Say what you want about Karel, but he may be the hardest working person in radio today.
The very openly gay talk show host, entertainer, and columnist Charles Karel Bouley, who goes simply by Karel, is on the air seven days a week on seven stations. He returned to the Bay Area's KGO radio (AM 810) on the 7 to 10 p.m. weekend lineup in March after being fired from the station three years ago. Karel will perform stand-up this Monday, July 25, at the Rrazz Room in the Hotel Nikko and he is out with a new book this month.
Karel, 49, has touched a chord with many listeners who relate to his struggles in a bad economy, which Karel characterizes as a depression. In 2008, when he swore during a news break at a time when his mic should have been turned off, KGO fired him. And as a result of what he inadvertently said on air, he was also suspended from his gig writing for the Huffington Post and he lost his job as KNX's entertainment reporter. He went from making $100,000-plus annually to an unemployment check.
Karel battled back since being fired three years ago. First, getting work at Energy 92.7, and later Green 960. Today he's on a half-dozen stations around the country and locally on KGO. He has had to do most of it himself, patching together a network of radio stations, being his own producer, and for a time had to act as his own call screener.
When KGO offered him his job back in February, he considered it a "vindication" but he explained that is was a difficult choice to leave Green 960, where he was steadily building an audience. It ultimately came down to time and economics. As part of a barter system, Green 960 and his other affiliated stations got the show for free but he was entitled to profit from several commercials each hour that he sold himself. With some of the ads on Green 960 going for as little as $10, the need to support himself led him to return to KGO. As part of the deal, KGO wouldn't allow him to work for both stations.
Karel's show oftentimes gets very personal and he sometimes discusses his own struggles trying to keep a roof over his head. He recently told listeners about having to euthanize his sick and aging dog, Angel, because he couldn't afford the vet bills to keep the pet alive any longer.
"It's been an interesting two-and-a-half, three years to say the least," Karel told the Bay Area Reporter last week.
His book, Shouting at Windmills , includes a very personal article written by Orange County/Long Beach Blade writer David S. Etheridge.
"I lay it all out there," Karel told the B.A.R ., "all kinds of things. I thought, look, I am going through all these things just like America is. I lost my job at the same time every body else did. I was waiting for that unemployment check that they [Congress] were holding hostage at Christmas. It made me a better host but at the same time it's been rough."
Shouting at Windmills is a collection of columns published on Huffington Post chronicling, as his sub-headline explains, "BS from Bush to Obama." It includes his personal struggles as well as the column he wrote on the night he was fired. That piece was about the political figure "Joe the Plumber" ( class=st>Joe Wurzelbacher), who endeared himself to the John McCain presidential campaign after he asked a critical question of candidate Barack Obama at a 2008 campaign stop.
Wurzelbacher was very much on Karel's mind the night KGO fired him. In the column entitled "RIP Joe the Plumber," Karel wrote: "It's time for Joe the Plumber to be put to rest. Not him, personally, but the entire myth of what he represents, because Bush and his policies have all but destroyed the middle class and any hope of anything but severe struggling or extreme success as the two economic options has vanished."
That column never made it to the Huffington Post because of the words he said on KGO that got him fired. During a break when the engineer should have muted his mic, Karel could be heard commenting on a news story about Joe the Plumber. He said, "Fuck goddamn Joe the God Damn Motherfucking Plumber! I want motherfucking Joe the Plumber dead!" Karel apologized for the outburst, noting that of course, he didn't mean it literally. Undoubtedly worried about an FCC fine, KGO fired him.
The national attention over his rant resulted in death threats. Someone even tossed a plumber's wrench through his window.
Making history
Karel first made LGBT history in 1998 when he and his late husband, Andrew Howard, became the first gay couple to host a talk show on a major market station, Los Angeles' KFI. Sadly, Howard died of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 34. The couple had been together over 11 years. Howard was HIV-positive when they met. Karel, who is HIV-negative, believes HIV drugs may have ultimately cost Howard his life.
"Seems protease inhibitors raise the cholesterol levels in those who take them and doctors must add in statin drugs. We know that now, because of people like my late husband," Karel wrote.
Karel sued Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and the attending physician for wrongful death, alleging medical malpractice. He was eventually allowed to sue under AB 25 and AB 205 even though those domestic partnership laws were not in effect when Howard died. Karel's lawsuit paved the way for other same-sex couples to sue retroactively under those newly enacted laws.
