A LIKELY STORY: RADIO, RADIO: WHERE THERE'S ONLY RUBBISH ON THE REEL-TO-REEL

"You either shut up or get cut up;

they don't want to hear about it.

It's only inches on the reel-to-reel

And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools

tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel."

-- Elvis Costello, "Radio, Radio"

Wonderful radio, marvelous radio.

When Elvis continuously sings these final words -- wonderful radio, marvelous radio -- you can almost hear the sarcasm dripping venomously from his lips, repeating to fade.

Coming from him, a star made by radio long before MTV, it's irony in it's truest form. Like HAL in "2001," he is holding his creator in disdain. He says it himself, he wants to bite the hand that feeds him. But Elvis' aim is true and the words are honest.

I share his contempt for the medium. You name your frequency: AM, FM, short-band, CB, I dislike them all. At least what Cape Girardeau has to offer.

I'll start with the local AM news station with its daily doses of 20 hours worth of conservative talk shows and three hours and 45 minutes for commercials. That leaves 15 minutes of news. Then they have the gall to make fun of the newspaper industry, specifically the Southeast Missourian.

"When you hear about it, it's news. When you read it, it's history."

Yeah, right. I wouldn't mind them throwing shots at us if at least the shots were clever.

Having said that, it's just the music-transmitting stations that I have a big problem with. I listen in my car and actually get angry. I turn it on -- nothing -- I turn it off. I turn it on -- more nothing. There's more junk on the radio than at Fred Sanford's place.

I just want to rip the radio from my car and toss it on the side of the road, to spend the rest of its days sharing space with tire remnants and road kill, until some unsuspecting jail trusty comes along to put it in its proper place -- the dump.

But it's not the radio's fault. Surprisingly enough, the problem begins with the radio stations.

There's one station in town that calls itself the fastest growing radio station in Cape Girardeau. So? With my rapidly growing waistline, I'm the fastest growing reporter on staff. Does that mean I'm the best?

And maybe this station is the best; it is the one I listen to the most often. Again I must say: So? Here, in a vast mecca of radio ga-ga garbage, isn't being the best radio station a bit like being valedictorian at summer school?

This station is also almost schizophrenic in its format. It calls itself "Real Rock" and mocks the oldies station for playing songs from 10 years ago. Immediately following, you can hear "Cat Scratch Fever," "Iron Man" or some other lame '70s song, many of which were performed by bands who later went on to such big accomplishments as dying in helicopter crashes.

It's a question of who comes first, listeners or advertisers? And for perspective, how old are advertisers? Wanna guess? Can you say Uriah Heap?

Later, the station will occasionally play a more modern song to appease the masses. When a song does come along that I like, and it does finally get played here some 12 months after the release of the single, they play it over, and over, and over, and over, until I want to take a pencil and shove it into my own eye.

They go back and forth, back and forth, trying to please everyone, and in so attempting, please no one.

And the other stations are no better, all seemingly subscribing to similar philosophies. (This does not include country music stations, which I know very little about. I am not a big fan of songs with such titles as "She Left Me for a Man With A Job," or "Sorry Babe, I Was Cleaning My Fist and it Went Off.")

Management in radio ought to know that there are alternatives out there. With tape and CD players, we really can listen to what we want when we want. Which is something I whole-heartedly encourage.

Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.