Surfing Radiowaves

It's always a little strange to listen to the radio over the internet. I frequently tune in to Wisconsin Public Radio because they play classical music without excessive yammering, and it reminds me of sitting in the kitchen in my parents' house. Classical music puts me into work mode, but I get ripped out of it every time I hear an ad for Big Top Chautauqua or notice Jim Packard's nasal Midwestern accent, forgetting where I am for a moment and wondering if that storm system is headed toward Kenosha or Viroqua.

I also still listen to KALX, the student radio station at UC-Berkeley, especially when I'm washing dishes or trying to wake myself up in my office. UMass has a college radio station, but it sucks most of the time, and 9 times out of 10 when I tune into the Amherst College station, all I get is static (I guess because no one can get out of bed at 10am to DJ. Just now I clicked on its webcast to see what was on and only realized I'd been listening to nothing after 19 minutes. I should probably turn that off.). So, anyway, I get my nostalgia listening to KALX, but I forget I'm listening to a station out of California until they tell me it's 9am when it's really noon, and the DJs complain about a third day of rain when we've had three months of below-freezing temperatures and 12 inches of snow, and I hear about indie movies at the San Francisco Film Festival when I haven't been to a city with a population over 30,000 in I don't know how long. Then I just get depressed.

I've even been known to listen to my local NPR station, WFCR, online at home, because if I'm in my office/guest room I can't always hear the speakers from the living room, and I like to move around and do stuff while I listen to "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!" But for some reason the stream of WFCR lags about 5 seconds behind the broadcast, which is really annoying, and I get pretty fed up with every program being sponsored by "local author Augusten Burroughs." If every program were sponsored by "local author Emily Dickinson," I'd be much more willing to listen.

I don't listen to WESU (Wesleyan's station) online, because I never got into the habit, I guess, but I do pick it up in the car when I'm making my way up and down the I-91 corridor. Sometimes it's ok; sometimes it's terrible, but I have a fondness for the longest running college radio station, the place where I got my start (and finish) as a DJ, and the station "all the way left on your FM dial" (only 87.9 is lefter).

Me, college radio, and NPR. If I drove a Volvo and drank lattes, I'd be smack dab in the middle of a demographic.