how would you like to be a part of the programming department here? I thought, are you kidding me? I get to go from market number 340 something to 16. And one jump is first of all, I must be dreaming to arrive in the mid nineties in the true best of the radio days of terrestrial radio. we had, we had so much fun the bits we wrote, the content, there was an irreverent vibe that was often misunderstood, obviously. I suppose we could talk about that a lot, but there were things that were said in content wise that call it what you will controversial, irreverent, or what have you, but the ratings were high. The entertainment factor was off the charts and what an absolute fun place to be every day. It was amazing. Stomach aches from just laughing as we wrote bits about Jesse Ventura and Steven Bozak or, Oh God, I forgot that Bozak. You stuck me with doing his voice at the time, which made my, made my family really proud. They're like, you know, I, I, I know that was you on that, but nonetheless, Howard Stern arrives late nineties. We didn't take the bait to get into that with him and in a short, a long story made short, it paid off that just wasn't that experiment here did not fly, but as the industry contracted starting with Napster and then iTunes on and on and on the terrestrial radio was. Well, it's in a struggling place now, but I will never forget the day in October of 2011. When the new president of Cumulus Broadcasting arrived after the merger had occurred. And he was saying things like we're going to, what did he say? The terrible corporate schlock that we're going to build a better mousetrap and we're going to do. And I remember looking at you and at Dave and thinking, this is, this is bad. This is going to end. Not going to be good. Halloween was the day that myself and Rudy and several others were laid off of that year in 2011. And at the time it was very devastating because I had looked forward to hoping if all worked out that. Dave retires at some point in the next few years, you and I continue working together. Well, it didn't work out that way and all those years for you to end the way they did. Well, weren't perhaps the ideal outcome that one would have predicted back then. Well, the general manager at the time who hated me, She, you can say goodbye to her in about another two months. Yeah. From what I understand, she got fired. it all works out in the end because all of a sudden I get a call from the I don't know what the lame brain's title was. He got some title. They all got some title. Big titles are cumulus, yeah. Do I care? No. When I left, it was the highest rated morning show in America, which we already said. The last I had heard, because I don't check on that stuff, I don't care, whatever. They were in 17th place. Oh my Yeah, it was not a good after all of that time building what we built what you you built what they built what we all built For it to end that badly just because some imbecile You know, wanted it, wanted to bring their own people. I'm going to show them how it's done. Well, now of course, KQ is in 17th place and I believe, 93X is in like sixth place or something like that. I mean, it's just a complete disaster I think that that was something that I. Struggled with watching from a distance. So I was laid off in the cutbacks as a bunch of us were at the time. And then just hearing the story secondhand. No, no, you guys, we know what we're going. We have the answers. Well, we had the heritage. We had a, we had a blueprint that worked pretty damn well. It was a revenue, the ratings, the revenue, the, the heritage was all there. And to, to have that level of. No, no step aside. We will take it from here. It just, it never, I just could never wrap my head around that. And now the, the reality of, those misguided decisions have really come full circle for them. But you're doing a podcast now in post KQRS. What's, what are you doing for fun, for work, for keeping yourself busy? before I do move on to that, let me say that my 37 years at KQRS was unbelievable, and I will accept this part, that's not really a guilt thing, it's just who I am. Uh, Reid knows this because he's known me for a million years. I cannot tolerate people being in a pain. I cannot just blow things off. I'm not one of those kind of guys, oh, don't worry about it. I grew up on Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis. I never got used to people getting in my face about this, that, or the other thing. So. That part of it I will accept, you know Responsibility for I do not react to people, you know doing things like that to me Well, You know, So I just wanted to make very very clear that For most people, I'm very easy to get along with, but once you step over that line, I will never get along with you again, because I can't trust you, right? I mean, you know that in that business. It's hard to articulate it for someone that wasn't on that side of the process too, and I, I just can't believe how that ended up. what a way to say thanks for all those years of service, but nobody in America could believe it. I got a call from every radio station in America went, what is this? People thought it was an Onion article. They thought this was, is this a parody? This can't be happening. Yep. It's everybody. I got calls from Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, I mean, Miami. All these people call me and say, this is, what are you guys doing up there? This is not funny. said, well, it's