On nights like this, the night I am writing, not the night you are reading, I get lonesome for that cold, smoke-filled room in Los Angeles where Wolfman and I did so many evening shows at KRLA-AM. 

Maybe it’s the chill in the air, the hum in my ear, the corn on the cob or the darkness…yes, the darkness of a winter evening. And the silence. Maybe it’s the way I am sitting or the part in my hair. Whatever it is, I think back and I miss those long evenings at that station’s facilities when I sat in the newsroom booth, the engineer sat behind the board and Wolfman …

Well, Wolfman wasn’t there. He was in his home studio, which was hooked up from a custom studio room in Beverly Hills to the station hardware on Wilshire Boulevard. 

It was easier for Wolfman to roll out of bed around 7 p.m., cook up some steak and eggs, stay half-dressed, stroll into the room just off his kitchen and sit behind the mike from 8 p.m. until midnight than it was for him to physically go to KRLA studios. 

It didn’t matter. This was radio and if the voices were coming out of a radio, who cared where those voices originated? Especially if one of the voices was The Wolfman’s. As long as that voice was shaking a radio speaker in a car, in a bedroom or anywhere else, no one cared how it got there.

I sat in the tiny newsroom, the air conditioning up high enough to store meat. I had my notes, pens, my little drum machine, a toy piano, a microphone, headphones, a private phone with punch-in lines that were always well lighted, an ashtray and coffee. There were times I thought those were the only things in the world I needed.

This was a tight program, regardless of the distance between the participants. We negotiated every minute without hand signals or head nods. We used carts of music at the station and Wolf could slip in CDs from his end. I would open my mike and play the drum machine or the toy piano. We would sing along to songs, shout, belch, clap hands. We would take phone calls from fans on and off the air and we would make everyone believe, of course, that The Wolfman was at the studio.

Fans would come by sometimes. They believed The Wolfman was there. Why shouldn’t they? We never let them know otherwise. Why should we? It was a grand hoax and a strong part of the Wolfman mystique, much of what the Wolfman character was built upon. He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere … he’s nowhere.

Sometimes, like now (now when I am writing, not now when you are reading although when you are reading this feeling may be coming over me again) all of the sensations I received from that room and that show rush through me like I am being trounced upon by a herd of barnyard animals. That room pulsated. We got so involved in those broadcasts that all other facets of our lives became meaningless. A Zen experience? Quite, though we never addressed our work philosophically.

That’s a lie. Wolfman was a calculating performer. He knew his character, he knew the tempo of his work and he was always loyal to his focus and his character. (That could be one of the finest sentences I ever wrote.) 

Wolfman created a character who could stumble, bumble, fumble and grumble and be perfectly in tune with his audience. It was done on purpose and with a purpose. (That sentence ain’t so bad, either.)

“It’s all good time fun and rock and roll,” he said, making it sound off the cuff and so general that it had no foundation. 

Yet, The Wolfman had a distinct focus. He concentrated on the fact that the total audience consisted of each and every person it made up. And he always talked to each and every person as if he or she was the only person listening. He was aware of that, always. And that small but important calculation in his performance is what made him so special.

Wow, did I get heavy there or what? Yes I did and if I do it again slap me.

Hard.

But it is true, all of it. I swear on a stack of pancakes. The Wolfman, especially when performing live on radio, paced himself and raced himself. He pushed and drew back. He was, in the literal sense of the word, dynamic. 

Slap!

Thanks, I needed that. 

Where was I? Oh yes, that little newsroom on Wilshire Boulevard. 

You know, on Saturday evenings we would open the show at 7 p.m. and close it at 2 a.m. Seven straight hours. Around 1 a.m. Wolf would do a half an hour of strictly blues. Vintage stuff, most of which came from his private collection. Of course by 1 a.m. we were all pretty stewed and we always left the microphones open to grunt, holler, sing and drum along to those blues numbers. 

I have some tapes of broadcasts that originated from that room and every now and then I go into my basement studio, don the headphones, sit back and listen. I turn the lights off and gaze into the darkness. 

The programs still generate an excitement and emotions that are not to be found on any airwaves today. 

And the credit for that goes to The Wolfman. 

Check in often. I will.
Mars