My morning drive is a pretty brutal hour.
Almost exactly how my brain feels at 6:40 in the morning.
What makes it worse is that my computer is in storage (i.e. the basement), meaning that I can’t download podcasts of things that will keep me entertained onto my iPod (it’s complicated.) So I end up having to listen to the radio on the way to work. The radio comes in two flavors: NPR and Q102, which plays Elvis Duran’s Morning Show in syndicate from New York. The fact that the format of Elvis Duran’s show is called a Morning Zoo tells you everything you need to know.
The problem is that, while NPR is like cool fresh mint after the enchilada of morning shows, you get tired of both formats very quickly. But if you switch between them, you get whiplash.
“This is Steve Inskeep, and this is Morning Edition. Early this morning, rebels stormed the capital of Karkalpakistan, demanding enough karkalpaks for all, a minimum wage, social justice, and clean drinking water, much like our readers. To learn more, we go to our reporter there, Woman With-Three-Hyphenated-Last-Names, Each More Ethnic and Harder to Pronounce than the Last. Woman, what have you learned?”
“Well, Steve, the Karkalpaks are extremely restless. Just yesterday, I interviewed Abdullahameedinejadina Ahoudi, and he doesn’t feel safe sending his son out to the market for fresh, local, organic groceries, much less to the charter school down the street, and just last week-”
*SWITCH*
” – her BOOBS. Can you believe that? And she didn’t even have plastic surgery.”
“NO WAY. Are you sure? Callers, would you date someone who got a boob job? Text us at 5454 and let us know. And here’s our first caller, Diane..hi Diane..GOOD MORNING!!!!!”
“Hi Guys, LOVE your show. I got a boob job last year and my live-in boyfriend AND my mom said that they’ve never looked better! In fact, I was fooling around with him last week AND-”
*SWITCH*
” -and the Hazari ethnic minority of Karkalpakistan have formulated an opposition party, calling themselves the HazariNariNariKarkalpakistan, meaning, Hazaris Against the Current Regime, and here I’m holding one of their banners, made of 100% recycled paper. You can buy the HazariNariNariKarkalpakistan banner online at their website, or even join their Facebook group to learn of other uprisings coming up-”
*SWITCH*
“-and yeah, of course I totally made out with him. I mean, I was drunk. We all like to drink. Speaking of drinking, here’s the Daily Sleaze! Let’s find out which celebrity was drinking what last night. Did you know that Mariah Carey-”
*SWITCH*
“-Kaplan, who owns an independent bicycle shop in Seattle, says-”
*SWTICH*
“Cause baby you’re a fiiiiiiirework, let em-”
*SWITCH*
“organic grass-fed beef-”
*SWITCH*
“-totally gay bar, I mean this guy was just-”
*SWITCH OFF*
*SPEND REST OF DRIVE IN SILENCE*
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I listen religiously to NPR (i always though it was Steven Skeet) and have it pre-set in my car. My wife always listens to Elvis Duran in hers. So when I take her car in to work in the mornings, listening to the Elvis Duran show is like a wild pack of dogs defecating uncontrollably in my ears. I like the phone taps though.
And thank you for the extremely in-depth comment! so you’re saying it’s not the ninjas, then?
There are whole threads about who has the best NPR voice, what people thought the anchors’ real names were before they read it, etc. NPR is like a benign cult that I enjoy being part of. Although I like the phone taps. too.
all NPR women have the same voice. They just change the names.
This suggestion is so 1998 but what about a CD? Or better yet AUDIO BOOK!
I don’t have a CD player in my car, which, coincidentally, is also “so 1998″
When I get that oh-so-popular small talk question “so what music do you listen to?” I always reply with a blank stare and “oh, I just listen to NPR.” One guy thought it was a British thing, which deeply troubled me.
Also, like Bill I never knew what Steve’s last name actually was, so thanks for clearing that up for me! I’ve been trying to figure it out for ages, but I always forget before I’m at a computer and armed with Google.
I knew no pop music whatsoever until I started commuting by car again. Now I know everything, Usher, Gaga, whatevs.
I thought mIchele Norris was Nichelle before.
This is pure genius, Vicki. Also, nearly as annoying as listening to the actual radio, but in a more impressively funny way.
I “commute” 10 steps into my home office every day. I’d planned to go to Boston tonight & just vetoed it because, you know, it’s raining.