not funny because it's true, you know, the way it is, you know, since then, what have you been doing with your new podcast and any other endeavors or ventures that you've been pursuing since then? I always did I've had a podcast now for about 10 11 years something like that because I wanted to work with my family So it was a family show my wife's on it our sons on it our daughters on it You know the there even the grandkids come in once in a while Just kind of hang out and I'll do all the rest of it because I family is very very important to me It really is it is It always was with my mother, because I didn't have a father around. He was institutionalized as schizophrenic, so he was put in a mental institution when I was seven years old. And, oh, I get to mention one thing. My oldest, oldest, uh, sister, Bobby. We're standing there, there are six of us, because my brother was in Vietnam at the time. So out of the seven kids, six of us are watching them put our father in a straitjacket. It was interesting to watch. But This may be one of the times when my sense of humor was developed at seven years old, so I'm standing there, and he's writhing around, and it was just, just this unbelievable. They're taking him out on a stretcher, and as they're wheeling him by, my sister Bobby looks at me and goes, Tommy, I think they think our dad is nuts. Which I started laughing at seven years old, but that's one of those moments that got me where I am today. It's like, even this hideous thing that's going on, you have to find some humor somewhere. You just have to. So it did teach me, nothing is so horrendous that you can't get, it's going to take some time to get through some of it, but you can get through anything. If you use laughter. And that's just the way it is, right? The way life is. I have such good memories of seeing your mom at some events back in the day. Oh God. And just what a life of the party. Just, just holding court in her section of. Oh yeah. Toots was a very big deal. There's no question about that. She, that my mother, I mean, as one of those situations, she, I didn't see my mother in law because she was working so much. She was a diner waitress. Now, when I was 16 years old, I didn't really have, I was a, a dishwasher at Donaldson's department store in the garden room, downtown Minneapolis, right? So I'm there, but when I wasn't there, particularly on the weekends, I would stand in front of Kokomo's on 26th Avenue in North Minneapolis, where my mother worked, it's right across from Schweigert Meats back in the old days. And I would stand out front and look through the window. And if somebody, I'm 16 at the time, and if somebody came out that I, I observed something, I would pull them aside and go, You didn't tip my mother. They said, What? I said, Why didn't you leave my mother a tip? Yeah, you're right, man. So they go back. So I would literally threaten people at 16 years old, you go tip my mother or I'm going to knock your ass out. What do you think of that? Take care of my mom, man. Come on. Yeah. Take care of my mother because she, you know, doing her best she possibly can. But that stuff was all and it never did. I mean, I never got in a fistfight with anybody over there understood. But That's the kind of. See, when people go, how the hell, why do you think of the things you think of? Why do you say the things you do? It's because of the way I was brought up. There is no question about it. You, you better protect yourself or you're going to be in big, big trouble. It wasn't that part of the magic of the KQ morning show in that timeframe was. As a listener, you may not like what's being said. You may not agree with what's being said, but you were always the realist. You would call it out as how you saw a situation in locally, in the world, in the news, and it led to some very, shall we say scintillating conversation over the years, scintillating. Yes, it did. Because that's something I wish we would understand right now in our, in our world. Particularly politically, we didn't all grow up the same. Everybody thinks we all had the same childhood, and we all had the same, we're in the 20s, we have, no, no. Much, much different lives. There are people in my neighborhood, my, yeah, my childhood wasn't great, there's no question about that. But it wasn't anywhere near as bad as some of the kids I grew up with. You can think you have the worst life on earth, but if you look around and, and look at how things are around you, you'll find out you're probably as bad as you think it is. It ain't anywhere near as bad as some people. No question. like social media in this digital world we're in, especially post COVID has contributed to that so much. The, the isolation of, you don't need to leave your home anymore. You don't, people that live in apartments, they don't know their neighbors. And then you get into that little cocoon and think, well, this couldn't be any worse. And I'm not going to do any sort of. Research or, or seeing, getting to know what other what's going on in other people's lives. And it's just envelopes people, the depression, the friendship recession. That's something you and I have exchanged the messages on with an event we have coming up for listeners that are hearing this in real time on November the 11th. We are hosting a community screening of a production called join or die. That features the work of Professor Robert Putnam. Now Putnam wrote a book called Bowling Alone, either