Talk to Me ... Listeners seek solace from local nighttime DJs

The phone lines light up late at night in a KOMP 92.3-FM booth.

John Griffin, late-night air personality, sits alone in a dark studio.

He taps each phone line, placing the caller on hold. Every word is recorded. The listeners wait -- for passes and tickets, for time and a little conversation.

"Every night is a party to some, and a night of loneliness to someone else," Griffin says.

He takes his first call, for tickets to a recent Night Ranger concert.

He manipulates the sound-effect cartridges, popping in a giggling girl effect to coincide with a male caller's answer to that evening's ticket contest. Griffin plays with the callers to his listeners' delight, making them plead -- even compromise their mates -- for prizes. Or hang up in disgust.

He leans back in his chair, the lines still blinking brightly behind him -- on hold are some regular callers, some waiting to beg for tickets, others just waiting.

"Some people call every night and tell me about their day," Griffin says. They will call for two to three weeks, or until "they wind up getting a life," he says. Then a new band of regulars will begin, although there are the steady few.

Sandy, a single mom, is new to Las Vegas. She has traipsed to the pay phone outside the apartments where she lives and works, cleaning to pay for rent. She calls almost every night, talking to Griffin between being put on hold.

It's 10:30 p.m. and she's been on hold more than 30 minutes. Griffin picks up her line -- the others still blinking -- and asks her about her fiance, her job, and if "the little man" is around. She giggles and puts her 3-year-old son on the phone. The little voice mimics Griffin's catch phrase, "Howdy, Baby."

Griffin gets a kick out of the imitation -- and puts the two back on hold. He knows Sandy's voice and calls her by name when she phones in.

"I'll sit and chat with her, that's what they pay me for," he says.

Listeners, he says, relate to him because he banters on-air about his day-to-day life. "They know me more than some of my relationships (do)."

Because of this, he says, they also seek his advice, want him to tell a story or give feedback about situations in their lives.

"I'm anonymous; they can tell me anything and I don't care," Griffin says. But the illusion of connection is there. "People love to talk about themselves. In the routine of the day, they don't always get a chance to talk about themselves."

What's the thrill of calling a radio station and talking to some faceless person?

"They think we are celebrities. 'Oh, he is taking the time out to talk to me,' " he says. "We are not celebrities; we are just guys that jabber."

And good jabber is part of the job, he says. "Who knows who you touch?"

Dominick Brascia, who handles the 6-9 p.m. shift on talk station KXNT 840-AM, agrees. "Some people out there call a lot of the shows ... they just want a few minutes of your time," Brascia says. "I put them on (the air), they have no one else to talk to. Every night, they look forward to talking to you. That's why radio is such an intimate medium," he says. "God knows how many people we help," he says.

Eric Roberts, a deejay on KMXB 94.1-FM and KMZQ 100.5-FM, calls them "The Alones."

"The Alones are looking for companionship, not physically, but someone just to be there," Roberts says, explaining that radio devotees feel familiar with the faceless voice because they let them into their lives each day via the radio.

Las Vegas' 24-hour lifestyle has many parents working nights. Roberts says that Las Vegas has more single parents than other markets he has worked in, resulting in more late-night calls.

"You tend to find kids taking care of other kids," he says, noting that they feel a responsibility toward the other children that are in their charge while the parent is working. "We guide them to reach out to their parents, not to be afraid to talk to them," he says.

Most youngsters call, he says, because of trouble in their lives -- with their family or at school, and the normal headaches of puberty that seems so big when they are experienced for the first time.

"We tell them to do the right thing, to open yourself up," Roberts says. "Things aren't as scary as you think they might be."

When a caller needs more help than the un-trained air personality can offer, they are directed to more appropriate assistance.

On a night not long ago, a distraught woman called Roberts' show.

"I kept hearing this clicking sound in the background, like a trigger," he says. "She wanted to end her life over a man."

They talked for more than an hour. He'd break to play commercials and music, never cutting the line, all the time letting her listen to him work.

"She needed it," he says.

Roberts notes that suicide prevention hotlines and centers are few in Las Vegas compared to other cities. Currently, there is only one suicide prevention hot line, that of the Suicide Prevention Center, serving Las Vegas, which boasts the highest rate of suicide per capita, according to the hot line.

"(In) Las Vegas, it is not as easy for community outreach (programs) to reach these people," Roberts says.

Jenna Wilde, a Las Vegas native and KLUC 98.5-FM's late- night personality, says music is a piece of everyone's lives that they can connect to.

"Music is emotion on the radio," she says. Say a listener has broken up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. "People call up and want to hear a depressing song. ... They want to feel something."

And sometimes, a friendship is created.

"They call up and ask, 'Can you dedicate this song?' and then they tell you their whole story," Wilde says. "Sometimes you laugh or cry, and you just try to give the best advice."

They call, waiting with others on radio station phone lines throughout the valley to commiserate and connect with a faceless voice.

"Nikki" -- she prefers the one name moniker, a la Cher or Madonna -- is on the air at KMXB 94.1-FM from 7 p.m. to midnight. She says she enjoys her regulars and includes them on lists to station-sponsored parties and concerts.

"They check in with me, see what's going on," she says. "They call to plug into the city, plug into life."

They are her extended group of friends. "I'm the chick next door," she says, noting that she often takes listeners' requests and plays snippets of her conversations with them -- about school, music, life in general -- on the air.

Of the calls Nikki takes, most know her and relate to the show.

Brascia of KXNT wants listeners to call in with their gripes.

"I want to bring you to a point where you are motivated and aggravated to talk about what is bothering you," Brascia says, but on a recent "Mad as Hell Wednesday," a woman who had recently lost her husband called the station, presenting the dejay with a problem.

"I didn't know where to go with this," Brascia says. "This woman was in a lot of pain and it's 'Mad as Hell Wednesday.' "

He remembers that he had a mass card from his aunt's recent memorial service and began to read: 'When I must leave you for a while...'

"I started to choke up," he says. "But she needed to hear these words and here I had something to give to her."

Proof, he says, that, "once in a while, two human beings at night can touch souls."

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