KUFM, or as I say, Cuff’em

OK, suckers, I’m back. I’m in a bad mood again, cranky from the rain. We need it but god damn I got moss growing on my back and other places you don’t want to know about. When’s Hooter’s going to open up, anyway? That’s a good cure for cabin fever.

Since it’s been raining I been sitting around listening to the radio. And I listen to cowboy music some, from that station in Ronan called KERR. The FM cowboy stations are too damn loud and full of ads. Ronan’s got Paul Harvey on at noon, too. He calls it like it is. Nothing escapes him. He knows whos stealing from who and who needs to go to jail.

And his rest of the story is damn good. He’s always got a suprise at the end. His storytelling is kind of like cowboy storytelling. Good and honest and has something to say in the end. Not like most of the people you meet walking down the damn sidewalk.

But I listen to this college station, too. KUFM. Public radio. They get out all over the state. The cowboys I know back east say it’s all run by a bunch of Missoula hippies. They laugh and call them Cuff’em. I have to agree.

Now, they have some good music on, like on Tuesday afternoon when they guy does a nice show on old timey music. He uses to call it Trails Plowed Under. Now it’s just the Stan Howe Show. He travels all over for the music he plays.

And they got good blues on Wednesday night, too. I like the blues because it’s a little like country music. You got to stand back and holler once in a while about what’s bugging you, be it womens or drink or whatever done you wrong, as they say.

Friday night’s music is OK most of the time, except when they have this guy named Fred who plays the same damn songs over and over again. It’s modern music, but he plays the same things. He sounds like a broken record, and he likes to try and sound cool, like, hey, I know I’m playing the same damn records over and over each week, but I think they’re good, so there. I call him Fried Rice because I think he’s fried his brain with too much whacky tobaccy.

Then there’s this gal on Sunday night. Damn, she prattles on and on about what she calls “personal transformations” like she’s laying on a couch in a shrink’s office. Like we want to know how much you thought it was a beautiful fall day or how the snow makes you misty eyed or how you hope everyone has a beautiful week. Shut up and play your music. I like to call her Groan. Groan Richards. Or she has some frenchy sounding way she says her last name.

But I kind of like the music, too. What do they call that? Space music? Sometimes is sounds like alien spaceships flying over the prairie in the middle of the night. Makes me sleepy sometimes, but makes me feel like I’m flying, too. She’s got some funny last name, too; sounds like one of them french names, but I think she made it up to sound more like she’s a like a real radio personality.

But my biggest grip with Cuff’em is that a whole rank of musicians have infiltrated the station. Now, I like music about as much as anyone else. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t listen to the damn radio. But the problem with musicians is lots of the time they won’t shut the hell up and play music. They like to talk. And talk. And run on and on about bullshit because they like to hear themselves talk. What’s worse than a DJ who likes to hear themselves talk? Shut the fuck up and play those damn records already and quit using the radio as your own bully pulpit to sell your own records. (And yes, and by writing “records” instead of CDs I show how old I am).

One of them dresses up in african stuff and beats his drum and thinks he’s cool. I think he just wishes he was black. He’s even what they call the program director; he kind of runs the station. He’s on Tuesday morning, and damn I about puke when I hear his voice. He just likes to hear himself talk. He plays all these records where the banjo player don’t even know how to tune his banjo. Now, is that music? Music is supposed to sound good. Not like some chickens scratching on a banjo left out in the back yard. Or drug behind a truck on a dirt road.

Another one of them musicians interviews musicians but runs his mouth so much they musician hardly gets a word in edgewise. He’s on Tuesday afternoon. Musician’s Showcase or something. Maybe it is cheap therapy, as they say, being on the radio. Maybe all those DJ’s are just getting cheap help from imagineing a shrink is listening to them, execpt it’s the whole damn valley.

And then they’ve got some old broad named Germane who mumbles her way through a book everyday at lunchtime. And then they’ve got the lesbians on Tuesday night, so they ain’t missing no one.

And money. Jesus christ. What a bunch of cheep, greedy bastards. I heard Cuff‘em raises like 400 thousand dollars during their fundraiser selling Llama dung (no shit) and photographs of the peace sign that used to be up on the hill. Other peace-love-and-understanding hippies donate hand made premiums like paintings and pictures and cakes and muffins. There you have it: a give money liberal media free for all. Who pays taxes on all that?

And then Cuff’em still whines about how if you’d like to sponsor a show and this and that and donate an old car ot truck so they can sell it and make more money. Where’s all that money go? To the beer and wacky tobaccy fund? Maybe buy some new CDs for Fried Rice for once?

Jeez, now I’m too pissed to write anymore. have to keep going next week. I ain’t as young as I used to be. Ain’t got the poop to raise hell no more all day and all night long.

Till next time, suckers