Karel eventually settled the lawsuit in arbitration for a figure that he is not allowed to disclose, but he noted that it was less than half of his $200,000 legal costs. The radio host said he felt vindicated because the ruling that allowed him to proceed with the suit helped advance LGBT rights.
He noted that he has received virtually no support or recognition from the bulk of the LGBT media and from gay organizations including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation.
"And I'm sorry if I don't fit the mold of the 'good gay,'" Karel told the B.A.R. "I'm sorry. I am a little overweight. I am outspoken. I have a lisp. I am sorry if I don't fit into their mold of what a good gay man should be. Oh, well. I have made more inroads in the past 15 years in my endeavors than these community leaders ever will."
GLAAD did not respond to e-mails and calls for comment by press time.
Equal opportunity offender
Despite being one of the most visible and vocal figures in the LGBT community, Karel has not shied away from criticizing the community when he felt it was warranted.
Among his more controversial stands, he once supported an AIDS quarantine, has said that with few exceptions, most who contract HIV now "deserve it," and that bears are "gay men who have given up." He has questioned the usefulness of LGBT community centers and wonders why anyone could be proud just for being gay.
"I watched the gay community get cut in half," Karel said. "Right in front of me. It was a holocaust in the 1980s. It was a terrible holocaust that we lived through. Well, I didn't live through that to get to this point and not be critical of the community when it needs [to be criticized.]"
In addressing his remarks about the gay community and HIV, Karel has some tough love to dispense to gay men and the need for safe sex.
"When I say you deserve it, what I really mean is that you need to take responsibility for yourself. You need to not blame anybody or anything for what has happened to you. You are in control of your body and your life. Not anybody else. Not Trojan. Not anybody," he said, referring to a maker of condoms. "You are responsible for your own life. So that's what I really mean. I don't mean they deserve it and we shouldn't care and 'screw them.' Forget that. I put in my time. I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I care for people with HIV and AIDS."
Karel also has said that he agrees with Republican former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee that in the early days of AIDS, the first patients with the disease should have been quarantined to prevent the explosion of cases that were seen in the 1980s.
"In the early days of HIV, we should have shut down the bathhouses. It's not your God-given right to pay $20 and have sex all night long when there is a sexually transmitted disease making the rounds, so we should have shut down the bathhouses and quarantined, but that ship sailed," Karel told the B.A.R.
Of LGBT community centers, Karel said that in his personal experience, with his large circle of gay and lesbian friends, he doesn't know anyone who has used an LGBT center.
"It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I want them to be what they can be. I want them to be that bridge between the gay and the non-gay community," he said. "I want them to be the resource center for gays that are in trouble, or for gays who need help or need guidance. I want them to be relevant in the community. That's all. I don't want them to be on the fringe. ... I don't want them to go away. I just want them to be better."
As for bears, Karel told the B.A.R. , "In part, I see bears as gay men who have given up. They don't want to personally groom nor do they want to lose weight. It's not healthy to weigh 400 pounds. It's not healthy to weigh 500 pounds. It's just not. It's not healthy to live a life of cigars and alcohol and obesity. That is not a healthy lifestyle," he said. "And neither is being a circuit queen where you are in the gym six hours a day and you are drinking Red Bull and vodka and you're doing crystal meth. It's cute that there is a subculture of people, the wonderful self-accepting people that they are, it's nice that there is that subculture that they can feel comfortable in but I don't want anyone to feel too comfortable in a destructive lifestyle. ... I love bears. It's not a disapproval thing. I am just interested in the health of my community."
During a news break on his KGO show after San Francisco's Pride Parade last month, Karel questioned why it is even called "pride" since being gay itself is nothing to be proud of. But he explained that he is very proud of the accomplishments of gay heroes including Harvey Milk and others.
During a 90-minute interview with the B.A.R. last week, Karel talked with the same unrelenting passion that has made him a success on the radio. He said the hardest part of his job was not selling ads or his administrative duties but hearing about things politicians on the right and left do that upset him.
"It's a lot of work being me but I don't know what else to be," he said.
For a sampling of Karel's Rrazz Room show and to buy tickets to Monday's performance, or to buy his book, visit, http://www.radiokrl.com.