Damn Good Knowing You, Steve-O
By Brian Lambert
I was surprised and saddened to hear that Steve Cannon died last night. I had heard he was ill but not that he was at death's door. I got to know Steve as his radio career was winding down. We talked on the phone a couple times a week for a few years. I played a round of golf with him and visited him down in Naples (which included a memorable dinner with Steve and Howard Viken).
As the kids say in O, Brother Where Art Thou?, Steve was, "bona fide." He was genuinely a creature of his own creation, a type regularly mimicked but rarely replicated, which is not to suggest he was exactly a sweetheart. Steve was invariably described as "a curmudgeon," which I suppose he was, but unlike inveterate curmudgeons, people who just flat-out don't have the DNA to be human at any point in their wretched lives, my take on Steve was that his curmudgeonliness was an entirely understandable force field—a personal bug zapper—deployed to keep the endless parade of fools, dolts, idiots, droolers, and ass kissers at a safe distance.
How I got through, I'll never know. But we got along great. It helps that I tend to live by the adage that "I never learned anything listening to myself talk" and happily lapped up Steve's stories from the broadcast, semi-show biz trenches, especially the diabolical glee he took in sticking it to one "a**hole, c***sucker" or another, most of whom just happened to inhabit the corner offices of stations where he worked.
A favorite Steve-O story:
Near the end of his career Steve-O, a, shall we say, "careful man with a dime," assessed his leverage with WCCO and decided that he had the bastards by the family jewels. They were not only going to pay but pay big for another three years of his services. Even better, he so despised the boss at the time—a case study in misanthropy loathed by everyone who worked for him—that he saw no reason whatsoever to make this easy on the jerk.
As Steve told the story . . . (no confirmation here from the aggrieved party, but an office functionary at the time confirmed the reservations that follow) . . . he presented the boss with a series of petulant rock star demands. Their contract negotiations for the contract were to be held in the Presidential Suite of an upscale downtown hotel. An arrangement of fruits, cold cuts, and beverages was to be provided and kept fresh . . . and so on. $700-$800 in '90s jing.
The boss supposedly sputtered that none of this excess cost was really necessary since he was certain he and Steve could come to an agreement quite quickly. But Steve wouldn't hear of it. The suite. The fruit. The cold cuts. The beverages, and at precisely the hour Steve demanded. Or else.
Leverage being everything in negotiations, the jerk boss very grudgingly conceded.
Everything was exactly as Steve demanded and at the the appointed hour.
Then Steve had someone—not him—call and tell the boss, cooling his heels in the suite with the fruit and cold cuts, that sadly, he wouldn't be able to make it that day. Something more important had come up. But he expected everything to be just as he ordered it for the following day.
I've rarely seen a man so thoroughly pleased with himself than Steve was when telling this story, in large part because the bit had a kind of Robin Hood vibe to it.
Largely unknown to most of his listeners, Steve was a hardened-to-rabid political liberal. His show wasn't about politics, and Steve knew where to steer it to keep the station and himself in the money. But god almighty, the times I thought he'd blow a gasket during the Clinton impeachment and George W. Bush . . . .
An average phone call would go something like this. "Hello, young fellow!" "Steve-O, how's it hanging?" "This [bleeper] Bush has to be the dumbest [bleeper] that ever fell off a turnip truck . . ." and he'd be off with, I must say, a much more cogent and thoughtful analysis of the day's events than I'm suggesting here, although with just as many artfully placed vulgarities . . . all well-earned by the miscreants in his rants.
With Steve in mind. a friend today lamented the unlikelihood of anyone achieving the kind of up-leveraged bull moose status Steve enjoyed for much of his run at WCCO. She used the "poppy field" analogy, where not-to-terribly bright control freak managers—in personality businesses like broadcasting, and newspapers to a lesser extent—concerned that one of their minions might accumulate leverage through popularity and thus require special treatment and (gasp!) more money, regularly nip back any poppies sprouting up higher than the rest. The overall effect might be blandifying on the product, but it sure makes things a lot more controllable and containable for the over-their-head managers.
Steve Cannon, of course, was an object lesson in uncontrolled and uncontained—by someone other than himself. The "curmudgeonly" message he sent to critics, colleagues, and employers was that he knew damned well "where the money was," certainly better than the latest jargon-spouting rube in the front office, and he'd control and contain his own show, so thanks just the same for your input, and now go f**k yourself.
