Spring Is on the Air

Something vaguely approaching spring has arrived in Boston. The Red Sox are playing again, which is a sign, but it's still rainy and cold more days than not, which is actually another sign. Once we get our first one-day blast of 85-degree weather followed by a late-season killing frost, we'll know that spring is here for good.

To welcome this lovliest of seasons, my much-delayed tribute to spring hits the air tonight at 7PM on 91.5 FM in Boston and wmfo.org on the Intertubes. You'll hear spring tunes from the likes of ELO, The Beatles, Blossom Dearie, Tom Waits and Minnie Ripperton. That's right, the annual playing of "Loving You" will represent the first challenge of WMFO's new digital sound system with the fabled "high E."

All of this, plus Nick Zaino calling in with an update on Boston's comedy scene to the tune of his favorite song, "Jai Ho." Not to spoil the surprise, but we hear a certain Boston comic (who I'll be appearing with in Auburn a week from Saturday) will be making his debut on a late-night talk show.

Despite Disaster, Really Cool Guest

First, the bad news. It seems that Kris Earle and I made a huge mistake when we left the new Rivendell Automatic Playlist system in "Live Assist" mode after the show last night. It got a little hot under the collar and burned the station down. I'm really, really sorry about this, especially after all the work I put in building the new record shelves in Studio Dee, and the superhuman effort to move the sleep sofa in there, where I know it was a source of endless delight and admiration from On the Town's chief engineer, Joel.

I appreciate Drew and the rest of the WMFO staff for covering for me. It was an honest mistake. Who knew Linux servers could be so flammable? That really ought to be in the user documentation.

Obviously this presents some challenges to broadcasting, but our tower is still up and standing on top of Ballou Hall, so tonight at 7, I'll be climbing a ladder along with Boston comic Shane Mauss, who's been featured three times on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and was named Best New Comic at the 2007 HBO Comedy Arts Festival. We'll be talking about life on the road and what it's like to be on a network talk show.

Nick Zaino will be sending carrier pigeons up to the tower at 8PM to let us know about all the great things happening on the Boston comedy scene. Tune in by setting your radio to 91.5 FM in Boston, or by tuning your Web browser to WMFO.org. We've managed to keep the Web stream up thanks to a complex adaptor soldered together by Andy, that grabs the on-air signal through a Sony Walkman plugged into a USB drive.

As this is probably my last show before my permanent ban for burning the station down, I do hope you'll tune in.