NPR is still my station of choice during drive time, but there are a bunch of things about the underdog of the FM dial that drive me crazy. Here are ten of them.
1. The fact that they run ads for Wal-Mart, receive taxpayer funding, and still run those horribly obnoxious pledge drives (like the one going on right now!).
2. Hearing the morning news filtered through Karl Kasell's frothy, churning saliva.
3. Having the news interrupted every 90 seconds so they can tell me who's providing the local underwriting. I don't even know what local underwriting us.
4. Understated, mealy-mouthed editorializing like "The Enron trial, thought by many to be the biggest corporate fraud trial in years..."
5. Perspectives. Or, as I like to call them, "Boring, self-congratulatory stories that you might tolerate from your friends but not from some stranger on the radio who has no qualifications other than being a school teacher and freelance writer(!) from Walnut Creek."
6. The fact that all my cool friends seem to listen to This American Life, but nobody can tell me when it's on.
7. 90% of international news stories being delivered with an English accent, regardless of where the story is actually from.
8. Pausing every fifteen minutes to let us know what's coming up fifteen minutes from now.
9. The grating, simplistic, single-instrument theme music that aggressively leads in so may of their shows.
10. The fact that they have a woman delivering the news every evening who doesn't understand that "Samuel Alito" is two words, not "Samuelito."
Samuelito
Maybe she has just watched to much "Carlito's Way"...and, in fact, this is some kind of incredibly subtle, biting commentary on Alito's fitness as a Supreme Court Justice.
Or maybe not.
Dude, did you just say "drive time"?!
This American Life, I believe, is on at noon on Saturdays on KQED. But dude, just listen to it on their website. That's the beauty of free recordings. Listen anytime, anywhere (within earshot range of your computer). http://thislife.org.
Bill Banovetz, one of my old oboe teachers, used to be used in some of their intro music. I thought it was kind of keen. He didn't know anything about it and was confused when I mentioned it to him.
I concur with you 100% on item #2. For the love of all that is holy, get that man some suction.