It’s important to remember that three of our guys were new to the whole “Weird Medicine” thing; Double Vasectomy Todd, Jefferson the Shyster, and Rob from Elizabethton had started with us since the last time we made the journey.
Although I think we’ve had great chemistry in the little studio in my house, none of them had ever done radio live or visited a “real” studio, or even been to NYC before. Todd represents the audience on the prerecorded shows; he asks questions that listeners would normally ask. Jefferson is the smartass humorist (his suggestion that I spread shoe polish on my buttocks before getting my Brazilian wax done still makes me laugh) and legal expert, Rob is the nervous goof who has some great stories (“I went to the ER for chest pain and didn’t tell my wife” was classic) and is gradually coming into his own on the air. Compared to them, PA John and I were old pros, yes, us with our 7 1/2 hours of actual on-air experience! Before I get any further I just want to say how insanely proud I am of the newbies…you would have never known they hadn’t been doing this their whole adult lives. Apparently the prerecorded show was great practice. We arrived in NYC as ready as we could be.
Day 1: Had a meeting with Erock, Steve C, and Rob Cross to discuss the “Olde Tyme Diabetes Challenge”; although I’d pitched it 3 months earlier, it didn’t get approved until 9pm the night before we were to do it. Double Vasectomy Todd didn’t find out he’d actually be tasting urine samples until then; I think he was secretly hoping they’d just can the thing. There were all kinds of parameters we had to meet, including making it “socially acceptable” by giving plenty of context about the history of medicine and why we’d want to try this thing in the first place. The parameters took some of the fun out, but we’d at least get to “do the bit”.
Day 2: The 5 of us plus Tacie, Pat from Moonachie, and Big A showed up at 7am to go on air by 7:30; Ant had called in and we were going on earlier than anticipated. However, a fight broke out between Intern Paul and Intern Evan which took the better part of an hour to “resolve” and we ended up getting into the studio at 9:15.
Bill Burr and Doug Stanhope were there and since I am a huge fan of both, this was simply insane. They were both extremely friendly and gracious to this country bumpkin who had the effrontery to talk to them on the air.
After a few minutes I began to set up the bit: for 1000+ years, doctors had to taste the urine of people with voluminous urine output to determine if they had Diabetes “Mellitus” (honey-like) or Diabetes “Insipidus” (bland tasting). This is one of the reasons doctors invented lab techs (aww, now don’t get mad, all ye lab techs! your old pal doc steve is just joshin’ ya). Anyway, we proposed a challenge: Double Vasectomy Todd would taste 4 different urine samples…3 “normal” and 1 diabetic (Pat’s). John and I dipsticked each urine to make sure there were no white blood cells or other abnormalities. Bill Burr had to stand up and turn away. Doug Stanhope was right there with us the whole time.
Todd began the tasting; I made sure Pat’s urine was the last he’d try. On the second sample I handed it to Todd and said “Fool me once, shame on you, heh heh” which cracked up Doug Stanhope which made me very happy. Opie made Todd re-taste the third sample just to be an ass; he was pretty willing to comply. In the end, he correctly identified the diabetic urine, proving that urine tasting was no myth. It didn’t taste much like honey, though.
Mission accomplished, the bit ended after I suggested that Erock smell Todd’s breath. I really wish Bobby Kelly had been there, if only for the added enjoyment of his puking on air. I was proud of ol’ Todd; first time on live national radio and he made a name for himself as willing to take one for the team. Steve C threatened to “shut down the show” if Opie continued to come up with ideas of what to do with the remaining urine samples; he got a sound thrasing from the Opster who was just trying to have fun with the last 10 minutes left of the show. Afterward we got a pic with Doug Stanhope (Bill Burr was “too fancy” to take a pic with us).
We got to hang out for awhile and had our “official” picture taken in front of the SirusXM logo; we saw Paul McCartney’s autograph on the wall and heard about how that dope John Basedow kept trying to sign the wall next to the “Cute Beatle”. Apparently the staff kept erasing his writing and got so sick of it he got banned from the building. Don’t know if it’s a true story, but it was entertaining. Triumphant (or at least not angry at ourselves for wrecking the show), we left to prepare for the next night’s festivities.
Continued in Part 2…
