It is 990 miles door to door from our house in Florida to my parents house in New Jersey. In the 31 years since I moved south, I have driven the FL/NJ/FL round trip about 100 times. Most of these were done without a radio, phone or any kind of distraction. It was just long hours to think without interruption.
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In a lapse of judgment, I stuck an old radio/CD player in the Suburban’s dash before departing on this last trip, thinking listening to the radio might keep me awake on the drive that I always do straight through. In some perverted sense of fair play, I spent a hour listening to conservative talk shows and then an hour listening to NPR. I would like to issue a mental heath warning not to try this, as they do not cancel each other out. The cumulative effect is closer to what I imagine drinking whisky and eating amphetamines might do to one’s mind.
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The Conservative talk hour was all about world pollution and global climate issues. They spoke with a dozen ‘experts’, who proposed a dozen different actions, and had a dozen different factors to blame. I listened to the full hour, and not one single person mentioned that the worlds population going from 3 billion people to 8 billion in my lifetime played any role at all in polluting the planet or accelerating the depletion of its resources. (Evidently speaking of this is some cross party taboo, as Gore hardly mentioned it in his film) Thesis: the planet we are custodians of will be saved by solar panels built in ‘Green’ factories in China.
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Second hour, NPR discussion on gun control in America, where oddly, all the commentators are women from other nations. One of them advanced the theory that “Canada and the US are interchangeable in attitudes and politics.” At the risk of sounding negative, I have been in 49 US states and 10 of 13 provinces and territories of Canada, and I feel there is some difference between Alberta and Alabama. (I suspect that their respective residents are also both happy about that.) The commentator went on to say that ‘we were the same because we were both proud of being British colonies’ neatly skipping small differences like Canada still having the Queen of England of their currency, and the US fighting 2 wars to be independent, having the 2nd amendment, and Washington on our dollar. America has plenty of ‘character’ that I am sure nearly all Canadians are thankful they are not afflicted with, but only an idiot would suggest the two countries are interchangeable.
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The experiment over, I reached in a pile of old CD’s in the dark, and stuck in the first one I found. It turned out to be the original Blind Mellon album. I spent the next 100 miles listening and thinking about all the music Shannon Hoon could have made, if he had lived past 1995. His artistry and commentary on the human condition has brought more to my life than anything I have ever heard on talk radio.
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Aviation Connection:Building a plane requires many things, but crucial among them is the solid belief that the world will be here, and in reasonably good shape 24-60 months from the day you start the project. I have heard many things on talk radio, but I have never heard a guest come on and say “We predicted the end of society every day for the last 40 years, but it has never happened, so today’s dire warnings probably are bull shit also.”If you listen to talk radio, try quitting for a month and see if the future, and the concept of you flying your plane in it seems a lot more plausible. It will not help their ratings, but it most likely will improve your attitude and optimism.
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Above, R. Shannon Hoon, 1967-1995. Blind Mellon can be seen on this Letterman clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4H5vsQM7z8. Hoon has a question mark drawn on himself, to ask “Why?”. The performance was taped the day Kurt Cobain was found. The song he is singing is ‘Change’. The words to the song where put on Hoon’s tombstone the following year. In spite of the fact neither man lived to see 30, I find their lives and music less depressing than listening to the drama/hate factories commonly called “media news sources”.
