Awful Catty In Here

I don't mean to complain, but boy do I have a lot of cats.  Someone told the wife that all our cats look the same.  They don't.  There's a picture of them below.  Four of them are still with us.  One thing they do all have in common is names that begin with the letter B.

I don't know why that is.  It's just something that happened.

A million years ago, I was dating a girl named Lauren.  She had taken to feeding this obese gray cat with a broken tail outside her apartment.  She called her "Owl" or "Owl Baby" most of the time.  But we never officially named her.  We didn't know if she were a boy or girl, actually, until Lauren managed to capture her & take her to the vet to be spayed.  At some point in time - it seemed like years because we were both young but was probably just a few weeks - a beautiful young cat showed up, & he must've been more domesticated, because Lauren was able to catch him quite easily & took him to get neutered.

There, she found out he had feline leukemia.  So she decided to keep him indoors, since he could spread the disease to other cats & also his health would worsen in the cruel outdoor world.  I named him Blue Boy because I was reading a book by Jean Giono at the time with that as the title; its original title was Jean le Bleu.

My wife Magda lets me name all our pets, too, which I find weird.  Why did Lauren let me name her cat?  She did, though.  All the cats in this story got named by me.

Lauren moved from her apartment to a duplex some time thereafter, & took both cats with her.  Her roommate had two big dogs, golden retrievers if I recall correctly.  The cats effectively lived in her room with her.  We broke up, sort of, soon after she moved to that duplex, which was weird, because she now lived just two blocks away from me.  She decided to travel for the Christmas vacation, & asked if I could feed her cats.  She said she didn't know her roommate too well, & felt weird about asking her.  She never thought that it might be weird for me to enter a stranger's house regularly to clean a litter box & feed cats.  But I did it, because I loved the cats, & was still very much in love with Lauren.

Owl Girl (as we had started calling her) would eat readily when I came, but Blue Boy needed lots of love.  While I petted him, the big girl ate all his food.  Since I lived two blocks away, & since Blue Boy was amazingly sweet, I just carried him home & fed him there.  When Lauren returned, she didn't ask for him back.  So he became my first cat.

A few years & a couple of girlfriends, later, I went to Dallas to visit my mother with a beautiful woman named Susan.  One of my sisters had a boy tabby kitten she wanted me to take home, & my other sister had a cute tortoise-shell girl cat she wanted me to adopt, so I impetuously decided to adopt both of them, & Susan got to ride back from Dallas with two tiny kittens sleeping in her lap.  The girl was given to my friends Joe & Suloni.  I kept the boy, whom I named after one of my idols, Buster Keaton.  Buster Kitten.  Get it?

Blue Boy died a year after I got Buster.  He eventually was unable to eat anything, & just wasted away.  I am still wracked with guilt about his last days.  It's very hard to write about because for a long period there, Blue Boy was my best friend.  I thought Buster would be good for him but he probably wasn't.  Maybe one day I'll write about how I did just about everything wrong with Blue Boy's condition.

After Blue Boy died, I had Buster tested for feline leukemia.  I was so grateful when he tested negative.  Blue Boy & Buster did play a lot - Blue Boy was around five years old, & Buster was a kitten.

Buster & I lived together for maybe a year when I adopted Beatrice.  I named her that because she was so beautiful & I felt that I would travel through hell to find her.  She was pretty much raised by Buster, & she has really only loved the two of us her entire life.  When she was a kitten, she would make these mad runs up the curtain in the duplex I lived in.  When I would close the curtains on a sunny day, little beams of light would shine through from her claw-holes.  When I moved out of the place, I made sure I
left the curtains open when my landlord came by.  I wanted to get some of my deposit back.

Buster & Beatrice got to be the only two cats I had for a very long time, although I had met a girl with a dog by this point, & another dog appeared four years after I got Beatrice.  Two years after that, the girl with the dogs who was now living with me called me from her veterinarian's office & asked if she could bring another cat home.  This would be a black monster whom I called Bolan, because he seemed to be born to boogie.

Buster died too young of something called FIP.  I wrote about it on this blog at the time.  It was, in many ways, harder than Blue Boy's death, since it came on so quickly.  I was just looking at pictures of him.  I miss his drooly face so much.

We had adopted another beagle by then, & when the family moved to West Virginia, we were two humans, two cats, & three dogs.  In West Virginia, a colleague of the woman who was now my wife brought a completely fuzzy thing to our house.  They called her Elizabeth, & wanted us to adopt her, because she was living outside in a barn in Ohio, & the wife begged me to let her in.  I changed her name to Bronte because she has a strange elegance & didn't seem to be from our time.  By this point, of course, I was actively looking for names that started with the letter B.

She, it turned out, has asthma, & that story will have to wait for a different post.  But she did turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to Bolan.  The two of them spend a great deal of time together.  Their affection for one another is downright shameless.

& I guess it's been almost a year - or it will be, in April - that we adopted the most recent of the cats in this place.  Did I tell the story here?  Yes, I did.  He was a Kentucky adventurer, & so he earned the name of Boone.  He & Bolan get along very well, & the wife adores him.

I have to say again: it's rather catty in this place - Beatrice, at nearly 15, is the oldest; Bolan, at almost nine, is the the male patriarch; Bronte, at seven & a half, is the little sister; & Boone, at maybe three? two? is the baby of the house, but only just - a vet told us he was between one & two when we got him, & I gave him the real Daniel Boone's birthday.

