It's official. The radio really sucks.

For a long time, people have joked that radio stations play the same ten songs. They're wrong. It's actually about one hundred. But when you realize that there are, say, millions of songs to choose from, one hundred isn't that many. Especially when fifty of them, well, really suck.

Since the first week of September, I've been in a car roughly 170 hours. That's the equivalent of being in a car for a week straight. All this car time has given me ample time to listen to the radio. Which was a lot of fun, at first. I even commented, "you know, we've been pretty lucky with the radio so far." And Josh, my traveling companion, agreed. But that's because the radio hadn't yet run out of songs.

Whenever a song comes on that we don't want to hear, we hit the scan button. At first, we'd have to scan through a station or two before we found something. Then we'd have to search most of the dial. Now we let it scan for twenty minutes at a time because that's more entertaining than hearing the same damn song again.

Neither of us listen to country. Afternoon talk radio is the one thing worse than a song you've already heard eight times. And us both being Jewish, the Jesus rock found in most parts of the country isn't an option.

So we start with the local hard rock station. Limp Bizkit. Eminem. Kid Rock. Lincoln Park. Josh doesn't like Lincoln Park so we scan.

Hip Hop. Nelly. 50 Cent. Missy Elliot. Black Eyed Peas and that song everyone thinks is so original because they're too young to remember "We Are the World." This time, I scan.

We stop at Classic Rock. ACDC. ZZ Top. Led Zeppelin. Then one of those slow rock songs that sucked the first time it was released, and it's no better thirty years later. Both of us scan.

Slow rock. Goo Goo Dolls. Foo Fighters. Goo Goo Dolls again. Everclear. Kid Rock? What the heck is he doing here? So we scan again. Quickly.

Sometimes a station will have Outkast, Greenday, Metallica, Creedence, or Rage. Both of us can listen to any songs from any of those groups several hundred times. And we're forced to, because here comes one of Kid Rock's new slow songs again. Like we're supposed to believe that a walking mullet who bangs Pamela Anderson has feelings? Scan, scan!

After we passed Madonna's "Borderline" once, I went back to it. I had no desire to hear it, I just wanted to see what Josh would do. He changed it within two seconds, with a quick, "what were you thinking?" I burst out laughing, and that passed the time until the next Goo Goo Dolls song.

Every six hours, we hear two to three songs we haven't yet heard. Like this morning, when the Steve Miller Band's "Joker" came on. Which was great, until we scanned through it ten minutes later, and again before the scan stopped. So now that song is useless to us for the next week.

Occasionally, there'll be a game on that we want to listen to. Okay, once. Sometimes we just land on something random and leave it. Classical music, jazz, high school football, the Spanish station - whatever isn't Good Charlotte or the latest Good Charlotte clone.

I do a lot of morning radio call-in, and I've done some in studio, too. And I like the stations I work with a lot, but no station can keep you entertained for six hours straight - especially when they only have a driving range of an hour and a half.

There was one exception. While driving through the Texas Panhandle, we picked up a college station from Amarillo. It was the best thing to happen to us musically since we left. A full hour of good songs we hadn't yet heard. And they weren't any of this unpolished Indy Rock stuff that a lot of school stations play. The station played good songs with which we were already familiar, yet had not heard eight times earlier that day. And that just made things tougher on us - because now we know that those songs exist, and we're just not hearing them.

The reason record companies have to sue 13-year-old kids for downloading MP3s is because radios don't play enough decent music to hold their interest. In fact, we just past an afternoon talk radio station where they were discussing just such an issue.

Scan, scan!

It has been a while since I changed column formats from my old shot style to my new formulaic prose. And while I have had way more fun and a better response with the new format, I still reminisce fondly about the old style. It's like your ex that way. Sure, you're way happier without them, but every once in a while you wonder what life would be like if you had one more shot. Or 15 more.

I've been doing a lot of traveling recently. In the last month and a half, I've been in over twenty states. And the prevailing lesson I've learned is that no matter where you are, no matter who you are, at no matter what time, there will always be a Denny's.

Cigarettes are $7.50 per pack in New York City, but I can buy a carton of ten packs for $18 in some of the places I've been. I could make a fortune buying a few cartons each trip and reselling them, but I don't because I don't like it when my friends smoke. Which is odd, since I seem to be okay with racketeering.

Did you know that Indiana has three time zones? A slice is on Eastern, a slice is on Central, and the rest of the state is on Eastern half the year and Central the other half. Which is convenient, because while the Pacers game is starting in one part of the state, they're already down by 12 in the rest.

State College is very proud that during a football game, the stadium is the third largest city in Pennsylvania - even bigger than Harrisburg. So if an ambitious politician wanted to be elected mayor of the state capital, he could just invite Ohio State to his campaign rally.

