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November 02, 2004

Happy Halloween Indeed

NP: The Clash, Essential Clash

Okay, so let's make this clear. I am not a fan of Mancow Muller. For those of you outside of Chicago or any of his syndicated markets, let me explain. He's a local "shock jock" in the mold of Howard Stern, or Opie & Anthony, and by "in the mold," I mean that everything he does, Stern has done first. Everything. My friend Nick told me that Opie & Anthony used to play clips of Mancow doing the exact same bits they did several weeks earlier on a pretty regular basis.

As if that weren't enough, Q101 -- the radio station he calls home, having replaced the only good morning radio show in the city -- has started a new billboard campaign touting both him and their "alternative rock" mantra. On the billboards, they superimpose Muller on "classic" alt-rock album covers, like Nirvana's Nevermind and Blink-182's Enema Of The State. Yes, I know, I just used "Blink-182" and "classic album" in the same sentence, I'm sorry.

I truly feel bad for Billy Corgan when he drives south on Ashland, near his old house, and is subjected to Mancow's mug on his Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness cover. Nobody should be made to feel sorry for Billy Corgan. I mean, come on, he's Billy Corgan! He feels sorry enough for himself without my help!

The story truly begins with the fact that I sorta look like him. He's one of two local celebrities I've been told I resemble, with the other being former White Sox pitcher Jack McDowell. So the original idea for Halloween this year was to have my friend Kevin dress up as Howard Stern, and I'd dress up as Mancow, following him around all night and doing everything he did. Beautiful irony number one is that I got Q101 to send me a t-shirt -- and it ended up being a Mancow t-shirt -- for free.

Anyway, Kevin bailed, so I was left to my own devices. I didn't think to make a "WWHD?" bracelet, so I settled for the next best thing. A copy of Stern's Private Parts with a whole bunch of Post-It notes attached, along with a videotape marked "Howard Stern Show (E!)" and an audiotape with "Opie & Anthony" scrawled on it. Voila! Celebrity mockery!

I'm still laughing about this

The party was at the Foundation Room of the House of Blues, which I figured would be sophisticated enough to get the joke. Although, on the way down from the Grand Avenue El stop -- and the Chicago El on and around Halloween is a story in and of itself, as it can be hard to tell who's actually in costume around, say, Belmont -- I started worrying that either no one would get it, or no one would think it was funny.

About forty-five minutes in, my fears were emphatically dispelled. One of the waitresses asked me if I wanted to hang out in the VIP room instead of the main room with all the normal people. This was confusing until I learned that Mancow was judging the costume contest, and she thought I was him.

A moment of panic. Oh, man, I'm going to get my ass kicked. Instead, I just sorta hid out at the end of the bar and drank my free rasberry vodka martinis. Which wasn't really a great idea, either, but that, too, is a story for another day. The waitress who thought I was him ratted me out, but I suspect that my low profile kept him from noticing that I was actually making fun of him. How do I know? Because I won first prize in the contest, a year's membership to the Foundation Room, valued at $2,000. I even beat out hot chicks, which is playing against type for our "esteemed" judge. I've heard that the HOB staff were thoroughly amused by the turn of events. Heck, I still spontaneously burst out laughing just thinking about it.

Now, I guess it's possible that he's self-aware enough to have gotten and appreciated the joke, or ignored it to play up the sycophantic angle, but I think it's much more likely that he thought I was sucking up to him, and annointed me the winner in an outpouring of narcissistic glee. To know for sure, I probably would have had to actually listen to his show on Monday morning, and that just wasn't going to happen.

Comments

Very cool story, Coz. I've heard that Erich Muller is actually a pretty decent guy off the air. Lin Brehmer told me so.

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