Seriously, though.  Awful catty in here.

Twin Obsessions

In-between the listening & searching that is required for my dumb radio show, as well as my daily listen to new stuff I've acquired, I've spent the past couple or three days returning to two particular artists.  In no particular order.

I've been listening to the Mountain Goats a lot recently.  It started last week when, tasked with shoveling snow, I grabbed my iPod & it was the first band, on random, that I heard.  I stopped the random nonsense & listened to The Sunset Tree & Transcendental Youth in their entirety.  (There was a lot of damn snow.)  Today I prepared dinner while listening to Get Lonely, which is sparse, unsparing record, not as bleak as The Sunset Tree, but still dark.  Dark.



The other is Momus' new album, Turpsycore.  Well, a third of Momus' new album.  It's three discs, one of Momus originals, one of covers of Howard DeVoto/Magazine covers, & one of Bowie covers.  I have found I can't yet get beyond the Bowie covers.  They're so brilliant.  They feel right.



Marc Bolan, in a T.Rex song, once sang, "Deep in my heart, there's a room that can hold just about all of you."  Sometimes I'm amazed at how much music I hold in my heart.  I'm a hoarder in that sense.

Self Help Radio 030615: Shut Up

What a rude radio show!  My deepest apologies.  A radio show should not be in the business of telling anyone to "shut up."  It should not tell people to "hush your mouth" or "be quiet" or even hold a finger to its lips & say "shhhh."  It's entirely inappropriate & if you want I'll take it all the way to management.  Shut up, I'm being honest here!

Actually, I talked a lot (how unusual) so being told through song to shut up over & over does not seem to work.  I believe you're safe from offense.  This time.  I'm pretty glad, however, that FCC rules (plus, probably, actuals songs) preclude me from doing a show with the theme "go fuck yourself."

The show can now be listened to at the old Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to password/login info!  The show is in two parts (as you will see) & the songs I played are below.

It's just a radio show!  You don't have to shut up if you don't want to!

Thanks for listening.  I'll shut up now.

(part one)

"Shut Up" The Slaves _The Essential Pebbles, Volume Three: European Garage_
"Shut Up" The Monks _Black Monk Time_
"Shut Up" Graduate _Acting My Age_

"Shut Up Woman" Bo Diddley _Tales From The Funk Dimension 1970-1973_
"Shut Your Mouth" Joe Sims & Clarence Williams _The Rise & Fall Of Paramount Records, Vol. 1: 1917-1927_
"Shut Up Sidney" Denim _Denim On Ice_
"Put Up Or Shut Up" Little Jonna Jaye _Jukebox & Doo Wop Girls, Vol. 8_

"Shut Up & Drink Your Beer" Merle Travis _Guitar Rags & A Too Fast Past_
"Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" Ugly Ducklings _Somewhere Outside_
"Shut Up" Jet Black Factory _House Blessing_
"Shut The Funk Up" The Bar-Kays _Flying High On Your Love_

"Shut Up & Quit Talking" Gene Marshall _The Human Breakdown Of Absurdity_
"Shut Up & Dance" Pearl Harbor & The Explosions _Pearl Harbor & The Explosions_

(part two)

"Shut Up & Listen" Age Of Chance _One Thousand Years Of Trouble_
"Shut Up & Let Me Go" The Ting Tings _We Started Nothing_
"Shut Up & Kiss Me" Pony Up! _Pony Up!_

"Shaddup You Face" Joe Dolce _Shaddap You Face_
"Shut-Ups" The Wild-Tones _Las Vegas Grind, Vol. 1_
"Keep Your Big Mouth Shut" Jesse Stone _Get It While You Can_
"Please Shut Up" The Rondelles _The Fox_

"Tell That Girl To Shut Up" Holly & The Italians _Poptopia! Power Pop Classics Of The '80s_
"World Shut Your Mouth" Julian Cope _Saint Julian_
"Learning To Keep My Mouth Shut" How Many Beans Make Five _One Last Look_
"Shut Your Mouth" The Ordinary Boys _How To Get Everything You Ever Wanted In Ten Easy Steps_

"Shut Up" Tania Rivas _Shut Up_
"I Love You, Shut Up" Boyracer _Go Flexi Crazy_

Whither Shut Up?

The view from my front door this morning

Jeezy chreezy.  Another record snowfall.  I feebly helped my amazing super-strong wife dig out our ridiculously long driveway so I'd be able to make it out in the morning, but there's no guarantee that, once I've left the warm, relatively safe bounds of my home, I won't get stuck in the ice & snow somewhere on the way to the station & freeze to death in my car.

Shut up, Gary!  You'll make it!

We'll see.  The weird thing is, I'm a huge pessimist, but part of me couldn't believe the weather would get as bad as this.  Granted, we are forecast to be free of snow for the next few days, & the temperatures will rise, so this snow won't stay as long as the last snow (the sun even made it out today), but there was a naïve part of me that said, "It can't possibly get as bad as it did two weeks ago."

Two weeks ago!  Holy cracker on a cheese stick!

Tomorrow's rude show will, I hope, go as planned.  It's on from 7 to 9am (when I am traveling to the station around 6:30 in the morning, it's supposed to be -1 degrees Fahrenheit) on WRFL in Lexington at 88.1 fm & online at wrfl dot fm.  If I make it home alive, I'll put it on my website toot suite.

