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Today's Daily Hotties
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From Leonardtown to WHFS airwaves THE DIAMONDBACK -- Sam Sessa & Jorge Valencia - Wednesday, April 14 To most guys in their mid-30s, talking about sports, playing video games and cracking jokes with your best friends for a few hours doesn't sound like work. But for the Junkies in the Morning, this is the daily grind. From 5:30 to 10 a.m. every weekday, the four long-time buddies sit at a round table and talk. And get paid for it. "Sometimes you lose sight of the fact that you're doing a show that hundreds of thousands of people have access to," says Eric "EB" Bickel. "We're sitting in here in an empty room just the four of us, and then you'll hit on a topic and you'll see the phones light up ... and you're like 'wow, people really are going through their day with you.' It's kinda cool." For a little over a year, the Junkies have occupied the morning spot on 99.1 WHFS, broadcasting from Lanham, Md., to the Baltimore, Washington and Annapolis triangle. The studio is a mere seven-mile jog from the university, of which Brickel and John-Paul "JP" Flaim are alumni. John "Cakes" Auville and Jason "Lurch" Bishop round off the quartet, which started out as a community cable access TV sports show and slowly evolved into a morning talk show loosely based on athletics. "Our show should remind you of you and your friends," EB says. "If it does, than we're doing the right thing." THE HISTORY The Junkies' friendship spans several decades - EB, JP and Cakes grew up together in Bowie, and Lurch, a Lanham native, joined the pack in high school. JP and EB went to the university from 1988-1992, where they played several intramural sports. "Back then we played hoops together nightly," JP says. "We played Leonardtown ... on campus a lot, we used to play at the Armory, used to play softball teams, flag football teams and basketball." They played on the same teams, sat through the same dull lectures, memorized and forgot the same useless psychology vocabulary and drank at the same handful of bars. "We hung out at the same f---ing s---holes that you have now ... Santa Fe, Bentley's..." JP says. Although he didn't attend Maryland, Lurch comes to town for basketball and realizes College Park's dearth of a real college scene, namely good watering holes. "... [Route 1] is probably one of the worst college streets," Lurch says. "What, it has three bars? If you go to North Carolina, they have probably about 50 bars. If you go to UVA, there's just a line of bars down the street. And then Maryland has Santa Fe, Bentley's and Cornerstone? It's awful." But EB and JP attest the one thing that has changed in the 12 years since they left Maryland is the women. "I think they swallow more now," EB says. "I think it's easier to get your c--k sucked today than it was 10 years ago. Don't you agree? It's pretty easy to get your c--k sucked these days." Wasn't Maryland supposed to be a party school back then? "You guys - it probably doesn't happen all the time - but you probably see girls make out with each other," JP says. "That didn't happen in 88-92. It just didn't. ... This is the whole MTV generation. We kinda caught it early." But perhaps the women aren't the only difference at the university. The university now has a top basketball team, and with the triumphs of its wins and the fallout of its failures come the riots. But to Lurch, what students take so seriously is little more than a big bag of laughs. "I think it's funny because they only [riot] when they win against Duke," he says. "It's not like they do that when they beat Wake, it's only when they beat Duke." And to him, Maryland is the fat girl Duke bangs on the weekends when they're not seeing their steady girlfriend: the Tar Heels. "Maryland isn't Duke's rival," he says. "North Carolina is their rival. I think it's funny." But there were no riots when JP and EB shot hoops in Leonardtown - and not as many wild girls. The two graduated with bachelor's degrees - JP in business and EB in psychology - in 1992, and each entered graduate school. However, along with Lurch and Cakes, they eventually shelved their college and graduate degrees as their broadcasting hobby blossomed into a full-time job of its own. It wasn't until recently that JP began mulling over the idea of dusting off his law license and practicing part-time. Given a second chance, both EB and JP would have studied different majors in college. "I think it's really hard when you're 18-19 [years old] to really have a good grasp of what you may wanna do," EB says. "Just coming off of high school you're still trying to bang chicks. You're not even thinking about your life." It began with a local sports commentary show, the short-lived The Sports Junkies, a cable access channel in Bowie. But the show's focus shifted from sports to the four guys' unique chemistry. After all, how many talk show hosts have known each other for the majority of their lives? "I think that's what separates our show from our competitors ... there's nothing fake about this show," JP says. "I know that Cakes had a bed-wetting problem when he was 9 because we you know what? We roomed together at soccer tournament in Richmond and I was sitting there in the hallway and he had to tell the mom 'Just wanna let you know, that I do this occasionally!'" But Cakes jokingly denies the problem. "That's totally untrue," Cakes says. ON THE AIR In 1996, the Sports Junkies moved from cable TV to a weekend spot on WJFK 106.7 in Fairfax, Va., and then into the 7 to 10 p.m. weeknights slot on WJFK. The group then became syndicated for three years, until it was picked up by 99.1 WHFS about a year ago. For them, the new home is the perfect fit - except for the whole morning thing. "The only aspect of this job that I actually dread is getting up in the morning," says EB, frantically twisting a Rubic's Cube. "But once you're in here doing it, we're trying to have fun, and I think now more than ever we're having more fun than ever here. At the other station we weren't as big a priority. Here at HFS they're building the whole station around us." Literally. The Junkies' studio is off limits to the other WHFS disc jockeys, who all broadcast from the adjoining production room. This is Junkies space. Four large microphones and two flatscreen computer monitors on swivel bases spout from the center of the round table where the Junkies sit. Posters of Britney Spears, the Olsen twins, Pete Yorn and others pepper the walls. An Xbox is plugged into a plasma-screen television, which hangs on the wall opposite the production room, on which JP and Cakes duke it out at NFL 2003 during their breaks. Then a red police beacon lights up - the signal from producer Chris Kinard for the Junkies to jump back on the air. But their on-air banter isn't too different from their off-air exchanges. EB: I think Britney's slipping a bit. Christina slipped. You know what, those girls slipped. They all got surpassed by Jessica. Jessica Simpson is the new Number 1. ... Britney I'd still like to crush it, don't get me wrong. My order would be Jessica, Britney, Christina. JP: E.B. disrespects Halle Berry, J.Lo, Jessica Alba. He doesn't like any ethnicities. EB: How can you say that? I'm married to a Chinese girl. JP: Yeah, but you got locked in early. EB: I'm comparing the three teen idols. That's what I'm comparing. Are you kidding? I would destroy Jessica Alba. I don't really like J.Lo. I'd like to f--- her face. Just a bunch of guys.
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