Thursday night, September the twelfth, nineteen hundred and ninety six.") He also cultivated a number of signature sign-offs over the years. At WPLP he ended each show by saying "Behave yourselves", and playing "Take It To the Limit" by The Eagles; at WLS, he signed off with, "Love you, Chicago"; in his final years at WFLA he closed by playing an extended version of The Blues Brothers' "Sweet Home Chicago" as he continued speaking or answering phones, then finally playing a tape of a caller saying "That's it?...We're done?...well, have a good night then." Callers Lassiter had no use for callers who agreed with him, often rushing them off the line so he could find someone with whom he could have a compelling fight. In fact, after his monologue and topic setup he would often tell people who agreed with him not to call, that he was only interested in opposing viewpoints that day; if he received callers who agreed with him anyway, he would immediately hang up on them. Lassiter was willing to give equal time to those who disagreed with him, even if he would mercilessly lambast them afterward. Frequently, though, he had to force the opposition to speak their piece, cutting off their attempts at preambles, red herrings and ad hominem attacks and demanding that they answer the question at hand. If there was an exception to this rule, it was with the cranks and extremists: when he received calls from the religious fringe, conspiracy theorists, ideologues, even members of the Ku Klux Klan—he would let them have their say, even encouraging them to make outrageously offensive and marginal statements and thus discredit themselves. In later years, Lassiter became known for "punishing" his listeners when they didn't call in. If he reached a point in the show at which the switchboard wasn't lit, rather than riffing or starting a new monologue to fill the time, Lassiter would allow dead air to sit in. He might hum "The Anniversary Waltz", drum his fingers on the console, or even be heard quietly dealing himself a game of solitaire. Sometimes he would adopt more creative punishments: one night in Chicago, when nobody would address his topic, Lassiter invited calls from Born-Again Christians who wanted to give their personal religious testimonies, and wouldn't allow any other callers. The message was, it was a call-in show, so it was callers' job to