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Mark Stevens in The End
byBobbie L. Washington
A Radio Gawd Has Left The Stage
In the early nineties, I was Stevens & Pruett's Head Comedy Writer and Executive Producer. I came to that position by chance as it was the unforeseen health scare of Jim Pruett that prompted me to go to the station. You see, I was a fan of the show and the station, KLOL, for quite some time. When Moby was there in the afternoon, I would send in material that he would use. He wound up giving me a "Moby" shirt that I think I still have hanging in my closet. It was too small but still, it was the appreciation that counted.
After Moby left for greener pastures, I had no outlet to send comedy material until I started listening to Mark and Jim in the mornings. I took a shot and sent some material in and they started using it. The thing abut me was that I always felt that the work was important and my name wasn't and at that time, I went as B. Louis. As the days went on, they kept using the material and I called in and they had a voice to the material. And then Jim had a heart attack and the show was one man down. I decided to step up and went to the station to formally introduce myself. Now keep in mind that in most males minds, being around a rock station was a goal and here I was about to enter into a new arena. I was familiar with what a radio station was as I was an architectural designer and one of my old jobs at Texas Southern University was in campus planning and I had to design an old house into a radio station.
But now I am standing in the control room and my first introduction was with Mark Stevens and Eddie "The Boner" Sanchez aka Brian Shannon. Mark ran this ship even though KLOL had the building. During those live four hours of broadcasting, the Stevens & Pruett Show was an autonomous entity that had it's own governing rules. And as Jim recovered from his surgery, I stepped up to the plate and started writing more comedy that was immediately being used and the surreal part was that people were laughing. I wasn't the only writer but Mark had a writer, Curtis "Conan" Haight and Gary Michaels from time to time and Jim had his writer, Don "Trapper Don" DeBorg. They were getting paid and I was just putting my stuff out there.
Now the thing about writers, especially these comedy writers, is that they are paranoid and insecure and they live and die on how good the material is. A lot of times, the comedy just lay there. And during that time, the show was known mostly for the "tits and ass" sophomoric type of humor. My humor was more elevated and Jim had always called my the man of "arts and tweeds" as I came there wearing sports jackets and slacks. I just didn't fit the profile of a guy who would write comedy.
But the humor took off and as Jim did his phone-ins, the need to fill up the time became more involved. Mark had foresight and asked me to come on board to help run the show with Brian. Brian needed the assist as he also booked the show and was performing. And now with my involvement, we started to bring other elements to the show that hadn't been done before. While we still maintained to basic elements of girls, girls, girls, I brought in more cerebral topics and guests that would have never considered entering a studio known for having naked women quirting objects out of their organs or performing acts on each other. But they came indeed and Mark was always the key in how they were treated.
Marilyn Quayle, wife of Vice President Dan Quayle entered the Stevens & Pruett kingdom and stayed. Mark was surprised by that booking and he had his moments with her. And Senator Bill Bradly was a guest in the studio and Mark had a surprise for him, naked women. He was there to promote his book and Mark was insistent on having two topless women greet the Senator and they did.
Brian and I were not too pleased but Mark was laughing his ass off as he saw politicians for what they were. But he started to see things a bit differently as time went on. He saw the need to have these types of guests on from time to time but still maintain the core value of the show. As the listeners gave him feedback, he saw the show gain more and more in respectability versus having the "shock jockss" label being placed on them in a denigrating way.
Of course there were times when you wanted the old Mark to come out on a guests. One time I had booked these ladies on to talk about their particular thing, what it was I have no memory but I do know what happened in the interview. One of the women had a huge chip on her shoulders about the show, maybe her publicists told her that the show was predominately male and she just didn't like that. Mark was on his best behavior trying to conduct the interview in a pleasant manner but the woman was not having any of it. She was snarky, bitter and being a pure bitch. We would go to commercial and I would get on the line to find out what was the problem. And it was a lost cause for now she was pissing me off. So I told Mark the woman wasn't going to change her position so unleash the Groove Dawgs of war on her. And he did. The woman said the wrong thing and Mark just unloaded on her and the "asshole" of Mark Stevens showed up and took care of business.