I confess I have a soft spot for guys like Steve. The world is full of idiots who believe all sorts of preposterous crap. That's bad enough. But when those idiots start demanding that you believe what they believe, "for the good of the team," you gotta drop the hammer. Not everyone can, of course. But Steve could, and he liked people, I think, "who know their ass from a hole in the ground" and also "had the balls" to rip people with money and authority, as imprudent as that might be for anyone without Steve-O's leverage.
I was flattered when Steve let me sit in the studio next to his for his last show on WCCO. The old dog enjoyed my obvious admiration for him, for his talent, his persistent skepticism, and his survival skills, and I didn't mind greasing his ego by letting him know. I have no problem with that for the people who genuinely earn it.
And Steve-O earned everything he got.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
This is one of the best pieces you've written in the 23 years I've been reading them. Steve-) would be proud...now go get the money.
LAMBERT: He got all the money. There's nothing left.
Posted by: Jed Leyland on April 7, 2009 at 10:33 PM
The dogs on the Iron Range were howling this week.
Posted by: Robb on April 8, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Great job. Appreciate the piece and the Steve-O story (if you had more that you'd like to share, I'm sure we'd love to hear them).
I'm 27 and remember he'd be on the radio while I did homework after school. There's never going to be anyone like him in radio again. It's a lost art these days. If any of the local radio stations could find Cannon-like employees, I don't think they'd be in the shape they are now. Was it his departure that started WCCO's downturn (even though it's been 12 yrs)?
Two Questions:
1. Was his last appearance on Boone and Erickson's Saturday morning show on March 28?
2. Who did WCCO put in the 3-6 slot after Cannon left? I was talking with some people about it last night and we couldn't come up with a name.
LAMBERT: I read that the 28th was his last, and for the life of me I can't remember who followed him in drive. But I've got a call in.
'CCO's audience had started to erode before Steve left. (It could only go down.) And he had plenty to say -- in private -- about the motley fools who precipitated the Great Decline.
Posted by: ML on April 8, 2009 at 1:08 PM
Not surprising to me that Steve liked both you and Mischke. His B/S detector apparently worked pretty well. Nice writing.
LAMBERT: Steve-O had a classic old-guy golf style, with a curlicue thingie at the top of his backswing. But every tee and fairway shot ... straight down the middle.
Posted by: Michael on April 8, 2009 at 3:53 PM
So what happened Brian: has Cannon been reassessed as under-appreciated, or have we just forgotten how pat and unchallenging the show sounded so much of the time, or is this just the politesse of eulogy?
I never heard the pre-1985 Cannon, but I do remember a time a decade or two ago where Steve-O's show was an anachronism and the subject of regular off the record ridicule from the young turks of the media. WCCO could not wait to "hip up" (sorry) afternoon drive with Ruth Koscielak, et al.
I wish Cannon's much admired "edge" wasn't soft-pedaled quite so much. Smart, acerbic media figures filling their air time with ingratiating bonhomie, who keep it real only after the mic is turned off (Cannon's successor Don Shelby is another example), have not been good for radio. They provided the vacuum that has been filled with so much mindless GOP talk and sports irrelevance.
LAMBERT: Well, Steve and I had more than a few conversations about just what kind of "edge" and "acerbic" you can get away with on commercial radio. His boil-the-scoundrels-in-oil attitude toward Republicans circa Clinton and W. would have had him off the air in a split second. There's too much downside to acerbic liberal, or at least there was before Stewart and Colbert. Steve-O didn't survive an often surpassingly inane business like big market radio as long as he did without knowing where not to go and how hard. He never said he wasn't in it for the money, you know. As for the "young Turks" who mocked him ... a bunch of clueless poseurs, most likely greeting at Wal-Mart these days.
Posted by: Adam Platt on April 8, 2009 at 3:53 PM
I fear we shan't see his like again...
A sad, sad day for all media fans, followers and admirers of "true grit".
LAMBERT: You're sounding almost human. That worries me.
Posted by: bertram jr. on April 8, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Any ideas on what he was making per year? Over a million? Was he paid a salary plus separate fees for personal promos? Other publications are saying he was the highest rated drive-time announcer in the country at certain times during the 80's -- hyperbole?
