Dear KEXP,

At this moment I’m sweaty, numb on the left side of my face, numb on the right side of my face, unshowered, slightly stinky, tense in the shoulders, sticky in the hair, exhausted, and starving. I can’t eat for a couple more hours. I can’t feel my tongue. But you, KEXP—you were there for me today. You rawk.

Let me tell you the whole story. It begins last night. Heading out to a reading at John Marshall alternative high school, I let my apartment door close before checking to make sure I have my keys on me, and even though I always have my keys in my right front pocket, this time, what do you know, I don’t—damn it, I’m an idiot, I’m locked out. I walk down the hall and knock on the apartment manager’s door. No answer. I call him on the phone. No answer. I go to the reading, call a few more times, come back hours later, buzz myself into the building—the front buzzer calls my cell phone—knock on the manager’s door again. No answer. What the? On the outgoing message, there’s a number for emergencies, and since it’s getting late and I’m effectively homeless, I call that number. No answer. I leave a message.

Long story short, the apartment manager is not the apartment manager anymore—I later learn that he never was, he was just the on-site maintenance person—and he finally calls me back to tell me he quit the day before, to chuckle at my bad luck, and to tell me he can’t help me. He tells me to dial another unit in the building from the front buzzer, someone who does cleaning, but this goes to a cell phone in Everett, and she also laughs at my bad luck and says, “Well, I’m in Everett.” It’s a nightmare, but a crazy tree of phone calls later I get someone who still does work for the management company, who tells me she’s not going to drive across town this late to let me in, it’s not her responsibility when I get locked out, she doesn’t want to hear my complaints about the poor communication in the building that left me not knowing who my own apartment manager is, this is my problem, she doesn’t have to listen to this, why did I call so late, and so forth. I sleep at a friend’s.

As I’m going to sleep, reading this actually funny Catcher in the Rye parody in a couple-weeks-old New Yorker, it dawns on me that I have a 9:30 dental appointment in the morning, i.e., this morning. I get up with just enough time to walk there, in yesterday’s clothes, looking crazy, and without my iPod. The dentist—the best dentist in this hemisphere, by the way; if you need a dentist, call Mark R. Grace, D.D.S. [509 Olive Way, Suite 1242, 623-5546] and plan to be told that they’re booked a few months out, after all, he’s the best dentist in this hemisphere—explains to me a problem involving a cavity that was formed when I still had my wisdom teeth. My wisdom teeth were removed five years ago. I haven’t been to the dentist since. The cavity has grown to roughly the size of Uganda. We begin shooting up my face. This baby’s really going to hurt, is the message. We shoot some junk into what feels like my jaw bone. There’s also another cavity on the other side of my face, so we shoot up over there too. It’s like junkie love, me and Dr. Grace, who wears a wedding ring.

While we’re waiting for my face to turn to marzipan, I tell him why I look wrinkled and homeless, and add, in passing, that I really wish I had my iPod, because at least then I could choose the soundtrack to the jackhammering. Do you want headphones? Yes! Can we get him some headphones? The ones with the radio? Headphones materialize.

This, KEXP, is where you come in. This is where you save me. The headphones are set to one of those obnoxious commercial stations, but I turn the dial and land on KEXP—it’s easy to find, you just run the dial in the general vacinity of 90 until you find a station that’s not playing commercials. My shoulders are tense, the chair is a bummer for such a tall guy, but you, KEXP, you’re there, you come through loud and clear. Just as Dr. Grace is putting sunglasses on me—for reasons related to spray—and revving his drills like the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, DJ John Richards, the greatest DJ in this hemisphere, goes: This is KEXP, etc., and this goes out to everyone having a crappy day. I blast the volume. Dr. Grace starts blasting into me. Every time I feel like cringing I blast the volume more, and whenever we take breaks—We’re going to take a few breaks as we go, Dr. Grace says casually but, but it’s still ominous—I turn it down. God, KEXP, that music you are playing today is great. The Walkmen, Human Television, some others. Loud, slightly angry, great. Great pop. Perfect. Grrrrrrrrrrr, the drill goes. Gghh-rrrr-jung-jung-jung-grrrrrrrrrrr-jung-jung—”OK, now this is a different drill, expect a lot of vibration”—Cruuugggghhrrrrghgrhhrrrr-neeeeoow-neeow—”Oop, tender? Sorry about that”—Gghh-rrrr-jung-jung-jung-grrrrrrrrrrr-jung-jung—

You’ve had your teeth drilled. You know how it is. There is wincing. There is that smell. Your head rattles.

Richards is on such a roll that his show bleeds into Cheryl Waters’, and then Cheryl Waters finally starts, and I know everyone likes to trash Cheryl Waters because she talks like she’s dumb even though she’s not or whatever, but you know what? I love you Cheryl Waters and I always have. I love listening to you. I love your personality. I don’t know you, I’d have a hard time finding you in a crowd, but you’re an old friend. (Hey haters: sue me, OK?) And you’re wearing sunglasses? There’s some discussion between Richards and Waters about the fact that Waters is wearing sunglasses in the studio. Guess who else is wearing sunglasses? I am! So I don’t get sprayed on with pieces of my own teeth! Cheryl, you and me, we’re together in this in our sunglasses! We could be happy, we could go somewhere, some day when this drilling ends, when my mouth isn’t being stretched apart by a rubber dam, you and me, you manning the radio, let’s go somewhere, Cheryl, you’ve got a fast car, I got a plan to get us out of here, I’m gay, yes, it’s OK, we’ll figure it out. You just keep playing these songs, these rare Beatles cuts…

I made it, KEXP. Not because of you, because when you’re in Dr. Grace’s hands, you’re in, uh, good hands, but I made it with you, and without you it wouldn’t have been the same. Your signal is so strong. Your songs are so good. This, today—it only added to all the other things you’ve done in my life, like the way you introduced me to good independent music in the first place, long ago, when I was nowhere and knew only showtunes and had no friends who could introduce me to music. It’s hard to remember, what with how much you matter to me now. But I remember. And I am thankful. That’s all.

with all my love,
and a numb face,
Christopher