WAAF GOES OFF THE AIR

After a 50-year run, Boston rock radio station WAAF 107.3 has abruptly gone off the air.

Indeed, the news broke on Tuesday, February 18^th, that parent company Entercom sold the station for $10.7 million and, by midnight Friday, just three days after the news of the sale, AAF was off the air. Just like that. In its place was a Christian Rock station called K-LOVE that nobody will ever listen to.

The news was met with much sadness. Some anger, too. WAAF had been rocking Boston for 50 years. And, within three days, it’s just gone? Forever?

Yep.

I was sad like the rest. But I admittedly felt ashamed, too. With the exception of tuning in here and there during desperate circumstances, I had basically abandoned WAAF years ago. Over the past decade or so, podcasts and Pandora had seduced me away from the radio waves. Plus, AAF played music I was no longer very interested in (no offense, but I could only take so much Disturbed, Sevendust and Godsmack).

So it’s not like I was really saddened by the fact that a radio station I barely ever listened to (anymore) went off the air. It was more like I was depressed because WAAF represented something to me. The past, I suppose. A piece of my childhood. No, this wasn’t about a radio station going off the air. It was about a good chunk of my childhood going off the air and disappearing into the airwaves, never to be heard from again.

When I think back on it, WAAF was the station that can be credited with giving birth to my love of music. Previous to the sixth grade—1994 or so—I admittedly wasn’t into music very much and my knowledge of what bands were out there was limited to what my older brother listened to at the time. I had a few cassette tapes I played in my Walkman here and there…mainly Skid Row’s “Skid Row” and Aerosmith’s “Get a Grip” come to mind…but also EMF’s “Stigma” was thrown into the mix (mistakenly bought because I thought their hit single “Unbelievable” would be on it—it wasn’t); but, overall, I was a music ignoramus, a tween more interested in playing Super Nintendo or reading GamePro magazine than anything else.

By sixth grade, however, I was on a mission to be cooler. I wanted to know what music was hot out there. So, I thought the only proper thing to do was to tune in to Boston’s “only station that REALLY rocks”: WAAF. 107.3.

Throughout sixth and seventh grade, I went to bed every night at nine-sharp, hid under my covers and tuned my Walkman into WAAF’s “Top Nine Tonight” (aka TNT). This was an hour-long countdown of the day’s top-nine requested songs, starting from #9 and ending with #1.

Songs that made a frequent appearance on Top-Nine-Tonight were Soundgarden’s “Spoonman”, Alice in Chains’ “I Stay Away”, Stone Temple Pilots’ “Big Empty”, Pantera’s “I’m Broken”, The Offspring’s “Come out and Play”, Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”, Green Day’s “Basket Case” and many, many more.

It’s no coincidence that among the first albums I ever bought (on CD) were Soundgarden (Superunkown), Alice in Chains (Jar of Flies), Stone Temple Pilots (Purple), The Crow Soundtrack (which also featured STP’s “Big Empty” but soooooo much more good shit, holy crap), Offspring (Smash) and Beastie Boys (Ill Communication). Top Nine Tonight basically dictated what albums I should purchase. I would hear a good song on TNT and say, ok, that’s the album I should go out and buy this weekend with my paperboy money.

In high school, I remained faithful to AAF. There’s this vivid memory I have from freshman year, setting my digital (you know, the one with the red digits) alarm clock so I would wake up to WAAF each morning. The only song I distinctly remember blasting out of the radio alarm clock was Stabbing Westward’s “Shame (How can I exist without you?)”. Those beginning guitar riffs to that song sounded so siiiiiiiiiiick at 6 o’clock in the morning. Who needed coffee when you had that? Oh God. I’m getting emotional.

Imagine waking up to this in the morning? It was great.

Now, you have to remember: there was no Internet back then. No social media, either. Tuning into a radio station like WAAF was the only way to make you feel connected to popular culture. Okay, I guess you could watch MTV, but this wasn’t always convenient (plus, you needed cable). Tuning into WAAF was how you tuned in to what was happening in the world of the cool kids. You would get word of bands touring, new albums being recorded, breakups, reunions, drug overdoses, rehabs and album release dates. Radio singles would be released before albums came out and even before videos on MTV premiered. The only way to hear these singles would be ON THE RADIO. You had no choice but to tune in.

