Fun and Games Dept

During our whirlwind Tucson round trip road trip I made a point of listening to local radio stations along the way. As a former radio professional (at least, as best as I could be), I used to find great delight in listening to other radio stations during our travels. I was able to formulate new ideas, or at least copy ideas from far flung radio stations, and bring new elements to our station to keep it “exciting and fresh”. Buzz words are important in radio.

With the arrival of the 21st century and the simultaneous explosion of Internet streaming, iPods, iPhones, and the like, and the watering down of radio station ownership to a handful of media megaconglomerates, I had lost interest in listening to radio. That all happened about the same time as Top 40 performers relying heavily on auto-tune, and my musically trained ears just can’t stomach that awful processing, unless it’s used as some sort of special effect. I know I’m getting old, but the vast majority of pop music falls into three categories: 1. all humanity drained from the track by autotune, 2. screaming and yelling and yodeling-like sounds trying to sound like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston, and 3. whispered tracks that sound like a cat making yowling sounds to a backing track.

Back in my day, while going up hill in the snow both ways to get to school, “classic hits” harkened back to the days of Elvis, the Beatles, and other bee-bop and Rock ‘n Roll. Today’s “classic hits” format plays music from my teenage days to the late 90s, and for the most part sit quite well with me.

Here’s four “classic hit” stations that caught my attention during our trip.

KMXO 95.3 FM in Rolla, Missouri had a strong signal for a good share of the Interstate 44 corridor and had a nice mix of music from multiple decades. I liked everything I heard, the station branding is strong, and it didn’t feel too narrowly focused. With Internet streaming, you can listen here.

I first heard 92.5 KOMA from Oklahoma City in late 2000s when I was attending training for work in Norman, Okla. The station goes back to what I would consider “classic hits” but comes up into the late 80s and plays a nice mix. I often listen to this station courtesy of Alexa; it was nice to listen to the station in real time in an analog way. We listened going into Oklahoma City on I-44 and held onto the signal quite a ways west along Interstate 40 as we made our towards Amarillo. You can listen to KOMA here.

When we decided to move to Tucson I started looking around online to find radio stations that would fit my listening needs. I never really did that when we moved to Chicago; I don’t know enough about Windy City radio other than to listen to WBBM for traffic and weather on the 8s. K-HIT 107.5 in Tucson is a heavily 80s station, at least when I listened to it earlier this week. I had the windows down and the tunes cranked as I made my way down Speedway looking for a recommended Mexican restaurant. I was blasting Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Culture Club. You can listen to it here.

WJEZ covers Livingston County in Illinois. It’s licensed to Dwight, Illinois and identifies to Pontiac. It comes in beautifully across the prairie along the Interstate 55 corridor. I had the sense this is a newer format for the station, and my radio tuned ears could easily identify that it relies heavily on automation in that someone is sitting in a studio running multiple stations through specialized computer equipment at the same time. The first four songs we heard were straight off the old Wow-FM playlist I would generate back in the late 1990s. We heard tracks from the late 1990s going as far back as to The Rolling Stones and a couple of Top 40 tracks from the early 1970s. The mix was eclectic. The only thing that was odd was there were a couple of weird edits to songs, almost like they were hastily edited to fit a certain time slot. I’ve heard many edits of “Groove Is In The Heart” by Dee-lite, but the edit I heard on WJEZ was nothing I’d ever heard before. I still really liked the station, found the air personalities friendly, if slightly generic (hence my bet on automated trickery) and I recommend the station. You can listen here.

I was very nervous about traveling during these pandemic times. Since the beginning of this ordeal we have been going out of our way to remain as isolated as possible. We always wear masks, wash our hands a lot, and do our best to maintain as much distance as possible from others.

When we decided to drive to Tucson I knew it wasn’t going to be like any other road trip. We’d be eating in the car. We wouldn’t get to know the local flavor of a town by eating in a diner or hanging out at a bar.

And I was worried about how the whole hotel thing would work.

Hampton Inn has modified their amenities to help combat the spread of COVID.

1. There is no housekeeping. Once a room is occupied, no one but the guest goes in there until they check out. Make your own bed.

2. There is no breakfast buffet, which actually fine by me. I’ve often been horrified by the behavior of my fellow Americans at a hotel breakfast buffet; I’d be doubly horrified if they continued to pull the same stunts during the pandemic.

