Believe it or not, from 6:50 a.m. to about 7:10 a.m. every morning is one of the best parts of my day. My car may be cold and frosty, the traffic may be horrible, and my breakfast corn dog may not have heated evenly in the microwave that morning, but this is all secondary to the 20 minutes I spend listening to Pleasant Grove High School's morning radio DJ. This kid is my hero.
First of all, he has surprisingly good taste in music. His self proclaimed favorite music is Arcade Fire, The Black Keys, and Fleet Foxes, and he regularly introduces me to bands that he likes for the same reasons he likes said bands, and I glean my small shred of music coolness almost entirely from him.
Second, his oldies palette is dead-on. Motown, Beatles, Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the occasional Pink Floyd. He also references these sounds in the new music he plays, which again, I love.
Third, he clearly has the worlds dirtiest teenage boy crush on Lana Del Ray, and I find that charming.
Fourth, this kid is the most enthusiastic half asleep kid I've ever heard. He talks slower than a snail spits, but he means what he says, and often uses phrases like, "freaking awesome", "killer tunes", and "so excited I couldn't sleep", even as you are wondering if he is in fact asleep at that very second. I love a good walking contradiction.
Fifth, he has been known to play full albums in their entirety, stopping between each song to talk about how awesome the last song was and the next song is.
Sixth, he has said the following things on the air:
"So about halfway through this next song, Al Green is going to hit a note that isn't humanly possible. But anything is possible when you have the reincarnated soul of Marvin Gay inside of you. And Al Green does."
"I apologize to anyone who had a heart attack during that song due to pure soul."
"Lana Del Ray could sing about sad people living in trash cans and, like, how McDonalds gives her indigestion, and it would still be freakin' hot."
The only thing worse than the fact that I stop being able to pick up KPGR at around 114th South every morning is that someday this kid is going to graduate. Then it will be back to NPR, I suppose. Ugh.
Maybe he has a half asleep younger brother....
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