Ideas on Air.
You ever listen to the radio? Probably only in your car, like me often. But I drive a 1995 Nissan pickup truck, with an obscure Neil Young tape I found at a coffeeshop in Corvallis jambed forever in the tape player. It neither plays nor functions, and so I am left with the dismal presets I have found from the once glorious bygone era of broadcast radio.
But lucky for me, I like radio. It holds some strange sentient pleasure for me in its trans-national distorted static, as I stay on the low spectrum FM's, and let the 90's technology radio deck scan the AM's to fill my presets up with endless oldies and fuzzy talk radio of all manners and opinions. I don't really care what they are talking about. I'll hang on the mundane of the mundane, late night shows like Handle on the Law, where people call in to ask this pompous so-called lawyer for legal and tax advice, and all he does is pummel them with his own superiority complex, and often cuts the line before he fully answers the question, or before they have the ability to follow him through to his point. Or the thoroughly entertaining and aggressive Right-wing talkers (Mark Levin, Lars Larson, Dana Lasch) who spend 2-3 hours every day of the week ranting and raving about the “Left”.
What's the point? That question is left dull and unsharpened in the world of radio, as pundits and personalties spew and rant to fill daily 3 hour segments. Lunatics (and I'm not sure I use that word in a negative sense) with teams of writers behind them gathering up the latest dirt and scams of the democrats. Riling up all the anti-sentiment against the big-bad government.
Because aside from the few NPR stations on AM, you can be assured that anyone else with a voice on those long distance air waves is some version of christian, and some level of conservative. But then you have real gems, like the raving Alex Jones, or the infinite-alien-mind-reading conspiracies of Coast to Coast AM, where the point is really to never get to the point. Where hours of radio is dragged on with nonsense and filler to get to a non-existent conclusion.
“Tune in next week folks...”
I hope it never ends. I hope in whatever dystopic future we land ourselves in I can still crank my little AM radio and find dissenting opinions falling out of the atmosphere from distant lands. Even though they are all syndicated, and there is very little 'local' left, radio has its forever-gems, that I hope long outlive the hyper connectivity of life and information we have at the moment. I won't go into laments. Podcasts are truly revolutionary, and I hope projects like podcastindex.org can help keep those simple RSS feeds available for all to subscribe to.
But its AM radio that fills my days, well at least when I'm driving, as I flip back and forth between the top three presets, in no particular order of hierarchy. #1 1600AM OPB, the gentle and concerned voices of NPR. The curt but concerned Mary-Louise Kelly, the Ari Shapiro's and Jack Spears's. Now all they talk about is COVID, and it's all panic and concern and disdain for so little regulation. Masks, masks, masks, vaccines, masks, lockdowns, vaccines, vaccines, more vaccines, on and on and on and on.
And then there is preset #2 590 AM KUGN Fox News Radio, with a daytime program filled with 3 hour shows by the likes of Sean Hannity, the cave dwelling shrew who calls himself Mark Levin, and the cocaine frenzied lunchtime talk of Ben Shapiro. Accusation after accusation from some perspective of “true” freedom. From a tone of shameless vitriol, bashing mandates while supporting abortion bans, selling healthcare as well as vaccine skepticism, with the perfect stewing blend of compliance and defiance in their habits of speech. It's the Democrats, antifa, vaccines, masks, masks, guns, antifa, and the veiled white supremacy of it all. The homogenous America that never existed, but is still seething internally. The ones who helped build this country to watch it all fall to the latest trend of the city dwellers, who’s rules are now being imposed on them by the neo-liberal 'politeness' of the democratic dictators.
I got to admit, it sure is more entertaining than NPR. I recommend you give it a try. But if you are not used to such language, you must go into with a special state of mind. If you are even generally on the “left” of things, you should be prepared to be insulted, offended, and downright enraged. Enraged at these people who have the gall to talk like they do, and at the fact that their voices are being broadcast across the nation, on a broad spectrum that in many many rural areas of the country is all that can be picked up.
I remain here to derive some deep sadistic pleasure from the absurdities of the situation. From that fact that a mere switch away on my radio dial I can here voices so confident and so convinced in their opposition to one another, that the convictions become lost for the simple sake of arguing.
There is no impasse, thus heightening the utter calamity that is destined to ensue from all this political rage and self sown fear. I can only choose to separate myself as if it was the theater. It is far too tragic to be the only experience we have here. And so I laugh. Laugh at the ones who take it so seriously as to spend all their time and energy broadcasting their opinions out to the world.
Perhaps I may have cured myself of my radio addiction in writing this. I have become so tired by the anger, but I still find it funny. There is truth in all of it, and a good blend makes things more fun. But now I listen to podcasts. I'm a 21st century player now. Bluetooth headphones and Spotify. I fill my head up with talk and banter from the mouths of the dumb to the hyper genius.
I hope radio never dies. I hope there are voices and ideas floating on frequencies until the end of space and time. You will not find a communications network quite so democratic, and quite so easily accessible. No accounts needed, and no algorithms necessary.
However, even finding a good station on the radio these days requires cutting through the static. We have added a lot of noise to the world in the past century, and some of the signals are harder to come by. Corporate ClearChannels dominate the networks, but independent voices are still out there transmitting their ideas into the cosmos for anyone with the right antenna to receive, and to comfort us on the vast expanses of Earth where the internet still does not reach, but where the desire for the connection to outside worlds remains felt.
The technology for the sharing of ideas is ever-evolving and ever-changing, but the concept has always been the same.
We each have a unique antenna, and a unique transmitter, and we are all capable of communicating unique ideas out of thin air.
What’s my message here? I’m just trying to fill a space, cutting through the noise but contributing to the chatter. Take my thoughts and run with them, for they have been released into the ether. Send yours back and I will do the same.
With love and recourse,
-§parrow