AM/FM Dreaming

It's weird!

During the last couple of years I have taken to the habit of listening to the radio when I go to bed at night. I have earphones plugged in and generally listen to talk shows on AM radio, the late night news on PBS/BBC, sportstalk repeats, or now "Free" FM which is 24 hour talk during the week. I used to try to turn off the radio before I went to sleep, but it became the norm that I fell asleep with the headphones on with the talk show host murmuring in my ear about one of the hot topics of the day, with someone on the phone who had nothing better to do in the late evening. I think it was probably boring enough to have me just drift off!

Being a member of an age group that wakes in the middle of the night due to bladder pressure, and not being able to immediately fall back asleep, I became introduced to the middle of the night callers on the radio and found them to be a small but dedicated group of insomniacs, truck drivers, late night shift workers, and and a whole bunch of people who seem to be just too worried about the state of the world to get any sleep.

Larry King was once the real "King" of late night talk. I remember hearing his show on occasion perhaps 20 years ago. He seemed to know a little about everything and always had an answer for any question posed by a caller. As I moved up and down the dial, he seemed to be syndicated on every major station which had 50000 watts to boom out over the airwaves. What a great radio voice. He smoked alot which kept his voice deeeeep and mellow. It also gave him a triple by-pass. When he left for CNN it created a void, and after some shuffling about with a number of potential new "Kings of latenight", Art Bell changed late night radio into the world of the surreal with his guests posing the probability of lost civilizations on Mars, Bigfoot sightings, and aliens in UFOs snatching people for experiments, and then returning them to Earth with nothing except vague feelings and memories of their experience. Art Bell made his broadcast from his home in Parumph (sp?)in the high desert near Las Vegas, not too far from Area 51. Area 51 is best known as the place where aliens supposedly landed and were captured back in the early 1950's. It a super secret Air Force base where supposedly all the UFO's and mummified aliens are secreted by the government. It is an appropriate spot for Art to send out his radio waves. He was a star of the night that people who slept all night never knew. He created his own world populated by people who believed in weird ideas and beings who could not be proven to exist. But on the other hand no one could prove that they didn't exist either! That seemed to keep fantasy and superstition alive in the night! And what a great radio voice! It's a match for Larry.

I was fascinated with Art Bell for a while simply because of the novelty of listening to people who took seriously subjects which were completely outside reality. His show, Coast to Coast, is still on every night, but he hosts only on the weekend. George ?? is the host the rest of the week.
George carries on with the same subject matter, and with many of the same "expert" guests, but it is not the same without Art. I sometimes tune in on the weekend to hear Art's voice. His sound on the radio never failed to cause me to drift off to sleep quickly. I slept plugged into his show for most of the night. I have felt no unusual effects from it, as far as I know. But then all those callers who were whisked away for lab tests by aliens had nothing but vague feelings about their experiences either! Who knows what has been planted in my Psyche as I slept.
Now when I tune in I have problems staying with the topics. Somtimes there is a "real" topic being discussed, but most often the topic is absurd, and I wonder how anyone could seriously discuss it. I consider both George and Art as actors on the radio. I can't believe that they really believe the people they have on their show, and have to think that their support for the caller's claims and topics is just part of "show business". I wonder?

Last night my bedside radio went on the fritz. I think I wore out the AM/FM switch, and as much as I jiggled the switch, it failed to consistantly hold the volume and the frequency. It was just not an acceptable situation that I could live with for another night! I went to Fry's today and bought a new radio. It's digital and has presets for six AM and six PM stations. It has a special antenna that tunes into the AM frequency that broadcasts the atomic clock time from somewhere in Colorado. I plugged it in, and lo and behold, it picked up the frequency and set the time all by itself right to the second! I am on ATOMIC time! I set all the presets to the stations I usually shuffle between during the night. I plugged in the earphones and tested it all out. It seems a great improvement! Tonight's inauguration of my new radio will be exciting! I wonder if I will get any sleep!

I will start the evening as usual with KGO AM, then maybe pop over to KABC and see what Mr. KABC is up to, Then spend a few minutes to see what George's subject is on Coast to Coast on KFI or KOGO, and maybe end up back on KGO with my favorite lefty Bernie to see if his political rant of the night is palatable. Failing to find anything soothing at any of those spots, I may go to FM and 103.7 and check in on "free" FM talk, which at night is generally about sex and personal problems. That ought to get me to sleep. If the sandman is successful on that station, I will probably wake up to Adam Carrola (sp?) who took over for Howard Stern on the west coast this month. He is mildly amusing. Howard used to come on at 3 am here since his show started at 6 am in the Eastern time zone. The local station would run the first 3 hours live, then start it over at 6 am and run the full 4 hours to 10 am. If I woke up around 3 am, I usually tuned in. Howard had some interesting shows, but also was pretty good at drifting me off for another couple hours sleep too! I could catch some of what I missed on theway to work at 7-8 am. Adam's new show is out of LA and doesn't start live until 6 am. It comes on at 5 am with a repeat of the last hour of the show from the day before.

Talk radio has changed alot since Larry was the King. His show was sports, show business, or something about the news of the day. It was kind of like his show on CNN. He could have a Democrat on one night, and a Republican the next. Frank Sinatra could drop in. Most of late night now is either far to the right or way out on the left. There is alot of ranting going on! Listeners and callers tend to listen to the ranters they agree with. If someone calls in and disagrees with the rant, they usually get insulted and called names by the "Host". Most of the "Host's" are not polite to those who disagree with them. While I might be more prone to find the left side more palatable, I still look for a more moderate voice. There are also alot of sports talk stations I could listen to, but how many times can one rehash the last football game, or complain about some coach's inability to call the right play. I just can't get into it! I change stations alot before I fall asleep!

I think a digital tuner should last longer!

Weird, Huh!