late eighties or early nineties, and he showcased. He noticed this trend happening where in America at the time the rates of people going out to bowl were up But league bowling was down really involvement in community engagement had really dropped by 50 From say the 40s or 50s into the the modern time and as he makes the point that is the equivalent Of half of the country's highway system just disappearing and how does that happen? Well, there's that whole thing of people. Well, I'm really not a joiner When we look back at the high levels of civic involvement, fraternal organizations, churches, and houses of worship, Putnam illustrates, through research and data, communities, societies, that have a higher rate of some sort of participation in whatever that is. Clubs, organizations, are more harmonious, get along better, have lower rates of crime, it's overall a better quality of life. The Join or Die title is not a John Adams nod, it really has to do with one of the statistics that Putnam derived out of his research is, joining one single club or group, no matter what it is that you're passionate about, cuts your chances of dying prematurely in half by joining one. Isn't that amazing? The call to action in this is basically for people to phone down, head up. What are you passionate about? What do you want to see different in the world out there? It's time to get out and join a club, an organization, a group, get involved in the change that you want to see in this divided world right now. It was a recent survey that went out 161 million people work in the U. S. every day, okay? 58 percent over half of U. S. workers believe our society is uncivil. 190 million of U. S. workers collectively experience acts of incivility per day per day per day. Where do we even start in this world on? somehow is that we talk about it to death, what the world needs, what the change that we want is. We align ourselves with the right things in the world, but not enough people are going out to actually do the hard work to be that change of coming together. I don't, I don't know where we start with that. It's too much work. You nailed it. Oh, you made this work. I just supposed to meet people and become friends with them. And then we are all there. Well, if it's work now, because, well, the internet changed everything. There's no question about that. As soon as the internet came along, I mean you found out things, most of it's lies about other people. You know, they just, I don't know why people love to lie in the internet so much. You ever figured that one out? Is it just the clicks? I don't know. I guess. Maybe it's gotta be clicks or something like that. Yeah. People have gotten much more or much less, excuse me, civil since the internet came out. Happened there's no question about that. I see things about myself's like where did you come up with that? I mean, it's just absolutely unbelievable. Are we ever gonna learn? that's not how to live, because now we're, we've convinced our next generation of people, well, you shouldn't have to put in as much effort as you do, it's just too much of an effort. I was told coming up, you better put in your best effort or you ain't gonna make it. Why we change from put in your best effort to, I don't really Don't even try that hard. It's not worth it. Why did we ever get there? I know it's a lot easier for people to believe. Well, I can make less of an effort. I'm here to tell you, you're never going to see any success. If you keep on that, or you stay on that road, you got no chance. it's illustrated by your story of starting out part time, listen, give me a job. I'll be the janitor at the radio station, whatever you need me to do. Started out. It was slow, sustainable progress overnights. Got a little promotion and it's slowly one step at a time and somehow, is it the digital generation that we're so used to? We just press a button, we get what we want. Where do we turn around from that? As somebody asked the question last week in a random conversation about the advent of AI coming up, what will the point of even going to school be? We'll just be able to put it all in the system and say, answer my, I don't know where that lands in terms of what the future looks like with. What's your take on that? And how do you work with where we balance the human connection with the technology that is going at a rather brisk pace right now? Yeah, I would say a brisk pace. That's a good way of putting it right there. But I would say this, and I'm very serious about this. If you're a young person out there, a young woman, a young man, if you try harder than everybody else, you will succeed more than everybody else. Because there are a lot of people that don't try at all now. They just think they're owed everything. And because they're being taught that, I can't really blame them. They're being told by the previous generation that you shouldn't have to work that hard. Yeah, you should get out there, do the best you possibly can. Now there are a lot of other things because of, you know, AI, the internet and all the rest of it. I'll give you an example. From what I understand almost no one under the age of 38 listens to the radio anymore. The terrestrial radio. Yeah, terrestrial radio. They just don't listen to it at all anymore. And then you go to the other side with podcasting, very few people over the age of 60 listen to podcasts. So you're like, well, uh, okay. So I got about 10 years worth of