Oui, j t'aime, Espace Musique

As a homosexual man of sophistication and refinement I like many French things: French bulldogs, French twists, French active, French passive. So it was obviously with great excitement that I discovered the greatest radio station ever: CBJC 103.9 FM, the Windsor, Ontario outpost of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Espace Musique.

Say good-bye to annoying radio "personalities," vapid morning shows, earnest NPR soft-talkers and cheeseball evening hosts and say bonjour! to commercial-free radio with no pledge drives and all host-speak executed in the loveliest of foreign languages, French.

Espace Musique plays a mix of classical, jazz, world and vocal. The classical includes opera, the jazz runs the gamut, and the vocalist selections skew French. The other morning we had some nice accordion Parisian cafe thing going on, followed by a little Gabriel Yared/Betty Blue type harmonica thing, and then later some hot Edith Piaf action. All of this followed by an hour of Franco-Afro-Beat. Amazing.

Since you can't even get away from annoying radio hosts on satellite radio that you have to pay for, it's nice to have this amazing option where all the talking just blurs into this pleasant background noise you can't understand, five years of French notwhithstanding.

The broadcast range for the station seems to be somewhat limited, the signal was sketchy when I was driving in Dearborn but it's strong downtown. Look, another perk to living in Detroit!

To get you in the spirit, enjoy this video from Doggy Style a few weeks ago featuring Edith Piaf's Non, je ne regrette rien.