1960s photograph of Bill Drake (left) with entertainer Trini Lopez and associate Bernie Torres.

There was much more to life than merely earning success as a cutting edge radio programming force in Los Angeles. There were also other components associated with living and working in the day-in and day-out pressures of the entertainment and media industries. Human nature demands that we each have some way to release pressures in our lives. We need something to cut the edge.

In those long-ago days before anyone envisioned opiods like Vicodin and benzodiazapines like Xanax and Vallium, there were winkiepoos and nicotine. A restaurant and cocktail lounge named Martoni’s was a favored Hollywood venue for Drake and company.

The use of alcohol and cigarettes was commonplace in those days, and it was very easy in the 1960s to find photographs of Drake and others holding a cocktail.  Such would not happen in the present day due to changed sensibilities.

Among the Drake inner circle at that time alcoholic beverages were affectionately called “winkiepoos.” The use of alcohol was not only a fact of life, it was a source of humor and camraderie.

At the 25th Anniversary of Boss Radio in 1990, for instance, you can hear reunited KHJ employees making joking references to Martoni’s, to “winkiepoos,” and to being ejected by the bartender. In response, the audience laughed and applauded.

The long-term consequences of such basic and readily-available chemicals to soothe the pressures of professional life did not have the public awareness that we do today. The risks of daily use of tobacco and its promotion of lung cancer, ultimately what claimed the lives of Bill Drake and Boss Jocks Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele, were not yet on anyone’s radar screen.