ridiculous’ Neighborhood

man, i don't have my phone today and i am SO GLAD. 

i never really thought i would know what it was like to wake up in the morning and look at someone and feel completely at peace with the world, but i do now. 

it's like, it mends the soul.

all i know is that i'm really fucking tired of everyone giving me all kinds of bullshit unsolicited advice about what I have recently chosen to do with my life.  i know this because i spent a fair portion of last night with two of my close friends, who spent at least an hour grilling me about my boyfriend's motives for doing certain things and my motives for doing certain things and honestly, i'm at a point where my life is about to take an amazing, unpredictable turn, and i'd kind of like the opportunity to run with it without having to respond to bullshit interrogation like that. 

sure, i know they're just doing it because they care, but seriously.  i'm twenty-eight years old.  yeah, there's tons of potential for this situation to work out really fucking poorly, but first of all, nothing is permanent, and there is no possible way that you can know me and not be aware of the fact that i never do anything without tirelessly analyzing it to the last, most miniscule detail.  so what fucking sense would it make that i would just suddenly decide to do something drastic like, out of the blue, with no thought about it whatsoever?  yeah, exactly. 

what's happening now is that they are taking a situation that i'm really, really excited about and making me feel guilty for wanting to make these choices, because it's something they would never even consider doing.  as far as I'm concerned, it is the absolute worst service you can do a friend to discourage them from doing something that may indeed make them very happy, just because you can't seem to wrap your mind around it or the idea of it totally scares you or you have some selfish need to keep them doing whatever it is they're doing.  yes, i completely understand that it could be a bad idea, and i completely understand the potential ramifications of my actions. so, why can't i just be an adult and make my own decisions without the people i care about trying to shoot them down just because it makes them uncomfortable?  i could be embarking on the most intensely amazing chapter of my life, but if i chose not to act on my original plan, i would never even know.  i, personally, am not even remotely willing to risk that. 

at this point, i don't even want to talk to them again until after i make all these changes.  i'm tired of people trying to discourage me from doing what i feel i need to do just because it either doesn't suit their agendas or they're unable to grasp the concept of not feeling so tethered to their current lifestyles that they would be able to make a radical change at a moment's notice and actually feel comfortable with it.  i feel sorry for people who have no choice but to trudge through their lives from day to day, with nothing ever changing or getting any better, because they have no fucking sense of adventure and are too crippled by the thought of potential failure that they can't even take a single step outside the box.  fuck that. 

i want to actually live my life.   

I suppose I could have written something more about the events leading up to my trip, or how the trip actually went, or any number of things like that, but as of about five seconds ago, I've made the decision not to talk about my personal life on the internet, at least not for awhile.  Or at least not in specific terms.  The best I can do to tell anyone anything right now is to say that I'm in love -- so, so in love with someone who is also in love with me, and that I have cheez-it dust all over my chest because I just finished the bag I've been eating for two days.  I've chosen not to say much because I don't want to have to explain to the other parties involved that I'm broadcasting the datails of our relationship across the internet for basically no reason, and also because it is far too personal and private to me to want to share with anyone other than him. 

Unfortunately, this may significantly limit my topics for blogging, because as it turns out, I've never had an original idea in my entire life, and I can't offer any sort of revolutionary opinions about anything because I don't think about anyone or anything but myself.  My self-centeredness seems to know no bounds, except where my new relationship is concerned, since I'm either thinking only about myself or about him or how we can improve our situation.  I can't imagine this stream of thought would be interesting to anyone else, so I'll probably just end up keeping that to myself too.  If there's something you want my opinion about, feel free to suggest something.  Otherwise I'm sure my blogging will be fairly sparse. 

i should probably have written at some point to update you on what's going on with the amazing guy i'm meeting, but it's ended up being a pretty stressful week or so.  seven full days passed before i heard anything from him, and i had barely managed to ooze a few steps back from the brink of despair long enough to reach my phone when he finally called.  the great news, however, is that everything is fine and so far it's worked out the way we hoped, and we're still on track for meeting in just under thirteen days.  (!!!)

