Here’s a story I like to tell, and I just realized that it’s precisely the sort of slice-of-life material that you crazy “blog readers” eat up with a spork. So here goes

I work in radio. Not on the air, though, just as the “IT Department Of One.” (Hey, if you can’t rip off US Army advertising copy, what can you rip off?).

My first five years with the stations was as a part-time board operator, basically an occasionally-multitasking button pusher. The only difference between myself and a DeeJay was that the DJ got to crack the mic and I didn’t. But I still had to take the phone calls from all the drunken crazies and when you’re a rock-n-roll station, the phoners are as crazy as they come. One night/morning early in my career (in other words, “before I knew better”) I took a call from a guy who wanted to know what the Greatest Classic Rock Song Of All Time ™ was.

Stupid me, I tried using logic. “Well, you know, it’s really a subjective thing yadda yadda.”

“But, man, what’s the best one ever?”

“It depends on who you ask blah blah blah.”

“Dude, I just need to know which one it is!”

Eventually the utter knob on the phone okay, the other end of the phone managed to convey that he was trying to settle a bet with his buddy: Was the Greatest Classic Rock Song “Stairway to Heaven” or “Hotel California”?

I hate Hotel Cali, so I settled the bet in favor of Led Zep. The entire process only took maybe fifteen minutes but that was about twelve minutes longer than it should’ve, had I any sense

And some things never change. Heh.