RADIO SALVATION

Ai, Chihuahua!

Sitting here at my second-floor desk looking out across the yard, I see something cold and foreign: a large metal "For Sale" sign. Its twin metal spikes seem to be poking into something more than just that little patch of ground near the end of the driveway. Could it be, I wonder, my poor little heart?

Mother Farr down in Tucson said I'd be feeling something like that right about now, but what does she know? What's she ever done to make her an expert, except raising five children and living all over the world, shifting households more than 40 times while I was growing up?

This is the only house my wife and I have ever owned, and we've been here 11 years. In many ways the old house and its 2.57 acres have been a paradise: we've especially loved being able to walk back toward the woods where we can't see anybody else and know that it's still ours. It might not be the most beautiful spot in the world, but it's pretty darned close, and up until now, no one could make us leave.

Umm, I think I'm finally getting the message. . .

When I was around 13 or14 years old, living in Abilene, Texas, I "got the message," all right. It was a different message, though, not having to do with a loss of sense of place but rather a sense of who I was or wasn't. It read in part: "You piss-ant! You adolescent scum! You pimply-faced worthless baboon!"

As I stood there washing the dishes and watching the sun set in a dusty red West Texas sky, wondering all the while why I had ever been born, sometimes a minor miracle would occur: I would turn on the little radio by the windowsill and suddenly be saved by the music! You'd better believe it: Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Richie Valens, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and all the rest. . .wow!

Abilene used to pride itself on having the most churches per capita of any such-and-such sized city in the country, and probably still does. Would you believe that one terrible result of this was that we had no school dances? Not a one! Dancing was a sin, of course, and so was guitar playing and the like. I have no idea how the local radio stations managed to stay alive, but I'm glad they did: they kept me going, that's for sure.

Of course, the authorities in that part of the world at the time, the preachers, teachers, cops, and most kids' fathers, had a very different notion of what being "saved" was all about. Hah! Most of them are dead now, so maybe they have a better understanding of the concept, being spiritualized and all. What it was, was liberation! Joy!! Release!!!

Yes, release. . . For a while I forgot that I was a no-good, dateless, uncool, guilt-ridden jerk. (You know: fourteen!) I forgot about my friend Charles with the blue-and-white Dodge convertible I would never have, with its triple two-barrel carburetors and dual exhausts. That gorgeous chrome-covered beast could effortlessly lay down two long black stripes of rubber on a clean concrete driveway, all the while making a glorious din that would send all the neighbors running to their windows in alarm! I even forgot about my buddies grinning in the back seat as he pulled that same stunt right in front of me, the bastard.

(My old man had me down on my knees with a scrub bucket full of gasoline, brushing for hours, but it didn't do any good!)

The thing is, my wife and I are about to reformat the Big Disk and relocate to northern New Mexico. This is one helluva big deal, so huge it's hard to think of anything more overwhelming. It's bound to rouse a few demons, especially since tossing out a dead-end middle-class job that paid the bills is part of the picture. But all we really need is a decent grubstake: we'll sell the house, by God, and live off the proceeds in our new town while we get settled and figure out what to do next. What could go wrong?

For about a week the winds had really been blasting. The other afternoon as I walked back up the gravel drive with the day's junk mail clutched in my hand, something odd caught my eye: high up on the north wall of the house, between the two second-story windows, a long piece of white aluminum siding was obviously loose and almost flapping! I could see a chunk of insulation slipping down from behind the siding, and whenever a gust hit the wall, a huge section even higher up the wall, toward the attic window, seemed to be breathing or heaving. Good Lord! The wind was getting in underneath the lowermost piece and literally puffing out the rest of the siding! (I said it was really windy, didn't I?) Fifteen minutes later, exhausted and chilled to the bone, I had applied a temporary fix: one well-placed hopefully inconspicuous large nail!

Das ist nicht gut. My God, what were we thinking? This is our meal ticket?

Almost in desperation, I plopped myself down in front of the ole 8600 and went online, seeking I knew not what. (Have you ever done that?) My first stop was La Plaza Telecommunity, a non-profit ISP serving Taos County. Yes, non-profit! It grew from a series of grants several years ago and has somehow managed to keep going and even expand. Much more than just an ISP, La Plaza offers classes in Web site construction, HTML, Internet information, and provides a virtual community for several thousand local residents. Hmm. What was this? A "Media" page? I took a look, and what did I find but a link to my favorite local radio station in that part of the world, KTAO-FM, "the world's only solar-powered radio station." (Somewhere out of sight and hearing, guardian angels nodded approvingly.) Quicker than skink I had "KTAO-Solar" blasting out of my stereo speakers! (And if you don't have your Mac hooked up to a stereo system, why the hell not? Get hip, jocko!)

Que milagro, I was there! The same sounds that had filled our rented apartment two summers ago on a visit to Taos now rattled my windows. I stamped my feet, I whooped and hollered, I almost cried: YES! Oh, yes! I heard the music, an eclectic playlist, not like the Big Niche music most East Coast stations play. As I listened to the commercials for local restaurants and heard the weather forecasts, all those mundane but vital components of everyday life, damned if I wasn't saved again! Suddenly I felt that it was all possible, that we really could move and make a new home in another place. My doubt and fear melted away in the virtual sunshine from 7,000 feet. . . Hoo-hah!! (Liberation! Joy!! Release!!!)

Internet radio is a gift from God! Now all we need is someone to buy the house before the wind picks up again.

NOW HEAR THIS: I suppose I've gone and done it now, giving out the URL for KTAO! It's already hard enough to listen without being bumped from the RealAudio server. (Do me a favor and have a listen, then try something else.) Visit the KTAO Web site, for example, and see what can be done with 50,000 watts and all that sunshine. The site's colors match the state's license plates, too.

John H. Farr also edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com and welcomes your comments. His own Web site, the ZOO ZONE, still has a few Cat Project T-shirts to give away if you can find the right page!

The Farr Site Forum doth languish. . .prithee give it the benefit of your wisdom.

The Farr Site archives will amaze newcomers and frighten the unprepared. ("Where does he get this stuff?"). Have a look before the censors crack down.

January 08, 2009