I think I have

repetitive stress disorder.

Not from typing

at a keyboard all day long, but from changing the radio stations in my

car constantly. I used to be a one- or two-station man, but my tastes

have grown more fickle. Well, that and local radio is terrible.

My commute

to and from work is very short, but the morning drive shows are no less

irritating. Many stations don't play music and their conversations are

either juvenile or inane. In the case of the regular guys on 96 Rock or

Jimmy Barron on the Morning X, they are both. They will prattle on and

on about complete nonsense, often ridiculing the listeners who call in.

This disrespect eventually drove me to AM radio. I figured that if I was

going to listen to talk, I'd rather listen to a station that is all talk.

Last year I

began listening to Neal Boortz, the often hilarious but often infuriating

talk show host on WSB 750. When you agree with his point of view, he sounds

almost presidential and when you disagree with him you want to wash out

your ears and you're afraid no matter how much you wash they will never

be clean again. I stopped listening to him around the time of the election.

He talked about nothing else and I found him to be very one-sided. This

led me to The Zone.

The Zone (790

AM) is a sports talk station that until recently featured Don Imus in

the morning. Thankfully, he is gone and there is a sports talk program

on in the morning. There are three hosts offering three different points

of view on sports topics.

I find myself

listening to this station the most now, with the exception of when the

fiancee' is in the car. The only problem with this station is the really

long commercial breaks, which lead me to flip stations again.

Though I have

a real problem with the morning shows, the local FM radio stations aren't

much better during the day. 99X, the modern rock station, plays the same

50 songs over and over again, with a few older songs thrown in to show

they still use their catalog of music every now and then. If I hear Staind's

"It's Been Awhile" again, I'll start screaming and I'm afraid

I won't be able to stop.

96 Rock, a

mix of classic and modern rock, plays a wide variety of bands. Unfortunately,

they play the same songs over and over. Pink Floyd wrote more than "Comfortably

Numb" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II," just as

the Rolling Stones wrote more than "Sympathy for the Devil"

and "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

It seems like

they have a looping tape that has pauses built in for commercial breaks

and inane chatter. Bands record whole albums. It would be nice to hear

tracks that weren't released as singles. I'll bet that some of those songs

are really good and would make me interested in buying the album.

Other stations

are just as bad. Star 94 plays a good mix of stuff, everything from N'Sync

and Madonna to Blink 182 and U2, but the Top 40 dominates the afternoon

and the personalities on their station sound really fake. I don't believe

them when they say it's a beautiful day or that they really like Mariah

Carey.

The only station

that offers a truly varied mix of music is Album 88, Georgia State's radio

station (88.5 FM). Their problem is that most of the music is too eccentric.

They may play Tom Waits in one set, but they'll follow it with a 10-minute

techno song that samples Julia Childs and a blender, leading the listener

to flip around. Again.

The solution

is very easy. Don't listen to the radio. I can do this for awhile. I have

over 300 tapes and 100 CDs, but even then I start to get fidgety. I don't

like a certain track or I'd rather hear another song off another album.

I start to press the eject button on the tape player or the track selector

button on my new Discman.

I guess I'll

never be content with the radio selection, until I lose my sense of taste,

that is.

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