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I admit it. All I really ever wanted to do was play records for people, and say “Listen, isn’t this great?”

Am pretty sure that there’s at least one scene in Diner and High Fidelity that has a character doing just that.

I’m a frustrated DJ with a total lifetime tally of 3 on-air shifts, two on WFMU’s Listener Hour (in September 2002 and 2008) and one on WUNH in Durham, NH.  I shared the latter with a friend who was music director of the station, on the weekend following a particular sad breakup. Todd rightly kept me from talking too much about it during that shift, because really, no one wants to hear a twenty-something whine about girl trouble. Especially not on the radio.

So why I didn’t DJ at college?  I had the example of WNYU’s DJs at the time to learn from, and they set the bar incredibly high for what a college radio show could be. Blazed in my memory is “Oi/Noise The Show”, a relentless combination of hardcore punk and over the top screaming by “little Timmy Sommer”; it remains some of the best radio I’ve ever heard–and I didn’t even like the songs he played.

Which was rare, because I liked most of what the station played. Some songs I still cherish–alternate universe one-hit-wonders like The Cosmopolitans’ “How to Keep Your Husband Happy”, Pulsallama’s “The Devil Lives In My Husband’s Body” and Medium Medium’s “Hungry So Angry” along with the new wave of the day–early OMD, New Order, Gang of Four. It was a great station, and I would’ve killed to be on air there.

Footnote: my wife Heather, a young teenager in NJ at the time, listened to WNYU’s “This Is Pop” show and loved it so much that went down to the station a couple times to hang with the DJ, Rich Grula. Who was pals with The Individuals’ (and later Bar None’s) Glenn Morrow, and later a member of Rage to Live with Glenn. Fifteen years later, Glenn introduced Heather and I and on a blind date. So WNYU effectively changed our lives. But I digress.

So yeah, I wanted to be a college radio DJ. I went to Columbia’s orientation in August of ‘81 and immediately looked into joining WKCR, Columbia’s station.

But WKCR were/are jazz snobs. Ever heard a jazz DJ intone the catalog number and players on each track with a solemnity close to davening? It started on KCR. And while I completely appreciate the scholarship that promoted about the music–it’s a part of what turned jazz into art in the eyes of the world–those jazz snobs blocked me from getting on the radio.

So I found ways to play music for people. I DJ’d at a pub in college and was pissed that the dance floor emptied when I spun “And Your Bird Can Sing”. The Barnard girls wanted “Borderline”, and the frat boys wanted  “Play That Funky Music”.  I sunk to playing records at college rollerskating parties. Honestly, it was fun to play songs that people move to, but that don’t have move to,  so while the hook of Chic’s “Good Times” makes it the obvious pick, I vote for Marshall Crenshaw’s “Someday Someway” as perfect skate song.

Another way to force your taste on people: mixtapes. More than one weak movie (and a great book) has been made about segueing one song after another on cassette tapes. I’ve got a batch of these moldering in the card catalogue cabinet filled with tapes that I barely if ever listen to; pulling them out on occasion, the songs I thought were worth including are sometimes shocking. Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation”? What the hell was I thinking?

While Apple (and iTunes) has obviously changed how consumers use music, my interaction with iTunes has become more and more about…making playlists. I’ve made playlists for every party we’ve had in our house: every post-Easter Egg Hunt, bagels-and-matzoh brunch, every Christmas meal. I care WAY more than anyone else ever does, though it’s certainly gratifying when someone notices that, yes, I was actually playing NWA’s version of “Express Yourself”.

The ability to instantly choose songs, change their order, and listen to how they segue into each other has wasted more of my time than I choose to admit. On my daily commute I frequently listen to my iPod on shuffle and make playlists using the “On The Go” function when I come across songs for a playlist I’m going to make some day.

Which, as most things do these days, brings me to…CrossFit. I’m completely, utterly obsessed by this crazy exercise regimen composed of functional movements done at high intensity, focusing on both speed and form. Having never been a jock growing up, I’m working nearly every day to get better at overhead squats, double unders, and other moves that if you don’t do CF, you’d have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. And that exclusivity of knowledge is absolutely part of the idea. Either you’re a Crossfitter, or you suck.

