The Lee Gilette Story, Part 4

On Sundays in my new area, I would get in the car and drive to see where the roads went.  Some of the highest mountains on the east coast are in the region. Travelling southeast of Johnson City, I discovered and climbed to the top of Carver’s Gap, a low point along the Roan Mountain ridge line, situated near the base of Roan Mountain on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. It was here, on a sunny and breezy October day, I had a true sense of why I wanted to be here. Standing in a meadow of tall waving yellow grass, I viewed the endless mountains and valleys down below.  

The parking lot at the gap provides access to what through hikers hype as one of the most beautiful sections of the entire Appalachian Trail. Roan Mountain is the high point of the Roan-Unaka Range of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The mountain is clad in a dense stand of Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest, and includes the world's largest natural rhododendron garden and the longest stretch of grassy bald in the Appalachian range. The Cherokee National Forest and Pisgah National Forests converge atop the mountain, with Roan Mountain State Park located near its northern base. The Appalachian Trail crosses most of the Roan's crest * The summit, known as Roan High Knob, at 6285 feet, is the second highest peak on the east coast, behind Mount Mitchell in Western North Carolina.

Back at the station, both Lee and I were experiencing that feeling you get when you’re promised one thing, and then something else happens. I wasn’t getting my hands on any of the music to direct and Lee’s programming responsibilities were severely curtailed.  We both had plenty of experience in the format in much larger markets, but it was Evan and Robert who controlled it all. It was their station.

 I knew I had violated the Broadcasting 101 Rule, if you’re promised something, get it in writing if you really want it. The tension between Lee and Evan began to grow at a faster rate.  I was happy in my afternoon show, but would have liked to have handled the music. I knew the Selector Music Scheduling System software program and could have helped them with some song selections that I knew had worked at Magic.

One weekend, Lee went missing for a couple of days and turned up Monday with a real peaceful look on his face and his eyes resembling slits he could still see out of.  He said it was a good dose of Thorazine at the local mental health hospital and part of the Bi Polar experience.  Now, a lot of things started to make sense to me. His compulsiveness and regular mood swings fit the Bi Polar profile.

October is the time they have The National Story Telling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, the next town over from Johnson City.  Storytellers and listeners travel from far and wide to participate in this fun autumn festival.  It’s an historic town and lays claim to being the oldest town in Tennessee.  The downtown area is mostly preserved and stands as you might have found it two hundred years ago. Horse drawn carriages trot up the main street, while people browse eclectic shops and eateries.  During the Christmas season, they display only white colored lights, retaining the feeling of holidays past. Charles Dickens was the first name to come to mind when I viewed the scene for the first time.

Lee had his own stories. Lots of them.  In my mind, no one person could be that talented in the art of “suspension of disbelief”, so I found myself an enthralled believer.

Following are the top ones.

Story #1  While working in the U.S.Virgin Islands as the Midday Man on a pop music station, Lee often went out for cocktails with the Afternoon guy when he got off the air. On one occasion, the two got so sauced, hopping from bar to bar, that he fell down a flight of stone stairs. Mr. Afternoon helped him up and as a soldier would help a wounded comrade, and hopped him to the next island tavern. Lee found himself sitting on a stool and noticed that the female part of a couple sitting next to him on a stool at the bar was beginning to get ill and left for the ladies room. The male leaned over and said “excuse me sir, do you know that your leg is broken? The bone is poking through your skin…should we call somebody?”

Story #2  In Miami, at one of the stations he worked there, Lee held down the morning show and was The All Night Party Champion.  He’d race around town in his Italian sports car frequenting a number of South Beach clubs. On one occasion, he had a stripper in the passenger seat while ripping around town with driving skills reserved for Matt Damon or Bruce Willis. The exotic dancer became so terrified by his movie time driving that she demanded that he stop immediately and let her out. Lee was compliant and didn’t care to listen to her shrill octave.  Solo behind the wheel, on the very next block, he collided with an early morning garbage truck.  The car was completely destroyed and he crawled out of the wreck to a nearby curb. Looking down, he noticed that his ankle was broken, because his foot was pointing the wrong way.

 Story #3  One morning not long after the speed racer run, he finished his morning show, went home to his apartment and found a Fed Ex special delivery courier waiting at his door. He had an envelope for Lee that contained three items, a pink slip outlining his dismissal from the station, a check in the amount of the two remaining years on his contract and a Dade County restraining order to not come within 100 feet of the radio building.

 Story #4  Lee was a lot of things, but most evident in his travels was his ability to be resourceful.  After leaving Miami, he found himself homeless after a “Leaving Las Vegas”  type binge, sleeping under the Santa Monica Pier near Los Angeles. He found a way to construct a resume at the local library and put the phone number from the pay phone on the pier as his contact.  His days were spent chasing people away from using the phone, not to miss any opportunities. As a result of this diligence, he secured a good radio job a little way up the coast at K-Ocean.  Left behind were the sand and the down and out clothes.

