Young grew up in
Hollywood, California. He attended
Los Angeles City College[2] and has
been in the broadcasting business since 1962, when he started at
Bakersfield, California radio station KWAK AM 970. He spent three
years at WFIE Channel 14 Evansville, Indiana, leaving in late 1980,
[3] then was at KGO-TV in San Francisco from 1981 to 1983. He also spent twelve years
at
WWOR-TV, channel 9
in
Secaucus, New Jersey,
[4] through October 1, 1995.
[5] In his ascendancy, he was seen on KIFI-TV,
Idaho Falls, and heard on
KNAK,
Salt Lake
City; his break came when the San Francisco station's news manager heard him when on a skiing vacation in
Sun Valley in the 1970s.
[4]
Starting in 1996, while living and working in Bakersfield,
[6] Young was also a weatherman on
KGO 810 radio out of San Francisco on the afternoon drive-time newscast;
[7] he added the morning
drive-time slot in 2009, replacing the retired
Leo Ciolino.
[8] On December 1, 2011, KGO fired Young as well as many talk-show hosts.
[9]
Young was the television weatherman at
KERO in Bakersfield, California
[10] until September 2008. He was replaced by former KERO weatherman
Rusty Shoop.
[11]
Between 2012 and 2016, Young was heard on
KKSF-AM in San Francisco. He was let go in July 2016 after KKSF-AM became an
ESPN Deportes station.
[12]
It is Young who says "it's a trip, it's got a funky beat, and I can bug out to it" in the
Beastie Boys song "
B-Boy Bouillabaisse"
(in the "
Mike on the Mic" segment) from the 1989 album
Paul's Boutique. According to author Dan LeRoy in his book on
Paul's
Boutique, the group commissioned Young to appear on the album when they became a fan of his work on WWOR. The introduction to their song "
Hello Brooklyn" may have also
been influenced by Young's trademark calls. Also, Young's voice saying "bug out to it" can be heard in a sample (at 1:11) in the Beastie Boys song "
Three MC's
And One DJ" on their 1998 album
Hello Nasty.