Late to bed and early to rise...

...doesn't exactly put me in maximum creative mode.

I fell asleep somewhere around 2345 while listening to Ian Punnett of Coast-to-Coast AM. Woke up at 0415. Still listening to Ian Punnett.

Sorry, Ian, you're no Art Bell. You're not even George Noori.

I've always loved late-night radio. Long before I became a professional night-owl working from 1800 to 0200 and staying up even later (which I did for many years), hearing voices in the darkness soothed me, made me feel somehow connected to the world.

Back in the days when I thought I might be able to have a career in radio, I wanted to do the late-night shows. Actually, I still do in a way, though it seems that's nothing more than another unfulfilled, unfulfillable fantasy.

Sometimes, when there's nothing else to hang on to in the darkest hours of the night, people pick up the phone and call those insomniac radio hosts. No matter what the topic, you can tell something else, something far more elemental, is on their mind.

Something like making contact.

You have to wonder: how would that poor guy -- or rarely, for reasons I've never understood, woman -- behind the microphone feel if their phone didn't ring?

I know, all too well, how I feel when mine doesn't ring.

The radio's off now. Sunday-morning programming is, as far as I'm concerned, the lowest point in the week.

PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: one local radio station has a Sunday-morning call-in show hosted by "Jesus Christ." Not even I, who would do damn near anything for a buck, would have the nerve to do that one....

I can hear birds chirping happily outside. The sky is getting light. Another day begins.

No disrespect to any of them, but I dream of, pray for, a day when I won't have to fall asleep -- or wake up -- with Ian, Art or George keeping me company.