otherwise i've been alright, except the anticipation of my trip has been building so intensely that i can scarcely sleep at night.  my thoughts are almost entirely occupied by what i'm going to bring, where i'm going to stay, and whether or not my expectations are going to exceed reality.  i know it's probably not terribly smart of me to have such high hopes, but i don't just fall in love with people every day.  he's fairly preoccupied with everything he's doing right now, which is really good and even if it means i talk to him a lot less, i'm fine with it.  but i think about him all the time.  i'm constantly daydreaming about what that final moment will be like when we actually get to lay eyes on each other.. if it'll be awkward or if i'll cry or if he'll cry or if i'll run up and throw my arms around his neck or any number of pathetically Sleepless-In-Seattle type scenarios.  i don't know.  all i know is that it's less than two weeks away and i am so happy and terrified that i can barely contain myself.

so many things have happened this week.. i hardly know where to begin.  first, in a surprising turn of events, the aforementioned amazing dude and i made concrete plans to see each other next month.  actually, it's in three weeks.  actually, it's in 20 days or so, but who's counting (me)?  anyway. 

making those plans was such an incredible step, and we've been so excited to see each other that we can barely stand the anticipation most of the time.  we've been talking every day and are fairly certain that we're going to have the most amazing time imaginable while i'm there -- so much that we're already sad it has to end.  we have completely crossed the threshold between cautiously approaching our situation anymore and allowing ourselves to tumble head over foot into what may end up being the most loving relationship that two people could ever have.  it feels really weird to say that, but we've sort of gotten over that part (you know, the part where our interaction has existed 100% via internet and phone) and just given in to the warm, pleasant feeling that we had both almost entirely forgotten about since the last people we had been involved with.

two days after that, which brings us to the day before yesterday, we had a conversation which consisted of him telling me that he has made a very life-altering decision, primarily because he wants our relationship to be as successful as possible in the long run.  i won't go into the details of this decision as it's extremely personal and not my business to tell to the internet, but i will say that i could not possibly be happier and more proud of him for having the strength and courage to try to conquer something which could have taken him down a significantly more destructive path in life.  this means that i won't be able to have any contact with him for a brief period of time, but i know that ultimately, this is all for the better and of course i support him in anything and everything he wants to do.  the worst part now is just waiting for status updates.

i haven't slept in two nights and i am beginning to really worry about him, but i'm trying to retain faith that he will contact me as soon as he's able.  i really do love him and i know that what he's doing is totally the right thing, but that he needs to straighten it out on his own, and there's really very little i can do to help. counting down the days until i see him is sort of helping me maintain my sanity, although it's my nature to worry so i may have to start medicating myself coming up soon.  but i guess i'll cross that bridge when i come to it.

various ways i sit at my desk and pretend to be working when i'm actually not doing anything but text messaging people/flagrantly violating company policy in some other way:

1. making lists of things on paper which have nothing to do with work, but always keeping my head down and a very intent look on my face so it appears that i am actually doing something.  also, i keep a copy of something i should actually be working on next to whatever list i'm making, and periodically shuffle them back and forth so it looks like i'm comparing notes or something. 

2. calling people on my personal cell phone or texting them with instructions to call me on my work phone, so that when my boss walks by and sees me in mid-conversation, scribbling on aforementioned list, he won't stop to ask me something work-related.

3. going up to the fourth floor where the vending machines are located and spending inordinate amounts of time choosing sodas or candy which i plan to take back to my desk and eat very slowly.

4. logging into the company's intranet page to pretend to search for work-related items, when really i'm just using that as a cover page for the inappropriate websites i'm looking at while pretending to research information for aforementioned list. 

5. writing e-mails to myself about nothing, usually typing my name or the word DIAPERS over and over again until i get bored of it or have to answer the phone or something.

