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Today on The Jay Thomas Show
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 SIRIUS XM 104
WEEKDAYS 3 pm - 6 pm ET |
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 SIRIUS XM 101
FRI 7 am - 9 am ET
replays:
• FRI 2 pm ET
• SAT 9 pm ET
• MON 1 am ET |
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zone: PT | ET |
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I started in radio as a high school football announcer for the Rutherford High Rams in Panama City, Fla. I got the job because the program director was forced to do the games next to a part time dj named A.D. Whitehurst. I guess he had to run the games because someone with a kid on three team sponsored it at WDLP. I was the color announcer. I had played in high school but blew my knee out and went to Gulf Coast Jr. College, a community institution about three hundred miles away from New Orleans where I was raised.
The school had no football team so I figured I wouldn't have to hear of my former team mates exploits at the next level. But meeting a part time dj, and then a chance to be announcer, was too good to be true... I'm sure we were awful, and no audio of those days exists, but A.D. had a Corvette and I got ten bucks a game plus gas and meals... fuckin' heaven! From there I learned how to run the "board", the controls of the radio show, and turn a squeaky voice into kind of a radio voice. I was always jealous of the big voice or the quintessential rock jock delivery. I never had that talent. So I started making fun of my lack of talent, the singers, the callers, the other jocks in whatever town I was in. And there were a lot of towns, Panama City, Pensacola, Knoxville, Nashville, Jacksonville, and Charlotte. My early career was like an old Piedmont Airline schedule.
Along the way I became a ratings winner in most markets which led me to moving from wild child nights, as Jay the baby Thomas, The Mouth of The South, The Scorpion , and The prince Of Darkness into the coveted morning drive slot. I became a music director who had no ear for music, but loved the free dinners and plane tickets the record guys gave me and then a program director who's biggest claim to fame is that I found and hired The Greaseman in Jacksonville.
When New York called I was making six figures in Charlotte, NC and was part owner of the station. I was married and the owners all but told me that one day the stations would be mine... but I needed to know what it was like at the Big Show. So, for less money, I went to 99X in NYC. I couldn't believe there was so little competition. Imus was in the market but he was either drunk or drugged out and ended up in Cleveland. So I just went nuts... Charlie Steiner of ESPN, Yankees, and Dodger announcer fame was my newsman.
Howard has mentioned that he used to listen to me back then as an upstart in Long Island. Radio in New York allowed me to become a stand-up comic at the Improv and I starting acting off Broadway. Radio, comedy, and theatre. Then Hollywood called and I left so I could one day be introduced as a star of Radio, Television, Theatre, and Film... maybe not a star but I did all of them at one time or another, sometimes all at the same time.
So now I finally have a show that I can impart all of the bullshit that I've learned, heard, or stolen over the years. SiriusXM is so freeing as an outlet it's hard to believe that I get to say whatever is on my mind daily and thankfully have had the training to get it out in a somewhat professional way. It's the show I always wanted to do.
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