While at Ohio State, we went downtown to see all the city had to offer. Ten minutes later, we were back in the car.

Speaking of Ohio, the NBC affiliate in Youngstown did a story on me. I was excited, and I called a friend from home. But nothing killed my enthusiasm like my friend saying, "Cool. What's Youngstown?"

The St. Louis arch has got to be the shortest tunnel in the world.

Here's my impression of the Texas panhandle. Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, church. There could be no one for miles and there will still be a church. Actually, there will be four.

While we were in Oklahoma, we went to the University of Tulsa's football field and played catch. At first we were afraid we'd get kicked out, so we dropped a couple of passes and fit right in.

When I woke up in Colorado, there was a mountain outside my window, and that was pretty cool. But not as cool as living across the street from a huge apartment building. Sure, I appreciate the feats of modern engineering, but there's no chance of seeing a neighbor changing through the window of a mountain.

Iowa is so flat that the tallest thing in the state is a Texaco sign. The second tallest thing in the state plays center for the Hawkeyes.

Parts of Philadelphia can be scary. I was in West Philly, and I couldn't tell which side of the tracks is the wrong side of the tracks. I gave up and decided I'd be safer on the tracks. A train can only hit you once.

California residents elected Arnold governor, proving that they are big movie buffs. So maybe they've seen Superman I, in which Lex Luthor tries to hit the San Andreas fault line with a missile, sending most of California into the Pacific. And freakin Superman had to go and stop him.

One of the stories in New Mexico while I was down there was the rise in reported STD cases. How are any reported at all? If I wake up itching, I don't alert the census bureau. "Hey, Jimmy, it burns when I pee! Just thought you should know."

Driving through Nebraska on a Friday night, there were three high school football games on the radio. I listened to an entire half, just hoping to hear James Van Der Beek say, "I don't want your life."

Writing this was a bit like seeing my ex again. It was fun to reminisce, and things looked pretty good for a little, but by the end of the day I remembered why we broke up. It took WAY too long for this column to come.

Okay, 16 shots.

Here's to the Dancing Guy. He makes the concert more fun for the rest of us.

You know the one. There's a smallish concert - maybe a few dozen people - and he's the one guy right in front of the stage, dancing as if controlled by the music or perhaps non-prescription drugs.

You can see the fire in his eyes and the rolling papers in his pockets, which is surprising since he should have used them all by now. He's had so many drugs that he's begun to offer them to other people. It's not because he wants to share. Rather he wants other people to feel the music, which he can only do through non-prescription drugs.

Here's to the Drugged Out Dancing Guy.

You know the one. He's dancing with more gusto and non-prescription drugs now, and decides to take his sweatshirt off. Soon after, he realizes that he can also remove his t-shirt. The rest of the crowd collectively prays it stops there.

But he doesn't just remove his shirt. He throws it defiantly at the speakers, knowing he can get it back later since no one else wants to go within fifty feet of him. He points at it a few times as if to say, "bad shirt - you weren't feeling the music. Your punishment is to sit in the corner and watch me have more fun than you." Which is a much better fate than actually being on him.

Here's to the Half-Naked Drugged Out Dancing Guy.

Now that his shirt is wearing the dunce cap next to the speakers, you realize just how big this guy is. But he doesn't. He continues to dance, stomach wobbling over his jeans. And then, the unthinkable happens. He begins to sweat.

Despite being shirtless in fifty-degree weather, he's dancing so hard that he begins sweating. His sweating process is also aided by the facial hair he hasn't trimmed since the other Bush was president.

He grabs a bottle of water from the stage and dumps half of it over his head to cool himself down. But isn't taking something from the stage wrong? Not for him. Because he's the only one who truly feels the music. He and the band have an understanding. And to stop him, they'd have to go within 50 feet of him.

Here's to the Wet Half-Naked Drugged Out Dancing Guy.

Now done pouring some water over himself, he tries to offer the rest of the bottle to other people. It's hard for them to hear the offer, since they're more than 50 feet away. But the offer does not go completely unheard. A large black dog begins barking at the water. (Here's to the Guy That Brings a Large Black Dog to a Concert). But after seeing it in this man's cupped, sweaty hands, even the dog refuses the water. Dogs may drink from the toilet, but they're not stupid.

So the Guy points to the dog, which would make the water he was holding splash on everyone around him, were there anyone around him. The Guy points to the dog as if to say, "That dog refused my water, but he's still cool. You know why? Because he feels the music. And he is also not wearing a shirt."

Here's to the Animal-Loving Wet Half-Naked Drugged Out Dancing Guy.

