This morning, I did my last show on WRFL. What?!? I hear you say. I thought the last Self Help Radio was on May 1st! Oh, hold your radio horses! The last Self Help Radio was in fact ten days ago. I did my last freeform radio sub show this morning. It was from three to six am, when you were asleep no matter which time zone in the United States.
Over the past couple of years, I've come to enjoy the late-night slots on WRFL. I'm sure I've said this before - I found them meditative. Unlike Austin, a city three times the size of Lexington, where I would get weirdo calls at 3am, virtually no one reaches out to the station in the wee hours in the Horse Capitol Of The World. (I get more action from my Twitter account, since it is happening all over the world.) It really does feel like I am playing music in secret, perhaps to a shy, lonesome person who can't sleep. Who might be driving from place to place trying to outrun a chronic insomnia. But who has turned the dial to WRFL, unsure what might be found there. & it's me!
The station is moving locations temporarily while the UK Student Center, where it's located, is renovated, so most of the posters + stickers have been torn off the walls, & this morning - my last ever in that space - most of the vinyl & all of the CDs had been boxed up, making the shelves eerily empty. Some WRFL members have decided to desecrate the walls further with slogans + drawings, which is perfectly WRFLish, but despite still being well-appointed in the manner of broadcast radio booth, the place felt a little abandoned. Which made the experience all the more lonely. Perfect for me!
Not a single phone call, not any acknowledgement that I was behind this board picking + choosing music in exactly the opposite way of pretty much every radio station on the dial. In short, nothing terribly different from any other late-night slot I've been doing in Lexington for the last five years.
There is one person who used to call late at night, about whom I'll talk at some later date. I worry that something has happened to him, actually - he used to be quite reliable in his middle-of-the-night calls. One thing that may have dissuaded him is that the station finally got caller ID in the past two years, & overnight deejays learned not to answer the phone when he called. He may have been a bit troubled, but I think he could sense when he was being ignored. I confess I did it a couple of times, myself.
I wasn't entirely sad when I left the station for what was the last time for sure. I won't have time to sub another show, & once the station moves, I won't have access to it, as I am not an active programmer any more. The morning was quiet & cool, with only the weirdness of UK employees, who work on a "smoke-free campus," sitting at the bus stop (technically city property?) puffing away at their cancer sticks. Because the employees of the Student Center have been relocated, & because school is over, the parking lot was more bare than usual. However, I believe the fast food restaurants will remain open for a while; it was those workers who took respite from low-wage drudgery to shorten their lives in the nicotine-tar manner.
My puppies, who slept while I was on the radio, welcomed me home, & I walked around our backyard in the soft dawn. I wrote in this perfunctory journal I keep that I'll miss my home most of all. My wife loves this place, & has made it very comfortable to live in. I hope I can express that to her adequately - she really has made this the most pleasantly cozy place I've ever lived.
Good bye, WRFL! I can't thank you enough for making my time in Lexington as nice as it was. Good bye, quiet late-night WRFL listener! I know you exist, even if you're quite sure you don't!
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