Cuckoo for El Cucuy

Spanish- speaking radio personality draws hundreds of fans at Santa Ana book signing

By Minerva Canto

The Orange County Register 

SANTA ANA
The fans started lining up at 8 a.m. to see the man whose voice accompanies them throughout their days. Santa Ana truck drivers Roman Delgado and Ruben Vasquez Garduno were bleary- eyed after circling Martinez Bookstore and Art Gallery since 3 a.m. The two Mexican immigrants were determined to be first in line to see popular radio host El Cucuy, who kicked off a national book tour at 2 p.m. Saturday in Santa Ana.
"Client No. 1!" boomed the Spanish-language radio personality, whose real name is Renan Almendarez Coello. Delgado quickly walked into Coello's open arms as tears streamed down his face. The embrace lasted so long that someone jokingly screamed out, "They're falling in love!"
"What's your name?" Coello asked. "Ah, Roman. You know that's what I wanted my name to be."
And so it went with each fan, most of them Mexican immigrants. Coello greeted everyone as though they were long-lost relatives, asking some about their illnesses and cooing over their children.
When it was her turn, Leonor Rodriguez, 27, waved her grandfather over. A fan for five years, she listens to Coello in her car and throughout her workday at an electronics company.
"He's the one who makes me laugh and makes me cry every day," Rodriguez told her grandfather, who dutifully posed for a family photo with the radio personality, even though he himself is not a fan.
It was Maria Ruiz's third time seeing Coello in person. Because she's recovering from brain surgery she underwent four months ago, Ruiz, 37, of Trabuco Canyon wasn't sure she would make it to the bookstore. But on Saturday, she was there, camping on Main Street with a folding chair.
"I was so anxious to see him. I'm a big fan because I love how he's such a humanitarian," Ruiz said.
"El Cucuy de la Manana: My Life in Radio's Fast Lane" documents the Honduran immigrant's rise to one of the most popular radio show hosts in America today. Coello draws twice as many listeners in Southern California as his nearest rival, Howard Stern, soothing fans' troubles with easy banter and dispensing charity to the neediest among them.
Outside, a steady four-person-deep throng of spectators jammed the sidewalk in front of the glassed wall on one side of the bookstore, craning their necks for a glimpse of Cucuy. Many held cameras and minicams. Occasionally, Coello would reward them, standing up from his chair, waving and smiling broadly at the cheering crowd.
Police didn't have a crowd estimate, but bookstore employees said they sold nearly all of the 1,550 copies of Coello's book that they had on hand.
"We tell him he needs to spend less time with people so that he can get to everyone because there's still hundreds more waiting outside to see him," said his agent Fernando Schiantarelli, who wrote the book Coello signed Saturday. "But he doesn't listen. He wants to spend time with each one."

Published: November 17,2002