Starting left but turning right

When I was smaller and less cynical...well, smaller, I used to enjoy the all-request shows on the radio. Since I spent most of my days listening to the radio rather than going to school, I suffered through a seemingly endless cycle of awful Doobie Brothers songs, oh so smooth Steely Dan tunes and generally unnecessary pablum, most of which seemed to have Paul Rodgers singing in a bluesy rasp. I'd sit there for hours on end hoping to hear some Yes song that I already had in my collection and probably had just finished listening to. Meanwhile, my friends chatted up girls. Boneheads.

So what a godsend the all-request hour. For one brief hour, the entire programming was turned over to us dutiful listeners, some of whom, I liked to think actually had taste. The inmates were in charge of the asylum. No doubt, the dusty vaults of years and years of free records were a treasure chest waiting to be discovered and giving an hour a day would ensure we'd never run out of quality obscurities. Up until the very end of the hour, I always expected the throngs of us more refined, cultured ears to break through and pummel the masses with ELP's Karn Evil 9 3rd Impression, instead of the (still) overplayed Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, part 2 (Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...). It never happened. This is probably just as well.

Instead, we newly empowered listeners were more like the dog who finally caught the car: now what? The more I listened, the more I noticed that the request hour really didn't differ a whole lot from regular programming. Instead of Hot Rockin' Ronny hipping us that "Up next is Bad Company with their song, Bad Company, from their album, Bad Company," was Doug from the sticks hoping to hear "a little Bad Company by Bad Company because that song is, like, bad." Being fairly clever and all, after several years I began to suspect that the DJ was just playing what was next on the playlist with some yahoo "requesting" it. Surely, no one actually wanted to hear Bad Company. And if one actually did, it was a fairly safe bet that it was coming up right after they got through playing Bad Company. There was no need to waste a request. Boneheads.

Flash forward a few years and I find myself interning at a real radio station that had real, live DJs. Ever since watching WKRP (still my favorite show of all-time), I'd dreamed of being in this environment, going behind the curtain as it were. I'd talk about music all day, hang around with super-cool people and take drugs with rock stars. And there'd be a sales guy with impeccable fashion sense, a goofy owner and a night-time DJ who, while cool, really didn't fit with the overall vibe of the station. Of course, we'd have all manner of hi-jinks as well. And try to see if turkeys could fly.

Though I enjoyed my time interning and have some good memories, the reality was more like actually meeting the Wizard of Oz: a myth-destroying soul crusher. For every cool DJ really into music and eager to talk at length was another one who just landed at that particular station because he saw a help wanted sign. As interested in music as he was the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which is to say not at all. Then there were the lifer DJs, the ones who bounced from station to station, format to format with an genre-appropriate name. Alex Steele for a rock station would become Al Friendly for a top-40 station would become Uncle Al for an oldies station.

Those "dusty vaults" were a simple wall of cds that probably wasn't much larger than what I had at the time. The "totally happening" on-the-spot-remotes where "everybody really should be because it's where the party was" were usually just me and a DJ at some abandoned location hoping for a teenager or some drunk to pester us for a sticker. Trust me, a bored DJ trying to fool folks into thinking an empty bar is the nexus of fun is an image that even Charles Bukowski would find desperate. Go wild.

But it did confirm my suspicions about all-request hours. They were rigged. Even the phone calls weren't live but were usually taped at some point during the day and played back when needed. Even now, I still feel bad for Jim from Scranton, calling in at 1:30 pm and being told by the DJ that his request was coming right up, only to hear the very call much later followed by his "instant request." I suspect Jim from Scranton had been hanging from the ceiling fan for a couple of days by then, which is what he gets for listening to The Smiths anyway.