The Ghost in My Playlist
My carefully planned playlist was hijacked by what I can only attribute to our local station folklore. He latched onto Dawes… again and again. Shut down iMedia when I refused to play from my system. Simply a night of true chaos, improv, and movie mixups.
The night began routinely enough on my Blend Show. I mix 5 genres, 5 songs each in sets, and transition smoothly from one to another. My sets for the night: Folk, Soul & Jazz, Americano, Gospel, and Indie Mix. Only this night, I began the set off with Dawes’ All Your Favorite Bands. If you’re familiar with that song, there’s a line that says, “I hope all your favorite bands stay together.” A fitting song to begin the night, don’t you think?
As I transitioned smoothly into my Soul & Jazz set, Gregory Porter’s Liquid Spirit graced the airwaves. Then, surprisingly, Dawes played again. Taken aback, I let the song play, apologized to my audience for replaying it so quickly, and moved to a commercial break. During that time I resolved the problem and continued on with Rhiannon Giddens’ At the Purchaser’s Option—at which point Dawes’ All Your Favorite Bands played AGAIN. Now, I don’t know if it was Gregory Porter’s Liquid Spirit bringing our station’s ghost to life, but it certainly seemed so. After trying to play yet another song, only a full shutdown was enough to stop the madness.
Legend has it that in our studio, one of the first engineers and DJs chose to reside in the station he helped create, long after his passing. Occasionally he makes his presence known. But I can’t have our listeners hearing one Dawes song on repeat all night. I turned the song off, apologized again, and began joking about the Ghost in the Machine movie. I was thinking, obviously, of John Ritter’s off-the-wall comedy — you know, kind of like Tron, but funnier. As I dug deeper into my memory, I couldn’t recall the co-stars, but I told my listeners it had to be a comedy, like Dumb and Dumber. Those are my off-color comedies — the ones that make you sit down and wonder where the writers ever thought to come up with that. One has to roll their eyes and laugh, am I not wrong?
“Stay tuned,” I told my listeners, “I’ll verify my movie memories and report back after these important messages and our station’s selected songs from iMedia.” Yes, there’s normally an easy button for that. BUT. As my system was rebooting, iMedia went down! There was NO way to play music, PSAs, Public Service Announcements, or anything. It was dead air only: the biggest FCC no-no! So, while scouring the interwebs on my cell phone — researching John Ritter’s early 1990s movies, Tron, Ghost in the Machine — with ten tabs open, I told my audience once again to stay tuned. And I took a tangent into one of my favorite places: the public library.
The public library offers an enormous amount of resources — not only books, but also eBooks through Libby. You can borrow movies, use computers, get free tutoring, print, study, and reserve conference rooms. If a title isn’t in your town, you can request it, and it’ll be shipped to your local branch. They’ll even call you when it’s ready. And the best part? It’s all free. You can’t beat the National Public Library. Speaking of those movies, I finally tracked down the John Ritter film.
It wasn’t Ghost in the Machine. It was Stay Tuned. How ironic is that? An offbeat comedy about a satellite salesman pulling couch potatoes into hell… unless they survived 24 hours of satirical TV programs. One involving his own. Well, I won’t ruin it for you. While Stay Tuned had the same kind of absurdist humor as Dumb and Dumber, Ghost in the Machine did not, and Tron stood apart entirely. Long story short, we lost John Ritter much too soon — a man who dedicated his life to making his audiences laugh. He’ll never be unseen. His joy and warmth will always be with us. He gave his all, even passing on the Disney set in 2003. He will always be seen, I said.
With that, the computers were back, and music was ready to play. Just in case, I chose an old Blend Show. But the station’s ghost seemed satisfied from then on. His voice had been heard. His favorite bands were still here, his favorite fans were still here, and he had been seen. I suppose Gregory Porter’s Liquid Spirit might wake him from time to time, but that’s okay. We’ll always have books and memories to share — no matter how mixed up they get. Because a little chaos and improv is what sets us free.
Do you ever need a break — to feel seen? To feel like your art isn’t vanishing — your poems, your lyrics, your dances? That’s why we’re here. Zines. Anthologies. Talking with like minds. Close enough, we’ll brainstorm. This is your Safe Haven. Sway on in and SAY HEY — SwAY HEYven.
Lira Wren
© 2025 Lira Wren. All rights reserved.
