A Palm Springs Exit (II)

After spending 22 months in the Coachella Valley, I moved out of my rental, stored my life in a 5X10 storage locker, and have hit the road.

I have been feeling unsettled for some time about my situation.  I wasn't hating Palm Springs, but more importantly, I wasn't loving it either.  Or even enjoying it.

Yes, there are plenty good things about the desert.  I have spent most of the 00's living in a desert, either Phoenix or Palm Springs. So I can't be sure it's all about the desert. It's probably more about me.

Up until 2006, I had always lived in large metropolitan areas: StLouis, DC, KCMO, San Diego, Phoenix.  While the actual city populations may have hovered below 1M, each metro area was at least 2M+. And that's what I was used to, not the hubbub of huge cities, but the (dare I say) sophistication of larger cities.

OK, true, I am far far far from being a dilettante, and as regions go, the Coachella Valley is leagues beyond most metro areas of comparable size (250,000-ish).  There is star power in town performing weekly at the Fantasy Springs, at the McCallum, atthe Annenberg, and other stellar venues.

So it's not fair to say PS is a "small town", but for whatever reason, I haven't found a niche that made me happy, that made me want to bound out of bed daily and take on the town.  For the first six months of my PS Life, I couldn't get enough of the town. I went out nightly, taking it all in. But that got old fast. I wasn't keen on becoming a barfly, especially since I rarely consume alcohol.

So, in the short term, I am off traveling to San Diego and San Francisco. Then perhaps a couple weeks visiting some family. My brother lives in a town that is barely 100,000, so after some time there, I may be headed back to PS, looking for a new place to live, and sorting things out.

A Palm Springs Exit

Yup, alt-rock left Palm Springs this past week. M995 morphed into some drug-induced hippie-istic classic rock station, calling itself "The Heat". Gag.  I first noticed the change on April 1. so figured it was just a nasty April Fools Joke. Guess not.

Now the midlife crisis boomers can now preen around town blasting Geddy Lee's hystrionic Rush (the band, not the conservative), practice their combovers while bobbing their heads to the Who, reminisce about all the LSD they took while in LA-LA-land, and catch those ads for Preparation H and H+R Block.

PS has a glut of FM classic rock tunes. ("Listen honey, it's Crosby Stills and Nash! Or is that Crosby Stills Nash and Young? I get confused."), KCLB now seems the most "modern rock" although that's not saying too much. The Eagle was always 100% Classic Rock, so my radio dial rarely went there.

When I first started visiting the desert on a frequent basis back in the early 00's, M995 was a fully automated station. It sounded pretty bad, with minimal local "feel". Over the years, they added some DJs with personality, including the strangely-named Polly Chronopolous and their midday Dingo Boy. 

Just a few months before I arrived in the desert, the wonderful 1980s hits station flipped to the hideous rap/hip-hop chillin' format. That was a bummer. Now modern rock is gone because, as the station says on their website that "the Alternative Rock listening audience is just too small a community here in the desert to sustain a commercial radio station."

It also seems likely that Err America on AM1340 may be the next to go. Oh well.