Incident at d.i.y.

February 2, 1998

A nasty surprise greeted Jeff Hogan when he went to open his business, D.I.Y. Records, on Sunday morning, Jan. 18: During the night a vandal (or vandals) had hurled a cinderblock through one side of the store's plateglass window, also destroying a glass display case and severing a telephone cord. And while neither Hogan nor anyone else knows who committed this act, he's pretty sure he knows who may have unwittingly inspired it: local talk-radio host Drew Garabo.

Hogan claims that Garabo, whose show airs on WTKS-FM (Real Radio 104.1), created the notion in the minds of his listeners that D.I.Y. supports the racist "white power" movement. And the station, while refusing to accept any responsibility for what happened, clearly has been put on the defensive by this situation.

Garabo hurt his store, Hogan says, on Jan. 9, when he and one of his co-hosts, "Daniel," in jest, shouted the words, "Kill everybody Oi! Oi! White power!" in the middle of an ad for D.I.Y. (Oi is a form of punk rock.)

"It was like he [Garabo] was making fun of Oi," Hogan says. "He started my ad and then started doing this oi thing and then shouted 'White power!' and then finished my ad. So anybody listening linked white power to my store automatically."

D.I.Y.'s window displayed two anti-racist signs - a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King with the slogan "We Are One" and a poster reading "Racist Filth Off Our Streets"- so it's possible these may have given someone of a racist bent reason to attack D.I.Y. (especially right before the holiday honoring King). Nevertheless, Hogan is firmly convinced Garabo's remark prompted the vandalism.

"There are two reasons I think Drew is indirectly responsible," he explains. "One, some person only heard the portion of the ad that gave the impression I sell white-power oi, or two, some person heard the rebuttal that I absolutely do not sell white-power oi, thus infuriating them. Had the words 'white power' never been uttered, no connection would have ever been made."

Carol Dedman, WTKS' assistant program director, not surprisingly, offers a different version of events. The comment came during a discussion on ska and oi before the D.I.Y. ad, she says. "Some caller had made some reference to it, and Drew asked Daniel what he thought: he goes, 'Well, what exactly is oi music, anyway?' Daniel made some description and then Drew had a few comments about it, and then they both said, 'Oi! Oi! White power!' and after that he went into the commercial."

She categorically denies the contention that the vandalism had anything to do with Garabo. "All sorts of things are said all the time on this radio station, but they aren't acted out upon in the community," Dedman says. "I just link it to a random act of violence or vandalism in a neighborhood that is not immune to that kind of activity." D.I.Y. is located on Mills Avenue across the street from a neighborhood bar, Will's Pub, and is adjacent to Loch Haven Park.

Her version of the incident, Dedman says, is based on talking to Garabo and his producer and co-host, "Mandy," not on listening to a tape of the show, since, as it turns out, that particular one wasn't taped. However, on a tape of the show made by Hogan, Garabo and "Daniel" can be heard making the comment during the D.I.Y. ad. They preceded the ad by making noises to imitate techno/electronica music, in reference to the first part of the copy that read, "We may live in the rave capitol of the world!"

The white power bit "was a poor choice of words," Dedman admits, "but Drew made those comments tongue-in-cheek in regard to the narrow[minded] views that white supremacists express. I've discussed with him how I felt it was extremely shortsighted and misguided, and that it sounded to me like the comments of someone who acted before they thought, and he agreed with me."

Hogan expressed surprise at hearing that Dedman had said this: "I was never told that Drew expressed any remorse about what he said. In fact, it was told to me that he strongly denied doing anything wrong."

In any event, the station is not responsible for any effects of Garabo's comment, Dedman maintains, since it runs a disclaimer before every show stating that views and opinions expressed on Real Radio don't reflect those of management and advertisers.

Responding to this, Hogan again emphasizes that he doesn't blame the station, but rather feels Garabo bears indirect responsibility for the possible consequences of his words to D.I.Y.