I was supposed to talk about something else today, I'm sorry.  I just have snow shoveling on my mind.  If I were a songwriter, I would've written fifteen songs about snow shoveling already.  I am wiped out.

Preface To Shut Up: Shut Up All Over The World

As I write this, there's a winter storm heading our way.  The initial estimates of a foot to a foot & a half of snow falling on Lexington overnight have been rounded down to a foot, but having just lived through the worst snowfall in seventeen years in the city, you may well imagine how exhausted everyone here feels.  Watching weather radar is a weird habit to develop.

So I am glad for the distraction, & weirded out/happy I found a website, called youswear dot com, which has an entry called How to say shut up in any language!.  I'm sure the first thing you want to do when you're in a foreign country is sharpen your rudeness skills.  Or maybe this is for online arguments?

It's not a very good list, alas.  From the first entry, which suggests that in American English we say "Voldemort's nipple" as a means of quieting someone, to the weird designation of "Firefly" as a language, the list looks like it may have been cobbled together from a drunken night of sloppily researching the Urban Dictionary.  Though I suspect I am insulting the fine contributors to that modern online marvel.

Are you going to make me use Yahoo answers?  Please don't.

At this point, you might be asking, why in the world would anyone do a radio show about such an unpleasant phrase?  No one ever wants to be told to shut up.  It's the sort of thing one says in anger or in frustration.  But I suppose I can answer that question tomorrow.

Meanwhile: Here's a profile of WRFL, where I deejay.  It's nice!

Thank You Note

I am pretty terrible at promoting my radio show, which may be because I am a little ashamed of it, so I hope you don't mind if I take a second to write about it on this blog that I'm sure is only read by a few odd sorts.

You know about my website.  I think there's a link to it on this very blog, besides the one I just added.  Plus it has links to almost everything I'm going to link to below.

Like my Twitter account.  I don't do much there, just let people on Twitter know what I'm playing during my show, but occasionally I make an observation that, probably, isn't all that funny.

Then there's the show's Facebook page.  I don't do a lot of stuff there, either.  I just let folks know when I'm going to be on the air, & then I let them know when the show makes it to my web site.  Sometimes I post videos.  Or links to a pertinent blog entry.  I should do more.  I don't know why I don't do more.

Both of those links work whether you "follow" the show on Twitter or "like" the show on Facebook, but if you do either of those things, it makes me happy.  I'm silly that way.

Something else you don't have to follow is my Tumblr page.  I put my amateur photos on that page.  It has nothing to do with the radio show at all.  I have three dogs & four cats so there are lots of photos of them.  Lots.  But also other dumb things that caught my eye.

Here's one last link that I don't think I've ever shared: this link is to my personal Facebook page.  If you'd like to be my friend on Facebook.  I post the same pictures I put on the Tumblr page plus funny internet detritus.  I also tell folks there when I am doing a show, & also when a show is on my web site.  When I sub a show on RFL, I mention it exclusively on the Facebook page.  That's one thing I only do there.

Hmm.  I don't know exactly why you'd want to be friends with me on Facebook, but I thought I should go ahead & put it out there.  If you think I'll regret it, I'll just note that I regret pretty much everything.

You already knew that.

Leonard Nimoy R.I.P.

A friend of mine, being a snot on Facebook, wrote this the other day, after the great Leonard Nimoy died, & people started expressing their feelings about what he meant to them:

"I was saddened to learn of the passing of Leonard Nimoy, but not surprised, since Mr. Nimoy was 83 years of age. What has been surprising has been to learn that so many of my Facebook friends knew him personally."

Disregarding the first sentence, which is weirdly worded & a bit nonsensical (Nimoy's famous co-star William Shatner is 83 & seems in great health; the assumption that all 83 year olds are near death is a little dumb), it is very rare, I think, to see such an amazing example of someone who just really, really doesn't get it.

It may not be obvious to you, but I do know this friend couldn't give a shit about Star Trek or science fiction in general, so he can be forgiven.  What he wrote is supposed to be a joke - somewhat barbed, I guess (in the Shatner "Get A Life" sort of way), but a joke nonetheless.

Here's the thing: it was the power of Nimoy's inhabiting of the character of Spock for decades that, for those of us who do get it, made you feel you knew him personally.  There are great actors out there who are terrific, even stunning, in movie roles.  But the minute I, as a child, became entranced by the super-strong, magic Vulcan-nerve-pinching, cold & logical, pointy-eared character on the screen, I was not simply going to thrill to the sort of thing a comic book loving nerd child would always love, like Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk or anyone holding a laser gun.  No indeed.  As I grew older, I came more & more to appreciate the nuance that Nimoy put into Spock.  I came to see that, despite often silly plots & cheap-o sets, Nimoy's chemistry with William Shatner & DeForest Kelly made that show.  So many plays, movies, television shows fail because there's no connection between the leads.  Nimoy was instrumental in making us believe there could be such a thing as a half-human, half-Vulcan Science Officer on board a starship in the future.  We shared his struggles.  We cared about him.

I never saw Nimoy in person.  I am a huge Star Trek nerd but have never been to a convention.  But I have watched his performances & presentations on Youtube & read transcripts, & by all accounts, he was a kind, generous, warm, wise, & funny man.  Buzzfeed gave us a list of 21 reasons why he was so awesome, & I have no reason to doubt any of it.

It's funny, he, as an actor, struggled with being typecast as this monumental character which he, in the 1970s, had no idea would become a cultural icon.

