When Shibby set up the bootcamp, he gave us advice:

How can I listen to a channel I know already I won’t be able to stand?

Well, of course, you can simply avoid the channel. Short of that, here’s some tips that may help you survive a day you think is going to be hell:

• Go in with a good attitude, or at least no attitude. If you are convinced that you absolutely cannot stand a certain type of music, there’s not going to be much room for discovery. Keep an open mind.
• Turn the volume down. Sometimes, allowing the music to fade into the background brought me good results. If you focus on something other than the music that’s playing, you just might find yourself tapping your foot to the beat to a type of music you thought you couldn’t stand. For me, this was particularly useful during the Country and Urban categories.

When I read that advice, I knew that it would apply very directly to today’s channel, The Rhyme.

I tried. I listened in my hotel room, with the volume down and the air conditioning up. And, if I couldn’t hear any of the words, it wasn’t totally intolerable most of the time. But when I got close to the speakers, or when the air conditioning stopped, and the words became clear, I was not a happy camper.

I think I’ll listen to other channels when I get back to the hotel.

Bluesville is one of the channels I thought I’d enjoy, but that I hadn’t gotten around to actually spending time with — a perfect candidate for Bootcamp.

I took advantage of timezone slippage again, and started listening soon after midnight Eastern (which was late last night, Arizona time). I’d had a good evening visiting with family, but nonetheless, I was sitting in a hotel room, 700 miles away from home, so it was a good environment for the blues. And I liked the music, even though it suffered from the laptop speaker blues.

I kept on listening this morning, but I didn’t find the music as compelling or suited to my mood (I like upbeat music in the morning, and “upbeat blues” is not a phrase which comes trippingly to the tongue). When I get back to the hotel, I’ll give it another shot, but it’s pretty clear to me that this is a channel that I’ll want to listen to more at some times than others. I might give this channel a preset at home or work, but probably not in the car.

And now I’m back in the hotel after dinner, listening to Bluesville again — the more I listen, the more I enjoy it. I don’t know if that’s because blues fit my evening mood better than my morning mood, if the selection’s different, or just because — but I’ll definitely come back for more.