Goodbye, Farewell and Shmonty (spinoff welcome)

Tomorrow a good friend and co-worker here in the building is taking off for greener (hopefully for him) and really damn hot pastures. WRRV’s Shmonty is heading out with his better half, Kari, to Arizona as she admirably reaches higher for her doctorate (serious envy on my part) and he accompanies her realizing the most important thing in life. To just say he will be missed around Radioville here is almost trivial as real friends and daily sanity saving constants are always missed in a much more profound way.

Being around radio for a couple of years or so I’ve worked with many really talented people, many prima donna’s, and many hacks (usually the last two combined) but I have never come across as quick and natural a wit as that of Eric Ashmont (oh…that’s where Shmonty originates...quick you are). I’ve also met some very funny people along the way but far too many of them are condescendingly funny way and that’s, well, not funny. I’ve met a great many who try too hard to be funny and that’s, well, usually painfull. I’ve come across a lot who always have to be the funniest person in the room and that’s, well, a knee jerk to a blunt object. I’ve also run into those who have to work at funny and do and that’s, well, to be admired. Shmont though is a rare exception. He is easily and genuinely funny in that beautiful, screwy, irreverent and intelligent way that can make some folks laugh just a little warily and uncomfortably, which of course is funny in and of itself. He, too, is also very human and that combination is even rarer.


That is a daily dose of a person that cannot be replaced but can be treasured instead for having had the pleasure and laughter of it at all. Good luck to you my friend, to both of you. And to Kari a second dose of luck as he is, after all, Shmonty. Stay together and make lots of funny intelligent babies because, in the world we live in now, that is also rare.

Cheers,
-fb

(No, I'm not the guy in the football jersey. I'm the creepy looking one peering over Shmonty's shoulder in the background with my Maria looking oh so cute as always)