Case in point: the Beastie Boys’ single “Intergalactic” in 1998. The song was released a full month or two before Hello Nasty even came out. I was a mega-fan of the Beastie Boys by this point (read my book BEASTIE FEVER HERE) and was sure to tune into AAF to hear the Beasties’ first single from their new album—that was the only way. WAAF didn’t make it hard for you. “Intergalactic” was practically played twice or even thrice every hour.

Things changed for radio, however, once the millennium came about. By the time I was in college in 2000, Napster emerged and you could download pretty much any song you wanted to hear, for FREE. There was suddenly no longer much of a need for a radio station. Throw mp3 players into the mix and I was basically married to my Rio Mp3 Player all throughout college (even though it only had enough memory for about six songs at a time). Then, came the iPod and iPhones, which seemed like pieces of alien technology that resembled the monolith thingy the apes worshipped in 2001: A Space Odyssey (did Kubrick foresee our worshipping of these devices?). Forget about it! These Apple devices could hold hundreds of songs at a time. Who needed radio at that point?

Not long after iPods, music streaming came along. With Pandora, and YouTube music…Spotify and Amazon music…iHeartRadio…the only time I listened to AAF was while I was shaving at the bathroom sink (I keep a battery-operated radio on the shelf beside the vanity) or driving in the car (I drive a 1999 Corolla that doesn’t even have a CD player, let alone a way to plug in an iPod or smartphone).

So, I guess WAAF’s demise in 2020 was, perhaps, inevitable, whether or not one likes to admit it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, though. Due to that pesky emotion inherent in the human condition called nostalgia, we all want a radio station like WAAF to live on, forever…even if we hardly ever tune in….

And, that, my friends, is why it was so depressing to hear WAAF officially go off the air on Friday night, February 21. Part of me wanted to forget any of it was happening and move on with my life. But, no, I knew I had to experience the death of AAF first-hand. It was kind of like witnessing a loved one die on their death bed. As heartbreaking as it may feel, you need to be right there with them, holding their hand as they cross over into the light.

So, at 11:30pm, I found myself sitting on my basement couch, sipping strong IPA, staring at my old-school, battery-operated radio…and I “tuned in” one last time:

…WAAF disc jockeys Mistress Carrie and Mike Hsu are all alone in the studio at this point, very emotional, and they’ve hardly processed what is even happening. It all seems more surreal than real…

…then, they announce that Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath” will be the last WAAF song ever. It seems fitting for many reasons. Not only is the song about 50 years old (like AAF), but it’s also the ultimate heavy metal anthem and a big scrahew-a-yoooooo middle finger to the Christian rock that will take over afterwards…

…the intro to the song starts, the DJ’s tell everybody that they love AAF fans so much and they chant, “A-A-F…A-A-F…A-A-F….” Then, their voices fade as they “hit the post” like the pros they are…and Black Sabbath plays in full…

…Is it the end, my friend?
Satan's coming 'round the bend
People running 'cause they're scared
The people better go and beware
No, no, please, no…

…after the song…ghostly dead air. This lasts for five or six seconds. It’s the most depressing dead air you’ve ever heard. Then, the Christian Rock from K-LOVE fades in. Ugh. No offense to Christ or Christianity, but who listens to this shit? Puuuuuuuuuuuke.

Just like that, WAAF is gone. Forever. And, with it, goes a piece of the past. A piece of our childhoods.

The official end of an era.

WAAF stickers I accumulated from over the years, mostly from the 1990s…

...

MATT BURNS is the author of MY RAGING CASE OF BEASTIE FEVER, JUNGLE F’NG FEVER: MY 30-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR W/ GUNS N’ ROSES and I TURNED INTO A MISFIT! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

THE TOILET-PAPER PEOPLE

NOTE: this is a fun little short story (a memoir) that I recently wrote for a holiday writing contest.

THE TOILET-PAPER PEOPLE
by matt burns


“Matt, can you help me out with this? My back’s kind of bothering me.”

I grabbed the cardboard box and it was heavy, that’s for sure. I took it out of the garage and plopped it down on the couch in the family room. My mom never remembered what box had what. It was either the ornaments, ceramic XMAS trees, outdoor Xmas lights, indoor Xmas lights, or the…

“Oh, this one’s got the toilet paper people,” mom said, peering into the box.

“The what?”

“The toilet paper people.”

“Ah, yes, the Toilet-Paper People.”

I looked into the box and carefully took out my Frankensteinian creations. My little babies were still in rather excellent condition. I figured they must have been about 25-years-old, give or take, but the memory of making them was still so vivid in my head.