6. sending e-mails to the cute girl in the HR department about the cute guy in the HR department who sits right next to her and on whom i have a slowly dwindling crush, and not a snowball's chance in hell with. 

7. finally, writing blogs about the things i do to avoid working, which i'm now realizing i totally shouldn't be doing, because i should have learned from dooce's mistakes.  this'll be the last time, i swear.  she's totally right.

The Station: 93.3 FM WSNE
The Format: "Hot" Adult Contemporary
The Hour: 11:38 AM to 12:38 PM, Monday, July 14, 2008.
Stylistic flaw of the day: I get pretty overwrought at times.

Coast 93.3, operated by the evil, Mitt Romney-owned Clear Channel, is one of those awful "at work" stations that exist only to convince us that any entertainment or cultural options we have are more boring than our boring lives, and so therefore our boring lives must not be boring after all, and so lead us to the conclusion that we shouldn't kill ourselves. This is important because our corporate rulers don't want us to kill ourselves until our period of usefulness is over.

11:38. Alicia Keys, No One. A-
Good start! From my point of view, anyway; if I were at a shitty job, this song would definitely remind me that the world contained more than it was offering me. Alicia Keys is weird, where she's a very boring woman, but nevertheless has a solid three great songs (the other two are "Fallin'", which, if you can get away from the massive overplaying, is still a pretty damn good soul single, and "Karma", which just inarguably kicks ass). I like the way that this song took the cheerleading/marching band craze of two or three years before it came out, slowed it down, and mixed it with Keys' generally uninspired brand of neo-soul. The off-key synthesized horns push the whole thing over the top. If I'd been listening to the radio more over the last year, I'd probably be dramatically sick of it, but I wasn't, so I didn't. DJ introducing Gavin Rossdale.
11:41. Gavin Rossdale, Love Remains the Same. D
Blah.
11:45. Justin Timberlake, What Goes Around...Comes Around. B+
This is one of the few songs on FutureSex/LoveSounds that I think works better as a single than an album track. On the album, it kind of gets lost as a latter-half ballad, but on the radio I tend to think it sounds pretty beautiful. Except when I get distracted by how awful the lyrics are. A DJ comes on and tells us what the last few songs were, which is nice, and now she's talking about how Alicia Keys is a favorite to sing the Quantum of Solace theme song now that Amy Winehouse is out of the picture. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I do know that it's a dramatic improvement over Chris Cornell. Yeek.
11:49. Ads. One of them starts with an extremely boring dialogue between a "husband" and "wife" about how their ceiling fan doesn't "work", and the husband says that sure it does, there's a draft coming off of it, and she says, "No, that's not what I mean, I mean it just doesn't work in the kitchen" and the husband says "Oh, you're talking about a design thing", which sounds just like most commercials predicated on the hilarious notion that MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT HAHAHAHA, except that they're so hushed and bored-sounding that the whole thing comes off seeming kind of surreal and creepy, and not in the good way. I wish I'd recorded it so I could show you all how weird it sounds.
11:53. Santana featuring Chad Kroeger, Into the Night. F-
Ugh, there goes that damn Santana again. Any song called "Into the Night", as far as I'm concerned, had better be damn sure that it can compete with this one. And obviously, Santana is no Angelo Badalamenti, Chad Kroeger is no Julee Cruise, and whatever team of corporate executives wrote the lyrics is no David Lynch. Station ID.
11:57. Mariah Carey, Fanasy. B-
The beginning of this song sounds like Mark Snow on a bad day writing a song for a constipated woman in a way I never noticed before. Once the song picks up and the "Genius of Love" sample comes in, it gets better, and I think this is one of Mariah Carey's very best singles. Not that that's saying all that much. Hahahaha, she just got to the bridge, I forgot that she sang the "I'm in heaven with my boyfriend/My lucky boyfriend" part of "Genius of Love". That's almost as funny as in "Down In It" by Nine Inch Nails when Trent Reznor starts singing that "rain rain go away" song. Very formal Station ID.
