(no subject)

[featherynscale]

Today is brought to you by the Tibetan Mastiff. They're going to be in Westminster for the first time this year! I have no way to watch Westminster, of course. But no matter. I'm still cheering for the Tibetan Mastiff. When I read The Dresden Files, and he talks about Harry's dog Mouse, I always think of these guys. I know Mouse is supposed to be some sort of fictional temple dog, but this is where my brain goes.

Today is also brought to you by Aaron Fotheringham, who is my hero of the day. I was waiting to pick up lunch in the sports bar across the street, and the TV over the bar was showing mid-day ESPN (snooze), when they start talking about this kid. He's 14 years old. He has spina bifida, which prevents him from walking. The video at the other end of the link up there is him at the skate park. He does BMX-style tricks in his wheelchair. Kid can do a backflip in a wheelchair. I don't care who you are, that's pretty damned impressive. He calls this "Extreme Sitting". :)

And now, with all that good stuff out of the way, it's time for my Two Minutes Hate.
We have a new radio station in Kansas City called "The Boulevard". It's not a bad station, particularly. It's allegedly a rock station, but seems to keep to the lighter side of the old rock-n-roll business: Elton John, REM, U2, Jackson Browne, and so on. So the station is not bad, just dull. The advertising, however, is abomination. They run this ad that goes something like "Do you ever wonder why you never hear Peter Gabriel or Van Morrison or U2 on the radio? We do too. Now you can. The Boulevard. Quality rock."

Kids, if you live in Kansas City, you will immediately recognize the problem. If you don't, let me put it this way for you: It's like seeing a commercial on television that asks you, "Do you ever wonder why you don't see Law and Order or CSI on television?". Yeah. Every damned station in Kansas City that isn't country or sports talk pretty much already plays all this stuff all the time. Would it fucking kill someone to get us a radio station that offered something *different* from what we already have? Maybe so. Maybe I'm just spoiled from my brief exposure to XM radio. But seriously, could we get a Fungus 53 over here?

Comments

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

http://www.kjhk.org/
might be worth a listen.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Alas, it doesn't come in on my car radio within city limits. :(

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

KKFI, then?
.
http://www.kkfi.org/programschedule.php

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I do a fair amount of KKFI, actually. Rockabilly Mood Swing is made of Win. :)

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

I do miss WBAI in NYC
http://www.wbai.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=133&Itemid=40

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That's shiny and neat.

(Also, re: your poll response, I <3 Radio Paradise, and it would be a practically ideal station with the addition of some darker stuff.)

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

¿!There's still college radio stations!?

I am flabbergasted. I thought that animal was extinct.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

In some ways, it is useful for the center of the country to be 15 years behind the coasts. In most ways, not so much, but hey. We still have drive-ins, too.

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

The old school radio station has streaming audio!

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

U of TN still has one and Vanderbilt had one when I left Nashville 2 years ago.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Actually, when I moved from Florida, Flagler College in St. Augustine still had one, which was pretty good, and Jacksonville University technically had one, but it was just an NPR outlet that the university sponsored. I don't know if either of those stations is still operating now, though.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

Me, I hate that they killed KY to create The Boulevard.


D.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wasn't really in love with KY, either (for much the same reasons - how many classic rock stations does a town need?), but they at least had some institutional value by virtue of having been around for ages and being part of so many local events. Still, I wouldn't have minded axing them for a station that played something we don't already get.

I suppose it doesn't matter in the long run -- I have to imagine that FM listenership is dwindling rapidly anyway with the availability of satellite radio and the ease of plugging your iPod into the car stereo.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

how many classic rock stations does a town need?

All of them.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

::Yawn::
I want a darkwave/goth station. That's 20 years old now. That makes it classic and safe now, right?

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

I know a book you should read. I think it's right up your alley.



I bought it for myself in the spirit of winter avarice, but I haven't made it very far yet because of this whole Internet thing. For non-fiction, it's eminently readable.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I'd read that. Also, I have strong feelings that reviews of books should discuss the book they purport to be reviewing.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Uh... what? I don't know what you're talking about. Are you referring to something I said, or something I linked?

Please forgive my slowness.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Sorry, on the amazon page, that book has one review, which basically says OMG this book is copyrighted and that's EVIL and hypocritical. It says nothing about the content of the book at all. I get where the "reviewer" is coming from, but a book review, it isn't.

So it's not you at all. :)

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Ah. I just saw that after I expressed my confusion. My eyes often slide right over customer reviews as though they were banner ads.

I did like the one comment left in response, though: "What a great book review! You managed to say nothing of interest or importance to anyone except yourself and all while avoiding mention of the book's content, style, etc. Really worthwhile!"

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

KILL ENTERCOM
KILL CLEAR CHANNEL

This message has been brought to you by the Society for Radio-Free America.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

They are the reason we can't have nice things. :(

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

You can't kill them at this point, they're like the hydra.

[zylch.livejournal.com]

With fire and a sword, anything is possible.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

I like the way you think.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That's our zylch. Give her a fire, a bronze blade, and a slave boy with a strigil, and she can accomplish anything.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

You have sufficient faith in this country's political machinery to vote and encourage others to vote, yet you can't conceive of killing a massive corporate conglomerate? That's sort of like saying, "Okay, sure, Jesus was Jehovah's son. That doesn't make him God, though.""I can accept the existence of divinity, but karma is just superstitious nonsense."

(I agree with you about conglomerate immortality, btw. I was just indulging a moment of delusional optimism. Sometimes my anarchist idealism gets the better of me.)

(Also, please forgive the Abrahamic analogy.)(I don't know where I was going with that. I think I got this conversation confused with an unrelated thought process I've been mulling over for the last week or so. Excuse me.)

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, at this point I believe more in our democratic process than our corporate legal structure. This week.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Can you clarify for me what the difference is between the two? I was under the impression that they are one and the same.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Is that "Nope" to the clarification or "Nope" to my impression?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

That's a "Nope, if you think they're the same, there's nothing I can do to explain it to you."

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Well, that's frustrating. No less for you than for me, I'd guess.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I'm going to avoid music talk and WANT a Tibetan Mastiff.