Meeting Matt McAllister, 34, is a bit shocking. So many smooth radio voices conjure up images of good-looking men and women, only to disappoint when the DJ is seen in person. Not Matt, he sounds zany, speaking with a mischievous tone that's part frat boy and part Adam Sandler, peppered by random outbursts of simulated anger. So you don't expect much by way of looks, but then when you see him, he's movie-star attractive, blonde with piercing blue eyes and more than six feet tall. How can somebody so goofy be so handsome? A few mornings ago, McAllister was broadcasting from the sidewalk in front of KTYD headquarters on East Cota Street. As he and Hayseed dropped Mentos into a liter of Diet Coke to see how high the explosion would go, there was a genuine joy in his voice as he described what was happening to his listeners. Like a little kid relishing his "scientific" research, McAllister's buoyancy, which came across the radio waves loud and clear, was infectious. It's that obvious love for what he does that is the key to his popularity. It's also his refreshing openness, listeners know a lot about Matt's private life since he chats about it on the air. "My wife will tell you," he gleefully admitted, "I'm my own favorite topic." His spouse, Barbara, even phones in once in a while. And his two daughters, Emma and Lilly, aren't spared the broadcasted attention either. But most of The Early Show 's humorous banter derives from McAllister's self-deprecation, which he mixes with mock-male posturing. Thus, we know both that he drools on the pillow when he sleeps and that he watches lots of sports at home, to his wife's chagrin. McAllister was born in Paris, France, where his father was stationed for awhile as a Time magazine correspondent. When he was 6 years old, his parents split up, and he went to live with his mom in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from Ohio's Denison University, where he played rugby and lived in the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house, where he developed a lot of his sense of humor. After graduation, he drove to San Diego looking for surf and nice weather. Instead, he found a career in radio. He got a job answering phones for the afternoon DJ at STAR 100.7 FM. He loved it so much that he'd show up for work three hours early to soak up the atmosphere. Eventually, he got hired full-time and became the third wheel of a unique, new program, which made quite an impression. "Primarily they just talked more than shows that played a lot of music, and honestly I like the talk," recalled McAllister. "I like people to talk. I like listening to what's going on. I didn't even care what they were talking about, as long as they were talking." As tends to happen in the tumultuous radio business, McAllister and his co-DJs got fired and they moved to a competing radio station. A year later, the station changed formats, but JCore, the company that owned his contract, offered him a position at KTYD, a sister station in Santa Barbara. When they asked him to go check out S.B., McAllister remembered "it was two days before I got married to Barbara." His Santa Barbara show started very basic. "It started with me," said McAllister. "One microphone and I did everything because that's the way it always was around here." Later, he added Mike Creek as the newsman and then, knowing he needed a female voice, he hired Taylor Morgan. But the chemistry wasn't there, so he brought an old friend from San Diego, Mike Costa. But still, McAllister explained, "as funny as Mike and Taylor were and as talented as they both still are, we had too many personality conflicts. We had trouble getting along, all three of us." So Costa and Morgan went their own way, as did Jenna McCarthy, Morgan's replacement, who left to start a family. So McAllister, once again, found himself having to start all over. But as fate would have it, a homeless man named Hayseed showed up at the station.