Crashing
The Party
This
may come as a surprise, but
I love National Public Radio.
I mean, I feel smarter just
listening to it. Every morning
that I happen to be in a car,
you can guarantee that I'll
be tuned in, enjoying the
insightful reporting and the
in-depth stories.
I
know, I know - you'd think
a guy who earns a living playing
rock and roll would be listening
to the morning deejays on
the alternative rock stations.
But in one of life's little
ironies, while I depend on
those stations for a portion
of my livelihood, I don't
actually enjoy listening to
bombastic jocks pull sophomoric
pranks. Not early in the morning,
anyway.
Now
for those of you who may think
that the lower third of your
FM dial contains only your
local Spanish and college
radio stations, NPR is, in
fact, that burst of news and
classical music that you hear
at the bottom of your dial.
You know, sandwiched between
your local Spanish and college
radio stations.
I've
always hoped that someday
I'd be featured on NPR. Maybe
Bob Edwards, the host of 'Morning
Edition,' would interview
me about a new CD. He'd ask
me really insightful questions
and I'd provide answers that
subtly revealed my inner-sensitivity.
Moments after the interview
aired, millions of NPR listeners
would rush out to their local
record stores, inexplicably
passing by the Jazz and Classical
sections for the first time
in their lives, and purchase
my AltRock CD. I'd be wealthy
and I'd have Bob Edwards over
for dinner parties so we could
talk about the economy, third-world
debt-relief and, of course,
the air-speed velocity of
an unladen swallow.
Okay,
maybe not. But I did figure
that some day I'd take a few
of these columns and turn
them into short commentaries.
Eventually I would convince
someone at NPR that they were
worth airing. The pieces would
be funny and topical, discussing
something like whether or
not I still have to pay my
MCI WorldCom long distance
bill in light of the company's
recent troubles. It would
air, response would be overwhelming,
and all the syndicates who
keep rejecting my column would
suddenly send truck loads
of money to my house in the
hopes of winning me back.
Well,
ladies and gentlemen my dream
finally came true. Not the
truck loads of money part
- you'd have gotten postcards
from Paris instead this column
if that happened. But I was
finally featured on NPR. Sort
of.
You
see, National Public Radio
reporter Guy Raz did a story
about Jagermeister. Unbeknownst
to me, it aired last Tuesday
morning. Several hours later,
still in my pajamas and trying
desperately to figure out
what to do with my day, I
began to notice an unusual
amount of people downloading
the Jagermeister song from
my website.
Of
course, when you download
a song, you have to fill out
a form that asks, among other
things, how you found out
about me. Most folks were
writing "NPR story on
Jagermeister."
"Cool",
I thought, "NPR did a
story on Jagermeister"
and merrily continued with
my day.
Well,
friends, most of the story
WAS about Jagermeister - how
they make it, how the German's
don't drink it but Americans
love it, and how they sponsor
bands. And then, two minutes
and forty-five seconds into
the piece, Guy Raz says this:
"Independent singer/songwriter
Lee Totten even has a song
about Jagermeister."
Then they actually played
the Jager song on National
Public Radio.
Now
that's cool with me, and it
certainly made my friends
at Jagermeister happy, but
I'm sure you can appreciate
that, in some ways, I feel
like the guy in jeans at the
gala ball. There, among world-famous
political correspondents,
stories about tragedies, interviews
with Donald Rumsfield and
Nobel-winning scientists was
my song about.... well, drinking
too much.
I
just hope Bob Edwards still
wants to interview me someday.
Maybe if I send him a bottle
of Jager?
This
column © 2002 Lee Totten.
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