My Ex-Morning Show Partner the Billboard God

Zach and I had some of the best times of our lives on radio. I've blogged about some of them here on my I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-this-blog blog and shared some of our airchecks here. I think our success was based on the fact that we were not only self-deprecating but that we could throw each other down and roast each other every morning.

We created a Verbal Reality (That's radio-speak for taking what an announcer says as true.) that had people in stitches every morning. For instance, I was gone for a week to get liposuction but the press release he created about me was that I went on a tour of India to visit various ashrams. In a week! And got married to a man named Oscar Bandot. In a week! And had three sons. In a week! I came back a week later, shocked to find some listeners actually believe the tales he wove.

(He got his payback of course when he disappeared and I announced he was getting certain parts of his... anatomy... altered. And on another day, that he was shooting a film in Hollywood. You get the picture.)

We created a playground right alongside tackling relevant issues of the day. As producer, my daily goals: inform, educate, entertain the listener, could only be realized with him holding his own against me bringing mine to the table. We would have been helpless though without our faithful assistant Glenn Sibal (more on him in another blog).

One of the jokes we used to throw out on occasion was that either of us had a billboard on EDSA - the major highway that connects the north and the south of Metro Manila - endorsing whatever product we currently favored. That has actually happened for one of us. The billboard part that is.


As for the briefs, Zach favored the aged kind with bacony garters. (We auctioned off our underwear one time... don't ask why. The winner actually came to claim their prize.)

You've come a long way, my friend. I terribly miss the fun we had. You were the best morning show partner any domineering, female co-host could ever ask for and I love you for it.

(P.S. Zach is the drummer of popular Philippine rock band Imago. He got his body from capoeira and working out like a former morning show host who probably now uses his mornings to get to the gym.)