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"Who wants to get out of electrical shop class an hour early on Wednesdays?"  Raising my hand, I volunteered to be one of a handful of Wilbur Wright High School electrical curriculum co-op students who would help operate Detroit's educational television station WTVS Channel 56   Lighting, cameras, cleaning toilets (any job is best learned from the ground up).  Getting into broadcasting was not planned, like most everything else in my life, it just happened.

After four years in the Air Force I moved up the dial six times before the Detroit radio station I'd listened to as a kid was ready to hire me.  But the night time Top 40 job didn't last long. The Tigers beat the Cardinals in the World Series and Tom Dean was the last disc jockey ever heard on WJBK Radio 15.  At the end of my show, stroke of midnight Christmas eve, WJBK disappeared from the dial.  

The Storer Broadcasting Company had quietly undertaken a year long study to determine what Detroiters wanted to hear -- country music, but with a Saturday Night Live style boot in the butt!  With few exceptions the entire rock n' roll staff was fired the following Monday.  I must have been the lowest paid as I was the only jock they kept.  Station power was raised to the maximum allowed and "Big D" reached the north pole -- WJBK became known as WDEE -- our competition joked it stood for "We've Done Everything Else".   Much to my surprise, I became one of America's first modern country music rebels.  The "Big D" was an instant huge success; the audience got everything they wanted and a whole lot more. It was a ride I'll never forget.

The daughter of Max Fisher called me to introduce herself soon after I popped up on the air in Detroit.  Because her father was the richest man in Michigan, Mary Fisher knew a lot of important people on a first name basis, including more than one President of the United States.  Mary was the keynote speaker at the '92 Republican Convention.  I met "Henry" (Henry Ford the 2nd) through Mary at a cocktail party and was flattered to learn The Duece listened to my show (he quoted something I'd said on the air weeks earlier), more on that later, read on. 

Competition in a 5 million person radio market is intense.  Fifty stations could be heard in Detroit.  The Big D was extraordinarily well planned -- market study/focus groups data was phone book thick.  I was in the right place at the right time.  Peter Storer, a blind man (the secret weapon in the radio division), selected me to host a clone of the company's red hot midday KLAC Los Angeles talk show called Fem Forum.  Doctor Laura Schlesinger started her career listening to the Los Angeles show, and Bill Balance (the LA show's host) wrote a tell all book about his motel room romps with young Laura.  Peter Storer decided the Detroit version would be different -- a mixture of listener calls and country music and hosted by a Brightmoorian.  Success came within months of hitting the air.

Billboard Magazine honored my work on the air, as did The Detroit News and Free Press.  Those pictures of me on the cover of Sundays' Parade Magazines were taken by renowned photographer Tony Spina.  Storer spared no expense.  Promotion for Big D jocks was first class -- our faces were everywhere -- buses, billboards, posters, TV, newspapers, T-shirts, caricatures.  Free restaurants, movies, cars, Hawaiian vacations, playing cards with Ron Kowalski (the sausage heir), a day named in my honor at Tiger Stadium.  People love hanging around celebrities no matter who they are (Sanjaya Malakar invited to a White House gathering proves that).  Newspaper articles and press releases told Detroiters how hot my show was. The truth?  I had little idea of what I'd gotten into.  Lesson #1:  "Always do your homework!"

Because the Fem Forum aired human experiences, hilarious to tragic, the show got lots of attention and gave lots of people ideas -- newspaper columnists, psychologists, wannabe broadcasters, sideshow carneys -- an endless stream of copy cats followed -- doctors, lawyers (Geraldo), politicans (Jerry Springer), Oprah, the Newlywed Game, Cheating Spouses, the reality shows. They all came from a seed in the mind of a blind man whose family happened to own a few radio and TV stations.  There had never been anything like it on radio or TV before Fem Forum.  My Detroit version dominated midday ratings during its entire 10 year run.  The idea behind it lives on today through the O'Reilly Factor and those shows where they eat bugs (I get the two confused).

