In my mind, life is a radio broadcast and I’m your DJ.

I talk, you tune in. Limited commercial interruption, best mix of the 80′s, 90′s, and today.

All Steve, all the time.

My sub conscience is a small sound booth. Inside this cramped studio is a cigarette in my left hand, a half-filled cup of coffee to my right, and a dusty microphone only getting washed sporadically with spit every time I enunciate ‘P’ words.

The phone lines are open

-Good evening out there in radio-land, we got a good one for you tonight, so cozy up in your favorite chair, warm up some ovaltine, and lend an ear. It’s 15 after the hour, 20% chance of showers tonight; up next, another one off the request lines, boners and under-prepared atheistic rants…-

I like that, because I’m a narcissistic, asshole. I’m hell-bent on thinking that my opinion is so important to get out, that I use 3 different means of social media to do it, and am proud to report that the audience is growing. Like radio, you broadcast and then wait to see the numbers come in. We want the data, the info, the viewership…it is detrimental to survive.

A voice…it doesn’t have to speak to get people to listen. A keyboard. A pen. A style. Silence. A self-righteous asshole intent on giving you a piece of their mind.

Hi. I’m that, up there ^. You know, the bad thing I just described.

-Taking your requests, Nick from Chi-Town is sending this one out to the airwaves off the request lines…-

The only thing that is 100% personal and dear to me I have already written about, and that’s my son. Attention is next though. It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever admitted to. My vocal projection with attentive, perked ears on the other end is probably one of the most dear things to my heart. It’s a horrible quality for a person to have. The yearn for it is what molded me from a listener to a speaker. Lately I’ve been trading in my headphones for a PA system.

Radio was important to me as a kid because it was simply a voice projecting a message.

It still is.

We need to be on the same page here, however. I’m not meaning Hannity, or Limbaugh, Howard Stern, morning radio duos, top 40 countdowns. I’m talking about ’10pm bat-shit crazy AM radio.’ Where you know the guy is chain-smoking, adding rum to his coffee and just delivering his unscripted thoughts. Aliens, conspiracies, meaning of life, emotions, etc…He is talking and has no idea where he is going with it, much like my writings.

And you…you, you fucking idiot, you’re listening, you’re reading. Happily. You don’t need a message, or an agenda. Just an attitude of, “Entertain me you fucking sociopath!”

Now that I’m running the mic and projecting my opinion I can tell you I just want someone to hear me out, nod their head, raise their eyebrows and bend their lips downward at the end saying, ‘not bad.’

TALKING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I HAVE.

-It’s 25 after the hour. Nothing but darkness on I-80 east.-

Of course it’s my best and worst quality. You poke fun at me for it. It’s obvious. Yes, I don’t shut up. My need for an audience has been the expense of many jokes for years, but it’s my lifeline. This is a statement I’m not making with throwing in some metaphor, sarcasm, or joke about my dick.

This is that moment in a conversation when as the storyteller, you suddenly realize you have the entire audience. The conductor.

They’re baiting on your every word. It’s rare, it’s a shooting star coming out of your mouth…and when you see it, it’s beautiful.

I live in an attention-whore’s Narnia and I’m fingering Aslan.

-Steve’s joke is brought to you by cashforgold.com, enter promo code ‘Cunt’ and receive 10% off your order-

It’s why you get addicted. It’s also why you stop listening or reading. People have changed the dial. People have tuned in.

I work two jobs now.

I go to School at UNR.

I take care of my son.

I do homework.

I go on runs.

…and I still find the time to type this each week, because it’s a drug. I love it.

These attempts alone can piss off friends from trying too much and too hard, when all I was attempting to do was land that ‘perfect line’ or make you think, make you laugh. For all of us going attention fishing, it’s downright devastating reeling in an old boot after throwing out your 9/11-joke bait. For those of us who are good at it…we’re gonna need a bigger boat. You’re starving. You’ll do anything to get it. You’ll set a Twitter trap, a Facebook net, a blog underneath a box held up by a stick…just waiting to pull the string.

But it started by hearing someone else, by being inspired, by searching the dial.

Nostalgia on topics dear to us are all we have some nights, we are Owen Wilson stuck in a time and position that we don’t appreciate. Looking back gives you something to do. The past pushes your future sometimes, and it’s astounding.

So I guess my mouth, not my heart, is the real stereo.

-It’s 30 after the hour, 37 degrees, winds from the north-