Once the dog acknowledges The Guy's prayer by hiding behind his master's legs, the Guy turns back to the stage and resumes dancing. Occasionally, he slips on the water he just spilled. He points to the ground defiantly, as if to say, "who put that there? Oh, right, me. I'd have remembered that were it not for the non-prescription drugs. Oooh, colors."

And that's when the guy begins praying. He puts his hands together, bows, and begins pointing at the sky as if to say, "Hey, god, thanks for this music. And that water. And the dog." Then he turns to the dog and bows to him, too, before making a very audible "arf!" in the dog's direction. As if to say, "'God' is "˜dog' backwards, so this dog must also have some magical powers. Man, I'm stoned."

Here's to the Hallucinating Animal-Loving Wet Half-Naked Drugged Out Dancing Guy.

He makes the concert more fun for the rest of us. Because he makes it very easy to start a conversation with the Kind of Shy But Happy to Be There Rocking Slightly to the Music As if Not to Draw Attention To Herself Hot Girl.

"Hey, Kind of Shy But Happy to Be There Rocking Slightly to the Music As if Not to Draw Attention To Herself Hot Girl. Did you see that Hallucinating Animal-Loving Wet Half-Naked Drugged Out Dancing Guy?"

"Why, yes I did! (Time lapse) Hey, want to go back to my place?"

"Sure!"

So here's to you, Dancing Guy. You make the concert more fun for the rest of us.

Arf!

My name is Steve, and I'm a shotgun-a-holic.

I don't mean the "get off my lawn!" kind of shotgun. Or the "I can only drink beer when I do it creatively" kind of shotgun. I mean the "riding along side a friend, controlling the radio, making phone calls, and allegedly looking out for the street signs" kind of shotgun. That is where I feel at home.

There are a lot of rules to calling shotgun, and many of them change depending on what group of friends you're with. But here are my basics:

1) The car must be within sight.
2) Everyone riding in the car must be outside.
3) The car's owner doesn't have to ride in the back if he doesn't want to.
4) The driver can overrule anything.
5) Numbered lists are an easy way of filling column space.

Some people may disagree with me on the first two. And they're allowed to, because the most important unwritten rule of shotgun is that house rules rule. The second most important unwritten rule is that no one fewer than five feet tall is ever allowed to call shotgun in a compact car.

The reason shotgun is so important to me is because I can never call "driver." Not legally, anyway. I, like at least four other Americans above the age of 16, do not have a valid driver's license. And I don't mean like the Portland Trailblazers don't have driver's licenses, because that was the jury's decision. I don't have a license because I've never had one. And up until now, I've never needed one. But now that I do, I'm screwed.

I am in the middle of a cross-country road trip, and in the past month, I've been in 13 different states. I've driven in more than half of them (Shhh, don't tell), but it's only when we have the luxury of time, when we're in really bad traffic, or when everyone else is drunk. And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE. If there's a paraplegic with a clubbed-foot and a tic nursing an O'Doul's in the corner of the room, he'd be a better bet than me.

For the amount I've been driving, I'm not that bad. Compared to anyone else, however, I'm atrocious. But that's because you only get good at driving as you do more of it. Driving is like sex that way. While some people are more naturally in tune with the process, you can't really learn any more by reading the manual. Though some guys read those manuals constantly.

We all learned to drive at some point, but people act like they always knew. They expect me to know what I'm doing, even though I've already told them I just started learning. Maybe I should take that as a compliment, since they expect I can learn quicker than other people. Though "you damn moron, can't you drive?" is an odd way to phrase a compliment.

So I, along with many 15-year-olds, am doing the best I can to learn what millions of people already know: how to find the slope of a sine curve. Also, how to drive. Thankfully, I can concentrate on driving without worrying about how I'll do on the SATs.

I do want the freedom that comes with being able to drive. But not the thousands of dollars in insurance payments that come with that. Did you know it would cost me $8,000 to insure a car? That's right - because I'm a new driver, live in New York, drive more than four hours a day, and am under 25, I have to pay more to insure my car than I do to own it. Which seemed sort of silly, at first. That's like buying an $800 computer and paying $1000 for the warranty. But then I realized that, when operated incorrectly, a computer won't kill anyone. Except if you operate it incorrectly by dropping it on someone's head.

I will be able to drive by New Year's, I promise. And I mean legally drive, not the crap I've been doing. If I continue to practice while we're on the road, I will probably drive in more states than most people have been in, even before I get my license. It helps that I recently drove from one side of the "Welcome to Virginia" sign to the other. (Take that, North Carolina!)

In the meantime, I will continue to operate the radio, misfold the map, and use up all of the night and weekend minutes I can. And, like any good passenger would, I will continue to drive my friends crazy.

And don't you dare try to call shotgun.