I wasn’t around at the station during the earlier morning hours, so I don’t know all the details of the relationship he had with Evan. Robert was always quiet, close mouthed and no-confrontational.  He continued to carry out all the duties that a Program Director carries out, the job Lee thought he’d be doing.

There was a second story deck on the side of the station that we all used extensively for a smoke or a chat.  One day, staring out over the adjacent farm field with rolls of hay, Lee said to me “I’m a thirty-three year old has-been.”  I told him that I didn’t see it that way. I remind him that he’d crawled out of holes deeper than this one. Ironically, when it came to broadcasting abilities, Lee had more confidence in me, than he had in himself.

One night, with all of us gathered at Lee and Deb’s, Peggy was doing her usual stand up act while Hale sat quietly in a chair. She plainly stated “Hale and I feel like moving down here from Indiana was the worst mistake we’ve ever made. We need to get out here and soon!”  I felt sorry for Hale that his big mouth wife was blabbing on. But, this was for real. She was going to pack them up and head back home.  She was just homesick and didn't want to live there. Hale just went along with it all.

The next day Lee and I tried to talk Hale into giving the station a little more time, but no, they were going home. He had secured the job back at the station that he had just left. That night, Lee showed me the long barrel 45 caliber revolver that he had just purchased from Hale. Hale needed moving money, so the gun was the first to go from Hale’s possessions.  I had this gut feeling that the whole situation was going bad…and quickly.

Thanksgiving arrived and my folks from New Jersey and my South Carolinian brother, sister-in-law and young niece came into town to spend the holiday with me.  We had a great time and I was glad to have my family around. It was the diversion I needed from the tense radio station.

After the holiday weekend, Lee changed to an increasingly paranoid and bitter mood.  Deb would call me in the early morning while Lee was on the air with stories of his changing behavior and hostility.  I began to worry, knowing that he now had a gun. Deb was distraught and I really didn’t know what to say to her.  Going back to Iowa seemed like the only logical thing I could tell her.

The calendar became December and I knew Lee wasn’t going to make it much longer at The New 99.3. I continued to stay out of the line of fire. Hale was gone and a guy named Bill came on to take over Midday’s.  Then one day, Lee showed up during my show in the afternoon wearing a long Army coat. I met him in the hallway not far from Evan's office. In a hushed tone, he said, referring to Evan: “I’m going to blow that crew cut headed MF’s head all over the wall.”  He reached into his jacket revealing a holster with the 45 and began to pull it out.  I put my hand on top of his, gently pushing the gun back into the holster as he slightly resisted.  I talked as much and as fast as I could to stem the situation. He had a wild look in his eye and was ready to act.  I don’t remember exactly what I said but I recall saying something like “it wasn’t worth it…they’ll lock you up for the rest of your life.”   

Miraculously, Lee eased the gun back in the holster and walked out of the building to the parking lot. Robert was standing at the window watching him open the trunk of Deb’s maroon '94 Olds 88, remove the shoulder holster with gun and place it in the trunk.  I stood next to Robert and said “did you see that?”  He nodded that he had.

I carried on with the remainder of my show, trying to process what had just occurred.  Anxiety filled me completely, wondering what would happen next.

Unbelievably, they allowed Lee to do his show the next morning. Ken, one of the owners of the station, had a father who was a retired FBI official. During Lee’s show, they stocked the station with agents who were well armed and posing as sales clients.  If Lee had attempted to act aggressively in any way, they would have dropped him in a second.

That morning, I awoke to a Sherriff’s Deputy posted outside my door, for my protection.  They fired Lee after his show and the agents along with local authorities accompanied him back to his townhouse and armed with a warrant, preformed a complete search.  They found a hole, shot straight through the second floor wall that had blown the siding away on the outside wall. Also found were illegal medications.

They gave Lee a choice, stay and face charges for an un-registered weapon to go along with a host of other infractions, or leave Tennessee for good.  He chose banishment. Escorted to the Tennessee-Virginia line, he was admonished to never return to the state ever again.

A pall was cast over the station leading into the holidays. The fun and excitement of a new radio contender was gone. The morning show became a “revolving door” with various personalities “trying out” for the part.  They wanted to move me into Middays to shore up their “at work” audience.  I refused, largely, because the ratings for Fall Period weren’t published and I wanted to see where I stood before making a move. I also didn't want someone else take credit for my ratings. 

