Gene "Bean" Baxter (center) at WPGC in 1983.
Glenn Beck (upper left) as part of the team at WPGC.
Now that Glenn Beck has frighteningly become a powerful force in politics -- leading now to the resignation of two officials -- folks like Salon are looking deeper into his background as a morning zoo DJ.
That's right -- before he was a cable TV news blowhard, Beck was a drive time DJ (and once you realize that, it's obvious how that morning zoo background still comes out in what he does now).
In 1983, Beck was at legendary Washington, D.C. top 40 (now urban) WPGC. Also there at the same time was a young Gene Baxter, now known as "Bean" on KROQ's wildly popular "Kevin & Bean" morning show.
I asked Bean whether he remembered much about working with Beck, and he emailed back:
I have a notoriously poor memory and only remember that for a while I was doing 6-10pm (I replaced Don Geronimo) and Glenn followed me from 10 p.m. - 2 a.m.
He was extremely arrogant then, but he was only 19 years old and on the air full-time in Washington D.C., so maybe I can’t blame him. I guess I was 3 or 4 years older. I remember him as a very good top 40 deejay though.
He also smoked funny little clove cigarettes, back when one was allowed to smoke on the air, and they were pretty nasty.
Check out Salon's three-part series (yes, three-part series) on Glenn Beck's origins as a top 40 DJ, starting here.
And in case you haven't seen it yet, check out Beck as a zany morning zoo DJ in Phoenix 25 years ago:
Beck later branded that monkey a Commie and threw him in a pot of boiling water.
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