It's a dilemma most of us will never have to ponder.  After the success of the movies - plus his emergence as a fine director - Nimoy obviously found Spock to be something worth embracing.  While I think we, as fans, might have sympathized perhaps with his ambivalence, most of us were a little baffled that he would even need to struggle.  Because we saw his performance as Spock, & it utterly mesmerized us.

I took his death personally.  I cried, I cried at the loss of someone I deeply loved.  A true artist, as he was, has the capacity to make you feel as though he or she is someone with whom you have a personal relationship.  It's not foolish, or delusional, to feel grief from such a loss.  The connection is real.

I'm sad that I now have to live in a world without Leonard Nimoy.  I am happy I got to grow up in a world that had Leonard Nimoy in it.  Because of how great he was, he made me feel I knew him personally.  & I think he would be flattered & humbled by that statement.

Self Help Radio 022715: The Mellow Show

(Original image here.)

Against all odds, I, who have hardly experienced a state of mellowness in all my anxious years, managed to make a radio show about mellowness.  Still, the prospect leaves me in quite a state!

Even if I am incapable of mellowness, I did play lots of great songs - some mellow, some talking about mellowness in its myriad forms, & I also talked to legendary broadcaster Dr. Mellow, & to Rupert Squirrel, a researcher who claims to have identified the seven stages of mellow.  Also, we heard from our Hollywood know-it-all, Mark Miller.  Frankly, there's too much mellow.  If there can ever be such a thing.

The show is of course at the Self Help Radio website.  It's divided into two parts, & I list below the songs in each part.  Oh, do pay attention to login/password information.  It's no secret - it's SHR/selfhelp - but it's not all that obvious, either.  It's just a thing.  A thing that I have to do.

Stay mellow!  & if you're around here, stay warm!

(part one)

"Mellow" The Albertans _ New Age_
"Green Mello Hill" Angel Pavement _Collecting Peppermint Clouds Vol. 1_
"Wonder Where The Mellow Went" The Bleus _I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself_

"Low Mellow" Blind Teddy Darby _Blind Teddy Darby (1929-1937)_
"Mellow Apples" Big Joe Williams & Sonny Boy Williamson _Big Joe Williams & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues (1934 - 1951)_
"Mellow Song" Blur _13_
"Excess Rings Of Mellow Tones" Constantin Veis Presents The Glamorous Life Savers _Resurrected Elsewhere_

"Mellow Mama Blues" Dinah Washington _The Ladies In Blues_
"Mellow Fellow" Etta James _Queen Of Soul_
"She's A Mellow Mother For You (Joe McCoy, vocals)" Harlem Hamfats _1936-1939_
"Mellow Yellow" The Hardly Worthit Players _Boston Soul_

"Mellow Down Easy" Holly Golightly _Laugh It All Up!_
"You're Mellow" John Lee Hooker _The Vee-Jay Years_

(part two)

"A Mellow Goodtime" Lee Dorsey _The New Lee Dorsey_
"It's Got To Be Mellow" Leon Haywood _Beg Scream & Shout! The Big Ol' Box Of '60s Soul_
"Mellow Stuff" Lil Johnson _Complete Works In Chronological Order, Vol. 3 (1937)_

"Aged & Mellow Blues" Little Esther _Bad Baad Girl!_
"Loving You Is Mellow" Major Harris _My Way_
"Have You Never Been Mellow?" Me First & The Gimme Gimmes _Go Down Under_
"Mellow My Mind" Neil Young & Crazy Horse _Tonight's The Night_

"Fine & Mellow" Nina Simone _At Town Hall_
"Mellow Way You Treat Your Man" Ollie & The Nightingales _The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1968-1971_
"Supermellofied" Peter & The Wolf _Mellow Owl_
"Mellow Together" Robyn Hitchcock _I Often Dream Of Trains_

"Jack, I'm Mellow" Trixie Smith _Reefer Songs: 16 Original Jazz Classics_
"Ain't That (Mellow, Mellow)" Willie Hutch _Foxy Brown_
"Mellow Love" Marc Bolan _Mellow Love_

Whither Mellow?

Painting by Ryan Connor, taken from here

Why do a show about the concept of mellow?

To challenge myself.  To try to do something the opposite of what I am.  For I am not mellow.  It is very unlikely you will ever come across me in a mellow state.  I am uptight.  Worried.  Anxious.  Concerned.  Ill at ease.  Restless.

Let me see this week how the other half exists.  Let me celebrate a state of mind (sometimes drug-induced) that is an unfamiliar to me as languages of which I know just a few words.  Because I think the possibility exists that I could one day mellow out.  Become more mellow.  & perhaps a show that's mellow can be the first step in that process.

Unless I don't want to be mellow?  Unless it turns out it's an undesirable condition?

But how else will I know?  A show about mellowness, then, shall be like exploratory surgery.  Let's get in there & have a look around.  What could possibly go wrong?

Tomorrow morning from 7-9 am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington proper.  Online at wrfl dot fm in the world improper.

You don't need to be mellow to listen.  At least, I hope not!

Preface To The Mellow Show: I Am Not A Mellow Person At All

I'm not a mellow person, it's true.  I think I inherited my worrying nature - my pessimism - my inability to see the glass as even half-empty but rather about to fall to pieces - from my mother, a seriously old-fashioned & superstitious fatalist of the Western European variety.  I was able to forego a great deal of the superstition - it simply didn't make any sense to me, & I am not good at taking people at their word for ridiculous shit - but the negative outlook toward the world stayed with me.

