When Top 40 Perceptions Become Top 40 Reality

My recent car troubles has forced me to drive Erica's car to and from work. I find this to be an incredible help, as it allows me to have my vehicle serviced and still attend work. Driving her car to work isolates me from my main comfort as a commuter -- XM Satellite Radio.

I've become dependent on XM ever since I started listening to it. It has over 100 music stations, sports, talk, etc, all of which I use and even depend on to get me through a week's worth of slow drivers, earth tone Buicks being driven by the elderly in hopes of finding coffee and donuts, school buses, cell phone chatters, and semi-trucks. Since Erica's car only has standard FM, I'm forced to rifle through the stations in the morning commute, desperately trying to find something worth listening to.

As I have done many times in the past two weeks of driving Erica's car, I happen to stumble across top 40 music, which, I have to say, makes me want to yell, kick, and scream, all in the same motion. It reminds me of when I was nine years old and came down with the chicken pox, and I felt so incredibly helpless, because I wanted to itch, cry, scratch, and dig all at the same time, but could do nothing.

I hate top 40 radio, and I know that I'm not alone. So why is it so popular? I have a theory.

Popular music, or top 40 radio, is a bunch of lifeless, unintelligent, easily-forgotten crap. Most people don't like it who listen to it I figure, so I have to wonder what causes people to listen to it. I have listened to a couple of top 40 call in shows, where people call in to request "Fergie" "Mary J. Blige" or "The Fray" for the 600th time, and seem so excited to do so, almost as if they've won a free vacation package. I have always found myself thinking, "How can they be so excited to hear a song that they've heard 2,100 times in the last week, and it wasn't that good to begin with?"

I have substantial proof (and by that I mean a wild guess) that these callers are in fact not actual people, but trained professionals who call in to request these songs one time, and the DJ's simply play their taped requests over and over throughout the following months. I'm convinced there must be a website somewhere on the Internet where DJ's can download different people calling in to request pop songs. In essence, the top 40 industry is creating the perception that people want to hear these songs, that other people enjoy them, that they are good, enjoyable, etc. This perception quickly becomes reality.

It's the only answer. No one I know wants to hear "Over My Head" by The Fray anymore. I think I may be on to something here...

Goodbye Dear Friend

Former Red Sox closer, Keith Foulke, announced today that he would be retiring from the game of baseball. Foulke spent the last two years fighting off nagging injuries, which left him sidelined for much of the seasons.

What makes this noteworthy is that Foulke was the pitcher who was on the mound in 2004 when the Red Sox won their first world series championship since 1918 -- thus ending the curse of the Bambino.

I remember watching the last game isolated from the rest of the world in my one bedroom apartment while in graduate school. I couldn't bring myself to watch it with anyone else around me. He came in to close the final game of the series, and I seriously felt like my heart was going to jump out from my chest. With each pitch he threw, I closed my eyes and hoped the batter would swing and miss. I could barely watch. Foulke never threw the ball hard, but changed speeds between his fastball and his changeup as well as anyone, which made him great. This worked out well for him, but anyone watching him nearly went into shock everytime he took the mound in a big spot.

When he got the final out of game 4, I remember breaking down into tears on my living room floor. It was a special moment in my life, as I knew that they had finally won the big one, and that my grandfather, a lifelong Red Sox fan, was watching the game, even if he didn't have all his bearings. I will forever remember this moment in my life, and how Keith Foulke played a significant role in it.

Now You See Me, Now You Don't

This post is a car update for all my adoring fans:

After the fifth repair on my beloved Aztek, I now have a new problem. My odometer works only when the lights are on. This means that when I drive to work in the morning, my car doesn't record the mileage. When I drive home from the gym at night, it's dark outside, and my lights come on, thus making my mileage work. It's a thing of beauty.

I like to think of myself as being in "stealth mode" as I drive into work in the morning since my car isn't really recording the miles I'm driving. I've really gotten into it. I take on a stealthy, secretive persona as a commuter. I set my phone to silent mode, listen to Morse code on the AM radio, wear my aviator sunglasses, and avoid eye contact with fellow drivers. I'm currently thinking of a code name that I could call myself during this special time in my day.

