But I've always wanted to try this blogging thing out.
Here's my problem: it seems that a crucial component of having a blog would mean I would need something to write about. Right? I think so.
But we'll try it anyway. Who knows, maybe this 19-year-old college student can come up with something interesting to put into a blog...I guess I'll start this off with a story, just for kicks. I'll tell you about Dustin. The real Dustin, not the Dustin I made up in my short story, because I said a lot of things in that story that I just made up. Fiction is like that, ya know?
So Dustin, to the best of my knowledge, got into a severe ski accident and now he's brain damaged. He lives in a group home somewhere in Missoula and he has nothing better to do than to call and ask DJs to play him songs. He requests three things total: Mozart, Miles Davis, and Technine. I don't know exactly how Technine spells Technine, but I think there might be a "9" somewhere in there.
Dustin only requests Mozart between the hours of six AM and nine AM. He's even harder to understand early in the morning, and pressing the phone to your ear as hard as you possibly can actually doesn't help you hear better. We have a record for him, The Best of Mozart, but I only play "Eine Kliene Nachtmusik," or however the hell that is spelled, because it's the only Mozart song I am familiar with, and it's the only Mozart song that isn't 23 minutes long.
So after you play Dustin's request, it is important that you brace yourself for his next call, so he can thank you for playing the requested song and then say your name over and over and over again. If this makes you uncomfortable, well, try to avoid the "721" number. And then you brace yourself again because, trust me, he'll call again. And he'll request Mozart again. Two more times. But I don't ever actually play it again. Sometimes, he doesn't even have his radio on. Sometimes he does.
The DJs at KBGA have very differing opinions of Dustin. The girls tend to think he is adorable, and play his ridiculous requests with giggles and smiles. A lot of guys just get annoyed with him. Robert, a music director, told me that the theme of Star Wars was the most played song on KBGA for a good two years because of Dustin. I guess that kind of thing gets a little old.
So you do the best you can for Dustin, but sometimes, there just isn't time to play his songs. Even if you know he's the only one listening and you feel a little guilty for it.
Sometimes, Dustin asks you how you are. He asked me if I go to church, and told me how much he likes it there. I wonder if he judges me. Sometimes, he'll rant incoherently about how the meteorologists predicted rain for the night before, and it never happened. These kind of things are important to Dustin I suppose. He's always thankful, but I've heard he can get mad, too.
He calls the station forty times a day.
In DJ training, Clark, the program director/nicest guy in the entire world, held up the KBGA handbook, and he said, "Dustin is just as much apart of this station as this handbook." I would argue more so, but that's just because no one actually reads the handbook.
During Radiothon, KBGA's week of pledging, Dustin's mother was the first person to call in. She donated ten dollars.
Clark goes to visit Dustin, and he took a picture, a glossy blurry print with black sharpie underneath that says "this is Dustin!" and taped it in the studio. Dustin doesn't look anything like he sounds. His voice is extremely low and deep, and slow and he sounds mentally ill. But he looks more like a hideous middle-aged female. I mean that in the kindest way possible. He wears tie-die and his eyes point in opposite directions. Clark said that when he talks to you, he looks down at the floor, and then jerks his head up occasionally to look at you. Clark does a good impression.
Dustin is protected at KBGA. On his Mozart record, there's a note that says the record was dropped of specifically for him. "A big thank you from Dustin!" It says. "He started crying joy when he found out someone left this for him." There's a note above the phone that has his number written on it, and it says below "For your protection, (not so you can be a jerk)." His phone number is written again on the actual phone.
I hear he is an artist.
I always wonder who left the record.
Just sayin.
