2000-07-05 | 02:38:33

nigh on two years ago, i used to cart my ass through an hour and a half of traffic from a quaint bedroom community in the inland empire to the bustling boardroom community of los angeles. then, at night, i'd cart that same ass home for about the same length of time. bumper-to-bumper for sixty miles. after three months of that hellacious humanoid herding, i was ready to commit homicide.

to pass my time as a car sardine, i'd listen to national public radio, hoping to edify myself. although my buttock muscles were atrophying in transit, i thought there was no need for my mental muscles to do the same.

i'll be honest. listening to npr made me feel smart.

all those erudite stories on high-brow subjects like the reproductive life of the argentinian tse tse fly. the unidentifiable, yet always cosmopolitan, accents of every stinking correspondent. the formula story presentation beginning with dramatic sound effects shortly followed by the dramatic tones of the reporter's voice... *we hear the caw and flutter of wild parrots on the wing* "here in the amazon, amal rises with the morning sun to stoke the unforgiving fires of his bagel foundry."

three months of that made me ready to commit intelligentsia-cide. esoteric mishmash. ivory tower bullshit. as i skip across my radio dial, hearing even a bit the pithy drone of npr makes me hit my next preset button to the nearest hip-hop morning zoo. bring me the head of howard stern any old day over that whiny ass crap.

sorry to be so belligerent. next thing you'll know i'll be dissing federal arts funding. nah, i like to think that some of my tax money helped foot the bill for mapplethorpe's black and white kodak needs.

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