my radio news

some things i'd like to comment on after hearing the business report from joe connolly (that's him to the left) on wcbs 880 this morning at about 7:52am:

(but first a few perhaps interesting words about wcbs 880. this is the station on which my radio alarm clock is set and which wakes me up at precisely 7:48am each morning so that the first thing i hear on a weekday is the traffic and weather report, given on the 8s of course. they do traffic first, then weather, the timing of which has prompted me to often consider switching my wake-up time to 7:49 instead of 7:48, so as to eliminate my hearing the traffic report, which since the subways are pretty much invincible this report is of no use to me but since the nyc metro area is chock full of auto commuters, and even more full of auto access points and roads, the traffic report takes quite a long time to get through. in spite of this consideration, i've held fast to the 7:48 alarm time.

i am a slow waker, and so even after the traffic and weather reports are done i usually linger in bed for several minutes if i don't simply hit the snooze and fall back asleep alogether. after weather the two main radio hosts come in and give short news briefs and then will often (i can't say always here because i don't pay as much attention during this few-minute interval) send it out to mike saranac for a news bit. this news bit is thoroughly annoying for me because mike saranac must live somewhere in nassau or suffolk county and must refuse to file reports from anywhere else because his reports are always inane, rarely newsworthy, and invariably about something long-island-related. i know they need to spend some time pandering to what must be a sizable chunk of their morning listeners, but it drives me nuts to have to hear dumb community news about long island when they are obviously pressed for time. the following statement is undoubtedly colored by my displeasure for the reports, but mr saranac's voice and reporting style i find to be wholly pathetic. he inflects his voice like he's trying out either for a national news job or the carnival barker's hall of fame. i hate it.

anyhow, moving along, after mr saranac's waste of precious seconds, 880 always sends it out to joe connolly of the wall street journal for the aforementioned business report. this report is noteworthy only for it's pacing. it's a perfectly standard and boring report but mr connolly--perhaps deliberately wanting to distinguish himself from his time-conscious colleagues--speaks extremely slowly and heavily, actually pausing even in the middle of phrases instead of merely between them. (an example: "the hou-sing market....spurred by slow-er.........than...expected em-ploy-ment.............numbers..........has fallen a percentage...............point....to-day.") no matter how many times i hear this guy, and no matter how groggy i may still be, it amazes me both that he chooses to speak so deliberately and that his bosses at the station allow him to do it. i can't tell if he's just be a totally pompous dick or if his pace is a carefully considered antidote to the fast-paced speech of the other radio personalities.

to contrast mr connolly, the regular traffic guy, whose name for some reason i can't recall, packs a ridiculous amount of verbal information into his alloted time. he speaks so fast that it seems almost a different language in the way you are forced to pause and digest bits of words before jumping back into the flow and realizing that you've just missed a few phrases. even if i'm paying attention to him, by the time i've had the time to comprehend that there was a tractor spill on the hutch, the traffic guy has already moved "over and across the tappan zee." whoever this guy is, he's impressive, so impressive that you can pretty easily tell when his replacement is on the job.)

so that's my wcbs 880. such a small part of my existence but such a constant and consistent one.

1. a kid at a brooklyn job fair which received three times more applicants than available positions was the only one hired on the spot because he was also the only one wearing a necktie. i'm pretty sure this bit of odd news was mentioned in mr connolly's report to show with a touch of shame how sad it is that kids, specifically inner-city ones 1) don't have any respect, 2) are stuck in a terrible job market, 3) are ignorant of what small things they must do in order to get ahead. basically: look, kids, just show some respect for the workplace and wear a tie and you too can break free from the cycle of poverty.

i have a slightly different take on the kid-at-job-fair-wears-tie-gets-hired story. i think it's pathetic and sad that something as arcane and arbitrary as a necktie would prompt an employer to hire one person or not hire another. are these people (the employers) that lazy? granted, you can call the other kids lazy too for not wearing a tie but that doesn't change the fact that a tie doesn't in itself carry any value or bestow upon its wearer any value. it's just a piece of fabric. maybe this respectful little worker drone was actually packing heat at this job fair, heat which he used on his trip to mug another worker drone and steal his tie. i suppose you could give him points for ambition (if you're into that sort of thing. i'm not) or determination, but let's get real about the tie nonsense. when i was finishing up college i was worried that employers would put too much stock on simple grade point average when i thought that was a somewhat shallow way to evalute a candidate, but gpa is far more reliable than a damned tie. i wear ties on the weekend, maybe i should be appointed to the supreme court.