People tugged at me from all directions.  One guy sent his wife to the station to see if I'd be interested in swapping.  She was a beauty queen brunette who smiled with a gleam in her eye when I stammered: "I, er...my wife would never go for it."   The following night she showed up at my nightclub appearance with her husband and sister in a motor home in the parking lot.  Storer warned me of the hazards of being a celebrity.

What else did Peter Storer know?  Tom Dean, HSG (High School Graduate) -- I couldn't even pronounce sci-college-ee.   Show biz.  John Mazer, the WDEE program manager, guided my every move.  Mazer had a master's degree in communications; I admired his savvy and miss the brainstorming with him.  It was from John I received instructions on how far to go with the show.  Storer wanted it titillating, which equaled ratings and revenue.  Everybody made out like a bandit, 'cept you know who.  A couple of lawyers approached the station wanting to package up the highlights from the show (I have thousands of hours recorded) and offered to pay me one penny (yes, one cent) for each album sold.  One of them is in politics today and I'd bet every penny he's up to his old tricks...who did you say that bailout money was going to?

Not a day went by I didn't get hate mail.  But why blame me?  It was the crazy callers who wouldn't shut up.  When I didn't respond to the mail (I was told not to by Storer) one writer began attacking my family: "Was that your daughter I saw gang banging on Cass Avenue last week?"  Diana was 10 years old for god's sake.  Another listener claimed she'd received orders from "outer space" to join me and Deano (the Big D morning DJ) in heaven.  Flat Rock police stopped her on the way to my appearance. She had a loaded 30-30 in the trunk.  Some 'ologist' apologized for letting her out a little too early.  It was then I remembered having been hired to host a dance at Toledo State Hospital, a mental institution, and the administrator's warnings: "...and don't talk directly to that woman in the corner...nymphomania...never ever play two fast songs in a row!"  (gulp)

Off duty Pontiac cops acted as part-time bouncers when my business partner and I owned "The Widetrack Inn" a nightclub-bar-restaurant in downtown Pontiac.  The chief of police had a fit when he found out, something about "hired guns", and was waiting on our stoop the morning after he found out.   Pontiac was where I learned my first real estate lesson about "location, location, location."  In our excitement of opening a new business, we over looked the fact we'd opened a redneck bar smack dab in the middle of a ghetto.  Soon a pregnant woman would fall down drunk on the dance floor claiming it was our fault she lost the baby.  Another was killed in an accident driving home.  Lawsuits, lawyers, depositions were non-stop.  

The Wide Track Inn was a catch 22.  To stay in business we were forced to hire big name country stars to attract customers from outside the Pontiac area who knew nothing about the neighborhood where our bar was located.  They didn't know (like Chevy Chase in the movie "Vacation") not to stop to ask for directions. Our bar was popular with sports stars and other VIP's (who in-turn attracted customers) and we gave them all free food and booze.  Dewey and I didn't know when to stop passing out the freebies and quickly learned to spell b-a-n-k-r-u-p-t-c-y.   Any day of the week you'd find Tigers, Lions, city officials and countless other freeloaders saying hello to Tom and Dewey.  "Against the ropes" was a movie about a female fight promoter named Jackie Kallen who also worked next door at the Oakland Press.  She was a regular.   In the movie Jackie was played by Meg Ryan.  I liked Ernie Harwell and his wife Lulu best...they didn't drink.  

The Fem Forum was a simple idea -- women tattling on men, and a monster of a hit because it was hyper-local and full of surprises.  On my days off WDEE would air "The Best of the Fem Forum" and I'd drive around to see who was tuned in.  Anyone listening to it had The Big D turned up loud. No, LOUD!!  You could hear it everywhere  -- car radios, construction sites, stores, news stands, parks, beaches, state hospitals.  People never knew if a caller would be talking about them, a friend, a local celebrity (ie: Henry Ford II), the gas man or neighbor (who was entertaining the gas man) down the street.  It was the most ingenious piece of broadcasting I've ever seen -- behind American Idol, of course.