Here's an example of the superstition: my mother believes that putting shoes on a table is bad luck.  She will seriously lose her shit if you put a shoe on a table (it doesn't have to be a pair).  Granted, it's not terribly hygienic - shoes are usually pretty dirty - but I don't think that's what freaks her out.  It's just really, really bad luck.  Her mother made it clear to her & she's passed it on to her children.  Superstition kinda works on that weird-ass Manchurian Candidate brainwashing-type level.  It finds its way into you because of repeated exposures while you're in a suggestive state, i.e., young.

& so I ask her: how does it work?  Is there a process that begins when the sole of a shoe touches the tabletop?  Are demons immediately dispatched?  Or does it somehow offend the Deity?  Is the process physical or mystical?  How can putting shoes on a table generate bad luck?  & what is bad luck anyway?

My mother waves away such skepticism with a simple, "I don't know, I just know it's bad luck."  That's why superstition - that's why anything supernatural, really - has never appealed to me.  I'm a huge fan of absurdity & nonsense precisely because I understand why it's so ridiculous.  But believing in it is neither funny nor attractive; it's the dangerous opposite of Groucho letting more people into the tiny stateroom, or trying to get a grant from the Ministry Of Silly Walks.

Something had to rub off, though.  & my word, how much time I had to have spent as a child with my mother as she navigated a horrible divorce & the privations & stresses it caused!  My mother is a talker, like me, & mostly she talks shit.  She talks shit about people, about events, about anything.  She is a massively disappointed person, but has a sweet tooth for the lurid.  She loves Fox News not because she is politically conservative, but because they peddle fear first & foremost (as the other cable news channels do, but they do it more to her liking).  Being German, she has a natural sense of schadenfreude, & I speak to her weekly, & it's a rare phone call that she's not tsk-tsk-ing someone I don't know anything about while simultaneously loving their unhappy state.

I hope I'm not that bad.  Mainly I expect the worst.  I know it can be exhausting.  It's caused me to give up more than persevere when it comes to roadblocks & hurdles.  I expect to - well, not fail, but certainly not to meet the goals I hoped to achieve.  Unlike my mother, I tend to blame myself when things go wrong - I am not the hero of my life story that she is of hers.

Plus, I don't smoke pot.  I understand that makes you hella mellow.  Have I talked about this before?  I find that I can't enjoy myself when I smoke pot, whereas I get somewhat mellow when I have had a couple of glasses of whiskey.  Alcohol, thankfully, doesn't increase my rage or my sadness.  It makes me more susceptible to emotion.  That doesn't mean I mellow out - weeping during a movie is hardly a mellow thing - but it means there's the possibility I could.

Is the opposite of mellow out mellow in?  What would that entail?

Does it feel like I am changing the subject?  Because I didn't really want to talk about my mother today.

I Dreamt Last Night I Enlisted In The Army

It kinda ruined my day.

I Had A Weird Moment

This morning I subbed someone's show on WRFL from 2 to 5am.  I like being up when few people are awake (even though that of course means no one's listening).  I like being at the station when no one's there.  (Although this morning, there was an armed robbery at the convenience store where I buy a soda right before I went up to the station.  I missed it by about a half hour.)  So I will often cover late night shifts as a kind of meditation.  Plus I can play music without worrying about a theme!

Last night I was rambling on the air, trying to be funny, & I made up this dumb thing about how my father used to wake me up at four in the morning to give me ridiculous trivia quizzes.  (I was using it as a justification for giving a trivia quiz on the air at four in the morning.)  It was completely untrue - after my parents separated before I turned four years old, I never slept in the same house as my father ever again.  There is no way he could have woken me at four in the morning without stumbling through a house he didn't reside in & probably scaring the hell out of my mother & whatever siblings were around.

Also, my father wasn't someone who, as I recall him, talked a great deal.  Perhaps I am remembering him wrong.  He would use his turn in a conversation to crack wise & corny.  When he would visit my little brother & me when we were children, he responded to every question we asked with a smart-ass answer.  For example, when he was leaving, I'd say, "Where are you going?"  & he'd respond, "To hell & back - you wanna go half-way?"

Some folks, I suppose, might have found that charming.  I was usually confused.  I was a kid.

But here's something I realized last night: I don't remember what my father's voice sounded like.  I was saying on the air that if my father were still with us (he died in 1991), he'd continue to call me in the middle of the night, & I tried to imitate his voice.  It hit me, live, on air, that I don't remember his voice!

It wasn't a sad thing.  I'm not sad at all about it.  It was just - strange.  Strange to think I can remember how hundreds - if not thousands - of musicians' voices sound, the voices of actors, my friends, television people, etc.  But not my father.

He spoke his last words to me probably twenty-five years ago, so that could explains it - but also he didn't say a whole lot to me in his lifetime.  I'll bet one of my sisters has him on videotape somewhere - I'll ask, the next time I'm in Garland, to see.  I think I'll be surprised - he probably doesn't sound in any way how I'd now guess he sounded.

Oh shit, & just think - if this were a hundred years ago, there might not even be the chance of a recording!

Self Help Radio 022015: Razors

(Original image here.)

Yes, I did brave the Worst Winter Ever™this morning - temperatures were below zero & ice walls lined the streets - to present an utterly ridiculous radio show about razors.  Because - well, why the hell not?  It's too cold to think straight!  I can no longer feel my nose, my fingers, or my knees!  When did Kentucky move to the Arctic Circle?  It's going to snow tomorrow, too?  Arrrrgh!

