What the Hell Was I Thinking?

Why did I sign up for this shift? 2-4 AM on a Sunday morning after doing 12-4 AM Saturday morning. I'm fucking exhausted and I have no one to blame but my own fool self.

Blasting out some Spoon ("All the Pretty Girls Go to the City" is the track, one of their best), burning a few CDs and just trying to plug through. Not doing another show for two weeks, which is fine by me right now. You never appreciate your bed so much as when you slip into it just before dawn.

Runnin' 'n' Shit

Eugene OR, the little burg I call home, is currently celebrating its accidental relationship to track and field competitions with a massive civic orgy, all aimed to suck at the fat teat of the Olympics. The track and field tryouts for the summer Olympics are taking place here at the UO, where the humble little campus station I'm currently broadcasting from at 1 AM is located. I honestly couldn't care less about the whole affair, though the entire town seems caught up in it. Even the local alt paper, the Eugene Weekly, commemorated it in their own jackass way by giving a guide to Eugene for the out-of-towners highlighting the various places around the city where the police have committed human rights abuses. The guide was as self-serving as it was snide, which is in keeping with the EW's style. You know, I'll agree that the Whittaker neighborhood is the center of Eugene's activist community, but it's also the place where you're most likely to get your car peed on by a meth addict. Let's try to have some balance here.

To me, all the trials mean is that the town will be a little crowded for a week or so, during part of which I'll be on vacation (going to San Fransisco to visit friends for the July 4th weekend). I'm planning on avoiding that edge of campus and staying indoors. Not that I don't respect the athletes. I know I can't do that shit. It's just that I don't care if they do it. So you can see the conflict.

My CD burning project hit a good stride last week. 28 albums was the final count, made off with plenty of good stuff. This week is going about as well. I noticed the station's collection of out-of-print Captain Beefheart albums and dubbed copies as soon as I could. Music-wise, it's going to be a good summer. Sleep-wise, not so much. I'm filling in until 4 AM today and will be on from 2-4 AM tomorrow morning. No rest for the wicked.

Beat that shit, track-rats.

Back in the Groove Space

What the hell am I doing sitting in this cramped, smelly-ass space at 4 AM?

When I was in college I got it into my head that it would be cool to be a college radio DJ. I applied for a spot at the local station and landed the coveted 4-6 AM Friday morning slot, which I obstinately held onto until I graduated and moved to colder, less economically prosperous pastures. It was a pretty cool job (if two hours of unpaid work a week could be called a job) while it lasted. I could keep up on modern indie rock, as well as keep tabs on the music put out by local bands. And even though few people listened in, it was nice to have two hours of time to transmit anything I felt like playing.

That ended three years ago. I moved away from Oregon and the University of Oregon, not planning to return for ages, if ever. A speedy divorce from the woman I had moved for rearranged those plans and now I'm back in town. And somehow I got it into my head again to start working at the station, at least on a temporary basis. The idea that I may in someway be trying to relive my college "glory days" by filling in shows over the summer, possibly in response to a shattered sense of self-confidence, has occurred to me. However, the fact that the station has two CD burners and a large library of music, much of it obscure, also occurred to me. So now, armed with a ream of CD-R's and a bold determination to own everything, I'm sitting in the station, playing some Italian lounge music I found on the rotation shelf, occasionally hopping up to change out CDs from the burners while my collection grows.

Not much has changed here. The station is small, smells like electronics and humanity (sort of a sweaty cyborg feeling) and is covered in stickers promoting things mostly long since dead. I'm exhausted, my head feel like it's full of static and I'm still drinking coffee despite the fact that it's now been nearly 24 hours since I woke up. Just like old times.

I'll be writing in this blog during my shows, so this project probably won't last the summer. Then again, I've already burned close the 30 albums my first night. So who knows? Might become a hobby.