Not everybody liked the Fem Forum, including Gloria Steinem, and WDEE management loved the attention.  Newspaper articles, pro and con, helped keep the show on top for 10 years; word of mouth pushed it along 5 years longer than anyone had predicted.    Sponsors paid top dollar and Fem Forum was always sold out.  I learned it doesn't matter what people say about you as long as they get your name right.  Everybody wanted a piece of the action -- at one time I worked for the Harlem Globetrotters.  The Fem Forum survived several ownership changes until religious broadcasters finally bought WDEE and canned everybody. 

The Fem Forum remained the highest rated radio program in the middle of the day in Detroit until the plug was pulled in 1980.  Another country station, WWWW wanted to resurrect it a few years later.  I passed.   I've never liked living in the past.   I'd guess that all hip country stations today hear complaints from die hard country listeners about "today's music."  I tell them "country music today is as much about about real life as it always has been, but sounds so much better technically."   I believe if Hank Williams Sr. were alive he'd love today's music, especially Big and Rich.  I can't wait to hear the next generation of country music.

Getting that first commercial radio job in Detroit was not easy -- Paul Purtan from WSAI Cincinnati and I, working at WOHO in Toledo, applied for the 10PM opening at WKNR Keener 13 in Dearborn.  I was taller and could wire a house but the mustached man from Cincinnati was better prepared for major market radio.  College educated Paul became a Dick and the rest is Detroit radio history.  A few years later I accepted a job offer at the Big 8, CKLW.  CK was a monster in the midwest and I was excited about the idea of moving.  Unfortunately, Lew Dickey (the CEO and chief bean counter at Cumulus) who was at the time the owner and manager of his first radio station, WOHO, although he said he would not stop me ("I know how much you want to be in Detroit," said Lew) secretly called his network of friends who in turn reached their friends at CK who withdrew the offer.  I felt like the last prisoner of the Toledo War.  Incidentally, dishonesty like that is how Lew Dickey got the name "Tricky Dickey."  Word on the street today is that he is in a world of hurt running Cumulus Broadcasting (50+ radio stations) pretty much the same way.  Last I heard the Cumulus stock price was less than a dollar. 

It took another year before I could bust out of Toledo.  Detroit called again. This time it was WJBK Radio 15, the station I'd grown up listening to.  Although I had record ratings in Ohio ("round on the ends hi in the middle") and my son was born there, I do not have fond memories of Toledo.

Fast forward to 10 years later...after Big D was sold, I moved on.   Big Jim Edwards, who'd made a name for himself at the Big 8 CKLW and had competed against me in Toledo got the job as program manager of WXYZ, an ABC owned and operated station.   Jim hired me to help in their transition from music to music/talk at WXYZ (I had no idea the station would be going 100% talk a year later).  Thanks for severance clauses as this city-slicker-turned-hayseed ended up on the wrong side of the tracks in that move.  Incidentally, WXYZ was the second time Big Jim Edwards forgot to tell me something.  The first I was on the air in Toledo at WOHO.  Our studios had windows to the outside so that listeners could look in.  One night a guy knocked on the glass yelling that he was "a disc jockey passing through town" asking if he could get "a quick tour."  I wouldn't do it today, but back then I said yes and proudly explained the entire operation to him, including our future plans.  The man was Big Jim Edwards, and he forgot to mention that he was moving to Toledo to become my new competition as nighttime disc jockey at the rock station across town.  Big Jim never did beat me in the ratings.  He moved to CKLW a year later.

WXYZ was a hornet's nest and I wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the station dropping music in favor of wall-to-wall issues-oriented talk.  Radio Hall of fame's Dick Purtan needed music between his phone calls, too.  Most of the calls you hear on Dick's morning show are edited for timing the day before.  Like Seinfeld, Purtan leaves nothing to chance.  Dick and his team spend hours fine tuning every bit, word, sentence, grunt.  Detroit's radio pope makes millions just doing simple homework.  Donald Trump is a billionaire for the same reason.  Trump is prepared to counter any objection long before he ever lets a seller know he's interested in buying their property.

