I don’t know if everybody else around the world has thought about this as I have no idea if they’ve seen the same commercials and other advertising that BP has been running in the USA over the past few years.  For me, I just cannot escape the overwhelming irony in how BP reintroduced itself to this country with its “Beyond petroleum” campaign.  It made its initials stand for that phrase instead of the traditional British Petroleum and came complete with cute little Internet-style cartoons on how they were going to be working so hard to supply the world with clean energy (as if such a thing really exists because, basically, energy = volatility).  Now they will be known for at least the next generation for nothing but being the company that caused the greatest ecological disaster in American history and made the Exxon Valdez look in comparison as if it were nothing but somebody that took a raunchy piss into the ocean from over the ship’s rail…which, considering the drunken captain that caused the biggest chunk of grief to come out of Alaska until the arrival of Sarah Palin, is probably what was actually happening when the ship ran aground.

Well…at least it is not Gary Burghoff — Radar O’Reilly from both the movie and television versions of M*A*S*H — being thought of during all of this.  Burghoff was a big part of BP’s first failed attempt at reintroducing itself on the west coast and elsewhere when they tried to kill off the ARCO and AM/PM brands.  In what must have been a desperate try to generate some new income since nobody can ever think of him as anything but Radar, poor Gary dressed himself up in and old-style gasoline station uniform and shilled away for BP.  Unfortunately for Burghoff, his paychecks from BP did not last very long.  As much as most of America still loves him, people on the west coast seemed to rebel hard against losing ARCO — almost as strongly as when ConocoPhillips tried to take away our beloved 76 ball.  I don’t even think that the campaign lased a year before BP returned the ARCO name to the stations it had already re-branded.  Goodness knows how much money it cost consumers to cover the cost for their marketing blunder.

In another irony, it is odd how most Americans distrust if not downright loathe “Big Oil” but, at least for the older ones, can still wax eloquently about some of the old stations, brands, and how things used to be before the 1973 oil crisis and consolidation (something proved by great websites like GasSigns.org and all of the various other “petroliana” sites and retailers available on the Net).  Worse yet is that there is no good alternative.  Unlike Wal-Mart where one can choose to get the same products from a more humane retailer, there is no such choice for gasoline.  It’s not just that the oil industry is a dirty business and that mistakes will happen.  It is the proven fact that each of the big oil companies remaining in the United States of America has an abysmal record in regard for how they use this Earth and the people that live upon it.  I’m not talking about the pollution emitted from motor vehicles — I’m talking about how their attempts to squeeze every single penny possible out of their companies leads to willful poisoning, never caring about basic human rights, and generally doing everything they can to continue on their merry way with absolutely no regard for how many people they sicken or end up killing.

It is a difficult choice for the American traveler.  One would have to be a freak about it like me and take a close read about the history of our current oil refiners, learn the many brands and associates under each of their corporate umbrellas, and balance that all out against the information from research institutes as to who actually makes the best fuel.  The latter is important to me as I like to take long trips by automobile and I have had too many instances in my life where bad gasoline has at least affected my mileage if not actually caused the need for expensive repairs.

When looking at each company’s record of corporate citizenship…well, I think it comes down to what each person cares about most and what types of transgressions one considers to be worse than others.  I have my own choices and pecking orders depending on where I am at in the USA as to what gas is actually good for my car and who is the least evil.  With prices so similar between major brands, I really do look for certain stations instead of just pulling in wherever.

As for those “off brands,” don’t think for a minute that most of them help one escape from supporting “Big Oil.”  With a very few exceptions, their fuel comes from the same sources as the big brands.  The difference is that the blends are usually not as good and, if used long enough, will indeed cause an engine to not have as long of a life as it would if a better brand was put into the tank.  This is regardless of the octane unless one lives in one of those states that sells it at 85 in which case I strongly suggest using 87…86 at the least…85 octane gas is bad news if you care about your car or truck.

So…yes, I stick with certain major brands and I try to use certain ones over others even though no one company is really all that better than the other when it comes to being a good corporate citizen.  Yet, I am not going to give my own personal list, as I really hate to endorse any of them.

However, there are certain ones that I never use and I will be glad to list one of them here.  Even before any of us ever dreamed that they could cause an oil spill that could potentially ruin the entire Gulf of Mexico, I never used BP or any of its other brands which include ARCO, AM/PM, and still a very few Amoco and Standard stations (NOTE:  By “Standard” I mean the ones with the oval and torch logo, not the ones that use the Chevron logo…all still a leftover from the breakup of the original Standard Oil Trust and a very long and sometimes confusing story that everybody will have to look up for themselves if they give a shit).

