Big Lead Sports Bar

1/08/2008

The Mondesi's House Team: A.J.

A.J.

COLUMN: A unique fusion of pop culture and Pittsburgh sports

FREQUENCY: Monthly

OCCUPATION: Full time target for middle management hostility, Part Time Radio Personality at WXDX: 105.9 The X.

BACKGROUND: I was born and raised in Pittsburgh in a house full of sports fanatics. I am a proud graduate of Slippery Rock University where I majored in Communication and minored in Milwaukee’s Best Ice. I’ve worked on and off in the world of rock radio for the past 11 years or so.

I started my radio career at the now defunct WNRQ: 104.7 The Revolution. Exactly eight days after being hired, I got a call from my boss stating that the station had been sold, they were flipping format, and there was no reason for me to ever come back to the studio. That should have been a sign for me to take up a career in diesel mechanics, but being a glutton for punishment, I pursued radio and happily landed at WXDX in 1996. Radio is one of those industries where you never know exactly where you’ll end up. I eventually moved to Green Bay for a few cold winters before returning back to Pittsburgh in 2002 to work for a digital media company in Robinson. Fortunately, the people at The X never realized that I left and my key to the office still worked. So, I am back working weekends at the station where I started.

In addition to being a sports fan, I’m also a certified music geek. I plan on writing a monthly column here that will somehow attempt to tie the sports world with the music world (they are much more similar than you think), all the while trying to make it entertaining and uniquely Pittsburgh. Since I don’t know what else to include as part of this “bio”, here is a Myspace survey that I filled out. Feel free to copy and paste it in the comments section with your own answers.

1. Would you shave your entire body (including your head) for money?

Yes. I would even shave Dale Berra’s mustache for money.

2. What is the weirdest place you have had sex?

Wisconsin

3. Who is your favorite all time Pittsburgh sports star?

Without a doubt, Mario Lemieux. With all due respect to the 70’s Steelers, none of them ever came back from cancer. He also scored 1723 career points playing mostly during a time when anything short of prison rape wasn’t called a penalty. If 1988 Mario played in the 2008 NHL, Gretzky’s records would be nothing but an afterthought.

4. Have you ever been to a strip club?

I prefer to call it the “McKees Rocks Ballet Company”.

5. Ever been so drunk you had to be carried out of somewhere?

This is why I’m no longer allowed in the South Side Giant Eagle.

6. Favorite Pittsburgh sports moment?

I’ve been lucky enough to have witnessed many of them: Five Steeler Super Bowls, Two Stanley
Cups for the Pens, a Pirates World Series in ’79. The best has to be when my dad took me to the
Maulers game where Cliff Stoudt got pelted with snow balls. That was awesome.

7. What was the last movie you saw in the theater?

I Am Legend with the Fresh Prince. I like the thought of lions roaming the streets of Manhattan.

8. Who is most likely to repost this quiz?

Like anybody is still reading at this point…

3 comments:

Jules said...

Rocky Bleier came back from Vietnam! That's kind of like cancer....

HotDog_Zanzabar said...

Looking most forward to AJ's column

Bobbi Polos & Andrew Gearhart said...

When are you going to write something? You're like the Duce Staley of Mondesi's House. Just standing on the sideline in your grey sweatsuit watching everyone else do the work.