by Bob Brill, author

I am so looking forward to being in Prescott, AZ, August 13th to talk about and sign copies of Lancer; Hero of the West - The Prescott Affair. The hotel is booked and I am excited about the prospects of meeting a few old friends and finding some new ones.

I looked at the Peregrine Book store on their web site and discovered it is just one block away from where I landed my first job in radio; KNOT Radio in Prescott, 1450 on the AM dial. That was March, 1972 and I still remember almost every detail of living there until I got fired and moved back to Los Angeles. I landed my second job at KVFM in the San Fernando Valley shortly thereafter.

KNOT was located at 145 N. Cortez in Prescott, just a few blocks from Whiskey Row. Peregrine is at 219 North Cortez, same side of the street. The building housing KNOT is now another business and the radio station moved to another location but the storefront still looks the same. The glass door on the left hand side, and real store front windows to peer in at the disc jockey and staff on duty. That was in the days of real local radio.

I was hired to be the 8pm-midnight disc jockey. I replaced The Great Topolovich. Rich Topolovich was our station engineer and hated being a disc jockey. He was glad I was hired. Soon though I was promoted to afternoon drive, baby sat the new night time jock (who was the GM's high school age son) did sports and news, sold local radio time and found time enough to write for the local paper; The Prescott Courier. You can still find some of my 1972 articles on-line in the paper's archives.

I will be on KNOT the morning of August 13th as a guest of Bo Woods, the program director and morning personality there. I'll be on for just a couple minutes so hopefully you'll just tune in and catch us. It's an oldies format which is fitting. Turns out we have a dozen mutual Face Book friends. He formerly worked for CBS in LA as I do now. He at KRTH, me at KNX and occasionally filling in at KRTH. 

It was a great little run at KNOT in 1972, and a wonderful experience. To Ben, Ruth, Gary, KC, Don, George, Bob Schlem (better known as Robert B. Goode) it was great. I won't mention the name of the general manager who fired me. I'm sure he's dead by now anyway but it was his loss.

Hope to see you on August 13th around 5:30 until 7:00 pm. I'll make sure to bring some Turkish Delight. For those of you who have read the book; you will understand. To the others? Well, you'll need to read it to find out.