I was there, and in fact Lileks sits down next to me (a great honor probably deflated by the fact that mine is the easiest name to remember). It was as he says,

The best conversations, as ever, were with the autodidacts, the people who�ve made their own eclectic connections between this and that and the other thing, and keep adding to their storehouse. I can�t imagine what my brain would feel like if I�d gone to grad school, spent half my time trying to screw small wet chunks of literature into the ears of undergrads and the other half researching some misbegotten thesis whose impenetrability was matched only by its utter uselessness in the world beyond. In the real realm it�s different. It�s always amazing to learn what people do for a living, and what they know. Has nothing to do with money or class; it has to do with that fortuitous combination of intellectual hunger, a large supply of tinder that catches fire when two odd things rub together and cast sparks, and a mindset nearly identical to mine in values and fascinations.

Thank God James didn't go to graduate school. Given his early ideological leanings, he might have become another disingenuous Jim Sleeper.

But apparently, according to Mitch, after I left -- which was early due to lack of sleep and muscle relaxants for my back -- the conversation turned to Blondie.

Blondie was to New Wave what Billy Idol (and before that, Generation X) were to punk, or Creed was to grunge; a face and a voice in the right place at the right time; technically the "real thing", but just a bit...too...perfect.

I'm sorry I missed that. My zenith in radio was 1980-81, and Blondie was always 'A' bin material, stuff we had to play for sure at :00 or :30 -- you set your breaks to end 90 seconds before the top of the hour, quickly hit the cart (yes, tape!) for the ID, and release the vinyl just as it feels like it's threatening to slice the finger I needed to go type my grad micro II final, just to hear "duhduhduhduhduh-dMINOR!!!geeefdMINOR!!!efcee", a chord progression I could teach my son in five minutes, and he's a bassist. (So am I, and the bass line is even lamer.)

Actually, the Giorgio Moroder period didn't bother me that much, given by this time my show sounded like I was playing straight out of Gary Numan's tape collection. But this did it.

I never looked at her the same again.

Anyway, sorry I had to leave. I would have had to vent about that album cover, and I don't think it would have been pretty.