2. another business news bit centered on how sales figures are being reported down dramatically across all sectors, "from boutiques to bartenders." not positive the first one was "boutiques," but it was something alliterative with "bartenders." either way, the point remains, namely: i guess those stimulus payments are having the desired effect. i've yet to enact the intensely spiteful plan i hatched to invest my $600 in foreign companies, but maybe some other people have beaten me to it. of course that would be dumb since the dollar is worthless and in fact all the american companies are presenting themselves as gold mines to foreign investors, which is why american companies are slowly being bought by foreigners, which reminds me of an article i read in the times about how anheiser-busch is going to be sold to an international company likely soon for the above-mentioned reasons. apparantly miller and coors are already foreign-owned. who knew? i guess now there truly is no reason to drink inferior "american" beer.

ipod/stroller digressions

fuck all you people and your ipods. there is enough white noise drifting through my world today that i really really don't need your trebled dissonance permeating my consciousness during our shared 18-flight ascension of the elevator shaft. i'm sure it sounds quite lovely way back there in your ambivalent eardrums i'm sure, but out here in the other 99.99999999% of the world it's quite obnoxious. i don't mean to be too utilitarian here, but we of the rather vast majority would appreciate if you might sacrifice whatever joy it causes you to pass the volume meter beyond what can be contained to your own audibility so that we can catch a break.
now that i've got that little bit of nuisance out of the way, let me turn to the truly evil consequence of the small white menace: complete social and spatial ignorance, where i place particular selfish emphasis on the latter. i've had just about enough of having to bump into someone because said someone is mindlessly drifting in and out of the reasonable or expected flow of pedestrain traffic.
do you know how some people think it ought to be illegal to drive while talking on the cell phone? ipods are only very slightly less malevolent devices. it's been proven that drivers have less awareness when talking on a cell phone, not to mention that it usually means the person is using only one hand to drive. i've always been annoyed by the inconvenience it would cause to ban cell phones while driving but resigned to complete agreement with the reasons for and the effects of such a law. for me, it seems like anytime there is a car accident, three questions arise when wondering how it happened: was he speeding? was he drinking and driving? and was he on the phone? any of these three questions answered affirmatively will cease any investigation because they are accepted as severe hindrances to safe driving.
before you call me a prude, just stop and think about what it means to live in a crowded place such as nyc. we all learn very early on that one of the important sacrfices we must make is to always share at least a little consideration for those around us. if we all walked around the city with utter self-determination, then the violence levels would be off the charts.
now let me make another car-related example. imagine a smaller city with no traffic lights. what would happen, or what would drivers be forced to do? after an intial period of accidents, of course, drivers would learn that they can't go careening through intersections, that they must stop and consider other drivers going the other way, and eventually a simple kind of truce will be formed wherein every driver understands that he has a responsibility to every other driver not to crash into them. cars running into each other can kill, people doing the same usually do not. this is no excuse for people to behave differently than cars (controlled by people, yes i understand).
pedestrians learn at least one basic rule of high-traffic movement early on: always stay to the right. if this rule were not followed, there would literally be chaos in the streets of new york. allow me to suggest another extremely important rule: when a large group of people is approaching a single person on the sidewalk, it's the responsibility of the group to partially give way to allow the single to continue along unabated. basically, if you are taking up more space that you should reasonably be expected to, then you must move. if you're carrying a wide load of groceries, i'm sorry if it's heavy but you don't get the whole sidewalk. this rule is especially important if you're carrying an umbrella: if you're one of those dicks who uses a giant golf umbrella to navigate the city, then you sure as shit better be the one who's constantly raising it up above everyone elses so you don't knock into them, and you also better be a passive walker, never cutting in front of people or making unnecessary passes.
now, i suppose it was inevitable, but this whole thing has led me to baby strollers. i hate baby strollers. they serve a need, and i accept that. but if you think that because you happen to be pushing a stroller, then you are entitled to whatever path you choose as you walk down an extremely crowded steet, well you're sadly mistaken. you and your giant stroller are taking up much more than the expected amount of space, so it's you who should be patient and try to accommodate everyone else walking down the street. instead, because of little precious sitting in the stroller, these people pushing them have the highest sense of entitlement. get this through to yourself: you are not more important than me simply because you have a child. it was your choice to burden yourself, do not take that shit out on me.
even a bit more on the strollers:
1. i'd like to take a swing at the genius designer who decided that these damnable things needed to be so big. there are cars in europe smaller than some baby strollers. a kid is maybe 2.5 feet tall and weighs maybe 40-50 pounds. think of a sack of concrete. do you need something so massive to push around a sack of concrete? if what you have is bigger than what you need to move on bag of concrete, it's too big.
2. people pushing strollers have a harder time navigating crowded streets, obviously. this can cause the pusher of the stroller to get agitated, obviously. when standing behind theses behemoths, these pushers can also tend to get a sense of invincibility (call it the SUV principle). what happens is, people use the fronts of their strollers as plows. this is not only unnessarily aggresive and rude, but also extremely selfish on behalf of the pusher at the expense of the presumably precious cargo just inches away from the parts being used as plows. sometimes, it is ok to tell other people how to raise their kids, that's all i've got to say about that.
3. if i am ever stricken with a case of fatherhood, i can assure you that i will do all that's in my power to avoid adding to the scourge of the city. i've seen people who tie a sheet or some other large garment around their back/neck so that it forms a pouch in front into which you can easily and comfortably fit a child too small to walk on its own. this is a superb solution to the problem and i salute these people. it's not hard to be reasonable toward others. it doesn't take a huge sacrifice. just a small one, or a tiny amount of thought.