The Callahan

I'm involved with Campus Radio at the University of Mainz. They do one 1-hour radio show per week, during which they have various segments, including interviews, music, campus happenings, etc., but so far my only contribution has been gracing them with my presence at the weekly meetings to discuss the upcoming show. I mostly just listen attentively, stifle my yawns (not always successfully) and try to figure out the appropriate times to furrow my brow and nod approvingly. Just as I'm improving my "Attaboy!" expression at school, I'm also refining the "I think I know what's going on but please don't make me prove it" look when trying to follow German conversations and discussions happening around me. I spend way too much time refining that look in my life.

I'm nervous about volunteering for any assignments because of the language barrier. I don't think it would be wise to include me in interviews or really anything where German is required -- I could probably get by, but it wouldn't really help the image of professionalism and trustworthiness that I think they try to cultivate. If they ever need someone to spell "exorbitant," though, I'm there. Anyway, there's also a music discussion once a week now which I also attend, during which we pop in the new cds we've received from various labels and try to decide what songs to play on the next show. I can handle that since music is an international language. And by "international language" I of course mean English, since that's what most of it is.

So today there wasn't a big selection of new music to check out, but on one of the sampler discs there was a song by a Swedish band called The Callahan. It's a shame they left out the "g," but since they're Swedish I can cut them a little slack (Sweden lost the letter "g" in a bet to Norway a few years ago). Plus, after after hearing the song I wasn't so upset, considering that it wasn't very good. Best that they didn't sully the Callaghan name. If anybody's going to give Callaghans a bad name, I fully expect it to be me, probably involving a wet wipe, a stick of dynamite, a vat of engine oil, a 20 pound turkey, and a lot of bad decisions. I hope your Thanksgiving goes well, though.