Ahem.  The show has many wonderful razor songs, plus a report on celebrity shaving by Mark Miller, an interview with shaving razor inventor David Fruchter, & a surprise call from the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently.  All very ridiculous, & even possibly informative.  It's more enjoyable than frostbite, but only just.

You can listen of course at the Self Help Radio website.  You'll notice the show's divided into two parts.  That's standard operating procedure.  I list the songs I play in the two parts below.  You'll also notice that there's a login & password.  They're not secret.  They're mentioned on the page.

Thanks for listening & please stay warm!

(part one)

"Razor Ball" Blind Willie McTell _Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1_
"Razor Strap Boogie" Jack Rivers _Roots Of Rock 'N' Roll, Vol. 3: 1947_
"Razors In The Air" The Kingston Trio _Goin' Places_

"I Got A Razor" Willie Dixon with Memphis Slim _Willie's Blues_
"Razor Sharp Blues" Big Joe Williams _Have Mercy_
"Razor Edge" Ranee & Raj _Don't Tell Me I Must Go_
"Marjory Razorblade" Kevin Coyne _Marjory Razorblade_

"Ten Inch Razor" Flesh Eaters _No Questions Asked_
"I Love You, Mr. Disposable Razor" A Witness _Threaphurst Lane_
"Stepping Razor" Peter Tosh _Equal Rights_

"...On The Razors Edge..." Pop Will Eat Itself _Box Frenzy_
"Razor Walk" The Blue Aeroplanes _World View Blue_

(part two)

"Razorblades & Lemonade" Television Personalities _Closer To God_
"Razor Pilot" Madder Rose _Bring It Down_

"Razor Dance" Richard Thompson _You? Me? Us?_
"The Singing Razorblade" Guided By Voices _Hardcore UFOs: Demons & Painkillers_
"Licking Honey From A Razor" Barry Andrews _Haunted Box Of Switches_
"Ballad Of The Razor" The Haircuts _Sorrow Is The Way To Love_

"Razorblade" The Strokes _First Impressions Of Earth_
"Sleeping Aides & Razor Blades" The Exploding Hearts _Guitar Romantic_
"Heartbreaks & Razorblades" Miss Derringer _Winter Hill_
"Razor Scooter" Xiu Xiu _Razor Scooter/Sashay Away EP_

"Razorblade The Tape" Slum Of Legs _Begin To Dissolve 7"_
"Razor's Edge" Celebration _Albumin_

Whither Razors?

Look. Sometimes you're all like, "Could I really do a radio show about ______?"

& it's not just, "Can I play a bunch of songs about ______?" but "Can I play a bunch of actually good songs about _____?"  Because there are always enough songs about a theme.  Always.  I remember when I did my Halloween show about werewolves, I discovered there were an almost literal shit ton of songs about werewolves in the metal genre.  As someone who never developed a taste for any metal really, that was a problem - because I only play songs that I actually enjoy.

Imagine, then, me, a few months ago, asking, "Could I really do a radio show about razors?"  I was asking "Could I really do a radio show with good songs about razors?"

It took me a while, but I did in fact find a decent number of good songs about razors.  This does mean that the show kinda originated in a dare to myself.

Where did the idea of songs about razors come from?  Easy.  I was listened to Blind Willie McTell & was intrigued about his song, "The Razor Ball."  I don't know what a razor ball is (the "ball" in the title is in the sense of "dance party") but I loved the song, & it made me think, "Hm, songs about razors."

That's where the dare came in.  I dare myself a lot when I've been drinking.  Did I mention I was drinking while listening to Blind Willie McTell?  Oh well.  I said, "I bet you can't…"  & then I started to think about razor songs.

Which brings us to tomorrow morning.  The low temperature is supposed to be -12 degrees.  I don't even know if I've ever experienced negative temperatures.  I'll be getting into a car & driving to the radio station in negative temperatures.  But!  I'll do it.  Because it's what I do!

An entire show about razors.  From 7-9am.  On 88.1 fm Lexington in quite literally frozen Lexington.  Online in happier climes at wrfl dot fm.

Also I should add: brrrrrrrrr.

Beagle Fan

Congrats to Miss P for winning the Westminster Dog Show yesterday.  As the owner of three beagles, I am happy & proud.  Plus, she's a beauty.  Mine are lovely - there's no such thing as an ugly beagle - but they're probably not pure bred.  The P in Miss P might stand for perfect.

It's going to be very cold tonight (a low of -9 F), & it's been cold & snowy for days now, & I promise I'm not going to complain about shoveling snow today (although I did it again for the third damn day in a row), but one thing I miss thanks to the weather is that we don't walk the dogs when the Fahrenheit is in the 20s or lower.  Our littlest, Winston, just couldn't handle it - he comes inside from a brief urination break all a-shiver because it's so cold.  I am glad, though, we're not out walking, because I just know that there are folks in the neighborhood who never let their dogs (or cats) inside.  & when the temperature dips into the negatives - & it will tonight, & on the morning before this week's show - these heartless fucktards will still leave their animals outside.  As I have heard from family members - in Texas, of course, it's leaving pooches out in 110 degree weather that's the problem - "they're just dogs."

People who say "they're just dogs" are barely even human.

