tmcg

So on Friday I drove to a semi-nearby Babies R Us store to pick up a registry gift for a baby shower. The radio was playing the Coasters. It was playing good oldies. Stuff you just don't hear on other stations anymore, the way you mostly don't hear standards since WNEW-AM died. Traffic started to thicken as I neared my destination, because I hadn't left early enough and I was starting to hit an infusion of rush hour. When I got out of the store and back in the car and was paying attention to the radio again, it was playing "Just Another Manic Monday." Huh? I hadn't changed the station. I thought I was listening to CBS. Home of good oldies. Home of the resoundingly reverbed Cousin Brucie. But the station identification insisted that I was listening to ... JACK.

On Saturday evening, we were driving back from the baby shower and post-shower reception at the house, and on "Idiot's Delight" Vin Scelsa was delivering an impassioned eulogy for WCBS-FM and playing "Another One Bites the Dust." The oldies died as of five o'clock on Friday. JACK is just another pop-mix station. And oh boy. I was there at its debut.