Matt Gajewski is the author and host of Pure Imagination, a podcast and radio show that airs Saturday mornings at 8 AM on WVUM. The following is the third portion of his story Minimum Security, a tale concerning loneliness, insomnia, incarceration, Burmese Pythons, and Dadeland Mall. Previous episodes are here.

December / Die Hard / Lexus

December came to Dadeland, and on a special weekend detail my fellow inmates and I decorated the mall with fake Douglas firs, artificial mistletoe, and tinsel in preparation for the imminent holidays. It was going to be my first Christmas in prison. The thought made me a little sad, but most of my thoughts made me a little sad. At least this year there would be no guesswork on which column contained my name on Santa’s list. The warden, in addition to being a clothes hound and a grapefruit and Häagen-Dazs enthusiast, was an aficionado of all things Christmas. He strolled the tiled floors of Dadeland in December with a carol ever on his lips and an extra bounce in his step. Every year the warden organized an extravagant Christmas show in the open area near Michael Kors and Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. It was called the Dadeland Holiday Minimum-Security Spectacular. Inmates reenacted the Nativity and sang Handel’s “Messiah” and performed selected scenes from A Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, and Die Hard. I had mixed feelings about Christmas. I liked all the colored lights people strung on their houses and around ficus and palm trees, but I didn’t like the presents. I had never gotten anything good for Christmas, and had never given anyone anything good for Christmas. On TV around Christmastime I’d always see these commercials where a man blindfolds his wife, walks her out to the garage, and then pulls off the blindfold to reveal a shiny new Lexus with a big red bow. Boy those commercials made me feel lousy. What could I possibly buy my sweet Maria that could compete with a shiny new Lexus with a big red bow? Usually I bought her bath soap. I bet those disgraced corporate executives had bought a shiny new Lexus for a girl or two on Christmas, though. One of the executives was going to be Joseph in the mall Nativity reenactment, and another was going to be the Virgin Mary. No one was surprised. Those disgraced executives were always pulling strings.

I guess I’m what, an eighth of the way in and I still haven’t mentioned Hawkwind or Diana Krall or Tina Turner or the Spawn Sacs, right? Oh well. Who knows how long before this train derails. Today we hit 500 which means nothing really other than I might be on more frequent sabbaticals from here on out, which is cool because you can just continue imagining that somewhere else, I’m also committing the same violent transgressions against the English Language and Her Grammar and Spellings. I like pork chops by the way. #Chuleta Oh, I’ll also be very busy making those tapes for our four contest winners since the equipment will be back from the shop this week!!!

How long before this little pony crashes sideways into that tree? That tree that’s always been there and this little pony don’t see coming? How long before do ya think? And I says thank ya. But really. Let’s find us another hobby. Another venture. Let’s throw the towel in. Let’s pretend we care. Let’s ignore the blade as it slips reddened out of the English Language and Her Grammars and Spellings. Let’s see if the little pony avoids the tree, but bucks the rider into a ditch.

Orioles, Pansy Division, Flatus, and C + C Music Factory behind the curtain …

Part the eighteenth is not the sordid tale that would take you galloping through some maiden’s maidenhood, nope, it’s actually quite boring. You should probably skip over it and head back to John Spain’s memoirs of life as a WVUM alterno-muzak jockey. There’s lurid stuff in there too. Late night cocaine binges, unprotected sex with hookers of questionable age, wild theories concerning French poesy of the late nineteenth century, dark rooms/alleys, soft penile touches; in short, everything you would need for a solid yarn of the Pynchon middle canon. In other words, a much better read than this shameless tromp through the erogenous zones of the English Language and Her Grammar and Spellings. Don’t bitch later like I didn’t warn you. Cuz I did, cuh, I did.

ATR, Promise Ring, Mastodon and Aztec Camera beyond the jump …

Notable album releases around this time include In An Aeroplane Over The Sea, The Soft Bulletin, Terror Twilight, Kid A, and The Moon and Antarctica. Part one of this series is here.

So our story opens in Winter of 1999. I’m not going to recount most of the experience of applying for a show again. People who have actually worked in College Radio or spent any time in a comic book store will have an idea of the snobbish air that permeates things that can otherwise be called “hobbies.” Fleshing out the ways that independent music has changed and covering the general oddness of working at WVUM are both later subjects. For now though let’s delve into the hoops and pitfalls involved in getting your very own radio show and trying not to screw up on it every 10 minutes.

Here we are with Part the Seventeenth rearing its ugly head in our (well, rather, your) direction and all the tautologies of the past stand true in defiance of better judgments, e-mails, threats and attempted trébuchets. Do we soldier on? Sure, why not. At this point all four of you look forward to my less than clever musical musings. Plus, we break the Holy 400 today, whatever that means. But I do know what it means for the English Language and her Spellings and Grammars. It means I don’t give a flying good goddamn of a coasting fuck on roller-skates. I wonder if there’s a direct correlation between financial stability and being a complete music loser/dork? Are these things even related? Shit, now I’m babbling and getting personal, something I promised I’d never do within these digital pages…

Run D.M.C., Wanda Jackson, and Ol’ Blue Eyes beyond the jump –

“So remember when you used to work at WVUM?” said Liz.
“Yeah?” I replied
“You should write about that” she continued.
“Hm.” I thought about this for a second and then put it off for like a year.

This brings us to today and this post that I hope will be the first in many articles chronicling my experiences working at WVUM between 1999 and 2003. Among the things I want to discuss are the shifting scene of college radio at the turn of the millenium, the general ridiculousness that occurs when college radio weird meets Miami weird, the changing nature of the Miami music and mainland club scene at the time, how odd it was trying to run an indie college station in Miami generally, and (if I still have patience) the albums that came out at the time that I find significant.

Given how quickly things can change in 10 or more years, let us first provide some context for entering WVUM circa 1999:

Here we are at the Via Crucis of good intentions. Remember last year when we held a contest for a mix-tape from my heart to your ears? Remember that? Remember the instructions? How if you posted to Facebook and became post number 127 you’d get one? Seemed like a good idea right? Save you the trouble of “downloading” music and owning something that will probably disintegrate in a couple of years but that would have some kind of cool little handmade package to show the kids eventually? Yup, it seemed like a good idea to us too.

Well, it’s been a while my sweet chickens and dearest fools of the parade, but with reason. Now, dispensing with the cutesy introductions that usually preempt these proceedings, many things have happened in the weeks since we saw each other last, but one thing remains true and solid within these digital pages: my deadly incursions into the sacred realms of the English Language and Her Grammars and Spellings continues unabated by reminder e-mails and occasional real-life skirmishes with people in the word biz. But I say unto them and you my sweet chickens and most dearest and appreciated fools of the parade, could I possibly give a bucket of rocks kicked over of a flying fuck when my THL sheriffs encourage my excessive excess? Nope, I didn’t think so… we soldier on to the day 4000 becomes a reality, or I perish in a hail of recorded materials!

Bad Religion, Mark and the Mysterians, and more after the jump