12:01. Daughtry, Feels Like Tonight. D
I don't know if this song is actually slightly better than "Over You" or if I'm just in a slightly better mood, or what, but I'm really feeling the D rather than the D-. True story: 93.3's website doesn't seem to have a "what's playing now" feature (shame!), so I had to google the lyrics to find out what this song was. And it was hard, because the lyrics are 100% a string of overused cliches. Update: I did just find the "what's playing now" feature. It's very well hidden. If you're bored, trying to find it might be a fun diversion for maybe five to ten minutes. DJ, briefly, introducing the next song.
12:05. Kelly Clarkson, Behind These Hazel Eyes. C
Like, you'd think that "I can't breathe/I can't sleep/I'm barely hanging on/Here I am/Once Again/I'm falling to pieces" was a string of anonymous cliches, but compared to the Daughtry lyrics, you'd be wrong. Station ID:
12:08. Coldplay, Viva La Vida. C
Wow, three for three. I was originally going to dock it half a letter grade for that, but this time I'm noticing some of Brian Eno's production touches that I do like amidst all the bloviation. The bells are pretty cool, and timpani's always welcome, and the abstract textures in the instrumental bridge are actually semi-inspired. They're only nice touches on a boring song, but still, at least there's some effort. DJ gives the weather.
12:12. Madonna, Like a Prayer. B
Weirdly, this isn't either the original single version or the Immaculate Collection remix. I wonder what version this is. Sadly, my musical vocabulary is limited enough that I can't describe what's different. Anyway, this song isn't one of Madonna's best singles, and is definitely probably her most overrated one, but it's still a good song, and I guess is iconic in its way, and I'm a fan of icons. Station ID.
12:15. Linkin Park, Shadow of the Day. C-
Gawrsh, I didn't know there was new Linkin Park. And to think that it's the only song by them that I've ever been able to remotely stand, with the exception of "Faint", which I actively liked because of the batty-ass string sample. Although actually in the time that it took me to look up the name "Faint", which I had forgotten, this song had built into something far more objectionable than what it started as. I liked some aspects of it at first the way I just said I like some aspects of "Viva La Vida", because there were some nice production touches on an otherwise bad song. But then those aspects either went away or got recontextualized into awfulness. It's appropriate that I feel the same way about it as the Coldplay song, too, because with this song Linkin Park seems to be jumping on Coldplay's "We wish we were U2 for some reason" bandwagon. DJ, advertising Geico.
12:20. Ads. Because we need to have the DJ advertising things and then have actual ads right after.
12:24. Sheryl Crow, If It Makes You Happy. B
Sheryl Crow is a bad, bad, bad person, or at least from the perspective of someone who listens to music she is, because she makes bad music. This was true in 1993, when her first album came out (and 1994, when it got big), and this year, when her most recent one came out. It was true in 1998, and 2002 (especially in 2002), and 2005. However, it was not true in 1996, when her second album came out. That album is awesome, a weird, cut-up, paranoid schizophrenic burst of craziness that's genuinely scary from time to time. I don't begin to understand how Sheryl Crow had it in her, but she did, and I love it. I can see how this song would be unbearable if you only know it as an overplayed single, but in the context of the album it's pretty breathtaking. Note: I only linked to that particular Sheryl Crow discography site because I think it's hilarious that it looks like Geocities in 1998 but is completely up-to-date. Station ID.
12:29. Maroon 5 featuring Rihanna, If I Never See Your Face Again. D+
Oh, Rihanna, you're better than this. Station ID.
12:32. Leona Lewis, Bleeding Love. B-
Well, hello again. I already like it a little less. DJ again.
12:36. Ads.
12:38. Matchbox 20, These Hard Times. D
I wonder what it's like to be in Matchbox 20. I guess they can use their riches to cover up their missing souls.

