It\u2019s been nine months now since the job moved into the merger-driven two-person airport office I’m in now – and among the many adjustments has been exposure to lots of commercial FM radio.<\/p>\n
Depending on who\u2019s occupying the chair next to me, the radio is either turned off or set to one of a few stations occupying frequencies to the right of the midway point on the dial.<\/p>\n
My newness to the environs means I\u2019m not the one choosing the station.<\/p>\n
This past weekend, I worked a couple 10-hour shifts backed by the sounds of \u201cQ100,\u201d New York\u2019s top-40 station. Owned and operated by Clear Channel, WHTZ-FM (100.3 FM) plays the \u201chits.\u201d<\/p>\n
The station\u2019s playlist doesn\u2019t stray much from the top ten. Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cI Knew You Were Trouble\u201d was spun at least twice an hour over the two days the station filled my ears. Same song. Twice an hour. That\u2019s forty times in two days I heard Trouble. I know it inside out now.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the number-one ranked pop song in the land based on airplay on US stations like Z100 and has been on the charts for four months. Why isn\u2019t there listener fatigue from such bombardment? What do I know other than what I hear. It\u2019s catchy. The sentiment expressed by Swift (who is listed as one of three co-writers on the tune) is about a common human inclination to dismiss obvious, immediate red flags before launching a relationship that ends predictably sour. In Swift\u2019s case, she ends up \u201clying on the cold, hard ground\u201d before it\u2019s all over. Dubstep fills holes between acoustic strums and cotton-candy vocals. I hear what sounds like the whoosh of Ratatat\u2019s electronic keyboard.<\/p>\n
Other days I have a co-worker who punches up WBLS-FM which is the city\u2019s leading \u201curban adult contemporary\u201d station. The syndicated host Steve Harvey does morning drive and it\u2019s not the most enlightening radio although the First Lady came on out of the blue a few weeks before the 2012 general election. Late at night, \u2018BLS gets about as free-form as a commercial station allows and it\u2019s kind of interesting. The Caribbean influence is pronounced and you get a mix of levity, creativity and even some political including an occasionally disturbing trace of homophobia.<\/p>\n
-With the weekly neighborhood greenmarket stuck in a winter rut for a few more weeks, I\u2019ve had unexpected access to a good multi-week run of cheap, imported blueberries at the local produce stand. All of the tasty ones are coming from Chile. They come in containers of different shapes and with different producer labels. I pop the lid to inspect for softies but have seen nothing but a good month\u2019s worth of nice ones. I rinse \u2019em and load them in a small Tupperware container for use with the morning oatmeal or as a snack at work. I don\u2019t remember having this kind of steady supply of blueberries with flavor. And that includes the local ones you get in the summer.<\/p>\n
-The only mayoral candidate to openly support Mayor Bloomberg\u2019s effort to ban the sale of jumbo sodas is Bill deBlasio, considered to be the lone authentic liberal in the race. It seems like the small minority of regular citizens and elected leaders who are firmly on Mayor Mike\u2019s side on the soda ban are those who believe government should have the power to impose reasonable limits on products that harm public health. I\u2019m in that camp. Few are. I get a lot of slippery slope arguments from rational people who say the Mayor is going too far. A judge this week at least temporarily blocked the big soda ban, calling the law \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d It is neither, although Mayor Mike bypassed the city council to gain the ban largely because the soda lobby has significant influence on that legislative body.<\/p>\n
-He won\u2019t overturn the church\u2019s stubbornly outdated opposition to married and\/or female priests – nor will he preach about God\u2019s love for gay couples or women who choose to end a pregnancy, but I do have a somewhat positive first impression of the new Pope. At least he seems to have a pulse. And he\u2019ll put a huge charge of energy in the massive flock of church-goers (more than one-third of the total) who speak Spanish. Imagine when Francis the First comes to New York City and says mass in Espanol? Hispanics never stopped going to Catholic mass while many of the rest of us in this country threw hands up in the air at the sound of a sermon disconnected from values that prioritize community harmony and peace over rigid doctrine. Francis will answer to the institution and won\u2019t be a reformer. But unlike Benedict, he\u2019ll at least reward some of the most fiercely loyal Catholics in this hemisphere with a geographic background that breaks the rigid hold on the papacy by the same old, same old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been nine months now since the job moved into the merger-driven two-person airport office I’m in now – and among the many adjustments has been exposure to lots of commercial FM radio. Depending on who\u2019s occupying the chair next … Continue reading