Farewell Roosevelt High School

Well friends, I had a highly memorable Monday broadcasting psychedelic radio to the wonderful students and faculty of Torrance, California's own Roosevelt High School.  (Go Mascots!)  It was truly a pleasure to spend a morning riding the signal from 87.5 FM: The Sound of Roosevelt High.  If you'll indulge me half a pun, the experience was truly educational-- from the radio booth to the principal's office and back.  Many thanks to the day's co-pilot, Josh Redman, and to my niece Chelsea, who made the entire broadcast possible.  After three months spent off the radio, it was just a blast to be back on the air.

Granted, the Roosevelt High station has a pretty low wattage, so I believe my transmission was mainly confined to the school campus, most of its parking lot, and a couple of adjoining Torrance side streets.  (Although I was told later that apparently they'd been able to tune into my broadcast, with just a bit of static, at Café-Club Fais Do-Do, a full 13 miles away, a stroke of reception luck I chalk up to the vagaries of the FM band and to the conductive power of Fais Do-Do's aluminum superstructure.)  But I've never been one to quibble over the size of an audience.  As I don't currently have a 50,000 watt tower of corporate power to disseminate my broadcasts, I welcome any group of listeners with open arms.

I made a rare return trip to Earth for the show, and it was great to see Chelsea face to face (she's really growing up!) as well as to join my brother David and the rest of the family for dinner at the Olive Garden.  But now it's time to pack up my microphone and turntable, hop into my little rocket, and head home to the Lost Moon of Jupiter.  As fun as it was to be back in high school for the day, I'm eager to get back to the moonbase and resume my job hunt.  Three months is a long time for a disc jockey to be out of work.  I really should be sending out some more CVs, making calls, pounding the pavement, that sort of thing.  I mean, the Lost Moon may be a Jovian utopia where the idea of money is as foreign a concept as table tennis -- you wouldn't believe how many times I've tried and failed to teach the aliens ping pong -- but that doesn't mean I don't have bills to pay.  It's more expensive than you might think to maintain a functioning space station, and if you want to hit the really good vintage record sales around the gas giants, you've gotta spend an arm and a leg on rocket fuel.  Plus all the major carriers really screw you on cell phone coverage in the Outer Solar System.

But I'm confident that with a little bit of ambition and leg work I can definitely find a station to carry Lost Moon Radio by December.  After all, my annual Holiday Show is one of my favorite broadcasts of the year, and I can't imagine this temporary unemployment hiccup getting in the way of that tradition.

In the meantime, if anyone reading this works for the City of Torrance and can do something about a citation for parking in a school zone, please contact me directly.

I've Found a New Frequency

As my loyal listeners know, I recently had to disconnect from the satellite that was beaming my broadcast down to Earth every Thursday night from 12-1. That's right, I resigned my slot at KTSH-FM, and I've spent the summer wandering the cosmos, looking for that magic new frequency.

Well I'm here to announce that I have found one. Now I'm going to warn you it's a little untraditional, but hey, so was Chunga's Revenge by Frank Zappa-- the first and only LP named for a vacuum cleaner. Remember that scat-vocal "drum solo"?

So if you happen to be in Torrance, California, this Monday morning, tune your radio to 87.5 FM and sample my latest transmission via this unorthodox conduit.  I'll be meditating on a theme appropriate to the locale: Childhood.  Will the broadcast be as ground-breaking as Zappa? No, but then again neither was Devo. And unlike them, I can live with that.