Put Another Nickel In

"If I didn't have a dime, if I didn't take the time to play the jukebox..."  was the opening line to a song by Gene Pitney way back when. Jukeboxes, if you can find one, cost more than a dime to operate these days, I am certain.  They probably have jukeboxes that take your credit card.

I once had a sales clerk take my credit card.  Wouldn't give it back, either.

But seriously, folks.  It's called "jukeboxing," in radio parlance, when a station is changing format or just going on the air.  They don't have commercials to run, so they play music 24 - 7 for a couple of weeks.

Which this year means that people in the Baltimore area get Christmas music nonstop from 99.1 FM in DC.  That station used to be El Zol, the Latino station, but El Zol is now on 107.9, which used to a religious station that moved to 860 on the AM dial to make room for El Zol, which stepped aside to make room for a new all-news-all-the-time station on 99.1

I hope that clears all that up.

But let's face it; Christmastime is no time to be coming on the air with a new all-news station, with nothing but Boehner's intransigence, Kim Il Sung's death and Beyonce's parents' divorce to tell us about.  

So they are saving the news til after the New Year and spinning Christmas music all day and all night, without commercials or anything else to stand between us and hearing "Do You Hear What I Hear?" 7 times a day.

I never tire of that song, nor of "Feliz Navidad", nor of the Chipmunk's Christmas songs.  So far this hear, I have not heard The Singing Dogs, and some skillful dial-punching at the last minute the other day saved me from exposure to the dreadful "Christmas Shoes" song.

I'll make a deal:  you don't play "The Christmas Shoes" and I won't play Jimi Hendrix's Christmas medley of "Silent Night," " The Little Drummer Boy," " and "Auld Lang Syne." 

Sounds good to me!