I will, then, be a toad.

During the second semester of my senior year in college, I got a radio show. Now, I hate college radio shows for the most part. I find that they are usually put on by a couple of frustrated guys and one punky chick who hate all mainstream music and only want to hear the newest, edgiest music on the scene. Since mainstream music tends to be mainstream because it contains heavy doses of rhythm patterns, harmonies and vocal timbres that are easy and even enjoyable to listen to, the opposite of mainstream music (i.e. college radio indie underground whatever) contains heavy doses of sounds that are hard to listen to. I'm convinced that although cute, (they tend to wear courderoys with big leather belts and no butts, my first "type") these boys are so caught up in being nonconformist that they don't actually consider musical value in their choices.

So, I got my own radio show. I had a blast filling out the application form, using phrases like, "target market" and "derivative style." They gave me a weekly morning spot. I played lots of showtunes, cabaret singers, ABBA, singer-songwriters, some country and the jazz that I was acquiring a taste for from my boyfriend at the time. I called the show "I will, then, be a toad," alluding to my favorite poem by Stephen Crane. Twice, someone called and told me that they liked my show. One of those times it was my father. He couldn't actually hear the show, since we were only broadcasting with 100 watts, but I would make tapes and send them to him so he called when he knew I would be in the studio. However, the other time was an honest to goodness stranger. So the prevailing sense that I was talking to thin air (we were strongly cautioned not to talk about this on-air to prevent it from becoming a self-fulfilling complaint) was relieved briefly. Very briefly.

I have been experiencing some of the same feelings of loneliness as I publish my thoughts out to the world in this blog. Although in simple numerical counts, I have gotten more feedback on this endeavor than my radio show, especially from strangers, I don't seem to get comments from people that I know are regular readers besides my best friend Susan and, again, my father. Let's take a moment and cheer both of them on for doing their jobs well. Woohoo! I'm not complaining or whining about the silence of everyone else. Really. We all do what we need to do. I'm very zen about that. However, I have taken matters into my own hands and established an invisible stat counter. It tells me all sorts of things about the people that visit. For instance, I know that in the last six hours, someone searched for me on Yahoo and someone else checked out my 100 Things About Me entry from Tunagirl's blog. Talk about Big Brother. This is so cool.