The CD player is broken and the kid in the back seat adds her two-cents worth. Evidently she's not fond of the Florida folk singers playing on my favorite left-wing community radio station and wants to hear something else.
"Mom, can you change the station to the one that always plays Bye Bye Miss American Pie." she says. "I like that song."
I used to. But a month without the CD player (which keeps flashing "error" since my 20-year-old son borrowed the car one night and I found that disc of his covered with goo) has me wanting to say, "Bye bye for good," to Don McLean and the like.
To put it bluntly, commercial radio stinks - BIG time.
That is, of course, unless you actually enjoy being force-fed canned music from radio stations such as the Clear Channel breed, whose sales pitch might as well be, "We play the same songs over and over and over again, all the time!"
It's kind of like the psychological rock music torture technique our guys used back in 1989 when they wanted to oust Manuel Noriega from the Vatican embassy in Panama City.
Listening to these stations now, you could set your watch to them. "Mmmm, they're playing Billy Joel's Scenes From an Italian Restaurant, must be around noon."
Sure, they throw a shock jock or perky TV news personality into the mix for entertainment. But I'd just as soon skip the raunchy talk, the diet aid ads and the same old songs.
If you haven't guessed, I'm taking the death of my CD player rather hard. As time goes on I'm getting more cranky.
This is major for me.
Because my job has me traveling some and my off hours are usually spent taxiing kids from one activity to another, I have come to depend on listening to my favorite, sometimes obscure musicians when I'm on the road.
I think my CDs, always kept handy in a travel case, are what keeps me sane and not prone to driving like my mother often did: one hand on the wheel, the other flailing in the back seat at her bickering kids, who were serving up quite a distraction. (Of course, it wasn't me.)
Music, let me clarify that, good music that isn't played at frequent intervals can have a calming effect that is a preferable alternative to tranquilizers.
And, better yet, music helps hone those selective parental listening skills. I think it's amazing that while I can still hear fire or ambulance sirens, I somehow can zone out the "Mom, she's looking at me!" banter going on in the back seat . . . most of the time . . . unless they get really loud.
Then I just crank up the music and drown them out, which is more effective than threatening for the 100th time to pull the car over.
Thankfully, the Tampa Bay area has a couple of decent public radio stations that have introduced me to some of those obscure musicians I now listen to.
Really, where else on the radio dial can you find Etta James, Howlin' Wolf or your favorite song from a well-known artist that commercial radio never plays because it's on the track after the big hit?
Before tuning in to public radio, I had never heard of blues singer Lucky Peterson or Eva Cassidy, who now that I've hit the mid-40 mark, is my all-time favorite singer.
Cassidy, who has somewhat of a cult following here in the States, is better known in Europe, where her songs have topped the Billboard charts.
The first time I heard the soulful singer was a few years ago, shortly after the release of her CD, Time After Time, that was miraculously released four years after her death from melanoma. Tampa Bay's WMNF (88.5) played a few selections on its New Release Show, and I was hooked. I pulled off the road so I could write her name down, then ordered the CD online that day.
Others who are fans of the late singer can likely tell you the first time they heard her captivating voice. It's one of those defining moments.
One I'd wager hasn't happened yet on commercial radio.
