Is it for real or is it a radioland put-on to snare a sliver of an additional rating point? That`s the question Chicago listeners are asking about the 5:20 p.m. walkout Tuesday by WLS radio personality Steve Dahl.
”I guarantee this is no put-up job,” said sportscaster Les Grobstein, who was in the studio at the time. ”This thing is for real.”
Dahl, who has a well-earned reputation as the creative wild man of afternoon Chicago radio, abandoned his microphone and studio 100 minutes early, leaving it to an invading Larry Lujack, the station`s morning personality known for his animal stories.
In January, Dahl and Lujack will shift time slots, a move Dahl, whose contract is up in February, says he is not happy about.
The on-air exchange between the two went like this:
Lujack (to Grobstein): ”Do you love me?”
Dahl: ”Larry, please don`t interrupt us.”
Lujack: ”There really are a lot of lies on this show.”
Dahl: ”If you want to do this, do it on your own show. Larry, really, just get out. Either that or I leave.”
Lujack: ”I want to see if you can break my leg before I ram your head against the wall. (Dahl and his associate Garry Meier leave). Hey, Steve, can`t you take a joke? Can`t you take what you`ve been dishing out for the last five years?”
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The two have been clashing for the last month, Grobstein said. Lujack says Dahl regularly makes sport of him over the air waves.
”He rags me day after day,” Lujack said. ”Steve dumps on everybody.”
Lujack said he confronted Dahl on Thanksgiving Day while Dahl was on the air.
”I walked in and asked him what all the hostility was about,” Lujack said, adding that the two agreed to talk about their differences at 7 p.m. Tuesday, after Dahl`s show.
But while Lujack was driving home from the studio Thanksgiving Day, he said, he heard Dahl threaten on the air to break his leg if he walked in on Dahl`s show again. So Lujack decided to walk in again Tuesday.
”I just came to talk to Steve, and he got a little upset and walked out,” Lujack said.
Said Dahl: ”Rather than get sucked into a physical confrontation, I chose to leave.” Lujack weighs in at 195 pounds; Dahl tips the scales at 250. Lujack is 45, Dahl 30.
”I`ve made no bones about the fact that I don`t respect what he does on the air, and he has the right to say whatever he wants about me,” Dahl said. ”But he walked into my show, which to me is totally unprofessional. That is like Tom Brokaw walking into Peter Jennings` studio.
”And in the last week or so, he has taken to making personal threats against me. He said he was going to kill me, which I think is kind of a personal threat. This morning he was threatening to put my head through a wall, and when Garry got off his crutches (Meier has an injured leg) he said he was going to make him eat his crutches.”
Dahl said he expects WLS to discipline Lujack, as he himself has been disciplined by fines that, he says, total more than $30,000 in his five years with the station.
But WLS operations manager John Gehron said no action would be taken.
”The relationship is strained right now,” Gehron said. ”There is no way for management to dictate a solution.”
Gehron said WLS was ”flooded with telephone calls” after the incident. Evening disc jockey Jeff Davis said several policemen showed up after Dahl and Lujack left, apparently in response to a concerned listener`s call.