First time, long time!

“Ahhhhhh—good afternoon everybody!” he squealed, getting louder and higher-pitched as he made four words last seven seconds.

Then the talk-radio host known as Mad Dog—or, to his callers, just Dog—began to dance. Bruce Springsteen’s “Radio Nowhere” filled the studio. Dog strutted five paces back and forth, performing the riffs with an air guitar, as if he were on stage at the Stone Pony.

“Are you alive?” he bellowed, leaning into the microphone. “Are you alive!”

Here’s my profile of Chris Russo in the Greater New York section of today’s Wall Street Journal. Let’s just say that if you listened to WFAN—like, ever—then seeing Dog ham it up to Springsteen is exactly as hilarious as you’d think it would be. Also, if I can figure out how to upload any sort of audio, I must present my digital recording of Russo breaking down “The Town” as if it were Game 7 of the World Series. He really liked the movie—that was the first thing he said to me, before we even shook hands—but “they made that relationship a little too sympathetic, and you have to buy into it. Have to.”