I was in the third grade when I created my first Toilet-Paper Person. It was early December and I was in art class. The teacher handed out the discarded cardboard cylinders that had – not long ago – been enwrapped in multiple sheets of rolled toilet paper.

“Gross, what are we supposed to do with these things?” all the students wondered.

The teacher told us that we were going to make people out of them.

“People?!”

“Yes, people. Are you deaf?” (Note: she did not say ‘are you deaf?’. I made that part up for dramatic purposes.)

The cardboard cylinder was to function as a torso from which we were to create a person. With the help of some paste, yarn, and some construction paper, we all went to work. I felt like Dr. Frankenstein only I didn't have an Igor to assist me, which frustrated me a bit. By the end of the class, my creation was complete. My first Toilet-Paper Person! It was alive!

The first TP person I made in art class.

Indeed, I was amazed by the creative process. Maybe it even made me feel like God but maybe I’m being overly dramatic when I say that. Let’s just say that I had fun creating something that did actually look like some form of a new friend. There were eyes and a nose made out of construction paper, hair made out of yarn, a coat made out of smock scraps…in the end, there actually seemed to be a personality to the face…maybe even a soul. Ok, maybe not a soul. What I’m getting at here is that I didn’t have many friends back then. Or maybe I’m being cliché here and I actually had plenty of friends, but maybe I didn’t like many of my real friends so I wanted fake ones…made out of discarded toilet-paper rolls. I’m not sure what it was. All I knew was that I liked this toilet-paper person that I – yes I!!! – had created. And, heck, I wanted to create more of these friends!

Which is exactly what I set out to do.

The theme I had in mind was based on the Enchanted Village at the Jordan Marsh in Boston's Downtown Crossing. To be honest with you, I’m not even sure I ever walked through the actual village, but one December my parents took me into Downtown Crossing and we walked by the Jordan's storefront where there were large window displays and within those displays there were miniature versions of the Enchanted Village, complete with fake snow.

I was so…um…enchanted by the fantasy world. I wanted to escape my current reality and live inside that enchanted reality. Yes, reality (in my eyes) was terrible. I did not like school at all and I still had a few weeks to go until Xmas break. I wanted to live in an Enchanted Village that looked so lovely, and I figured, why not create my own village…and inhabit it...with Toilet-Paper People? Eureka!

From that day forward, whenever I wasn’t forced to be in school, I secluded myself in my office and went to work making the Toilet-Paper People. Of course, when I say “office”, I really mean a little area with a small table in the corner of my dining room. This was the go-to place I hunkered down in when I needed to work on some important dioramas or gods-eyes or (in this case) Toilet-Paper People.

My ensuing creations were three times better than my original TP person I made in art class. Instead of using simple construction paper to make eyes, I used buttons. For a mouth, I either used yarn or small pieces of pipe cleaner. I used frayed cotton balls to make beards and gray hair. I found some of my mom's old bell-bottoms from the 70's, cut off some scraps and made shawls/kerchiefs out of them. I even made beaded necklaces for jewelry. In other words, I was making some highly-evolved TP-people.

I put in some long hours. Afternoons. Nights. Weekends. I needed plenty of grape-flavored Juicy-Juice to keep my motor running. I even tried to sneak in some work if I was home “sick” from school (muahaha sometimes I was a little faker – but, really, who needed to learn their times tables when there were Toilet-Paper People to be made?!). 

The Old Maid's in the middle.

After about a week of intense hard work, I had created a whole village-worth of people. There were young TP men and women, old ladies and old men, old maids wearing kerchiefs while looking desperately for a husband, a Santa Claus and even my most favorite Toilet-Paper Person: a Scrooge!

But, wait, the village still wasn’t complete, mainly because there was no village, just people so far. More work had to be done.

One of my favorites: Scrooge.

I took a flat piece of cardboard and glued a bunch of cotton balls to it, which acted as snow. Then I took a small cardboard box and decorated it to look like a house. I folded another piece of small, flat cardboard to make a triangular roof and glued cotton on that as well. Then I surrounded the house with my beloved Toilet-Paper People and I couldn’t believe what I saw before my eyes: there it was…my very own Enchanted Village. I did it!

