Biography of "Jockey Jon" Badeaux

Jon Badeaux Today

“Jockey Jon” Badeaux was born and raised in San Bernardino and first visted a radio station at the age of seven.  His mother won an appliance from KCSB-AM 1350.

“I don’t really remember if it was a refrigerator or washing machine or something else.  But I do remember my mom parking the car in the station’s gravel parking lot, walking inside and being led to the control room for her live interview.  When we got there, I was in awe of the studio and actually fearful of that big glowing metal box they called the transmitter.

“Two years later, I lived on 21st street between D & E streets.  One block north was  Highland Avenue, home to Lyle’s Record City.  On a Friday night, there was a lot of commotion on Highland Avenue.  KFXM was doing a remote broadcast.  It was a scene out of American Graffiti – as I stood there watching the record spin I heard car after car go by with KFXM blasting on radios and cars honking their horns.

“Over the next several weeks I got to know the DJ.  His name was Ron Gardner, not to be confused with Ron Garner who followed about a year later.  Gardner also met my family and would interview us every week.  We’d say how much we loved the large selection of albums were available at Lyles.

“One night after the broadcast, Gardner invited my whole family to the studios to see a radio station in operation.  I’m sure I was saying, ‘Oh can we go, can we go, can we, PLEASE!!’

“We follow our DJ friend down E street, south of the Orange Show Fairgrounds to where nothing existed except large empty fields and cow pastures.  Once inside the building I could see the comparison to KCSB.  There was a huge console set up in front of a giant glowing box, the transmitter.  I still didn’t feel comfortable with that thing.

“But then we were led to a very small room that was the real control room.  It had two gigantic turntables on the DJ’s right.  In front of him was a console, a microphone and a window that looked into the other giant room with the glowing boxes.

“There was one other man in the building.  Obviously, he was the on-site operator during the remote.  Between the end of the remote and Gardner’s return, this man just played songs because the time slot belonged to Ron Gardner.  Upon our arrival, this man said to Gardner, ‘She’s all yours!’  We were all introduced to that man, Lyle Kilgore, someone I am in contact with to this very day.

“Gardnerlet us visit as often as we liked.  He always played songs my family wanted to hear and he’d frequently say, ‘This one is for my itty bitty buddy.’ 

“Sensing how intrigued I was, Gardner asked me if I’d like to record a half hour radio show.  It wouldn’t be broadcast, it would just be a tape I would make.  I was on cloud nine.  I recorded it the next week.  While I was doing that, Ron was playing a one hour program on an ET (Electrical Transcription – the technical term for an actual record that was cut on a lathe).  He played it back in the old studio in front of the glowing boxes while I played in the real control room.

“When I told my teacher at school what I had done, she asked the class if they’d like to hear it.  Everyone screamed, ‘YES!’  Anything that wasn’t school-related had to be fun.

“I brought the tape in the next day but the teacher had been unable to secure a tape recorder to play it back.  So it was rescheduled the next day.  Unfortunately, I was sick the next day and missed my own debut.  When I returned a few days later, the teacher said, in a not too happy voice, ‘Jon, we all really enjoyed your rock and roll radio show.’  She was obviously not a fan of the new music genre.

“While in high school, I used to call KFXM’s news director and do voicers just for the fun of it.  In November of 1964 I was hired to do the late night news on both KFXM and KDUO.  But being a DJ was what I wanted.  Little did I know I would become the world’s worst DJ of all time. 

“My first DJ shift was 11pm to 5:30am.  Then I moved to Noon to 3pm following Al Anthony.  For a brief period of time between news and DJ work I spent several months at KAFY in Bakersfield doing news.  I was recommended for that job by a KFXM part-timer and a KAFY fulltime DJ, Bob Wilson -- who later started Radio & Records.

“After KFXM I joined Don Elliot in the production department at KBLA in Burbank.  Being the #2 production guy was really boring.  So when a call came from Brian Lord to take a midday position at K/men, I jumped at the chance.”

Jon’s other stomping grounds:

Jon currently runs several audio streams.  His most successful can be found at http://www.thesoundtrack.net

 

 

John Quimby fell Out of his Chair in Hysterics

"I remember a very funny story about John P. Quimby, KFXM Newsman, San Bernardino City Councilman and later a powerful California State Assemblyman. One night, when he started his newscast the DJ went to the men's room. The newsman accidentally leaned back in the chair and fell to the floor. He couldn't get up. As the DJ returned, the newsman was laughing so hard it made the DJ laugh. All the Inland Empire could hear on 590 was two people laughing hysterically.

"When I was in high school I used to walk 14 miles each way from my home to the transmitter site. I would ask Lyle or whoever was on the air if I could go through the trash in the garage. (Yes, the building had a two car garage attached in back.) All the jingles and commercials were on ET -- electrical transcriptions. These were actually records that were made on a lathe at the studio in the California Hotel on 5th and E Streets. I would take a bunch of these (they weighed a lot because the center was metal) and take them home. I would play DJ with these.

