Is it too much to ask that radio stations actually play music in the morning? Am I so different, so out of step with my fellow humans that I'm the only one who would rather listen to music, even lousy music, than to the endless blather of DJ's? Am I so odd that I prefer to hear songs instead of mindless banter, pointless discussion, in sum the droning, unmelodic noise of ceaseless chatter overlaid with the braying of forced laughter? It's not that I want what I don't like banned, I just want a chance to hear what I want to hear. I don't ask that the all-talk morning shows be eliminated, I just ask that some station out there plays mostly music in the morning. In the afternoon music is king — the occasional contest, news, weather, or traffic report, but music by and large. Why can't they exchange some of the morning talk-talk-talk shows with some of the afternoon long stretches of uninterrupted music? Is that really too much to ask for?

What happened to the lone morning DJ? Have they truly gone the way of the Dodo? Why must I be subjected to teams of lackwits telling lousy jokes, quipping lame quips, discussing current events with all the wit and wisdom of the village idiot? What a pestilence on the land. What a plague, the sidekick, hired for nothing beyond a laugh that can be kept up for four hours. Why is that the most obnoxious, most annoying, the most grating and jarring is the most popular? Is it sonic caffeine - a wake up tonic for a chronically sleep deprived America? Am I mad - have I lost my mind? Am I the only one who can't stand morning gabfests on the radio? Have I done some great wrong that I'm condemned to forever wander the dial, futilely pressing all the buttons over and over in search of something listenable? Preening popinjays, in love with the sound of their voice and the rightness of their opinions, how I hate them all.

The proximate cause of my lament is that the last bastion of music in the morning in my hometown, St. Louis, now has a couple of obnoxious twits AKA Steve and DC. They moved from another station that has replaced them with the washed up St. Louis institution J.C. Corcoran in a move that represents the triumph of hope over experience. I suppose it was too good to last. I know all good things must come to an end, and in every life rain must fall. I know I should just be glad that once I could hear music in the morning on the radio. But this is America damnit, and in America you can have it your way, the customer is king, and vox populi, vox dei. Why do radio stations want me to listen to my CDs instead of them?