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Here's what I did instead of writing something this week.

Looked up articles on Ben Roethlisberger and Michael Vick to make a timeline for a fake transcription of Vicks iPhone voice memos.

Watched a shooter's POV video of two people being murdered.

Tried to forget said video.

Realized that there were no non-obvious jokes in the Vick thing, aside from one of the voice memos being interrupted by that prison operator message "this is a collect call from an inmate at...". Grossed out by both Vick and by Roethlisberger apologists.

Started making a chart about gun violence stats to compare gun deaths against total homicides. Bailed.

Watched several YouTube clips from Battle of the Network Stars. TV stars from the seventies wearing track suits and smoking like lunatics. Gabe Kaplan, Robert Conrad and Telly Savalas have an argument over a race penalty, which is arbitrated by Bruce Jenner, at which point I spilled a Heineken.

YouTube suggested a four minute video of random clips of Jan Smithers montaged, for some reason, over the Foo Fighters Learning to Fly." And I watched every second of it.

I tuned my piano.

I woke up early Sunday morning and stumbled downstairs. I read more gun stats, I looked over half-finished stuff on my phone, which was unfinished for good reasons.  I looked through my Google Docs and found an old, stupid, unsent letter to a radio station that I typed into my Sidekick II in 2005, which I figured I'd use if I absolutely, positively could not come up with any other...

Yeah, well...here's that letter.

Dear 99.7


I'm a frequent, if not completely voluntary, listener to your station. It plays at my workplace and lives up to its appointed task of keeping us all from listening to each other breathe.

This is just one man's opinion, but it seems to me that your station plays an inordinate amount of Rod Stewart records.   I’m at work for eight hours, and I hear three.   Everyday.   The last one invariably starting as I’m gathering my things and whispering “not today... not today...”

I realize that the man has had a long career in pop music and the largest part of his fan base probably falls within your target demographic, but on the days when I have to listen to WSHH, I hear him once every two hours. And that seems like an unreasonable dosage of an artist whose voice is so painfully fatiguing.

I know, if not understand, plenty of people who enjoy Rod Stewart, and I'm confident that even his most ravenous fans would scarcely blink if his rotation were to slip to once every five hours or so.

I'm a big fan of Steely Dan (whose catalog, often described as soft rock, WSHH hasn't touched) and I've never felt the need to listen to them even once a day. Hearing them once every two hours would destroy my fondness for them.. or for any artist, although Elton John does appear in your playlist as often as RS -- which I’ve found to be tolerable due to the diversity of his oeuvre and the fact that he doesn't sound like he’s in any stage of respiratory distress.


Thank you for your time and for holding back Pittsburgh’s awkward silences.



Your pal, 

(because deep down we must all want the same thing),

Gregg