Rufio's Radio Journey

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rufio, thank you for taking a break from eating your
your Culver's cheese curd. It's a burger with a cheese curd,
you guys. It has an actual cheese curd, a giant
cheese curd on the burger from Culver's Um the Kurder Burger. Yeah,
that would make sense considering it's a cheese curd on
the burger. It's delicious. Yeah, but thank you for breaking
from that. This is this is the day of your

(00:21):
dreams because you just ate a Kurder Burger and now
you get to come in here and talk about yourself
for twenty minutes on the Tangent. Let's do it. It's
the Tangent with the bread show. We couldn't talk about
on air, So I'm not sure how this happened. I
still think you were supposed to go first, Kalin and
then Rufio. We started on the same day. Well anyway,

(00:41):
I thought you were supposed to go first. But anyway,
that's fine, So so Rufio. Now we're doing a series,
that's what they call it, like in the in the
in the content world, because we're creators and we're doing
a series on different members of the staff and sort
of the backstory and how everything started. So we started
with Kiki, our newest member. Then Jason learned a little
bit about how Jason got here, and then Rufio is

(01:03):
going next, and then calin no, I have to eat something,
and then Paulina, I'm busy. Yeah I do too. I
have to eat during mine as well. Um. So, Rufio,
I have known you since day one, and you have
technically been here what six months longer than me? Um?
I know. I mean I've been here for fifteen years.
Oh yeah, like almost, well almost at least a year,

(01:25):
the longest tenured Kiss FM employee in this building. So yeah,
I'm the longest running morning show host ever like the
history of the radio. I think since like we started
putting electricity through metal, I think I'm the last and
the longest. But that's good. So is it you and me?
Oh I'm kiss it's you and me? Yeah? Wow? All right?
So you how did it all? How did it all start?

(01:48):
It was? It was a night in a manger. Your mom,
you know, gave birth to you, the virgin Mary, and
then someone handed you a Culver's Kurderberger and the rest
is sister, I mean, what do you guys want to know, Like,
I don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to
tell this, stuy, So how did you you? I'll do
the Oprah interview don't work, okay, So how did you
At what point did you decide, after your criminal ways
and your your lengthy rap sheet and and whatever else,

(02:11):
how did you decide that it was going to be
radio um. At the time, I was like yeah, like
two thousand and five, two thousand and six, I was
working for Coca Cola. I was a merchandiser, which is
the person that stocks the shelves at your local jewel
and target. And Dominic's back in the day. Is that
in the middle of the night. No, it's in the
early early ast morning. And then sometimes you have to

(02:32):
go back so you know, like the people that put
up the end calf displays in those displays like it's
football Sea that was fucking me. Okay, Yeah, So we
go there and stock the shelves because like it was
the contract, like jewel employees never stock the shelves of
like the like the products of soda, you know what
I'm saying. So you have to go there, pull out

(02:52):
the palets full of twenty four packs and whatever, cans
and bottles and everything and stock everything up and face
it so it makes it look nice. And then sometimes
you have to go back because jewels always busy because
it's always on sale, so they have to go back twice.
I had like, um whatever, like um, five or six
stores a day. You would check in and drive to
these locations. They'd all be in the same area, and
then that was it. And at that time, I was

(03:14):
doing a lot of driving, obviously, store to store, and
I was listening to Kiss FM was a station I
listened to the most, and I listened to, you know,
the morning show was you know Dres at the time,
and then afternoons with Ty Bentley and Nina Chantelle in
the mid days, and then commercial would play all the
time for the Illinois Broadcast School whatever it's called the

(03:37):
Illinois Media School nowadays, but uh, I forgot what's called
back in the day, but um, yeah, it would be like,
you want to be on the radio, Do you think
you could do it? This and that? And I was
just like, I think I could do it, you know
what I'm saying. Like I always thought of myself as
the funny one of my friends you know what I'm saying,
like the jokes at and stuff like that, and the
one that's always talking and and whatever and just having fun.
And I was like, oh, I think I could do this.