So damn it! bring your dogs in when the weather sucks.  If they're smelly, give them a bath.  Don't you know their species co-evolved with ours for millennia?  Our ancestors slept with their ancestors around fires & in caves - we used to have to be out in the bad weather together, so why not let them in with you with the fancy protection you now have?

They'd do it for you.

Snow Daze

It snowed a lot in Lexington yesterday.  The local newspaper talks about how the city dealt with it, & warn that it's going to snow tonight & so there'll be more snow tomorrow.

I shoveled snow for a couple of hours yesterday & today.  Cleared a path for the mail carrier, & for the car, although our street has not been plowed & probably won't be - according to the county's Snow & Ice Control Plan, I don't live on a street that gets any attention.  The plans just go up to "Priority Four"; I'm guessing we're somewhere near "Priority Fuck You."

So I'm not going to drive anywhere, though I could get the car out into the street.  The street!  I've had to help push a couple of cars that got stuck out there.  A few neighbors came out to help as well.  The next-door neighbor, who has a better snow shovel than I do, lent me his, & helped me & the wife finish our driveway.

Snow shoveling is no fun.  Why in the world would Charlie Brown do it for money?  How much money does he really need?

But if he must, where the hell was he today?  I would've given someone money, a few of my books, & a home-cooked meal to shovel my damn walk.  I don't want to have to do that again.

Funny I should think of Charlie Brown.  Shoveling snow is one of those Charlie Brown things.  You hate doing it, you do it, then it snows again, so you have to do it again. Which you hate doing.  Good grief!

Snowed In

Hopefully I'll be thawed out by Friday.

Self Help Radio 021315: Valentine's Day 2015 - Famous Lovers

(Original image here.)

Ah, love!  What a mess it is!  & what messy lives the lovers of history & myth had!  From Adam & Eve to John & Yoko, things don't usually turn out so well.  Why do we love these stories, then?  Why do we fall in love?

None of those questions are answered on today's show (heck, none of them were even asked!) which features nothing but songs about famous lovers, as well as an interview with historian David Fruchter about his new book about love, a report by Marge Most, & an update by SHR's man in Hollywood, Mark Miller.  It will not be a good substitute for flowers & candy if your better half expects that, but it'll kill time on the drive to the fancy schmany restaurant to be sure.

The show is over at the Self Help Radio website, right at the top of the playlists.  When you click one of them, it'll ask you for a username & a password.  They're available on the page, not hard to find, but they're also SHR & selfhelp if you are impatient.  They're not a secret.  The songs I played in each half of the show are listed below.

Happy Valentine's Day!

(part one)

"Adam & Eve" Paul Anka from Paul Anka Sings His Big 15_
"Adam & Evil" Elvis Presley from Spinout_
"Adam & Eve" Bob Marley from The Great Legend Of Reggae_

"Helen & Paris" Dancing Mice from Quiz Culture_
"Pyramus & Thisbe" Lida Husik from The Return Of Red Emma_
"King Solomon's Song & Mine" Momus from Circus Maximus_
"Orpheus & Eurydice" Helen Slater from The Myths Of Ancient Greece_

"(If) Cleopatra Took A Chance" Eddie Holland from The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 2: 1962_
"Abdul & Cleopatra" Jonathan Richman from The Best Of Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers (The Beserkley Years)_
"The Continuing Story Of Mary & Joseph" George Carlin from When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_
"Mary & Joseph" Richard Thompson from Henry The Human Fly_

"Héloïse & Abélard" Anna Erikssön & Mason Bendewald from Meet Me At Père Lachaise_
"Letter From Heloise To Abelard" Laura Paton from A Lover's Gift/From Her To Him_
"Abelard & Heloise" Spokane from Leisure & Other Songs_

(part two)

"Lancelot's Tune (Guinevere)" Tom Rush from Tom Rush Celebrates 50 Years Of Music_
"Beauty & The Beast" Joan Gerber from The Story Lady_
"Beauty & The Beast" David Bowie from Heroes_

"Romeo & Juliet" William Shatner from The Transformed Man_
"Romeo & Juliet" Michael & The Messengers from Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968_
"Romeo & Juliet" Dire Straits from Making Movies_

"The Legend Of Bonnie & Clyde" Merle Haggard from The Great Merle Haggard Sings_
"The Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde" Georgie Fame from The British Invasion: The History Of British Rock, Vol. 5_
"A Day In The Life Of Bonnie & Clyde" Mel Torme from A Day In The Life Of Bonnie & Clyde_
"Bonnie & Clyde" Mick Harvey & Anita Lane from Intoxicated Man_

"Everyone Has Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey" Kristin Hersh from Echo_
"The Ballad Of John & Yoko" Teenage Fanclub from Deep Fried Fanclub_

Whither Valentine's Day 2015: Famous Lovers?

I like doing Valentine's Day shows, &, I suppose, the topics are almost limitless.  But at a certain point, panic sets in.  I've done (according to the Self Help Radio website's list of themes I've covered) eleven Valentine's Day shows (I have no idea why I didn't do one in 2006) with themes like love, hate, crushes, jealousy, boyfriends, girlfriends, love songs, lovesickness, finishing the line "love is…", & last year, valentines, but after I started gathering music for this year's show I realized I totally could've done an entire show on Romeo & Juliet without too much trouble.  & now I'm just planning on playing a few songs about them in the middle of a larger show.  Panic.  Sets.  In.

You could help, you know.  You could suggest future Valentine's Day themes.  Email ideas to me.  Respond to this blog entry.  Come to my house, slap me around a bit, & taunt me with better ideas.  Anything.  Because.  Panic.  Sets.  In.

