I know I’m not really supposed to do this, but sometimes I listen to Walla Walla radio stations that aren’t KWCW. It’s just that sometimes I’m longing for non-collegiate music. You know: Sugar-coated Top 40 music played completely unironically. Unfortunately, although some DJs will laughingly spin “Sk8r Boi,” they’ll follow it up with like an hour of Deerhoof. Sometimes I just need a break.

These are the times when I turn to Walla Walla’s own 98.3 The Key, 95.7 Oldies, and 99.1 KUJ. On these statons I can listen to Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, The Monkees and The Archies to my heart’s content –– just as long as I keep my windows up because I wouldn’t want anyone to think I would actually stoop so low.

So the other day I was driving to Safeway because they had a 5-for-1 special on Ramen, listening contentedly to 98.3 when the DJ (who, by the way, sounded like a really awkward mix between Kenny Loggins and a multiple sex offender) started to talk at length about some bank opening. I thought it was just going to be a quick plug or something, but it turned into an eight-minute monologue on the grand unveiling of a Banner Bank in College Place:

“You’ve gotta get down here, folks; this is definitely the place to be today, let me tell you. Yeah, they’ve got cold soft drinks and there’s a cake… It seems as if there is contest in which you can win a color TV! We’re all set up out here, just talkin’ to people. This is where it is AT.”

There’s no way a bank opening can be “where it is AT,” unless “it” translates to “the dullest possible reason to congregate in one place.”

Regardless, 98.3 sat at that fucking bank opening until 7 p.m. that night. Silly 98.3. I shrugged it off.

But THEN, the VERY NEXT DAY, I was listening to the Oldies station and it happened AGAIN:

“Okay guys, you’ve gotta get down here. We’re here at the Alltel opening, and it’s really something else.”

Then the DJ dropped THIS line:

“If Mick Jagger was in town, this is where he would be.”

After that, I had to see what this opening was all about. I dropped my companion off at home and drove back to the Alltel opening, which was across the street from El Sombrero. The balding, visor-wearing DJ was seated under a tent drinking some bottled water.

“I understand this is where Mick Jagger would be if he was in town,” I said.

The DJ looked at me blankly.

“That’s what I heard on the radio.”

Then a nauseatingly peppy woman trotted up to me in an attempt to seduce me with some kind of cell phone plan. I was not having it.

“Look. I just wanted to see what was so great that Mick Jagger would turn out for it. I’m not seeing it yet,” I said, beginning to lose my temper.

“Well, we have cake,” said the woman with some desperation, motioning to a dry-looking chocolate blob virtually untouched on the adjacent folding table.

Mick Jagger should have been given a LOT more credit.

Radio stations desperately need to get lives. If I have to listen to one more washed-up DJ spout off some nonsense about the party of the year going on right under our noses, I’m going to invest in a tape adaptor faster than you can say “free soda.”