My Detroit midday show followed Dick Purtan twice, first at WXYZ and three years later at WCZY.  Dick could not relate to the audiences I attracted. He had to sit in for me once at WXYZ when my old Jeep broke down and moved to CKLW in Canada shortly after.  Dick made poking fun at me, the Detroit hillbilly, one of his bits for years.  It was an honor having worked for ABC and been roasted by a national broadcast hall of fame disc jockey.  The smoke has settled, and I can see that Dick Purtan is the best at what he does.  Radio could be a super source of free entertainment if every disc jockey worked half hard as Dick Purtan -- Ipods wouldn't stand a chance. 

Water and Oil -- I simply "did not belong" (quoting Ted Knight in Caddyshack).  WXYZ was known for giving birth to real celebrities, Mike Wallace and The Lone Ranger among them.  When we took a vacation our replacements would be celebrities like the Mayor, Bozo, George Hamilton, Soupy Sales.  In the week he sat in the for one of us, I got to know a really terrific guy, Ted Knight, who didn't take himself too seriously.  He really was the kind of a guy you'd like to have as a next door neighbor.  I can watch a good comedy again and again, Caddyshack is my all time favorite.

"Professionalism," "quality" and "image" were more than flashy public relations spin at ABC.  My midday show enjoyed the best hands down producer in talk radio, Jack Springer.  He produced the long running David Newman Show and maintained a phone book full of home numbers of movie stars, leaders of industry, presidents.  I learned about being a serious broadcaster from Jack Springer, an African-American. 

WXYZ attracted educated people ("and a few narcissists," said a psychologist) who knew how to take advantage of WXYZ's prestigious airwaves to promote themselves.  Dr. Sonya Friedman PHD, who appeared as "Sonya Live" nationally on CNN television, followed my show.  We used the same WXYZ Detroit studio, which allowed her sheepskin to toy with my Brightmoor brain on the air during shift changes.  Listeners were in awe of Sonya, but those of us working in the trenches were not.  Freidman tossed mink coats on desks in front of the WXYZ Radio secretaries.  There were the makings of a cat fight and at least one of us kept an ear on the john door whenever "Elvis" was in the building.  She once invited me to her home for a party.  I wish now I'd gone to count the coats.  WXYZ's "Ask the Attorney" Larry Korn and I became good friends.   Larry helped sever my liquor license ties to the Wide Track Inn, and put a stop to a five million dollar lawsuit.  His father, Monty, specialized in disc jockey divorce law.  

Fred Wolf, Mickey Shore, Dick Purtan and Lee Allen  -- some of the biggest names in radio -- worked at WXYZ at one time or another.  Lee Allen gave MoTown, Berry Gordy Jr. and Stevie Wonder their start.   Lee Allen and Tom Clay were the influences for me becoming a disk jockey.  WXYZ changed format several times through the years and was eventually sold.  It is known today as WXYT, an all sports station.

"Things change, time to move on"

After WXYZ I moved to WOMC-FM, back to being a full time disc jockey again.  Playing to a music audience is what I do best.  Although Adult Contemporary was a new format for me, I clicked with both male and female listeners.  It took only a year to build up the WOMC midday audience, which helped me to negotiate a better deal at WCZY.  Gannett (USA Today) hired me.   Unfortunately, the bigger salary came back to haunt me when Purtan was lured away from CKLW-AM to join us at WCZY-FM.   Unfortunately, his AM audience didn't follow him to FM right away, and certainly not soon enough to suit Gannett (newspaper people are impatient, deadline oriented).  Dick cost more than the entire rest of the WCZY staff put together, and Dick signs no cut contracts, which was a drain on the budget.  He learned to do that in Maryland.  As good as Purtan is he was canned soon after being hired at a Baltimore radio station.        