Car goes back to the shop for the 6th time on Monday. I can only enjoy being in stealth mode for a couple more days.

So, this is the Coy Commuter signing off....

My Electronic Curse Continues

When I was 20 and had nothing to do but play Hot Shots Golf all day on PS2, I conspired with my best friend, Rob, to go see a psychic. We were bored, had an extra $30 in our pockets, and decided the best use of our time and talent would be to go see a woman named Mrs. Heaven who told fortunes out of her house in Northern Michigan.

We were a bit skeptical, probably a little mad, but we went. She told me a lot of things that were very descriptive, specific, amongst other things, which leads me to believe she has some sort of special talent.

One thing she told me has stuck with me until this day.

She told me that I had one of the strongest electronic auras she'd ever seen -- for the worst. She said that I had a strong negative electronic vibe around me that causes electronic equipment that I come into contact with to go crazy. She confirmed the notion that I have long thought to be true.

I could fill up an entire blog of instances where electronic equipment failed me, stumped technicians, and baffled onlookers. I could also provide you with a host of witnesses of my electronic madness (Julie, Dave), but instead, I'd like to offer you a brief story of my latest adventure.

My Aztek (pictured here) started having problems about 2 months ago. The right blinker works intermittently, and the left brake light is always out. This was only a minor nuisance, until my battery kept going dead. I took it to get serviced, had a major electronic switchboard replaced for a cool $450, and had the same problem happen one week later. I took it back to the shop, they replaced the part again (for free, it was under warranty), and all was well... for 24 hours. I climbed in the Aztek this morning, and realized that my odometer doesn't work. It's kind of nice not knowing how fast you're going or how many miles you've traveled. I called the mechanic and he says it's one of the most bizarre electronic cases he's ever seen. He urged me to bring it in on Monday, and he'd personally drive it to an electronic specialist to get to the bottom of the cause. He's the head mechanic at a very respected car shop, and he can't figure out the problem.

I wish I could tell him what the problem was. He probably wouldn't believe me, though. Perhaps Mrs. Heaven would be willing to take a road trip down to my mechanic and let him know that he's better off saving his time. Do psychics make house calls?

Frat Camp

I spent the weekend at what many dub "Frat Camp". It's a 2 1/2 day workshop aimed at helping Miami University's Fraternity & Sorority community advance their community. Over 100 chapter presidents and council officers came to the workshop. My role was as a small group facilitator -- one in which I have been happy to be for the last three years.

Much of the content was about how to make change in the chapters on campus. Participants are required to read Heifetz and Linsky's "Leading With An Open Heart." Much of Heifetz and Linsky's article centers on "technical" vs. "adaptive" change. Technical change relates to concrete, tangible ways to make change, such as rules, procedures, or policies. Adaptive changes, on the other hand, are changes in thoughts, relationships, and ways of knowing. In their words, "An adaptive challenge is not like technical work, in which you can prescribe a solution that doesn't require people to change. To take a medical example, when you give someone penicillin for an infection, she is cured. She doesn't have to change how she lives. But when you unclog the plumbing in someone's heart, that plumbing will stay open only if he changes his life -- changes how he eats; stops smoking; gets more exercise; learns to manage stress."

Much of my weekend was spent helping undergraduates see their leadership in terms of adaptive and technical change. What a task.

Undergraduates, like most Americans, want quick, tangible, easy to understand, and almost immediate change. We like to believe that fad diets will work, because we don't want to change our lifestyles. We want our public school systems to change for the better because we've instituted new accountability standards. We want to toughen laws on hazing to eradicate it from our sports teams, Greek organizations, and military organizations. But these measures rarely work, and it's because human behavior cannot be controlled.

It can only be influenced.

So, in short, I expended much of my facilitating energy challenging students' thinking that "organizing an all-Greek social" or "making an all-Greek t-shirt" would be the end-all, cure-all to strained Greek relations within the community.

I hope I was able to help them see that real, lasting change comes from the adaptive side, not purely from the technical. A hefty task in only 3 days. But, I hope I was able to not only plant some seeds, but provide a little water for them as well.