I will admit that Coast just played some songs I like quite a bit, and that the experience of listening to them for an hour is not entirely awful. I even appreciate the way the DJ talks frequently and briefly (which to me is the ideal DJ behavior) enough to overlook her smarmy simperiness, which rivaled Mary Alice's from Desperate Housewives. If you averaged out the letter grades I gave, you'd probably get right around a C, which seems right for the content, if you ignore the context. The context, though, is the extremely belligerent nature of at-work stations, and the overwhelmingly negative role they play in our society. They are a key part of the corporate agenda, and integral part of keeping us in a state of bland contentment where we'll feel neither the need nor the desire to better the world, and for that I cannot forgive them. Overall grade: D.

What they should have played instead:
Graham Lambkin, The Currency of Dreams. Download
Graham Lambkin is a master of that combination of beautiful and terrifying that I think would best jolt America's vast lower middle class into awareness. On this track, the gorgeous, Romantic piano and violin parts swoop slowly and majestically into one another, partially lulling the listener into a reverie, while the incongruous production--Lambkin takes the overused lo-fi aesthetic and recontextualizes it into something entirely different--reminds us to pay attention, because Something Is Happening Here. And then--well, I almost feel like I should put a SPOILER ALERT on this, because it's probably better if you don't know they're coming the first time, but interspersed throughout the piece are some truly startling moments, moments that would probably sound really dumb described in words, but which really and truly scare the crap out of me. Turn it up.

yesterday, i went to get my bi-weekly pedicure/rebase, as usual.  i had just gotten out of work and was really psyched about having the opportunity to just sort of chill out and unwind and figure out what my plans were later that evening.  as i was sitting there, in the third chair from the right, there was a fairly cute blonde girl to my left, and then a batty old lady in the next chair over.  the old lady was about mid-late sixties, moderately coherent, in reasonable physical shape (i.e., no diaper), and talking NON-FUCKING-STOP.  she had been drinking out of a stars and stripes coffee mug, which coordinated very well with her red, white, and blue foam visor, oversized July 4th t-shirt, mid-thigh length cutoff jean shorts, and oddly blingy old-lady mules.  the topics she covered ranged from the amazingness of the massage chair she was sitting in to how cute the shoes were of the girl who was doing her pedicure to some leper colony in hawaii to whatever the fuck else, because at that point i had sort of checked out. 

the girl next to me was trying really hard not to laugh, and half-heartedly engaging the old lady when she directed the conversation her way, but otherwise we were all just trying to sit back, relax, and do our own things.  at some point the lady was moved from the pedicure chair over to the manicure table so she could get her fingernails touched up, wherein i took it as my cue to ask the question that I'm sure everyone had floating around in the back of their minds:

"is that lady drunk or just old?" 

the room silently roared with the hopeless, wheezing attempts of four women to stifle their laughter.  satisfied, i returned to the magazine i had been reading and let the rest of the catty comments about what was in that coffee mug unfold around me.  next came the least pleasant portion of my pedicure -- the pumice stone [i'm really ticklish] -- and simultaneously, the girl next to me started chatting me up while i was trying to stifle my own paroxysmal screams.  at this point, i have no real recollection of how our conversation went, i just remember that it was her birthday and she was turning 35 and she ended up inviting me to go out with her and her friends to celebrate her birthday.  we exchanged numbers and i made tentative plans to call her since I really had nothing better to do, and it was friday night and i knew i was going to be bored otherwise. 

fast forward to about four hours later, when she's like noticeably wasted and her other three friends all decide to take off at the same time and leave me alone with her at the bar.  after they all finally take off, she starts repeating one question over and over to herself [but out loud]:

"what the fuck is WRONG with me?"

and my soul sighed the sighs of a thousand exasperated bartenders.

she went on and on about some guy she slept with at Pride Fest not calling her [surprise, surprise?] and how her friends are all leaving her and she didn't understand why no one was hitting on her and blah blah blah blah blah.  i tried to keep from rolling my eyes as much as i could as i encouraged her to finish her drink so i could get us both into a cab and get the fuck out of there. 

