I'm OK, K107 Is Not Okay

College for me was followed by an interim period, the time between learning a trade and plunging into an official, unavoidable career. I'm still living in the interim period as I write this. It has been a relatively peaceful time.

I'm looking forward to the end of the interim period, in part because of the radio, specifically K-107 FM in Fond du Lac. I'm not self-employed, as a writer or otherwise, and as a consequence I have very limited control over the selection of music I listen to for about nine hours every workday. It is somewhat taboo to play a CD where I work, at Meixensperger Painting and Decorating. It pays most of the endless bills, puts pizza and Lean Cuisines on the TV tray, and leaves me comfortably dissatisfied.

The bizarre thing is that most of my daily tasks involve wood in some capacity--sanding, filling holes, painting--and back in ninth grade, Wood Shop (or Technical Education as it was euphemized) was a daily burden. My grades were subpar and I hated the class. Wood Shop was the thoughtless introduction to the morning blur, still half-asleep, ears getting harrassed by the hellacious SCREEEAAACH of buzz-saws gnarling into solid oak.

All students were required to wear cheap safety glasses with narrow black rectangular rims. They were similar to Buddy Holly's eye-wear, especially when you're a skinny, pubescent young man with braces. It was not a good look for me; looking into the mirror wearing those Buddy Holly glasses felt like a cruel joke. "That can't be me staring back...my God, it is."

As it turns out, wood isn't so bad. Those hellaciously screaching buzz saws were the source of the problem. Sanding, filling holes, and painting, while repetitive, are tasks that are conducive to the daydreamer's mind. Once your hands are experienced enough to perform using their own memory, very little conscious thought is required and one can set their mind to ideas on music, sports, women, reading, or writing. Assuming you're only planning to do it for nine or ten months of your lifetime, being a painter isn't so bad.

The closest thing to a buzz-saw I have to contend with on a daily basis is the radio. To me, the music played on mainstream radio stations is buzz-saw-lite. Mainstream radio music is slightly more melodic, more merciful than buzz-saws, but whenever I hear "Big Girls Don't Cry" or "Delilah" for the third time in a nine-hour span, I think of that old familiar buzz-saw SCREEEAAACH as a suitable alternative.

At Meixensperger Headquarters, which is referred to simply as The Shop, a common task involves spraying dozens and dozens of boards set on barrels. The boards are then transfered, usually by me, to a metallic rack with dozens of horizontal rungs. This process lasts for about an hour at a time. Ted Meixensperger, 28-year-old son of Jeff, the boss, usually does the spraying. Sometimes Jeff serves as the primary sprayer, whenever he deems that Ted and I need to "Kick it in the ass." Jeff is in his mid-50s and he might be the most inexaustible worker I've ever met.

Spraying dozens and dozens of boards inside a fume-hazy room with a cardboard floor is a manly job. Jabberjawing and ball-breaking and lethal farts are constant. At least once a week I hear the following conversation: "Hey, you missed a spot. What, do you need to get your eyes checked?" "What are you talking about? I didn't miss a spot. Maybe YOU need to get your eyes checked." Then somebody farts to prove there are no hard feelings. It's manly work, and you might expect us to listen to bands such as Led Zeppelin or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or at the very least stupid fucking Van Halen while we do it. But this isn't the case. While we're hard at work, jabberjawing and all that, we're usually listening to an effeminate song on K-107 FM. It's an embarrassing contradiction, and I'm the only one who takes notice. Aside from modern-day crappy rock like Nickelback, we listen to some of the most pussified music available.

Radio stations such as K-107 are not hazardous only because of the bad music and ham-fisted local advertisements. These radio stations are an infringement on our free will. Nobody at the Shop likes hearing Pink segue into Fergie, we're just resigned to it, as if it's not an option to bring in a copy of Led Zeppelin I through IV. It is, God-dammit, but everyday we end up listening to non-objectionable soft rock.

The situation is so depressing. The good news is that I write to alleviate the depressive tendencies of the problems my mind embellishes. Pay-checks be damned, I am not a painter and I am not resigned.

What follows, then, is a wolfish reply to the singers and bands that make mainstream radio seem slightly more appealing than a hellaciously screaching buzz-saw.

The Singers...

Kenny Chesney: "Don't Blink," because the temporary lapse of vision won't save your ear-drums from being violated by Kenny's patented D-Bag nostalgia. This song includes a total of 25 cliches about the bittersweet nature of aging. Country garbage is being played more and more on mainstream radio, and I don't like it one bit.

