DIALSCAN: KANSAS CITY APRIL 11, 2009

In a sporting mood to start off this trip—Yanks spoilt the Kansas City Royals’ home opener yesterday. The Royals have a lovely stadium which has a pretty backdrop that includes fountains and a tree-lined view of I-70; obstructed by a large HD scoreboard. Sometimes progress sucks.

I start at WHB-AM 810, which claims to house the World’s Happiest Broadcasters. I imagine people who do nothing all day but talk about sports are among the world’s happiest, albeit the world’s most myopic. Right now, a group called The Racinboy’s are discussing such things as radiator departments and frame rails. I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. My stepfather might; although he didn’t race stock cars, he raced motorcycles. This, of course, was years before he met my mother. As for me, if I spent all day watching guys race around a track over and over at speeds in excess of 200 miles an hour, I’d feel like I’d been in a centrifuge. Enough of these guys; although it’s only 9:34 AM EST, I’m now of half a mind to go buy some Hamm’s beer—after all, Hamm’s is Runnin’ Good.

So let’s see what’s going on at KCXL 1140. One guy is talking to another about his hardware store. It figures when the studio could pass for any of the other houses in suburban Harrisonville, MO., right on down to the two lawn chairs out front that you probably could see at any of the beach restaurants here in the Tampa Bay area. By the way, Tampa Bay is the next stop. Before the Electric Light Orchestra drives me nuts, I turn the AM dial for all it’s worth.

Here’s the classical music station—KXTR-AM 1660. Mind you, this is an AM station. Why in God’s name is Gershwin’s Piano Concerto and a myriad of pieces like it being heard on an AM station? A quick side trip to Wikipedia tells me that indeed, when it started broadcasting in 1953, KXTR was an FM station. But like I say, sometimes progress sucks, and so revenue declined. And so in 2000, the nefarious company which owns KXTR—they’ll remain nameless, they know who they are—took the world’s most beautiful music to 1270 on the AM dial. And only a couple years after that, to make way for an “Alternative Rock” station, KXTR was moved further up the dial to where it stands right now. With the advent of the HD Radio, the problem has been half-rectified, as KXTR has been set up at 98.1-2 FM. That’s why KXTR can sell itself as “Kansas City’s HD Classical Station”. But I feel sorry for people driving down I-70 in their Mustangs with the top down. In order to find the classical station, they gotta stop just short of breaking the knob.

All that having been said, it’s 10:00AM EDT. Excuse me for a moment while I marinate in this gorgeous music…

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Well, that lasted a scanty ten minutes. I seriously dislike when the stream airs a commercial for a contest long since ended. So, we move on to KCMO-AM 710. Here, a man named Don Wales is telling the unsuspecting populace how to protect their retirement. Mainly, it sounds like it involves whacking people on the head with a No. 2 pencil. Okay. I can take about a minute of this.

So I give in and turn on KCUR-FM 89.3, which takes great pride in telling me that it’s My Source for NPR News. Not now, thank goodness. Right now, it’s Car Talk, with Tom and Ray Magliozzi, better known as “Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers.” I seldom ever listen to Car Talk, but every time I do, I smile. It never fails. Tom and Ray, Click and Clack, Frick and Frack, by any name, they’re two of the sweetest guys on radio. Probably they’re the only two guys on NPR who come off like actual human beings, and not like they’re eternally hypnotized. Of course, some of you don’t agree with that stinging assessment, and if I offend you, I apologize. That being said, I could fill an entire Dialscan with a blow-by-blow account of the things I dislike about National…Public…Radio. But you’d…be…quite…bored. You probably already are. Listen to me. Twelve minutes of these guys and I’m already thinking like them.

See you in Tampa Bay, if I don’t already.