Steve's Peeves

South Florida has plenty to offer. It was a beautiful 70 degrees on Wednesday. There are beaches galore and cute little lizards everywhere.

But the local radio down here displays a heretofore unheard of level of atrociousness.

Take a trip down the car radio dial down here and try to find new alternative/modern rock. Just try. If Spanish radio is your thing, you're in luck. Crappy conservative talk radio? Got it! Fire and brimstone, repent for your sins radio? Plenty of that. Rap, hip-hop or pop? Things are good. If you want to hear the latest in current rock music, buy satellite radio because you ain't ever finding a song from this decade on the dial.

OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating. If you want to hear the latest dreck from Nickleback, then you're in luck.

(I swear, sometimes I'd rather drive into a telephone pole or a canal than listen to the latest shit soup from Nickleback. My God, their songs are terrible. And I mean shoot the radio and pour acid down your ear terrible. And you guessed it, the one rock station I can find down here plays them all the time.)

Perhaps I was spoiled by WBRU while growing up in Rhode Island. Say what you want, but they were pretty good in playing new songs. I don't know how they are now, but they are miles ahead of anything I can find here.

I don't mind Guns n' Roses, but this isn't 1988 anymore. No need to play them four times an hour. Same thing with Ozzy Osbourne or Billy Idol. I don't want a Wayne's World playlist. I want a mix of good songs from the past and new songs ... like songs recorded this century.

"Buy satellite radio," you are surely thinking. I could pay for it, in theory, but the last thing I need is another bill to pay each month, especially now that I will not be getting a raise this year. I'm a cheap journalist. What more can I say?

So this leaves me playing CDs all the time. When I finish one I'll tune in to the radio station to give it another shot, hear a Beastie Boys song from 20 years ago and go right to another album I own. As a result, I am woefully behind on current music. Surely the Internet provides plenty of remedies, but I miss driving the car and hearing good, modern music on the radio.

And no, Nickleback doesn't count.

It just really grinds my gears.