I was eager to tune in. To tell the truth, I barely turn the damn thing on anymore. Well, for anything besides basketball, South Park, The Daily Show, Rio Bravo on AMC (again), reruns of NewsRadio, Cheers and Gilmore Girls or the hilarious cleaned-up Sopranos on A&E. And wouldn’t you know it, an overly sanitized Pump up the Volume is on WGN right before tonight’s broadcast. YES! Happy Harry Hardon! They should have burned the place down at the end, like in Rock & Roll High School.

Oh, the Kennedy Center thing. 2009’s honorees were: opera singer Grace Bumbry, Dave “Take Five” Brubeck, Mel “It’s good to be da king” Brooks, Robert “Are you talkin’ to ME?” DeNiro, and Bruce “Broooce” Springsteen, who’s already Emperor of New Jersey AND The Boss.

For those who don’t know, the Kennedy Center gala is pretty much the only time the U.S. Government officially acknowledges the existence of something called “culture” in our society. The idea’s seed came from Mamie Eisenhower, Kennedy tried to make it happen, and it finally broke ground under Johnson, who named it after freshly-dead JFK. The Center opened in 1971 and has hosted thousands of performances and concerts, mostly jazz, classical and Broadway. Starting in 1978, the Kennedy Center has named five honorees a year for outstanding something-or-other.

Looking over the list of past winners made me wish I had seen 2004’s show, in which George W. Bush’s America paid tribute to Mr. Bob “you can call me Zimmy” Dylan, that old pinko.

 The whole shebang is a big deal. The fun starts on Saturday at the White House, where the president awards each recipient a ceremonial ribbon, which they are required to wear all weekend. Then dinner and cocktails and a sleepover at the president’s pad. The big glitzy Golden Globey public ballyhoo is on Sunday afternoon and the highlights are edited into a two hour special, airing Sunday night.

The honorees sit WAY the heck up in the fifth balcony (along with Mr. and Mrs. Prez), their spouses/dates behind them, and the adoring crowd below is constantly turning and applauding up towards heaven at them. The strangest thing is that during the proceedings, the five say not a word (neither does the president) while the accolades flutter up from the floor. They just sit there silently, like royalty.

The selection this year was pretty solid, not a bum among. But jeez, look at this bunch of geezers: Springsteen (token rocker/boy-next-door) was the youngest at 60 (he definitely dyes his hair), followed by DeNiro (token tough guy) at 67, Bumbry (token Negro) at 72, Brooks (token Jew) at 77, and Brubeck (token egghead), celebrating his 89th the day of the show.

The highlights were an interesting mix of high- and low-brow:

Harvey “this guy called me a mook” Keitel’s speech on DeNiro was mock-interrupted by Ben “Gay Focker” Stiller, who interrupted his own DeNiro spiel with “Holy crap, there’s Bruce Springsteen! BROOOCE! And that Nobel Prize guy …”, which our president laughed heartily at and then The President Of The United States BUMPED KNUCKLES with The Boss. That in itself should have been bizarre, but they seemed at ease with each other: the King Of Rock & Roll and Soul Brother #1.

Dave Brubeck, who introduced the rhythms and time signatures of Morocco, Turkey, India and other exotic locales to the world of Western music, smiled ecstatically as a combo made up of his four sons played a medley of his tunes.

Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin introduced Grace Bumbry, the first black opera singer to play Venus, which caused quite a stir in the early 1960s. Her highlight reel was illuminating and astounding. Grace was a real babe in her day, and easily looked 20 years younger than her 72.

The weirdness started with Mel Brooks’ tribute. Old pal Carl Reiner kicked things off, followed by Harry Connick Jr. singing “High Anxiety”, Jack Black belting out “Men in Tights”, and a small production of “The Inquisition” sketch from History of the World, Part I. Sure wish Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle were around to sing “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.

Then someone from the Broadway cast of The Producers dedicated the next song to Barack Obama, and it was called “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst”. I kept waiting for the TV cameras to show a reaction shot from our president during the number, but none was forthcoming.

It got even stranger with a full-blown production of The Producers‘ “Springtime for Hitler” with the dancing girls wearing the big sausages on their heads and all, followed by the cast’s führer doing his mincing little dance bit. This caused the night’s best reaction shot: Mel Brooks grinning fiendishly while his date looked on in open-mouthed horror and disbelief. It could possibly have been the most tastelessly hysterical extravaganza ever staged for a U.S. president (no Obama shots during this part, either).

