girl meets radio

I'll take her spot

2008-05-02T14:59:00.001-07:00

Apparently, being a judge on American Idol is much tougher than it appears. On Tuesday night, Paula Abdul proved that drinking alcohol and smoking crack are harmful to one’s short term memory. Yes, Tuesday night’s show was rushed and ‘fast paced’ for the normal Idol show; but how hard is it to remember five performer’s shows? For those of you who missed the show, here’s a recap:

Each performer was required to sing two songs in the regular one hour period. Due to time restraints, each performer was supposed to perform both songs before the judges critiqued them. Ryan Seacrest talked a mile a minute in-between performances and kept commenting that the show was running out of time. After the contestants finished their first songs, Seacrest went off script and asked the judges their opinions of each performer’s first song. Randy rattled off five critiques for the five performers and then passed the mike to Abdul. Abdul, oddly resembling a deer caught in the headlights, stumbled through a critique of Jason Castro’s first song. Instead of moving on to the other contestants’ performances, however, Abdul went on to critique Jason’s second song- a song, he had not yet performed.

Awestruck, I sat on my sofa and watched. I’ve made my share of mistakes and can empathize with slip-ups. But, I’m also not getting paid a million bucks a year. Abdul has got to go. She’s an embarrassment to women, unattractive, and dull. All I can think is that she must be one amazing lay. And that’s Hollywood for you.

what's money got to do with it

2008-04-19T16:34:00.001-07:00

People say everyone starts out on an equal playing field; but, it’s just not true.

If you’re born into a family with money, the odds are on your side. You don’t have to work in high school and you have the time to volunteer and be involved in community groups for extracurricular activities. You have the benefit of attending a good high school and probably have the luxury of having tutors. You were able to choose and practice your favorite sport and probably had music lessons. You were able to meet the right people at the right places so that you could get into the right schools and then the right companies. You had it all because you had the means to achieve it all.

If you’re born into a poor family, the odds don’t look so good. You have to attend a public school while working after school and on the weekends. You resent your family for not offering you what the other kids have. You get lucky if you find the time to play a sport and the sport has to be cheap and unorganized. You don’t get the personalized attention and training needed to make a star athlete. You don’t get the resume builders needed for colleges because you didn’t have the time to volunteer or participate in school organizations. And even if you did get so lucky as to get into a good college, you know you can’t afford the loans you would have to take out to attend. You’re old when you’re young and you’re too experienced in the rough ways of the world. You lack faith in society and the common good. You despise individuals who had the easy life while secretly wishing you were one of them.

And these my friends, these are the two groups of people that make up our political parties. Of course, on occasion, some of us poor folk like to dream big and be called republicans too.

Number 2.

2008-04-08T16:45:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you mouth just talks faster than your brain can think. For example, I tried to save my show today by recounting a live and humorous personal experience. My mind was moving slower than my mouth, however, and the humor was lost leaving mere confusion in its wake.

The story was supposed to be about normal people having to take bowl movements on the side of the road. We know we’ve all been there before. There’s that sudden pain but we’re in the car or on a walk…come on now. Most people, if being honest, have either had to pull over and poop or have seriously debated the idea. Some individuals have too much pride and would prefer soiling their pants. My topic of conversation was about those brave individuals who had taken their business to the side of the road. I thought it would be humorous for callers to call in and recount their own embarrassing yet ‘relieving moments’. This, however, was not what came across the air. Somehow, I equated pooping on the side of the road with having a bad day. This was not intentional but two of my thought patterns ran together and out of my mouth. The first being “I was having a bad day” and the second being “poop happens”. I guess you could say that my mouth had diarrhea.

Since no one called in, I think I should have broken the ice by talking about peeing first. I have many humorous personal experiences of ‘number one’ emergencies to share. Maybe I’ll grace the airwaves on Thursday with some of them if I can get my brain up to speed with my chatty analogous mouth. Beware, I may blame peeing on the side of the road on having a bad day because we pooped on the lawn. Who knows.

