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.