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GeorgeJetson
Guest
I met Allan while covering the Rush Holt vs Dick Zimmer debate. He was frantic, looking for a microphone. He had a hand held Sony tape recorder with a built in condenser mike. He said he needed an external mike as the tape mechanism made noise and he had to hold the tape recorder close to the speaker to get audio. He said he needed a mike with an 1/8 inch mini plug as the machine could not facilitate an XLR plug as was used on the standard microphone. I showed him a whole box of microphones and he found the one that fit. I was working for WPDQ FM at the time and the station manager (Andy Stamat) yelled at me for helping out a competitor. I said to Andy-“man, are you kidding? Look at him! Look how happy he is”! With that Andy had wet collar and smoke coming out of his ears. Andy was real mad. I said “no look again, look over there. See what he has”? “Sure” Andy says. “He’s got a portable tape recorder and he is using your microphone! Now you ****** go over there and get it back from him”!!! “But it’s mine”. I said to Andy. “It’s my microphone and I brought it from home”! At this point Andy was crazy with a sick look in his eyes. I pulled Andy away and said: “Look it’s a spare, it’s not even worth ten dollars.” Now Andy was seething with that cold look of pure hate. Andy offered to get it back himself; I explained that Allan promised to return it as soon as the debate was over and I could have it back. No, that wasn’t good enough. After all I had helped a competitor and that was PURE TREASON! I had microphones all over the place, brand new Sure 3.1’s and older station mikes mixed together all tied in to a brand new Mackie 1402vlz mixer. I had a dedicated phone line direct to the station. (I used an analog EQ to at the station sweeten up the sound). I ran the entire debate live over the air without interruption (Except for station ID). I also taped the entire event, the tapes ending up in Dick Zimmer’s archive. I laughed at Andy, I told him our tiny station on 89.7FM had just beat the mighty 101.5 and all the poor guy wanted was a microphone so he could return to the station with a sample recording. It was a long debate, I remember using 3 tapes. I got the microphone back and was promised a good word in at 101.5. I later listened to a brief snippet of audio from the debate on 101.5. I made Allan’s day and got my boss real P/O ed at me. I didn’t care. I had the last laugh when Press caved in to Millennium and sold 101.5. I found out later the main reason was press could not compete with WPDQ due to a big difference in programming and commercial content. I tried to serve my community the best way I could and I knew the community would benefit having parts of the debate played later on over 101.5. Later on I listened to Allan tell about a story he was trying to cover and how he was nearly attacked by an angry mob of (protesters?) and had to run for his life. I don’t remember the details, but he put his life on the line that day. When Allan was promoted to nights and I tried to get the same job, I was a good sport and didn’t take it out on Allan. I did flame the PD though for wasting my time. Later, Allan was replaced by Michelle and later Michelle was let go for what seemed to be an incident in New York City involving 102.7 WNEW and sex in a church. Michelle did a very sexy show and I suspect the big boss let her go as a measure of safety. Sadly neither Allan, Nor Michelle are heard on the air anymore. Maybe Allan was best at covering live news and perhaps Michelle can find a spot on satellite radio. I never got the details on Michelle, or the angry mob that chased poor Allan that day. That was a long time ago when we still used TAPE! Funny I feel old writing this. The moral of this story? I don’t step in fingers to get to the top, and as far as I know neither did Allan. I never saw Allan after that day, but it sure was funny thumbing my nose at 101.5!!!
