Article: 288660 of talk.bizarre From: thom@ka1zgc.ampr.org (Thom Rounds) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Subject: Things I was actually thankful for this holiday weekend... Date: 2 Dec 1996 02:51:11 GMT Organization: Totally Lacking Lines: 43 Message-ID: <57tg6v$3dg@news.uninet.net> Reply-To: tar@maine.maine.edu Keywords: FRANK ZAPPA RADIO THANKFUL MONEY Like any radio station, the one I work at has no full time staff present for the holidays. Being part-time *and* experienced *and* anti-social, I was asked to work all four days this weekend (different shifts on Thu and Fri than my usual weekend morning show (and yes, 'than' IS the word I wanted)). Why I did so gladly is left as a test for attentive readers. The quandry arose when: I arrive at the station, sign all the papers I must sign to render myself legal. Check the transmitters (our complex houses four radio stations), walk back into the WTOS studio, look for my provisions (mostly munchies and caffeine) and realize that I had in fact forgotten to stop on the way in for my usual foraging and flirtation at the local convenience store. No problem, there are 50 cent vending machines in the 'lounge' (I'm laughing hysterically as I type that). I dig deep into my pocket and pull out fifty-two cents. One quarter, one dime, two nickels, seven pennies. Shit. Now I've got cottonmouth, I've got the munchies, and I gotta take a leak. So I flung open the back door, urinated and pondered. My car! Mind you, my car is *dead*. I tried to fix it myself, but it's one of those annoying problems that appears deep in the bowels of the wiring and cannot be helped by hacking at the ECM. I'm borrowing someone else's car. My first search came up empty. I checked the front seat and dash concealment areas and cul-de-sacs for change. Nothing. Several hours later, I check the WHOLE car. This time, I found a half- eaten bag of Hot Jalapeno chips (they even put flames on the word 'hot'. Gotta love those neural peptides) and a quarter. I was so thankful I even said so on the air. (The overnight show before Thanksgiving on a 100,000 watt Rock station doesn't usually draw a very coherent crowd) Now, then, the cool part (after I'd fixed the munchie-cottonmouth thing and caused it all over again later) was that I got to give away some really cool stuff. We have a little thing called "Franksgiving" which lasts the entire weekend and just wrapped out an hour ago as I type this. The idea is, if you hear a Frank Zappa tune, be caller #5 and win "Clean American Version" (a newly-released Zappa best-of), and go in the drawing to win "You Can't Do that On Stage Anymore" (a twelve-CD set) and "Leather" (which is printed "Later" on the disc (I have no clue how to the two accent dots over the "t")). Over the weekend, I gave away five of them. And I was thankful for that, too. --Thom Frank, wherever you are, thanks for the quarter.