The WBRS Waltham studio, on the third floor of the Shapiro Campus Center, has all the spaciousness of a freshman dorm closet. A large room to the left of the door is occupied by austere steel shelves, each filled end-to-end with compact discs and dusty vinyls. The central area has booth for play CDs and records, a mixing room and an office, flanked on the right by a computer area with a couch. Upon arriving here at around 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, I find Andy Firestone '09 on said couch. He is mumbling to his cohort Lisa Frank '09 (also a staff member for the Justice), who has just put on "I Melt with You" by the band Modern English. She apologizes, claiming that the only reason "the worst thing they ever played" was on because it was requested. "We don't usually do requests," she says.

"If it were up to me, I'd be chilling with my Beck and my classic jazz right now-Miles Davis vinyls," Firestone intones with the sureness and disappointment of an aficionado.

Firestone and Frank have a chirpy, playful manner about their interactions, bickering and finishing each others' sentences. They sit next to each other as they let an old, experimental jazz album play. "I'd like to think that I'm touching peoples' lives at an hour this late," Firestone says.

"It's early!" Frank corrects. Perhaps they are touching lives, but at 4:30 a.m., their listenership must be fairly limited.

Firestone explains what brought him to volunteer for such a late shift. "I was a radio DJ at my high school, Phillips Exeter Academy, and didn't have show [this] semester," he says.

"The only show that was left that wasn't at an odd time was the All Genre All Night," he says with a straight face, despite the fact that his shift runs from 2 to 6 a.m. "Lisa asked me if I wanted to do a show like this and I said what the hell. and here we are."

Frank, a giggly, irreverent mess at this hour, chimes in.

"Oh man, in high school I never went to bed later than 10:30," she says. "If someone told me even senior year that at college I'd ever be awake from 2 to 6 a.m., I wouldn't have believed them."

Very proud and very animated, Firestone returns to the conversation.

"I went to Phillips Exeter Academy, which is a boarding school, so I'd like to think I have superpowers," he proclaims with emphasis. "I have the ability to operate without sleep." Firestone nods at me confidently, rubbing his eyes and flattening his plaid pajama bottoms.

Frank says she has a regiment for the days of and before her show to prepare for the weekly interruption of staying awake at such an odd interval.

"I just realized that Monday through Wednesday become such segmented days because I know I have to nap," she says. "Today I took a nap around circa. 3 p.m." Frank giggles, acknowledging that the sleeplessness is affecting her speech patterns. "Then another half-asleep nap around 9:30 p.m. You wake up, do your work, start your day again at 6 a.m., then you're falling asleep and waking up at 11 a.m. for a class at 12 p.m."

A lot of the banter between Firestone and Frank is segmented and nonsensical, much to their delight. Firestone elaborates on one of the perks of having access to an extensive collection of vinyl. "Every artist has stuff that people never hear," he says. "We wanted to play some Marvin Gaye."

"I'm in love with him!" Frank interjects.

"Yeah," Firestone continues. "He's one of my all-time favorites. He had this vinyl back there, I think it was called Dreams of Our Fathers." On my laptop, I check a listing of Gaye's albums. Nothing with that title or one like it has ever been recorded by Gaye. I let Firestone know he may have been alluding to the title of Barack Obama's first memoir, or the war movie Flags of Our Fathers. "Right," Firestone says, maintaining an air of expertise. He continues to talk about the album, the actual title of which is never ascertained.

"It was recorded before his death. some softer stuff," he says. "It was like finding a hidden treasure. Had Lisa and I not been working here, we never would have found it." Frank nods repeatedly. Firestone looks intently into my eyes. "Sometimes we just sit here and listen to it like the swamp zombies that we are." I look away, bewildered. "But we vary it up," he adds.

"Right," Frank agrees. "Each album is like a little slice of time."

"They take up our time," Firestone says.

"Well, also because they're from a place in time."

"This was art, and people were trying to get something across."

"Especially Marvin Gaye"

"It's like its own species, it's evolving, it's a cool way to study it or experience it," Firestone says, his hands flailing in the air as he kicks his legs out.

"It's also nice because a lot of people own iPods. So it's nice to be able to listen to music in its original form-on a vinyl," Frank says with sincerity. "Going back to the basics. it's a nice little throwback."

"I'd say so, I'd say so." Firestone says. "I'm a nice little throwback, come to think of it."

To keep myself awake, I start playing the jazz trumpeter Terrence Blanchard's 25th Hour score on my laptop. Frank leaves her seat and changes the record.

"I don't need sleep," Firestone says again. "I went to Exeter." He then launches into a soulful monologue about his greatest joy as a DJ, which has nothing to do with DJing: "In the morning is the perfect time to get up if you want to see the sun rise, maybe from the castle ledge, where you can see the whole city, and it's different every time. Different effect, different season, different stuff like that. I went out to the terrace by the Castle, Lisa wasn't with me, sometimes she is, sometimes she isn't. It's just nice to know you live in a world with so much beauty in sound and in vision."

"Yeah," I say.

Firestone looks up at me as if he had just imparted the ultimate widom, and, like Hermes, it was now my time to set forth from WBRS and spread the word. "Well, have a good night, man," he says. "I mean, good morning.