When I was growing up, Dad’s one-ton flatbed truck only got two radio stations: talk and country. Driving as an adult, my car only gets talk because today’s country is mostly crap since KEEN-AM went off the air in 1992 and I never came to enjoy current pop music that much. I normally listen to KGO (810 AM) for talk since I grew up on that. They were playing this awful Christmas music all day, which is surprising because most people regard as KGO as being a liberal bastion (i.e., they have no outspoken conservative personality burning up the mike). If anything, KGO is very mainstream. But why were they playing all this conservative Christmas music? The biggest fear that most listeners have about the programming is that KGO’s independence may eventually be undermined by their corporate parent, Citadel Broadcasting. Perhaps the corporate office did impose this conservative Christmas music programming, which is something I would expect to find on FOX Radio (910 AM).
What was playing on FOX Radio on Christmas Day? Paid programming on how to better your finances through expensive seminars and improve your health through unregulated vitamins.
I kept going back to the Christmas music.
I tend not to listen to FOX if I can help it. The radio signal doesn’t carry well outside of the south bay area, and their conservative programming can be quite outrageous. One Saturday night I was coming back from the movies, a political show was playing back clips from black protesters who rioted because of the Oscar Grant court decision. One memorable clip was: “WE’RE GOING TO KILL ALL THE WHITE PEOPLE! BURN OAKLAND TO THE GROUND AND CALL IT BLACKLAND!” Needless to say, this is why white senior citizens voted for Republican candidates in the recent mid-term election. They’re afraid of black people. Worst, there’s a blackman in the White House. God almighty, what is wrong with this great country?
(Never mind that it was professional anarchists who came to Oakland to cause trouble. Can’t let a little factoid interfere with sensational news programming and scoring political points on FOX News.)
I did bring my fully charged iPod Touch but I forget to bring the portable speaker. Since I had a first generation Touch, I couldn’t play my 1980s music collection through the radio via the bluetooth speaker for my cellphone. I was stuck with whatever was playing on the radio. Unless I’m taking a very short trip, I could never drive in silence. That’s worse than listening to the same type of Christmas music for five hours while driving. This is probably payback for wrapping up my Christmas shopping two weeks early to avoid the nastiness of listening to Christmas music at the mall.
Bah, humbug!