January 1995 rolled in and one day, I got a call from Lee during my show on the studio line. He was at the Fairfield Hotel in town, and wanted to see me.  After I got off the air, I looked him up at the room number he gave me.  As I was about to knock, he opened the door and ushered me in quickly.  He gave me a short man hug and handshake.  I sat down and we talked for a couple of hours about various subjects.  The discussion led to how much fun we had getting the station started and how much of a redneck Earl was.  I asked him where he was and he replied that he didn’t want to burden me with that information. He wanted me to visit him at the hotel to find out if he still had a friend. He did. 

I wished him well and left. As I walked down the carpeted second story hallway, I had the feeling that I wouldn’t see him again.  

A few weeks later, the fall ratings came out and I scored the highest numbers on the station in my time-slot in all demographics. I would maintain that rating status for two straight years in all the rating periods for the duration of the format.  WAEZ catapulted into the number four market position.  Ed Arnold and Jerry Caylor came on board and stabilized the air-staff and over all sound of The New 99.3. I found a better apartment closer to town on the side of a hill with a big picture window overlooking the Johnson City Valley.

In December of 1996, Evan announced that he and his partner, Ken, were selling the station.  Pete Nininger from WXBQ had made an offer they couldn’t refuse.  The new management staff came in and they announced that the format was changing to Contemporary Hit Radio (Top 40) at some point soon. Once again, I didn’t know if I would have a job moving forward.  Imagine that.

New Year’s Eve afternoon, I was on the air when Sly Dog came into the studio and said “you’ve got 15 more minutes, I’m your replacement, the new afternoon guy. The format changes at 5 pm…oh, and starting tomorrow, you’ll be on mornings. The station will be now known as Electric 99-3.”  The adult soft rock sound of New 99.3, WAEZ was history. At 5:00 pm sharp, a montage of sounds blew out of radio speakers everywhere with edge and attitude. Listeners called and wanted to know what was going on. WTFM celebrated.

I did the morning show. Then I did the show with Ed Arnold as a team and finally they put Sly Dog in the morning show. Ed moved to Middays. They transferred Jerry to one of their stations in Charleston, West Virginia.

In the middle of all the upheaval, I married Cheryl in Kennesaw, Georgia and became an instant family man with Step Daughter Streisand, who was 13 years old.

 I was made Production Director, the manager of the commercials.  I was in charge of writing and creating commercial ads in the studio.  During the week, my job was an 8 to 5 schedule.  My counterpart on WXBQ was a merciless guy named CB who suggested that sales people needed to be paper trained. 

On the weekends, I did a Sunday afternoon show. Sometimes it was Saturdays.  In addition, I did vacation and per diem fill work for the Midday and Afternoon show. 

 I hadn’t done Top 40 in 16 years.  It was a real trip to do the format and play music that would make me feel embarrassed if I had the station on with my new step daughter in the car. Times had changed and so had my role in my attempt to set an example and be a good step dad in a radio world that now freely included raunchy music and chatter. Lucky for me, she preferred Country music and became a big fan of WXBQ. 

In 1999, I abruptly left Electric 99-3 to move back to New Jersey to take care of my Dad after my Mom died. Dad had a severe Dementia/Alzheimer’s disease and needed constant supervision and care. 

In 2002, we returned south, this time to Georgia and settled in a northwest suburb of Atlanta.  Dad lived one more year in a hospital type room we built from the garage of the new house.

One day I was viewing a “Where Are They Now?” type internet site for Radio Air Personalities when I came upon Lee Gilette’s listing.  Beneath the long roster of stations where he worked, was the entry that said “he had died in his hometown of Clinton,Iowa on August 13^th, 2001 of a drug overdose.”   My heart sank with the words, although I wasn’t surprised.  He had told me at one time, that’s how he was going out. 

 Again, ironically to me,  Lee’s first radio name was Tom Clay, the same name of the Radio Personality who recorded the 1971 song “What The World Needs Now/Abraham, Martin and John”, the compilation of sound clips depicting the tragic times of the 60’s. Basically, it was a song expressing the need for peace and understanding, neither of which Lee experienced in great abundance in his lifetime.

Lee lived the life of a major market broadcaster that relatively few experience, albeit over the top on numerous occasions.  At the end of his career, he worked as a nationwide satellite personality in Avon, Colorado and finally at a top station back in the major market of Washington, D.C.  Beyond all the craziness and upheaval, he was my friend.  I’ll always remember the sunny days that autumn in one of America's most beautiful places.  He left me with a sense of how to win in the business and a way to to be a better broadcaster. I felt myself left with a lot of "what-ifs?" 

Some people in this life can make a great impact in a short passage of time. Lee was one of those people with great talent that was weighed down by a troubled mind.

*Wikipedia cited

my view on Carver's Gap