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.