BobLassiterAirchecks.com

(We’re betting that somebody, somewhere, has a copy of this broadcast on tape! Anyone have a lead? Email us, or leave a comment!!)

WINZ TO AIR TALK MANIA
Herald Staff

WINZ’s (940 AM) full- and part-time talk show hosts will take their turn today at sharing opinions and challenging each other on the issues as the station hosts Talk Mania. (WNWS-790 AM held its own Battle of the Talk Show Hosts Thursday.) WINZ’s marathon meeting of minds takes place from 10 a.m. today until about 5 a.m. Sunday.

Neil Rogers, Mike Spindell, and Bob Lassiter will host the first segment, to be broadcast live from Aventura Mall, 19501 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. today. Rogers, Spindell and Lassiter will then rush back to the station to join Bill Calder, John Broward and Jon McQ, who will continue the Mania from 2 p.m. WINZ’s general manager Stan Cohen and news director David Hosley are also expected to join in.

As part of WINZ’s month-long Children’s Holiday Fund campaign, hosts will be urging listeners to pledge donations to the fund, which benefits various children’s charities. Their goal is $1,000 in pledges each hour.

PROFANITY LOSES JOB FOR TALK SHOW HOST
LINDA R. THORNTON Herald Staff WriterWINZ (940 AM) weekend talk show host Bob Lassiter crossed the fine line between controversy and profanity on his show Sunday and has been fired as a result.

In the midst of a heated debate with a caller who was berating Lassiter for his positions on subjects including gun control and the U.S. Constitution, Lassiter predicted his fate by saying, “I’m going to do something that could possibly cost me my job…you’re full of s—.”

Indeed, Lassiter was fired by WINZ management Monday.

“We maybe give some leeway when our hosts use words that might be objectionable, but not when they use one of the seven magic words. We can’t have that on our station,” said WINZ news director David Hosley.

In addition to his (former) 2-7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday weekend shift on WINZ, Lassiter hosts a weekday show at WPLP in Tampa.

Signed promotional photograph of Neil Rogers, 1998. Click to enlarge.

Courtesy of Dan Musante

Bob’s Christmas Show is such the stuff of legend that we tend to forget: in the late ’90s he also did an annual Halloween show on WFLA. But where the Christmas show aimed for the heart, Bob played the Halloween show strictly for laughs - his monologue (”pseudo-somber” is probably the word for it) was about the crushing disappointments of the day and how much he therefore hates it. (The file ends with detritus from various other shows.)

Does anyone out there have another Halloween monologue? Email us!

DOWNLOAD - Halloween 1999

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: October 29, 1999
• Time: 34:23
• Format: mp3
• Size: 7.87MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

Management has apparently drawn up a list of questions - banal, substance-free questions - that they suggest might make good topics for talk shows. Bob, of course, takes that suggestion to heart (doesn’t he always?) and invites the audience to call and take on some of the questions - promising that if one question is too challenging, they’ll go on to others, since he has a couple hundred. Meantime, he and Jeffy amuse themselves by thinking up 800 numbers and trying to call them.

DOWNLOAD - Challenging Questions

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: March 22, 1999
• Time: 24:17
• Format: mp3
• Size:2.78

Courtesy of Rick Myers

The big news this day in Tampa Bay is that Clear Channel has fired Mason Dixon, a beloved (and highly rated) staple of the radio market, from his morning show at WFLA’s sister station Kiss FM. And even though it’s “Anything Goes” Friday on Lassiter’s show, Mason Dixon is what most people want to talk about.

DOWNLOAD - Mason Dixon Gets the Axe

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: August 27, 1999
• Time: 19:27
• Format: mp3
• Size: 2.22MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

There are two different issues at play on this WSUN clip, both as different as they could possibly be: the very recent bombing in Oklahoma City, and the newly released winter ratings book. Bob and Sharon are serious when it comes to the first, snarky (particularly towards Mark Larsen and WFLA) when it comes to the other. Only on the Lassiter show, folks.

DOWNLOAD - Ratings and Bombings

• Station: WSUN 620AM
• Date: May 1, 1995
• Time: 14:00
• Format: mp3
• Size: 3.2MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

Actually, there are only two angry old ladies here, and they’re right at the beginning of the clip…but just as Bob always said, they set the tone for everything that comes after, including discussions of Dr. Laura, Santa Claus, Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and Joe DiMaggio, Jr.

DOWNLOAD - Angry Old Ladies

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: December 11, 1998
• Time: 24:39
• Format: mp3
• Size: 5.7MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

It’s Friday, it’s open phones, and apparently, centrifuges are what the people want to talk about. Except, of course, for the people who want to talk about the situation with Saddam Hussein (seems so quaint, doesn’t it?). Oh, and Chase, who just wants to be an obnoxious prick. As usual. (Note: At one point, you can hear where this show was taped over an older Lassiter show…it’s a little bit confusing, but it goes away before long.)

