By Ronn Chesmonde

Retired congressman Jack Quinn once referred to him lovingly as ‘Buffalo’s own mentally-retarded audio Al Qaeda.”  Deputy Mayor Steve Casey wonders if he is aware that there appears to be a dead squirrel on his head.

Bauerle: So sexy his listeners wear condoms.

Whether you love him (as his three listeners profess regularly when they call in to his WBEN morning program), hate him (even card-carrying members of the Ku Klux Klan reportedly keep their distance) or have never even heard of him, no one in Western New York can deny that Tom Bauerly is one sexy homophobe.

And WBEN Station Manager Pat Prince tells me that he gets letters every week from elderly, widowed women and transgendered teenagers who both want to know the answer to the same question: ‘Tom, how do you stay so sexy?’

The secret, says Bauerle, is simple.  “I trim both my nose and rectal hairs before each show,” says the controversial talk-show host, who uses a special custom-made trimming tool with handle made from the inlaid skull of a deceased ACLU lawyer (a gift from his proctologist).  “I always do the nose hair first, of course.”

Bauerle has made a career out of launching myopic attacks against any and all Erie County residents he deems to be both “smarter and/or more intelligent than me.”  And that means in the thriving AM radio market that is Western New York he has more than 1 million targets to choose from on a daily basis.

“But I pride myself on the fact that I only go after the weasels in this town,” said Bauerle, who regularly reminds listeners that his ancestors helped to build the first transcontinental urinal, which was constructed in 1878 but razed four years later after federal funding ran out.  “That, to me, is when America began it’s steep downhill descent,” says the host, still embittered over one hundred and thirty years later.  “This is the United States of America.  A man should be able to urinate anywhere he wants to.”

Bauerle claims that his routine of bringing “sexy” to the AM dial starts the same each day.

“I usually have a complete stranger in Ellicott Creek Park explain to me a sampling of the hot news stories that appear in the morning paper,” says Bauerle.  “And then I think to myself ‘What would Jesus do if he was listening to, for example, some moron spout on about universal health care?’  I’ll tell you what He would do: He would hang up on them.  Because even Jesus wouldn’t pay for the exorbitant health care costs that lazy people across this country are running up on the tab of hard working Americans like you and me.”

Bauerle attributes his AM radio sex-symbol status to the grooming habits that he learned while working as a rest room attendant in a Thailand sex shop when he was a teenager.  “I’ll let you in on a little secret I learned in that profession,” says the radio host in his most commanding voice.  “If you want tips in a sex shop men’s room, you’re hair had better look good enough to eat off of.  And I’m not just talking about this golden-brown crown upstairs, either,” he says, pointing to his head.  “You have to meticulously edge the lawn that grows in the basement, too.”

Bauerle dismisses the annual results of Artvoice’s “Face For Radio” poll, which he has been won in a landslide for the past five years.  “Polls don’t mean anything to me,” he claims.  “I go with my gut.  And my gut says that there are plenty of other radio guys who brought the “sexy” every day to the AM dial long before I got here.  Cronkite. Harvey.  Art Wander.  Those were the sexy giants whose silky smooth shoulders I’ve stood upon.”

Bauerle takes a slow sip from his Starbucks non-fat latte, cinnamon powder sprinkled gently over a dollop of whipped cream.  “Me? I’m just happy when my ‘infield’ is properly groomed and I have a caller to cut off or hang up on.”