LAMBERT: I don't believe Steve-O hit the $1 million mark. But he did very well those last 10 years or so. But I'm told -- by people who should know -- that at for a few years he was indeed the highest-rated afternoon guy in the country, largely due to the combination of his talents and 'CCO's dominance.
Posted by: Chris Vaaler on April 8, 2009 at 6:00 PM
I believe it was Moose Miller who replaced Cannon.
LAMBERT: You win!
Posted by: Dave on April 9, 2009 at 7:02 PM
I got to know Steve when he was Al Shaver's color man on North Star broadcasts. Now he wasn't the standard type of color man. He didn't tell you much about what players were doing and why they did it. But he didn't need to. Shaver was such a good broadcaster that he covered the necessary stuff.
But Steve brought out something that other folks (myself included - I worked a few games with him) had a hard time doing with Al - his sense of humor. It made for enjoyable, fun radio ... and that was all he had in mind. It was a real challenge for Steve to work these games (particularly after doing a show in the afternoon) but he seemed to relish it.
He was a real pro.
LAMBERT: One of the things I liked about Steve was that his tone always conveyed due skepticism and proportionality, whether doing color on the hockey games or shucking and jiving with James St. James ( a.k.a. "Jim St. Jim".)
Posted by: Dave Wright on April 10, 2009 at 10:42 AM
The Cannon Mess was something you'd hear while driving in your fathers Oldsmobile after school on the way to Garndma's house for pot-roast dinner while wishing the parental units change the dial to the rock stations like KQ.
Steve-O was old school to young turks who wanted long-play "album" format stations and listen to jocks mellowed by a handrolled doobie, slowed by a 'lude, or high on cocaine. Some of those young turks might be greeters at WalMart today, however, more than a few are probably not able to tie their own shoes, have the voice of a cracked muffler on a old Dodge pickup truck and are in-and-out of rehab.
There was a big culture shift in radio in the 70s and there were more factors than talk radio formats and good neighbors. Cannon was a wide-market popular radio personality just before the entire market became Balkanized, marginalized, and niche footholds for fanatic right-wing sensationalists (aka, liars). It used to matter what the on-air host said during their shows, it mattered if they had credibility, because there were significant numbers of people listening to them but not anymore.
I never was a fan of Steve Cannon because I was a teenager when he was speaking to my parents generation. We rebelled against everything they stood for, and, if not everything, certainly the music and radio stations they listened to. But Cannon was everywhere, like Elton John and The Carpenters were in the mid-70s, you couldn't avoid their pop culture penetration. I don't think the written tributes all around are a reassessment of Cannon's appreciation, its that he was love or hate him, a significant ingredient in growing up Minnesota.
LAMBERT: Somewhere, and I'm serious about this, there ought to be a statue of Steve-O. Hell, we've got goddam Mary Tyler Moore down on the mall.
Posted by: Robb on April 10, 2009 at 11:12 AM
"Fight on for ol" (what he say?)
"Fight on for ol"
"Fight on for dear ol,ol,ol,ol"
Posted by: Howard M on April 11, 2009 at 12:27 AM
I've been making copies of Cannon news stories for a friend who doesn't get the Twin Cities dailies and who doesn't have access to the internet. He doesn't live in a cave--just has more important things to do than staring at a small screen and too many real friends to waste time assembling a Face Book family.
In all of the coverage in the wake of Cannon's death--and there was a lot less than I thought there would be--I'm struck most by the lack of details and/or comments on his career at KSTP-AM career. I have fond memories, in particular, about Cannon's phone calls on the air with the witless Benny, a foil of the evil owner of Sid's Big-Tube Radio Repair, where Benny worked. Benny regularly called Steve to talk about his strange adventures, like delivering a briefcase to a storage bin in Las Vegas and mailing the key back to Sid. Benny, unfortunately, did some jail time for his errands, and the radio repair shop closed down. It was reincarnated later as Sid's Suit City, Suitor to the Stars. (Featuring the Adolf Manjou Room, as I recall.) The hapless Benny went back to work for Sid.
I wasn't just imaging all of that, was I?
LAMBERT: Steve-O's KSTP years were before my time around here, and frankly, he rarely talked about them. But I recall some of these bits from Steve's contemporaries.
Posted by: Armand Peterson on May 25, 2009 at 8:00 AM