The Morning Show

It had tried to make it become a force of habit. On the rare occasions when I did have my dorm room to myself weekday mornings my freshman year, I would always attempt to do the same thing: take a shower, get dressed, turn on the radio, and start working on my studies.

Of course, not only would I need the room to myself, but also I would need to wake up in time to lounge about in the morning before my classes started. This alone is a rare enough occasion to limit the morning study session to a weekly event, if I was lucky and feeling particularly ambitious. Most mornings, even those that I did have to myself, involved hitting the snooze bar 6-8 times, rolling off the bed and hitting the concrete floor, falling asleep in the shower (if I had time to take one at all), throwing on whatever clothes I had clean and getting my ass where it needed to be, approximately 2 minutes before it needed to be there. This is a tradition I still carry with me today, sans concrete floor.

I knew that the activities and pace of the morning would be indicative of the day that was to follow it. If I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed with enough time to study, and get the occasional cup of coffee and éclair on the way to class, I always felt more alert and had a better attitude that I did if I was in a rush. Bolting out the door and barely getting to class on time was a sure sign that paying attention that particular day was going to be rather difficult, especially when falling asleep in the middle of my classes.

When I did manage to get up early, my favorite activity when studying was listening to the local morning show on my favorite rock radio station. It was your normal, average, everyday morning show, hosted by two smart-ass guys in their early thirties. They talked about how much they hated the movie they saw the night before, the odors that emanated from their cohorts in the booth, and how much they hated the band Oasis. They would have guests such as bands that would be in town for a short stint, girls that could bend themselves into interesting shapes, and the occasional midget. Of course, none of these claims could be substantiated unless they posted pictures on the Internet.

Like every other morning radio show, they also had the propensity to give away prizes to their listeners who call in and answered a trivia question, identified a song that had just played or the likewise. One morning in particular, one of the hosts came on and announced a rather simple contest to win.

“The 99th listener to call in and correctly give us the name of the city that U2 hails from will get a limited edition copy of their, as of yet, unreleased ‘Best Of 1980-1990’ album!”

This to me just sounded too good to be true. I was never a huge fan of U2, but everyone knows where they are from. A fourth grader could answer the question. Not to mention, it was a chance to get free shit. I, like every other red-blooded American male, will jump at the chance to get free shit. It doesn’t even matter if you want the free shit, you will try to get it.

U2 wasn’t necessarily a band that reached out and said ‘buy me’ whenever I walked past their albums on the record store shelves, but I would listen to a free copy of their greatest hits CD. I’ll be honest; I really wouldn’t care if they were giving away a Chinese version of ‘Ishtar’ on Betamax, I would have tried to get my cheap hands on it. One never knows when they have to show a foreign exchange student who has an obsolete piece of technology how bad some movies could be.

I picked up the receiver and frantically dialed the phone, getting a busy signal at least 6 times before I got through. When I did manage to finally get through, I was in shock to hear my voice echo in the dorm room, emanating from the sound system inside of it.

“Hello… Sir, would you mind turning your radio down a bit?”

“No problem.”

I cranked down the volume almost all of the way so I could hear what he had to say. I was still in shock to hear my own voice over the radio, but I was even more shocked to realize that there was no tape delay. The conversation was going out over the airwaves live.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Jake!”

I was chomping at the bit; I had already known that they wouldn’t have put me live over the air if I wasn’t the 99th caller. I was a shoe-in to win. I had never been that excited before, I had spend a good portion of my life winning academic and athletic accolades, but I had never won anything important.

“Alright Jake, you’re the 99th caller! Can you tell me what city the band U2 is from?”

“Of course I can! They are from Dublin, Ohio!”

My nerves got the best of me; I think the host of the show just let it slide.

“What was that?”

“I said they are from Dublin, Ireland!”

“That’s correct! A copy of U2’s next album is yours! Now tell me Jake, what is Tucson’s number one rock station?”

“That would be K-… uh…”

At that moment some things became blaringly obvious to me. I had spent the past few months listening to and enjoying a rock station that had been the only station I had ever listened to in my, as of then, short tenure in the city of Tucson. I left the station on in my car as I drove around town. I left it on in my dorm room when I was there alone. I had listened to it at parties and other social gatherings around campus from time to time. It was preset number 2 on every radio receiver I owned.

In this short period of time, I had become an avid listener of the station. I had not, however, bothered to learn the call letters to my new favorite broadcaster.

“Uh… KROK?”

“Uh, no.”

“KZGL?”

I knew that wasn’t it. KZGL was a radio station in Flagstaff. At this point, I was grasping at straws.

“No, not KZGL.”

Getting more and more nervous, I started blurting out any four-letter combination beginning with ‘K’ that came to mind.

“KORN.”

“Korn?! Now you’re reaching! Let me help you out, it’s KFMA. Now, what is Tucson’s number one rock station? ”

Tripping over my words, dying of embarrassment, I tripped over my letters, and for the first time, demonstrated my dyslexia.

“KAFM!”

“Dammit Jake, you are killing me. Try it again, it’s KFMA. What is Tucson’s number one rock station?”

“It’s KFMA!”

“Thank you!”

Now thoroughly embarrassed, I grabbed a cup of coffee at the student union and tried to slither my way into my first class, as cool and as calm as I could possibly be. If need be, the event would not be spoken of for a few years, but apparently, I wasn’t the only listener of KFMA in my circle of friends.

I walked in to class greeted by six or seven of my friends, standing, clapping and cheering. My face turned red, which, believe it or not, does happen to Hispanics. I sat down and slumped in my seat, trying to dispel the scene that was developing in a lecture hall of 260 students.

“Jake, what’s your major again?”

“Aerospace engineering, why?”

“I would really reconsider that, buddy!”

“Fuck off.”

Over the next few months, the event somehow found its way into my dating life. I am still unsure as to whether every female I was asking out in this particular stretch of time was listening to the morning show that particular day, or if my chances were being sabotaged by my friends. One thing is for certain, over the next few weeks and months, I heard the following phrase far too often:

“You’re the jackass who got the call letters wrong, aren’t you?”

It was beginning to happen so often, that I began to start most of my conversations with women by posing one query in particular.

“I have an off the wall question for you.”

“Ok, what is it?”

“Tell me, what is Tucson’s number one rock station?”