When I was little, my sister and I would play CHiPs. She was Ponch and I was Jon. We 
would make the hallway in our house the 405 and our mode of transportation were pillows. When we put the pillows between our legs, those soft things became bad ass motorcycles. It was pretty sweet. Not to mention, the wrecks we endured. Speeding down the stairs was always a disaster waiting to happen. Believe me, it was fun. Make believe was fun. You know what else was fun?
Being Christmas, I feel it’s only appropriate to doing something about it. I am graced with the opportunity to listen to Christmas music all day at work. I do find it strange that we play this music. It’s not just us. It’s everywhere. For being a country that is so afraid of upsetting anyone, we go around and wish people “Happy Holidays”. You can’t say “Merry Christmas”. It’s not right. You don’t want to upset anyone with another belief. But it’s okay to blare music about Santa and Jesus throughout the stores these people shop at. I’ve had a few people wish me a Merry Christmas and I have had others with me Happy Holidays. Either way, it doesn’t bother me. Maybe because I am Catholic and celebrate the season. It’s hard to say how I would react if I wasn’t. Would I get upset if I were Jewish and people wished me a Merry Christmas? I can’t say. But it just doesn’t seem kosher.
I don’t like the music playing the day after I cram a turkey down my throat. I like listening to it the night of Christmas Eve. There is something about driving around that night and listening to the holiday songs. Toss in some snow and the magic of the holiday is perfect. Apart from my rant, I like to share with everyone a few Christmas songs I love and do enjoy during the holiday. I did skip over the more rock and roll style songs. They are fun to listen to but to really feel the spirit of Christmas, these are 5 songs that do it.
1. O Holy Night
2. Little Drummer Boy
3. Happy Christmas (War is Over)
4. Silent Night
5. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Back in 2004-2008, I took to the air and was a dj online. Those four years were amazing. I had so much fun. I always said I would get back in to it but never actually took the step forward. I was to 
start a new station with a friend but I started working longer hours, dedicating my life to my blog and late night yahoo chat. I just shoved the online deejaying job aside. Maybe I should get back into it. Who knows. I say that now but next week or even tomorrow, I’ll forget about this and not attempt it at all.
How did you get to be a dj online?
Good question! I mentioned before how I played an online game, “The Sims Online“. Great game. Anyway, I was playing the game one day and there were players shouting out song lyrics and thanking a person in the house for playing a certain song. It took a minute to discover she was streaming music online and the other people were tuning in. I clicked the station. If I recall, I believe the station was called “Fusion Radio”. I filled out an application for the station. It sounded like a fun thing to do. I have tons of music. I have good taste in music. Few days later, I was contacted and a test date was set up. I already had a microphone. I had music. I just needed a certain software to get the streaming going. Everything worked. I was in. I picked a few days I would dj on. The only downside to this station was I had to create a specific online handle (yahoo instant messenger) to dj from. It wasn’t such a big deal. I just had to place “dj” in front of my name. I just they wanted people to know I was a dj and not just a random nobody. This brought me to having two different yahoo handles. It caused issues when trying to read mail or message friends. I had to pick one to make my main name. I picked the dj one.
After months of this, the station changed formats. We were really allowed to play whatever we liked. I played it all. The station quickly dropped those not interested in just doing heavy metal. I was out of a job. The dj’ing bug was still with me. I wanted more. I jumped on the games forums and did a search for “radio stations”. I found one called, “ROFL radio”. Maybe not the best name. Okay, it was a pretty sh***y name. But I went with it. I was allowed to switch back to my old yahoo name. That was awesome. This is where I met Katrina, Chris, and Jendoline. I knew Katrina from game. She was friends with people I eventually became good friends with. Katrina was amazing. She even knew about the movie “Mr. Boogedy“.I met others but these three were good friends. Jendoline and I hit it off pretty well. We clicked. Before her and I arrived at the station, is wasn’t wildly popular. They were just a little station in the corner of the web. Just like my blog. Not wildly popular but I am here. Enjoying the space I have on the world wide web. Jendoline and I brought listeners to the station. I wasn’t really wanting to have a “role” with the station. I forgot what title I was given but I was given a little power at the station. Nice and all, but I really just wanted to play music and have fun. I already had responsibilities at work. Don’t overload me.
Before Jendoline arrived, I had fun with doing what I do best. Drinking. I got some strange idea one day to broadcast on the air and drink as I deejayed. Not the wisest decision I ever made but it made for some good comedy and listeners. One of my highest listener counts. I recorded the show. Not sure how much I drank. According to the file I have saved, I only lasted about 2 hours. Not sure how much I drank before I went on air and not sure how much I drank while on the air. What I do remember is, I called people. I yelled. I swore. I spilled drinks. Even my good friend, G-Rock got in on the action. It was quite the night. I edited the file and broke it down into 14 different files. Below are a few of them. These are probably the cleanest out of them all.
(NOTICE: NOT SAFE FOR WORK. DO NOT PLAY THESE FILES WITH CHILDREN PRESENT. DON’T PLAY THEM AROUND YOUR BOSS.)
While at ROFL, Jendoline and I created a segment we called, “Upcoming Artist”. Jendoline was really the one who found them. I helped with the interview and the recording of the interview. We interviewed a number of people. Our first interviewee, was a teenager out of California. His name is Ronnie Day. A very talented artist. Here a little bit of his interview here. Check out his site. Grab his CD. You can get it at Amazon.com.
Ronnie Day Interview Part 1 (Sunday July 24 2005)
Ronnie Day Interview Part 2 (Sunday July 24 2005)
Ronnie Day Interview Part 3 (Sunday July 24 2005)
Here is a video to “Outside”.
