Radio Show #1

So I know I posted before about how I'm on the radio and shit. It's not exactly real radio-- it's only streamed from the university radio website. I heard universities aren't allowed to have real radio bandwidth here anymore, I guess because there are commercial stations (that pay the government for bandwidth) that deserve it more.

Don't try and stop me.

Which is a bummer because for me, radio is something you listen to in the car, or while you're doing something else, but mostly it's for when you're in the car. Most people I know hate being in the car with me because once I know you well enough, the first thing I do is start fucking around with the radio. Being in control of the music is a serious thing in my world. I used to DJ at a bar here in exchange for beer, and I kept doing it even after a bunch of my CDs got stolen while the bar was shut down by the police.

The beer was a bonus compared to the pleasure of controlling the music in the bar, as were the attentions of one of the barmen. He had big brown hands and big brown eyes with girly lashes. While I was playing at being the DJ, he would send me those blinking air cuddles that if you live in Turkey, you know exactly what it is I'm talking about with the blinking air cuddles.

But lack of certain radio in the car used to be a major homesickness source. Podcasts changed things for me a lot because I suddenly didn't have to be at home to hear Car Talk and other NPR gems. Whenever I miss my parents and driving around with them, I can just listen to an NPR podcast and feel a little better.

Podcasts, however, don't make up for the pleasure of running through the scan function, finding a song I like, listening to it, waiting for the next song, and if it's a commercial or a song I don't care for, running through the scan again. I also stop on songs I think other people in the car might like, but by that point, it doesn't matter because someone is ready to kill me for fucking with the radio.

Radio is a pleasure that's increasingly going out of my life, partly because radio is increasingly irrelevant, partly because radio here kind of sucks (except for Eksen, but even that has too much meh British music), and partly because I'm almost never in a car with the radio.

Radio is probably why I like mixes so much-- I rarely listen to entire albums all at once (with a few exceptions when I'm really in the mood, Pink Floyd)-- because you never really know what's coming next. The iPod that comes built in with the iPhone kind of filled this need. You can load a bunch of songs onto there and hit "shuffle" and there you go.

Is there a better way to say "I love you?"

But I do miss the pleasure and work that went into making a good mix tape-- choosing the songs so they were right for the person or situation I was making the mix for, cutting and gluing magazine pictures or painting something for the cover, and ordering the songs just right so there was nothing jarring.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure no one listens to me on the radio. I know this because week after week something or other prevents my dad or brothers from tuning in, either on their end or mine. And a couple of weeks ago, I said on the radio, "Hey, if you're listening send me a message or I'm gonna start talking about my vagina." I already knew by that point my dad had had a tech failure of some sort.

No message came, but I didn't actually have anything to say about my vagina other than the fact that my vagina and I were hanging out together being on the radio. So I kind of dug myself into a hole with that one.

So to speak.

A friend of mine recently turned me onto 8 Tracks, a website where people load their mixes. How great is that? The idea behind it is that people make the mixes, not algorithms. Not that I have a problem with algorithm sites like Pandora or LastFM. But LastFM doesn't thrill me, and Pandora is only available here with a VPN that gives you a US IP, which often freezes everything up and makes it slow.

So I decided to load all of my shows onto 8 Tracks. No one really listens to me there, either, but I guess it's a few more people than listen to my show. And once I got that sorted out, I decided to start posting the shows here, in case anyone gives a shit. The advantage to listening to me on 8 Tracks is that you don't have to sit through my pointless radio ramblings, and you will never have to hear anything about my vagina.

Rest assured, I got plenty drunk.

The first show I did was for my friend's kid's 3rd birthday. I missed the beginning of the party to be on the radio, but there were plenty of mojitos left by the time I got there.

You should check it out.

Demir's Birthday from istsstranger on 8tracks Radio.