I proudly displayed my Enchanted Village on a shelf in our finished basement and that's where they've been every Christmas since. When January inevitably arrived, I was always sad to see the Enchanted Village get packed up in a box along with all the other Xmas decorations. I suppose if I had begged my parents, they would have let me keep it up all year, but then it wouldn’t have been as exciting unearthing the village every December and escaping to my fantasy world full of pure enchantment where no school existed!

I encourage you to make some Toilet-Paper People of your own. Actually, it’s pretty simple. Just save your cylinders of cardboard TP rolls when you’ve finished using every last square of toilet paper. Then just get creative. Make a face out of whatever materials you have around the house. Use some old fabric or tissue paper to make clothing. Make a beaded necklace. Make a Santa Claus…a Scrooge…maybe even make an old maid looking for a husband. The sky’s the limit!

That's right, folks: using copious amounts of toilet paper doesn't have to be a pain in the bum anymore (pun was intended). Just think: the more TP you use, the closer you'll get to making a new Toilet-Paper Person! Talk about turning a negative into a positive. 

Season's greetings!

SHOUT OUT TO A GERMAN GIRL

NOTE: I wrote the blog below sometime in 2007, but never published it for reasons I don't remember. It's a little tongue and cheeky, but worth posting. Some strong language/sexual content. Don't read if you are easily offended.




SHOUT OUT TO A GERMAN GIRL

This is a letter from me to a German girl I had a weird, two-hour “moment” with at a bar in Boston on Fat Tuesday 2006. I write it in hope that one day the girl will remember my name, look me up on the Internet and find me here. So if you're not the German girl, you shouldn't be reading this, as things are going to get really erotic and steamy. If you are the German girl, then, "Hey, how's things going? Remember me?"

February 2006. Fat Tuesday. I was experiencing the blues. Only days earlier I discovered that all four of my wisdom teeth had cavities and needed to be removed. Bad news for a man with no dental insurance. Certainly a date with Mr. Anheuser-Busch was on the bill.

A friend from college was going to be in town for a few days, visiting his sister. We decided to get together and do a good old-fashioned bender. We started at a bar called the Pour House on Boylston Street. It was 11am. We got hamburgers and several mugs of beer. The hours began to blur. The buzz began to set in...

By early evening, we ended up at a bar formerly called the White Horse Tavern. I'm not sure what it's called now but I'm sure it's something stupid. I was sitting at the bar, going off on my usual loud, drunken rants:

“No, Paris Hilton is really, really smart.”

“Ok, Burns. Sounds good.”

“No, dude, Paris Hilton is, like, really bright. People don’t understand her.”

“All right, Burns. I believe you.”

“No, Paris Hilton’s REALLY smart. I’m gonna marry her and have her babies.”

“Ok, Burns. Good luck with that.”

“No, you don’t understand...”

When suddenly, I felt a pair of eyes on me. I glanced to my four o' clock and saw this girl sitting alone in a booth, looking in my direction.

I didn't think much of this at first. It wasn't unusual for me to draw attention to myself when going off on my drunken rants. But the glances kept coming and soon I began to realize that, "Holy shit, that girl over there wants my balls!”

Yes, it appeared to be the case. But should it have really surprised me? I mean, who wouldn't be attracted to a guy who sticks up for such misunderstood celebrities as Paris Hilton? Duh!

The question was what to do about it, as I wasn't in the mood for bullshit. All I really wanted to do was go over and ask, "Are you into me or what?" None of this, "Hey can I buy you a drink?" mumbo jumbo. But I was too afraid. Sure, I was drunk and more confident than usual, but when it came down to it, I was still my usual, nervous self.

Ten minutes or so passed. My friend had to meet another friend and had no choice but to take off and leave me. "This isn't good," I thought. My buzz had reached its peak and I was feeling really swell. I sure as shit didn't feel like calling it a night and riding back to the suburbs on a train full of boring commuters. I wanted to party. But there was no one to party with.

I looked back over to the girl who only minutes ago was giving me all sorts of eye-action. "Should I talk to her?" I asked myself. "No, bad idea," I thought. I didn't know her. What if she was a sex addict and wanted to go back to her place and she had Aids? "Aids wouldn't be a good thing to have," I realized. So I packed up shop and left the bar.

Stumbling down Boylston Street in a drunken haze, I started hearing an infuriated voice in my head: "You fucking pussy, Burns! That girl wanted your balls and you just ran away from her! She wanted to take you back to her place and give you Aids! How can you live with yourself, you...you pussaaay?!" I knew the voice was right: I wanted that girl’s Aids.

