16-The Rest of the Story

Okay, So here's something I always wanted an excuse to say. You know what the news is. Now you're going to hear the rest of the story. I'm Jim pulling, and this is my view from the middle. Maya inane impression. Notwithstanding, you might recognize the opening of this episode as the opening of the late Paul Harvey's Rest of the Story newscast. I met Paul Harvey once. Now I'll get to that in a moment, namely because I have a bunch of other famous names to drop here first, like Rush Limbaugh, Pete Rose, Wayne Brady, Larry the Cable Guy, Sandy Kofax, Bill Clinton, and Minnie Pearl. Now, before I go on, let me just say this, I've never been a celebrity watcher. I actually have tried to avoid meeting celebrities, especially ones I like, for fear of destroying my impression of them. Just my luck, the celebrity I've come to admire for their performance would turn out to be a jerk in person and completely ruin it for me. And with few exceptions, my bumping up against these name drops was not of my own doing. Well, here's the rest of the story. In the radio business, you tend to run into celebrities, sometimes just walking down the hall to the breakroom. As a matter of fact, I was in the breakroom at Whoo one morning pouring out coffee when I turned and who do I run into but Minnie Pearl. Anyone old enough to remember the TV show he haul will remember many She was a comedian and a caricature of herself for sure. She always wore a big brimmed hat that would have a price tag dangling from it, an address that looked like she was ready for a square dance. She was famous for her how de greeting whenever she appeared somewhere. Apparently she was making a promotional appearance on the station and was in the breakroom awaiting her airtime. Now I knew who she was and had watched her on the TV show, but I can't say as I was a big fan. I wasn't not a fan. But I also didn't have a place in my autograph book for her either. By the way, I don't have an autograph book, nor have I ever asked any celeb for their autograph, just saying, but what I said next to Minnie Pearl proved to be a little embarrassing. Well, Hello, nice to meet you, Miss Pearl, I said. Now, those who grew up in the South might realize that many Pearl, although a fictional character name, was actually supposed to be her first and middle name, not her first and last name. So Miss Pearl was definitely not the way I should have addressed her at that moment. It would be like addressing James Earl Jones as mister Earle or Mary Tyler Moore as miss Tyler. But what did I know? Now? I was born in Detroit. But she was gracious about it and never wavered from her character. Oh you can call me Minnie. This is the most fun I've had with my shoes on. Later on, one of my coworkers, who had overheard how I botched the greeting to our guest celeb, pointed out the airror of my ways. Gee. Thanks. Another celebrity encounter I had was with ex baseball player Pete Rose. He was trying to get a radio talk show off the ground, and somehow Florida News Network was chosen to syndicate it, but controversies. Notwithstanding as great a baseball player as Rose was, he didn't have a clue how to present himself on the radio, so I would coach him for a while. Every day I had a phone conference with him and his producer and go over things he needed to work on. He was very frustrated by having to be taught with stuff, but I had to remind him that he didn't always know how to play baseball either. Everyone has to start somewhere. I already talked about my encounter with Sandy Kofax in the podcast episode of this series called A Clueless Brush with Greatness. I chatted with the guy at a bar for a couple of hours without even knowing who he was until he introduced himself as I was leaving, and that was a bit traumatic. Comedian Larry the Cable Guy is actually Dan Whitney to me and a few other people I worked with at the radio group. You probably recognize him from his comedy routines with Jeff Foxworthy, his voice work in the Cars movies, and from his famous line get her done. Dan was working with one of the morning shows in the building doing his cable guy bits. He actually knew me before I knew him. See, I would come in early in the morning to start work. Now when a phone call would come in from me, the calls would be answered by the guys in the newsroom, since it was generally before office hours and before the receptionist came in. Our phone system was designed so that you could answer an incoming call, determine who the call was for, and then put the call into what was referred to as an orbit. You could punch up a two digit number, then page on the overhead speakers that there was a call holding. If the guy in the newsroom had a low, melodious on air voice, and he'd answer a call for me, punched the numbers five five to put the calls in orbit, and then page Jim Polling five five, Jim Polling five five. I'd picked up the phone, punch five five and take the call. Well. Larry Dan would hear this going on and thought it was funny, So every time he'd see me, he'd say, Jim Poland five five, Jim Poland five five. After a while, he simply started calling me by the new nickname he had for me, oh five five. For years after he left and went on to great fame and fortune, he'd come back to Orlando to go to lunch with a group of us and would see me and give me a hug and say, oh, five five, it's good to see you. One day at lunch, he was telling us all about this ka billion dollar ranch he built in Nebraska. He said he had a new intercom system installed in it. He took special delight in telling me that when he first tested the new system, he would hit the page button and call out Jim Poland five five, Jim Polling five five. He thought it was hysterical. Another time, Dan range for backstage passes one of his concerts for me, my wife, and my son James. When we got back there after the show, it was standing in the wings of the auditorium. Dan spotted me and ran over and gave me a hug and greeted me with his typical oh five five. I introduced my wife and my son James. When he shook James's hand, he said you're his son, and he said yeah, all two and a half, two and a half. Everyone around us cracked up. For several years, I was program director of WFLA in Orlando. We were an affiliate of the late Rush Limbaugh radio program, which we ran every day. Rush came to town to one of the big resort hotels to celebrate twenty five years on the air. All of his Florida affiliates, of which WFLA was one of the largest, were invited to attend. So I was there. One of his handlers grabbed me and introduced me to Rush. Rush looked at me, grabbed my hand, and a big smile broke out on his face. You have a great radio station. I am so on to be a part of it, he said. I could tell by his mannerisms and body english that he wasn't putting on an act. WFLA was a legacy fifty thousand watt radio station in central Florida that could be heard from coast to coast in the state. He was impressed by that, and so I could tell that his comments to me were sincere. When Rush passed away several