Monday, May 13, 2013

A Joke Of A Soak

In the time that we've been without a dog, I've taken to going to the gym most afternoons. It gets me out of the house and I know once another fuzzball starts to roam, my exercise is going to be limited to running him outside when he attempts to mark all of our rug. Benefit: I'm in as good a shape as I've been in years. Drawback: Something different hurts every day. I mean, it's like a "What's THAT?" type of pain. On days that I don't go to the gym I take myself a nice soak. 20 minutes, epsom salts, maybe even a glass of Walgreens wine while I'm at it. I guess it helps a bit, but it was just so damn boring, laying there in a tepid pool of warm water and silence. Then I had a revelation.

I have a smart phone! I have the Tune In app! I can listen to any radio station in the world while I soak! This is gonna be great! Yep.

I picked a legendary rock station from my home state- The Iconic WAPL, "The Rockin' Apple", in Appleton Wisconsin. Why hadn't I thought of this before? The question was answered within minutes

Here's the order of what I heard during my Soak

1) The end of "Patience", Guns N' Roses
2) "Money Talks"- AC/DC
3) Jock Talk- WAPL has two guys on in the afternoon. Some stations do this to bring the jocularity and reverie of the morning zoo to the afternoon as well. Problem with this? People may want talk in the morning, but on the way home, they only want music. They've been talking to and talked at all day. They're talked out. No more talk. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. 2 unfunny minutes on a Florida woman who stole things from graves. Cue the zither
4) Spots. For years, there's been a problem with commercials playing on a radio station's online stream. Long story short, you won't hear spots online that you hear on radio. What DO you hear? Public service announcements. Minute after minute of public service announcements. I heard the same loop. 4 times. I'd estimate the spot block lasted 6-8 minutes
5) "Comfortably Numb"- Pink Floyd (interrupted halfway through by the alarm telling me my 20 minutes were up and it was time to get out of the tub)

What started with anticipatory excitement ended with another reminder of why radio continues to be in a death spiral. In 20 minutes I got one great song I hadn't heard in awhile followed by dumb jocks, a ton of spots, and a song I never need to hear again in my life. Had I just listened to an iPod, it would've been 4-6 songs that I love and no idiotic chatter. Radio now exists only to serve the clients. Listener serve thyself