Monday December 18th - During the day

Day 179, Session 63:
Location: Sitting at my desk. 8th floor. Cube C43A (that's right, I don't even get a full cube.)
First song: Day Tripper by The Beatles
Last full song: Dead Man's Hill by Indigo Girls
Progress: 839-847 of 4617
Total Songs Heard: 739

Dead by They Might Be Giants may just be one of my all time favorite songs. In high school we used to drive around singing this at the top of our lungs. I proudly knew all of the harmony part. We were nerds.

As much as I love They Might Be Giants, I still hold a little bit of a grudge towards them. My senior year in high school I hosted a radio show every Friday right after school. Part of the bit of the show is that every week I would call up the TMBG Dial-A-Song hotline live on the air. It was a bit because every week I would call the Brooklyn based phone number, and every week it would be busy. Then suddenly, one Friday the phone started ringing. I was excited because for the first time in 3 months, we were actually going to get to play a song on the air. I was then even more excited when instead of a song, a voice came on the line and said "If you're in New York, hang on the line for a special message." Sure, I wasn't from New York, but broadcasting a special message was even better than a song.

The excitement reached it's peak when, after a second or two, a voice came on a live voice came on the line and said, "Hey, this is John -- (I forget which John it was) from They Might Be Giants. Who's this?" Holy crap! I called up for a song and got one of the guys from the band live on the air! I explained to John that I was calling from WHHS and I unfortunately was not from New York, but that he was in fact being heard live on the air on both sides of Mill Rd. in Havertown, PA.

John seemed non-plussed. He said he didn't really have time to talk right then because he was giving away tickets to a show in New York that night, but that he'd be happy to call me back in about an hour to do an interview. I said that sounded great and we gave him the station's phone number. I spent the next hour hyping the interview and telling everyone around the station to tell everyone they knew. This was going to be the station's biggest moment since... well... possibly ever (at least as far as those of us around that studio that day were concerned.)

Of course he didn't call back.

In retrospect, that makes perfect sense. They had a show that night and he probably ran out of time. But at the time I remember being exceedingly disappointed in the way things turned out. I hung around the station for an extra 2 hours in case he called back. No such luck.

Years later when I was a radio "professional" Owen Wilson pulled the same thing. At that point it seemed par for the course.