Another radio commercial, this time for The 99 Restaurant featuring their new spicy cha-cha corn on the cob! Spicy cha-cha? I couldn't wait to get home. I whipped out my headset to call my brother to share. "Do you get it? Cha-cha?!" I spluttered into the phone as I drove down one of the more charming (i.e. deadly) rural CT roads.
I'm glad my brother has the same stupid sense of humor I do.
I'm a radio listener. Regular old radio, not satellite HD pay per whatever radio. Want commercial free? Listen to public radio. Even if NPR and their various elitist programs sets your teeth on edge, if you live in or near civilization, a little walk through the lower end of the band will find some public radio stations which play interesting and varied community based shows.
Unfortunately, today I was on my way to work during Democracy Now and I wanted to hear music. The other public radio stations were playing polka-jazz-bluegrass fest or something, so I wandered up the dial until I found some music I could stand. And sing along to. Yes, I am a car singer. As "I Will Survive" ended, the station segued into an ad blitz leading with an Applebee's ad. I was busy merging and got stuck listening to it rather than scanning on to avoid it. I tuned out most of it but I caught this punchline... "Applebees. So much food, so little time."
Holy shit.
I understand that a long work day can create meal planning and executing issues but that is not the gist of this closer. I doubt that too many of us truly find ourselves thinking "That was yummy but I sure could use more time so I could stuff even more food into my face.", and if we do, this is a sign of either an unhealthy relationship with food or a life completely out of balance. Given the upbeat, snappy FUN tone of the ad and the delivery of the line, it's clear the advertisers assume the message of glorified gluttony will resonate and that it will resonate not just with some of us but with many of us.
I spent the rest of the way to work with thoughts of gluttony percolating in the back of my head, thinking of the many forms gluttony can take. SUVs in particular spring to mind.
Here's a short list -
Carpet plush lawns and domestic landscaping involving non-native plants, especially those maintained during droughts.
Super sized anything.
Professional pedicures.
Throwing away all the spare stuff and furniture you don't want to or can't move with you rather than finding someone or somewhere to give it away for re-use (every time someone moves out, take a peek at the dumpster if you live in a complex).
I was also wondering what in my own life counts as gluttony. I am a participant in this culture. It is unreasonable to expect that I don't also have habits which reflect this aspect. Is my air conditioned car gluttony? Does my plethora of office supplies count as gluttonous? (something I discovered in the move is that I have a shit load of office supplies).
And on that note, I am signing off. Thunder outside and there have been a lot of lightning strikes with these daily heat wave induced storms here in CT.
Much of where I travel in Connecticut is a no man's land for radio signal. The already slim pickings for radio broadcast you could listen to without wanting to ram the car into a tree narrows even further as I wind my way down the quaint, deadly country roads. The road dips and there goes the signal, Punk Rock Jukebox dissolves into a hiss of static punctuated by bands of some top 40 shit - played at a handful of stations by live djs and played at an increasing number by a radio robot (seriously - they don't even have a human to give the play list, just a prerecording referring listeners to a website).
Last night I found myself listening to a muzak version of Mrs. Robinson on a station way down the low end of the dial. It was damned funny. I found myself wishing they would announce the artist because I deeply feel I need to add this to the next CD I make for cjblue.
I mention the muzak so you'll have the proper context for the shit I will listen to simply to listen to the radio. Some people are radio people. When I drive, I am.
So with the exception of a few college radio stations (god love 'em), which can't compete with the massive, sloppy signals on the corporate dial, there's not much to listen to. And even the little stations let me down now and then. Take their tendency to carry NPR programs....please.
Last week, I think it was exactly a week ago, I came up out of a valley and paradoxically lost the station I had been listening to. I scanned and a blurb of talk caught my attention. I forget now what exactly was said that held the promise for something interesting to come. I paused, letting the dialog sink in. It was one of the NPR women, one of the ones who sound exactly the same to me but who lately have taken to adopting a new (apparently hip?), more casual style of speech than what I am accustomed to hearing those clone voices uttering.
The clone was talking to a man who was talking about politics. During the time I listened, the close never disclosed who this man was or why they were speaking. However, what I did hear was the clone and this man stating then agreeing with their statements that issues are not what makes a difference between a Clinton voter and an Obama voter.
The reason for this conclusion they had whipped themselves up into was singular as far as I could tell. The man mentioned that exit polls hadn't shown a discernible difference in issues that people who said they voted for Clinton cared about and issues that people who said they voted for Obama cared about.
Have you ever done an exit poll? They suck! Oh god they suck so much. First, some exit polls are conducted by news agencies, not research foundations. I don't the source of the data cited in this show because Mr. Smary McSmarterson on NPR did not address the point and the clone didn't bother to follow up. She was too busy breathing heavily into a microphone and blithering in a way which I truly have come to dislike.
My god, I think, is this what other people think all liberals are like? No wonder they hate us.
Back to my point. My point is, NPR what the fuck? I listened as the interviewer and interviewee went on to make still more conclusions based on that one conclusion from the poorly presented exit poll data. I had to change the station to keep myself from getting too ramped up.
I guess if I want intelligent radio, I will wait until Democracy NOW comes on (at noon on one of my beloved college stations, one which has little to no NPR and the like). Until then, it's the the transient signals of college stations doing independent and local programming (along with the occasionally and accidentally great moments like Mrs. Robinson) to break up miles of top 40 radio for the robots.
