Remembering Bill Earl of Joe Jost’s, Long Beach State, KRLA, 50 Years Past

Like clockwork, every recent year on Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day, 1973 CSULB graduate Bill Earl showed up at Joe Jost’s, using Facebook to ask others to hoist a schooner or two with the implicit blessing of wife Rose, who buys the suds.

“A lot of people don’t like to go to a bar on a Sunday morning,” said the loquacious Bill Earl, who recalled when the on-tap beer was Eastside. “Nobody’s sure whether Eastside is still brewed.” At that time, Joe’s had a small Eastside keg decorating the wall near the pool room entry. “I’m going there with Rosemary to enjoy myself, she likes it because I drink less. If I don’t get there at ten I don’t get a decent booth.”.

Earl was born on September 30, 1950 in Monrovia. “My mother wanted me to be a priest,” sending him to Catholic school. “The monsignor was an alcoholic, my dad used to see him at the track; they knew he drank. When they raised tuition, they put me in public school. But my dad didn’t want to be a father,” Bill recalled, so “I went military school in Anaheim.

In August 1961, out of military school, “I got a Realistic transistor from my uncle. I discovered KFWB, and all the high profile jocks, all the strike-breakers.” When he dropped the radio, all he got was KRLA. “In 1964, I listened to KRLA when the Beatles came out, and KFWB didn’t back them enough. Don Anti at KFWB hated the Beatles, KFWB is bigger than the Beatles. KRLA got behind the Beatles. In 1966, my dad said ‘if you go to see those faggots, you don’t come home’.”

Landing a job in retail, Bill recalled, “When I worked as a box boy, food brokers would drive company cars and had new products. Made me want to be a food broker.” Instead, he went to college.

“I used to hang around hang around KRLA. In the radio history class at Pasadena City College, I wrote an 80-page term paper on the history of KRLA and got an A.” In 1987, Bill parlayed this paper into a self-published 160-page paperback “Dream-House,” a history of KRLA and the 101-page opus, “When Radio Was Boss” in 1989.

Unable to commute to college every day because of the well-remembered gas shortage of the early 1970s, Bill recalled, “I liked Long Beach State because of the ocean breeze. They had a major world art show at Long Beach State with all these sculptures on campus. It was known as a fine art college, art and music. Used to be CSCLB, shortened to Long Beach State College. There was a 25 cent parking lot across the street. “

“Every chance I got, I’d go to Joe Jost’s. Back then, there were Christmas lights over the mirror year-long. Bartenders were all older men. During the day, it was all white guys at the bar, few at the tables. Right down the street was a hotel for older men. They would all go to Joe Jost’s to get out of their rooms. A mean old man named Hank was always there. Rocco always wore a white long-sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled up, always smoked. Schooners were 35 cents, short-beers and eggs were 15 cents. Next door, a shoe repair store with an electrified shoe repair dummy that took a nail out of his mouth and put it in his shoe.”

Bill lived at Los Robles Hall. “During the streaking fad, 15 to 20 guys in the dorm ran down the fire escape buck naked. It was a rite of passage; a lot of people did back then. I found an old sock in my dorm room, put the sock on like a mask, went down streaking, someone took my picture, stuck it in the lunch room. One of the girls posted a picture, does anyone know this guy? No one turned me in. Girls thought it was funny.”

“Before the Student Union opened in 1973, they had a little hangout called the Nugget, next to the bookstore. The Student Union had rooms for studying, beanbag chairs and dark leatherette seats. Above the wall, was a huge poster of Humphrey Bogart, so it was called the Bogart room, where you wanted to study, kick back or talk. Later I called back, ‘Do you still have the Bogart room?’ The answer: ‘Who’s Bogart?’”

Then there were the record shops. “Downtown, Jim Greenwood, owner of Licorice Pizza (founded in 1969 in Long Beach) asked me, ‘How do you like the store? We’re giving away free licorice.’ They were proud of their head section, water, bongs, roach clips. ‘We’re proud of doing things Wallich’s Music City would never do.’”

“I got a degree in speech with a 3.77 GPA. The college was flooded with students who didn’t want to be drafted and the professors didn’t want to flunk these guys. A lot of men graduated when I did, but couldn’t get hired. A liberal arts major at 23, not married. Employers wanted more mature guys with kids and who served in the military. My girlfriend who was a graduate student, felt my degree was worthless.” When California Assemblyman “Leo Ryan got rid of speech as a teaching major,” Earl resorted to substitute teaching as a career.

William Francis Earl passed away on December 15, 2024.