Z Morning Zoo

I had a little bit of a scare recently--something that was potentially totally emarrassing.

But first I have to admit that I do listen to Chunga and Mister's local radio program on 101.9 weekday mornings on my way to work. A lot of things that are said are totally ridiculous (ie, Chunga saying that Los Lonely Boys' song, "Heaven", is "one of the greatest songs ever written, a timeless classic"; or that if you make any mistakes while driving in LA, "you will die"), but some of it I do enjoy--plus every once in a while, I like the idea that I'm listening to something that lots of other people in my same situation (commuting to work) are listening to.

Anyway,

While the Chunga and Mister morning show was commercialing (would that word fly in a game of Scrabble?), I turned to the local top 40 station, 97.1ZHT, to see what kind of fast-talking know-nothing was dj-ing during the horribly-named Z Morning Zoo. I was planning to listen just until I got to work--which was a combined total of maybe three minutes--then as soon as I got in the car again, I was going to change the station. My plan was (in the words of Dell Schanze) flawless up to this point.

At work, the buzz in my office was that the Real Madrid team was going to be practicing at Rice-Eccles Stadium that afternoon and that the practice would be free and open to the public. When the people in my office decided to go, I offered to drive--no big deal.

We got in the car, I assembled my cd player and I-POD, expecting to capitalize on this opportunity to introduce these people to some great music. But as soon as the radio was assembled, to my horror, 97.1ZHT was blasting throughout the sedan! I had clearly forgotten that I had turned the car off while that was playing on the radio. "No big deal", I thought in a split-second, "I'll quickly change the station and no one will be the wiser." Unfortunately, this was not an option, as my cd player refused to allow me to change any setting on it! For all I knew, I would be stuck with a cd player that would only play every high school stomp's hottest beats.

Things ended up working out just fine--I blew gently on the sensitive workings of the player, which convinced it to work again, and we drove to the pracitce listening to what I consider to be one of the greatest songs ever written: "Wake Up" by the Arcade Fire. (Eat that Jimmy Chunga!)