Radio Host Live-Tweets Late-Night River North In All Its Loud, Drunk Glory
By Selena Fragassi in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 10, 2015 7:26PM
It started simply enough with this Tweet …
And suddenly a light bulb went off and a Twitter phenomenon was born.
We’re talking about #GuthGauntlet, the 140-character street-side musings of Saturday night WGN radio host Amy Guth as she soberly traverses through the “crazyass, drunk/high/rollin' trainwreck” known as River North and Streeterville on a Sunday morning after 2 a.m.
For Guth, it’s her walk home after a shift; for the rest of us, it’s a walk through the drunk urban jungle—and it’s extremely entertaining. Now you can read them all in one place with this handy Storify Guth compiled last weekend.
Just this past Saturday, some guy urinated on her door.
Start toward my building door. Guy: "Sorry I pissed on your door. Right there. Where it's wet. Don't step in it." #guthgauntlet
— Amy Guth (@amyguth) August 9, 2015It was the perfect night cap after witnessing the drama of a woman practically get bartered off to a homeless man.
Couple fighting. Guy points @ homeless guy: "Date HIM then!" Homeless guy: "Ok by me. I know how to treat a lady right, son!" #guthgauntlet
— Amy Guth (@amyguth) August 9, 2015In fine form, Guth captures a lot of these romantic trysts (a guy once offered his bud a Four Loko as dowry for sleeping with his friend), gives us the transcript of a lot of bro/brah/dude talk and sometimes even finds herself more than the omnipresent observer (like the time a guy asked her to high five him—"for eternity").
Looking through her feed, what’s trending in Chicago is debating who’s the drunkest of them all, a lot of panties and barf and weed and equilibrium problems (because a lot of people just keep falling over). And there’s plenty of breakups to prove the love struggle is real in Chicago.
Man, shouting after tall, blonde woman: "Screw you, then, Taylor Swift looking..... girl!" #guthgauntlet
— Amy Guth (@amyguth) July 26, 2015In the year-plus it’s been active, Guth has taken her Gauntlet on the road, given tours to other media people like WGN colleague James Van Osdol and even trucked through the long, hard, cold winter to keep the rest of us warm with laughter at everyone else's expense.
Passing snowplow pelts ppl w salt as they wait to get into a club. They cheer as if sprayed with tequila. Yup. #guthgauntlet
— Amy Guth (@amyguth) February 1, 2015The loser log shows why Laugh Factory called Guth “Chicago’s Funniest Media Personality” in 2013, and has Chicago Mag's Whet Moser saying #GuthGauntlet should be kept in a museum.
I think #guthgauntlet needs to be collected in the chicago history museum
— Whet Moser (@whet) July 26, 2015Guth's wit and keen observations in and out of the studio are likely part of the reason she left her post as general manager/publisher of RedEye and Metromix in May to “pursue other projects” including radio and television opportunities and publishing her second novel, which just has Oprah's Book Club written all over it. In the meantime, keep tuning in to get gems like these.
OH: "No thin crust. Man up and order deep dish, punkass. Thin crust is for white boys." #GuthGauntlet ???
— Amy Guth (@amyguth) June 14, 2015