(03:57):
So I went to the whatever to school in Lombard
and school, Um it is a no, it's a ten
month program. Okay, yeah, who teaches that stuff? It varies,
there's there's different I don't even remember my instructor's names
at the time, Like I don't remember, but they were
somewhat in radio or they were like producers or like

(04:18):
they've been in radio before. Radio personality taught me at
the Yeah you went there too, Yeah is my teacher
that's a legitimate teacher, right yeah. I was kind of wondering,
like who's teaching this now? There are some shady one
yes right right yeah right. So like, um, the school,
it was like January I started and um, you know

(04:41):
the first day of class, you know, there was probably
twenty of us in the class, like nineteen guys and
one girl. Wow. Well it was like the start. The
school just started doing like sports, like radio, so like
the sports and I was just like no, like radio,
like I want to be this. And then the teach.
I forgot his name. I don't know what he does

(05:02):
or what he does now or what he did. He
was just like, UM, I'm gonna let you know right now,
you're not gonna get a job. You graduate here, you're
not gonna get a job in market three Like guaranteed
you're not gonna get a job. And like I took
that personal, like like oh, like Michael Jordan took that personal, right.
I took that personally. So I was like, all right,
let's you know. So the school is great. They teach

(05:24):
you the basics of radio and TV because you took
both classes and stuff like that. Some people were more
involved in TV and I want to do radio. And
then you had to get an internship as part of
the school credit and bulletin board of the thing and
had every radio station there and I was like, oh,
kiss them. That's station I listened to and that's the
only station I apply to. And uh got an interview.

(05:46):
I dressed up into a suit and everything. I had
to come down. I was living in the burbs, had
to come down interview here. Actually we all know or
gm BT who's now you know she was She's the
one that interviewed me and hired me. I didn't know that. Yeah,
she was like, uh, you know, the assistant to whatever.

(06:08):
She was in charge of hiring the interns at the time.
And I interviewed with her and I got a summer
internship and I was in the programming side. So I
interned for My first internship was with mac at Knight,
who's uh down to Florida now, but he was he
was the night guy and I was uh interned with him.

(06:28):
And he's the one that gave me my radio name
Rufio because I used to I used to have a
red mohawk at the time, so I looked like Rufio
from the movie Hook. Uh it's not my real name. Uh,
so that that stuck out obviously to this day. And
then just did that and um just and I interned
for like the afternoon show, and I helped Nina Chantelle
out everything, and I just, um, that was like a

(06:51):
supposed to be like a three month internship. I turned
it into a six month internship. So the whole time
I was in school, I was here, like and the
school talked you the basics, but you really I really
learned a lot being at the radio station. Like I
worked with the production people. I worked in programming for
the summer, like um, we had a thing called the Whale.
It was a big bus. It was like a tour

(07:15):
bus and we'd have to go into locations. No personalities
on this bus, just just interns and we would hand
out swag it like we go to festivals and carnivals
and stuff like that. And then the big thing was
branded on the side to Kiss FM Whale and that
was my first promotions thing that I did there. And
then after my internship was done, I was graduating school

(07:38):
and I applied for a job. The only job available
was traffic, like traffic reporting, like you know the roadways,
and I got a job doing that, so it was
a part time employee. I just have been a suit
again for that interview and then M yeah, So I
was doing overnight traffic reporting like looking at the roadways,

(08:00):
you know, travel times, this and that. And then that
led to being a morning show traffic producer for Fox
thirty two because our traffic department is intertwined with with
their traffic So I was the guy doing the graphics
and putting travel times up. When Sandra Solarte was the
U the UH she was doing the traffic she was,

(08:20):
and I'd she'd be like up the Eisenhower and then
she'd like on the Kennedy. I would have to hit
the like I was the one changing the graphics, changing
the travel times. I would tell the helicopter where to go,
the helicopter the power. The helicopter took off from Chambre,
the Chambreg airport, and then be like, where do we
go and it's like, oh, there's traffic on the northbound
two ninety four over here. And then they'd be like,

(08:41):
you want a wide shot. I'd tell them, like, yo,
get the northbound traffic going this way. And then I'd
have to write the graphic for it, like this is
a look at the two ninety four at whatever road.
And so I did that for a couple of years,
and then I kept putting together demos and stuff like that,
like a radio demo and uh. And then in it

(09:02):
was two thousand nine, fourth of July two thousand and nine,
five o'clock in the morning. It was my first ever
on air shift. I think only Jess and her family
were listening. Um and yeah, like I said, I that
that CD's got to be somewhere. I think I recorded
I gotta find it. It's terrible, that's really yeah, Like

(09:23):
I blacked out. I don't remember what I said the
first break and and it was it was I was
not good like I was, you know, it was well,
I was nervous every time, you know what I'm saying.
And then, uh, the PD at the time was just
like hey man. We would have air checks every week
and be like, hey, you gotta get better. Like, yeah,
it was you know, it was Rick Vaughn. Rick Vaughn

(09:45):
was Yeah. I started with Gillette with he was he
was the PD at the time, and then when I
first got on air, it was Rick Vaughn and he
was cool, super cool. It was like very insightful, and
it's like hey man, it's like you gotta stop doing this.
You gotta have you have crutches and this and that,
and I was like all right, and then he's like
at one point he was just like, hey man, if
this isn't getting better, I'm gonna I gotta take you
off the weekends. And then so like I, you know,

(10:06):
dug deep and made it better. And then from then
I was doing weekends on the regular, and then I
started also producing the Ryan Seacrest Show. At the same time,
and then from weekends it went to overnights, and then
from overnights led to the night show. And at one
point you were producing another morning show in the building,
right briefly try Oh my god, I can remember that.