once we got to her house, she asked me to come upstairs.

i had already pretty much checked out at that point, but i felt bad for her so i didn't really want to leave her alone when i knew she was in kind of a shitty place.  we ascended the staircase to her apartment, and basically as soon as we walked in the door, she started in on how sad she was all the time and about how nobody likes her and all this crap and i honestly felt as though my stomach was going to burst out of my chest and start screaming at me for being such a retard and going up there when i knew this was going to happen.  after about 40 minutes, i managed to make my excuses and get out of there and walk home, but was somewhat annoyed that my night had taken that extremely lame and depressing turn.

at about 1am, i get home and call a friend from new york who had called me while i was out with drunky mcvaliumface.  we talked for about 30 minutes, after which i decided i was too tired to be awake anymore and crashed.  then the text messages started. 

if anyone knows me at all, they know i have trouble sleeping.  i've always been pretty strict about people not calling at odd hours unless it's an emergency, and most of the time it doesn't end up really being an issue.  i'm just the type that, once i've managed to finally get to sleep, it's important that i don't have any interruptions because i can't get back to sleep once i've been woken up. 

about two hours later [3:30am], she sends me this text message:

U r a wonderful new friend.esp since ur food was so delicious <;)> plz do call when ur up.im usually up...

i was not pleased.
then thirteen minutes later:

Hey new friend,thx 4 joining us.and thx 4 the good talk.call me <;)>

so at that point, i was just like "what the fuck."
then, about twenty minutes later:

Guess what this dumbass did as soon as u left?wanna do something 2nite?

and honestly, any possibility of my getting back to sleep had been totally destroyed.  i was still a little tipsy, which helped, but seriously, she was totally jeopardizing my ability to get a full night's sleep.  i started to get pissed and contemplated texting her back that i'd call her tomorrow, but somehow i got the sense that if i said that and didn't do it, or if i responded at all, i had a lot more of these text messages coming down the pipeline.  i chose to ignore it.

subsequently, there was a bit of a lull and i had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep.
then, 7:17am:

Wanna go to twisted sole @ some pt w/moi?  

OBVIOUSLY THE ANSWER IS NO.  what the fuck had i gotten myself into?  i wanted to stab something.  i wanted to crush my phone into dust in the palms of my hands.  i wanted to call her and scream that i needed to get some fucking sleep. but i chose to ignore it.  i put my phone on silent and just let it go.  at that point, i was pretty much awake, hence my posting so early on a saturday morning.  in a way it's okay though, because i have to catch an 11:30 movie with my co-workers and i would have had to get up anyway.  i'm just really annoyed with her inexplicably clingy behavior, and wonder if later on her friends will ask if she's heard from me or anything and she'll say no and start crying about how she doesn't understand why no one wants to be her friend. 

whatever. 
i fucking wonder why. 

The Station: 92.9 FM, WBOS.
The Format: Modern Rock.
The Hour: 5:06 to 6:06 PM, on Friday, July 11, 2008.
Stylistic Choice of the Day: Overuse of italics.

Radio 92.9, a Boston station owned by Greater Media, must have slightly rebranded recently, because a year ago they just called themselves "BOS", and not "Radio 92.9", and because they used to file themselves under the format "adult album alternative", and now they just say "modern rock". I tend to think of them as the NPR of rock stations--just as reprehensible as all the other ones, but calmer about it, which gives them the illusion of being better to a lot of people. The difference is that I find calmer rock stations easier to take than the alternative, where I would much rather get my news from FOX than from NPR, because at least FOX is upfront about how horrible they are, and goddammit, NPR, why do you have to be so horribly even-tempered all the time?

