Vast, Brainless, Fog of Idiocy


Having been in public relations and media in this city for nearly 20 years, I have had more than a passing interest in -- and experience with -- morning radio. Radio is certainly my medium of choice. Our newspapers here have had their struggles with credibility, labor issues, and quality. Television is (searches for adjective...pandering, uncreative, insulting, boring, hellish...) inauthentic. Radio asks one to bring brains and imagination to the table but does not demand too much more than that.

For years, part of my job was to listen up and down the dial to everything in an effort to find opportunities to place interviews with my clients, etc. I listened to some pretty rank shows -- bereft of innovation, honesty, laughs, or creative thought. I also listened to some shining examples of wit, smarts, chemistry, timeliness, thoughtfulness, and true identification.

On my own time I gravitated to Howard, to Public Radio and to a FUNK local jazz station. I am not a big jazz fan (I'm not deep enough, I admit) but the team on the radio in the morning had this subversive, quirky humor that captured me.

Then, Howard left me. I told myself I would be fine...really! -- I'm fine! Hey, he was not that great. At least 1/3 of the time I would have to change the channel to avoid the fawning interviews with strippers and Jenna Jameson. I am completely squeamish around f@#$ jokes and scatalogical humor (Look! She cannot even spell the word "f@&%"!!!).What kind of relationship is it when you need to turn him off 1/3 of the time, right? So I convinced myself I was better off without Howard.

Sans Howard, I was left only with the sadly diminished pool of morning radio here in my city. But it was part of my job, so I straightened my spine, squared my shoulders, dried my tears, and moved on down the dial.

Then came Adam Carolla. Adam, Sweet Adam. Dear, whiny, obsessive, fussy, snarky Adam. Adam with his humble roots, his superiority complex kept only in check by his own brutally funny perspective. Adam and his insecure-but-smart sidekick Theresa. She of the scary dating stories. The Lean Cuisine obsession. Then Adam invited the boorish Danny Bonaduce into the mix. Danny who makes Howard Stern's level of self absorption look like preschool hour compared to his own polished, well-rehearsed, artistic and diabolical way of turning every damned story around to himself. My Adam. He was Howard minus the strippers. Every morning spent with Adam. Really, what more could I ask for in a radio relationship? My heart beats for Adam!

Thank you, good folks at Free FM 103.7 in my city. Thanks for lobotomizing morning radio in this town yet again. Thank you very much for leaving me high and dry with nearly nothing. Bankrupt of wit, originality, laughter, knowledgability, well formed opinion. Thanks for nothing. The station changed owners and Adam is gone. Gone.

I just can't get over losing you
And so if I seem broken and blue
Walk on by, walk on by

I need to pick up the shattered remnants of my battered psyche. Somehow pick up the leftover threads of the rest of my life.

Foolish pride
Is all that I have left
So let me hide
The tears and the sadness you gave me
When you said goodbye
Walk on by (don't stop)
and walk on by (don't stop)
and walk by (don't stop)

Me and Dionne Warwick. We know pain, baby. We know.

It's lonely out there. Corny, phoned-in performances, canned banter, arid, humorless monologues, smug superiority bereft of any self-effacing characteristics. Self-congratulatory personalities. Fussy women in men's clothing. Hit-me-over-the-head moralistic lectures.

Adam exists in my car only in static-y snatches from a nearby city's wavelength. My Adam. Left me here all alone. How could you, Adam?

Unbreak my heart, Adam. Come back to me. I promise I'll stop sending you stalker-esque emails filled with smutty, vitriolic purges about my empty black heart... Just come back to me, baby.