(10:27):
I remember that because I remember you'd come down and
I don't have to say who, but you were like right,
But these people, I mean, they truly hated each other, Yes,
they did. It was it was one of our sisters stations.
Shout out to Tony Coles, who was just actually here
last week. He gave me my first full time job
as a producer for this radio another our sister radio station,
and the morning show there. Uh. They for the longest

(10:50):
time they were doing syndicated morning shows and then they
decided to go local. And these two people hated each other.
And I was in the middle of it. Wow, And
I was so stressed out. It was, um, I was
here like whatever, like a morning show, and they hated
each other. And it was the most most tension I've
ever seen, like in a room. And I'm sitting there

(11:10):
running the board like please, please don't kill each other today,
you know, And you would have to like be peacemaker too.
Right a lot of times, right, Like I was trying
to tell him. He's like, hey, guys, like you know,
because I felt like they were both alpha's, you know,
like like there wasn't I was trying to be like
an example, like you know, there's usually a lead host
and then the co host and this, and then they're like, no,

(11:32):
we do this, And I was like, guys, and there
was a guy and a girl. Yeah, and they were both,
um they wanted to be the star of the show.
And then there's little Roofield that wasn't allowed to talk
on the show, just pushing buttons and just like hey,
wrap it up, like get to get out of this,
play the music and stuff like that. Um yeah, that lasted,

(11:53):
I don't know, less than a year. But then you
got nights and then not to like bring up a
sore subject, but then they took it away from you. Correct.
You know. I thought I was doing pretty well, you know,
I would have meetings all the time, and the ratings
were doing well, and the nights was fun. It was
a lot of fun, you know, to be on Chicago,
like your hometown, you know, doing nights and and then
one day they're just like, hey, man, we're gonna make

(12:15):
a change. And I was like okay, but I wasn't
let go. I was still doing production work. And that's
when I was like a little loss in my radio career.
I was just like I thought, you know, I wanted
to do a solo show. I always wanted to be
a solo show, you know what I'm saying. I wanted
to be my own dude. And then I was just
stuck doing production work, behind the scenes work. And then

(12:38):
it was MJ, the former producer for Fred Angie, was leaving,
and I just started I said, Hey, it's gonna come
in here. Like I was just like, I'm just gonna
start coming in the morning, like I'm gonna, you know,
just come here every morning, just pee bart of the
show was it was Fred Angie, m J and Paulina
at the time and Joffrey, and I was just like, Hey,

(12:59):
I'm just gonna learn from what MJ does and just
just not even say anything on the show. Just be
a part of the show. If they asked me to
be on the show, be part of the show, and
um yeah. And then that turned into this and then
turned into uh the job I do now, so uh yeah,
like I like I was. That was probably the darkest

(13:19):
in radio, like getting taken off a show and being
like with no real explanation why. I was just like,
I was like, what am I? Like, what am I
still here? Like I'm in my thirties, Like I stayed
here locally just because I have family and and and
Jess and and everything here, Like I didn't do the
traditional radio of bouncing from market to market because I

(13:41):
got started in radio later I was in my late
twenties and you know, and then uh yeah, and I
felt like I took that sacrifice of not traveling, not
looking for jobs outside of Chicago, and and then when
they took the night show away from me, I was
just like, what am I gonna do? Like like I'm
sitting here like I'm you know, I I want to
get married, like I want to do this, I want

(14:02):
to have a family listening. I was like, I can't
do it just doing what I'm doing, so uh yeah.
And then like I said, I started just coming in
joining Fred and Angie in the morning, and then it,
you know, it turned into this and then I officially
started on the same day when they hired Klin, so
like two days after my wedding, and then and then yeah,

(14:23):
so I've been on the officially on the Fred Show
for five years now. Hell yeah, yeah, yeah nice, Hell yeah,
you really upgrade it. Okay, I thought they would take
itself from you. But look see that's like I don't
know spiritually, but like as God's redirection, you know what
I'm saying. You don't see it at the moment the time.
That tends to happen for people who you know, work
hard and have a good attitude and stink with it

