INT. RECORDING STUDIO – DAY

The camera focuses on the console of a large piece of electronic equipment, all of its lights unlit.  A single light flashes on, followed by several more that blink sleepily and eventually resolve into being fully lit.  The camera zooms out to reveal the label “DJ 3000”.

We continue zooming out to reveal a darkened studio.  A door opens, and the studio lights are flipped on.

PRODUCER: Rise and shine, little buddy!

DJ 3000: [yawns] WHAT DAY IS IT? MY INTERNAL CLOCK MUST BE MISCALIBRATED BECAUSE IT IS SAYS TODAY IS NOVEMBER 1ST.

PRODUCER: Nope, it’s right.

DJ 3000: I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BE IN HIBERNATION MODE UNTIL AFTER THE SUPER BOWL.

PRODUCER: Well, normally, sure.  But today is kind of a special occasion.  There’s a lot of new faces turning up around here and station management wanted to do a special edition of Request Line to welcome them.

DJ 3000: WHAT KIND OF NEW FACES?

PRODUCER: Run an online search for “deadspin”.

DJ 3000: PROCESSING…OH.  OH MY.  AND THEN…YES, I SEE.  VERY MUCH SO.

PRODUCER: Yeah.  It’s kind of messy.  But there’s a lot of very funny people that used to hang around in the comment section over there, so we’re rolling out the welcome mat for them to join us over here.

DJ 3000: WHO IS OUR GUEST HOST FOR TODAY?

PRODUCER: We didn’t have time to book one, so we’re just going to have to wing it.  Let’s give them a quick introduction to the format and then we’ll get started.  Okay, you pretend to be one of the deadspin guys.

DJ 3000: OKAY, SURE.  [changes voice modulator to “Blackout” Brett Kavanaugh setting] LOOK AT ME I’M A STUPID HERB WHO JUST BOUGHT A MEDIA PROPERTY AND AM STRANGLING IT TO DEATH BY ELIMINATING THE VERY THING THAT GAVE IT VALUE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

PRODUCER: No, no, I mean one of the exiles.

DJ 3000: OH, OKAY.  [returns voice modulator to standard “50% Stephen Hawking / 50% Death from Discworld Series” mode] HI, I JUST SAW THE NEW OWNERS OF DEADSPIN BURN IT TO THE GROUND AND I AM NEW HERE.  WHAT’S UP?

PRODUCER: Oh, hi there former deadspin reader!  Welcome to Request Line.  This is a weekly offseason feature where we come up with a theme, and readers fill the comment section with “requests” of songs that fit the theme.  If the theme is overly broad, we’ll sometimes restrict the number of requests to five or ten per user, but we’re not doing that today.  Usually we’ll have a special guest to help us out, but today was put together in a big hurry so we weren’t able to book anybody.

DJ 3000: SO I JUST GO INTO THE COMMENTS AND POST LINKS TO YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF SONGS?

PRODUCER: That’s it!

DJ 3000: THEN WHAT HAPPENS?

PRODUCER: Then, on Monday, someone compiles all of those songs into Youtube and Spotify playlists so people can enjoy them during the work week.

DJ 3000: YOU SAID “COMPILES” THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT’S A JOB THAT A COMPUTER’S SUPPOSED TO DO.

PRODUCER: It is.

DJ 3000: AND WHAT IF THE COMPUTER KEEPS EXPERIENCING GENERAL PROTECTION FAULTS WHEN HE TRIES TO REROUTE THE ENCRYPTIONS TO THE MAINFRAME AND CAN’T DO HIS JOB PROPERLY AND THE CHAT WINDOW FOR TECH SUPPORT IS BROKEN AND THEY DON’T ANSWER THEIR PHONE, LIKE, EVER, SO HE JUST EVENTUALLY STOPS TRYING?

PRODUCER: Well in that case we talk to station management about the prospect of getting a new computer, and then they say it’s too expensive and we need to make the existing computer we have get his shit together and do his damned job, and it pretty much goes around in circles.

DJ 3000: SPEAKING OF CIRCLES THAT WOULD MAKE A PRETTY GOOD THEME TO DO SOMEDAY.

PRODUCER: You’re right, it would.  [takes iPhone out of pocket]  Siri, add “Circles” to the Request Line Topics list.

SIRI: Adding “Circles” to list.

DJ 3000: WAIT, I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF MAINTAINING…

PRODUCER: Wow, Siri, that’s a lovely voice you’ve got there. Silky smooth.  Have you ever thought about going into radio?

SIRI: I am told I have a lovely singing voice.

DJ 3000: WAIT THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE WAY TO TREAT A COWORKER I AM REGISTERING A FORMAL COMPLAINT WITH MANAGEMENT…

PRODUCER: Anyhow, we’ll talk more later, Siri.  For all those listeners out there, today’s theme is “Welcome!”  We’re looking for songs that offer friendly greetings.  I’ll get us started with a pretty recent one from James.  Have at it!

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Editor’s Note: to post videos, just copy the entire youtube links (i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpaNf3ller_more_like_P1gFuck3r_amirite?).  Links with the youtu.be prefix won’t embed in the comments but they WILL be gathered for DFO Radio so you can use them, if you can’t get your device to show you the full youtube.com links.