rossman, on the air

Another piece on Rossman, this the "personality piece" as opposed to the "experience piece." Cool guy. Not sure where he is now.

Be careful kiddies...Rossman is on the air and you don’t scare him Coco. Little Pussy-wussy. Watch out for flying cans and chairs, exploding paint pens and broken golf clubs. If you are brave enough to call him, you might get deafened by mic feedback or screams of agony or pleasure. He may be nice to you. He may be mean to you. He may hang up on you. But no matter what, he loves you, man. You’ve made him the 3rd highest rated evening DJ in the San Diego market.
"I’ve gotta realize I love them and they love me too. Maybe I can stop the anger and stuff. We have to save them at the end, otherwise they’ll carry it onto someone else," Rossman explains when taking calls recently at 91X, the station that brought the Louisiana Love Doctor to California from his native New Orleans.

Rossman was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He worked at the first alternative station in New Orleans for three years making $5 an hour. He was then hired away by a bigger station, but then let go when the station went "all talk". At one point in his New Orleans radio life, Rossman had between 60-70,000 listeners a night.

Rossman had heard about 91X and heard they were looking for someone "insane and crazy" to do the evening show. Ross realized that was him and sent a tape. He didn’t hear anything. A friend invited him out to L.A., where Ross got an interview at KROQ, but blew it by showing up 2 hours late. The whole time he stayed in L.A., Ross says he listened to 91X and "couldn’t even get KROQ".

When Ross got home, there was a message on his machine from 91X. Ross hopped on a train and headed out to San Diego and got the job. "I guess it was weird karma cosmic shit that brought me to San Diego. It was like one, two, three...boom!"

The programming at 91X is unlike any programming that Ross has worked with in the past. "It’s way on the edge. I don’t feel I could get away with everything, but the freedom is there," Ross said.

Sometimes it does get a little wild though. "Breaking chairs...I do understand I’ve got a problem with that. Sometimes the music pisses you off."

Ross enjoys to eat sushi while he’s on air. Anything else is too heavy on the stomach for the Rossman. He gets his sushi from Ichiban, and eats it with a spicy mayonnaise sauce. He calls this combo "the closest thing to New Orleans food", besides Skips Mardi Gras restaurant. That’s because Skip is from the West Bank of New Orleans and knows his cajun spicy food. Rossman also enjoys San Diego’s wide variety of Mexican foods.

If you go to Emerald City on Thursdays, you just might spot Ross dancing or smoking a cigar or inciting a riot. Apparently a friend of his was recently showing off a testicular cyst at Emerald City’s 91X night.

If you call Ross, that’s a whole different story. He’s told callers he can’t sell them pot, to stop calling his house, to put their parents on the phone, that the request tower collapsed, that there was a fire and flood in the studio, and that he will send a unit over right away to investigate. This is but a mere sampling of his telephone antics.

Ross has been criticized for being juvenile and resorting to immature humor. Further examination shows Ross as a pretty funny, quick-minded guy that’s a little disorganized and doesn’t seem to let too much bother him. Ross says about his colleagues, "Everybody here thinks I’m a freak man." He sounds a little sad about this at first, and then laughs about it.
We could all take some advice from the Rossman. If he doesn’t hang up on us that is.