Tubasaluki: Quoting music since 2003

Its hard to believe, but I have graced Salem with my presence for six months. A half a year. It certainly doesn’t feel like six months, which given how some of the semesters at SIU dragged on, I’m considering a good thing.

I’m set to close on my house, which is quite exciting. Never mind that this was supposed to happen two weeks ago. Its still kind of neat. I am about to own a house, and then I can yell at those whipersnappers to get off of my lawn. Those of you who know me understand that its been a dream of mine to call someone a whippersnapper and actually mean it. I’m excited.

In an update of old news, the push lawn mower works like a charm. Seriously, the simplicity of the machine is quite neat. I push, grass gets short. I was informed by one of the neighborhood kids that her grandpa’s mower was a lot cooler. Someone doesn’t grasp simple machines. Does Bill Nye still have his show? He needs to get on this…stat.

If you’re reading My Sweaty T-shirt, then you know that I have gained a pedometer and thought I had lost a toe. A stubbing incident kept lingering and at the encouraging of my soon to be President of USA Track and Field friend Nick, I went and got it checked at, fearing it was broken. It wasn’t, and I am free to do pinky toe weight curls once again.

Our listeners have been on fairly good behavior for awhile. However, Adventures with Listeners makes a special re-appearance for a message left on the studio line sometime Saturday night.

WJBD airs Delilah, and all the ice cream eating encouraging/sappy pseudodrams that go with that. Given my luck with girls and relationships, you might venture a guess that I’m not a big fan of Delilah. You are correct. Her show annoys me a great deal. However, many of our listeners love Delilah. People have old me how much they love Delilah. I smile and nod and then try to recount the time Dream Theater decided to cover Master of Puppets just to prove they could. That was known as….AWESOME.

Anyway, I get to work Sunday morning in my usual half awake state. There is a message on the studio phone, which is unsurprising. People call and leave whose birthdays it is (more on this in a second). We then wish people a happy birthday and give one lucky person a free dozen donuts.

So, I check the message and its a guy…trying to reach Delilah. He’s trying to get a request in. He goes into the whole happy spiel about how mch he loves her and how this song…Waltzing Through Texas, or something is very special to them. All thats missing is Delilah’s typical hardline of questioning of “so you really love each other?” and her classic follow up “You think you’ve found the one?” (somewhere in here she does sort of a subdued squeel of delight. I know this because she’s on air when I get to the station after a meeting).

The problem is Delilah is not in Salem. She’s actually, and I had to look this up, in Seattle. 618-548-3100 will not get you Delilah. Despite the fact that she says her request line during every break, gives out her e-mail address frequently and probably is unaware of where Salem is…we get the phone call. This apperently is not an isolated incident. Bruce tells me it happens frequently.

Now, my spiel about birthdays. I don’t mind doing the birthdays on Sundays. It takes little time, and hey, I give away donuts. Such are the perks of working commercial radio. The thing I don’t like is that people don’t listen to when the donut winner is announced. I field two or three phone calls every Sunday of people wanting to know who won the donuts.

Now, I understand if the birthday dude/dudette is not awake at 7:20. I try to not be. But, here’s my thing. If you’re going to put a name on the birthday list, knowing there are donuts on the line, wouldn’t you at least listen to see if they won? Isn’t that kind of like entering the lottery and not checking your tickets?

Alright, that’s enough ranting for one evening. You take care out there on the Interwebs.

If I seem Superhuman, I’ve been misunderstood,

Alan