he's like a detuned radio...

In half an hour, I'll be running across the parking deck down the stairs to catch the bus to the train to the car to make art and commiserate with good friends over an as-yet-undecided dinner, pondering and doubtless pots of tea and perhaps a bottle of wine or ludicrously fruity beer.

I caught the earlier Rapid today, which had no teens on it, and mostly people older than me including a guy and a lady who were talking about having an affair with each other and he thought he was way deep for saying that he bases his entire life philosophy off of Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times" but I don't know how that works, though in all honesty I was listening to Jimmy Page's guitar and that amazing John Bonham drum sound than the lyrical content so maybe I'm missing some kind of esoteric deeper truth other than not caring about what the neighbors say and the rhyming of "heart" and "part."

RTA seems to be experimenting with their background noise... it was straight up Smooth Jazz for awhile which is supposed to make the masses soothed and complacent but reminds me of working in Retail Hell, and then it was some kind of lame talk radio, and then it's something like one of those 80's, 90's and Today stations, but with really terrible smooth jazz covers of "With or Without You" and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" U2 & CCR are just fine, you know.

So now I'm waiting for the Rapid to come and it's Neil Young's "Southern Man" and "Time of the Season" which is probably one of my favorite songs of all time just because of that awesome keyboard solo in the middle and the general pop spookiness. But it leaves me a bit confused at the same time because I just don't know what's going on and wish they could save money by not having any music and at least keep the fares where they're at instead of raising them all the time.

Meanwhile, the BBC is entering austerity mode and cutting most of its World Service broadcasting, and while I don't listen to it much, not having an Internet connection at home, it makes me sad, especially being at a radio station where there is an incredible diversity of music and culture and my life has been so enriched by hearing current events from other perspectives, and music from all over the world.

Since the American populace is often too busy getting worked up about culture wars and such, we really don't have any clue what's going on in the rest of the world half the time, and especially now there's a whole lot going on, in Israel/Palestine, Yemen, Albania, Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt and such. While I like to giggle about bunga bunga and chicks with guns and Pooty-Poot, this stuff really is important...

"They need to leave the planet. They need to go to Texas"

So says the guy on the Rapid this morning as we're heading into downtown talking about Cleveland's favorite football team. Usually I don't take the Rapid into work but today I felt like it and it was nice to have some freedom from the mundane in the early morning. It wasn't technically eavesdropping because the guy in question is one of those people who likes to have an audience for his theories on life, including how the world's going to end when we have an Irish pope.

Some people I know think they're too good to do that whole public transportation thing. I'm still convinced they're missing out.