Radio Holidaze

I’ve been obsessed with the radio since I was really young. I mean really young, like since birth I think. Nowadays with my ipod and a working CD player in the car, I rarely check to see if anything is on because 9 times out of 10 of course, there isn’t.

But for some reason around the holidays I always find myself scanning thru the dial looking for something interesting to listen to. A story, some news, Christmas songs, etc.

I think that comes from having spent most of my Christmases of the past 17 years back home with my mother (though not the past 3, which kind of hurts), in the room I grew up in from 10th grade thru 12th, listening to CBC radio or whatever I could find. I think I have written this here before, but I’m originally from Erie, Pennsylvania and there they may not have much, but they’ve got a hellafied radio range. Growing up, 4 miles or so from Lake Erie, I would listen to radio from Canada, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and sometimes as far away as Chicago (on the AM dial generally).

So when I would go home to visit my mom from Houston, Amsterdam, Chicago, Austin, New York or wherever I was living, I would always spend a little time revisiting the local radio and beyond.

From the time I was like 8 years old till maybe 15 or so, I was obsessed with year-end countdowns. I wasn’t even necessarily into the pop crap they were playing on the radio, but for some reason me and my boy Chris Confer obsessed about it. We would sit and write down every song in the Top 104 songs of the year on K104 and we’d call into the station to express our disapproval if a song was too high or too low on the charts. We’d listen to the stations from all over and compare the lists. We’d look for albums by Canadian bands we’d hear on Canadian radio. We’d literally stay over at each others houses and stay up all night listening and writing and calling and probably drinking sodas and eating cookies to stay awake and alert (I once stayed up for 4 days straight on a Mom’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Ball Bender – Mom, you better be bringing the balls!)

In the past few weeks I’ve been finding myself doing the same thing. We’re not going to Erie for the holidays this year, everyone is coming here, so I have been scanning the dial to hear what I can hear. I’ve even tuned into a couple of Erie stations on the internet and realized that even though they all blow major dick, they’re a part of me and well for some reason they bring me some comfort. (Even WERG, the station where I did my first radio show, a reggae show in 1988 and 1989. That station sucks so much balls it should be illegal what with all the nu metal and such blaring from their basement studio).

Anyway, the other day I was scanning the AM dial and came across Michael Savage for the first time ever. I had always read that this Savage dude is like O’Reilly on ‘roids, the most vile conservative scumbag our country has to offer. Save for the folks your moronic parents and coworkers keep on electing.

Herr Savage made a comment somewheres along the lines of “America is the only country worth caring about today, and it’s almost not worth caring about.” He cited the rampant perversion of the Belgians, the Christmas hating Persians and well, he even hates Japan. Dude probably even hates Norway and Norway is vastly superior to the United States when it comes to everything but sunshine in the winter and the price of beer. Dude probably even hates the Netherlands even though you can get ANYTHING at any time of day there, and well, that’s respectable. I fuckin’ love the Netherlands.

Anyway, I say that a lot, anyway, I can’t believe that this sort of hate speech is allowed to exist in this country, and in the month in which the dude this dude worships was born. Is nothing sacred? Does Michael Savage hate Jesus so much that he would desecrate his month? The answer is yes, and Michael Savage is a heathen. He’s scum. The lowest of the low and needs to catch a bad one.

But whatever, I’m not gonna let him steal my sunshine. Christmas is in full swing here at SoReal Manor and as of 4:20 p.m. on December 16th I have officially entered the holiday season. Two weeks ago I didn’t know what the fuck we were gonna do to financially participate in this the holiday of holidays. Things looked quite bleak, but with some yelling, screaming and strong arming, we’re actually floating above the water this year and well, Christmas is not going to kill us. Like I thought it would. Seriously, I didn’t know what to do.

That being said, I also have to send a shout out to J. Mill at the Source. I’ve been covertly tripping on them here on the blog saying things about how they owe me a bunch of money and well, yes I was pissed. They still owe me money, but today I received a check and a note from J. that basically let me know that they haven’t forgotten about me and are trying. I always liked him a lot man. He’s a good dude and I have known that for a few years now. Being owed over $3000 by the Source, I let the anger at that corporation (or whatever the fuck it is) cloud my vision and I was seriously sitting here stewing for some time, expending a lot of (negative) energy on something I couldn’t do much of anything about.

Anyway, dude is working to make good and I appreciate him a lot for that. I support Down Magazine and am not even trippin’ on the Source right now. I like this feeling. It’s so Christmas-y! Thank’s J. Mill! (This may sound weird but I kind of knew this was gonna happen. I trust dude.)

And Happy Holidays top all of you. No matter what you celebrate, try to do so in the next couple of weeks. With me, in a park, jamming Sabbath, cuz it’s like that.