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God I hate them. I hate them
with a passion that is almost indescribable. Fucking Morning
DJ’s and their crappy radio shows. They're exactly the
same. No matter where you live, no matter how hard you try
you can’t get away from them. It's the same attempt-
to-be-witty, uninspired banter that you see on the TV morning
talk shows except they're ugly and not good enough to sit
next to Regis-- or Star Jones for that matter.
Every morning. Every station. You think you can outsmart
them by stocking your car with CD’s, but that only works
for a while. Inevitably you get sick of your CD’s and
you turn to the radio for a break from Adam Duritz whining
about his loneliness or Madonna screeching about whatever
it is Madonna is screeching about this year. And that’s
where they get you: it’s all about the boredom. They
can smell it on commuters everywhere.
I used to think it was possible to escape morning radio shows
by employing a variety of avoidance techniques. The aforementioned
personal CD collection is the most obvious remedy but slightly
less popular is the cell phone conversation. This is a great
way to avoid those stupid contests and even worse, listener
call-ins. The problem with this ploy is that morning is not
a really good time for most commuters to engage in deep and
thoughtful conversations. Maybe it’s the crabbiness,
maybe it’s the lack of adequate caffeine buildup in the
bloodstream, or maybe its just that your tongue is still stuck
to the roof of your mouth from all the heavy drinking you
did the night before. Whatever the reason, most of us aren’t
really too interested in lengthy conversations while driving
to work even if it means escaping the reality of bad morning
radio shows.
When the CD’s and phone calls fail, there’s always
the Rapid Button Press. Rapid button pressing (RBP) is not
for everyone. It takes extreme concentration, a keen sense
of timing, and a fair amount of energy. When you’re stuck
in traffic at 6:30 am with a full bladder, a bad headache,
and a creepy bald guy in the car next to you who keeps slamming
his hand against his steering wheel and screaming at the car
in front of him, these may be qualities most of us don’t
possess. Plus, engaging in RBP is risky at best. Switch the
station and you may find yourself listening to an even-more-vapid
radio talk show host talking about how his wife won't give
him the goodies. Yeah, again, look in the mirror. There's
a reason your on the radio in the 200th largest market.
If you haven’t got the energy for RBP, all your CD’s
suck, and you can't call your friends because they don't work
and are still sound asleep, then you have a terrible choice
to make between utter silence and the least horrible morning
radio program you can find. If you choose the latter, never,
ever, under any circumstances listen to a morning radio show
that features a woman as one of the cohosts. I realize that
as a woman I am being disloyal to my sex, but in radio the
woman's viewpoint is always annoying and irrelevant. They
always say the same dumb things, they are always fodder for
the more important and somewhat smarter male host, and they
always get offended by the same daily chauvinistic remarks
as if they had just heard it for the first time. Also, they
are ugly, which is totally unforgivable --even in radio. Let
the girls do the traffic or read the headlines --hell, let
the ladies push the buttons that make the songs go, but DO
NOT put a microphone in front them.
Zany prank phone calls and free giveaways to the 9th caller
only make these shows more intolerable. So what is a person
to do with all that free time on our hands?
Instead, spend your 45-minute commute to work thinking about
how to be a better person. Use it to contemplate the world
around you, or better yet, devise a plan as to how you can
get your groping, flirtatious boss fired and make millions
in a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Then you can just sleep in. Afternoon radio begins at 11:00.
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Above:
Radio host Dr. Laura isn't pretty enough for television
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