The reason for this is two-fold.  For one, most BP et al stations charge customers extra if they pay for anything, gas or otherwise, with a debit card.  In this world where traveling with cash is not usually a good idea, I find that despicable.  However, the main reason to not use BP (etc.) gas is that it is just plain shitty.  None of BP’s brands have ever made the cut on the Top Tier Gasoline tests and come nowhere close to getting an endorsement from the Terror-Free Oil Initiative (a controversial organization so investigate them thoroughly for yourself before deciding whether or not you want to consider their advice when choosing what gasoline to purchase).  Strictly on anecdotal evidence, it always seems to be an ARCO station (remember, they’re owned by BP) that is being exposed in the local media for watering down their gas or fiddling around with the pumps in order to make one think more gas was purchased than actually received.  In addition, from my personal observations, the last five vehicles I have owned have all run like shit on ARCO, BP, and Amoco as opposed to most of the other major brands available in the western portion of the USA.  Their fuel just has no power and makes a car run sluggish.  In my view, in my area of the USA, the only brand that’s worse is Valero and its associated brands of Beacon, Diamond Shamrock, Total, and Ultramar (and some but not all Thrifty stations).

So…for me, a boycott of BP for what will probably end up being their criminal negligence in using faulty equipment and not being properly prepared for such a disaster is not big deal to me since I finally said “enough is enough” to their shitty ARCO gas after yet another round of my car running like total crap with a tank full of their swill.  As I recall, that was over 11 years ago and I have only stopped at a BP station once since that time and that was only because I was in the middle of bumfuck Kentucky and had no choice.  Even then, I only bought $5 worth so I could get to where I could put in some good gas as well as a bottle of STP fuel treatment to clean up any junk left behind by BP’s shit-tier gasoline.

Still, I again say that it is never a perfect choice when choosing a brand of gasoline.  However, I do recommend that people should make a top choice plus a few others underneath for a pecking order when that brand is not available when traveling as none of them are in every state and province any longer even under different names.  Trying to stick to the same brand of gas most of the time will make your car very happy.  Better yet, in most cases unless one owns a performance-based vehicle, there is no benefit in paying for anything above 87 octane (86 if it is available).  In fact, when it comes time for a smog inspection if needed, a lower octane is actually more likely to help a borderline vehicle pass (at least in California and Colorado) than something more expensive (check with your mechanic first on that though before taking an iffy vehicle to a smog inspection…this is something that can vary from vehicle to vehicle not to mention state to state).

Just remember, a good-running car or truck runs more efficiently and thus saves fuel and emits less pollution.  Think of it just like your body.  You can eat nothing but McDonald’s all the time, feel like crap, take some of the nastiest shits that have ever flopped out of your ass, and have it start clogging up and eating out your innards.  Gasoline is the same thing as it is your vehicle’s food.  Even if you don’t care about pollution or, dare I say it, global warming, at least think of your pocketbook.  Paying a little more for good gasoline in the present goes a long way toward preventing a huge repair bill in the future.  In other words, for those old enough to remember the old Fram commercial which is probably one of the best examples of actual truth in advertising in American history…you can pay me now…or pay me later.

I hope that gives everyone a little something to think about especially since most people make their choices in fuel with hardly any thought at all.  If a decision cannot be made on good corporate citizenship, at least make it on what is best for the car.  Remember, being an informed consumer is one of the best ways in this whole modern world in which you can stick it to the man. >:-)

Those of my readers that have been paying attention around here since my last entry will have noticed I have been diligently working on my new Radio page as I did determine that the amount of links I wanted to put up was just too much to cram into this site’s navigation column. While I have already found 134 stations (both regular and Internet-only), I still have a little more research to do in order to make sure I get in as many as possible that meet my general criteria in order to be deemed worthy of posting before I remove the “under construction” disclaimer on it.

I want to have as many as I can not only to give my readers as many choices as possible but also for my own purposes.  I want to watch something when it inevitably happens. That something is how many of these stations will still be streaming or even exist at all in their current format after the implementation of what opponents like myself call the “performance tax” against radio stations and Web-based streaming services. For those unfamiliar with the “performance tax,” what it means is that a radio station has to pay a small fee to an artist’s record company every time a song is played on the radio or streamed over the World Wide Web. This has never been done in the now 80-year history of the commercial, government-regulated era of radio in the United States of America.