Hogan paid $300 for four one-minute ads on WTKS, which began airing Jan. 6. Garabo did an "outstanding job" the first few nights, he says. "My wife heard [the ad] the first night and I heard it the second," Hogan says. "We both missed it the third, but I have no reason to believe anything bad happened [that] night."

In fact, says Hogan, prior to purchasing the advertising,he was told by the WTKS sales rep that she had spoken with Garabo and had been assured by him that he'd have "no problem handling my ad like a professional" despite his professed dislike of ska, a type of music D.I.Y. specializes in.

The "derogatory, racist, white supremacist" image of oi music is part of the problem, too, Dedman says. Hogan "must be extremely sensitive whenever anybody makes that connection. I can understand that. I can't apologize for that association, but that's what Drew was making fun of, not of D.I.Y."

The belief that Oi! is racist music is wrong, Hogan says. The majority of oi bands do not advocate racism and the majority of oi fans are not racists, he contends. "There are white-power rock'n'roll bands, white-power country bands. No more oi bands are white power than any other music," Hogan says. "Really all oi is, is just working-class street punk - usually centered around [drinking] beer and stuff like that."

After he heard Garabo's comments, Hogan immediately faxed him, stating that "my store doesn't promote white power at all, and it's just a small element of oi and had nothing to do with my store." And while Garabo did read the fax just minutes after he received it, as far as Hogan is concerned, that didn't undo "the connection between my store and white power, which is totally what I stand against."

Unfortunately, claims Hogan, Garabo couldn't leave well enough alone. The talk-jock "started getting into this [question of], Well, what is oi?" Hogan says. "Kind of like he didn't believe that I knew what I was talking about, but it was obvious he definitely didn't know what he was talking about."

So Hogan sent another fax that tried to explain oi to Garabo and his audience. He read this "in a total[ly] condescending voice and was just like making fun of it," Hogan says. "Just kept on mocking the store pretty much for an hour, an hour-and-a-half during the show."

At one point, Garabo tried to imitate Bill Cosby: "'Well, I guess if there's black people in oi bands [as the second fax had said], I wonder if Bill Cosby would be in an oi band,'" Hogan says. "And [he] tried to do Bill Cosby doing oi, and just really having a lot of fun at my expense."

The next week, Garabo took another swipe at D.I.Y., Hogan says. Prior to an ad for a CD store in the UCF area, Hogan says Garabo remarked, "At last we have a real record store advertising on the show." For Hogan this is another example of Garabo's "immaturity," since the other business had advertised on Garabo's show before, he says. "He was grasping for something - another way to slander my store," Hogan says.

After Hogan complained about Garabo's comments, the station made some new ads for D.I.Y. that aired on its Real Music Weekend the same weekend as the vandalism. Those ads, Dedman says, were worth three times more than what Hogan had paid originally. "I didn't hear any [of those]," Hogan says, "but I heard they were done really well, and at least they did that." The station had first offered him more advertising on Garabo's show, which he refused. Why? "I don't want him talking about my store at all," Hogan says.

The weekend ads were solely due to efforts of the ad rep, Hogan says. "She's gone above and beyond what she can do," but otherwise WTKS' response to his complaints about Garabo have been inadequate, he feels. "No one else has done anything else to try to make it better." The station management has "just basically turned their shoulders," he says. "It just seems to be I'm not a threat to them and Drew's untouchable."

Station management has failed to return his phone calls since the vandalism, he says. Dedman, on the other hand, claims she's returned all his calls - when he's asked to have them returned. In one case, she says, Hogan just left a message with the Orlando Police Department case number for the vandalism incident and didn't ask to be called back. "I didn't say, 'Please call me,' but generally when a business gets a complaint, they respond to it," Hogan says.

Hogan says that based on his last conversation with Dedman he expected she would call him back after listening to the station's tape of the show. Apparently, this was before Dedman found out that particular show hadn't been taped. Hogan also says that Dedman has failed to respond to a fax he sent her detailing his concerns.

