(Disclaimer: This episode contains more "explicit language" than most. That's what happens when two Malden kids get together.)
If you've been to the annual WJPZ Birthday Banquet, chances are you've enjoyed the jokes from our MC, Class of 1995 alum, and stand up comedian Stephen Donovan. And if you came to this episode needing to laugh, you're in the right place. Steve takes us through his very unusual path to Syracuse University and Z89. He also shares a morning show story involving a certain part of the male anatomy.
But in a bit of an unexpected turn, this episode gets deeply personal. Steve shows a vulnerability not often seen publicly in our group. He was let go from his last radio gig 18 months ago, and spends some time self-reflecting on his childhood and own insecurities. How much does one need the "social proof" of ratings, laughs, and more? He talks about a place that so many of us have been in as we transitioned out of traditional media, and how the friendships of WJPZ have helped sustain him.
We do bring it back around to WJPZ though. Jag asks Steve how he preps the "roast" part of his Banquet monologue every year, speaking to the importance of including all generations of WJPZ'ers.
Then, our conversation take another unexpected twist: where we recall a joke that Jag felt went too far (at the time), and how the two of them mended fences after. (And yes we include the jokes.)
Think Steve is funny here? Join Us in Syracuse for Banquet on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. I've been looking forward to this recording for a while now. You probably know him as the MC of the annual birthday banquet every year. I know him as the only alum that shares a home zip code with me. We both grew up in Malden, Massachusetts. And that would be Mr.
Stephen Donovan. Welcome to the podcast.
Steve: Jonathan Alexander Gay. Thank you for letting me aboard the mothership. I wanna say that as a celebration to the 02148, with each transition during the conversation, I would like you to just say some Malden reference. Only you and I will get it. But throw a trafton park, throw a Route 60, something,
JAG: This has been, this is why I was looking forward to having you on. I knew you were gonna have some fun today.
Steve: The people in Michigan with WDFW, whatever, that's Scott Meach and Matt Fredmani, they can't be the only municipality that's been a pipeline of talent. You know what I mean?
JAG: No, Malden has definitely got it through too. We have some wonderful Boston alumni.
Steve: Jon Gay. Let me tell you something. With this endeavor, this is what the 50th one you have done? you have created for yourself immortality. You are the historian of WJPZ with this podcast,
JAG: I would not go that far but it has been a lot of fun.
Steve: Of course you wouldn't, because you're a modest fella. You're kindhearted. I'll say it. Jon Gay, you are the historian. Each one of these has been tremendous. I love it.
JAG: Let's get into your story. Tell me about your path from Malden to Syracuse. Mr. Donovan.
Steve: My mom's a twin. And my mom had three boys and her twin sister had three girls.
And in fourth grade I was taken out of public school. I was taken out of Forestdale and put into Chevrus.
That's Malden reference number two.
JAG: Yeah? I also went to Forestdale. We went to the same elementary school. Look at that.
Steve: Oh my god, I didn't know that. Yeah. No, I love my cousin Andrea. I love her, but she is a goodie goodie. She was an angel. So much and I'm, I'm smart. I get my work done and I just goof around because that's how the rules were at home. You could go and play if you got your schoolwork done. So I thought the school was the same way. So I'll get my schoolwork done quick and this will relate to Syracuse, and then I'll just goof around.
So the nuns hated me. The nuns absolutely hated me to the point where in eighth grade, Sister Mikayla, because Andrea and I are in the same class. She said there's no way. Were you adopted? There's no way you're blood related to that angel. And so I blamed Andrea a little bit for those nuns in their terribleness.
So when I heard senior year of high school, My cousin Andrea is gonna go to Burlington to see this informational meeting about Syracuse. I was like, I'm gonna go check out Syracuse. I put in zero effort into the schools I might attend. They all had to be good basketball schools. That was it.
And someone who wears a tie professionally had to have said to me, that's a good school. Could have been a tie wearing janitor, it could have been a homeless fella. So I applied to Syracuse. Out of spite to my cousin Andrea, who I don't even think applied. She just went to the information session and then yeah, that was it.
The first time I was on campus was moving into Lawrinson Hall.
