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Written by Bob Bassett Arnie Sheppard was a part-time disc jockey on the Providence scene and a wonderful guy. He was of average height, good-looking, with a wonderful sense of Jewish humor. He enjoyed the company of Sherm Strickhouser, Jim Mendes, Charlie Jefferds, and myself especially. Arnie was not a veteran drinker as we were. It didn't take many beers before ol' Sheppard was "fried to his hat". He used to really slur his words and it was close to unbearable when he attempted to tell a joke. ONe evening, the five of us were sitting in the lounge of the Crown Hotel on Weybossett Street. Arnie was relating a current and very raunchy story making the rounds at the time. He was slurring; I mean SLURRING. The tale involved the use of a man's genital. Over and over, he said, or tried to say, "cock" to no avail. With Each additional beer, it sounded more and more like "kak". As he approached the punch line, the room suddenly became stony silent, as if on cue. Arnie hit the joke's climax with a resounding and perfectly enunciated "COCK!". Everyone in the room, and it was crowded, turned and glared at our table, especially the women. Arnie was unphased, and when Jim Mendes, sitting next to him, told him to lower his voice, Arnie bellowed for all to hear, "Wassa matter, haven't they ever heard da work KAK before?" From that night forward, Arnie Sheppard and the utterance of "kak" became inseparable. It became a code word as if in a sentence "He's a kak-head" or She likes a nice kak". No one was ever the wiser. Jim Mendes was a quiet soul, with a velvet voice, and was revered in Rhode Island broadcasting. In public he was withdrawn, shy almost to a fault. Whenever someone or something happened out of the ordinary, he would quietly lower his head, shake his enormous body and gently point at the guilty party and shake his finger, like a disapproving schoolteacher. The word "kak" over time went beyond broadcasters and is still used to this very day by several acquaintances, notably Ronnie Monteiro, Jack Carvalho, Bruce White and Andy Nechesnoff. It became great sport to initiate some poor unsuspecting Channel 6 receptionist, new to the job, to page over the loudspeaker: "Mister Kak, please!". This always resulted in gales of laughter throughout the entire building until one night when it totally backfired on us. The station had just engaged in an all-male security/receptionist service with a group of very nice fellows who, among other virtues, were always available for a "touch" if a guy needed a five or ten spot for a day or so, usually me. I seemed they came to work at four until midnight with deep pockets of ready cash. Joe Pemberton was steady with available money and once when I tried to repay him, he wouldn't hear of it. Another fellow, Gus, was from Fall River. I wish I could remember his last name, but it escapes me. He was arguably the most likeable of the whole lot, and a bit starstruck with so many television types around him. I was always kind and genuine with all of them, more than I can say about certain news anchors who, unlike me, played the "star" role to the hilt. Andy Nechesnoff dubbed him "Gus-Gus" in an affectionate manner, after the mouse character in Disney's "Cinderella". The nickname stuck. It was Gus' first night on the job when I broke him in with the "Kak" page. From my upstairs sports desk, I picked up the telephone and asked this novice receptionist to call for Mister Kak. What I had completely forgotten was this was Monday night, and after a sumptuous feast at the Wamsutta Club across the street, all the various department heads and representatives from the Bo Bernstein advertising agency in Providence would meet downstairs in a large conference room to weight the fortunes and errors of the stations' current and future direction. I, for one, was always irritated at these gathering. Here we are, Channel 6, a woeful last in the ratings, and if one should walk past the closed door meeting, you'd hear small talk followed usually by bursts of laughter. The Monday nights were a ritual. The meal at the Wamsutta was a "trade-off", a freebie in exchange for free commercials on Channel 6. I have a good friend to this very day in Pete Mandell. Being Program Director, he was obliged to attend these meetings, and was a next-day source of what transpired to anyone who asked him. The way Pete described the scenario to me the next afternoon was as follows: poor Gus took my instructions and bellowed into the large loudspeaker that reverberated throughout the entire building: "Paging Mister Kak!", but Gus made it sound more like the original word: "Cock". Pete said Vance looked up at the ceiling speaker more in disbelief than actuality, and proceeded to resume his talk to the assembled management heads. Then Gus repeated his command: "PAGING MISTER KAK!". Now there was no doubt in Vance's mind. Still very heavy, he stormed out of the meeting roared down the corridor, thundered up the stairs to the reception area, got within inches of gold ol' Gus' face and yelled, "There never has been, never is, and never will be a Mister Kak! Who told you to page him?!" Weakly, Gus replied, "Bob Bassett". Gus told me Vance nearly went out of his mind in rage. The next day I was given a letter of reprimand. I believe Vance felt I'd done this deliberately to disrupt the management meeting. He may have been correct, due to my disdain of those smug meetings. Those parlays made the rest of us feel quite inferior. I also believe over the years, Vance eventually learned of the kak/cock equation. Incidentally, I still owe Gus ten dollars. |
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