Aloha and thanks for stopping by my web site. This site contains a lot of things that I have done during my radio career. Most of the pictures
and stories are from my old Seattle, Washington days. Those days were probably the most fun for me and I still have many good friends all
over Washington state. There are also some things here from my New
Orleans, Hawaii, Taiwan, and South African radio days.

After spending several years in New Orleans at radio station WTIX I
accepted a job at a radio station in Seattle. It was a difficult
adjustment at first because New Orleans was the type of city that
gets in your blood and it was hard to forget the feelings that the
Crecent City gave me. WTIX was located in the French Quarter and I
lived in the French Quarter about four blocks from the station near
St. Louis Cathedral where I attended mass almost daily. I spent many hours listening to music from dixieland jazz to progressive jazz. Pete Fountain, Al Hurt, Fats
Dominoe, and other New Orleans music icons were good friends. My favorite bar was the Old Absenthe House where Andrew Jackson and
Jean LaFete, the pirate, planned the Battle of New Orleans.

When I moved to Seattle it was the beginning of the Seattle World's Fair. Elvis was in town filming his movie "Meet Me At The Fair". I met
Elvis on the set of the movie during a very funny event that Colonel
Parker had set up. You'll find that story elsewhere on this site. The
day I arrived in Seattle it was raining hard and t radio station was
a dump. I remember asking myself, "What have I done?" The next day was a different story. When I awoke I looked out the hotel window to
one of the most beautiful scenes anybody could ever hope to see. To
the south in the mist was Mt. Rainer looking like a giant bowl of
ice cream. The view to the west was the snow covered Olympic
Mountains. Down below were ferry boats moving back and forth on Puget Sound. It felt like home from the beginning. Over the next 12 years
the Seattle radio audience was wonderful to me. Their sense of humor
was just about the sharpest that I had ever experienced. It was a
natural place to be creative.

In 1974 I finally felt like it was time to move on and it was from one
extreme to the other climate wise. I had been traveling to Hawaii
for my vacation time for several years previous to my moving there. I decided to do what many guys never have the guts to do: Jump in a sailboat and sail to Tahiti. After getting my fill of sailing for about six months I landed in Hawaii to settle down again.
It was as good as it gets from the beginning. A beach house right on
the ocean underneath Diamond Head and a beautiful back yard complete with hammock hung between two sweet smelling Plumaria trees plus a
continuous parade of beautiful ladies parading up and down my sea
wall daily. It just didn't get any better that that. When I moved to
Hawaii I didn't have a gig and at the time and not much hope for one
although I wasn't really looking. KJR management was quite surprised that I just up and quit at a peak in my career with no job to go to
and no plans to get one. I was fortunate to be successful at several
radio station in Honolulu during the next ten years including an
incredible full on Hawaiian wedding to a beautiful Hawaiian girl
under the gazebo at Iolani Palace. I had a lot of adventures in
Hawaii. Not as many as I did in Seattle but never the less I didn't
let myself get bored .

In 1985 I accepted an offer I couldn't refuse from a radio station in
Taipei, Taiwan. This station, ICRT, was the only English language
station on Taiwan. It was like starting all over again with radio. It
was a challenge having to deal with the Chinese mind set. The expat
community there was only about 10,000 people at the most. The Chinese numbered over 20 million. The most densely populated area on earth
for it's size. Once again my radio stuff seemed to work. Within a
year I was promoted to Manager with all of the spiffs that you could
imagine. The GM had a company Car, driver, membership in the prestigious
American Club and much more.

While I was in Taiwan I was able to travel to many areas in Asia both on business and pleasure. I traveled to South Africa several times to do a
radio show for a couple of weeks at a time. While there I was
attacked by a bull elephant during a photo safari and was also
stalked by several hungry lions one night in this game preserve near
Kruger Park when the battery on my Land Rover died. South Africa was a lifetime of excitement rolled up into a short time frame.

After 7 years in Taiwan I was approached to work for CBS radio in
San Francisco. I hated it from the moment I arrived. It just wasn't
the same San Francisco that I had known ten or fifteen years before.
The station was a drag and management was about as lame as it could get. The people in the Bay Area were quite vicious. After being
attacked twice on my way to work I started packing heat. I was doing
the early morning show and couldn't wait till my contract ended so
that I could move on.

I am now back in Texas where I have been doing consulting work until recently,
mostly radio stations overseas. I consider myself lucky because
during my first year back in Texas I discovered I had lung cancer. I
lost half of my left lung in an operation and at the time was given
only a 15 % chance to survive for a year. It's now more than six and a half
years later and my last check up still showed I was clear of any of
the bad guys. My doctor said that after three years you can consider
yourself out of the woods. Too many cigarettes for too many years. I
was saddened to hear about two fellow radio personalities dying of
lung cancer. Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan. Thank God I was able to beat it. It just wasn't my time yet. Recently B.R. Bradbury aka Bill Muson passed away from a heart attack. He was a very heavy smoker up until his death. In October 2001 Seattle DJ and friend Emperor Lee Smith died of cancer in California. In November 2002 a good friend and former president of the OFC died in a car accident in Washington State. We miss you Bobby. You were one of a kind.

Hey, I hope I haven't bored you with all of this stuff. I did want to share some of my career with you and I guess this is about the best way I
could do it. I have finished my autobiography but haven't published
it yet. Most probably it will be out in a couple of months. Feel
free to email me. I answer all email and letters. Remember
when we used to send those things before email came along?

Aloha nui loa

Lan Roberts <<<<<<----Click my name to continue.