JAG: You had never even seen the campus. You just said, F it, I'll go.
Steve: Never saw the campus. I could have been going to Greece for all I knew. I had no idea. No. Syracuse is in Italy, isn't it? I don't know. Yeah, I put in almost zero. There are whole cottage industries now of people who hold your high school child by the hand for four years to shape and craft their approach to get to a college.
I'm like, yeah. Do I like the color orange? Yes, I do. I'm in. I love it. Done. It's ridiculous.
JAG: So you get to Syracuse, right? And how do you find the radio?
Steve: I met Jen Nycz day one. If Jen Nycz isn't a Hall of Famer, she should be. So Jen Nycz and I are just walking around. It's such a weird time to have grown up before social media and before, like my brother and his wife have apps that track the location of each of their children wherever they are forever.
I'm like, thank God we didn't have that. Oh my God. In heaven. So we are just, it's the first day and I'm just walking around. Looking at stuff that, again, I'm seeing for the first time because I put in no effort. So I see Jen and her friends and I went to an all guys school, Malden Catholic. So I'm like, estrogen, I'm in. I'm just, “Women? Woohoo!”
So we end up walking. She's we were gonna go to the radio station. Do you wanna go to the radio station? I was like, of course. I wanna go to the radio station. And so we walk in and BB Good. Who is definitely a Hall of Famer. If you don't know Sharon BB. Good. She was a national radio talent on radio Disney.
She had her own cartoon. Come on. BB good. We walk in. She's the only person in the station because everybody's down at the State Fair. I was like, this is tremendous. First day at the college and then for reasons that I don't remember, I didn't do anything with the station until sophomore year. I have no idea.
I have no idea why. I thought I would go Greek, and so it wasn't until. I believe I have this right. It wasn't until sophomore year that I got in.
JAG: So that makes sense. Actually, if I remember right, you couldn't pledge until spring semester freshman year, so you probably would've looked into that and then it would've put you at first semester, sophomore year to join the radio station.
You are not the first person on this podcast to say that you joined the station too late and wish you had joined it earlier.
Steve: I don't necessarily know that. I wish I could have gone there earlier because Class of 91 are all vicious, vile people. They're terrible people and I wouldn't wanna have anything to do with them.
JAG: Understood. That's Hal Rood and all those guys. Yeah.
Steve: Hollywood. Hal Rood is a stone cold killer. He has left a trail of broken dreams worldwide. Hal Rood. Oh, just a heartless ISIS subscribing villainous man of hate. His heart is shrouded in hate
JAG: I feel like I'm at your monologue at the banquet. This is great.
Steve: I love Hollywood. Hal. So then I did not like Syracuse freshman year. I was unhappy. I didn't fit in. I wasn't rich enough. I wasn't cool enough. didn't drink freshman year, so I tried to rush ATO. That went horribly. And all my friends that I had made in Lawrinson all went Greek, and. If I had not found Z89, I would've probably have left Syracuse.
JAG: That was the same for me, actually. I would agree with that statement.
Steve: Yeah, it's a rough transition. I don't know if you were like me, but. I have 50 aunts and uncles and cousins within a 10 minute drive of my house back home. And so I went far away relative to all my cousins and my brothers.
So I didn't know who I was. I knew I was Kevin's brother. I knew what Sheila's boy was, I knew who Joe's son was, but Steve Donovan, I had no idea who that was. And realizing that with no support structure around was absolutely terrifying. And so finding Z89, that was creating my new for the first time, self-generated identity.
JAG: So what happened at the station that made you feel like you fit in there and found your home in Syracuse?
Steve: I was made to feel like I belonged. was made to feel like there were people that had, like Mike Rock and I think were born in the same hospital, on the same floor at Malden Hospital at the same time when we were born.
And that's the other thing, I'm listening to this podcast, JAG, and there's litany after litany of people that moved mountains and created electricity and built transmitters with Legos. And when they were four. I did nothing to further the building. I did the morning show. I did shifts.
And that was it. I think I was Jen Ncyz's assistant to the service thing. I think for one semester. I think public service. Yeah, I think so. It's intimidating to claim a place among Scott Meach, who you know, killed a bear and donated four kidneys to orphans. It's like, all right, Scotty, we get it. You discovered the cure to Covid. Fine, we get it.
