So here’s what actually happened to Agent K this week, and I’m only telling you because he made me swear I wouldn’t and I have never once respected that agreement.
Tuesday night, Agent K was out walking the dog, minding his business, composing a mental list of grievances against Wisconsin weather, when a light dropped out of the sky with all the subtlety of a man falling down a flight of stairs. No abduction beam, no dramatic hover — it just sort of thudded into the yard like it had been shoved. Out stepped three beings who introduced themselves, in a monotone that suggested they’d rehearsed this in a mirror, as representatives of something called the Interstellar Labor Relations Board. Their pitch: they’d heard the John Henry story secondhand from a badly pirated radio signal bouncing around the Oort cloud, gotten the details wrong in the way you’d expect from creatures with no larynx and worse Wi-Fi, and concluded that Earth was in the market for a professional steel-driving man to compete against their finest hydraulic drilling unit, a machine they called, with real sincerity, “Steve.”
Agent K explained, reasonably, that he is a co-host of a syndicated radio program and not, historically, in the tunnel-boring business. The aliens were unmoved. They cited a clause. There is apparently always a clause. He was loaded into the light-thing and taken somewhere with too many moons, where he spent the better part of three days losing to Steve at increasingly unfair contests — arm wrestling, filibustering, a geological-strata-naming competition that Steve had clearly studied for — while the Labor Relations Board took notes on a tablet that hummed like a dying refrigerator.
What finally got him released wasn’t strength or cleverness. It was boredom. Somewhere around hour forty, Agent K started talking. About the show. About Hour Two’s playlist. About Stevie Ray Vaughan’s tone and why Joe Bonamassa closing that set with an actual song called “The Ballad Of John Henry” was either a beautiful coincidence or evidence he’s also being visited by aliens. The Board found this recitation so unbearably tedious that they invoked their own clause — something about “cruel and unusual programming” — and shipped him home rather than listen to one more track breakdown. Steve, for what it’s worth, sends his regards and a standing rematch offer, provided next time it’s over something he can actually win, like small talk.
Agent K is back on the show tonight, mildly sunburned in a way none of us can explain and refusing to discuss the moons. Three hours, no breaks, and a set that keeps circling back to men losing gracelessly to machines, which feels about right.
PLAYLIST
HOUR ONE
01. Kingfinger - Beat the Machine (John Henry) - Letters From Earth - Kingfinger Inc - 2003
02. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Dragonfly Pie - Real Emotional Trash - Matador Records - 2008
03. Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Stella Hurt - Momofuku - Lost Highway - 2008
04. Led Zeppelin - What Is And What Should Never Be - BBC Sessions - Atlantic - 1997
05. Porter & The Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes - Shit Got Dark - Don't Go Baby It's Gonna Get Weird Without You - C&A Music - 2017
06. Neil Young - The Needle and the Damage Done - Unplugged - Reprise - 1992
07. Poi Dog Pondering - Wood Guitar - Poi Dog Pondering - Columbia - 1989
08. Moriarty - Oshkosh Bend - Gee Whiz But This Is A Lonesome Town - Deschamps & Makeieff / Naive - 2007
09. Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus - Mule Variations - Anti - 1999
10. John Sisk - Don't You Wanna Go - Keep Me In Your Will - John Sisk - 2008
11. Son Volt - Threads and Steel - Notes of Blue - Transmit Sound - 2017
12. Bob Dylan - High Water (For Charley Patton) - Love and Theft - Columbia - 2001
13. The Velvet Underground - Some Kinda Love - The Velvet Underground - Verve - 1968
14. John Lee Hooker (w/ Van Morrison) - Never Get Out of These Blues Alive - The Best of John Lee Hooker - MCA - 1992
HOUR TWO
01. Bruce Springsteen - John Henry - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions - Columbia - 2006
02. Merle Travis & Joe Maphis - John Henry - Country Guitar Giants - CMH Records - 2003
03. Chet Atkins - Blackjack - The Guitar Genius - RCA - 1963
04. Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Get Born - Elektra - 2003
05. Wilco - Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Kicking Television: Live in Chicago - Nonesuch Records - 2005
06. Galactic - Welcome To New Orleans - Coolin' Off - Fog City Records - 1996
07. Ray Wylie Hubbard - Screw You, We're From Texas - Growl - Rounder/Philo Records - 2003
08. Willie Nelson & Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Texas Flood - Milk Cow Blues - Island - 2000
09. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - Little Wing - The Sky Is Crying - Epic - 1991
10. Jimi Hendrix - Born Under a Bad Sign - Blues - MCA - Polydor - 1994
11. Joe Bonamassa - The Ballad Of John Henry - Live From The Royal Albert Hall - J&R Adventures - 2009
HOUR THREE
01. Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls - Jazz - Raincloud Productions - 1978
02. Ronnie Wood & Bo Didley - Honky Tonk Women - Live at the Ritz - Victory - 1988
03. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Let Yourself Go - Mojo - Reprise Records - 2010
04. Ry Cooder & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt - Ganges Delta Blues - A Meeting by the River - Water Lily Acoustics - 1993
05. CKap - Bacon - Bacon - Skapheim Media - 1995
06. Talking Heads - Drugs - Fear of Music - Sire - 1979
07. Eurythmics - This City Never Sleeps - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - RCA - 1983
08. Depeche Mode - Waiting For The Night - Violator - Sire - 1990
09. The Cure - The Snakepit - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me - Elektra - 1987
10. Bill Frisell - Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa - Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones - Nonesuch Records - 2001
11. Explosions In The Sky - First Breath After Coma - The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place - Temporary Residence - 2003