2002-06-20 � Radio Musings

Oh, readers. Where am I gonna live? Where? Last weekend, Tommy and I road tripped to the vacinity of the new job. As I don't want to road trip every morning, I am forced to move. Tommy was extraordinarily gracious as the day was all about me. I am occasionally pleasantly surprised with a reminder of why I love him.

So we went there and the one apartment that allowed us in was entirely too expensive, like double what I can afford to pay, and I am a little concerned that I may be living under a bridge for real as some sort of Karmic revenge for all the times I made fun of that one law student who lives under a bridge. This one. You remember. The one that smells like kitty litter.

I imagine he smells like kitty litter because he lives under a bridge and also because he is afraid of bathing, but I don't want to develop the essence of kitty litter by virtue of being homeless and living under a bridge. I don't want that for myself. I don't.

So, if any of you have any housing advice I'm glad to accept it.

Along the way, however, I was exposed to what is seemingly a cultural phenomenon. A phenomenon I had been previously unaware of. See, here's my thing. I only listen to one station on the radio. I listen to NPR. And while it used to be my habbit to inflict it on those in the car with me on a road trip, I have since learned that making people listen to public radio is the quickest way to make them hate you. They will turn on you quicker than supermarket sushi. It's true.

The down side of this is that I am exposed to the annoying habits of those who like commercial radio. I like to call these people flippers. You see, the way the radio business works is someone in an office on the fifty-first floor decides that you will like a song. So that person sets in motion a series of corporate machinations that make avoiding the selected song virtually impossible. Local radio stations, which are not by any means local as they are subsidiaries of huge corporate giants, receive no choice but to program the song and they play it twice an hour for months.

This repeated exposure to the selected song begins to make the listener believe he or she enjoys hearing the song, not because of the artistry, the structure, the lyrics, or even the bubblegum beat which may appeal to some, but because the song is familiar and therefore in some way comforting. This is all part of a prepackaged image that is, in essence, for sale, and the corporate machine generates revenue and hopefuly profit by convincing unsuspecting consumers to purchase the merchandise related to the song which is available for free on the radio twice an hour for months. And while many prefer to be told which music they like by enormous corporate conglomerates, I just can't stand it.

But in the car some of that commercialism begins to seep into the reality of the listener because there is only the monotony of driving and the radio, so the person who is merely a listener in the office or at the gym or in the home, becomes a flipper. Which means that they constantly flip from station to station in an effort to avoid the garish commercial advertising that helps to cover the costs of giving the songs that man on the fifty-first floor decided you would like away for free twice an hour for months.

The process of flipping goes something like this: (scan) (scan) (scan) (listen to the last 30 seconds of a song) (scan) (scan) (listen to the last 20 seconds of a song) (scan) (scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(listen to a whole minute, the last minute, of a song) (scan) (scan)(scan)(listen to the last 15 seconds of really great song) (scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(scan)(listen to last 15 seconds of the same really great song again) (scan)(scan)(scan).

The whole process, the flipping process, makes me sea sick and agitated.

So along the way, I don't offer many radio or music opinions. I have them, I just don't share them. When in the car with someone other than myself, I am not the radio guy. Instead I take it upon myself to be the conversation guy. See, if I can keep the conversation lively, and interesting, and spirited then no one really notices that I have turned the bubblegum pop down low enough to be mere background noise. The music is still there for the other passengers. The mind numbing effects of modern corporate commercial radio are minimized. The flipping is also mercifuly minimized. Everybody wins.

Of course, exposing myself like this will likely eliminate the effectiveness of this ploy the next time I'm road tripping with Tom, but sometimes life is a gamble.

Anyway we were returning home and the conversation was progressing well. It's really not difficult to just chat with Tom, so I was really enjoying it. The radio station that was playing had not been changed for about an hour and the volume was low. During that hour, the normal programing had changed to specialized programing and I found myself uttering the following words.

"Why the hell are we listening to Barry Manilow?"

