When CHOM was Home - The Stairmaster

It was fairly usual as a news anchor at CHOM to have celebrities in the studio with us at news time. In most cases, the assorted rock stars would be waiting for the live newscast to end before going on the air for an interview with the announcer. Sometimes at news time, artists would be warming up for a musical performance after the newscast and, once I was done reading, I would conveniently linger.

David Bowie, Slash, Burton Cummings, Train, I was never sure, aside from murmurs in the hallways, who I would discover in the studio at news time. Regardless of who I met in there, I'm proud to say that I was able to deliver the news coherently and credibly. After I had finished, many of the famous visitors would compliment me, or offer a reaction to a story I had read. Cool.

Without being indiscreet, I can tell you I have been poked, prodded, pinched and tickled while reading newscasts. Once, in the middle of a newscast, I glanced over at Too Tall to see two long pencils dangling from his nostrils!

Before we had computer screens to read the news, we used paper. I would leave the weather forecast on a piece of paper in the studio when I finished, so that it would be there on the news table when I returned to read the newscast an hour later. One day while I was reading a paper forecast on the air, Al Gravelle once reached over with his lighter and set it on fire.

One colleague sprayed me with a fire extinguisher while I was reading a newscast and the late Harry Schaffer would lob crumpled paper balls at me. The paper balls were manageable. It was only when one of them made a direct hit on the microphone that we would wince as we heard the deep “thump” in our headphones.

Still, I mostly managed to deliver the news coherently and credibly.

I had my kryptonite, however, and he was Marty Lamarre.

Music Director Neil Kushnir, DJ Paul Beauregard, members of The Cult and the "Stairmaster" on the far right

Marty and I played a lot of hockey together and made a lot of music. I would play guitar and he would play drums.

Whenever he was working the same shift as me at the radio station, I would implore and desperately beg him not to do his stair routine while I was on the air reading news.

In the middle of my newscast, he would sometimes jump up from his chair across from me and pretend he was going down stairs while flashing a goofy grin and frantically waving his hand at me. Then, of course, with great glee, he would pretend to come back up the stairs.

If he did it, I would lose it. And he knew it.

When I saw him at the CHOM 50^th anniversary a few weeks ago, he had forgotten about it. I wish I could. It still causes me nightmares.

I would have serious news stories to read and would beg him not to do the stairs! I would sit in the news chair reading from the computer screen while holding a piece of paper, or an article of clothing, up in front of me so that I wouldn’t be able to see Marty. If any part of him made it into my field of vision, I would inevitably imagine the rest of his antics and promptly lose it – when CHOM was home.