JAG: He's right there by the CDC. It only makes sense.
Steve: Of course he is in Atlanta. So what was it about Z 89? It was that my whole life, the day before, the first day of anything, first day of school, first day of a new job, every single time my mother would reach out to me.
And she's coming down for lunch. It's gonna be wonderful.
She said Stephen, keep a low profile. Can you keep a low profile? Just, ease into it. And so at Z89, that was the exact opposite. You know what I mean? I could goof around okay, you're gonna do the morning show. Okay, so four times an hour, you are just gonna act stupidly and just create nonsense. And that's the point. We need someone to do that.
JAG: Do you remember some of the nonsense you created on the morning show?
Steve: Oh sure. Oh yeah. And I'm not necessarily proud of it. It's not good broadcasting. I wouldn't teach it to anybody. And again, we're talking about people that have done big things.
Here was a thing that we had as a running thing. And this is ridiculous. I don't know how many people will know this. People my year will know this. The bathroom at the end of the hallway in Watson, this is a terrible story. The bathroom at the end of the hallway in Watson, it wasn't right next door to the station, the way the old configuration was. So it's a run all the way down the hallway. And then went back. And so Mike Murphy and I are doing the morning show senior year, and someone had drawn a scrotum on one of the stalls of the bathroom. And I'm not an anatomy major, but I was like, Hey Mike, is there a scrotum? Is that a scrotum ? He's yeah.
And so then the Scrotum, someone drew a face on it, like it was a slow building project evolution. And so scrotum face was, I don't know if he was ever a character on the show. It was always like, how can we get scrotum face on the, like we're not reinventing the wheel. We're not adding anything to the public discourse.
You know what I mean? We're 19 year old absolute knuckleheads. We had a woman from London, a student on the show, Rena Advani, who is a woman with a London accent. And so we would demand, and this is in no way salacious, but we would demand because we loved her accent for her during her news, like she was giving the news of the day.
And say, please, Rita, can you just please, we would say this off the air. And she would say, Michael Murphy, I love your pants . Like for, oh, no other reason than that sounds funny. There wasn't anything about his pants or what might be in them. It was just her saying that was funny to us. That's not good radio.
That's not mature. There's nothing good about that. But we thought that was. Because again, you're a moron at 20 with no sleep, I went to Spain my second semester, junior year. So first semester, junior year, I'm doing the morning show with Kid Michael Rock, who again sits in a mountain of talent and my brother Patrick is coming up to drive me home and take my stuff back with me because I'm not gonna be coming back until the following fall.
So he's at this point, an adult, so I don't know, he must have taken a day off of work or something. And so he comes in, he's what are you doing? I said I gotta do the morning show. He's oh, can I come in and watch? I was like, yeah, you can be on the show. He's “You want me to be on the show?
And so again, I apologize because this is in no way PC or whatever. So we had him pretend we had to, had him come on the show and pretend to be Spunky the midget wrestler. Because again, when we were kids, we loved the WWF. Yeah. We had no idea that midget wasn't a good term to call people who were little people.
And so he didn't change his voice at all. And we took calls all morning. Yes, this is Michael Rock. I was Abe Froman on the air.
JAG: Great reference, by the way.
Steve: If you have midget questions, wrestling questions, or midget wrestling questions. Spunky is here. The live lines are open.
Everybody bought it.
JAG: Why wouldn't they? Theater of the mind.
Steve: Everybody at the station later, cuz we came back to pick up something and everybody was like, where did you meet a midget? And I was like, I can't tell you. You know this is show business secrets. And again, is it something to be proud of? Probably not. But I just wanted to have fun. You know what I mean? It was always how, what can we do to have fun?
JAG: Quick follow up question for you. You went by Abe Froman the whole time at Z 89?
Steve: Give me a Malden reference please. We're changing subjects?
JAG: Yeah. Okay.
Steve: Piantedosi bread.
JAG: All right. So in the realm of Piantedosi bread, as you were loafing around the morning show, did you actually go by Abe Froman the whole time there?