years later, I could only think of that day and how sad I was that the industry had lost a legend. I only met one US President during my career, and that was only for just a handshake. Florida News Network, for some reason, had been invited to broadcast from the East Room of the White House for the twentieth anniversary of the moon landing. We were the only radio entity allowed in the room, so my GM Rick Green, our news anchor Alan McBride, and myself made the trip. It was an extremely nerve racking experience since the Secret Service would not allow us into the East room to set up our broadcast equipment until the very last minute. I mean very last minute. We had some trouble getting a phone line to work, and so we made the connection back to the network in Orlando and to thirty plus radio stations picking up that broadcast with literally thirty seconds to spare before airtime. That was too close. And also remember the Secret Service guys coming by our broadcast set up and telling me I had to move my table legs so it wasn't making contact with the marble floor of the East room. Shsh. Anyway, the PR people told us that President Bill Clinton would not be available for any type of interview during our visit. This was disappointing, but they said that his schedule was so busy he had no time for it. So we accepted that and did the moon Landing broadcast. After the ceremonies were done and we were winding up our broadcast as people cleared out of the East room, Alan our anchor, was talking on the air, summarizing what had happened, etc. When all of a sudden we see the President wander over to where our table was set up. He looked puzzled, as if he had no idea who we were or why we were there, but he walked up and shook my hand, then Allan's, then Ricks Alan, who was live on the air, never missed a beat. He was going on about something to do with the anniversary when Clinton walked over to us. As we stood up and started to shake hands with him, Alan simply said to the radio audience, as if calling out the play by play, President Clinton now coming to shake our hands now, and he continued on with what he was saying. Clinton gave us all the odd looked and wandered down the hall to his next thing. Hey, they said, no interview right. Another encounter with a celebrity was with Wayne Brady. You may know him as the improv guy from the TV series Whose Line Is It Anyway? And the host of Let's Make a Deal, among other acting projects before he got the gig as host of the game show. But while he was still on Who's Line, Brady came to town and we somehow wound up taking an improv workshop with him. Brady used to attend Doctor Phillips High School in Orlando for a while, and when he could he I would do a favor for his old drama teacher and do these improv classes. We took two of them. Wayne Brady was an extremely nice guy. As well as being a very talented improv actor. He was very patient as a teacher. We'd be doing a scene and sometimes not as well as we should have, and Wayne would chuckle and shake his head and say, you guys make me laugh. My favorite thing to do was make up songs from a topic thrown at you. If you ever watched Whose Line Is It in any way, you've seen Wayne Brady do this and masterfully. Well. I got to do that with Wayne. He had a piano player and I had no idea what type of music the guy was going to play or what the topic was going to be. Wayne would pretend to be the bartender and I was the customer. He says something like, so how's it going with your girlfriend Amy? The piano player would start playing immediately, and I had to start making up the song Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun dun dun dun dun dun da dun dun oh Amy, etc. Etc. I wasn't bad at it, not nearly as good as Wayne Pratty, of course, But then again, who is what I really stunk at was the rap stuff. I definitely was a white guy who couldn't wrap. My wife, on the other hand, did real well with that exercise. You guys make me laugh. In last, but not least, as I alluded to during the opening of this thing, was my encounter with the late great broadcaster Paul Harvey. When I worked at WHOO, we carried all of Paul Harvey's newscasts from the ABC Radio network. The plan was he was supposed to visit Orlando for a speaking engagement, then do his daily newscast from our studio. I of course asked and was granted the opportunity to do an on air interview with him. A week ahead of the plan to visit. They installed Associated Press and United Press International wire machines at our place. That had cost a lot, especially in those days, but that's what they did when he traveled. But something happened at the last minute and he wound up doing his news broadcast from his normal studio in New York. And then he flew to Orlando for the speaking engagement. They still let me do the interview with him, only on the phone instead of in person. I remember him telling me during the interview how he loved to bound out of bed at three o'clock every morning and rush to his wire machines to see what was happening in the world. I was thinking, I don't do any kind of bounding myself at that hour of the day. He had warned me not to ask him any questions about his position on a hot button er issue that was in the news. I don't exactly remember what it was now or why he didn't want to talk about it, but the one thing you never tell a news guy is what not to ask during an interview, and that's what I did. I snuck in a question about the er, which Paul dodged appropriately, but I had to ask later. That evening, I attended his speaking engagement out at one of the big hotel resorts. There was a buffet reception following the event, and somehow quite coincidentally, I assure you, I found myself in the buffet line right next to yep, Paul Harvey. So I introduced myself and Paul chuckled a bit and said, young man, you practiced a bit of brinksmanship on me this morning. Well, I had never heard that word before, but I gleaned its meeting from context. I also knew he meant my question about the era, Paul, did you really expect me not to ask you something about that? Of course not, he said. It was a good interview. So I was in the middle of some big names at times, from a happenstance meeting with a famous country comittee in the break room, to momentary meetings with Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton, to being a broadcast coach to a great baseball player a student of improv from a great improv actor, to treading on thin ice interviewing one of the great broadcasters of all time. I earned the nickname five to five from Larry the Cable Guy, mostly something he and I and a few of our mutual friends would only know about. I know, I've been dropping a lot of names during this episode, but all the tales are true and played a big role in what turned out to be for me the rest of the story. I'm Jim Pauling, and that's my view from the middle. In the next episode, do you ever get frustrated with how TV news channels skew the news to match an agenda, Well, you're not alone. The media is the massage next? On my view from the middle,