Posted by chicagomedia.org on February 05, 2009 at 15:37:51:
In Reply to: Sad news...Eddie Schwartz dies posted by Sil on February 04, 2009 at 07:25:51:
Eddie Schwartz rolled with the punches
By Steve Dahl | Chicago Tribune
9:09 PM CST, February 4, 2009
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When I first arrived on the scene in Chicago back in 1978, I was told by my program director at WDAI to listen to Eddie Schwartz on WIND if I wanted to learn how to fit in. Roger Skolnick was a big Eddie Schwartz fan, and he even took me to Eddie's favorite Chinese restaurant for what was then, and will always be the best egg roll in Chicago, Hoe Kow at Michigan and Lake. Sadly, Hoe Kow's owner died a decade or so ago, and the place is now Salvador's, I believe. Eddie loved to eat, and he in fact had found the best egg roll in Chicago.
I listened to Eddie and I immediately understood what I was supposed to listen for. He knew how to connect with his audience. He was doing what he did best, tending the graveyard shift, entertaining cops and firemen, ministering to the lonely night owls, and cracking me up. Come on, the guy sounded like a Vienna Choirboy with a police scanner. Ultimately Eddie and I ended up sharing a lot of listeners, but in the beginning, I was merciless. He once interviewed Rose Marie on the phone for two hours.
When I was at WLUP AM 1000, Kevin Matthews had also taken to lampooning Eddie, so not only was the midday show all over him, but the afternoon show that Garry Meier and I did also featured a lot of Eddie bashing. One afternoon, Larry Wert (the oft-televised NBC executive) was our Station Manager and had called me to tell me that he had hired Eddie away from WGN to do late nights on our station. "Oh, that's not a good idea," I said, "He's half of our act here." "Well you'll have to stop," Larry told me. We didn't stop, and Ed dished it right back.
Ironically, after Ed became sick, he often called into my afternoon show on WCKG. It was his only outlet at that point, and I found talking to him to be both funny and compelling. We agreed on almost nothing, but it was always an enjoyable dialogue. One afternoon, the voice of a delivery guy came over his condo intercom: he had brought Eddie up a diet grape Snapple and God knows what else. I had heard stories of gargantuan deliveries made to his unit, and I pestered him about the contents of this particular order. He would only give up the diet Snapple. I pictured him getting three- or four-dozen egg rolls from somewhere.
I bet Eddie's sitting at a big table somewhere right now, waiting for Raymond Moy, the former proprietor of Hoe Kow, to drop a dozen egg rolls in the cosmic fryer. Eat up, old friend, I'll be there soon enough. And save some plum sauce for me.