Steve: I had no affiliation to the City of Chicago at that point. I had never visited the City of Chicago, but I loved the 1987...
JAG: One Of my all time favorite movies. Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Steve: Classic, John Hughes with Matthew Broderick. Who was for a short time, for a meal, Abe Froman, the sausage king of Chicago. And I thought that was a funny name. So for four or three years I was Abe Froman, and there's people now that will only call me Abe, and the people that don't know that part of my life or whatever are thoroughly confused.
JAG: My wife deals with that a little bit because anybody that I worked with in radio calls me Jag, anybody from Syracuse calls me Jag. But her family and anybody that I've met in my podcasting business calls me Jon. So my wife claims that she's bilingual because depending on which group of people we're with, she'll either refer to me as Jon or Jag. So I understand what you mean.
Steve: Oh. So if she can go back and.
JAG: Probably like you and I slipping in and out of a Malden accent. Oh. Because I don't have and they typically don't have the accent on the air. But my mothah, my fathah, my brothah, my best friend calls me. It comes right out.
Steve: Trafton Pahk. Forestdale Pahk. I got a buddy Mahk Skapachii.
JAG: I went to high school with a Mahk Skippah!
Steve: Of course you did!
JAG: So after Abe Froman finishes at Syracuse. What does Steve Donovan do?
Steve: I love making people laugh. So I'm gonna go to LA. I got a buddy who knows in the marrow of his bones that he wants to be an agent at William Morris.
And so I'm gonna take a bus to Pittsburgh, get in his Acura Integra Drive I 90, take a left, get to LA and start a standup comedy career. We are leaving Yosemite National Park. He's sleeping. I'm driving. And driving in, he was driving. And so it was gorgeous, it was like a car ad. It was a gorgeous, windy mountain road just and a brand new Acura Integra.
And so now I'm like, oh, here we go. And. Whatever retiree is in front of us is going 18 miles an hour. And I'm like, I wanna burn this person. I'm gonna follow this person home and burn their house down because I'm so annoyed. And then they pull over right when the road gets windy and I gun it and I hit a family of four from Seattle.
JAG: No!
Steve: I just, wham, and I'm not endorsing that at all. It's shame filled. But again, I was a 21 year old knucklehead. So no one was injured, the cars were drivable, my buddy is bullshit, and not a fan of what they call forgiveness. And so that pretty much ended the hopes and dreams of some kind of a California life.
JAG: Wow.
Steve: And so three weeks after my whole family had a “good luck with the rest of your life,” bon voyage, I come slinking back into town to stay at my mom and dad's house with zero prospects or plan or anything. And so I start right away waiting with Andrea at the Pizzeria Uno. And then my uncle, true story, gets me a job as a Massachusetts Junior High School Spanish teacher.
JAG: Really? I did not know that about you.
Steve: Oh yeah. I was Senor Donovan. I had minored in Spanish. I had gone to Madrid for my second semester, junior year.
JAG: Would you say you were fluent in Spanish at that point?
Steve: When I was in Madrid, by the end I was thinking in Spanish by the end. . But like any muscle, you don't exercise.
Yeah. So I'm a chapter ahead of the kids and with no training on how to put a lesson plan together. And this would've been the fall of 95 into Winter 96. Fast forward, my dad passes away in 2016. My mom is cleaning out the house because that's how you grieve. So she says, Stephen, I found your briefcase that you used when you taught.
I'm throwing everything away. Would you like to have it? I said, of course. And so I go to the house and open it to find unreturned and uncorrected quizzes and reports from my seventh and eighth grade teaching career of 20 years prior. So then the question was, do I, with the help of social media, track down these now 30 something year old people?
And tell them how they did on unit three? Because, my teaching career is one, one year, not even one year, I left after April vacation. Not proud, not the proudest thing.
So I go to New York City because when I visited buddies of mine that moved to Brooklyn on Christmastime and saw a summer program for film and television acting at NYU.
So I went there for that. And the program started in May, which is why I left teaching early. So from May to August, I was in NYU housing. I was living east twenties, and there I met a woman who had been an NBC page. So I, through that connection, became an NBC page. And then from that met a dude that had done standup, that was doing standup.
So then that's what prompted me to start standup back in 98.
