The Big 1-5

Hello, everybody, nice seeing you again.

This Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, will be my and Sluggo’s 15th wedding anniversary. Fifteen years is a long time—a LONG time. It’s like the sentence you get if you’re convicted of a Class A felony in New York State. But here we are. I could go a lot of different ways with this, but I think it would be nice to tell, again, the old story of how we met.

I was doing the Truckstop Teaparty show from 3:00-6:00 on Friday afternoons, and one week when I got off the air I stopped by to see Station Manager Ken. He was working on LCD (Lowest Common Denominator), the program guide magazine we used to have, and he showed me a cartoon that someone had submitted for it. I figured he was showing it to me because he knew I liked comics—I talked about them on the air sometimes—so I looked it over and said, Yeah, this is good, and handed it back to him. “Did you read it?” he asked. Well, no, I’d just looked at the pictures. So then I read it, and it was all about me, and my show, and this guy listening to my show, and trying to imagine what I was like. And he hadn’t sent it to me, directly, which might have seemed weird or a little creepy, but had just submitted it to LCD. I was so delighted: Here was a talented, funny artist who appreciated my show.

I got his phone number off the business card clipped to the back of the art, called the number—and got an answering machine. “Hi,” I said. “This is Bronwyn C. from WFMU. I just saw the cartoon you sent into LCD, and I wanted to say thanks, and aw shucks, and everything. It’s really good, and I’m, uh, really flattered and happy to have such a nice Listener.”

Just then DJ Rob Weisberg walked in. “Oh, you got Sluggo’s cartoon,” he said. It turned out he knew this guy, Sluggo, from the work he’d submitted to Screw, where Rob was working at the time. It was Rob who’d suggested LCD as another place for Sluggo to submit his work. “Is this guy cute?” I asked. I’d just broken up with my boyfriend—whose name I don’t think I’m allowed to say here—two weeks before, and I sort of felt like that was long enough to be single. Rob said that, being a guy, he couldn’t say whether Sluggo was cute or not, but he wasn’t ugly. That was good enough for me. I called back, got the answering machine, and left another message.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Bronwyn C. again. A bunch of us are going to see Azalia Snail play tonight at Gas Station, at 2nd and B, so, umm, if you were going to be there I could thank you in person. I’m wearing paisley tights, so if you see me, say Hi. Okay, well, ’bye.”

Moomra, Sluggo’s mom, told me that when he got home and heard the messages he went crazy, running through the house and taking a shower for the first time in days and sewing a button on his best Fred Perry shirt, but I wasn’t there and I don’t know about all that. All I know is that he showed up at Gas Station, and we met, and talked for a while. He seemed nice, but, being faceblind, I couldn’t really tell if he was good-looking, so I had to ask Diane, who was DJ William Berger’s roommate at the time. She said yeah, Sluggo was cute. As for me, I wasn’t really Sluggo’s type, as he has reminded me often over the years, but he means physical type because mentally we have the same brain, and that has turned out to be the most important thing.

We also both lived in Brooklyn, so DJ Rob Weisberg offered us a ride in his car after the show, and we all stopped at Junior’s on the way home, and I went—even though I’m allergic to cheesecake—because Sluggo was going. The next day he called me and we talked for 3 hours while he grilled me as to where I saw myself in 30 years (in tweed and sensible shoes, living in the country in Connecticut with many yapping little terrier dogs) and did I want children (no), and so on. I couldn’t figure out if he was really smart or really nuts, but at least he was interesting. That night we met in his neighborhood and drank a lot and talked and talked and talked some more, for hours and hours and hours. We walked all around so he could show me every abandoned garage where he daydreamed about living someday, and I told him I wouldn’t sleep with him until he got rid of the other two girls he was seeing at the time. Six months later he moved into my apartment in Bush Terminal, even though I told him not to, and two years after that we got married.

The original cartoon that started it all is framed and hanging in our bedroom, and every year, on St. Patrick’s Day, we raise a non-alcoholic toast to DJ Rob Weisberg. I always say I got more out of WFMU than I ever put into it, and this is just one of the reasons why.

Thanks for reading my blog post this week, thanks for supporting WFMU during the fundraising marathon, and may St. Patrick bless.

Comments

[CJS]

Great story. Many happy returns to yourself and the Slugster. Le Feile Padraig fe sean is fe mhaise dhuit!

[Webster Hubble Telescope]

I also get more out of WFMU than I put into it. Thanks for the story.

[Jeff T]

With all these people getting more then they put in, I can't help but wonder if WFMU is some kind of elaborate radio pyramid scheme.

[Ray Zinnbrann]

My god, fifteen years. I remember it all like it happenedyesterday. Azalia Snail at the Gas Station????? Where did the time go!

Bronwyn, it's been a long while since we've seen each other, but this post brought it all back for me. I hope this fifteenth anniversary is your absolute happiest.

[Krys O.]

Happy Anniversary! I'll have to tell Di about her place in history. : )

[Rix]

15 years. Ah, that was a sad day in Rix History. Paisley tights, yeah.

[David]

What a lovely story!

[Azalia Snail]

Saw this & had to say, it's cool to be part of your luv story... The Gas Station was, I believe, one of my first three shows ever. Zany Tim Ray had aluminum foiled the whole back wall & we tried to project Super-8 flicks over it. May all the good forces be with you.