The Death of JFK

I am terribly sad right now. I don’t recall where I was when Carrie told me.  Probably in our room at the hostel in Budapest.  Anyway, she’s peering at her iPhone and say something like “WJFK is switching formats to sports.” My head jerks up and I say “says WHO?”  Because, after all, I know she’s not reading the Washington Post or anything.  She’s scanning her Facebook news feed as usual.  Anyway, she replies “Stevie-D.”  My mind raced.  Was this a credible source.  Could this possibly be true.  Could talk radio truly be dying the same way alternative rock radio did?

The answer, of course, is yes.  You can see the stream of thoughts on Twitter.  You can listen to the fairwell postcasts on WJFK.  All I know is that I moved all the way to Austin, Texas a couple of years ago and still managed to listen to the Junkies.  I spent last summer in Seattle and always found a way to tune in to Big O and Dukes.  I had been listening to Don and Mike (and Howard Stern before he screwed-up and went to satellite) since I was 13 years-old.  My mom would pick us up from school sometimes and she would have the radio tuned in to WJFK. 

There is something almost absurdly familiar about the people that you listen to for a few hours a day, 5 days a week, for over a decade.  I started listening to the Junkies when I was in college, and I’m sure at this point it has been over 10 years.  I know these people better than I know most of the people that I am currently friends with, simply on the brute basis of cumulative time spent listening to their lives unfold over the ether of radio.

I would say that WJFK is making a huge mistake, except that they probably aren’t.  Ratings are ratings, and advertising money is what makes the machine go.  Much as when WHFS became El Sol, it’s clear that the world is changing, even if I am not.  But I’m still allowed to be sad.  I miss my friends already.