JAG: And how long were you doing that? Or, you're still doing it right? On some level?
Steve: I'm still doing standup. Yeah. But I was romantically linked to a woman who was a standup who was further along.
JAG: I love how you're not afraid to use the word midget, but you dance around "romantically linked to a woman."
Steve: I feel like I have to redeem myself because that's not proud language. She had done the night show with Leno. She was doing college gigs all around the country, basically further along in standup than I was right now. Cause I was just doing the clubs in the city.
So she would call from the road and everything was terrible. Being alone was terrible. Not knowing where she was terrible. The food was terrible. Feeling unsafe at times. Terrible, everything's terrible and this is what I'm supposed to be working towards. So at the same time wait a minute, you know what, let's try to get this radio thing back happening.
And so God bless Dave Peterman and Emily Zizza because they were in Worcester, Massachusetts working at the WXLO. That morning guy had gotten shit canned because of... We can say that, right? It's a podcast.
JAG: Yeah, it's a podcast. It's not radio.
Steve: Totally shit canned. And they said you're funny. And so now I'm thinking I can be paid to make people laugh, and stay in my own bed every night and not have to do all this traveling that my girlfriend at the time was doing, so that was June of 03. I moved from a rent controlled apartment on 35th and Third to Worcester, which is the classic path you take in show business.
I was on the air there from 03 to 07, took a year off, moved to Boston, went back there from 08 till 13, and then was in Providence from 13 to 21 on the air.
JAG: And living there still?
Steve: Yeah.
JAG: I asked for a funny story, but I feel like we've covered that at this point. Let me ask you this.
What friends and relationships have you built through WJPZ, both your contemporary students, alums older than you, alums younger than you? What folks have you built relationships with because of Z89?
Steve: Yeah, we don't have enough time to go into all of them. Jag, I have a question for you. Do you have siblings?
JAG: I have a younger brother. He's four years younger.
Steve: All right, so you are hardwired. To be an older brother. That's your comfort zone. That's what you know yourself to be.
JAG: It's funny because we actually have kind of a role reversal. I have a younger brother's personality. He has the older brother personality.
Even though I'm four years older technically.
Steve: Because I'm the baby of the family. So that's my default, in terms of self-identity. And so I found it much easier to act that way or play that role and connect to those above me older than me, then I would those younger than me. I feel like the people that you've had on your show, I would consider friends.
It's funny. I got fired in June of 21. Which I was terrified of my whole career because everybody thought the running joke was, you're not on the radio until you get fired. And so I was like, oh shit, I'm gonna get fired. And then it didn't happen until 17 years into my career, which pretty good I guess.
JAG: Yeah, it's a great run. I think I was fired three times in 15 years. You're got me beat.
Steve: Oh wow. All right. Yeah. But again, you're the historian of WJPZ.
JAG: A title that will live with you forever in infamy, probably.
Steve: Stop it. So in terms of the friendship, so that happens and, I have been shocked at the willingness to help, even if it's just a sympathetic ear.
In this specific aspect of my life. Who's helped me? I'm probably not gonna get to everybody. Matt Friedman, Jen Nycz, Bette Kestin. Sweet Lippy Love, Chris Godsick. Alex Silverman, Scott MacFarlane, Dion Summers, Michael Rock, Jeff Dauler. I don't know how your experience was because we didn't talk the night that the three times you got fired, but you go to Syracuse and part of why it was so uncomfortable for me to go to Syracuse and discover my insecurities or discover my sensitivities.
So growing up, my Dad was a cop in Boston, and the skills in being a good policeman on the streets of Boston in the seventies and eighties don't necessarily translate to parenting. So any affirmation I would get from him, and it was not a recurring event, was a good report.
And so I needed that external proof that I was worthy of affirmation. And as I grew from a student to an alum, that good report card became a job. . So I'm a good guy because I have this job. And I have worth, because I have this job, I have identity because I have this job. And then when that's taken away and I've won less justification for being a good guy or for worthy of it was completely mentally upending for me. I dunno if that was your experience.
