Blue on Bleu

[OpenMike]

RADIO WAVES
Ben Fong-Torres

Sunday, July 29, 2007



BLEU ON BLEU: Don Bleu has been on the air in the Bay Area since 1980, beginning at KYUU, where he did mornings until 1990, after the station switched to a Top 40 format, as X-100. He moved up the dial to KIOI (Star 101.3) and has been there ever since. Two stations in 27 years - unheard of in a business in which DJs move more often than some San Francisco supervisors. And those 27 years of wake-up duty make Bleu the undisputed dean of morning shows.

To learn how he's managed to survive in this tumultuous business, I dropped in on his show one recent morning. It happened to be his 61st birthday, and, while a song was playing, he was recording a call from John Tesh, who has a syndicated show on the station in the evenings. While the two bantered, I met his youthful crew: April Summers, his producer, news/traffic reporter and all-around sidekick; Garreth Szakall, who runs the controls; Carolyn McArdle, just in from KKIQ in Pleasanton, who helps produce on-air bits; Erica "Tomato" Ketelsen, who's referred to as an intern but is a promotions assistant at the station; and Ray Ayala, an actual intern, in from the University of San Diego for the summer.

Amazingly, with all those bodies around, there's little noise in the studio while music is airing. Summers darts out of her news booth to remind Bleu what he needs to do on the next stop set, but until that moment arrives, it's lighthearted small talk all around. Bleu tells about a granddaughter who, when told that he was 61, exclaimed, "He must be starting to die!" She calls him "Goong-goong," he says, because he consulted with Ray Wong, in the station's marketing department, about how a granddad should be addressed, and he gave Bleu the Cantonese term. And he recalls the time Boy George visited KIOI in the early '90s and, at the sight of a handsome station staff member with "Fabio hair," inquired, "What do you do here, besides rock my world?"

And that's how it goes, and how it's been going all these mornings, all these years, with Bleu. Like a driver with good parking karma, he has great luck with phone calls, whether for his "Bleupers" feature, in which he puts on unsuspecting people, or for a simple contest. This morning, he's inviting listeners to apply for the chance to interview Adam Levine, lead vocalist and guitarist of Maroon 5. He asks Anna, the first caller, "Are you an Adam Levine fan?" "Is that his name?" she responds. Priceless.

After the show, Bleu sits at the Brickhouse Cafe and Bar, near Clear Channel's studios South of Market. From a previous piece on him (20 years ago) and some small talk in the studio, I know the basics. Born in tiny East Grand Forks, Minn., he attended nearby universities, got into local radio, hit the big time at KDWB in Minneapolis from 1968 to 1978, got to the well-known Boss Radio station, KHJ, in Los Angeles near the end of its run, then moved to San Francisco. His real first name is Rick, he's married to college classmate Cathy, and they have two kids, Cory and Jenny, and the granddaughter.

[jon]

Ben is a great Radio writer, and has credible on-air experience, as well. His "The Hits Just Keep On Coming" book on Top 40 radio is a classic.