Fergie: My biggest qualm with certain female vocalists is when they perform ballads that are fueled by an ERUPTION of estrogen. When you see a diva perform these types of ballads, the vains in their neck protrude grotesquely and one hand covers their sternum to keep their hearts from breaking. The experience is ugly, comically dramatic, and uncomfortable.

Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" is a fitting example. Fergie wants us all to know how vulnerable she is feeling, and it's really terrifying. "Big Girls Don't Cry" is scarier than "The Exorcist" and stretch-marks combined times a thousand.

Women who passionately relate to this song on an emotional level are quickly rising on my list of people I don't want to associate with.

Alecia Keys: Her latest hit, "No One," features some cool synth-effects and a voluminous sound. Enjoyment of this song is, however, made impossible by Alecia's vocals (eruption of estrogen) and her lyrics. In the song, Alecia is trying to console a loved one by promising them that, "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT!" At the risk of sounding pessimistic, everything is not going to be all right, and I'm exhausted by delusional sentimentalists who convey these exact words in their music. Everything has never been, is not, will never be all right because problems, sorrow, and anger are permanent qualities of the human experience. If you have a loved one who cries every time it rains, don't promise them it's never ever going to rain again because when it does rain you're going to feel like a lying piece of shit.

"Let It Be" is fitting advice to a down-and-out loved one. The next time Alecia wants to cheer up a family member, I really hope she refrains from writing her own song, wises up and pays Michael Jackson a shit-load of money for the rights to "Let It Be."

Pink: You can't present yourself as a sneering pop-outlaw AND receive three hours of airtime on mainstream radio for eight months at a stretch without being a hypocrite. Pink is not a pop-outlaw. She isn't rebelling against the mainstream because the mainstream has made her rich, filthy rich.

"Who Knew?" just sounds like a hostile bitch covering a song written for Kelly Clarkson. Oddly enough, Kelly Clarkson will be spared in this rant because, although I don't like her music, I have a strong hunch her soul is a thing of beauty. Who knew?

Billy Ray Cyrus and His Fortune-Making Daughter Hannah Montana: Billy Ray's career hit a lull following the "Achey Breaky Heart" hysteria of the early-90s. The song's pulse thrived like the triumphant blood of anyone trendy enough to dance away the last fifteen minutes of the Fanny-Pack explosion. The hysteria lasted for damn near two years. Billy Ray appeared to be invincible.

The only snag in the man's mullet was his inability to write and record a second popular song. His career cooled off as he flirted with Mistress Obscurity, played some state fairs, and didn't get a few dozen important phone calls returned.

But the man had an Ace up his sleeve, or rather a Queen: his daughter Hannah (Cha-Ching!) Montana. Here is a time-line biography of Billy Ray Cyrus, beginning with the year "Achy Breaky Heart" topped the charts.

1991: "Achy Breaky Heart" fills the void left by the phasing out of "The Safety Dance." "Line-dancing" beacme much more than a slang term used by boogying coke-heads, Billy Ray beat Stanley Cup champion Mario Lamieux in a mullet contest, and "Achy Breaky Heart" held strong at Number One throughout most of the vastly under-rated 21st season of "Hee-Haw."

1992: Still coasting on the success, and why the hell not? Common quote from Billy Ray during this era: "I want me some Mellow Yellow 'n' Jaegermeister stocked in the fridge at ev'ry show, plus some babes what got big hoots, up real close to the stage."

1993: Vacation time. Buys an island somewhere in the Carribean, later on loses the island in a high-stakes poker game. Still bitter about that poker game.

1994: Daughter Hannah Montana born. Jackpot status yet to be determined. Much to Billy Ray's disappointment, infant Hannah's rendition of "America, the Beautiful" is deemed "unprofitable-sounding" by his record company.

1995: Celebrity judge at the Kentucky State Fair's 42nd Annual Pie-Eat.

1996-1998: Records and then scraps several versions of his ill-fated concept album: "There's No House Like Roadhouse," a musical re-imagining of the Patrick Swayze film "Roadhouse." The album's woeful sales prompted BRC to sell off his two favorite monster trucks.

1999: Receives an honorable mention for performance at the Kentucky State Fair's 46th Annual Pie-Eat. Not content with a mere honorable mention, Billy Ray gets into a shouting match with celebrity judge Larry Flint. Billy Ray accuses Flint of crooked judgement, threatens to slash the tires on Flint's wheelchair, and tells the porn mogle he hopes a hurricane destroys his precious island in the Carribean.