And to my suprise--my horror really--Tommy knew the answer. "Oh, this is Delilah."

"Who?" I asked.

"Delilah." Tom glanced at me to see if I was playing a game, feigning ignorance of Delilah. "You know. Delilah."

It was offered as if the emphasis of the name would some how spark some distant memory of Delilah. But it didn't.

"Who is Delilah?" I asked.

"Well," Tommy began, "she's this woman and people call her and she plays songs."

"Why do people call her?"

"Because she is Delilah. She's Delilah, Brian. Delilah."

"Yes, but that doesn't really answer my question. What is a Delilah and why would anyone call her?"

It proved too much for Tommy to adequately explain, so he suggested I just listen for a moment. Which I did. In fact, I listened for another half hour. It was an absolutely unbelievable broadcast. And now that I have a greater understanding of Delilah, I think I know why Tommy had difficulty explaining the program to me. I can't really find the words myself.

I'll start with this photo.

It's a photo of Delilah yucking it up with her good friend Michael Bolton.

See, the way the Delilah show works is Somebody is sitting at home crying, so they call Delilah. Then they cry to Delilah, and Delilah makes cooing noises while tinkly, atmosphereic, piano and violin music plays. Then Delilah says, "let me find a special song for you" and she cross fades the tinkly, atmospheric piano and violin music with a sickeningly sweet song by Kenny Rogers or Donny Osmond. The process is repeated thirty five times every night, and the result is the Delilah show.

By way of further explination, let me describe one of the actual interactions that took place on the program.

"You're listening to the Delilah show, and we have Julie on the line. Julie?"

"Delilah? Is this Delilah?"

"Yes, Julie, this is Delilah and you're on the air."

"Oh my gracious!" Julie disolves into sobbing. "This is, I just want you to know, this is a call two years in the making!"

"Oh Wow!" Delilah seems genuinely impressed with this bit of news.

"Yes, two years ago my husband abandoned me and my son and I wanted to call you and ask you to play a song so that we would get back together, but I'm so glad I didn't because I have just celebrated my one year wedding anniversary to a good man, a Christian man, who is currently adopting my son and he is..." Julie begins to sob again. Making out her words becomes a little difficult. "He is adopting my son and he never hits me."

"That's wonderful news."

"My ex-husband he was abusive to me for thirteen years and he used to hit my son too and he abandoned us and I wanted you to play a song so we'd get back together, but I didn't and I'm so glad because two months after my ex-husband abandoned me and my son I met a wonderful Christian man and we've been married for a year now so now I want you to play a song for my new husband who never hits me."

"Well, Julie, I'm so glad you called. Let me find a special song for you."

And then she played Angel Eyes by the Jeff Healey Band and I could NOT stop listening and it made me want to call.

"And we have Brian on the line, Brian?"

I'd sob loudly and profanely into the phone.

"Brian, take a deep breath. I'm so happy you called me. What can I do for you today?"

"Oh, Delilah. When I was a child, my mother and I painted a starscape on the ceiling and we used glow in the dark paint for the stars and the moon and on my birthday I would be staring up at the stars..." My crying would increase in volume and offensiveness.

"There, there, Brian. Shhhh. Tell me."

"And my dad would come into the room and he would climb on top of me and I would look at the stars and I would pretend I was in the stars when my daddy was inside me and I would tell my mother and she never believed me, but now that my mother died in the Pentagon I can tell the world."

"Oh, Dear."

Sobbing uncontrolably. "I can tell the world that my daddy and me are in love and we're gonna get married now that she's out of the picture. He's the best thing that ever happened to me. Would you play a song for me and my daddy?"

I wonder what song Delilah would play for us. What song would you play for us? Sign my guestbook with your suggestions.

And for the record, the magic of Delilah, the fact that Fucking Delilah is nationally syndicated saccharin crap and makes truck loads of money for "picking a special song" for people in a great deal of pain is exactly the reason I don't deviate from NPR.

Posted at 6:53 p.m.

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