THE MUSIC OF AMERICA!

You know what NPR has too much of? Classical music and JAZZ. As excellent comedian Paul F. Tompkins puts it, jazz is "a genre of music that is defying you to like it". I like some jazz, and of course there's no denying the jazz hands. I just don't like the "experimental" stuff where the hepcats squinky-squonk around, sometimes going reallyfast and then stopping. If I wanted to hear funny-sounding, atonal music I would do a bunch of nitrous and play the bagpipes. That actually sounds pretty fun.

The one NPR music show I can't get enough of is on KUNR on Wednesday nights from 7 to 9. That's right, I'm talking about MUSIC OF AMERICA with Bob Carroll. It's all music from the 1930s-1950s--the kind of songs you would have heard if you went to some swanky casino show at the Algiers in Vegas, or if you were at a USO dance during the war. All sentimental and cheeseball and lovely, with some Broadway mixed in, and an occasional dash of Bacharach. With the exception of the marriage of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, it's the only thing that makes me believe True Love might be a real thing. It kind of makes me wish I were in love. Only it specifically makes me wish I were 80 years old and in love, dancing gracefully with my old ear-trumpet-carrying husband to "Young at Heart". I might need a better fantasy life.