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In reply to the discussion: New Roy Moore accuser will disclose allegations at Gloria Allred presser today [View all]calimary
(81,209 posts)Last edited Tue Nov 14, 2017, 03:09 AM - Edit history (1)
I've actually relived that experience several times, just in sharing with other women, and with my kids. Especially with my son the band boy, who wanted to hear all of my radio stories whenever we were in the car together. Nice to have credibility with one's kids, 'eh?
Most of those who deserve comeuppance, as I've found, usually get what they deserve. The big-ass new-arrival deejay got fired a few months later, after failing to make the ratings go up. He floundered around while his wife, who was a GIGANTIC talent in the voiceover world, brought home the bacon. He eventually landed another gig here in town, and that was a better match. He did quite well, but never quite made it where he really wanted to: in television. He had at least a couple of attempts to launch a late night show, but failed.
Most of 'em from that period wound up getting fired. So what else is new? That's what happens in radio. Sometimes it's deserved, and when it's justified, it can really make one feel pretty good. Linda Ellerbee once said you can't really regard yourself as having arrived as a broadcaster until you've been fired at least once. My dad called up the general manager and complained. He never told me the details but one morning that offending jock went on the air and mentioned me, since listeners were asking what happened to me (which was true!), and he wanted everyone to know that I'd gone on to a bigger job at NBC Radio and they all missed me and wished me well. His sidekick news dude who moved to L.A. with him failed. Got fired, and then didn't get picked up anywhere else in town. I think he went back where he came from. He never made it out here on his own.
The general manager who insinuated that I'd never work in this town again got fired, himself. So did the nasty loudmouth PD, who always got big and read and potty-mouthed in a lava eruption of foul language at the top of his lungs (hard to do when you're barely five feet tall! Napoleon complex, anyone?) - he didn't last, either. I think he did move around in the L.A. market to some extent, but I very happily stopped keeping track. The "good guys" I kept in touch with, and in a few cases wound up working with, again.
I never wanted to make any trouble. Part of the reason I liked being on morning drive. By the time we were finished, after the 9am news, that was pretty much it. We were done for the day, and after some production work (or for us newsies, public affairs interviews and such) we'd leave! Eventually I had to stick around for the noon news, but after that, I'd head out, too. Any way you sliced it, you missed the big traffic rush in the morning, or in the afternoon. Back then, the "lunch rush" wasn't as big a pain in the ass as it is here in L.A. now. For such hellacious hours, commuting to and from work was a BREEZE! Not a morning went by that I didn't have most of the L.A. freeway system to myself! I figured that the only other cars I'd see on the road were other deejays hurrying to work at other stations around town!
It hasn't been as hard for me to relive my experience, as I mentioned elsewhere here, because mine don't hold a candle to some of these! Like the woman who gave tearful testimony with Gloria Allred just today. You could just hear her agony, going back through that in public. Who does that just for a lark, or to make trouble? Gloria Allred would sniff out a phony, anyway. She understands grandstanding VERY well.
And one other thing I'll say about her. She doesn't gossip. Gloria Allred has to have handled most of the biggest and messiest and noisiest sex discrimination or abuse cases over several decades. She's represented TONS of big names and wives-of-big-names. And she doesn't dish about it. It's just not her thing. And you get that, clearly, just hanging around her. She's not that way. Don't expect any "inside dirt." She keeps all that in the strictest confidence. She knows she needs to be trusted. I sat with her for a rather long and weepy lunch that day. NOTHING was ever said about any of her other clients or suspected clients, even to advise or warn me. I wasn't a news reporter digging for some scoop, either. I appreciated that - it was good to know, in case I ever needed to become her client. Which I never did need to do, but I knew I could trust her.
She did tell me, before we left for lunch, that a typical day for her, visiting some radio or TV station or network outlet for one of her frequent interviews, she'd walk down any hallway and invariably pass a woman who'd quietly press a note into her hand as she walked by. She said that happened all the time - mainly to illustrate just how much injustice there was (and undoubtedly still is) toward women in the workplace, how much disrespect, how many violations, insults, come-ons, mistreatment and discrimination of every sort, and all kinds of other predatory behavior we still seem always to be tripping over. She's fought the good fight for so many women who were jeered, sneered at, not taken seriously, dismissed as mere sex objects, liars, golddiggers or "a woman scorned" looking merely to settle scores or ruin some poor unsuspecting man. Watching that latest victim come forward and sob through her story today, out there in front of the world and all the microphones and cameras, willing to face becoming a target, took me back to that restaurant table with Gloria that day. Except there were no mics or cameras there that day, just she and me. And my large wad of soggy kleenex. I'll never forget how she stood by me that day. She's Wonder Woman to me.