The high point of the evening arrived when they said “Ladies and gentlemen, Mel Brooks!” and the whole room applauded while Brooks stood up, took out his pocket comb, made a Hitler moustache out of it and seig-heiled all present. While Travis Bickle laughed and clapped next to him. Surreal. They saved Bruce for last. It started out classy enough, with Ron Kovic, the wheelchair-bound author of Born on the Fourth of July relating his first meeting with Springsteen, followed by fellow Jerseyite Jon “Death To Smoochy” Stewart delivering his own funny and surprisingly heartfelt tribute.

It went straight down the crapper from there. Dig it: John Mellencamp sang “Born in the U.S.A.” (blah); Melissa Etheridge growled her way through an overblown “Born to Run” (BLAH!); Eddie Vedder softly grunted “My City of Ruin” (sorta OK); and the grand finale? STING (Sting?) led a gospel choir through “The Rising” (BLEARGGGHHH!), during which the audience was on their feet and clapping bouncily on the one, just like when Fleetwood Mac played “Don’t Stop” at Clinton’s inaugural all those years ago, proving once again the great majority of rich white folks have no boogie in their butts.

When Hollywood or Broadway or any other large showbiz institution tries to pay tribute to rock & roll, they always get it wrong, and tonight was no exception. “Let’s have a bunch of singers with gruff voices doing songs about America” was really about as far as The Kennedy Center’s understanding of Bruce Springsteen and his music went. They didn’t even mention the E Street Band, which probably would have been the first words out of Bruce’s mouth, had he been allowed to speak.

But that’s OK, rock & roll has its own hall of fame, which Iggy Pop isn’t a member of yet. Go figure that one out.

Here in scenic historic whitebread Flagstaff, I believe it is one’s civic duty to improve one’s surroundings however one can in order to make one’s community more … umm, human? Tolerable? Not sucky? What’s the opposite of depressing? I’m currently involved with two radio stations, one imaginary (sort of) and one real (sort of).

A while ago I decided to stop bitching about how utterly awful Flagstaff’s airwaves are (OK, I still do that) and get off my duff and contribute to their beautification. Radio Free Flagstaff is the brainchild of Noise contributor and local broadcaster John Abrahamsen. RFF is designed as a community-access station open to all, no experience necessary. John has a much more eloquent statement of purpose on our website radiofreeflag.org. In a nutshell: send us money. Please. We need to get on the air. It will be worth it, promise and swear to God.

Ideally, Radio Free Flagstaff will broadcast 24/7 with a signal as strong as any other local station. And y’all are invited! Let’s get it together, boys and girls! The FCC will be listening so we have to keep it kind of clean, but subversive is A-OK, encouraged even.

The fact that a city the size of Flagstaff (stop calling it a town) doesn’t already have community radio is ludicrous. Remember when there was a local television station with a nightly newscast? No? That’s because it went off the air fifteen years ago and never came back on. We’ll speculate on why that happened another time.

In December 2010, Congress passed the Local Community Radio Act, which basically loosens the FCC’s stranglehold on the FM dial and encourages small towns to start their own grassroots stations with a local slant. We’re on the list for approval, just need to get that bread together.

Frank Chipotel and I started doing shows in September 2010. We’re like two of those wacky AM DJs, except funny and with WAY better music. I do silly voices and Frank gets grumpy and yells a lot. And we bring in good tunes. There’s tons of other quality programming posted as well.

If you’ve ever seen a radio station on TV or in a movie, that’s where we record. It’s cluttered but clean. It has a broadcast booth with fairly expensive mikes and headphones and a bunch of mysterious electronics (I try not to touch too many knobs), a central office/meeting room with a door, and a general “bullpen” area with several desks.

There’s radio-centered effluvia everywhere: trade magazines, framed certificates and awards on the walls, stacks of promotional CDs and Public Service Announcements, a utility closet with all sorts of wires and stuff, sports knick-knacks, filing cabinets, and a huge satellite dish out in the parking lot about three dumpsters tall surrounded by a concrete barrier with a locked gate. You need a key or a security code to get in to the studio. The public restroom is usually cleaner than mine at home and it’s always empty. I’ve had several satisfying bathroom experiences in there.

The whole place screams “professional”. As I said, just like the movies.

My other gig is on KWHY (106.9 FM), a pirate station with a low enough wattage to fly under the FCC’s radar. Heading south from downtown, the signal dies around Wal-Mart; heading east, around 4th Street. A girl we know started it but then she moved and now I don’t think anyone is in charge.

KWHY is located somewhere most of us have lived, usually in our early 20s: The Party House. There’s five or six roommates and several dogs and cats cohabitating there. Every week or two they’ll have bands play in the living room while dozens of drunk punks roam the premises and break stuff and knock over beers and pee in the yard and fall down.

