The Importance of Loveline

Last night one of the most famous radio programs in the last 50 years ended. For those that don’t know, Loveline is a late night radio call in program that uses a “call in” format. The call’s mostly centered around sex questions that people were too shy to ask their friends or family about. It started in 1983 with Dr. Drew on the now world famous KROQ out of L.A. Over the years has been co-hosted by several notable DJ’s over the years including Riki Rachtman, Psycho Mike, “Spacin” Scott Mason and Adam Carolla. After Carolla joined the show went syndicated, reaching hundreds of markets. All of this in a world that was still a bit wary of what the internet would be.

This isn’t about how Loveline became a powerhouse in the radio industry, you can read all about that on Wikipedia. This is about how this radio show changed me from a dumbass teenager into an adult. Let me get one thing clear as we start this. This show was one of the single most important things in my life for a long period of time. You may think “a radio show being so important, that’s kinda sad” but the community surrounding the show, the way that the hosts made you feel like they were talking just to you, it made you feel special. It seamlessly blended laughing at some of the worst things you can imagine and a level of sincerity that many shows lack these days.  

I first heard Loveline in 1997. I was 12 years old and I was without a doubt in their demographic. A friend of mine at the time, Joe Allen, had recorded a commercial for “Trojan Man!!” on a cassette and brought it in for all of us to listen to. The commercial happened to also be in the middle of Loveline. We listen to Adam Carolla talk about herpes before the commercial started. It was funny, despite not really knowing why, but it was sex, anything sexual, which to a 12 year old me was ultimately enticing. When listening to the radio show when I was able, I would frequently stay over at a friend’s house, David Morgan. We watched a lot of MTV, as one does when you are 12. Loveline was on every day at 11pm. I would watch when I could, learning more about how people react to sex, what most people don’t know about it the human mind and how is reacts to abuse and trauma and ultimately how it can all be funny.

I stopped watching when it ended in 2000. I stopped listening around that time as well. I had found the internet in all of its glory. High school had taken me out of the question phase and moved me into the doing phase of life. In 2003 I graduated high school. Not having any real direction in life I decided that I would get a job so I could move out of my parents’ house. I was hired as a security guard at the Bodega Harbor Golf Links, The position was mostly overnight, but because of the heavy rotation of personal I was normally on 8pm to 8am shifts. During my training with the late, great Joe Craig he asked my “You ever listen to loveline?” I explained that I did when I was younger, but had not for several years. For the next week of my training we listened to it each night. When I was working solo at 10 pm it would be on in my work truck. On days that I didn’t work I would listen to it at home. Shortly after I got the job I helped my friend Alex Boyer get a job their too, we would often listen to the show together or talk about it after if we were apart when it aired. We both were huge fans.

The advice, the complaining by Adam Carolla, the games, the humor, all of it spoke to me. This was a time in my life where I didn’t know what I was doing. Working a shitty dead end job, living paycheck to paycheck in the ghetto apartment that I was sharing with 2 other guys didn’t exactly make me feel like I was on top of the world, but when Adam Carolla would talk about where he was when he was 18, how unsuccessful he was it made my life more bearable. His life mirrored mine and it gave me hope that maybe one day I would be out of the poverty that I was living in.

The calls taught me about human psychology in a way that no text book could. Dr. Drew had been doing the show for 20 years already and Adam, being hyper vigilant, they would pick on small ticks, vocal tones and words that people use to mask their true status. Things like the little girl voice indicating early life trauma/abuse in women. The use of the term “right now” when asking what people are doing with their lives, a term that brings people self-comfort. EX:

“So what do you do for a living?”

“Right now I am getting high and looking for a job, but something is right around the corner!”

It taught me what it means to be self-motivated and how the only person that you have to blame for your issues is yourself. We all have trauma no matter how big or small, it’s how you react to that trauma that determines who you are as a person. Get help when you can’t do it yourself, get therapy. Group therapy, talk to al-anon or AA or a friend, never suffer alone.

