Multiply 365 Day 26 - Reprints

I come to the blog with bad news today, as I was at work I received a call from Phil Marcus.  Normally if I get a call from Phil it involves when we will next be going out for lunch or dinner and where, but those calls are almost always reserved for home and not work, so my curiosity was piqued.  I wish it hadn't been.  The call was to inform me that Doug Hoerth was found dead in his apartment.  When I got home there were messages from a couple of other people as well, Lynn called me and Marla left me a message in my Facebook inbox. 

Rather than go into a long story of what Doug meant to me, instead I am going to repost something that I had written in my Yahoo 360 days, back on 11/05/2005 when Doug was being recognized for 25 tears in broadcasting. (I will try to fix any typos from back then, but the content will remain the same.)

      Well, let's get the congratulatory stuff out of the way first.  Kudos to one Doug Hoerth on his 25 years of broadcasting here in the 'Burgh.  Doug has worked at a handful of stations in this market, currently he is employed by our station.  I have always been a fan of his, so it was more than fun to actually sit in as his producer for the 9 months we had him on in the mornings (he has since been moved to the afternoon drive).   I would explain what goes through producing a typical episode of the Doug Hoerth Show, but there is no such animal.  Asking Doug what the show was about ahead of time was pointless, because either he didn't know, or he had an idea, but he didn't want to tell in order to keep the show "fresh".  Needless to say, doing his show meant you basically had to plan on most anything happening. 

 

      For me, prepping for his show involved reading a lot every morning, at least enough to make myself familiar with the contents of the NY Post, NY Daily News, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Drudge Report, and Radar Online.  And that was just to cover the bases.  It was also a good idea to have taken a look at the traffic person (Trisha Pittman) over on Channel 11, because we would most likely be talking about her fashion sense, which is very good by the way.

 

       A little after 7am, the show would start.  By the time we got out of the news break at the top of the hour, I had also checked out the weather person on Channel 11 (Krista Viarreal) and her fashion sense, which usually consisted of a comment on how she stole Doug's drapes again, a cursory glance at Denise Austin on Lifetime (she can't really be 48 and look that good can she?) and some channel hopping, because who knows what Doug is watching on the TV in his booth.

     The conversations that would happen before we went on the air were probably as funny, if not moreso than anything we did on the air.  Prime example, one morning we were doing our channel hopping prior to the show and we ended up on a faith healer (7am cable is quite an experience) who was all but slapping these people as they would fall back or collapse before claiming that they were healed (Praise the Lord!).  Well this one woman came up to the Reverend (Ernest Ainsley is his name if I remember correctly) and while I had the sound off (I usually watch with close captioning so as not to interfere with any open mikes) I could tell by the pics that first she was very heavy and second that she was very heavy in the chest department as well.  Mr. Ainsley goes about his ritual (about 5 minutes after the hour, with us starting the radio show about 6 after the hour) and low and behold she is healed.  Not just healed, but excitedly healed as she bounded around the stage in all her glory, her massive mammaries going in all sorts of directions.  Now mind you, the clock is ticking on us to start the show, and just before we go on the air, I talk into Doug's headset and say the following "You would think while God was around, he would have fixed her bra as well".  We must have laughed through the entire first segment of the show, with most everyone else just not in on the joke.  This is what we would call par for the course, usually one of us breaking the other up before we go on the air.  I can't describe how much fun it was to do that show.   Not that we didn't have our serious moments, but at the end of the day we are still just doing a show, and truth be told, lots of people would kill to be doing what we were doing, so we had fun with it.

    Kudos Uncle Douggie, it nice know that after 25 years, the City of Pittsburgh had an official Doug Hoerth Day, a honor that both you and Boy George can now lay claim too.  I heard they were going to have a Rosie O'Donnell Day as well, but when they went to give her the key to the city, she thought it was a Cheeto, and ate it.