2000: Soul-crushing year begins on a dreary note as the Apocalypse did not happen as some had foretold.

2001: Sues several "no-nothin'" televangelists who failed to deliver on promise of Y2K Armageddon. Billy Ray loses the case. On the bright side, he remembered to feed his daughter on a regular basis.

2002: Entertains a crowd of dozens outside of the 49th Annual Kentucky State Fair. He is upstaged by his opening act: daughter Hannah Montana singing medley of popular Disney songs. Billy Ray's eyeballs literally turned into dollar signs for the duration of the year.

2003-2005: Works tirelessly 60 hours per week to make sure his daughter works 50 hours a week singing at shopping malls and filthy rich nursing homes.

2006-present: Return to glory. Ready, set, don't call it a comeback! I would suggest that God is to Jesus as Billy Ray is to Hannah Montana if only it wasn't blasphemous to compare Jesus to a little girl.

It's worth mentioning that, although the song is irritating and irredeemable, Hannah's powerhouse vocals are impressive. She puts her daddy on her supple back and plows onward past screaming pre-teens toward an RV stuffed with One-Hundred Dollar Bills.

The Bands...

Nickelback: Every song they've recorded has been inside of a large bathroom. In addition to producing great accoustics, the bathroom setting allows lead singer Chad Kroeger to squat on the toilet during his vocal recordings. Most of the fart noises are edited out of the final versions.

The Kroeger also has a popular duet with Carlos Santana, who on numerous occassions has been paid excessively to whack-off with his six-string in support of younger rock stars. Carlos' talent has been spoiled for awhile now, he primarily whacks off with his six-string for pop losers, and in the after-life he deserves to clean the vomit from the clouds Jimi Hendrix threw-up on in heaven.

Plain White T's: Their corny ballad "Delilah" set back masculinity and the accoustic guitar twenty and five years, respectively. The lead singer needs to stop taking pills to boost his estrogen level.

The words, dedicated to an Olympic gymnast the singer met once, represent a stalker's masturbation session and not a heartfelt phantom encounter with your girlfriend. And stalking is not romantic. Don't be suckered by this type of bullshit, ladies. Sexist aggression is no good, but neither is being an unabashed advocate of Pussy-dom.

Bon Jovi: It's difficult for me to limit my distaste for Bon Jovi to fewer than 200 words once I get going like this, but I will try. Starting...Now!

Bon Jovi's latest hit, "Lost Highway," opens with a line that blatantly plagiarizes Pearl Jam's 1993 single "Rearviewmirror." That's lame and unoriginal. "Crush," a BJ chart-topper from 2000, also includes mention of a highway ("My heart is like an open highway"), and the words that follow are, "Like Frank (Sinatra) said: 'I did it my way.'" Jon Bon openly admits to swiping somebody else's lyrics in that song, and I wish he'd get back into the habit. He is a handsome man with average musical ability who has no reason to believe originality is profitable.

Bon Jovi was recently inducted into the Songwriter Hall of Fame, an organization I didn't know existed until I heard the news about Bon Jovi on K-107. That's when I lost all respect for the Songwriting Hall of Fame's voting commitee. Just as a garbage can stacked with used syringes does not belong in Cooperstown, Bon Jovi does not belong in the Songwriting Hall of Fame.

As my wayward friend Kodke once stated, "Leave me out of the Bon Jovi demographic." It is with immense pride that I plagiarize his thoughts on Bon Jovi.

OneRepublic: Listen dudes, "It's too late to apologize" for raping my eardrums with your drivel-gushing ballad. The guest vocalist on this shit-ballad is Timbaland, who can be heard on the chorus grunting, "Huh-huh!" The song's hook goes something like this: "It's too late to apologize...It's to laaattteee! (Huh-huh!) It's too late to apologize..." A vain male model whines and strokes his damaged ego, and then his retarded cousin moans in his sleep. Evidently, that's a possible formula for writing a song so popular it is inescapable.

Lifehouse: All you need to know about Lifehouse is that they are arguably less necessary than Hubastank.

Conclusion...

When the band Autograph encouraged us to "Turn Up the Radio" back in 1984, they had no idea the radio would become infested with bands that are half as talented as Autogrpah. In essence, the quality of the local pop station has deteriorated every year, going back at least to the era I was born in. If this downslide continues, in 50 years Jon Bon's son Ron Bon will probably be a radio DJ at a station that exclusively plays his dad's hit singles in between interviews with an old, pregnant Hannah Montana. In which case, I say bring on Gore's version of the End of Days: Global Warming.