The most important thing that I learned is how to be an adult. The difference between these kids that would often call in and how naive they were. Despite being 20 years younger I always identified with Adam and Drew and not the callers. I would nod when Adam would yell into the microphone

“Here’s an idea, get your “S” together and become a functioning member of society”

“Stop screwing up your kids, you’re a parent, your kids come first”

“Society has rules and breaking them is breaking what holds us all together, just do what you are supposed to do”

When I heard that Loveline was ending I was not really surprised. The rise of podcasts and the downfall of terrestrial radio has been ongoing for years now. Frankly I don’t know how they lasted as long as they did. I saw last week that yesterday (4/28/2016) would be the last ever show of Loveline, co-hosted by Adam and Dr. Drew, just like old times. I told Alex and we made a plan to sit and listen to it together. The show did not disappoint, lots of names from the past showed up to give their two cents on how important the show was to them and the industry as a whole. It was an appropriate ending to an era.

I don’t know how else to say that this radio program helped define me, so I will just say that if somehow someone who was attached to the show in any capacity see’s this, thank you. Your hard work will life on in the lives that you changed, some for the worse, but mostly for the better. Thousands, maybe millions of people were affected by something that you had a hand in. That is something to be immensely proud of.

I’ll leave you with this. After all of my ranting and reminiscing about what it took for me to reach adulthood my favorite story from Loveline is the following:

The Holocaust Story

Best 6 minutes of your day, Tom Arnold is on the top of his game and the whole thing is great. Watch it, you won’t regret it.

Finally echoing last night’s sign-off.

“For the last time, thank you and Mahalo”

Dog Eat Dog - 1994

I'm climbing up, up the corporate ladder.
Watch out! It's dog eat dog.
Nose against the grindstone, it feels alright.
Watch Out! It's dog eat dog.

Song: Dog Eat Dog

Artist: "Weird" Al Yankovic

Album: Polka Party!

Year Released: 1986

Memory Date: 1994

When I was 9 years old I met one of the most intelligent people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Jason, my now stepfather had been dating my mother for roughly 1 year before I was introduced to him. It was smart and a really good way to make sure that 9 year old Chris didn't get attached to a person who may not be around very long. My mother wasn't really the dating type, according to her, Jay was the first person outside of my father whom she had dated. I met Jay one night when he came by my mom's house, she told me that she was having a friend over and he would bring pizza and a movie. As promised Jay arrived with a freshly rented VHS of Ace Ventura Pet Detective and a large Pepperoni. When I say Jay is smart I don't just mean textbook. He knows how people think. Despite being just 25 at the time Jason knew exactly how to work his was into mine and Tony's hearts.
 

The night that I met him he offered to take us to a baseball game, which we did the following weekend. A few weeks later we went on a trip to Paramount's Great America. He would buy us all kinds of things, watch T.V. with is, take us to movies. All sorts of fun things that would make us look forward to spending time with him. One of the best parts about spending time with Jay was his collection of Cassettes that he had in his car. He was a big fan of hair metal, grunge and hard rock, but I didn't bother with those. Jay had a copy of Weird Al's In 3-D. I had never heard of Weird Al up to this point, I assume I had heard a few of his songs, but I never knew who he was. I was instantly hooked. Despite not knowing many of the source songs he was parodying I still loved everything on that album. We played it over and over in his car, every time we got in he would ask what song we left off on and pick it back up. Eventually he got tired of the album and offered to buy us a new one. He took us to Backdoor Disc and Tape, a local music shop that had a huge selection. After much deliberation we chose Polka Party!, Weird Al's 1986 classic. We went out to his car and put the fresh cassette in. It was short, but good. It stayed in for several weeks as we drove around. Tony really liked Living with a Hernia but my opinion was that the best song on the album was Dog Eat Dog. A great style parody of Talking Heads.

Jay continued doing spending time with us and without much effort he won us over without much issue. Eventually him and my mom got married. Years later I looked back on everything that he did when him and mother were dating and realized that he played the game correctly. I asked him later 

"Why did we do all that fun stuff when I first met you?" I asked

"I was trying to make you guys like me, get you in my corner." he told me

"What do you mean in your corner?" I asked

"I wanted you to pull for me if anything was to happen with me and your mom, you would tell her that you liked me."

Get the kid to fight for you...

Jason really is one of the smartest men I know.

The Three of Us - 2013

I will never defend the men who make amends with any enemy's friends,
I will never pretend.
I will never bow down to another man even when everyone's sayin' I've sinned,
I will never repent.

Song: The Three of Us

Artist: Streetlight Manifesto

Album: The Hands That Thieve

Year Released: 2013

Memory Date: May 2013

I joined the Army Reserves in May of 2008. During my next 8 years in the Reserves I did two stints working active duty. The first was a stateside mission to do port security. It was an easy job with a steady pay check, heck I even got to go home at the end of each night. The second was that I deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a prison guard. Before I left to go to GTMO I trained in Camp McGregor, New Mexico.

