I have gotten really into listening to the radio lately. I know you must be thinking:

Ack! Ack! Death! Death!

And I’m not just listening to the radio. I’m suckling on the very man-teats of the Devil himself, Clear Channel Communications. You see, I’m listening to Pittsburgh’s Kiss 96.1 FM, a Clear Channel Top 40 affiliate. Besides running rampant over independent media and artists and diversity, you may remember that Clear Channel also hosted a series of pro-war rallies and free concerts back in the day to support “President” Bush’s liberation of Iraq.

Radio isn’t meant for people anymore. It’s gone over to the robots.

Robots who align their electronic souls in accord with one another and with the mother ship by ingesting a strict diet of 15 songs delivered in one endlessly-repeating loop. Robots who know, in their transistor hearts, the primal truth and importance of inane advertising. Robots whose circuits buzz and sparkle in recognition when a man raps on a McDonald’s ad about liking muscle cars, and just being “one of the boys”.

It’s really shockingly amazing. What’s even more amazing is that I’ve really come to enjoy it. Really and truly. I’m not sure how to explain why. But the whole thing seems very important to me.

I know part of it has to do with going out to clubs so much, and being bombarded by that same music there. Part of it has to do with catching that “club buzz” when I’m just sitting around downstairs in the afternoon.

But it’s more than that. It’s almost like its fun being a robot. Letting yourself get hypnotized, while still remaining alert and in control of your faculties. It’s nice to bathe in the weird beauty of it all, after striving so long to keep myself out of the normal stream of culture.

And you know what? Usher is really really good. He’s definitely the best straight-up singer out there right now on regular radio. And that “Confessions, Pt. 2” song just fucking hits the spot sometimes.

My favorite part of that song is when he sings: “I’m ridin’ in my whip / Racin’ to her place / Talkin’ to myself”. I mean, the lyrics aren’t what does it. It’s all about the feel. That part of that song is so fucking felt, it’s incredible.

I also have been getting pretty into that “Coo coo chee” song too. It’s just so goddamn catchy…

Anyway, yeah. Here’s to the rise of robot radio and the good-time summer vibe that it inevitably - against all odds - helps to produce. The best part of it all will be in like 5 or 10 years from now, I’ll hear one of these songs out someplace, and it will instantaneously take me back right to this very moment of my life. And that will be just fine, because I’m having a fucking ball.