Oh, what fun the wind could be. For years at my undergraduate station, giving the weather "forecast" was simply calling the local weather office and getting scant information about that day's highs and lows and maybe a current temperature. We were told to call every hour but people got wise fast and usually called during the first hour of their three-hour shift; some DJs wrote the "forecast" on a paper on the back of the studio door and it was used by everyone else throughout the day – though you still had to call to get a current temperature.
Or, for current temperatures you could use the weather station in the studio, which was one of the biggest jokes in the studio, in my opinion (aside from occasional DJs). I never knew it to work. It looked antiquated, with its faux-wood paneling and red LCD lights across three faces – a thermometer, a barometer and a circular display to show wind speed and direction. Supposedly it was connected to something on the roof and supposedly if you waited long enough the readout on the device would be decipherable – somewhere in its use it had lost the ability to show complete numbers. So what might have been an 8 appeared as a 3 (picture this is some "digital" numeral font) and, in the end, hardly reliable.
The fun part was the red line indicating wind direction that crept around the circular display – it always seemed to be on the move and something else to question the device's reliability. But we shouldn't have cared – right? We never gave the wind speed in our "forecasts," we just worried about the basics. True, but (as you can guess) there were always a few people every semester who thought they were being helpful in giving wind information and muddled through some pretty funny moments. Most of the time, the people reading wind speed would read it live – meaning they would correct themselves as the display changed. "Southwest at 5, no wait, that's southeast at...I think 10 or is it 15, it's hard to read...." However the one I remember most was the guy – a rather large guy named Todd who tried to find humor in everything - who would read all three displays, adding the wind information was "from our windometer."
Yes, he would quote and give credit to our "windometer." I think that was about the time we told people to just ignore the weather station.
People, I think, loved quoting wind information. Periodically the telephoned forecast would indicate something about "wind advisories on area lakes" and people would go on and recite it on the air, oblivious I'm sure to what it meant and that there really were not major "area lakes" in our area to worry about wind or no wind. Oh, what fun it was when it was windy.
Speaking of Windy, that was the title of a 1967 single by the California-based group, the Association, a song I had heard numerous times and one I still enjoy. Being of somewhat broad musical tastes, I was surprised one day at the undergraduate station to find myself listening to a song I knew was by the Association in the middle of our nightly rock shifts. The few times I was on the air I would acknowledge that the Bloodhound Gang's version of Along Comes Mary was a cover of an old Association tune from the 1960s, but I seriously doubted anyone listening knew or even cared. I'm sure its inclusion on the Half Baked soundtrack stemmed from the lyrics supposed reference to marijuana but that really doesn't matter to me.
And anyway, the wind blows.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Along Comes Mary
(Tandyn Almer)
The Bloodhound Gang
From the original motion picture soundtrack Half Baked
1998
Every time I think that I'm the only one who's lonely
Someone calls on me
And every now and then I spend my time in rhyme and verse
And curse those faults in me
And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary
And does she want to give me kicks , and be my steady chick
And give me pick of memories
Or maybe rather gather tales of all the fails and tribulations
No one ever sees
When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch
When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks
Whose sickness is the games they play
And when the masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes
As who is most to blame today
And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary
And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality
From where she got her name
And will they struggle much when told that such a tender touch as hers
Will make them not the same
When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch
And when the morning of the warning's passed, the gassed
And flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars
And then along comes Mary
Then along comes Mary
And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains
She left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more
When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch
Sweet as the punch