"What is 'reminisce'?" a coworker asked me once. We were working at the hippie import clothing store in Ann Arbor, folding indian and grateful dead print "tapestries". I thought for a moment. She had a habit of stumping me with these questions about English. It was a good question though. Not an easy concept to describe to a non-native speaker.
I got out something like "Reminiscing is like remember, but more conscious. It's what you do when you recall a time or experience, usually from a distance of time or period of life. Often it's used when you're sharing the memories with someone who was part of what you're remembering, who shared the experience with you. And sometimes there's a tinge to it, something not always 100% happy, a little dark in there too. So like if you and I run into each other many years from now, we might 'reminisce' about working here at the hippie import clothing store".
This seemed to satisfy her.
What made me think of reminiscing and my definition of it is what I found on the hard drive of one of the lab computers today. I had just put in a work order on the computer and decided if someone with master administrator privileges was going to be digging around in it, I should probably get some of my stuff off.
I don't make a habit of keeping personal files on the school computers, but until rather recently I didn't have a laptop and consequently I would sometimes transfer stuff to a lab computer. Usually meaning to promptly transfer it off. And sometimes I'd forget. I knew this. It's been kicking around my mind, but my account is password protected and no one in the lab knows how to navigate the admin privileges well enough to get in around it. But today it occurred to me I should probably go clean it up.
So I went in and looked through my folders to make sure there was nothing too personal on there. Not too bad. Some music files, a couple of pictures a friend sent me, and three recordings of the Christmas eve radio show I did in 2004.
This show was on the local campus radio station where my friend B___ and I had an every other week morning show on Fridays. It was mostly about labor and education, with a focus on academic labor. I think the tag line was "news and commentary on labor and social justice". Very leftist. Since neither of us wanted to talk for two hours straight, we mixed in music.
On the Christmas eve show, B____ was out of town. I loaded up the playlist and brought some company to the station so I wouldn't have to do all the work. My company was my ex, T____ and my current partner A____.
And I have recordings of this show.
I've heard some of the music I used to listen to then and it always recalls the feeling of getting up and going to the show that day, wondering if this was my last christmas with T____, and all sorts of other not pleasant remembered thoughts and feelings. We've all experienced this, right? The music which hits you with recollections of a time when you were feeling things very strong and not very good.
I'm playing it back now, trying to decide if I should keep it or delete it. We're at about half way through, a Christmas blues song is playing with a deep voiced woman singing about how much Christmas sucks. "Don't give me none of that 'Tis the season to be jolly'. No it ain't!"
These recordings provide not just the music but also the voices from that time. I was lead on the mic, with A___ and T___ reading news items, weather, and providing the back and forth you generally hear on a talk show. We had sleigh bells (we had stolen them from a faculty Christmas party), which you can hear now and then when we get laughing.
And even though we laugh a lot, I can hear the strain in my voice. I don't think it's obvious to the uninformed listener, or if it was any cause might have been attributed to my disliking Christmas (which I mentioned, quite a lot). But boy, that tone jumps right out at me.
I wrapped up mostly smoothly and we close on "Christmas in Heaven" from Monty Python Sings.
I think I just vomited in my mouth.
I was reading this article on a town in Massachusetts where a proposal has been made to double the excise tax on SUVs (which makes me chuckle) and I noticed an ad for a diamond seller/jeweler.
Around mother's day and valentine's day, all jewelers are diamond peddlers. One of these days I am going to make that diamond ad parody for the station, I swear.
For now I'll suffer with choking down the bile when I see something like this ad, which has text which starts with "This mother's day..." under a picture of a man being kissed on the lips by a woman. The man's head is the main focus of the frame with the woman who is planting one on him barely making it into the shot. We can see all of his big head but only the important part of hers (her face) as she holds the man's face in her manicured hands (no pigment in that polish though). That was enough to get the stomach churning. What launched it was the trademarked logo under the company name: "Every kiss begins with _____"
(where ______ is the name of the jewelry/diamond company)
Every on the closed lips oedipal kiss might indeed begin with them, however my completely non-oedipal smooches are non of their fucking business and began with a desire for human intimacy. Not feminine decoration bestowed on me by a man.
I'm slooooowwwwly getting ready to have a day. The extra drugs last night kicked my ass - however so far no migraine today. Let's hope that sticks.
As I do my morning (yes, it's almost 1:00 PM) fucking about on the internet and work on my research protocol, I'm enjoying the music of The Punk Rock Jukebox. Punk Rock Jukebox almost cost me my life. Hearing Pat Boone's cover of Crazy Train without warning while driving is dangerous. The Punk Rock Jukebox is a truly wonderfully excellent local show here in CT. One of the very few great things about CT in fact.
You can listen too, isn't that swell?
It's on WECS 90.1 Willimantic Fridays at 11.
Listen to The Punk Rock Jukebox Fridays at 11:00 AM EST here!
(if you have WinAmp or the will/ability to do some work to get Windows Media Player to open and play PLS).
Also on WCNI 90.9 New London on Thursdays 12- 3.
Listen to The Punk Rock Jukebox Thursdays at 12:00 PM EST here!
