As I’ve mentioned on here multiple times, I was OBSESSED with my mom’s camcorder when I was a kid/pre-teen and was always making stupid videos, fake TV shows, and the like.

But before the camcorder came the tape recorder, and JESUS CHRIST it was the same sort of obsession. I remember having a tape player/recorder when I was really young (back when we lived in Troy, so like six or seven years old?) and it had this little microphone thingy attached by a spiral cord. I remember doing all sorts of interviews and other weird stuff with it.

Fast forward to the late ‘90s (1999 to be exact) and I had a fancier tape recorder but the same old desire to do weird-ass fake radio stuff with it. I recorded an entire tape of me doing commercials, interviews, news segments, and a decent amount of music I recorded from an old Monopoly game I had on CD.

Wanna hear it?

(Side 1 content starts around 0:17)
(Monopoly music on Side 2 stops around 4:27)

The “ZFAT 101” comes from the “Z-Fun 106.1” radio station in Moscow.

At least I’m not singing along with the Monopoly music. There’s a tape of me from fifth grade on which I distinctly remember singing about Rogaine to one of those songs on side 2.

Yes, there’s a commercial like every two minutes. It’s infinitely more entertaining than me going all improv on my electronic keyboard two-thirds of the way through side 1, though.

It’s shocking I didn’t go into journalism or mass media or film or something like that given all this nonsense I did as a kid.

(It’s actually not that shocking; I became much more introverted as I got older and also realized I was ugly and untalented and so had absolutely no chance of success in any of those fields.)