I was back to the bar in ten minutes - maybe less - and, to my luck, the girl was still there. But I was still too scared to make my move. Where would such an action lead me? What road could it take me down? What radical changes could it possibly bring to my life? But, most importantly, would the girl really have Aids?

All the questions freaked me out, so I made a quick beeline to the bathroom and tried like hell to muster up a leak. I eventually managed to shake a few drips into the urinal, flushed, took about three minutes to wash my hands and, finally, came to the point where I looked in the mirror and said...

“All right, Burns, you hot shit. Let’s do this!”

I reentered the bar, immediately put the girl in my cross-hairs and took a deep breath: “That girl over there is gonna get it so hard and ya know what? I’m the one who's gonna give it to her!!!”

I strutted closer and closer and closer to the booth...shoulders up, chest out - I had never looked so jacked. And, then...

I sat.

"Can I buy you a drink?" I asked in a voice reminiscent of a pubescent Peter Brady.

"Um...no, I'm all set," she said in what I soon realized was a German accent. That’s right: she was German, which, by the way, did not disappoint me in the least. She actually looked a lot like Lola in that movie Run Lola Run, except with bigger boobs and nicer thighs...oh, and she had brown hair, I think - not red.

“Why’d you come back?” she asked.

“I needed to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh...but why’d you sit down?”

“Oh, um, you know, I saw a pretty girl here and, thought, ‘what the heck?’”

Damn, I was smooth. Hell, Humphrey Bogart himself should’ve been taking notes...if, you know, this was 1946, not 2006.

But the Bogart-like charm I exuded was a stark contrast from what was going on in my head:

“Holy shit, is she gonna ask me back to her place, god, I need rubbers, well there’s a C.V.S. a couple doors down, Aids isn’t really too bad of a disease, do you think we’re gonna do it in the shower?”

Clearly my brain had mutated into a bottle of Budweiser.

But the question was how the transition was going to take place? How was I going to go from the booth in the bar to the hot German girl’s shower? I didn’t know the answer to this...

So once again I panicked and struck up a conversation with her! Yes, I know, I know. Stupidest fucking move a horny dude could make, right? But I did it and, goddamn, I had to follow through.

I learned she was a singer studying music at Berklee College of Music...

“...I’d get HIV first, maybe I’ll never get the Aids...”

That Johnny Depp was her favorite actor...

“...I’ve dealt with strep throats, certainly I can handle the Aids...”

That Guinness was her favorite beer...

“...Magic Johnson’s still alive, right..?”

And that she had a mom and a dad back in Germany. They were both worried sick about her.

Eeeeeeeerrrrrrrcccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhh!!! Crash!!! Hubcaps rolling on pavement.

And that was that: my buzz was killed.

It was like suddenly snapping out of an acid frenzy and finding yourself in the middle of a desert...a whining wind shivering your bones...vultures circling your head. “What the hell am I doing?” I asked myself. “Where am I?” “Why am I here?” The recollection of rubbers, CVS’s and showers flooded back into my mind, but it seemed like these memories were all part of something that happened years ago - not minutes.

It was the image of her “Mom and Dad” that killed the buzz. Why were they worried sick? Among other things, because of horny drunkards like myself, prowling the streets of Boston. Their daughter was Little Red Riding Hood and I was the Big Bad Wolf - the sleazy guy in the Lifetime movie, the guy at the truck stop in Thelma and Louis, the dog trying to piss on the new fire-hydrant, the…well, you get the point. Yes, I was all those and more. And it made me feel like a horrible person.

So I decided to continue the conversation and pretend like I never had any thoughts of going back to her place and contracting her Aids. And, I must say, it wasn’t that bad of a conversation, though I couldn’t tell you what it was about because I don’t remember any of it.

Two hours later we decided to call it a night. I walked her a little ways down Boylston, asked for her email, and gave her a hug. Part of me still wanted some first base, but by that time I had stale booze breath and figured it would be better to part on a higher note (my hugs are irresistible). Besides, now that the booze was almost completely out of my brain, I realized I didn’t like her that much, anyway. She was just somebody to fill the space before I found Paris Hilton and had her babies.

Anyway, as fate would have it, I ended up losing her email, so this is just my shout out to her. If you read this, I enjoyed the conversation, even though I hardly remember any of it, and good luck with the Aids! Magic Johnson’s done well. You will too!

Love Always,

Matt Burns