The day I started doing my show was the first time I had ever seen the place empty. I’m never sure if the people I meet live there or are just hanging out. The recycling bins are ridiculous; this single household may be the Pabst Blue Ribbon company’s best customer in Flagstaff.

I don’t think they ever lock the front door. Everybody just walks in, no one knocks. The kitchen is usually pretty horrific. I’ve never had the courage to sit down on their toilet. There’s a second bathroom in back by the broadcasting equipment, but it’s been out of service for months and stinks really bad so the door is kept shut.

Sometimes there’s a group practicing two rooms over that completely drowns out my show and I have to either put on headphones or give up and go home. I bring my own headphones because the ones there are broken in half. The whole joint usually smells like spilled beer and/or week-old trash. They could really use one of those hand-san dispenser. The transmitter is about the size of a paperback book. It came from Radio Shack and only requires a two-prong plug for electricity. From it, a cable runs between the washer and dryer in the next room, out a hole in a window screen, and up to the antenna on the roof.

The main amplifier is the same kind of receiver I have for my stereo at home (meaning nothing fancy). There’s two turntables, a CD player, a dual cassette deck with one of the doors missing, a two channel DJ mixer with a cheapo built-in microphone, and a four-way junction box that includes an 1/8 inch plug for an MP3 player or laptop. Except for the transmitter and the dish, all the equipment could have been found at Savers or Goodwill or a garage sale. A lot of it is held together with duct tape.

How do you know you’re on the air? You simply tune the station in on a portable radio/CD player, the kind with two inch speakers that ten year old girls get for their birthdays, and crank that sucker up. Not too loud, or the mic will start feeding back.

The entire operation gets its juice from a single power strip (piggybacking a second one) with an adaptor on the end going into a two-prong wall socket. That’s it. The whole damn station. The first time I came in there, the plug was hanging out at a 45 degree angle. I rigged it with some duct tape so now it sits full in the outlet.

Your grandma has a better stereo setup than this. So does the average technophobe. Everything looks like it might fall apart at any minute. Sometimes it does.

THIS IS HOW EASY IT IS TO GET ON THE RADIO. When you don’t need a license, that is.

When no one’s broadcasting live, the iTunes shuffle is on. The DJs and residents of the party house have packed it full of goodness from our personal collections. Sometimes I’ll be listening at 2 or 3 AM and some truly WEIRD people will be on that mic.

Like I said, KWHY’s wattage is so low the FCC has no jurisdiction over it. That means we can play and say whatever we want. The first time I uttered the f-word on the air was quite liberating. I immediately said it six more times in a row, just because it felt so damn good. The novelty hasn’t worn off yet.

Wednesdays are my night. I cart over about 30 LPs and a handful of CDs from home. I’ve always wanted to hear bands like Husker Du, Mission of Burma, Big Black, Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, The Melvins, Guided by Voices, Skinny Puppy, Bastro, The Fall, Gang of Four, and Pere Ubu on the radio and now I’ve made it happen. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the albums skip really bad. Sometimes the needle gets all fuzzy and you have to lift it off the record and go brrt brrt with your finger and put it back on.

The other week I played nothing but Frank Zappa for four solid hours. It was awesome. I’m thinking of bringing in Live at Carnegie Hall 1961 by Lenny Bruce and spinning the whole thing, all six sides. Maybe follow it with some Lord Buckley. It really frees you up when you realize no one is listening except maybe the other DJs.

There is one major difference between the two projects. All the shows we’ve done for Radio Free Flagstaff have been recorded and edited and are available on the website. I have MP3 copies of them on my hard drive.

When I broadcast on KWHY, the words and music are released into the ether and then they’re just gone, whether or not anyone out there is hearing them. It’s a moment in time that passes undocumented.

My greatest fear for RFF and KWHY is that they succumb to the Flagstaff Curse. It goes like this: Everyone sits around bitching about how everything sucks now and how cool it was back in the day. Something new with potential for greatness pops up. Those involved try to get people excited about it. People get into it for a while, the excitement wanes, the new thing dies. Everyone sits around bitching about how everything sucks now and how cool it was back in the day. Repeat.

Radio Free Flagstaff and KWHY may have radically different approaches, but the intended result is the same: to let the voices of our community be heard. No matter how incoherent they are.

Except for KZXK (98.9 FM), all of Flagstaff’s radio stations are corporate owned. That means they are all driven by one goal: profit. None of them are interested in doing anything beneficial for our city. But some of us are.

Maybe if we yell loud enough, someone will hear us.