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One advantage of being the Old Fart on the Staff is that you've had more time
to accumulate the kind of strange life experiences that disc jockeys live
for. Here's a short list of a few of them, all true:
-Dale Berry's
father was a race car driver, and his mother was a trophy girl.
-A
sixties child and a seventies teenager, Dale lived in six different states
(some twice!) throughout the USA before he was fifteen.
-After High
School, he traveled as a carnival sideshow barker, learning the
craft from
Bobby Reynolds, "America's Greatest Living Carnival Showman"(who has
lectured on the art at the Smithsonian Institute).
-Dale once worked
as an usher at the Embassy Theater, one of the original
movie "grindhouses"
on San Francisco's Market Street. Now demolished, it featured
a triple
feature for 99 cents daily, with the marquee changed three times a
week, and
a wheel-of-fortune game ('Ten-O-Win') live onstage every night.
Dale's seen
as much exploitation cinema as Quentin Tarantino, and unlike QT, can
actually pronounce Hong Kong film director Liu Chia Liang's name correctly.
(Incidentally, the band Faith No More used to rehearse upstairs.)
-
The legendary blues musician Pinetop Perkins, backstage at a John Lee
Hooker
concert, once told Dale, quote, "You're nothin' but a San Francisco hoodlum
out for a good time," unquote. Whereupon, he stole Dale's roach and walked
off on the arms of two women in shiny, purple Orlon wigs.
-Dale found
out the hard way, after a one-time flirtation with international
piracy in
South America involving too many shots of "leche de tigre"(pisco &
chili
sauce), fried octopus, machine guns and Columbianos, that it wasn't
against
the law to smuggle Peruvian baking soda into the United States. (He
could've just taken the train to Macchu Picchu, but that year the Maoist
Shining
Path guerrillas were decapitating tourists 40 miles outside of town.
Thanks,
Lima, for making 1983 so memorable.)
-Dale spent most of his
twenties working as a concert stagehand. He's been a
spotlight operator for
Ray Charles, KISS, Aerosmith, Chaka Khan, Sammy Hagar,
the Ice Capades,
Howie Mandel, Merle Haggard, the Preservation Hall Jass
Band, the Tommy
Dorsey Orchestra, Twisted Sister and Dio, amongst many others.
-Dale's
been a professional independent comic book writer/artist since the
eighties. His first book, NINJA FUNNIES, sold 35,000 copies. His current
graphic novel series, TALES OF THE MOONLIGHT CUTTER, is being marketed for
Film &
TV development. It's available through your local comic shop.
-Dale taught fencing at Cal State University Bakersfield, having studied
the
blade for over 26 years. He's conversant in French & Italian foil,
Italian
epee & Hungarian saber, and has studied classical rapier &
dagger, kendo,
Shotokan karate and Yang-style tai chi chuan, plus a
smattering of Filipino escrima,
JKD, Chinese jian techniques and a few
others.
-Dale has worked as a DJ for jazz & soul, classic rock,
AOR, hard rock, &
active rock radio, and the strip-club chain Deja Vu.
He still remembers which
porn stars like what hair-metal bands, won't repeat
your tunes for the other
girls and knows to keep your lights low.
-Dale is the exclusive artist for KRZR's Wild Hare, having created the
Hare's
original image and over thirty T-shirt & bumper sticker designs.
(Check 'em
out, and maybe order a few, by clicking on the 'Goodies' link
above.)
-Dale was married in the Caribbean West Indies, in the smallest
country in
the world. In the 16th century, a slave revolt on this island
created the very
first Pirates of the Caribbean. Dale's wife is an
award-winning screenwriter
& novelist.
-You can hear Dale's show
on KRZR, Saturday nights, 6PM-12 midnight, and
Sunday evenings, 4 -9PM.
Consider yourself warned... |
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© 2008