Who is doing the morning drive at KIMN ?
And so, as I was saying on the radio before I was abruptly interrupted. It’s not much of a secret in Denver, Colorado, or across the United States of America, or all the ships at sea as we go to press because I made national news. I got canned, tapped out, knocked out, booted, clipped, excused, asked to leave, dumped, “Bain Capitaled” (Bain Capital is the owner of Clear Channel radio for those who don’t know). Bain is now fondly known as the “Mack the Knife” corporation with a pink slip. Recently across America, Bain Capital has made more hits than the mafia.
So as I was saying, they asked me to go home like I was the kid who drew the picture of the handgun in the third grade. I had the inexcusable behavior of grabbing a lifelong friend and co-worker, who I really do see as a son, by the lanyard. I do own this, I did this; I grabbed his lanyard and pulled him to me. That act has been declared by Bain as workplace violence. Does anyone have any idea how much sadness Bain Capital, as a venture capitalist firm, has brought to the world? The destruction of families, family incomes, housing losses and everything that goes with it. These people now have the right to deem me as reportedly violent.
The producer who I grabbed and I had breakfast together the next morning at Zaidy’s. He was also not allowed back in the building. If I was the kid who drew the gun, he pretended he was a superhero. And thus that part of the story ends.
It took Bain Capital 10 days to decide my fate, and I now believe that they were waiting for my contract to expire. (And remember from The Godfather, Tessio was always smarter — I was Luca Brasi and got to sleep with the fishes). I had been in negotiations about my contract, which happened to expire a week after the incident, and they were trying to hand me a drastic reduction in pay. The day my contract expired I received a phone call from a fellow employee who had been told by one of the top senior supervisors at Clear Channel that I was about to be brought back that day to sign papers and go back to the job on Monday morning.
Then after waiting three hours for that phone call that never came I called the senior supervisor’s cell phone. He did not answer his phone so I left him a message and right before end of business on Friday he sent me a simple text message that read, “Everything is on hold until Monday.”
And then of course everything went black. On that Friday night at midnight my contract expired and on the next Monday afternoon I got a phone call to go into the lobby of Clear Channel and waited there to be escorted to the basement where I was fired after 26 years with zero severance pay and a month’s health benefits. I was told that if I filed for unemployment it would be denied because I was fired for workplace violence. That was the last I’ve ever heard from Clear Channel.
As Kurt Vonnegut said, “And so it goes.” I requested that no one walk me out of the building and the HR woman who I absolutely love walked with me to my car and I gave her my pass so I could never re-enter the building. I was never allowed to go back to my desk to pick up anything that was mine. Instead Bain Channel boxed up everything and sent it to my house. Unbelievable and a very unnecessary expense.
So let’s recap. I OWN WHAT I DID BY GRABBING THE SHEIK’S LANYARD. I’m not a victim, I’ve never been a victim and don’t plan on being a victim now. And before anyone starts feeling sorry for me or have a sorrowful thought about me, please don’t. Instead feel sorry for people who Bain Capital destroyed when they crushed their jobs in industrial communities all over America. Bain destroyed their futures, their retirements and the lives of their children. Those are the people who deserve your sadness — it sure as hell isn’t me.
I don’t put fault on anyone at the Colorado headquarters of Clear Channel. These are really good people who are just doing their job. (Remember in Cool Hand Luke when the guard is walking Luke to the hot box and he says, “Luke I’m just doing my job.” To which Luke responds, “If that makes you feel better.”) The owners of Bain Capital sleep with baggies of their native soil in New York, California, and of course Texas.
Inside of Bain Channel radio exists a culture of fear. The people in that building who are in charge are scared to death and the people they are in charge of have been made to fear that their jobs could disappear as well at any moment. And the people who are in charge of the people outside of Bain Channel are also scared to death because the handful of bosses, the oligarchs of Bain, are scared to death. These are the robber barons of their own empire.
They really are afraid of a handful of people who have no idea what radio is about but they know the billions of dollars of debt that they burdened Clear Channel with will eventually destroy what’s left of the radio landscape. Bain has no idea what love of the radio business can give to people and what people can give that business in return. I loved doing radio. For me it was not “work” doing a radio show four hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year.
American business is now in the hands of malefactors like Bain Capital, massive banking firms, Wall Street, the oil businesses and multi-national companies. Our government has become truly frightening. If you are wondering how your government views you just look at all the recent scandals. Look at 12 years of senseless wars that have taken the lives of so many fine young Americans. And politicians claim Richard Snowden is the enemy? Oh my God.
What happened to me was peanuts. I’m fine.
I’m not done yet. I’ve had some people whisper in my ear about jobs. In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator — “I’ll be back.”
See you on the radio.
Peter
....At around 8 a.m. on May 23, when a 9News crew was in the studio to witness Tom Tancredo declaring his candidacy for governor in 2014, Boyles says he and producer Greg Hollenback, nicknamed the Sheik of Cherry Creek, got into an argument that led to Boyles yanking him by a lanyard around his neck. Hollenback wound up with red marks on his neck. Afterward, the dust-up was reported to KHOW supervisors, who suspended Boyles that day before firing him just over a week later...At the time of the confrontation with Hollenback, Boyles and Clear Channel had been involved in protracted contract negotiations that had stalled...
Denver has one of the largest concentrations of local radio outlets in the country. I'm not surprised that Boyles found a new gig so quickly. The now-former morning jock Steve Kelley may want to update his resume.
I’m sure Bain was not influenced to release Boyles when they had an opportunity because of his broadcasting of interviews with “birfers”...
KNUS needs a stronger signal though, I hear a lot of intermittent static on my way to work.
I don’t know who this guy is, but it sounds like he was at fault here.
Good to hear. Peter isn’t perfect in all his views but he is a standup guy that will tell it to you straight.