Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Just one month into my first radio job, they asked me to fill-in as side-kick on this morning show for a day with some guy I had never met. Little did I know I was about to meet my "Let's destroy this fucked up world and laugh the whole time we're doing it" soul mate.

I showed up at 5 a.m. just like they asked me to. When I walked in the studio this bald guy who was about 30 was sitting on the floor quietly, but not peacefully, reading the newspaper. He looked up from the paper and said, "Nothing fucked up happened last night at all. Nothing! We're gonna have to come up with our own shit again today. I hope you got something to talk about, because we got four hours of show to fill. What's your name again?"

I told him my name and he went back to searching the paper for relevant material. (I don't know why - it was 2002; we had internet.) I stood over him scared and uncomfortable in the tiny studio and he looked up at me again and yelled, "What the fuck man! Everybody talks about how goddamn good these people are like Jerry Seinfeld. Fuck Jerry Seinfeld! That fucker writes one hour of material and repeats that same shit every night all over the country for a year. And everybody's all like, "Yay, Jerry Seinfeld. You're so great! You're one act is so fucking funny! You're the best! Yay!" FUCK JERRY SEINFELD! Jerry Seinfeld doesn't do what I do. I have to come up with four hours of shit every day, five days a week, and I have to start coming up with that shit at three in the goddamn morning! Fuck Jerry Seinfeld. He couldn't do what I do."

As the show started, I stood on one side of the desk at my mic, and he stood straight across from me facing me and handling the controls. As he did weather reports and traffic, he would sometimes stop talking, turn of the mics, bend down, puke in a trash can, come back up, turn on the mics and finish his traffic report, then puke again.

"Me and the wife got fucked up last night. I got four kids. When the wife wants to get fucked up, dammit, I don't care if I have to work the next day - we're fucking doing it."

Then he told me that he thought he needed to spice up his marriage by secretly having anonymous sex with other women. (Which was weird, because I went on to know the guy going on seven years, and he never once came close to even touching another woman's shoulder. Looking back, I know this was just one of his weird ways of testing me - to see if I would tell other people in the building what he said. He never, ever had any intention of ever cheating on his wife. This was the case for two reasons. He told me that he had banged enough girls when he was single, so he never felt like he got shorted. As a third party once told me later: "Most of us married guys lie and try to pretend we did nothing but bang hot women all day long when we were single. But most of us weren't that awesome. But that guy - I witnessed it. If he tells you a story about crazy things he did with crazy numbers of women, he's the one married guy that isn't lying! We had to issue him an official company memo barring him from contact with the sales staff. We hated doing it, but those girls weren't getting any work done. That guy's dick was gonna make this radio cluster go broke. Thank God he knocked that dear woman up and married her! It saved all of our jobs!"

The other reason the dude never cheated on his wife was this:

"Dude, if I even kissed another woman, my wife would stab me in my dick. What? Quit laughing. I'm not fucking with you. This dick of mine... would no longer be. But it wouldn't matter. She'd kill me, too. You think I'm fucking around. If I cheat on my wife, say goodby to me. I'm dead with no dick and my wife's in jail. You think I'm joking. You'll meet her. You'll know."

I met her.

I know.

She's a wonderful country woman. A wonderful country woman who would stab her husband in the dick and kill him for kissing another woman. She banned me from eating at her house because I didn't finish my chicken. It didn't matter that it was a sudden dinner invitation when I was dropping her husband off right after we had eaten 4 pieces of car lot pizza. I talked to her yesterday and she invited me to dinner and then immediately uninivited me because "you didn't eat all my fucking chicken." It's been seven years. That was yesterday. Still, I love her.

I eventually went on to be the third guy on that morning show. It was always my friend and some other guy (we went through 5) co-hosting the morning show with me out on the streets calling in to give out prizes to the public. I usually wore a costume.

The good thing about my friend being married was that he was constantly getting me girls from work. He was doing it because "Someone's gotta fuck'er. And I obviously can't. And I hate every other motherfucker in this building, so dammit you're gonna do it."

We even had a secret morning show-rule. As the third guy, I would usually come in and join the show at seven (to save money on payroll,) but if I had gotten busy with a new girl: I was allowed an extra hour to sleep in.

But there was a catch. In return for the morning guys letting me sleep in for an hour, I had to agree to tell them all about the sex. (Not on air. I'm not that tacky. And I'm only writing this because only one person from around here reads this blog. And I think she's unshocked by me by now.)

A couple of times I accidenally messed with the sanctity of the rule. I learned the hard way.
One day, I came into the morning show studio an hour late and the two married guys looked at me eagerly with jaw-dropped smiles on their face and both of them were holding out double-thumbs ups at me and saying "Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?"

I broke their vicarious married-guy hearts. I said, "Oh, no. I didn't get any new stuff. I just over slept. I got real drunk last night. Sorry guys."

They got fucking pissed! The older host (late forties) gave me a damn lecture like I've never recieved. "You have violated the sacred rule! You can't tease us like this. You know the deal. You only come in an hour late, if you got some pussy. And you better damn well tell us about it. Look, bud! We're married guys! Our lives boring. We live through you. And when you come in here an hour late without a story, it's the worst kind of tease you can imagine. We're counting on you. Next time you're late, it better be because you got your rocks off all night, and you better tell us all about it!"

And then another time I came in an hour late and the guys did the same double thumbs up retard smile and I said, "Yeah! Me and Nicole had us a session last night!" And they said, "Nicole? NIIII-COLE! You've been banging her for like two weeks. We're tired of Nicole. You can't come in an hour late for fucking Nicole. You better get your single ass back out there and pull in something new for us, if you value your sleep, you bastard! Nicole? NIIII-COLE!"

So back to my buddy that I first met puking in a trash can. We worked together for four and half years before I left that company. And while he was secretly one of the most moral people of ever met (he hates people knowing that), he became my misbehaving partner. We got in so much trouble for doing so much bad stuff; at the radio station and on remote location. I can't tell you how many conferences he and I got pulled into with the suits for acting up.

During one particular lecture he told the GM and the OM the folowing thing that you won't believe. He got in trouble for saying somone was a cunt. He didn't call her a cunt. He said she was a cunt at his desk to himself. Another girl heard it and reported him. Regardless, during the meeting with the two men in power, he got out of his chair and gave a speech. "Gentleman, I can tell that I'm not going to lose my job for this particular offense today. However, let's be real. You are the two men that will one day fire me. It could be tomorrow, or it could be in ten years. But at some point you'll have to fire me."

They looked back at him like they disagreed with him, even though he was telling the truth. So he giggle at them and dance with finger guns pointed at them and said, "Oh, come on guys! It's okay! Let's not pretend you're not gonna do it one day - you'll have, too. I'm at peace with it. But when you do - gentleman - promise me this: When you fire me, do it at night. I've been getting up at 3 a.m. everyday for ten years. Please don't make me get up early and work all day when you know you're gonna fire me at ten a.m. Just fire me at night and let me sleep in. Can we shake on that?"

And these baffled old men shook his hand in agreement. Those guys didn't get my man, but I did. And he knew that, too. He whispered, "I've worked for these fucks for ten years and they still don't know how to handle me. Wow! Clueless."

So my man got fired last week. And that part's fine. It's radio - we get fired. We get fired when we deserve it. We get fired when we don't. We get fired when it rains. But you know when they fired him? At ten a.m.! He didn't deserve that shit. I hope his wife stabs those two men in the dick.

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