January 14, 2004 - 9:18 am
I'd like to take a few minutes today to talk about a little something close to the darkest, coldest part of my heart: Morning radio personalities.
Let's call a pickle a pickle- I hate them. Hate hate hate. Back when I was in middle school, Stacey, Laura and I would listen to Drew and Mike and their radio shenanigans, and thought they were funny as hell. Chances are, they weren't, but then again, I was 12. Sue me. Stacey still listens to them every morning, and I THINK it's because she still thinks they're funny, but I'm not sure...but I would rather have my eyes scratched out by a weasel in a bathtub than listen to them any morning of the week. Even if they CAN make a funny comment, have a good interview, or give some quasi-intelligent insight into pop culture, the other 98% of the show is obnoxious as all hell. I understand that they, in their sound booth o' love, probably get bored and might find it funny to call people that are part of some embarrassing news story or another, or whatever, but when the person politely says they don't want to talk to them and ends the conversation, am I the only fucking person around that feels bad when these guys just keep calling repeatedly? People get pissed at telemarketers, but this is okay?
Also, as much as I try to keep my pocket feminist in check, JEEBUS, what horrible sexists! I don't know how many time I've heard this or that story dismissed because "oh COME ON, you KNOW he was giving it to her" or some other horrid thing that just turns my brain into a pretzel for a minute or two. Don't get me wrong, I'm not on a crusade to create a world with "person-hole covers" or anything, my uterus twitches just a little bit when they open their mouths. Of course, these are the types of people that would write off any woman who called in with a complaint as a man-hating dyke who just needed the ole long and hard.
So you're probably wondering, if this gets me so worked up, why I continue to listen? I'm getting to that, but if there's one thing I don't do well, it's "getting to the point."
I have this stereo that I bought with money from my first job. Mind you, I worked at my first job for a number of years, so I guess that particular description doesn't really bring the same image of a young Megan with her first paycheck in hand, eagerly making choices concerning her first major purchase as a member of the labor force, but whatever. The damn thing cost me close to $200, so it's not like I could buy it with my first paycheck anyhow.
Ah, I love tangents. And coffee. However, I only require creamer for the latter.
Anyhow, so back to this stereo. What I like about it is that it's also my alarm clock. I can wake up to CDs, radio, and with some work, casette tapes (remember those?). As the years have gone by, the CD changer has gotten more and more picky, and does that thing where it doesn't realize there's a disc in this or that slot. Annoying. Also, waking up to CDs can be troublesome because choosing one is a bitch. If the first song starts out too gradually, it won't really wake me up. If it starts too abruptly, it will scare the crap out of me and completely fuck up my chi for the whole morning. Because of this, I tend to leave the same CD in for so long that I get really sick of the first song on the album.
So often I default to radio. I don't like waking up to people talking (creeps me out to suddenly hear a conversation in my room when I had thought I was alone), so I avoid NPR or the like. For the most part, I listen to rock stations when I'm patronizing the ol' FM, so I usually have my stereo set to one of those. However, many of these stations have morning shows, many of which don't even play music (and fill me with hate), which puts me back at my NPR problem.
So I bite the bullet and keep my radio on 89x, because although they also have morning personalities who do too much talking, they also play music about half the time, where stations like WRIF don't even bother. That promise of the occasional song when I wake up is what keeps me coming back. Because a good one will start my morning right, and at least a bad one will convince me to get my ass out of bed to turn it off. As much as I hate Drew and Mike (see above), these guys are worse.
Above all, they're just not funny. They'll compose lists to read off on the air, and the way to get around the fact that I could have thought up better shit when I was 6 and still thought fart jokes were cool, they punctuate every item with an "OH!" and a guffaw from the person NOT reading. Not funny.
Also, they're stupid. Not stupid like I don't like them, stupid. Stupid like uninformed. At least Drew and Mike read the newspaper. I'll leave it at that.
And finally, yesterday morning, I got to compare them on the final hate scale- I woke up just in time to be promised a list of "ways to cure a feminist." What's really bad is that it's two guys and a GIRL on this show, kids. But it's like the Hannity and Colmes thing, where the party that SHOULD be opposing just kinda doesn't do much, but since they're there, clearly it's balanced, right? When the two guys gave their list (scary observation: Sometimes people are over-the-top offensive to be funny. You know, the "there's no way I really think like this, so laugh, you sucker" thing. Hell, I do it myself. This was not one of those times), which I should note, started with things like "express interest in issues that are important to her, like equal pay for equal work and all that, but explain to her that it's OKAY to be a real girl" and ended in the suggestion that you "buy into her Malibu Barbie fantasies and buy her a cute tank top with the word "feminist" across the front. Tell her she looks nice without staring at her chest," the girl just chuckled and said something to the point of "I don't know why I'm even here."
I don't either, hun. You're not part of the solution, I can tell you that.