This performance tax is controversial to say the least and has actually split the music community. Many of my favorite people including some that should know better like Bob Weir and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead support the “performance tax” and feel it is only right to receive a little something for their work. Others share my view that what little most radio stations make (even the big conglomerates) off of playing songs like Truckin’ for the zillionth time pales in comparison to what the artists make back in the free publicity they receive especially if they are still touring (which is where the real money has been made in music for quite some time now and nobody should realize that better than the likes of Weir and Hart who hardly ever sold many records in the grand scheme of things but still live lives of luxury thanks to their great concert tours…Bob and Mickey, I still love you guys as much as ever but I can’t stand with you on this one).

While I encourage everybody in the United States to write multiple letters to their Senators and Congressional representatives to oppose the bills attempting to implement this fee, the odds do not look good. Still reeling from their mistakes in ignoring the spread of the Internet (not to mention too many consecutive years of putting out and promoting really shitty music), the major record companies are throwing lots of campaign contributions around in order to recoup their losses through this “performance tax.”

The fear regarding this new fee imposed on all US broadcasters and netcasters is that it will even further restrict already tight playlists and make it even more difficult for new artists to break through and have the chance at making it big. Basically, if music radio seems mostly repetitive now, it will get even worse as only the major labels and big artists will have the power to make deals with radio stations to “buy in bulk” and reduce their costs for playing songs. This could also put more power into the hands of the big radio conglomerates as smaller radio groups, independent stations, public stations, and netcasters will not be able to afford the fees, thus forcing them to either become talk stations (like we need any more of those repetitive pieces of steaming nut-job shit on either side of the political spectrum!) or to simply hand their license back to the Federal Communications Commission and go silent. After all, in this economy where many small commercial stations and colleges can no longer afford to pay to host a website for their stations, how will they pay for the thousands of songs normally played in any one week?

However, like many of their ill-conceived plans over the past 30 years, this plan could come back to bite the major record labels hard and usher in the next musical renaissance for which many of us have been waiting since the all too brief wave of good grunge music out of Seattle ended the hair band era.  If station owners play their cards right and enough small broadcasters and netcasters get organized, they can all just simply refuse to play any song that requires payment of the “performance tax.” Many stations, especially Web-based ones, do a form of this already in order to keep from having to pay fees to the big publishing rights organizations, ASCAP and BMI.  In addition, it’s certainly not like there is a shortage of really good “independent” music in any style that a station owner would want to have programmed.  In today’s anti-everything world where even many self-proclaimed “conservatives” have lost faith in today’s corporate culture, the lack of initial familiarity with artists on a no-performance-tax station could be more than made up for by proper promotion of this “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” philosophy sweeping the country.

Sure, there will be a longing by a portion of the country for the “hits,” but how long will they be able to stand it when the playlists get down to a mere handful of songs?  After all, even the biggest Aerosmith fan can only stand Dude Looks Like a Lady so many times before he or she wants to hear something else (or, in my case, vomit).  It will be tough on people that still cannot get enough of the same old songs by the likes of Aerosmith, Linkin Park, Billy Joel, or Toby Keith and that does indeed suck because “hits” have a good place and serve a great purpose especially when in a diverse group of people where it is better to have music that is familiar so nobody feels completely left out of what is going on.  However, the idea of rebuilding radio and reviving the industry has to be aimed once again at the young folks just as it was when rock and roll first hit in the 1950′s, again with the “underground FM” stations of the late 1960′s, and yet again with the “modern rock” stations of the early 1980′s. They are still the biggest music consumers plus the most desired demographic by advertisers and are not going to care one hoot about not hearing older hits and established artists because, just like every generation, they need to have something of their own.  That might sound pretty shitty to the 40-ish and over portion of the crowd that reads this blog but, if done correctly and enough stations refuse to play performance-taxed music, the tax will go away and the “hits” will come back faster than you can pull out your lighter and yell out, “Play some Skynyrd, man!”

However, there is one caveat to this somewhat long shot of playing only non-taxed music working both for station owners as well as their potential audiences. Especially for over-the-air radio stations, they will have to be willing once again to invest in good on-air talent, go back to a “less is more” philosophy on commercial breaks, and convince people that they care about the local community, are connected to it, and will give its audience multiple ways to connect to it themselves both in actual action as well as through social networking websites and services. If the radio stations in the “performance tax” world of the future fail to do these things while continuing to program only to the lowest common denominator and use “voice-tracking” instead of real disk jockeys, they will remain useless in a time and place where most teens and young adults have multiple portable mp3 players that never play a commercial or force one to sit through a song that one does not like.  After all, why deal with useless announcements and extra-long commercial breaks when they have no meaning even if an iPod or a service like Pandora sounds almost sterile?  This also goes for the college and community-based broadcasters that I see more and more turning to automation and free syndicated programming in order to fill their program schedule all while increasing the length and annoyance factor of their pledge drives.

