Stopgap Measures: Love, Loss, and the FM Transmitter

How do some people blog on an almost daily basis? What does it take for me to get my own Wikipedia entry? Will I say something else about perezhilton.com? Huh?

I always enjoy a good quest. An adventure with multiple chapters that takes one across many lands and takes days, months, or perhaps years in what seems like an endless odyssey. The last noteworthy query I explored was a song I had only heard twice in my life - once in 1997 and once ten years later. With twenty minutes checking out crappy 90s compilations on Amazon.com I figured out what I was missing (ASK ME ABOUT IT FOR THE INTERACTIVE PORTION OF THIS BLOG), and that was about it. I suppose waiting it out was better than listening to alternative rock radio for ten straight years. I'd probably keep Incubus and 311 CDs in their original jewel cases in the trunk of my car, and I'd rather still drive a 1989 Isuzu Trooper with more dents than Stuart Scott's tie than do that.

Anyway, with a slight jaunt up north to Richmond to ensure my continued existence and a removal of the apron strings (sorry Mom), I have obtained a new automobile with different audio capabilities than my previous 1999 love machine, though perhaps with fewer miles per gallon. In any case, I was previously forced to obtain an FM transmitter in order to use my iPod in a vehicle without a tape deck or iPod input. This proved a most daunting challenge since I found this alien technology from the 1940s (they found FM transmitters in the UFOs that landed in Roswell, durrrr) to be arguably overpriced and wasn't about to let some rapscallion force the inflated doodad upon my person, though most of you will find this to be an ironic situation.

I write in the past tense because after a week of searching high and low, the proper FM transmitter eluded my grasp and I was burdened with CDs from 2004 in true Jacob Marley style, and I thought all was lost, until early one morning...

Ultimately, this is a story about friendship. For in my darkest hour of Saddle Creek albums and the occasional pop punk cut from Victory or Vagrant Records, one of my oldest friends heard of my doldrums and offered me his FM transmitter, under the auspices that I look after it for safekeeping. I understandably obliged and was grateful, though our exchange went something along these lines...

"You can borrow my FM transmitter while I'm gone."
"Really? Great! Thanks!"
"Lose it or break it and I'll devour large pieces of your family."
"..."

I don't know if he will read this because he is a pretty big asshole, but Kris King, one of my oldest and best friends, made a dramatic improvement to my everyday life when he extended me that final gesture of his friendship, and in his classic begrudging way nonetheless. You see, Kris has decided to go on a quest of his own, by journeying across the pond to dear old London, that backwater British town that got on the map after some dudes in this band The Clash wrote about it. His is a quest of love, unemployment, and hopes of seeing the Spice Girls live, which are things that any person on this earth might strive to obtain. He might write about it in his blog, but he's really lazy. There are Spice Girls lyrics to memorize, after all.

Though we have gotten older and the cruel and crippling winds of the world have swept us up into different places, I will never forget Kris King and the times we had together...

We have a longstanding bet that whoever dies "loses." There is no prize.

For three years Kris convinced me he did not sign up for the Selective Service Act. For six years he convinced me he saw a certain girl we knew naked. I was fooled.

I watched his car die in the ghetto with him. We walked the long way to safety because of my suggestion.

I once made a disparaging comment about his deceased dog. He left a pig's foot on my front porch. I deserved it.
He was once fired from his job by our mutual friend. I laughed upon hearing about it.

He almost got me expelled from high school in the ninth grade. I forgave him.

True, this has been a most sentimental detour, but we all have our own personal quests that involve love, loss, friendship, struggle, and maybe even the FM transmitter. I hope everyone has their own Kris King, because life wouldn't be life without one.