people that I can maybe talk to here. It's going to be interesting to see how this all happens because it just The world is completely different than it used to be. Now you can certainly succeed. You can do very, very well. And I would say literally follow your heart, do what you want to do, the way you want to do it. And if somebody discovers you, that's a good thing. I mean, I got lucky. I just happened. I didn't even know how it did happen. I guess I wanted it bad enough. very quickly as it's kind of going back quite a ways, but why did I do what I did? I'm 15 years old. I'm at Cleveland park in North Minneapolis. Guy comes over and he goes, your mother's on the radio. I said, what? So yeah, your mother's on the radio right now. I said, my mother's on. Okay. So he turns on the radio. We listened to my mother, Sam Sherwood, legendary guy at KWB back in the days was interviewing my mother. Because my brother was in Vietnam in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam conflict. And Sam sure was trying to get a hold of him to wish my mother a happy Mother's Day. Wow. No, she just, I don't know how he found my mother. I was told, because she was a diner waitress, that Sam used to go into the diner. And that's how he had known about my mother and all the rest of it. I don't know, I have no proof of that, but that's what I was told. And I was listening. They never did get ahold of my brother cause he was out in the, you know, weeds somewhere. Out in trees shooting at people or something. On the Ho Chi Minh trail somewhere. Yeah, exactly. But I'm listening to this whole thing, Sam Sherwood talking to my mother and they're trying to track down my brother and all the rest of it. And I said, I'm in Minneapolis and they're trying to talk to my brother halfway around the world. That's what I want to do. You know, that, that day, I was convinced I wanted to get into radio so much. This is, this is a miracle that they can do something like that. Even though he never was able to connect with them. I, I just, I will tell you one thing, my favorite thing about that interview though. K to WB. Sam Sherwood, legendary radio guy. At the very end he said, uh, Mrs. Bernard I'm really sorry that we weren't able to reach your son Terry. And I wish it had worked out better, but it was a very, very. You know, we tried our best, it was a very good idea, I wish it had worked out better. Tell you what, could I do something, could I play a song for you and dedicate it to you, just to have a little dedication to you? My mother's name was Theophila, which means the love of God. Right, growing up with a mother named the love of God, that's a thrill. No pressure, no pressure. No pressure at all on you there. But, I said, so, Theo, um. Just, you know, to make you feel a little better about the whole thing. Can we play a song and dedicate it to you? She goes, oh, that'd be very, very nice. What would you like? We'll play anything you'd like to hear. And she said, and I'll never forget it, Oh, Anything by Glenn Miller. It's like, Mom, you're not 25 anymore. I don't know if you know that or not. I don't know if KDWB has Pennsylvania 65, 000 in the, uh, I'm pretty sure it's not in there. No, it was just a wonderful thing. And that inspired me. This is what I want. I want to talk to somebody halfway around the world and seeing how that has all changed now. It still makes me very, very excited. I'm going to, matter of fact. We just started working on something. I don't want to mention the people yet cause it would, you know, we're going to get it going the next couple of weeks. But I do a, a, uh, podcast with Hubbard. It's on every day from eight to nine 30. And then the nine 45, my family comes back in and continues to do the podcast and been doing for 10, 12 years. And now it looks like I got a call from some people in the five state area. They would like to take the family podcast and add an hour or two more to it and put it on their radio stations. They want to syndicate, syndicate a morning show. Excellent. Which would be great. I mean, it's very, very nice to hear. That's really nice to, you know, even come across with something like that. But to do a combination, because I did for 10 years anyway, do a combination of podcasting and radio. It looks like I'll be getting back into doing that. So then you can reach, you know, both the young people and the older people and do all the rest of it. I do miss, I have not been on the radio now in two years. Uh, well it'll be two years. It's been that long, December. Christmas Eve, yeah. Christmas Eve was my last show. And to be back on radio is going to be a wonderful thing. I'm really looking forward to it. Can't really say where it's going to be yet, but it starts with a W and ends with a Y, I think, I'm pretty sure is what it does. What kind of topics? I'm going to make them up as I go along, baby. There's no doubt about that. We're going to play some music too, which will be a nice thing. It'll be kind of like the, it'll be what the KQRS morning show was back in the heyday, play some, you know, a couple of songs an hour or two, three, four, something, whatever, whatever they want to do. I don't care. Looking back, say it was in the late 90s, it probably would have been shocking for us to tell listeners at the time that 25 years from now, Tom's going to be hosting a show with his family or what's going to be doing something more of a different avenue like that. well, I'm excited