Greaseman Greeting

Skip McCloskey Remembers:

It was the early '70s and I was just hired by NBC to work at The Great 98!
Since unions had their various rules, WRC was very unique in the fact that the jocks only turned their mic on and off and engineers did the rest.  I was to become one of those engineers...playing cue burnt 45s on 'rumblemaster' QRK turntables, shoving Fidelapac carts into RCA cart decks and running airchecks on Ampex 350 tape decks.
About 2 months of after doing various airshifts with different jocks, it was decided that I would settle into the 10pm-2am shift running the board for this new DJ that was hired....his name...The Greaseman.
 To make a long story short...that shift was what I looked forward to every night.  Working with The Grease was a ride that never stopped.  Back then, The Greaseman image was that of a mid-50ish, bald headed, under-shirt wearing derelict just killing time playing the hits to get a pay check to buy his next bottle.
The character was amazing considering that Grease (aka Doug Tracht) was a thin, sandy haired, sheepish 140 pound talent that you would have thought got beat up everyday at recess.  Even at 2am when we left the NBC building on Nebraska Ave in DC, there would be fans (females) in the lobby waiting to see The Greaseman.  The security guard would always ask us if The Grease was still around.  That was the opening for Doug to reveal himself...he never did.  His response was usually, "He went out the back door."  Since The Grease voice was radically different from what Doug would use, no one became suspicious.  After we were on the outside Doug would say to me, "Yeah Buddy...if I weren't married we'd both be......."  you can fill in the blank!  At the time Doug was married to his first wife.
 On the air bits delivered with split second timing and usually worked around the first line of the song that rolled under Grease's bosso profundo.  To work with him was amazing.  During a song he would gaze down at his feet deep in thought.  Just before the song playing would end he'd open the intercom and in his normal voice say,  "ah Skipper can we do T-3 into record 12?"  As the headphones were slid on his head and the on air sign lit, this booming voice would penetrate the control room with another story or wild fantasy that always left you wanting more.
One of the most memorable nights was July 4th 1973.  Since both of us were working, the hopes of catching a fireworks display was out of the question.  So that night I picked up some sparklers and rockets and at 2am we had our own little celebration.  As a matter of fact, there was one rocket that was never shot off.  Doug kept it in his possession until he left the area.  He then gave it to me as a remembrance of that night.  That's just the type of guy he is.
  I still have it and he'll get it back again.  By the way...how stable is gun powder after almost 30 years? 
I remember the day Grease was let go from the Great 98.  He was fired on a Friday afternoon but still allowed to do his show that night.  How many jocks are trusted that much?

After leaving The Great 98, Grease landed in Hartford to do mornings at WPOP. 
A couple years later POP changed to NBC's news format and Doug was once again screwed by the peacock.  Meanwhile WRC also went news and WKYS picked up the music slack on the FM side.  Doug was brought back to try out a two man morning show with Jack Harris.  The two were such strong personalities that the situation didn't work.  As a matter of fact, Grease didn't make it thru the trial week.  It was after Thursday's show that Gordon Peil told him to drop the voice, the Grease name and use his real name.  Doug wasn't really sure what to do.  That night he came over to my apartment.  We heated up some Franco-American spaghetti and listened to Greaseman airchecks from his previous employment at WRC.  I'll never forget that night.  After about 45 minutes of listening to The Grease antics at the Great 98, Doug looked at me with his eyes misty and said, "Skip, I've put too much into Grease to give him up now."  With that he picked up the phone and called Gordon.      He never did that last Friday show! 
Years went by and I got WAPE airchecks in the mail.  Then it happened...

THE GREASEMAN WAS COMING BACK TO DC!