JAG: It was, I think I'll get personal here for a second too. I mentioned the dichotomy of Jon and Jag. Jon had no self-confidence when he got to Syracuse. But I found this comfort level in Jag and being the guy on the radio and I did having a passionate career and being my career for so long, that whenever I would get laid off, or when I ended up exiting radio finally in 2017, I had an identity crisis.
I didn't know where Jag ended and Jon began and vice versa. And I didn't know what I was gonna do, what I was worthy of doing. And I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with radio and TV people who have gotten out of the business, their choice or not. What do I do? This is all I know.
This is my identity. This is who I am. What you're saying rings true for me. And I'm sure for many people listening to this podcast, Steve.
Steve: It's tough because there's a hit when you make somebody laugh. There is a boost. There's an affirmation. There is a. It's almost like you're playing catch. There's a beauty to playing catch.
You throw the ball and then the other person's yeah, I'll catch it and I'm here. And then they throw you the ball and they're like, yeah, I'm here. I catch it. It's a give and take. It's a back and forth, right? So when you are on stage or you're behind a microphone. Since 98 I've paid my bills, I've eaten, I've put a roof over my head with the approval of strangers.
JAG: Okay. That makes sense.
Steve: With, Hey Stranger, do you like me? Am I okay? And then they clap or they listen and then the ratings get in or whatever, and you're like, oh, okay. Yeah, I'm good. And so when you lose your job, you have a period. I'm sure you can agree, of self-reflection. Yes. How did I get to this place?
Who am I, what not? And so almost 25 years of, Hey, stranger, am I okay? I think, I don't know. I think it caused my ability to say I'm okay. Those muscles atrophied because I delegated that kind of a thing to other people. And so now they're not there to the degree they were. And so how do you maintain, self-care or what, whatever.
So that regardless of what happens in the exterior, your interior is okay? Because there was a part of me that is. . Shit, if I go back to that path, if I go back to those ratings, I have to get a better job. I have to be in a better market. I have to get a bigger market share. Is that going to calcify that inability to do it on my own, take care of my mental style on my own, and permanently give it so that I'm always desperately going to be seeking that bigger thing, that bigger hit? Does that make sense?
JAG: I'm speechless right now because what, you just went really deep and everything you're saying makes complete and total sense.
I, I'm right there with you, I get what you're saying.
Steve: So right now, 18 months after I got let go, I don't know what to do. I'm not on a path, I don't have a to-do list with an end goal and the steps needed to hit that goal and let me do the Alpha Ultra hardworking, organized like go-getter Type a Syracuse NewHouse person and attack that.
I'm just a dude. Who is out there thinking, did I just fuck up my whole life? Have I been living wrong? What do I do? And the lifelong friends, to bring it back to the question that you asked, it's been amazing. Like sometimes you go to the Banquet and it's intimidating. Because everybody's in a good suit and Matt Friedman is holding a hundred dollars bills around like he's Johnny fucking sweepstakes winner,
And you are dragging your bag of regrets or fears or anxieties hoping no one sees it thinking cuz you can't see anybody else's, that you're the only shitbag walking around, and then when you have that fear, but then you reach out to somebody and you talk to them and they're like, yeah, dude, that's everybody, that's life.
That's what everybody's going through. It's holy shit.
JAG: When I was let go from radio gigs, you, as it usually happens around Christmas time when the budget cuts happen, which is also..
Steve: Happy birthday. Jesus!
JAG: Yeah. Yeah. Or happy birthday to me. My birthday is December 18th and it's not that I'm comparing myself to Jesus, but anyway. I'm talking to a Malden Catholic guy, so I gotta be careful there.
Steve: Thank you.
JAG: Banquet is three months after end of year budget cuts. I've been to Banquet two or three times, unemployed. So I get it. The first time when I was younger, I just drank myself into oblivion at the banquet. And then there was another year where, sure, it's like I'm going and I'm desperate because this is the weekend I'm gonna find my next job and I'm gonna talk to somebody and they're gonna help me.
And, all these people have all these great jobs there, all these Hall of Famers, all those, major market names that you've mentioned and Hall of Famers, and I'm like I just wanna get a job. Like my next radio job or my next job. What is it? So I've been there. I know you're there right now, and I know that so many people listening to this podcast have been there when they've been on the beach or between gigs.
