One of the many interests that rarely speak of in public, and often hide from friends for fear of being made fun of, is talk radio. I can’t listen to any FM stations except for WFMU, which I only started listening to when I came back from my freshman year in Vermont. Even so, I’ll only tune into that station during one of a handful of shows that I enjoy. Most of the time I flip around the AM dial. Sports talk can be fun, listening to insane conservatives can be fun, and for almost a long time I used to fall asleep to the fucked up stories told on Art Bell’s “Coast to Coast” show. They usually provided great fodder for surreal dreams.
A few months ago, I found out my father had purchased a subscription to SIRIUS satellite radio, and his subscription came with a username and password for free unlimited online access to a large number of their stations. You could imagine my excitement when I learned they had an “indie”, garage, 24/7 Rolling Stones, and several jazz stations. Unfortunately, I didn’t expect the majority of those stations to suck. I managed to listen to the “new” Howard Stern show every Tuesday morning at work for about a month before I began blocking it out to focus on whatever I was typing/writing. Soon enough I found myself once again listening to the SIRIUS talk radio and NPR stations.
If you don’t believe me, tune in tomorrow and Thursday when SIRIUS allows anyone and everyone to listen to the full spectrum of their stations online for free. Keep in mind, each show has special guest appearances to make the service seem like it’s the real deal, but believe me it’s not. Oh, and also, every time I’ve ever heard SIRIUS in a car it’s lost the satellite signal about every thirty seconds, making it pretty much unlistenable.
Sorry Jack, I know you’re employed by SIRIUS. I don’t hate you, just your employers.
My point is, what the hell, Radio? Try to be more interesting, okay?