"I wish I had saved some of those old ETs. I always figured I could someday come back and have access long enough to get a few. When I heard the building had burned down, I was heart broken. For me, there were a lot of wonderful memories in there. To me, that's where radio started.

"In my senior year of high school I landed the job of afternoon/night newscaster. By then, KFXM was in the Holiday Inn. I would do "news alive at 55" on KFXM, then turn my chair around and do top of the hour news on KDUO. I worked from noon until midnight.

Tullis came in, cleaned house and brought in Al Anthony

"Howard Tullis was famous for coming in and cleaning house... firing everyone and bringing in all new people. One day, the news director (Bill Elliott) told me NOT to come in that day... but to come in the following day. What Bill did was save my job. Tullis had come in and fired everyone. He brought in Al Anthony as PD. When I came in the next day, the entire staff was new.

"By the way, the program director before Al Anthony was John Stone.  All of the DJs at the time had their own jingles.  The lyric to Stone's was, "It's hit-maker Jockey John."  Since he hadn't been there very long, I took that jingle and edited out the word 'hit-maker' so it simple said, 'It's Jockey John.'  I used that for a long time.  That was the only reason I went by the name Jockey Jon.

"When I was a jock working 11pm to 5:30a, the last thing I had to do was the news at :55 for Don Elliot. I was so tired by then, I always recorded the 5:55am news sometime around 3am. One day, Don exposed his wicked sense of humor by unplugging the tape recorder in the news room. When the news intro ran, I started the machine but it was dead. I knew what he had done so it was fixed pretty fast.

"When I was doing 12n-3p, I loved bugging Al Anthony (who worked 9a-noon). One day, my feet hurt so I kicked off my shoes. He saw me and... being the buttoned-down guy he was (and probably still is)... he wasn't very happy about it. So I made a point to always take my shoes off. He would always say, "Wear your shoes, Beatnik!"

"We ran a lot of Preparation H commercials as barter for an old jingle package from Pepper-Tanner. (The "Woody Woodpecker" jingles). I always made some kind of comment going into or out of the spot. Al barged in one day in the middle of the spot and said, "Don't you dare say ANYTHING regarding this commercial ever again!" So I segued into a song and said, 'KFXM, with PILES of hits!'"

Norine Dixon would write on Your Mail, "Opened in Error!"

"Our bookkeeper, Norine Dixon, was a sweetheart. Especially because she always had a big box of candy in her office. But she had one trait that drove people crazy. She opened everyone's personal mail. Then she'd write on the envelop, 'Opened in error'.

"I had a friend at KMEN and asked him to send me an envelop with the KMEN logo on it to my home. On a piece of paper, I wrote, 'Norine Dixon is way too nosy and shouldn't open mail that isn't hers.' I put it in the KMEN envelop and addressed it to me at KFXM. A few days later, without saying anything, Norine walked in and threw it in my face. I heard she stopped opening personal mail but that was never confirmed.

"The National Orange Show was always fun for me as a kid. So when KFXM set up a "Dunk Tank" one year, I was thrilled to take part. Al couldn't resist pushing the plunger every time he walked by me. But I loved it.

"We all seem to have a bad Orange Show experience.  Once I was involved in a promotion where all the jocks wrestled a bear.  A real bear.  Before going head to head with the bear, the trainer told us, 'pretend you are dancing with the bear and it will look like wresting and you won't get hurt.  Whatever you do, don't try to really wrestle him.' As with everything else, that became a challenge.  Dancing with the bear was ok, but he was very gentle and I thought I could get away with knocking him down -- though he was three times my size.  I made one slight move and the bear knocked me on my tail.  Then, to add insult to injurt, the bear... uh... relieved himself on me."

 

Pulling the Plug on K/men's Remote Broadcast Mobile Home

"That same year, KMEN was broadcasting live from a mobile home. I walked around it from a distance so I wouldn't be seen. Then, I went to the blind side of the mobile home, pulled the power plug and took off. Later that day, Al called me into his office and asked why I did it. By then, I was certain Al was psychic. But, no... just smart enough to put two and two together."

Worked with Legends; Lyle Kilgore, Gary Price and Huddleston

"Later in my career I worked with a lot of former KFXM-squad people. Lyle Kilgore, Gary Price, J. Paul Huddleston to name a few. It was really interesting to have been "a little kid" around them, then work side by side with them as an adult. I vividly recall when I was about 12, Lyle Kilgore hired me to pull weeds at the KFXM Transmitter/Studio site.  I don't remember pulling many weeds, but I did spend a lot of time indoors watching the jocks.  Recently, Lyle Kilgore send me an e-mail that I will always treasure."

"When I gave you the task of pulling weeds, I remember thinking why would anyone want to do that?  But you did it, and did it with the same enthusiasm you carry on in life.  You did a hell of a good job pulling weeds, and have done a hell of a good job throughout your life. Just goes to show.  I know you also used your gardening job to watch and listen to people at the radio station.  As much as you could.  So, your education was quick, and early. I could almost see the wheels turning in your head, and soaking up everything you could. THAT is intelligence!"  

- Lyle Kilgore 12/2007

 

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