the city of dead DJs.

when i turn on my car radio here in DC, i pull over to weep and wail over Adele's crooning - sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead. but not for the reason you might think. i mourn because i hear it for the 45th time (that's a gracious estimate). i mourn because my very bones have memorized the ballad. my wife would probably comfort me if she wouldn't weep along with me in the passenger seat. but she does and the feeling of empathy is actually quite comforting. so we silently hold vigil, holding hands and holding breath, waiting for the piano and the pain to fade. we'd turn the dial to another station if we knew we could find repose; but we know in a freakishly omniscient way that Shout to the Lord, Pumped Up Kicks, or Moves Like Jagger will be simultaneously playing on two different channels. i'd like to say we're that good but really the stations are that bad.

sometimes songs really do last, shedding layers of depth on repeat. sometimes, though, they do just hurt instead.

the christian vocals here, too, are begging to be unheard. i have speculated that the DJs of 91.9 passed away on studio location sometime in the 1990s/early 2000s - Darlene Zschech, Mercyme, Casting Crowns, and Jeremy Camp remaining their eternal aural eulogies, poor souls. i hope someone plays, oh i don't know, maybe Whitesnake's Here I Go Again or Boston's More Than a Feeling at my funeral. but only once (they are hurt instead songs the second time around) and only if i'm for sure dead (i imagine the older generations would tap their feet to the bands, but i'm not a big fan of them).

i suppose the responsible thing for me to do would be to just turn off the radio. but - i kid you not - every three weeks or so, i'll hear a NEW song. and i scream joy and i slam on the brakes and scream some more out the window and i believe in good, living DJs again. sometimes hope really does pay off.