My (Not Quite) Fifteen Minutes of Fame

      When I lived in Pittsburgh, WYEP 91.3FM was my radio station of choice. A community-sponsored station, YEP has always featured a great, eclectic playlist--as I write this, they're playing the latest from Drive-by Truckers. Before that was Jackson Browne, Del Amitri, Counting Crows, Okkervil River, and Marc Cohn. Even after moving away, I've kept up my membership and continue to listen to YEP on their internet stream. I've found a lot of great new artists that way.
      One of YEP's regular features is called "My Fifteen Minutes." The morning DJ, Cindy Howes, solicits three-song playlists from listeners--with or without a unifying theme--and plays them during her morning show. Once a week, on Friday, she'll choose one listener to be a guest DJ to introduce and chat about his playlist. A while back I sent her a playlist with the theme of "first tracks that blew me away," which included "Litany (Life Goes On)" by Guadalcanal Diary, "East of Eden" by Lone Justice, and "Set Out Running," by Neko Case. Last week Howes called me for a brief phone interview, and on Friday, at 7:15AM, I had my (not quite) fifteen minutes of fame as a guest DJ. I usually hate hearing my own voice recorded, but I was relieved to discover that I didn't say anything too inane or otherwise sound like an idiot. I was briefly nonplussed by the fact that the 20-something Howes had to ask me how to pronounce "Guadalcanal" (do they not teach WWII history in school anymore?), and unfortunately YEP didn't have access to the out of print "Litany"; we decided to replace it with "Watusi Rodeo," even though it's not a first track.
      Unfortunately, I screwed up my program that records internet streams, and although YEP has several podcasts of their various shows, "My Fifteen Minutes" isn't one of them. So my fifteen minutes have been lost to the ether. But it was still fun to pick songs for my favorite radio station and get to talk about them on-air. Now if only the Triangle had decent community radio, I could contemplate another career change--to DJ.