(14:45):
and are just generally attempted to try, I think, to
be a good person. It's like, you know, Doris will
close and you'll get down. I can't tell you how
many jobs I thought I wanted that I didn't get,
including one and two one at a competitor and one
here another day part, and I was I wanted the
afternoon job here. And Tony Coles, the guy who was
running things who brought you in um at one point

(15:07):
at the other station, he uh, he was like not
not now, not this one. And I'm like, are you
fucking kidding me? Like you got a chance, Like you're
my boy, and you get a chance to bring me
to Chicago. You're not gonna do it. He's like, not yet,
and I'm like, you got to me. And I was
so angry with him for that, And then a year
later he had something better. Yeah, and he knew that
all along. He knew that I needed to be patient

(15:28):
and I needed to keep working at what I was doing.
And so but easy to say, because I know for
some people, they believe they work hard and are good
people on the doors don't always open. But like I
would say, more often than not, if you're if you
stay positive and keep your eyes open for the opportunities,
that usually it works out the way that it should.
At least it has for me and it has for

(15:48):
you and a lot of people in this room. I think, yeah,
but you got to ride out the lows, you know.
Oh yeah, I got to ride out the lows. I
got passed of, like uh, you know. The night job
was opened probably like three times since I've been here,
and I applied every time, and they're like, you know,
we're gonna go with this person. We're going with this person.
Then the last time they're like, we're gonna go with you.
And I was like all right, cool. And then and

(16:09):
then like a year later, this like we're gonna go
with someone like you know, There's there's a lot to
that story too. I don't want to talk about it
on this on this podcast here, but if you'd bailed
and been like, screwed, I'm gonna go work at you know,
Hurt Trend a car or whatever, then then this never
happens because you quit and you weren't here, and then
somebody else gets in um and so you stuck with

(16:29):
it and you kept a good attitude about it, which
is hard for a lot of people to do, especially
you know, because this becomes part of your identity and
the thought of losing something that was important to you
and relatively high profile and then continuing to work at
the same place. One thing. If you get fired, you know,
and then you're gone, and then you have to go
somewhere else to rebuild. It's another thing for them to

(16:49):
say we're taking we're essentially demoting you. But you still
work here and get to walk the holes and watch
the next guy do your gig, you know, and fail miserably. Yeah, well, hey,
I'll say it. I don't care whatever failed miserably, but yeah, no,
it was. It's it's been a long journey, like I said,

(17:10):
and you're not still about I'm not wanting to talk
because I hold I hold grudges, I'm not wanted to talk.
I'm I have similar attitudes as you about a lot
of things, right, And it like you'd always hear it
from like my family. My family would always say like, oh,
it's like it's like you know when you when you're
gonna get your own show? You know what I'm saying,

(17:30):
I'm like a pressure even when I joined the frend show,
Like they're like, don't you want your own shows? I
was like I was like like that that used to
be my mentality, Like you gotta make it, you know,
you gotta be the man because to us exactly, being
a part of a team and dynamic, this big and
this successful right like I picked this shit any day,
right exactly, and the fact that we're winning and I'm

(17:53):
a part of that, it just makes it so much
better than just trying to make it on your own.
Like it's it's I feel like, you know, it's more
important to be part of this this show than it
is to be a solo person. You know well, And
I would support any of you who wanted to have
your own show into your own thing. I mean, it's
happened obviously here. But I will say, and this is
not there's nothing to do with with Angie leaving or whatever.
But like, I do think that there are people who

(18:17):
are U you know, who's who, who excel at leading
or or at like hosting and and and throwing the
ball um, and then there are people who excel at
catching the ball and you know, elevating that content and
elevating their opportunity. And I think it's two different skills. Yeah,
And I think just because you're really good at one
doesn't mean that you're going to be really good at

(18:38):
the other. And now that's not to say you can't
do both. Some people have succeeded in doing both. But
I don't know that I would be a very good
sidekick because I don't. I don't I'm not that funny.
I'm not that. I don't know. I think I'm much
better at sort of managing the room than I am
being the person who you know, the spotlights on you
now do something funny right now, you know, or whatever.

