i know my chicken.
my local public radio station starts its pledge drive in a couple weeks and every time a pledge drive comes along, it makes me think of john looking like a chicken.
ok... wait.
stop.
rewind.
play.
i used to be a dj for my local college radio station. since it was college radio, we were a bit more willing to humiliate ourselves for the good of the radio station than our more adult, npr counterparts. you'd never hear bob edwards or cokie roberts offering to shave their head for a hundred dollar pledge like my housemate did that one year. she actually looked pretty cute with her head shaved and her wire framed glasses.
i had a covers show. i played nothing but covers, covers, covers. i like to think that this was way before the tribute album fad began, but secretly, deep down inside, i think there's always been a tribute album fad. john was my co-host for that season and it was time for a pledge break.
i hated pledge breaks. i hated pledge breaks with the same kind of unhealthy suppressed dislike that one has for having lunch with your boss. it made me think of when i had to sell girl scout cookies in elementary school, but without the benefits of earning a badge or eating too many thin mints. it was even harder to be chipper about money sucking to the hundreds and hundreds of listeners who were stuck in their cars during rush hour. "save our station!" i would whine diligently. the phone would sit quietly at my side.
to be perfectly honest, there were always a couple folks who would come to the rescue for my shows. there was my stalker listener who liked to call himself rodent. rodent would listen to me from his gas station attendant job at the chevron on ocean street and he would call my show religiously. he would tell me that he was excited to find my picture in the latest program guide and how excited he was to think about bumping into me on the street. it was pretty impressive how he did his covers research but it was also irritating how he would do anything to keep me on the phone. even if i found him horribly creepy during the normal course of the year, i would be embarrassingly relieved to get his pledge during my show at those crucial bi-annual pledge drives.
one day we were having our pledge break and john arrived with a box of latex surgical gloves. much of that day's show involved talking on air about how weird it was that he would be walking around with a box of latex surgical gloves. after an hour of absolutely no calls, he offered to put one of the gloves on his his head.
"so, my wonderful listeners, if you would like to hear john put a surgical glove over his head, please give me a call on the request line and we'll have a live performance just for your tender ears!" i offered.
the phones rang off the hook. actually they blinked off the hook since things tended not to make too much noise at the radio station. our doorbell made the red lights blink and the phone made the yellow lights blink. if you were conscious enough to remember if you were supposed to pick up the phone or answer the door, then you were probably conscious enough to be on the air.
i have no idea why people wanted to give their money to hear a college student put a rubber glove over his head, but lo and behold, there we were. audience members pledged up to $200 to listen to this remarkable feat in action.
it sounded squishy at first. the kind of squishy you would expect from skin rubbing against latex. first he rolled the glove over his eyes, smushing his eyelids into a freaky, extraterrestrial stare. the glove slipped over his nose and mouth in such a way that somehow allowed him to breathe, but made his speech almost unrecognizable. above all else, the jutting fingers popping out of the top of his head made him look like a chicken.
"and thank you, ladies and gentlemen! thank you for supporting public broadcasting!" i exclaimed to the radio listening members of our community. john nodded, glove fingers flapping back and forth with his head. <5.1.00>
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