Gannett was forced to cut staff to pay Purtan's salary and the cost of promoting him.  Dick's picture was on every bus inside and out, taxis, TV, magazines, postcards, billboards, newspapers.  But nothing seemed to work, at least not right away.  Arbitron radio ratings can be slow coming, and more than a few owners don't have patience and will change format immediately following a bad book.  Gannett disposed of the last of their radio stations by 1997.  Another struggling AC station, WCLS (the old WABX), was my next stop.   A few months later WCLS was sold to a pharmacist.  Not surprisingly, pharmacists know nothing about radio programming or staffing a station.  He hired Jim Harper, a disc jockey friend, to run it.  That mistake cost the druggist a pile of dough.  History shows that 99.5 FM was sold again and again to low ball buyers who failed to do their homework.  Life is all about luck and I'd lost the handle on my four leaf clover.  

Through the years and a variety of formats Arbitron says listeners like the way I do radio shows.  Just as I was influenced, I've been told that my radio style has also influenced a few -- not always successfully.  Rich Fisher, a Detroit television news anchor, tells the story of how he was fired trying to copy bits "Tom Dean did on the air" when he started in radio.  At a cocktail party, Henry Ford II repeated something I'd said on the air months earlier.  Jacqui, a psychic who appeared with me on WXYZ, was a close friend of Ford's wife Kathryn Duross.   She said she knew why Ford listened: "Henry called me all the time looking for Kathy, he didn't trust her."   Henry Ford had problems same as you and I. 

Another regular caller, although I didn't believe her at the time, said she was Stevie Wonder's girlfriend and that he was jealous that she called me.  Stevie Wonder picked my voice out of a crowd on two occasions years later.  Listen to his song Part Time Lover (it may be about "Part Time Tom"). 

Hank The Deuce hooked up with Kathryn Duross at an auto show.  She was a model, and also from the other side of the tracks.  We both graduated from predominantly black high schools in downtown Detroit.   I lived in a white suburb 15 miles west and rode to school with my best friend and his father who was a tool and die teacher at Wilbur Wright Technical High School.  I selected Wright to learn the electrical trade and because my friend's dad would give me a ride to school everyday -- accept when I was a few seconds late and forced to ride a city bus.  It was a two mile walk to the bus stop.  Word of warning: never become friends with a kid whose father is a teacher or you may not get to school 'til after lunch.  Kathy Duross went to Cass Tech to learn how to marry.

After high school graduation I was nominated to the US Air Force Academy by Congresswoman Martha Griffiths.  Flat feet kept me out of the academy, so I enlisted.  Near the end of my 4 year tour of duty the FAA offered me a job fixing radar, but I opted instead to become a radio DJ making 100 bucks a week in Sturgis, Michigan. 

I'm often asked why I do that --  “Stop talking about your wife on the air,” one letter writing libber demanded, “...do you think women sit around all day just waiting for a man?”   A few days after airing that letter a listener responded with this call:

"Tom, please don’t stop talking about your wife.  My husband left me 10 years ago and I think it’s wonderful a person can care about someone as deeply as you.  I was left alone with a new baby, without a car or a job.  It was a struggle trying to learn a skill and raising a child at the same time.”  The caller said she found the courage to date only once in 10 years.  "Raising my daughter has always been my number one priority."

Turns out that caller had been a long time listener who had followed me from station to station over the years.  Wanting to help (thinking I could do some match making) I asked for her name and number.  A local TV announcer and friend of mine who was also divorced I thought would be a good match.  They both sang in a choir.  Months later I asked him how the date went.  He'd forgotten and had never called the woman.  Released from my WCZY contract I was kept from working in radio for months.  A few days after getting back on the air at the new "WCLS," I received roses welcoming me.  The card read: “I've searched up and down the dial every day because I knew you’d be back on the air.  Good luck on your new job, Melissa.”    My wife left me a year later and I mentioned that on the air, too.   Melissa called again.   It was four years before Melissa Jean and I ever met face to face.  We were married July 12, 1986.