It's coming as somewhat of a surprise.....after a half century my addiction is finally starting to ease up a little. For years it was just a 'once a day' kind of thing....just enough to get me through the day.... keep me sane....then in recent years it became almost an all day thing. I had to go cold turkey while in the army back in the early 70s but after I got out a guy named Roy Fox drew me right back in. I probably should tell you right off what my addiction has been....conservative talk radio. It started out as a lesser drug.....regular talk radio....this probably in the 1960s with KDKA's Ed and Wendy King's show Party Line and their addictive party pretzel. Over the past few years or so it's been a nightmare.....up at six to listen to three hours of Breitbart....my one break of the day at nine to noon.....Laura Ingraham is not very addictive....then Rush.....then Sean....then Mark....then Breitbart again.
So now the good news....what happened that seems to be easing my addiction.....no one even attempted an intervention? (well my wife tried but it didn't work) I certainly didn't make any efforts on my own....but a device of sorts came along.....and before I knew it I was listening to.....totally....only two or three hours at max of talk radio a day. The device came when I 'upped' my radio subscription on SiriusXm. It allows me to get up at eight in the morning rather than six....tune in Breitbart....and revert to the beginning of the show....and just skip through the segments that I don't want to hear. I can do this with Sean....or Mark Levin....and Breitbart again in the evening.
I'll tune in to Sean Hannity and if sixty seconds go by without hearing the word FISA....I'll listen for a while.....but FISA comes up all the time so I've listened to very little Sean Hannity lately. Breitbart is very regimented in that they usually change guests on the half hour.....so I can tune in at say 7:05.....see who the guest is....and just move on to 7:30 if I have to. Rush is a different story as he is too big to have to take advantage of SeriousXm....so when he is on I wind up switching from AM radio to XM music....and then back to Rush on AM and again to XM music...and this quite a few times. I no longer have dreams about Rush's fifteen minute scripted advertising segments. With Mark Levin it's more determined by decibels. I'll tune him in and if he is shouting.....on anything....I skip on by.
My sleeping is better.....(not really)....I don't talk back to the radio anymore....(not really also)....but I enjoy talk radio a lot more....(really.)
So now the good news....what happened that seems to be easing my addiction.....no one even attempted an intervention? (well my wife tried but it didn't work) I certainly didn't make any efforts on my own....but a device of sorts came along.....and before I knew it I was listening to.....totally....only two or three hours at max of talk radio a day. The device came when I 'upped' my radio subscription on SiriusXm. It allows me to get up at eight in the morning rather than six....tune in Breitbart....and revert to the beginning of the show....and just skip through the segments that I don't want to hear. I can do this with Sean....or Mark Levin....and Breitbart again in the evening.
I'll tune in to Sean Hannity and if sixty seconds go by without hearing the word FISA....I'll listen for a while.....but FISA comes up all the time so I've listened to very little Sean Hannity lately. Breitbart is very regimented in that they usually change guests on the half hour.....so I can tune in at say 7:05.....see who the guest is....and just move on to 7:30 if I have to. Rush is a different story as he is too big to have to take advantage of SeriousXm....so when he is on I wind up switching from AM radio to XM music....and then back to Rush on AM and again to XM music...and this quite a few times. I no longer have dreams about Rush's fifteen minute scripted advertising segments. With Mark Levin it's more determined by decibels. I'll tune him in and if he is shouting.....on anything....I skip on by.
My sleeping is better.....(not really)....I don't talk back to the radio anymore....(not really also)....but I enjoy talk radio a lot more....(really.)