I was leaving my wife, Kortney and our 1 year old daughter, Ellie at home. This was the first time I had been away from them for an extended period of time. It was a difficult time not just for me and my wife, but for our whole family. I assured them all that it was something that had been done a million times before by people who weren’t as strong as we were and that everyone would survive the year with me gone. Kortney and I made plans for her to move in with her father while I was gone so he could help with Ellie.

I packed my bags, spent a few days in Concord, California getting all my paperwork together and 

then I took off. I left Oakland Airport on May 5^th 2013 for Camp McGregor. When you prepare to go overseas on a deployment there is a few weeks to a few months, depending on your mission that you go and learn how to conduct operations. In my units case this meant lots of shooting, PowerPoint training and prison operations. My unit (the 357th MP CO) also had a slew of new soldiers join us for our deployment so this was a good chance to get to know them. The whole time at the Camp was a shit experience for everyone involved.

The Camp is a place that I can only describe as the worst location I have ever been forced to visit. It was blisteringly hot during the day, freezing cold at night. We had random sandstorms that would come out of nowhere. God help you if you were outside when they hit, say goodbye to your eyes and lungs. Our living conditions weren’t great, but not to terrible. We bunked in dome shelters that had 12 per shack. I brought a ton of stuff, including my Laptop and my external hard drive which I had loaded with movies and music before leaving. Most of my belongings found their way under my bed as my personal space was about 4’ by 6’.

The one thing that I was looking forward to each day was possibly listening to the most recent album I had downloaded. The Hands That Thieve by Streetlight Manifesto. I was a big ska-punk fan and Streetlight releasing a new album was a big deal to me. I was really excited to listen to it. Sadly, I was far too busy and tired with all of my training/work to listen to it when we first arrived. It was about 2 weeks into my time there that I finally sat down, put in my earphones and listened to what I can only describe as the best thing about this entire time of suck.

I listen to the album front to back every night for the next 3 weeks. It was my way to de-stress after each day. Even on days when we worked from before sun-up to after sun-down I plugged it in and gave it a listen. Our lights would go out at 10pm, the room full of me and 11 other guys would all go about bedding down, I would put those earphones in, sink into my bed and I would just let the sweet horn sounds melt away the stress of the day.

Walk on Water - 1988 - 1989

Well if I could walk on water
And if I could find some way to prove
If I could walk on water would you believe in me
My love is so true

Song: Walk on Water

Artist: Eddie Money

Album: Nothing to Lose

Year Released: 1988

Memory Date: 1988-1989

It’s fitting that my first memory is a musical one. When I first decided to start writing down all of my musical memories (plug, plug) this was the second that came to mind. My mother was a big Eddie Money fan. I remember listening to him a lot when I was growing up and there is a good reason for it. The man has some talent, decent pipes and he can write some decent pop songs. I would never say that he is rock, but still quite the talented musician. I’ve been a fan of him as long as I can remember, literally, which is where this memory comes in.

Since I was 3-4 years old in this memory there are some fuzzy details. Some skewed remembrances or just blank spaces in my mind so I will fill the holes as well as I can. I remember being in a car with cloth interior, my car seat, which was a booster chair has blue cloth on the plastic lap arm. My mother had just driven us from our home to an Albertson’s and we are in the parking lot. I know that I am singing along with Eddie Money and my mother is crying. The car was beat run. I don’t remember the make or model, but it was a silver color, boxy look from the late 80’s, I sat in the middle of the back bench looking at the parking lot. The building was looming over us as we sat in the car, the sun baking us on the inside. It must have been the middle of the day, but I can’t be sure. I remember thinking that the song was weird, the words didn’t make sense and that I couldn’t find out why my mother was crying. All I knew was that she was sad.

Hindsight is always 20-20 (leads us to another song for another day). I now realize that my parents were beginning to enter their divorce around this time. My father had begun using harder drugs and was physically assaulting my mother. I found out all of this stuff when I was an adult. Now when I hear this song I think back to my first memory, Singing along to a song in a hot parking lot, my mother crying and not being able to help her, not even knowing what was going on, just seeing her sad.

Sub-Story: Eddie Money was also my first concert. There’s not a lot of story there. I saw him at a fair in 1995 and I would say that the free show had less than 100 people attending it. How the mighty had fallen.