3. Each room is sealed with a “it’s clean!” sticker on the door. The room smells really, really clean. Either they gassed the entire place with a barrel of Lysol or they actually cleaned the room Either way is a win win.

4. If you want to use the fitness facilities or the pool, you must make an appointment at the front desk.

5. You can’t browse the pantry. They’ll get it for you.

I’m feeling better about this trip knowing that many businesses are going out of their way to do the right thing as far as cleanliness and safety goes.

Mask use has been better than I expected at the various establishments we’ve stopped at along the way. The only disappointment was a Wendy’s in western Oklahoma. I gave them the what for on Yelp. Otherwise, I’d say about 80-85% of the patrons and staff have been following reasonable precautions.

If we all work together, we can get through this together.

I am writing this from Oklahoma. We are on a road trip during a pandemic. We are well acquainted with quick pit stops and drive thrus. Panera isn’t Panera in St. Louis but the gift card still works just fine.

Tomorrow we shall see the desert.

The sky was a beautiful mix of red and orange at sunrise this morning. It’s going to be an interesting day of weather. They’re calling for all sorts of precipitation and winds with gusts up to 45 MPH.

But it’s a beautiful start to the day!

I woke up in the best mood. I felt awesome. I had a great night’s sleep, my morning walk went well, the weather wasn’t horrible. I was feeling great.

After my walk I got back home and like I always do, I took a peek at Twitter and Facebook. I scrolled quickly through the latter. I don’t like lingering on Facebook too long. And then I took a gander at Twitter. Even after much attention at curating and muting and the like, I found my mood dwindling. Crazy members of congress. Wretching and the pandemic. This is not good. A bunch of woe is woo woo.

I refused to let my mood be deterred and closed down social media. I decided to watch an episode of “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” instead. The helped bring my mood back to my “first thing in the morning” levels and all was well.

When Twitter first came around it was quite fun to participate and meet people. Today it feels like social media just screams in your face. Even if you’re looking for pictures of Bodega Cats or something.

So instead of going to Twitter, here’s a random picture of a Bodega Cat.

From the Internet.

See, isn’t that great for the mood?

So the rumors are true! We are moving to Tucson this spring. As of last night we are under contract for a home on the east side of the city near Saguaro National Park East. We toured this beautiful home via a Zoom call last week; three of the five of us are going down this coming weekend to tour and inspect the house in person.

Exciting times!

I love it when people laugh. There’s not enough laughter in our world today, but making people laugh or hearing people laugh gives me a such a happy feeling. It’s so energizing.

You know who had an awesome laugh? Michael Landon. He had a hearty laugh that was often heard in both “Bonanza” and “Little House On The Prairie”. He had an honest laugh. It wasn’t something forced, it came from the heart and that’s probably why so many people still speak so fondly of him to this day.

Once in a while I’ll hear a laugh that is more startling than anything. Watching the clip from “The Golden Girls” above, around the 47 second mark you’ll hear a woman screaming in a very odd way. I don’t find it part of the laughter. It doesn’t give me a happy feeling. Maybe she was expressing her appreciate of Bea’s humor in the only way she knew how. Or perhaps she was making unnatural sounds to be remembered on an episode audience track until the end of time and eventually make it to my blog over 35 years later.

When I hear someone make unnatural sounds like that on a laugh track I have to wonder what that person is like in real life. Admittedly, I wonder what noises they make during sex. Do they scream like fire alarms? Do they make cattle restless? Does their amorous partner don ear plugs as part of the foreplay? Will I end up next to a person that screams like this at a movie theatre? I hope they’re not having sex then.

I guess honest expression of laughter are what fill me with happiness. Shrieks are more startling than happy. Perhaps after getting over being startled I’d laugh in a nervous sort of way while eyeing the room for evidence of some sort of psychotic action.

Laugh along with Bea. Don’t shriek at her.

Riding the ‘L’ for the first time in four months. Family dinner tonight but we didn’t want to deal with trying to find a parking place.

It’s starting to feel like winter in these parts. The other day it occurred to me that it hadn’t really felt like winter had kicked in yet. Temperatures have been relatively mild for this time of year and we hadn’t much snow.

This week in January has historically been the coldest week of the year. While still relatively mild, at least we’re seeing snow now.