I like to give the business to the classic rock station sometimes, but I kid because I love. I sort of love. No matter what else comes along, the classic rock station is my default music choice. I'm still working with the Big Band station, but they play old time radio shows in the evening. I listen to those unless I have a short drive. If I'm only driving for a few minutes I don't want to get engrossed. One time I was on my way to pick up a pizza at a place about twenty minutes away from home, and a radio drama caused me to take the long way. I exited the freeway early and drove though town, extending the trip by ten minutes. That allowed me to hear how it ended.
Sometimes that isn't convenient so I switch back to the old faithful classic rock station. I can't help it. For every overplayed Jimi Hendrix song I never need to hear again there is an overplayed Deep Purple song that I can't hear enough. I still get all happy when Hush comes on the radio. Even though I roll my eyes a lot when I listen to that station, I'm glad it's there. Except...I think I have unreasonable expectations.
See, I have always listened to the classic rock station at night or during the noon hour. Those are both heavy duty request times. In fact, the overnight portion is all requests. I love request time on the classic rock station. It's always enjoyable because you get both the occasional hilarious Led Zeppelin request as well as people calling to request The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys.
And then they actually play The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys and you feel like the luckiest radio listener in the entire world. Or maybe that's just me. To me, classic rock request time means the chance to hear progressive early seventies tunes that are well over seven minutes long. I love that, and it's one of the reasons I always go back. However, I had an unpleasant day with the classic rock station a couple of weeks ago and that was when I started wondering if I have unreasonable expectations.
When I had my unfortunate one day turn as a receptionist, there was nothing to do. Luckily I found a deck of cards in the desk and played solitaire while the grumpy (and very nice) lady trained me in. And by trained me in I mean that she did her work at the front desk and answered the phone if it rang. Once I got the hang of it (I didn't know how to use a switchboard-now I do) I was on my own. Fortunately there was a radio sitting there so I thought the least offensive choice for work would be the classic rock station.
Even though I had the volume low, it seemed like common courtesy to keep the station on something benign. I would have enjoyed listening to some talk radio, but, you know. No matter where you fall on the talk radio spectrum, odds are good it will be offensive to someone in the vicinity. I did savor the idea of being the nightmarish temp whose radio ruined the workday of all who came near. I could have been the temp who is spoken about in hushed tones forevermore. The temp who was even worse than the one who went to lunch and never came back.
Of course, at that point I was trying to be a professional temp so that was a bad idea. Therefore, I decided to listen to classic rock but I didn't turn on the radio until the dreaded morning show was over. It's the most popular morning show in town but I cannot stand it. Technically I cannot stand any morning show because if I want to hear constant talking, I will listen to talk radio. At least they provide actual news.
I have a particular grudge against the classic rock morning show because when I was in high school, they would play one song by The Who and that would get my hopes up. Here I was thinking that maybe they were going to play music that morning and then after Pinball Wizard I would get another half hour of discussion about the Vikings. If I want that I will visit my sports talk station.
Once I was a safe distance from the morning show I tuned in. I heard some Lynyrd Skynyrd, some Who, all the staples. Then I had my first annoyance of the morning. "Coming up after the break, a Dutch band." Oh, I thought, they are going to play Golden Earring. Then I went off. Well, I went off in my head. I was wondering, is it humanly possible that there is a classic rock listener that doesn't know that a Dutch band automatically means Golden Earring?
Well, yeah. It's perfectly possible. I think I may have unreasonable expectations for radio listeners too. There are young guys joining construction crews every day who do not listen to classic rock. It would be news to them that Golden Earring is a Dutch band. It may even be news to them that Golden Earring is the band that plays Radar Love. I decided to cut the station some slack.
I cut them some slack until they decided to play a deep cut. Sometimes it seems like they have a funny definition of what is a deep cut. A lot of the time it's an album track but since they are still kind of an album station, it's often something that is in the regular rotation already. On this particular occasion they introduced a deep cut from Warren Zevon. Woo-hoo!
Imagine the thrill when the song was Excitable Boy. Excitable Boy? Is that not Warren Zevon's best known song, second only to Werewolves Of London? Seriously. That is not a deep cut. I tried to enjoy Warren but I was irritated. That's not a deep cut! Then I heard background vocals that aren't usually there and I realized it must be an alternate version of Excitable Boy. I just don't think the change was enough to make it a deep cut.
Shortly after I heard Mr. Zevon I switched to talk radio. I figured being the day ruiner for a manufacturing plant couldn't be half as bad as hearing another deep cut like that. And I've learned my lesson. From now on, I'm limiting my classic rock consumption before five in the afternoon. Otherwise I might hear them claim that Smoke On The Water is a deep cut and I will have to break my radio.