Thankfully, a complete overhaul of what is played on radio would take care of one thing that has been plaguing it since the mid 1980′s — it’s predictability.  One reason that radio can still survive in this era of Internet and satellite radio along with mp3 players is that those new technologies mostly come with no surprises much less anything extra that makes one feel good, special, connected, or appreciated.  Sure, those new technologies serve their purpose and I love my iPod and groove over many obscure Shoutcast streams.  Yet, if given the chance and done with even the slightest amount of skill, regular radio can still give people that “oh wow” feeling…and it could get even better in a world where almost everybody has to completely reset what they play.

Anyway…it is going to be interesting to watch what happens. When officially finished…well, as much as any one Web page is ever finished…I am guessing that there will probably be somewhere between 135 and 150 stations linked on my Radio page.  If the “performance tax” becomes law, will they shrink down to only 50 or even less than 20, or will enough people take the initiative to recreate American radio and have such an explosion of good music of all types (even country!) that my new Radio page will no longer be necessary as almost every city and small town will have at least one good radio station just like it was 1976 again?

In a world where the big beverage companies are at least experimenting with bringing back soda pop made with real cane sugar instead of hydrogenated corn syrup and making them taste almost like they did before the mid 1980′s, perhaps there is some hope.

Still, I encourage you all once again to speak out against the “performance tax.” If “the man” ever existed in this world, he is embodied in today’s major music conglomerates. Stick it to him, and stick it to him hard, folks!  This is not just about entertainment, it is about trying to control something that, up until now, has always been free and I don’t just mean that in monetary terms.  Nothing would please me more than enough people protesting to block these bills and make this entire blog entry a complete waste of time…not to mention that the whole thing could be a mere pipe dream anyway as passage of the “performance tax” is more likely to result in even less choice and, worst of all, even more commercials to pay for it all as far too many people in the USA have either completely forgotten or never learned in the first place how to think outside of the proverbial box.

To get informed on the issue and learn the best ways to take action, the following link is a great place to start.

No Performance Tax – http://www.noperformancetax.org/

As I mentioned in my previous entry, one of the things I am having fun with is adding some of the many links I have saved over the past 11+ years since I first got access to the World Wide Web.  Of special importance to me is the tons of sites I have for radio stations all over the world that I personally enjoy as well as like to use to prove that the medium is not quite dead everywhere just yet.

Going through these links brings me back to my very first Web project.  When I first got access to the Internet, it was through an original WebTV box (now MSN TV).  Without going into the whole history of that mess and how it was yet another good, independent company ruined after it was taken over by Microsoft, there came a time when the technology in “the little black box” as WebTV’ers called it began to quickly fall behind what was being used to stream audio.  Having just started to learn very basic HTML thanks to Draac.com, I decided to do something about it.

I got a Tripod account and started building a website that listed radio stations I thought were good and, most importantly, that still had a stream compatible with WebTV.  For the style of websites at the time (with LOTS of animated gifs, of course!), it turned out pretty good.  I learned how to enter meta tags and submit my site to all of the various search engines available back in 1998 (well before Google even thought about being pretty much the sole king of search) and expected a few people to come in here and there.

Little did I know that, while I was away from home for a weekend concert, WebTV published a nice little half-page blurb about my site in their monthly magazine that was mailed out to its subscribers.  I returned to find that my e-mail inbox was completely full and the front-page hit counter on my site had gone from about 250 to over 250,000!

It was a great time and certainly satisfying to be a minor Internet celebrity for a few months, at least within the million or so subscribers that WebTV had at the time.  Over the long term, it taught me a lot about what people want out of such a site and I will be forever grateful to Draac.com for showing me that I could do more with HTML than just figure out how to put a scrolling marquee of a dirty word into my WebTV e-mail signature…oh, and didn’t the rest of you with real e-mail accounts just love those fat-ass e-mail signatures that WebTV’ers were famous for? :-D

Of course, time has marched on for better or worse.  With the perfection of search engines, the need for people making entire websites dedicated to links is mostly no longer necessary.  A decent computer and fast Internet connection are now just as cheap as MSN TV, so only those determined to keep surfing it “old school” still have to deal with any limitations.  And, of course, we have gone through wave after wave of new things and changes in how people can stream and acquire music from Broadcast.com to Napster to Shoutcast to iTunes to Pandora.

