WFMU
I have a WFMU bumper sticker by Mark Newgarden. This is it here (below). I
don't know where I got it. I don't know how long I've had it. Possibly
since it was new in 1989. I only know I've had it longer than I have been
acquainted with WFMU which has only been the past few years. I see now it was a
sign of destiny. The kind that lurks in vaguely labeled
folders inside filing cabinets.  I made a initial version of
this image by holding it up to my MacBook's camera, but that returned a
reversed picture. Tells a better story, I thought, but who would care
about a radio station called UMFW? Plus it was out of focus. So I did a
proper scan on workplace equipment. WFMU is a radio station in New Jersey across from New York City formerly a college station (it outlived its college), it operates now as a freeform radio co-op.
As it happens WFMU is in the midst of their annual fund raising Marathon. This one marking their 50th anniversary as a broadcast station. They aim to raise a million dollars. They are the main radio station I listen to, internet streaming makes this advance of civilization possible. Given that my workday hours affixing barcodes to library books and linking item records to MARC bibliography records wash over me, like a flat gray rainstorm, I regard this stream of being, WFMU, amidst nothingness as the crucial dialogue of the day.
To be fair I also listen to WZBC up in Boston: John Straub's show, Pip, Bricklane Beats (three hours of Banglore hip hop). I've been listening to ZBC since I was in high school - so very far back in a former century They played that new band Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers. Hep stuff. As well I listen occaisionaly to WAMU which is DC's Diane Rehm - Terry Gross outlet. WAMU's motto these days is: 'It might sound like we're all talk, but we got an HD channel that's fulla bluegrass and another that channels the BBC.' In all this the critical point is the same, but in its audacity WFMU stands alone. I listened to the first week of the marathon and ponied up my pledge. Not a cause so much as service rendered. The Vikings of Jersey City, Willie and the poor boys. I filled out the handy on-line form and hit the button; watching the spinning beach ball of death (Mac OS) whirl my money into the ether. Giving is painful I thought. Quite extraordinarily painful. It burns, it seres, it mortifies. The vast number of 20oz mountain dews lost, dance in teasing scintillation before my eyes. They mock me. Here at this pass I recalled a conversation with my friend Tran the day before. I had been telling her about an article I had seen in the Washington Post about singer from Falls Church Virginia, Thao Nguyen. Who leads a indie folk band. When Thao put out her first record Like the Linen on Kill Rockstars it was just her. That one is on iTunes. Now there is the band with a name: The Get Down Stay Down Band. They as well as naming themselves have relocated to California (I think you have to be a lawyer to really like DC much). They call their new record "We Brave Bee Stings and all." I suppose, I considered, if they can brave bee stings - and all (possibly they were actually "parasitic wasps of the pallisades"); I can part with a little cash for good radio. And just there in that moment all pain vanished.
11:08:14 PM  ;;
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