Steve: And by the way for those of you younger in the game, there's no actual beach. I have not been on the beach. It's 25 degrees out. This whole beach thing is horseshit. It's a complete lie.
There's no beach. I was raised by television to a degree. And in television, any problem is solved in a half an hour, or if it's big, an hour.
There's a moment. Things click happily ever after. Fade to black. When you're a kid, things are stressful in a class and you're stressed out about. Then you take a final and then done. You're done with that grade, it's done. There's a trickiness to the idea that's how you think the world works, that there'll be some event, there'll be some relationship, there'll be some job.
There'll be some raise. And then I'll be okay. Then everything will be fine, then fade to black, happily ever after. And maybe I'm decades late into the growing up or maturation phase, but the world isn't like that. And that's a lesson I'm learning late in the game. And so it's oh shit. Then what do you do?
And then if you take comfort as I did in the structure of school, in the structure of feedback of a report card, and then in, as a young adult in the structure of laughs or ratings. And then you're out of that. Where's the structure? Where's the support system? I don't know what the hell we're talking about now, but it's amazing to discover things and then to reach out to friends and have them affirm. Yeah that's the world. That's how it works. Does that make sense or no?
JAG: It does and I'm really glad to hear that you've learned the lesson of the WJPZ family and how everybody has really come out to reach out to you. I know when I was out of work.
Steve: Not everybody. There's a couple of shit bags.
JAG: Okay fair enough. Most people.
Steve: And I'm gonna get 'em. And they know who they are.
JAG: Again, same for me. When I was outta work, they would, again, not the shit bags but most alumni did reach out to me and say, how can I help? Which is true. So aside from learning the lesson of the power of the J Z alumni Association, any other things that you learned as a student at the station that come to mind before we wrap up?
Steve: I wasn't active as a student to the degree that I am now and. I'm much more participatory now in terms of the Banquet.
JAG: You talk about being active at the banque, emceeing the banquet every year. What kind of prep do you do to host the banquet? You show up in the tux and you've got pictures from social media, you've got clips, and you've got stories about, and you, this is where I give you a lot of credit because you've got stories about alumni, your contemporaries from the nineties.
But you've also roped in older alumni and then current and more recent grads, everybody's included. How do you prep your routine for the banquet?
Steve: I will answer that with a bit of a story. Okay. If we are going to just. be hey, wasn't Z89 great. In the early to mid nineties? Then soon, everyone that wasn't there for after the early to mid nineties will be like yeah, you guys can go have your congratulatory party elsewhere, and what the hell?
Fine. So I want to have a banquet every year until I drop. I want there to be a continuous wave of kids coming in that do shit that's never been done before, that take this thing into places that it's never been before. If we are just trying to replicate a Geo Tracker giveaway every year, then who gives a shit?
Don't at all want to be a "my year is the best". Everybody else go fuck yourself. I seek out kids so that they feel heard or seen or represented so that then they come back. Yeah. So I will. Most of the time, I will spend all day the day of the banquet at the station talking to whoever is the GM or the people there at the time, and get the stories.
And in the weeks and months prior to, I'll reach out to whether it's Sam or it's Eileen, or it's Dena, or whoever's in charge of the banquet. Alright, give me who's coming. And then I'll scour the social media accounts of these SOB's and remind them of shit they forgot they put out there for public consumption, and then put it up for all to see.
JAG: I will say because of that, there have been many conversations among alum posting something on social media. There is a bit of a small fear factor of, oh, I'm gonna post this and forget about this, and Donovan's gonna bring it back in March. I know he is. I shouldn't post.this.
Steve: Yeah. But here's the deal, and I'm glad that you are the one that is doing this conversation.
I never know how I come across. I assume everybody knows I'm Uncle Steve. I'm your pal. I'm not looking to punch down. I'm not looking to have fun at anybody else's expense. . So my thinking is, if you have it out there, you're comfortable with, I'm not hiring private detectives to go through your shit.
And air it, as a surprise. . So I had a joke at your expense and had no idea the hurt I had caused you. I had thought it was fun, and God bless you for valuing our relationship enough to talk to me about it and air it and give me the opportunity to let you know where I was coming from so that you knew there was no malicious intent and that I just want to have fun.