On the bad side…well, has anything been as bad as the unintended consequences of broadcasting deregulation in the United States?  Oh, that’s right, there is something as bad…the way the major music companies completely whiffed on the Information Superhighway and screwed themselves by refusing to man up to the new technology.

For me, this is all a sad thing.  Every radio station within a market had its own personality.  Then, if you traveled to a different city, they had stations with similar formats but they had their own different take on things.  With few exceptions, not only does every radio station of a certain format sound exactly the same from city to city, but they can even be caught playing the same songs at the same time (and that’s completely aside from the ones that are just piping in a syndicated service).  Gone are the local programmers who knew how to fit the playlist to their own city’s tastes, gone are the local music shows, and gone are almost all of the public service programs.  We have even sunk to such a point of greed that many stations will no longer break in to regular programming for news bulletins or severe weather alerts (a huge pet peeve of mine that some of you will remember from the old version of this site).

I am also saddened that people significantly younger than me now have absolutely no attachment to radio because it never gave them a reason to love it.  Thus, a whole generation has lost something else that gives them a sense of true community much less a source of good entertainment and information.  They just don’t know the joy of that great surprise of a perfectly-timed song or segue or of how a really good disk jockey could set the mood or even spur one to action whether that “action” was something political or to just stop sitting around with your hands in your pockets and go give your baby a hug…and, maybe something else, too. ;-)

Most frustrating of all is how playlists have become so narrow and repetitive.  Here we are in a world where there is more music available than we ever dreamed of yet your local “classic rock” station that now considers the Allman Brothers Band “too old” to play anymore is more than happy to play Aerosmith’s  Walk This Way for you four times a day, every day, every month, every year, all the while ignoring all of those other Aerosmith songs that were hits but, somehow, aren’t good enough anymore.

Today’s radio programmers and bean counters answer such complaints by saying, “People just want to hear the hits now.”  In return, I say, “Then why are your ratings continuing to drop?”

I know full well why their ratings are continuing to drop as I see it in my personal life every month.  The less computer-savvy people in my life keep sending me people my age or older that are so sick of radio that they will take the previously unthinkable step of using their computers to do something besides go to Facebook and look at porn.  They all want me to teach them how to rip CDs, buy songs from Amazon, and use an iPod.  This goes for all major genres of music, too.  These people coming to me are all different — some like “classic rock,” some like hard rock, some like country, and others like R&B.  They are tired of radio that programs to the lowest common denominator and almost every one of them that has had it are also now very frustrated with Sirius XM who, ever since the merger, started programming most of their channels just like an over-the-air station.

Ah, but there are still a few places where one can find an oasis of good radio even in a world where most National Public Radio and college radio stations have been corrupted by the influence of consolidation and the music companies that no longer believe in a truly free market.  Actually, when all listed out on a Web page, it starts looking like far more than just a few.

For now, I am placing the best of the best of my many radio station links over in the right-hand column along with everything else.  I actually have a lot more than what I have posted so far but I keep many of those strictly for reference and mainly to listen in if that area is being attacked by tornadoes.  However, even editing all of those out and as I still have every state and territory to go through from Idaho to Wyoming…well, it just might be time to bring the old radio page back.

What I am putting up is a wide variety of stations but that do focus mostly on local “community radio” — the kind of stations that could be playing old progressive rock songs when you tune in and then, two hours later, it’s a program featuring bluegrass followed by another one of independent alternative rock.  However, there are still some good commercial radio stations left and a handful that will always be special to me no matter what…well, as long as they don’t pick up Rush Limbaugh or any of his disgusting ilk.  When completed and regardless as to whether the just sit in my regular links section or get their own page, you will find all eras of rock plus jazz, classical, folk, world music, Cajun, Americana, Hawai’ian, classic country (none of this pseudo-pop shit Nashville has been churning out like bad sausages for far too many years now), and goodness knows what else.  Best of all, I will link to only those stations that put out a good quality stream.

For those of you even deeper into radio or more curious about it, I have also put up some of my favorite history, commentary, and news sites related to the subject.  There are even a few streaming-only stations as well.

I know that was a lot to read and I am becoming more aware by the hour it seems that I need to start putting up some more eye candy on this site so it does not put everybody to sleep.  Hey, it has been a long time coming between the slow death of the old site and this resurrection so it will all come in time.

Until then, I hope my readers will keep checking as the Radio links section changes and grows and that you will all find a good station or two that will either bring back some good memories or, even better, introduce you to some great new music.

Just remember…every time you listen to a good, independent radio station and not some cookie-cutter owned by Clear Channel, Cumulus, Citadel, CBS, Corus, or any of the other ones, you are sticking it to the man. >:-)