5:06. Everlast, What It's Like. F-
Are you fucking kidding me? Do we really need to be listening to The Worst Song of 1998, ten years later? Actually, it's funny--if you had asked me, I would probably have said that hearing this song again wouldn't be nearly as bad as it used to be back then, because I haven't been hearing it nonstop for months. But I would have been wrong. I remembered this song being atrociously awful, but it's so much worse than that. When it ends we get a brief and unobtrusive station ID.
5:08. Silversun Pickups, Lazy Eye. C
In comparison to Everfuckinglast back there, this song is unbearably awesome. Once my ears readjust, though, I start to notice how whiny and annoying it is, and how much I can't handle the singer's bizarre notion of enunciation. He sounds a lot like the guy from Tahiti 80, I've just noticed, and the singer from Tahiti 80 is the only reason I can't stand that band. Station ID, claiming less commercials and more music. We'll see how that goes.
5:13. The Ramones, Blitzkrieg Bop. B+
This has never been one of my favorite Ramones songs (those tend to be on End of the Century, honestly), but at least it's not one of the more obscenely overplayed ones. A station ID takes us into...
5:15. Ads. And then...wait, what? Station ID: "We promised one minute. And that was quick!" And seriously, we're back to the music already? Wow! Oh, wait, I bet there'll be another commercial break after whatever they play next. (For the record, I don't recall them promising me one minute, but I appreciate the thought.)
5:16. U2, Beautiful Day. D+
I used to find U2 bland but unoffensive, but recently that's changing, for the worse. This might actually be my least favorite single by them, if only because it represented their firm, public decision to stop doing what they wanted, artistically, because it wasn't making them enough money, and as a result it was fucking huge. Station ID, just as admirable as the ones preceding it, and yes, I also find it admirable that they didn't go right back to ads, the way I predicted.
5:20. House of Pain, Jump Around. B+
Hm. Did I happen into some kind of theme evening here or something? Two songs involving Everlast in less than fifteen minutes? Maybe I'm supposed to call and win something. Anyway, this song dates from when Everlast was the kind of obnoxious, dudey fratboy who knew how to have fun, instead of the kind who thinks he'll get laid if he pretends to care about things, and so it's pretty OK. Station ID, introducing "brand new Coldplay"...
5:24. Coldplay, Viva La Vida. C
...and "Viva La Vida" earns itself the dubious honor of being the first song I've heard twice in this project. That was fast!!! Radio 92.9 celebrates by not playing a station ID between songs, for once.
5:27. Green Day, Jar. C
I don't recognize this song at all, which is weird. I didn't know there were any Green Day singles I didn't know. It's also not nearly as good as any of the ones I know, because I like Green Day, dammit. They make some fine pop singles, and while American Idiot might not have contained the world's smartest political commentary, it was also the only, literally the only, political commentary in the mainstream at all in 2004, which is goddamned admirable. Um, anyway, this song is boring. Station ID.
5:30. Bob Marley, Could You Be Loved. C+
Bob Marley made me spend years thinking I didn't like reggae, before I discovered that there's a lot more to it than him. Compare him to Desmond Dekker or Errol Dunkley or Althea and Donna, say, and you'll realize how drastically uninspired he is, if you haven't yet. Station ID, this one a bit more smarmy than the previous ones.
5:34. Ads, and I'm starting to wonder if this station commissions its own ads, or carefully vets them or something, because none of them are unbearably grating. That's nice. Most of them are just a voice talking (not shouting!) with no music or sound effects. Station ID: "Commercials over. Music begins."
5:39. Stone Temple Pilots, Plush. B+
In general recently I've been finding the 90s really embarrassing. I think for the most part it's that people always claim that it was the decade of irony, but really, everyone spent all ten years being so fracking earnest about everything that in retrospect it's really hard to handle. Somehow, though, this feeling doesn't apply to Stone Temple Pilots, who I kind of hated then and kind of love now. I even, a few months ago, made myself an STP best of playlist on my itunes, with all of their singles up to "Sour Girl". I listen to it more often than I care to tell you. Station ID.
5:44. Lifehouse, Hanging by a Moment. C+