Besides interviewing Ronnie Day, we talked with “Milton and the Devil’s Party” and “The Hamptons“. The interviews are saved but due to limited space, I am not posting them. I can send you them if you like. The interviews were always fun to do. The idea started strong but after some time and I am not sure really why, it just stopped.
Jendoline and I had a great time at ROFL. I cannot recall what happened but she was “fired”. Hard to be fired from a job you don’t really get paid for. The ROFL family was worried that with her leaving I was going to leave to. I assured them that I wasn’t. But I did. This was back in 2005. I recorded my last show at that station. The show that night started out like normal. I started with some R&B. I jumped into some rock and roll. Mixed in some country. Then after a few hours, I switched it up a bit and started to play songs that told them basically, “I’m effin’ leaving.”
The play list at the end…
A pretty good selection I have to say. Jendoline and I bailed on the station and went out to create our own. I will talk about that in the next part of my online deejaying days. Hands
down, the greatest time I had working for an online station. Besides running my own online forums (pitweston.com), this was number 2. Sadly, I shut down my forums. I mentioned in a previous post that I still have the SQL file on my hard drive. I just don’t know if it is even possible to bring it back to life. Not to reopen the forum for posting but just to take a second look at the craziness that went on at the forums. Maybe a whole blog post will be dedicated to the crap we pulled while on the forums. When I quit the station, I had the idea of recording the entire show and playing it with me not on air. I had a file I was going to play at the end of the show but with me not pre-recording the show, I never got to use the file. Here it is.
It was fun. I’ll post the second part to this later this week. But knowing me, it’ll me months before I return to this.
I remember when I ate these things. I had no issue with them. Then, like most of the crap I hate, I just stopped eating it. First off, no fruit should be mushy. It’s like you’re eating a solid paste. I could have said, solid waste but not too sure how many people eat that. I know of only 2 girls that have. The smell is horrible. (I’m talking about the bananas now. But yeah, the S.W. is not the greatest of smells either). Anything banana flavored, (pudding, candy, fluff) is just as nasty as the fruit itself. Actually. Let me get on the topic of candy. That artificial flavoring they use to make runts, laffy taffy, starburst, whatever the candy may be, the taste is ten times worse than the fruit itself. Most candy doesn’t match up with the fruit it’s suppose to be but cherry, melon, strawberry, those I can handle.
My mother isn’t fond of the grape gum smell. When we were little, we ate that crap like it was, erm…candy. Remember bubble tape!? We’d be the backseat and she’d be driving. We would open it up, pull a long stretch out for each of us and all eat it at the same time. Instantly, my mom would gripe, “Are you eating that grape gum!?” We’re sitting there chewing our gum. No, Not chewing. Poppin! The smell of the gum would give her a headache. She’d open the windows and gripe about it. Any other grape flavored gum can be put in place of the bubble tape. My mom just doesn’t like the smell of grape gum. Grape flavoring doesn’t taste like grapes either. Am I getting old? I am coming to the realization that we were lied to as kids. Was this the way for adults to get us to eat our fruits? But if you think about it, a kid is going to expect the grape to taste like bubble tape. They are going to want the watermelon to taste just like the jolly rancher does. I am not saying that I feel cheated. I liked that stuff when I was a kid. I still like grape kool-aid. I don’t drink it anymore. But if someone offered me a grape kool-aid, I’d drink it.
I am very anti-banana. I mean, I am but I feel like it gets a bad rap from the artificial flavoring they pass off on the candy and such. I am against the yellow menace as a fruit. It seems to be a very musical fruit too. Not like the beans but singers like to talk about this sharply dressed fruit. Gwen Stefani did. Harry Belafonte did. Even Raffi. They made the fruit cool. They made the banana the S-H-I-T.
I know my sister hates them just as much. We both cringe at the sound of someone eating one. You ever really listen to someone eat one? It’s not very pleasant to the ears. You’re smacking your lips together and you try to chew it but you can’t. It just sticks to every crevasse of your mouth. You have this stringy and mushy goop just oozing about in your mouth. I will run in the opposite direction of you if you’re eating one. I will find you very repulsive from the time you put it in your mouth. It is coming across like I dislike the texture of the banana than the actual taste of it. Both actually. I am sitting here with my eyes closed and I am imagining myself back when I ate them. I can honestly taste it. Right now. Someone guide me to the nearest bathroom.
Okay, I feel better.
No, I didn’t puke but I did recall the taste. I did eat a slice of banana bread earlier this year. I felt obligated. There is a group of church goer’s who like to come in and just mingle with each other. One day when they came in, the store I work at lost power. I wasn’t able to cook or do much of anything, so I sat with them. I enjoyed a cup of coffee. They were passing around some bread to each other. “You want a slice?” Not sure why I didn’t ask what it was but I didn’t. I took the piece and took a big bite. “You like it? My wife makes the best banana bread.” Hey, thanks! I didn’t want to be rude and spit it out. So I ate it and used all my energy not to choke on it. That wasn’t the first time I ate something I didn’t like. I had to consume a corn dog once too. I like hot dogs. I like them with ketchup. I like cold hot dogs dipped in kool-aid. But I don’t like hot dogs wrapped in a sleeve of corn. I’ll stop with the hot dogs. We need to discuss that later.
In closing, I find this fruit to be the worst fruit god ever decided to create. I just wish that when man evolved from apes, we would have evolved to the understanding that bananas are bad. Let the monkeys have it.
Eff evolution. Eff Belafonte. And Eff you, Gwen. Your song was crap. Bananas aren’t the shit. They are shit.
Case closed.
I just thought I’d share a few videos. I anxiously awaited for the show “Glee“. I was surprised, it was a really good show. By now, I would think you and everyone else knows they sang their own rendidtion of Journey’s, “Don’t Stop Believing”. Here is a couple videos you can watch. The cast of Glee, Journey, and a parody of the song. Enjoy!