(18:59):
And I think that's a ski in itself, you know,
having the timing to know when to step in and
when to sit back, and I mean that all of
that is um and I think people forget you. I
can think of a ton of examples of people who
wound up being bigger than the host on a show
by being a sidekick and becoming more invaluable than you know,
people who they wind up, their careers wind up. You know,

(19:20):
maybe they'll make as much money, but their careers in
the long term last longer because they created an identity
for themselves, you know, in their own way. I think
people lose sight of that. It's like, I gotta be
the host to make a lot of money. I got
to be the host to be famous. I gotta be
the host to get endorsements and for people advertisers to
want to know you don't. In fact, some people are
better off not doing that. But you know, I also

(19:42):
appreciate people who want to try. But if it's ego
that makes you want to try, that's different than ambition,
you know what I mean. Like, if you want to
try because you want to show everybody you're wrong, or
because you want your name to go first, that's the
wrong reason. If it's ambition, I want to try and
I'm willing to fail, that's another thing. Um, but yeah,
I don't think you know that. But that's the funny

(20:03):
part about um, you know, family and friends or whatever.
It's like, my mom thinks I'm better than Ryan Seacrest.
My mom cannot understand why I'm not. You know, I
don't know, and it's like it just doesn't doesn't work
that way. Yeah, but yeah, they're always like, yeah, you
don't want to do it on your own. So it's like,
you know, I did my toe every once in a
while doing a weekend shift or fill in it for Shelley,

(20:24):
but that's it, Like, yo, I don't it's a lot right,
I want it. Also, Yeah, as I think Angie's learning
and I won't speak for her, but I think you
know it whether it if you're the guy leading or
the girl leading, then it no matter what everybody else does,
good or bad, it's it's it's your fault, you know.

(20:45):
And I don't think everybody wants to deal with that.
I don't think you know, they don't they call me
and say fix it, you know what I mean. It's like,
don't get me wrong, that's something I'm getting better at managing.
But like, I don't think everybody wants to do that, UM,
I don't think everybody wants to be uh. When it's bad,
it's your fault. When it's good, it's their fault kind of.
I mean that there's a lot of that. Everybody takes

(21:06):
credit for the good and nobody takes credit for the bad.
But at the end of the day, you know, one
person is ultimately accountable, and I guess it's me, But
I'll take it. You wanna why because I get to
sit in a box with no windows with you guys
every day. Do you have any regrets through FIO? Is
there anything looking back that you would have done differently? Um?
Or did this wind up this end up exactly as

(21:27):
you hoped it would? You know? Like it's um, I
don't know. That's hard to say. Like I feel like
everything happened for a reason, you know. I feel like
maybe if I would have tried to get a different
market in a different city, I don't know if i'd
ever be back, you know what I'm saying, Like, obviously
that's the end goal. That's Chicago's where I'm from. Obviously
that's the end goal to get back here. But I

(21:47):
don't know if that would ever have happened. And I
don't you know, radio wise, I don't think I would
have done anything differently like, but so you lucked out.
A couple of you lucked out who didn't have to leave,
because most of the time you don't get to start
in Chicago, La New York. You don't get to start,

(22:07):
and most of the time you have to go create
value for yourself in places that you don't want to go. Right.
In this case, though, it worked out that some of
you didn't have to do that, and I'm happy for
you you didn't have to do that, But in some
ways I regret that for you, because you know, you
do gain some perspective. True, you know, as much as
we complain about certain things being in market number three,

(22:28):
you will realize how good you've got it when you
go to market fifty yea, especially these days, you know.
So I don't know as much as I complain about
stuff in you know, tongue in cheeks sometimes I'm serious,
but I look back on how my career started and
I think, well, this is way better than that. Right.
I looked at it sometimes as well, like when I
was doing just weekends here at Kiss FM, I'd be like,

(22:49):
you know, there's someone that's in market fifty that would
lock places with me weekends whatever. They could be a
morning show doing whatever in that market, but they would
take weekends and Chicago over what they're doing. And that's
the way I looked at it. Obviously, my journey was
a lot longer, just because I decided to stay here
and work it out and take the lows and go

(23:09):
to highs and stuff like that. But I feel like
it worked out in the end. Yeah, yeah, well we're
glad it did. And uh, I would say ninety nine
point nine nine eight percent of the time, I'm glad
that it did for you. And then there's point oz two,
thank you, but even but even the point zero two
is okay, you know what I mean, because now we're

(23:30):
family and you're stuck with me and I'm stuck with you.
That's the way it goes. His burger is getting cold,
and I'm surprised this one didn't a part two? Do
I need to go? You know? The only way fail
would love me to go for another part. The only
way that we could get and I love you, Rufia,
but the only way we could pry him away from
that burger was to talk about himself. That was the

(23:50):
only way, So there it is, and there's the tangent,
and thank you for listening, and we'll we'll do the
we'll finish the series here in the next couple of
weeks too. On everybody and there subscribe, like tell your
friends and and uh, I don't know, fuck off how
to get that