to hear what the new project is going to entail and should be fun. Yeah, you know, it just popped in my head too. I just got a call last week from Dave Hamilton. Did you not spoken to Dave in years? And he's, you know, he's having, he's got the great life going, he's living the life he wants to live and all the rest of it. But just hearing his voice again, just brought back all this joy. Remember how wonderful that was? We had such good times. Oh God, it was amazing. I told a friend a story recently that when our boss, Dave worked at WAPP in New York, the Apple would create call letters. They had a local music contest for local artists, and if the artists were chosen, they'd be put on the LP, the vinyl compilation for WAPP, and one of the, submissions came in from a young man named John Bon Giovi, his real name at the time. And it was a basement demo recording of runaway. And while that made it onto the album, I think it was some other band that was a one hit wonder that got the record contract as a result of that. But because of by virtue of being on the album compilation, that's what led to Bon Jovi's. record deal. many, many years later, I remember they were playing at Excel or someplace and John walked up to the microphone before they played Runaway. And all he said was, this next song is for my friend, Dave. there had to be what, 10 of us in the venue that even knew the significance of what he was saying in that moment. And, We have so many, so many great stories. Seriously, when more people aren't with us anymore, we have to write the book. But what would you say is your favorite memory of the KQRS days? My favorite memory? Oh my God, there's 8 billion of them. maybe it's hard to identify just one, but some of the, best fondest times at KQRS and in our Halcyon days of radio, I would say this. It's not just one day. It was all this long stretch of things. Cause I, and I'll give them credit. There were a couple of people he hired that I thought were a complete pain in the ass. But Hamilton was really good at hiring people who actually cared. And even the pains in the ass really cared. There's no question. It wasn't like, Oh, I'm, you know, working at the highest rated station in America now, and uh, he said, you have to care about the product or the product's not going to be as good as it could be. That whole idea. I mean, I never had really any problems at all with, with any of that stuff. because of Hamilton. Hamilton protected me, man. It was just like, I had an armed guard with me at all times. I suppose because I could go off the deep end. He was keeping an eye on me too, but you know. Yeah. But no, those, it just, the love, I loved working at KQRS back in those days. but yeah, the whole thing, the whole experience, Cause I was worried about, you know, I'm living in New York and I take a job in Minnesota. I moved back to Minnesota. What if I'm only there a couple of months and it doesn't work. And I'm going to move back to New York. And there was a lot of that kind of stuff. Well, radio people, program directors or morning show hosts are like professional coaches. You're hired to get fired. That's, it could be a one year deal. Yes. Oh, easily. I was going to retire a year from this Next not not this one, but 2025 I was going to retire on christmas eve After 40 years at the radio station But these assholes at cumulus, they just nope can't do. Nope. You gotta go. It's got part of it has to be severe jealousy because when you're that successful people, there are some people that hate your guts because you're that successful. it was part of the challenge of being highly rated as a station. Overall, it's like, it's like the same analogy of the professional sports franchise. The better you do people, you know, people, I'm kind of sick of them. Why are they winning all the time? Why are they doing so well? And that zero sum game of, oh, look, we had a good ratings period, but okay. Yay. Now onto the next one because everyone's gunning for us. The targets on your back, Tom, is the host. And how do you maintain that level of. Excellence and of high standards. And to your point, Dave really did hire for that mission driven. Everyone believed in it. We would have gone to battle for each other and those were stressful times too. those, we had some wild times as a result of the stress involved, but man, but the best wouldn't trade those memories for anything is we wrap up today. First of all, thank you for being here. This is really the hell out. Did you hear that? Well, look at the time. Look at this. We'd have to start this whole thing over. A little nod. Chuckers. Yes. Do you remember when, uh, John did the the Chucker bit and he had Was it somebody from the Grateful Dead on? Oh, yeah. Was it Phil Lesh? He just died. He just died. The premise of the Chucker was he called the real celebrity, quote unquote, but would intentionally speak as if he didn't know who they were. Like Shirley MacLaine, he started speaking to her like she was Shirley Jones. But he said to Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, Phil, I got a joke for you. What are the Grateful Dead fans say when he stopped doing drugs? And Phil said, I don't know, Chuck. What did he say? What's all this terrible music. I do remember one of my favorites of all time. That bit was incredible. I mean, how he ever came up with that. It was brilliant. It was absolute brilliant. It started basically by accident, if I'm not mistaken. And