DOWNLOAD - Centrifuges

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: August 13, 1999
• Time: 33:51
• Format: mp3
• Size: 7.75MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

The Fall 1994 book arrives, and Bob brings Todd Leiser, Tom “Velveeta,” and Ross Rebak into the studio to read out the numbers for WSUN and crosstown rival WFLA. Depending on who you ask, the ratings are either “bizarre” or “a disaster.”

DOWNLOAD - Bob and Todd Give the Numbers

• Station: WSUN 620AM
• Date: January 19, 1995
• Time: 9:33
• Format: mp3
• Size: 1.1MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

Bob asks people to call in and confess to their “worst, most confessable sins;” if they don’t, he promises to punish them with an insidious backup plan (Jeffy knows what it is and agrees that it’s pretty awful). Fortunately, Bob has no trouble getting people to call up and confess. There’s nothing particularly provocative or controversial here, you understand; it’s just Bob wanting to have some fun.

DOWNLOAD - Confess, You Swine

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: December 7, 1998
• Time: 51:13
• Format: mp3
• Size: 11.7MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

The night after being banned, Jockstrap Guy tries to call back, and although Bob hangs up on him, he offers him a chance to come back…if he’ll only take a month off. (Of course, Bob’s gone in a month, but nobody knew that at the time.) Other than that, the rest of the clip is essentially one of Bob’s games of “Hello?” with the phones. Among the things we learn in this clip are that Bob is a BIG fan of The Real World and Blind Date….didn’t see that one coming, did you?

DOWNLOAD - Jockstrap Guy Postscript

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: November 9, 1999
• Time: 27:09
• Format: mp3
• Size: 3.11MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

After dozens and dozens of calls that all recycle the same material (”Bob, you aren’t worthy of holding Mark Larsen’s jockstrap!”), the Jockstrap calls in yet again, and this time Lassiter keeps him on hold while the other callers vote on whether or not he gets to keep calling in, or will be permanently banned from the show.

DOWNLOAD - Exit Jockstrap

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: November 8, 1999
• Time: 27:09
• Format: mp3
• Size: 3.1MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers

The original Blog Lassiter was a Blogspot page, on which Bob allowed comments and discussed his time in radio, the current state of the business, and the news of the day. One of his first entries there was this discussion of his last days at WFLA and what happened to him after he left the station. This is from summertime 2005 - before Bob knew he was dying, but after he was housebound and had lost part of his foot.

The final days at WFLA were ugly – there is no other way to describe it.

There were numerous problems and “misunderstandings,” but the root of my anger was based in a $5.37 deduction from my paycheck, that took nine months to clarify.  I know it sounds silly, but it drove me nuts.

My contract was to expire on December 31, 1999.  My mood, and frankly my attitude on and off the air, coupled with the “vibes” I was getting from management, did not bode well for a renewal.  Finally, on the evening of December 2nd [actually it was December 1 - ed.], I unloaded – airing all the dirty laundry, in a classic Lassiter tirade.

The following morning, at approximately ten, I received a short, curt phone call from Sue telling me that my services were no longer required.  Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days after I first sat down behind a microphone, it was over.  Most men would have been devastated upon losing a six-figure, cushy job – I was relieved.

Every day for as long as I could remember, I had to wake up and find something outside of my personal life to care about – and care about it sufficiently to make an audience of strangers care about it.  I was tired of doing it – relieved to have the burden lifted.  I looked forward to just being the guy next-door, to just being a private citizen again.

I had always been one of those “never sick a day in his life” kind of people – but that all changed just four months into my exile.  Things started to go wrong, real wrong.  Within a year I would lose part of my right foot, have bladder cancer, have an artery in my leg replaced with a rubber hose, be diagnosed with heart failure, neuropathy, and a failing kidney.  Like I said, things began to go wrong – and than I began to lose my vision.  Diabetes was eating me alive.

Physically, I ain’t the same guy I was the last time we talked.  But my spirits are good, my outlook on life is positive, and I’ve learned to live with the hand I’ve been dealt.

For the most part, the past five years have been spent as I wanted – out of sight, out of mind.  I still live in Tampa, and it appears that will not change any time soon.  I lead a quiet, unassuming life – I rarely go out, I rarely talk to anyone.  I am a shy man, who never enjoyed or adapted to “celebrity”

The show seems to be open phones, although there’s a recurring topic of ice cream flavors reflecting personalities (meh). The reason this show is noteworthy, though, is that it marks the first appearance of a crank who would quickly become a regular on Bob’s show: the notorious Jockstrap Guy, who calls to tell Bob, “You’re not worthy of holding Mark Larsen’s jockstrap!” He then calls back later, pretending to be someone else who agrees with the Jockstrap Guy.

DOWNLOAD - Enter Jockstrap

• Station: WFLA 970AM
• Date: June 9, 1999
• Time: 29:39
• Format: mp3
• Size: 3.4MB

Courtesy of Rick Myers