And here's Stephen Hawking with his Latest Country Hit!

Recently, I've been sorting through my old collection of recorded audio cassettes, about half of which are unlabeled. I've found some old recordings of SNL's "Weekend Update" (whatever happened to A Whitney Brown, anyway? Oh, there he is!) and some songs that I'd forgotten that still hold up pretty well (for that matter, whatever happened to Digital Underground?). Then I came across the strangest tape of all.

(Cue Flashback)

Back in 1992 when I was at the University of North Florida, I was fiddling with the radio in the dorm lounge with my friends David and Clay. We suddenly came across this on one of the frequencies:

"14,392...14,391...14,390...14,389...14,388..."

And so on. It was an electronic voice reciting these numbers. The only interruption to this was every fifteen minutes or so when the station played brief recordings of people calling in and asking what the heck was going on. No answers were forthcoming.

The three of us never listened to the radio much, so we couldn't remember what station it was. We soon discovered from someone else that it was a country station (probably another reason we didn't remember it). Putting that fact aside, this gave us a new topic to discuss for the next several days. Although it was a ridiculous, we even discussed the possibility that it was some sort of countdown to an attack from Cuba (Hey, we were bored and didn't have the internet to play with, whadaya want from us?!).

We eventually did some figuring and estimated that it would hit zero sometime during one of my early morning classes. So, I set up my tape player to record the block of time it would most likely end at. When I got back from class, I played it and heard the following after it reached zero: A brief bit of "Hallelujah", then John Wayne saying the pledge of allegiance (?!), then the sound of a radio being scanned with various formats tuned in and out of until it settles into a distinctly modern country song, then an announcer proclaiming the arrival of the new and improved KROO Rooster Country!

Man, what a gyp!

Much to Mrs. Mosley's chagrin, I really can't stand modern country. Older country is a different matter as I love Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, but the newer stuff seems totally different. This seems to be acknowledged by the people who ran the station, as you can hear them surfing through a Tammy Wynette song as quickly as they do Led Zepplin.

Ah, well. I don't listen to radio much these days anyway what with audiobooks and CD's and, as of the current moment, song curiosities on old tapes. You'll excuse me now, I think I want to listen to that Art of Noise collaboration with Tom Jones again.