Now that side of Mark Stevens was legendary. He was known to be a premiere asshole when he wanted to be. Hell, management tolerated him but the show brought in huge revenues. They never had to interact with him as I was Executive Producer of the show by then so I was the filtering mechanism. for some strange twisted reason, I had Mark's ear. He wouldn't listen to anyone at all about the quality of the show except for me. I always told them the truth about the content and quality of the shows after each broadcast and where we could make improvements. I guess he respected that since I wasn't an ass kisser that eventually would become my reason for leaving the show.
And with any show of this caliber, there are the things that the public never gets to see. We've had disagreements during and after the show and Mark usually would be at the heart of the dilemma. There was one particular episode after the show that got really heated between Mark and Tom "Tubby Peckerwood" Lawler. Tom did something or didn't do something that Mark didn't like on the air. Well, Mark went on a major tear with Tom and just started berating him while Brian and I looked on as we were preparing for the next day's show. It got to the point where it became so uncomfortable that mark was about to cross the line and I could see that big Tom was at the end of his rope with the smackdown and was planning on answering. I rolled my chair over and put my arms around Mark and gave him a hug and said "okay, that's enough". As hard a Mark was, he was concerned about his product, the show. He later apologized to Tom and we eventually made light of the incident, at least me and Brian did.
And then there was the other side of Mark that people rarely saw, the human compassionate man who would literally give the clothes off f his back for you. Everyone knows about the Stevens & Pruett Foundation for Children and Animals but they also did other things. We had put our support behind a mobile breast exam unit for women who did not have the means or access to get mammograms. As much as Mark and Jim talked and saw breasts, they did their public service by making announcements as to when and where the mobile unit will be for free breast exams. And the other thing they put their support behind was bringing awareness to the early release of convicted pedophiles. They held a rally downtown that also got the attention of city officials.
Mark and Jim and Brian and the rest of the support team had our moments and memories. And it's hard to fathom that Mark, as sharp of a mind he had, would be stilled by Alzheimer. This is the man who made me a better writer. I would write all of Locke's intros to the show and would get in a comfortable groove because you have to understand working with Locke Seibenhausen was an effort, Tom could attest to that. But Mark would not let me get comfortable. He would tell me that he was tired of that style so change it and now i would have to come up with something new that Locke could say with out stumbling over. Keep in mind that Locke pronounced "chihuahua" in an intro as, and i kid you not, "chi-Huey-Huey". It was funny but that was always my cross to bear. The other writers never had that problem. I wrote material for everybody, including Brian, Laurie Kendrick and the late great Chuck Schramek.
And the cornerstone of Stevens & Pruett was the infamous Holiday Ball. When I came on board, I saw that this event had potential. I proposed that they put if on cable so the task fell into my hands to put all the particulars together. With Brian and Tom's help, I wrote and produced the first pay-per-view Holiday Ball and the following year, I did the triple threat, wrote, produced and directed it. Mark gave me the chance to do it and he trusted my instincts and it paid off handsomely for management. They were getting better visibility from the east and west coast.
Mark did have this big hearted laugh when he was in a really good funny mod especially when it came to his partner, Jim, being the object of the humor. Jim was known for doing the lame comedy so one day I grabbed a few of the female staff members to cut a tune using the Mister Roger's Neighborhood music. It was called "The Lamest Bit on the Morning Show" and it was about Jim's bad comedy. When I played it for Mark, he was ecstatic and couldn't wait for Jim to get into his routine. And when that time came, Jim did his routine with no laughs and Mark popped in the tape and a good time was had by all, even Jim liked it because it was about Jim. and since I was the only black guy on the FM side of the station, we took shots a more colorful humor that never would have been addressed and it too became the expense of Jim and Mark loved it.
It was a wonderful passage of memories with him and the gang. And when my time came to depart, it was bittersweet. When I left, he said to me that "I don't like saying goodbye." Somewhere in his life something happen to he didn't like that word. He just hugged me and said, "I'll see you around." And when I got a call form Jake last year and he told me that Mark was in the twilight of Alzheimer, I wasn't expecting it to come so soon for him. When management forced him out, the slow fade began. Well Mark, I'm not going to say that word either, I'll see you around.
Monday, September 6, 2010
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