Pezo

Rather than take his work home with him, Fernando "Pezo" Johnson brings home to work. He never leaves his crib between the hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and he never takes off his bathrobe.

Pezo's aptly titled Hot 107.9 (WHTA-FM) show "In Da Cribb with Pezo" hearkens back to radio's heyday, when guys like Jack Benny made the airwaves crackle with sketch comedy that required listeners to turn on their imaginations versus tuning out with Technicolor.

He calls it reality radio; but in an age when sensory overload is a fact of life, some have to open their minds to see his "radio vision."

At Pezo's "cribb," everyone is a visitor. He even gets celebrity guests to play along using everything from sound effects that mimic him cooking in the kitchen to humorous characters like his pet fly, So Fly. On Jermaine Dupri's in-studio visit, he played the role of a neighbor complaining about Pezo's overgrown grass. On another episode, TLC's Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas banged on his door after being stood up by him. Even serious guests such as Al Sharpton and Juanita Bynum have taken part in Pezo's comedic soap operas.

It's a stretch, by all means. But that's the point.

"I just want to stimulate the imagination more," says Pezo, a 10-year radio veteran who started his conceptual show about three years ago. "The imagination is not being used at all 'cause we get to see everything."

Former 107.9 program director Jerry Smokin' B brought Pezo to fill the midday time slot a couple of years ago after mentoring him at another urban radio station in Columbia, S.C. Since Jerry's recent departure, Pezo's cut back on the sketch comedy during the week but still goes full force during his Sunday slot, from 5 to 10 p.m.

"It's such a new concept," he says. "My show may sound different but ... I'm going to take you to places you've never really been before."