A million years ago, I had my first taste at fame.  I invited myself on a local morning radio show in Des Moines and never left.  My partner-in-crime was Amy Sweet, the world’s funniest (and most patient) DJ known to man.   Every Friday for about nine months, we’d unleash our juvenile humor on an unsuspecting listening audience.    Fridays were the highlight of my week.   It was my only chance to be offensive towards much of Central Iowa.

I started off as a movie reviewer named Bootsie McGill.  Very flamboyant.  Very bitchy.  I’d make fun of anyone and anything, as long as it got a laugh.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  If Amy laughed at my snarkiness, then goal achieved.  I forgot about the other 100,000 people listening.   My segment was only about 15 minutes.  Then one day I just refused to leave.  Next thing you know Sweet and I had a regular gig on Fridays.  And by regular gig I mean I brought her donuts … or some other sort of food porn so she’d invite me back.   We had a good shtick going.  It was sort of Sonny and Cher meets Will and Grace meets Shields and Yarnell  … uh, with sound.

Amy is stunning … still is.  Blondiful, busty with the iciest, neon blue eyes I’ve ever seen.  She always took umbrage when people would say DJs often have a “face for radio”.  She was hot and she knew it.  Except at 5am when we were on the air.  I was privileged (blessed?  doomed?) to see Amy at her absolute worst.  We were like an old married couple, morning breath, warts and all.

Amy eventually went on to be a big-time DJ in Las Vegas at well-known KLUC-FM.  (I said,  “You work at ‘CLUCK’?”  She said, “It’s K-LUCK, you moron!”)  Amy was the femme fatale on her morning show.  She was surrounded by her pre-pubescent, moronic male co-anchors.  You know, the shock-jock type that always teetered between fart humor and FCC fines.   She fit in perfectly.   I would visit her in Vegas.  She was my proverbial good luck charm.   We’d plunk $.25 in a slot machine and walk away $150 richer.  Every.  Single.  Time.   We’d spend my windfall on a great dinner, booze or tacky souvenirs.   (That should tell you how young I was at the time.  Now I would be spending that money on hookers and blow.  I kid.  Not.)

Over the holidays, Amy and I got together.  It’s been exactly 10 years since I left the airwaves with my favorite galpal.  Feels like not a minute has gone by.   Together we’re still raunchy, distasteful, inappropriate and NEVER wrong.   We’re also a little older and a little wiser.  (Read that:  Amy is now married with two kids.  And I never tried to get another radio gig because it was readily apparent I was a talentless hack.)

But here’s to you Sweet … thanks for the memories!  And for letting me play obscure retro, new wave songs whenever I wanted to.