When life gets in the way

2008-04-01T17:32:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wish you were better at something? I hate accepting that I’m not the best. Who wants to settle for being mediocre? But, if we were all the best, ‘best’ would lose its meaning.

I’ve applied for law school. I have a good GPA but just didn’t get the score I needed on the LSAT. I’m a slow test taker, and before the LSAT, that had never really mattered. I should have practiced more for the test in order to compensate for my weakness. But, life got in the way. Things that seemed so important then, don’t seem as important now. Anticipation of rejection is terrible- especially when it comes through.

Luckily, I did get into one school on partial scholarship. I’m still waiting to hear back from a few others but the odds aren’t good. I’ve accepted that the school I got into is the school that I’ll be attending. No, it’s not the school I had my heart set on, but it will still get me to the place I want to be.

It’s tough because we complain about rejection and not getting what we’ve worked so hard for instead of realizing that maybe we should have just worked harder. It’s easy to think we’ve done our best and blame our failures on outside factors. It’s a lot harder to realize that failure may just lie within us.
I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to be better at something, we have to work harder. We can’t make excuses. We have to practice and continue practicing until we succeed. We have to take responsibility for our actions and take control of our futures.

No Break

2008-03-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

Spring break was in the air and it smelt like sand. Just a few more days of those dreadful midterms and paradise would begin. Pulling all-nighters was no problem. It would be worth it, hands down. But just my luck, the spring break god felt differently. One word changed my outlook on my break: pneumonia.

So, there I was, sitting in the studio with 5 sweatshirts on and a cup of mocha. I just wanted to cry. All I wanted was that break...just a few days in the sun...was that really so much to ask for? Apparently so.

To top off my feelings of self-pity, the GMU bag lady strolled up to the studio's glass windows. Who is that woman anyway? And why, after all of my evil glares, must she still squash her face against the window? Most of us learned that was socially unacceptable at the age of 5. She obviously missed the memo.

As I picked out my cuts for the show I spotted a diamond in the rough--the Bloodhound Gang's Bad Touch. Hallelujah. For everyone's enjoyment, I chose to leave the mic on as I belted the lyrics. The pneumonia caused an added screeching effect to my voice that I swear is not normally there.

Have you ever noticed that when you're sick, everyone else is happy? It's true. When you're healthy, everyone is grumpy. The moment you become sick though, everyone struts around with smiles plastered to their faces. Yes, my stomach churns. Sitting behind the studio's glass windows I watched the happy children gossip and laugh about their wonderful spring breaks. Woe is me.

music, mic, power.

2008-02-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

Cds-check. Commercials-check. Power? It's 9:45 and I start to freak. I stare at a huge board with flashing lights and 'man -labels'. I know the station is up and running because I hear the music playing on the other side of the glass walls. But where's the volume for me? I stare up at the massive speakers but they are mute. As the minutes count down to showtime, I become an expert engineer. I spot random cords that dangle. Hmmnn. I bet they should be plugged in somewhere. Where though, I am unsure. I climb on top of the desk and inspect these ceiling speakers that won't play. There must be a power button somewhere. There is always a power button. But no, no buttons on the speakers. I climb down again and sit in the one-armed chair. It's 9:50 and I must make an executive decision. The speakers obviously hate me and it's a losing battle. Defeated, I shoot my radio professor an e-mail. I have failed and the speakers have won. While I wait for my professor to save the day, I investigate this awkward sound board one more time. So many buttons and so many lights. You would think that the genius who labeled the board could have been more creative. But no, the creator seemed to only know three words. That's right, 30 buttons each labeled with one of three words. Couldn't he have added 'power' to his vocabulary? I would even settle for 'on'. I sit back and wait for for the clock to read 10:00. Disrupting my silence, a flashing white seizure light vigorously spasms. The phone! I had connected the emergency light with being the silent phone ring last show (But that's a different story of course). Yes, just as all stories should, this one ends well. My professor saved the day by walking me through the man-board with it's man-labels. And who would have thought- the power button was one of the 10 buttons all labeled the same ingenious word.