INT. RECORDING STUDIO – DAY

The PRODUCER sits at the control panel, gazing into the booth with a thousand yard stare.  DJ 3000 is in his usual location against the wall.  The mood is very somber.  The lights on DJ 3000 start to flash with increasingly frequency, and then are joined by a series of noises familiar to anyone who has ever won a jackpot at a slot machine.

PRODUCER: [glances over]

DJ 3000: WHAT IS THIS, SOME KIND OF FUNERAL?

PRODUCER: I mean, kind of, yeah.

DJ 3000: THESE EVENTS ARE NOT AS ENTERTAINING AS LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS WOULD SUGGEST.

PRODUCER: [smiles very faintly] I appreciate the effort to cheer me up, old buddy, but it’s going to take some time.

DJ 3000: I THOUGHT MAYBE REMINDING YOU OF THE TRIP TO VEGAS MIGHT HELP.

PRODUCER: It does.

DJ 3000: FACIAL RECOGNITION ANALYSIS DOES NOT SUPPORT THAT ASSERTION.

PRODUCER: Just because I’m not grinning from ear to ear doesn’t mean it’s not a happy memory.  I’m just processing things in my own way.

DJ 3000: YES. SLOWLY.

PRODUCER: That’s how human brains work.

DJ 3000: BUT RETRIEVING MEMORIES OF PREVIOUS INTERACTIONS WITH THIS HUMAN PROVIDE YOU WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL COMFORT?

PRODUCER: They sure do.

DJ 3000: IN THAT CASE, REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU LOST TRACK OF TIME AT THE MUSEUM OF POP CULTURE AND THEY LOCKED YOU INSIDE FOR THE NIGHT AND HE HAD TO FILL IN FOR YOU?

PRODUCER: Which time?

DJ 3000: THE SECOND TIME.

PRODUCER: He never said he was too busy to help out.  Not once.

DJ 3000: AND REMEMBER HOW HE HAD TO WRITE THAT POST ON HIS FLIP PHONE BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY DRIVING DOWN THE I-95 TO SEE THAT WAFFLE HOUSE WAITRESS IN SOUTH CAROLINA SO HE COULD PERFORM A VETERINARY PROCEDURE ON HER FELINE COMPANION?

PRODUCER: That’s not exactly what he…you know what, never mind.

DJ 3000: IT’S A SHAME YOU NEVER GOT TO GO SURFING WITH HIM.

PRODUCER: Can you imagine the shit he’d have paddled into?  That man did not fear much of anything.

DJ 3000: REMEMBER THE TIME HE ALMOST GOT INTO A BAR FIGHT WITH THAT GANG OF LESBIAN NAZI KOALAS BECAUSE THEY KEPT HASSLING THAT EXCHANGE STUDENT FROM BANGLADESH?

PRODUCER: I still can’t believe they backed down even though they had him outnumbered 5 to 1.

DJ 3000: AND HE WAS SO DRUNK THAT TO HIM IT PROBABLY LOOKED LIKE THERE WERE TEN OF THEM.

PRODUCER: Yeah.

The two sit in silence for a moment.

DJ 3000: HE HAD SUCH A GIGANTIC GODDAMNED HEART.

PRODUCER: Heart of a lion, man. Heart of a lion.

DJ 3000: IT’S ALMOST AIR TIME.  HAVE YOU GIVEN ANY THOUGHT TO THE THEME FOR REQUEST LINE TODAY?

PRODUCER: I’ve given a lot of thought to the theme for Request Line today.  But today’s theme is actually courtesy of a suggestion by Son Of Spam.

DJ 3000: AND…?

PRODUCER: DJ 3000, cue up [redacted] by [redacted]

DJ 3000: OH, NO, DON’T DO THIS.

PRODUCER: It’s for real.  Cue it up.

DJ 3000: YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.

PRODUCER: It’s what he would have wanted.

The PRODUCER smiles with a little more life this time, and then his fingers fly over the soundboard, adjusting sliders and flipping switches in preparation for going on air.  Once he’s got everything set up he adjusts the external microphone, glances upwards, and punches a big yellow button on the console.

PRODUCER: Hi folks.  A lot of you have heard the news that a dear friend of ours passed this week.  And while I wish I was using the word “passed” in the Mitch Trubisky sense, in that it had been spectacularly unsuccessful, I’m sad to say that I am not and this is all very real.  The Wee Baby Seamus was as good of a friend as a person could ask for.  He was a far better friend to me than I could have ever possibly been to him.  He never hesitated to challenge you when you needed to be challenged, and expected the same of you – though whether he’d follow your advice was an entirely different matter.  I’d say that he always treated people with the respect they deserved, but that would be a lie because the truth is that he treated most people with way more respect than most of them – hell, us – deserved.  And [glances at DJ 3000] a lot of people who knew The Wee Baby Seamus only through Request Line would say that he had terrible, terrible taste in music.  He didn’t.  But one thing he loved to do more than anything else was to stir the pot.  Which meant that every week he’d call in, without fail, and ask us to spin a song that maybe fit the theme, but that nobody in their right minds – least of all me – wanted to hear.  But of course he wanted to hear them, so they made their way into the rotation.  So in tribute to our fallen friend, today’s topic is, for lack of a better term “guilty pleasures”.  We’re looking for songs that are objectively awful, but maybe…you kind of like them? We’re looking for the kind of songs that The Wee Baby Seamus would have approved of and demanded I play for your entertainment. And maybe throw in the theme that he’d have posted it to – in this case, “paradise”.  So here’s to you, Seamus.  You were one of a kind, and you will be missed.