Even though yesterday I specifically named Lifehouse as part of a terrible, overly long-lived musical trend, I didn't really mind them when they came out. Actually, I didn't mind them to the point where it verged on liking them, although I don't think it went that far. They're definitely uninteresting, muddy-vocaled fake-rock balladry, but they don't sound like they're falling asleep when they do it, and they do seem to have some interest in being catchy. When this song was new, I probably would have given it more like a B- or even a B, but at this point it's kind of outlived its usefulness, and is certainly not the kind of song anyone needs to be listening to now that it's eight years old. Plug for a station-sponsored concert.
5:48. Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly. C
The Foo Fighters were never great, but they definitely declined in a very straight line through their career, where they started out pretty OK, with one or two actively good songs (I'm a fan of "This Is a Call", say, and even "Everlong", from their second album, is decent), but then with every passing year they descended straight into the pits of hell, where they currently reside. This song is from just before the middle of the process. What scares me is thinking about where they'll be five years from now. No station ID.
5:51. 3 Doors Down, It's Not My Time. D
In the interests of not being overly negative, the first three seconds of this song are pretty pleasant. Station ID, this time actually promising one minute.
5:55. Ads, and now that I'm noticing, they're continuing to be non-abrasive. This is fascinating to me. And, oh, interesting, when they come back, it's with a Station ID that says "adless music--underwritten by Atlas Liquors". Of course, they're far from adless, but it's an interesting technique anyway.
5:56. Alice in Chains, Man in the Box. D-
What's not an interesting technique is anything that went into this song. Station ID.
6:01. Eve 6, Inside Out. D
At this point, I would like to remind everyone that Radio 92.9 describes itself as a "modern rock" station. Now, I know the word "modern" can be rather confusing, but I've found that in general it means one of two things. The first is synonymous with "modernist", that is, belonging to one of many cultural movements beginning in Europe and North America in the later years of the 19th century and continuing well into the 20th (and arguably to the present day), with a focus on experimentalism and progressivism, often expressing a feeling of alienation. The second is roughly synonymous with "contemporary" or "current". If anyone can explain to me which of these two Radio 92.9 means when they say it, or perhaps can point me in the direction of a third definition of "modern" that fits what this station plays, I would be much obliged. Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that the station is admitting that the past exists, which is something that in general Americans could do more often, but for one thing, the amount of songs from eight or more years ago is really overwhelming, and for another thing, the nice thing about looking back at the past is that you can pick and choose. I guess I can understand people thinking back in 1998 that listening to Eve 6 was a good idea (hell, I was even briefly fooled by their dorky name), but ten years on, we should all be prepared to admit that it wasn't. Station ID introducing new Death Cab for Cutie. Oh, the joy.
6:04. Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Possess Your Heart. C
No you won't, Ben Gibbard, especially if you continue to insist on being such a wussy little fucker.

How to judge, how to judge. On the one hand, I appreciate that Radio 92.9 doesn't feel the need to shout at me at top volume all the time, like most radio stations. On the other hand, the resolutely even keel feels pretty bloodless. In the good column, we have the relative lack of ads (eight minutes to PRO FM's seventeen) and the unobtrusive (and occasionally absent!) station IDs, while in the bad column we have the extremely obvious fact that there is no human DJ involved in their programming (it's not just that I didn't hear one all hour--the website updates the "what's playing now" feature instantaneously, and also tells you what's coming on next, and I don't believe that that would work with a real DJ). On the plus side, they don't neglect the past. On the minus side, they play really dull music from the past, and don't go any further back than the nineties if it can be helped. Overall grade: C. Keep up the good work, quit the bad.

What they should have played instead.
The Go-Betweens, Love Goes On! Download.
If the goal is to play rock music of recent decades without jarring anyone, they could at least have reached back twenty years to 1988 and played this, one of the most beautiful low-key songs I've ever heard. Listen to that lovely, clean acoustic strum! Be moved by those heartwrenching lyrics! Sing along with the giddy ba-ba-bas in the chorus! When you're done, I dare you to come back and tell me you'd prefer Eve 6.