I was like, Hey, we should try that again sometimes. But All right. As we wrap up today, first of all, Tom Bernard, thank you so much for being here today. As a final word, final call to action for, for us, all the things we've talked about your next endeavors you're going to have with family and getting back on the radio, but How are we going to bring all of the pieces of this divided world back together, be able to laugh again, be able to get along, be able to agree to disagree, better leadership. Our leadership is very lame right now. But I do not like that both of these candidates just lay each other. I just, I don't want to hear it. What a horrible human being he is. What a horrible being she is. And I said, come on, really? How do you think that inspires young 12, 14, 16 year old kids that are hearing that? Why is the political environment in America the number one most important thing to you? It's because you're lame. Get your head out of your ass and go live your life. First of all, live it in your own home with, then go out with your own friends, go to work, do all the things you do. And if at the end of every day, You still think the world sucks, then you better get out of your family, get away from your friends and quit your job and get a new one because you've made a lot of mistakes, pal. And they're your mistakes, not everybody else's. The world wants us to focus on all of our differences. Like you said, with that, I don't want to get into a political thing, but I would love to see a politician say, Or even somebody in any leadership position, what they're going to do differently. Here's why it's constantly othering the other, their opponent all of the time. But it's as much as the world wants us to focus on our differences, we have a hell of a lot more in common than we would otherwise. No, Reid, when was the last time I saw you? I think I saw you coincidentally at the Good Day Cafe in December on your last day. Oh, that's right. A couple years ago. But when you and I work together, that's what's in my head. It's not, Oh, I haven't seen him in a couple of years or whatever. I mean, I always loved working with you. The, you were in the office when David's, look at those wonderful memories we have of one another, our coworkers, our time together at KQRS. Why wouldn't I want, I cherish that stuff. So when you called and said, would you do this? I said, yeah, I don't really want to. No, I didn't say that. I jumped at the chance. Because I hadn't seen you in a while, and I also knew that I would have a ball doing this with you, which I did. So great to catch up, and I really appreciate your support on that Join or Die event that we're hosting, which is a call to action for people. And to get out and identify something around which you're passionate, go join a club, join an organization, get involved in something of which you're passionate about, and we'll actually provide some meaningful, tangible action in the world to bring us together a little more harmony and a little less divisiveness. And we'll close with a laugh. I was about 15 minutes late today to do this interview, and there was a reason I was 15 minutes late, because I'm usually always on time. But there was a problem. I was on the morning show this morning, and I had just opened. My wife asked me to stop drinking Diet Pepsi. She said, stop that. Just drink whatever you, but just don't drink that diet stuff. It's really bad for you, and blah, blah, blah. So I had two bottles left of the Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi, and I opened one. And I was putting it up to my mouth to take a sip on the air. And one of the people on the air said something that made me really laugh. I dumped about half of that 16 ounce bottle into my lap. So it looked like I peed my pants. I was late cause I had to go home and change my pants. Honestly, God, it looked like I peed my pants. And I mean, I'm going to be a big like a 45 record. That's how big there was no hiding. That was no hiding. That's no I can't go see Reed with P pants. I had to go home and change my pants and then come in. We might have might have talked about your living arrangements now, and we have to find you a place where there's someone to oversee or something. Well, yes, I mean, time. You know, help me down the whole time is dinner. Oh, that'll be wonderful. You know, it was such an honor to be called by you. Rita Ball was like, you're such a good guy. Uh, you have a very big heart too. Where did that come from? Definitely family. Yeah. but really trying to put things in action to become a better version of myself and not just talk about it, but to go out and do it. yeah, family for sure. And the older I get, I'm trying to align myself with quality people, people I can learn from people that I want to emulate their behavior and cutting out some of the, Some of that more, the toxic factor that some people just aren't going to change or have no desire to do so. And the older I get, the more I'm valuing relationships, great memories like we've talked about today. And we're really wanting to see the world slowly but surely click back to a place where there's more harmony. I saw a great line from someone last week who said follow the trend lines Don't follow the headlines. I love it. That's solid. That works for me. Tom Bernard, it has been an absolute pleasure to catch up with you today. This has been another episode of Minnesota Masonic Histories and Mysteries.