The WSUM Morning Zoo shows are my soundtrack to driving to work most days. Each day is something a little different. Wednesday’s show is Jake “The Snake” Foster and Under The Covers.

He plays “this day in history” songs, plays a cover song along with the original (cover song of the week), and at the end of the show has a “mystery song of the week”. For this he plays a song and you call in and guess the artist and name the song.

I always get out my phone and have it ready to dial, then am stumped by the song, or are too slow to call with the right answer.

Recently, as the first riffs of the mystery song of the week played I immediately knew it and called in. I won! Woo hoo! It was Los Lonely Boys doing “How Far Is Heaven” in Spanish, but still recognizable.

I have never heard my name on the radio. I have won a few things over the years from radio contests, but was only referred to as “caller” afterwards. I once won tickets to a party before a Residents show, but since they perform in giant eyeball costumes, no one knows what they look like, so if they were there Dalton and I wouldn’t even know. Essentially it would have been a party with strangers before a show we didn’t have tickets to, so Dalton and I passed on going and always laughed about it for years afterwards. Party with The Residents, or not. Who would really know? However, I knew Jake “The Snake” Foster calls the winners out by name  before he ends the show. In typical Aural Retentive style, and knowing that now I can post music files, I opened my voice recorder app and recorded the radio. It’s crude and not sonically perfect, but you hear my name.

Winner! Finally!

It’s the small victories in this life that make it all worthwhile.

When he updates his Facebook page I’ll include a link here.