One of the pleasures of attending a convention is the camaraderie one finds among peers and even those considered stars in the media universe.  I spoke many gracious people this week, including Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Sandy Rios, Michael Barone, Mike Gallagher, Michael Steele, and many others.  But the most enlightening experience came from hosting a true legend in the radio business at my house this week — Duane “Generalissimo” Patterson, producer (and he tells me, the actual star) of the Hugh Hewitt Show.

At first, I thought this would be a breeze, since I’ve known Duane for a few years.  The First Mate looked forward to this week, to show some Minnesota hospitality, and to cook some lutefisk.  However, when Duane’s appearance contract came in the mail last week, we puzzled over some of the mandates:

• Mr. Patterson requires that no other soft drink than Mr. Pibb be stored in the refrigerator.
• Hosts must address Mr. Patterson by his rank (Generalissimo) and salute him when first addressing him in any conversation.
• Hosts shall avert their eyes until Mr. Patterson utters the release word, “Britney”.
• While not a requirement, Mr. Patterson would appreciate the hosts to TiVo one week’s worth of episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants” in order to catch up with the episodes he missed while traveling.
• Please provide us a list of “Hooters Restaurants” in your area, complete with directions, operating hours, and telephone numbers, as soon as possible.

Needless to say, we worked hard to comply with this, and Duane — er, Mr. Patterson — seemed initially mollified when he arrived to conduct his inspection.  After showing us a couple of spots that seemed too dusty for his nostrils, he quietly retired to his suite of rooms downstairs while we isolated ourselves in the laundry room, as per the requirements of the contract.

It turns out it wasn’t quite that easy, though.  We would have to sneak back upstairs to get earplugs during the night, because it was difficult to get sleep while Mr. Patterson played his Spice Girls music at loud volume it the middle of the night.  In the morning, he would join us for breakfast, graciously allowing us to eat with him after sending back the food to the kitchen twice, just to be sure we had put just the right amount of milk on his Lucky Charms.  His daily readings of the collected works of Sidney Sheldon made all of this more than worthwhile, however, and we counted ourselves lucky to be in his presence.

In fact, the only real difficulty came last night, when Mr. Patterson became irate at the end of the convention.  I couldn’t quite figure out what set him off, but he kept muttering something about Hugh getting more time than he did in the post-speech broadcast at AM 1280 The Patriot.  He was so upset, actually, that he didn’t even bother to return the First Mate’s salute when he came storming back into the house.  We shut ourselves in the laundry room for the night, and awoke this morning to a scene of destruction that only those hotels fortunate enough to host Aerosmith or The Who have seen.

Anyway, we count ourselves lucky to have been in the presence of greatness all this week, but as you can imagine, we have quite a task in getting our house back in order.  I’ll have to play a re-run of yesterday’s show instead of doing my normal show today, and I hope you enjoy it.

Update: The First Mate says to ignore all of the above, and that I’m just looking for an excuse to take a day off.  You be the judge.