Hogan, 31, who has an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Central Florida, is adamantly anti-racist and a longtime member of the punk community. The values of that subculture generally include an abhorrence of racism, sexism and homophobia, along with an emphasis on non-conformity and anti-authoritarianism.

"He [Hogan] is one of the most tolerant people I know," says Kali Webb, owner of Galaxie, a vintage clothing store next to D.I.Y. "He's made it clear he will not tolerate any kind of racism, any kind of sexism, any sort of thing like that and he gets this in return."

The weight of the cinderblock, the way it was thrown and the amount of damage it caused lead Webb to conclude that D.I.Y. was specifically targeted. "Somebody would have had to park their car right up to the window and throw it in," she says. "This was not some drive-by attack from the street, this wasn't somebody driving around, saying, 'Who am I going to vandalize?'"

"Nobody knows for sure if this was a reaction against what was said on the Drew Garabo show; maybe it had something to do with Martin Luther King's [birth]day--there was a big MLK poster in the window, so who knows?"

The overnight version of Garabo's show was no. 1 among male listeners, ages 18-34 and 25-54 in 1997, according to the Orlando Weekly ("Drew Garabo's idiot-savant success," Dec. 18, 1997). His show, which emphasizes humor and generally avoids current events, politics or other more serious topics, now airs on the station's 7-11 p.m. slot, Monday through Friday.

At this point, Hogan neither wants nor expects an explanation or apology from Garabo. "It wouldn't be sincere. He had ample time to apologize if he really thought he did something wrong. He should have realized right after he came out [and said it], how dumb it was, and instead he got mad that I was offended. He took the position that he did nothing wrong."

The station has found it difficult to make amends to Hogan, Dedman says. "No matter how much pleading, apologizing, ass-kissing we did, it wouldn't be enough. He made that extremely clear when he demanded an apology, and then said,'Oh, it's not going to do any good, I know you guys don't mean it anyway,'" she says. "Why should I apologize when he's not going to accept it?"

Hogan says he told Dedman he would consider accepting an apology from Garabo if it were in writing, but also told her he thought it would be difficult for Garabo to be sincere about it since he had failed to even publicly admit that he had been wrong.

Clearly, Hogan's persistence in seeking some sort of redress for his grievances against Garabo has exasperated WTKS' management. Dedman describes Hogan as "angry and very vindictive," and even said she found it "extremely curious that up to a week after that comment was made by Drew no one touched his store, and then a day or two after he expresses his fear that someone would do that, somebody did. I just find that very interesting." Asked what she might be implying, Dedman replied: "What you want to read into it, because I say I find it interesting."

"I'm just rolling my eyes in disbelief that she would say that," responds Hogan, noting that if he had wanted to break his own window he would first have made sure his insurance would pay for a replacement. As it stands right now, because his insurance won't pay for the window, Hogan is having to scrape together the $525 himself. (He doesn't yet know how much a new display case will cost.) One financial bright spot is that several local bands are staging a fundraiser for D.I.Y. next month. This is an indication of how important the store, which carries a large selection of ska, punk, oi, hardcore, grind and rockabilly (genres otherwise hard to find locally), has become to the fans of those types of music in the little more than a year it's been open.

Now, Hogan has begun taking his frustrations with Garabo public. D.I.Y.'s ad in the Jan. 29 Weekly advertises it as "the only store with a Cinderblock through the window. Thanks Drew Garabo!!" A similar ad also will run in alternative-music publication Ink 19. When told about the Weekly ad, Dedman responded: "That sounds like libel to me. He can do what he wants. I'll turn that over to our legal department to find out what they want to do." The plyboard covering the hole where one side of the plateglass window was also bears a sign saying "Thanks Drew Garabo."

Ben Markeson
I'm a first-generation Floridian, a second-generation American, a college drop-out and have a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate bent. I edited and published two local "alternative" newspapers - The Orlando Collegian and The Orlando Spectator (three if you count The Orlando Reporter, which had one paper issue before becoming an e-zine), and also free-lanced for The Orlando Weekly. But I don't call myself a journalist because that sounds pretentious.