In fact, I can draw parallels between the elitism I used to feel comparing taste to others, and the elitism of a CF-er thinking they’re better than any other athlete..and, well, just about anybody. CF-ers put their bodies through the most grueling workouts possible, then bragging about the pain they went through (a typical CF t-shirt reads ‘your workout is our warm-up’). Also, the evangelism of bringing folks into the CF cult (…join us…) is similar to what I’ve felt trying to turn friends on to new music I’m loving (…you gotta hear this new Arcade Fire record, it’s the best thing ever…).

They play music at my CF box Guerrilla Fitness during the WODs (workouts of the day). After way too many hours hearing the same Metallica, Tool and AC/DC songs, I forced my iPod into the hands of the coach running the class and had them play my custom-made WOD playlists, thereby becoming eligible to DJ two months ago at a CF Sectional at GFCM recently.

It was awesome. I played anything I could find with a beat, going from one track to the next on by cueing up songs off the same iPod. It wasn’t seamless, but it fired up my DJ jones in a way it hasn’t been for years.  I totally loved turning folks on to the Buzzcocks, and Saul Williams, and the Fleshtones for godsakes.

So, here’s what happens when a music obsessive becomes an exercise obsessive. Behold: WODtunes.

Intergalactic – Beastie Boys

Run – Gnarls Barkley

So Rich So Pretty – Mickey Avalon

No You Girls – Franz Ferdinand

Aint Cha – Clipse

1,000,000 – NIN

Radiapathy – The Velvet Teen

Crawl – Kings of Leon

Motorhead – Hawkwind

Gravity’s Rainbow – Klaxons

Flypaper – Cave In

Master of Puppets – Helisau

Feel Good Hit of the Summer – QOTSA

Party Hard  – Andrew W.K.

Satisfaction – Devo

Sonic Reducer – Dead Boys

Only the Good Die Young – Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

Beat on the Brat – Ramones

Personality Crisis – New York Dolls

When I Died – Thermals

Holidays In the Sun – Sex Pistols

Cretin Hop – Ramones

Strutter(Live) – Kiss

Freedom – Grandmaster Flash

Kick, Push – Lupe Fiasco

D’evils – Jay-Z

It’s Just Begun – Jimmy Castor Bunch

Calling All Destroyers – T.Rex

When You Were Young – The Killers

Chinese Rock – Ramones

Somethin’ Else – Eddie Cochran

Head Down – NIN

Stigmata – Ministry

Forever In Your Hands – All That Remains

Your Touch – Black Keys

Touch Too Much – AC/DC

Searching In The Wilderness – Allen Pound’s Get Rich

Under The God – Tin Machine

For Reasons Unknown – The Killers

Two Weeks – All That Remains

The Rat – The Walkmen

Blitzkreig Bop – Ramones

N.W.O. – Ministry

Back In the Saddle – Aerosmith

What Do You Do For Money Honey – AC/DC

Toys In the Attic – Aerosmith

The ’59 Sound – Gaslight Anthem

Stop – Against Me!

Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) – Arcade Fire

Setting Sun – Chemical Brothers

Kick Out the Jams – MC5

Black Dog (Live) – Led Zeppelin

Search and Destroy – Iggy & the Stooges

Yeah I Love You – Earl Greyhound

Lust for Life – Iggy

Push Push – Bang Camaro

Jailbreak – Thin Lizzy

Playing with Dolls – Slayer

Cherry Bomb – Runaways

Tie Your Mother Down – Queen

C’mon Let’s Go – Girlschool

Half Half & Half – Oxes

Set Me Free – Sweet

Rapid Fire – Judas Priest

List of Demands – Saul Williams

B.O.B – Outkast

Cappucino – The Knux

Stuck In the Metal – Eagles of Death Metal

The ’59 Sound – Gaslight Anthem

Dead! – My Chemical Romance

Stop – Against Me!

See You in Hell – Grim Reaper

Beg to Differ – Prong

Almost Easy – Avenged Sevenfold

Crack The Whip – Cloven Hoof

I Wanna Be Your Man – Endeverafter

Gotta Get Out – Endeverafter

When I Died – Thermals