It’s ironic that they call him that obviously, cause like, it’s radio, and how do they know what he even looks like? But they know the story behind it anyway, because he’s told it on the radio and they believe him, so they just sort of go on calling him that. I don’t know. Apparently, it’s some sort of Mickey-Mouse-Ears type hat but instead of the ears that normally would be on it it’s got 2 big red lobster claws and 2 of those creepy googly-eyes on the front of it. And he wears this every show. Yeah like, even know nobody at all can see him at any point during every show, he just wears it anyway. I don’t know, maybe its some sort of odd, ritualistic, alter-ego type deal…like when Ma goes off to the store and she puts on her reading glasses even though she doesn’t need reading glasses at all; or like, when bikers wear their leather jackets. Yeah, and he goes completely by Lobsterhead…nobody sans his mother knows what his real name is. And of course, I only know all of this because he’s told us this, over the radio.
But anyway, so I’m listening one night and he’s yammering on about something that happened in the 90s as I drive. He’s talking about how explosive the punk-rock scene was when he was younger, and how much he wishes he could go back and yadda yadda yadda. So he’s all going on with this rant and it goes on for about 5 minutes straight and I’ll tell yeah, I was this close to changing the station when he finally decides to play a song. So he spins something from back then and I’m enjoying it and driving on and trying to stay awake. And you gotta remember, this is like 11:30 at night, it’s probably only me and one other night-bloomer that are out here listening to Lobsterhead on the radio because who the hell listens to the radio at 11:30 at night, ya know? So the song ends and back on he comes except he’s being real weird about it, like he didn’t know he was live or something, he’s talking about how “there’s no need for this” and he’s “just trying to do his job.” Really odd, so I don’t know what’s going on I’m just driving on and all of a sudden, the guy starts screaming “no! no! no!” into the mic so I’m like the fuck is wrong with this guy? Right?
This all goes on for, I shit you not, no-less than 10 minutes of ol’ L-H having an ever-loving fit into the mic and over the radio waves for all to hear. I’m in my car like looking around as if anyone else would be hearing it but it was just like, I can’t be the only one hearing this guy lose it right now. So I start to wonder if maybe I should call the station to see if something has gone terribly wrong or if I should…I don’t know, I felt like I should pull over or something.
So then it gets real quiet over the radio and there’s just nothing, for, um, say 45 seconds and then a Soundgarden song just starts playing and then one from Bush and so on for, well, until at least I got back to the house. No more Lobsterhead, just tunes all the way. I’m really trying to figure it out, what happened to the guy and all. Like I’m really turning over some mental stones here to decide what caused him to do all that. I’m pacing. Have you ever seen anybody actually pace seriously in real life? I was doing it right there in the living room in front of the sliding glass door. I’m back and forth about 30 times before Shannon finally come out and ask me what’s wrong. So I tell her about the drive and the music and the shouting and now she’s all worked up wondering about it too. Now she’s pacing with me! There we are, the two of us, a couple of 24 years pacing in the living room over our apprehension about a radio DJ named Lobsterhead. We’re delirious! We must know what happened to Lobsterhead!
Shannon agrees that the station should be called, but she says that nobody would be there answering the phones late at night except for Lobsterhead himself, in which case, we decide, would just increase our anxiety if he weren’t to answer, so we decide that we probably have done enough stewing for the night and that we’ll just call the station in the morning.
So come morning we go ahead and call and completely by coincidence damn-near win a ticket-giveaway – we’re like, 1 or 2 calls off. But anyway, we call and we demand to know what happened to Lobsterhead. This issue is though that apparently nobody was around the studio during the night besides the personality himself and his audio engineer, so they have no way of knowing what happened without actually speaking to the two themselves, neither or which will be in until 9. They did say, however, that they have been receiving a rather significant influx of Lobsterhead-related calls throughout the morning from concerned listeners like us. It turns out that a decent amount of people were listening after all, and that they were as shocked as I was. They tell us all we can really do is listen tonight to see what Lobsterhead has to say on the matter, if he mentions it at all.
So, Shan and I stay up and wait for the show to come on and right at 10:50 or so we head out to the car and sit there in the driveway with the radio on to learn what became of him. We’re sitting there and sure enough right at 11 he comes on with his usual intro and spiel about the 90s and what not and I’m thinking like is this guy really not about to address this at all?
Well finally he gets into it, talking about how he suffers from a bout of psychosis from time to time, and that for whatever reason it gets triggered when he hears the phrase “take me away” and the song before it apparently had that lyric in it. The poor guy was tripping out over the radio and seeing things right in the middle of his show and he couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like for the guy! I felt for him man. Well so and anyway, right after he announces that he and his band will be playing at Lucy’s on Saturday night…I think I might just go and check him out. Should be a pretty good crowd too, since so many people were tuned in.
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