Wednesday, June 08, 2005

out with the old

this afternoon as i was driving into work, i turned to the oldies station, only to hear john mayer and suzanne vega.

last time i checked, they weren't rockin the mic during the sixties and seventies.

looks like they killed the magic station in favor of some we-play-anything copycat called something like jack. as in what they don't know.

it now sounds exactly like five other stations on the dial.

magic was very strategically set to be three clicks away from preset number 3 and two clicks up from the cheesy light station, (both of which i didn't want to waste a button on, but visit once in awhile for variety.) this screws up my whole subconscious channel flipping system.

and besides, where the hell am i going to get that little taste of old school that i've come to rely on? granted, i understand 'Earth Angel' is currently too old and 'i just called to say i love you' is too new, but i thought they had been doing a pretty decent job. for god's sake, don't they consult anyone or do any surveys before taking such drastic measures?

it's a sad day in commuting when programming directors have f-ed around with your preset system.

14 comments:

jazz said...

the on air dj's were literally given 5 minutes notice. "okay, i'm headed in now!" "um, dj...you're not. sorry. pack up your stuff."

awful!

Jon said...

I can’t deal with the radio anyway. I like to burn a lot of mixed CD’s or my commuting pleasure. Mostly I can’t deal with the commercials. I’ve considered XM radio, but I’m not that wealthy yet… working on it, but not yet. When I get fired though (and I’m sure it’s just a matter of time) I hope they just box up my stuff, wait for me at the door, punch me in the face and tell me I’m not welcome here anymore.

cadiz12 said...

it's like that store that closes that you had always been meaning to shop at. sad sad sad.

i can't believe they did that to the djs. and the whole radio-on-shuffle thing is cool for one station, but you don't know what you're going to get. when you want to hear some feel-good classics, you want to be able to turn to a station without having to dig out the cd.

i love the radio for the semi-surprise element. but now i think i'm just going to have to get a bigger cd holder in my car.

omar said...

My daily commute to work is 3.6 miles, so I don't do a lot of radio listenting anymore. But I can sympathize, I had one of my favorite stations inexplicably disappear on me. It was horrible.

cadiz12 said...

and today i couldn't find my stevie wonder cd.

i'm so sick of companies scrambling after the *youth* audience. some of them are perfectly wonderful at what they're currently doing. why compete when you know very well you have no chance? just do what you do well and take pride in that, people.

Anonymous said...

OMG! same thing happened to me this weekend! I was lookin to jam to some oldies, and nada!! but I must say, some of the stuff on Jack is actually not too bad. Stuff I haven't heard in 5+ years!!

Jon said...

I’ve actually got a few great oldies stations out here on AM that have been around forever, so they aren’t going anywhere. That’s what I grew up on. My mom only played oldies in the morning on the drive to school. I’m pretty sure once she dropped us off she went straight to speed metal and gangsta rap, but while us young impressionable kids were around, it was all about the Beatles and Buddy Holly. My current guilty pleasure is bands of today doing covers of songs from the 60’s through the 80’s. Me first and the Gimmie Gimmies has a couple of covers that I can’t get enough of… like Carly Simon’s “No body does it better” (I listened to this song a lot when I was younger because “The Spy Who Loved Me” is my mother’s favorite Bond film. She’s always been a Roger Moore kinda gal.) and “Seasons In The Sun” (I can’t remember who it’s by, and that is why I will not be sleeping tonight.). I love that song, I don’t know why. It makes me cry. I probably shouldn’t admit that publicly, but I’m notorious for making poor decisions. Just chalk up another one.

cadiz12 said...

is that the one that goes 'we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun'? that's the only part of the song i remember, except for the fact that it's sad.

i love the oldies. even the really old stuff, too. i've always wished i could have gone to one of those dances like the one in back to the future b/c of the music and the girly dresses with the little gloves. but they all had to wear hose, and that just sucks, so maybe not.

Jon said...

Yeah, that’s the song, the part that always gets me is the line that begins with, “Goodbye Papa it’s hard to die…” It’s just sad, but I like it.

cadiz12 said...

i love sad songs. sometimes the sadder, the better it makes me feel. for some reason they just seem so much more real. or maybe i just like the minor key. who knows.

i know someone who had to change the radio station when he thought a song 'made him think too much.' that really annoyed the hell out of me.

Jon said...

Nah, I think waaaaaaaaay too much on my own for any song to even come close to overwhelming me. I love things that make me think. I like puzzles, riddles, moral gray areas… how are you suppose to figure out who you are as a person if you don’t dissect the issues and take a stance on them? I’m just saying…

cadiz12 said...

that's the truth. and what a thought for the 500th look at this blog (at least since i started counting). sorry, but i'm not as cool as omar. i don't have anything to offer but my heartfelt congratulations.

Jon said...

Coolness is not measured by material gifts that are given away, it comes from a much deeper place and is subject to the viewer. You’re cool because you didn’t take me seriously when I made fun of you way back when on Jasmine’s 100 list. Omar is cool because he is a humorless computer geek that is illiterate and I believe he also has is severely buck toothed. You wouldn’t think that would make a person cool, but that’s Omar. Very cutting edge.

As for being the 500th viewer, well, where do I begin? First I’d like to thank my parents, for never discouraging me from neurotically checking websites dozens of times a day. I’d also like to give a shout out to my optometrist, for always making sure I could see. My writers, Me, Myself and I, I don’t know where I’d be without you guys. Probably still delivering pizza. The internet, for being accessible 24/7. And last, but certainly not least, Cadiz herself, for creating a blog that I feel it necessary to visit time and time again. (the last part of my speech is almost completely inaudible because they are trying to play me off, but I’m having none it. I’m still talking because I’m a tremendous windbag with nothing better to do. At this point, I know have to large escorts showing me the exit, but I break loose and make it back to the mic to jabber on about some other stuff that no one can hear because they’ve managed to cut the sound and are now calling in the ushers to help contain me. What they didn’t realize is that I have cat-like agility, so the next 15 minutes are spent chasing me around the stage. It’s not very entertaining, the audience is bored with it, but I continue to escape. The show is delayed almost an hour when I climb up into the catwalk and begin swinging from the cables they have in place for the following nights production of peter pan… I’m an ass, everyone knows it and is sick of me at this point…. And I just keep rambling… sorry… )

cadiz12 said...

it was odd; at first i was like what the...?! but when it came down to letting you have it, i just wasn't in so much of a huff after all. partially, because you didn't technically insult me (except for your tone.) and partially because i couldn't chew out someone who liked encyclopedia brown.

and you're mostly just an ass when you trash yourself.