in defense of the radio

Its been a long time since I’ve actually listened to the radio on a regular basis. It was almost entirely out of the question in Snyder, where we picked up all of five stations, with at least two devoted to Contemporary Christian. The same seemed to be true of New Orleans, where aside from wtul and wwoz there wasn’t much in quality air play, unless you were really, really like Mariah Carey and JZ, in which case you were all set.
So, maybe I became a snob, preferring my CDs to anything the radio had to offer. In my new setting, however, I have found radio bliss, sort of. NPR kicks ass here, with whole shows devoted to music usually only found in the dusty second hand section of record stores. The second benefit of the radio is that I get bored occasionally with whats going on on NPR and flip around and here all these great songs I haven’t heard in a lifetime. My love for Sqeeze (Tempted by the Fruit of Another) has been rekindled! I heard Ghetto Superstar! And today the song connected to one of my favorite family memories came on: “More than Words” by Extreme (do you remember these guys?! They were it! Big feathered hair, leather pants, lycra shirts! Ow ow). My brother, a tall (for my family anyways) beer-gutted, bald , very white, ex-prison guard turn welder used to sing it to me all the time when were young. In his best power ballad voice, perfectly mimicking Gary Cherone (trust me, I looked it up) with all the oooh oooh ooooo’s emphasized. Though I pleaded with him to sing it to me over the phone (while he was at work, surrounded by welders and manly men and the like) he wouldn’t, but it was an awesome 3 ½ minutes of radio.