JAG: Okay. So I wasn't gonna go there, but since you did, I'll engage you in this part of the conversation. There was a joke that you made at my expense one year when I was not there. I was at Mardi Gras, New Orleans. I was the PD and I had to be at a client event, so I couldn't come to the banquet. It coincided with Mardi Gras that year.
And you made a joke that at my expense, which I heard about secondhand and I was in a bad head space at that point and it didn't go over well.
Steve: No. Nor should it have,
JAG: But to your credit, I got a little bit of context from some other folks in the alumni association. Some mutual friends, I'll leave their names out of this.
Of where your heart was and where your intent was and that you didn't have bad intentions and we talked about it.
Steve: No.
JAG: And we hashed it out. It's water under the bridge, which is why I wasn't even gonna bring it up. But you did. And I can objectively say now, this is probably almost 10 years later since you've made the joke.
The joke now that I can look at it objectively was funny.
Steve: Oh, good.
JAG: You said, and I quote, if Jag were here, he'd be having the chicken statutory.
Steve: No. Don't ruin the joke. And this gets back to the prep. And among the other things that I mentioned that I do, I will go, and you've gotta go to the Banquet, it's so much fun.
It's the same every year. And so Friday you eat at Varsity and then you have a couple of pops at Faegan's. And every time the door opens at varsity, everybody yells and says hello,
JAG: Cheers, yeah.
Steve: And then you eat fried cheese and then you go get some beers. So that particular weekend I had seen you chatting up some very attractive woman who was younger than you,
And maybe there was some jealousy on my part, maybe who can say? And so the next day at the dais, because you want to greet everyone who's there, you want to say hello to folks who haven't been there in a while. And the joke was, I'm not gonna say that Jag likes younger women. But his meal tonight is the chicken statutory
It's funny, it is chicken cacciatore, which is delicious. I just put 'em together in the hopes that would be funny. Never knowing I was causing hurt to Jon Gay, the historian of WJPZ.
JAG: This is the first time in 50 or so episodes of this podcast that a guest has actually made me blush, which is not easy to do. So I give you a lot of credit there. And again, I came into the interview today knowing that I'd laugh because you're a very funny guy.
Steve: Thank you.
JAG: I was very surprised that we got deep as we did, but I appreciate you being open and honest and putting everything out there, and I appreciate the fact that, we had a little bit of a dust up a few years ago, but that it's watered under the bridge and we continue to be friends to this day.
Steve: Yes. I couldn't agree more. And again, when you are known for making jokes, people don't know when you're serious or are ready for it, but I'm serious as I can be. Jag, this thing that you've done, is fucking awesome.
JAG: Thank you.
Steve: Because you can access it. I've Googled podcasts, you can access 'em forever.
They're sticking around and I'm glad that there have been dozens and dozens of people more important than me to come before me, because again, My time as a student wasn't stellar.
JAG: Thanks to you, the phrase chicken statutory will now live on forever in this podcast.
Steve: Oh, delicious.
JAG: And 10 years ago I would've had an issue with that, but at this point I'm gonna let it rip.
Stephen Donovan, if you enjoyed this podcast, come to the banquet and enjoy the jokes and comedic stylings of Mr. Stephen Donovan as our emcee.
Steve: Thank you.
JAG: This March 4th in Syracuse. Thank you for your time today, sir.
Steve: God bless you. Jag.
I apologize for the interruption. The episode was wonderful, Jag. I do feel there's a correction that needs to be made.
JAG: All right?
Steve: I had made jokes about you on more than one banquet. And the chicken statutory, that joke was made, I believe, year two. You weren't there. And so to make a joke about somebody not there that's rude. When you were there the year prior, again, you were...
JAG: I, look, I'll own this. I blew you off at Faegan’s because I was talking to a young lady. And for the record, that young lady was only 3 years younger than me, and a friend of a classmate. Not like I was robbing the cradle or anything.
Steve: You were doing market research and I, having been blown off by you. See you again at the official banquet the next evening. and want to know what happened. And so naturally in radio terms, wondered, did you hit the post?