10. Let's start by bitching: Name the idiots who thought that a horn honk was a good way to let an automobile driver know that their car has just been securely locked! They're walking away from the damn thing and can't hear how loud that noise is. About made me jump out of my skin in a grocery store parking lot the other day. A truly stupid "innovation."
9. Do you have young co-workers who are tech snobs? I know a few who answer my "what are you listening to?" question with, "a podcast" just to sound cool. They love that word...podcast. I want to know what they're listening to, not how they're getting it.
8. I never got around to using this space to mention that a good friend treated us to Michelle Obama's book tour (Becoming) stop at the Tacoma Dome in March! It was an overwhelmingly positive experience and for me, as seeing such a diverse crowd and loads of young people really gave me some...well, hope. Jimmy Kimmel was the interviewer, telling the crowd right off that he got his start in the biz at a Seattle radio station; he was fired. And Michelle was the strong, compassionate person we'd expected. She made us laugh, reflect and think--Gina and I miss having her in the White House a ton. It wasn't until a few days later that I looked at the tickets and saw how pricey they were! I asked our pal beforehand how much she wanted for the tickets and she said, "Nothing. I just sold my dad's house and I thought I'd do something nice for somebody." Thanks to our good friend Amy for a remarkable night.
7. So exciting to see the Houston Astros in the World Series again; in their lean days, my Texas friend Kevin called them the "Disastros." And with the Washington Nationals getting to the series fifty years after starting as the Montreal Expos in 1969, the Seattle Mariners are the only existing team yet to make it to the fall classic. Ouch!
6. My latest public library story: A woman and her teenage son were looking around and she was focusing on what he was interested in, so they were looking at non-fiction books when he spied the rack of newspapers we have. "Wow!," he said, looking at that batch of papers like relics from another planet. "They're old." Then the boy's mom gave him the lowdown: "They're from today."
5. Here's a word that seems to have vanished among young people (I'm basing this on the KAOS DJs I hear): regional. When my younger fellow announcers play a Seattle band (Seattle is 60 some miles from us in Olympia), they refer to them as "local." I suppose that's partly the fault of our airplay calculator Spinitron, which asks us to use an L to designate when a track we play is local. It really should read "local/regional." Goodbye regional.
4. A record I never used to like, but now I think it's fabulous...the Pet Shop Boys' 1986 "West End Girls."
3. I'll have to write a little about my concert experiences another time, but the small amount of performers I've seen four times are Richard Thompson, Neil Young and Elvis Costello. Lots more for that Springsteen guy.
2. It was embarrassing how many times I said it was the "100th birth anniversary of Chuck Berry" on my last Retroactive show. More like 93rd! It was Anita O'Day's 100th birth anniversary and I somehow put Berry (who died in 2017) in O'Day's era. Doh! Didn't notice those constant mistakes until I was playing back my program over the weekend. The fun fact I learned about Anita recently was that she changed her name to O'Day because it's pig latin for "dough."
1. Despite my griping, I am lucky to have a good life and great people in it. Here I am angry every morning trying to get from my street to the cross-streets with some difficulty, as all the new apartments and housing in our area have attracted way too much traffic. But after arriving at the library, I chat with my co-workers, who are fun and so kind to me. I start the coffee brewer, begin doing my chores and always turn the big dictionary to page 959...impeach. My world is going to get better.