The Twin Cities remembers Don Vogel as one of the most instinctively funny people ever to appear on the radio. “The Round Mound of Sound”, the blind guy who was going to drive you home.
I remember a lot of different Dons.
He was a guy who’d been blind since infancy, and who lived with it as gracefully and powerfully as anyone you’ve ever seen.
Notwithstanding that, he was a frighteningly vindictive man who never forgot a slight or a miscue. Once you were out with Don, you were out. The man had no loyalty or sentiment.
And if dark were energy, his dark side could have powered half the state. A morbidly obese epicurean with blood chemistry could qualify for Superfund cleanup funding, he always said his goal was to die by fifty. And he made it with weeks to spare, of metastatic bladder cancer.
He was the guy who gave me my big break out of college, not once but twice; once when he hired me to be his screener, and once when he went way out on a limb with management to get me on the air.
He was the guy at the enter of one of the most formative experiences of my life – my first job after college, where I got to do juvenile comedy all week and argue politics with strangers all weekend – perhaps the most perfect time of my life in many ways.
And he taught me a few lessons that have formed my approach to my entire life: always think three questions ahead; always be ready for the guest to not show and the phone lines to break down; never lose control of the conversation; there are four kinds of callers – great ones, average ones, crazy ones and boring ones; stick with the first three kinds.
They sound like radio lessons, but they work for life in general, if you think about it.
My wife and I car pooled to work from our rural home to the cities daily. We tuned in to listen to Don and you every day. The long commute through city traffic was filled with laughter and seemed to go far faster than one would expect given the miles we traveled on our way home. Fitting that radio was the medium to imagine a blind guy yucking it up at the SP Saints stadium (crazy fun). To this day I haven’t heard anything even closely comparative to the Vogel show. We miss him to this day near 30 years since he left us. Thanks for the memories Don Vogel!
Don gave Tommy Mischke the chance and Mischke took the baton and ran with it on radio. The Phantom Caller no more. I used to deliver pizza etc… to Don’s place in Highland Park and made sure not to tell anyone where he lived…upon his request. Great guy. He was a big Doors fan and once up at the Music Cafe next to Billy’s on Grand back in the 1990s, I performed Roadhouse Blues when TD Mischke had a little music show there on a regular basis and guest musicians, and I dedicated the song to Don as he was there that night…he was impressed and gave me a ‘standing O’! His words. Fond memory. Continue to Rest In Peace Don!!
I fondly remember listening to Don’s show when I was a work commuter. I think today is the first time I ever saw a picture of him.
Ditto, reader15
It was the mid 80s, my music tastes expanded to stuff I couldn’t find on FM radio, so I found AM talk radio.
Don Vogel was brilliant. And getting to know and appreciate all the radio hosts and supporting staff made for a great radio experience.
It was a very special time, thanks for being part of it.
^ The mid-80s… that got me thinking about another interesting host, Steve Cannon from ‘CCO. He was true talk-radio, if I recall correctly, he talked and you listened.
^ when Cannon retired, I didn’t care for his replacement. So I looked around and found Jason Lewis. I didn’t really like him, either (I was a liberal at the time), but he was interesting so I stuck with him. Big part of why I became a conservative.
I didn’t discover talk radio until 1991, so I missed Don’s first stint at KSTP with Mitch. However, being a Domino’s driver from 1992-1995, often working afternoon to close, left me lots of time to listen to the radio in the car. Back in those days, it was Souch, Don, Turi Ryder, Jason Lewis, and James Lileks who were my favorites. I chuckled at and agreed with Souch/Rookie, laughed my ass off at Don, pounded the steering wheel and cursed at Turi, agreed pretty much with everything Jason ever said (still do, even if his later work/books go beyond me on an academic level), and just flat out enjoyed the late night atmosphere Lileks created with his “Diner” shtick. (Side note: One of Lilek’s frequent callers, “Ted the pizza delivery vampire”, was one of my coworkers at the Dominos where I worked. I saw Lileks and I believe Hugh Hewitt or maybe Jason Lewis, at a gathering/presentation in downtown Mpls 20ish years ago. I was able to talk to James for a few minutes and brought up Ted, who he remembered with a laugh. Ted was as weird IRL as he was calling into the Diner. I told him, “After reading The Bleat and The Screed for a couple years, I don’t consider you a writer. I consider you a wordsmith who creates fine art out of letters and punctuation.”)
I received so much enjoyment from Don, that listening to him and his primary producer from the second stint, Dave Ruth (I believe he has also since passed away), convinced me that “hey, I could do that stuff, I oughta look into it”. I figured I could show how passionate I was about getting into radio, and get a job at KSTP with Don and Dave and join in the laughs. (How naive I was!)
I interviewed with some old guy at Brown Institute who apparently had seen and done it all in radio and then went on to teach it all. He gave me 30 seconds of coaching and suggestions and said “ok, now talk like a radio DJ”. Complete failure on my part, and I knew it. He didn’t say anything but handed me an application form to take home, fill out, and mail back in. It never got mailed back in.
I was getting tired of whoever it was subbing for Don for several weeks, and was heartbroken when I heard Souch announce in a shaky voice that he had passed. A friend of mine (who was as big of a fan of Don as I was) and I attended his funeral. After the service, we spoke to future Gov Ventura face to face for a few minutes about politics. His general take on everything back then was “it’s all bullshit”. I still have 2 well-worn Don Vogel t-shirts. “The Afternoon Saloon. D. Vogel, Proprietor” and “Don Vogel, Let A Blind Man Drive You Home”
Fun read Bill C…It seems somewhat a rarity today the ability to tune into radio and be purely entertained.
Pingback: Mark from Saint Louis Park | Shot in the Dark