Not right away, though, since I have a year after tomorrow to think of something else.  Tomorrow there'll be songs about all kinds of historical, mythical, & fictional lovers.  I'm a little surprised that there aren't more pop songs about Pyramus & Thisbe, but I understand I'm not in charge of the world.  Alas.

Self Help Radio's 2015 Valentine's Day show is on from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm.  I'll have it up on the Self Help Radio web place long before Valentine's Day.  I am told the show is a powerful aphrodisiac.  Or was that a prank call?

Jon

(I found this picture here.)

There's nothing I can really say about Jon Stewart's decision to leave the Daily Show.  Actually, there's a lot of things I can say & why not say them here?

Though I think it's right & proper to continue the show, we have to admit it's going to be weird without him behind that desk.  I've watched it faithfully for a very long time now.  I started watching it way before the 2000 election - but I just read that he started in 1999.  I wasn't a regular viewer of the Craig Kilbourn version, so I must have heard some buzz about it early on.

This is how long ago it was: I was often not home at 10pm (when it aired in Texas) so I would have my VCR programmed to tape it.  I would have videotapes of the show to watch when I had time.  Videotapes!  Sometimes I'd accidentally tape over something I hadn't watched.  Those pre-DVR days were so barbaric!

I watched him during the 2000 election.  I watched him on his first show after 9/11.  I've watched him I guess fifteen years now.  It's a long relationship.  It's crazy that it will end this year.

Not that I haven't had my problems with him.  I thought the "Rally To Restore Sanity" was really dumb & ineffectual.  & most damning of all: not funny.  Politically, it might have really made a difference.  I remember the wife & I almost drove up to DC to take part in it, but when I was watching it, that Saturday morning, from home, I was so glad we didn't.  Bands I didn't like (mostly boring commercial radio fare) played for a long time before half-assed attempts to humor intending to promote reasonable discussions in the country were performed, & so fucking lame they were.  Oh my god.  A month or so later, in an off-year election that Stewart might have actually influenced, the Republican Party began its resurgence.  If Stewart didn't have his "I'm just a comedian defense" (another thing about him that I find disingenuous), he might feel a bit ashamed for wasting his considerable clout on a mostly unfunny performance at gathering of his fans.

Even though what I just wrote nearly attained the level of rant, I truly respect & admire the man.  I wish the people who should watch his show - mainly people who trust Fox News - actually did watch it, but there were times when, by sheer virtue of how he presented a story, he did enlighten me, inform me, even sometimes changed my mind.  & of course he was so very funny.  I don't think I watched one show that I thought, eh.  I always found something to laugh at.

I think my heartbreak over the end of the Colbert Report was ameliorated by the fact that he'll be back on the air soon.  I don't know what Jon Stewart intends to do - he surely isn't going to do a talk show that will compete with his friend.  I haven't seen Rosewater, but will when it comes to DVD - yet I certainly hope he won't spend the rest of his days behind a camera instead of in front of it.  As much as I love John Oliver's show on HBO, I didn't really think he was all that great when he subbed for Stewart.  I missed Jon Stewart so much that summer.

& I'll miss him more knowing he won't be on weeknights mocking the self-important & telling jokes to power after this year.

Lover lover lover

I wanted to do this year's Valentine's Day show about famous lovers, & so I shall, but it hasn't been easy.  Why didn't you tell me there weren't a shit-ton of songs about Pyramus & Thisbe?  I would've believed otherwise.  In a perfect world, there'd be one by Momus & another by Belle & Sebastian.

In fact, I now wish I had promised a show just prominently featuring the word "lover."  I would most definitely have played the Leonard Cohen classic:

& maybe even mixed it up with songs like this one:

Though that may be too ridiculously suggestive for Friday morning.

I am grateful, however, that though there are famous lovers throughout history, & though there are only a few of those that have been celebrated in song, the ones that are celebrated in song have a lot of songs about them.

& because of that: I am also regretting not just doing a show about Romeo & Juliet.

Another Year, Another Groan

Last year, I wrote on the this blog why I don't watch the Grammys.  But I pay attention to the Facebook, Twitter, & Tumblr, & people are talking about Grammys (which aired last night) today.

Most of the people who are talking about the Grammys are people who don't know or don't care that there's an amazing world of music out there that isn't played on top 40 radio, or on any commercial radio at all.  Those same people listen mostly (I would assume) to either whatever's on the radio now or music that meant a lot to them (which was probably also on the radio then) when they were of the age (teens to early twenties) when music seemed to mean a lot.  & when I say, "whatever's on the radio," I tend to mean, whatever's on whatever popular service people listen to, because I simply don't know.

In short, they don't listen to the sort of radio I make, or to the music one hears on the sorts of radio stations I've been on (college/community).  I have in fact been told by people (my family, acquaintances who listen to my show when they've found out I do one) that my music is "weird."  Whatever is accepted as mainstream is "not weird" to them.

I have no problem with that.  I make the assumption that, in general, that they are more passive listeners of music than I am.  They are happy to accept whatever music is placed in front of them by corporations.  They're concerned with many other things than just the music they hear (mostly csex appeal & things the artists wear & say).  They aren't aware that so much of that music is, in effect, written by committee, & designed to be catchy so it sticks in your head.  (I liken it to music for commercials, which in a way it really is.)  (Perhaps you should listen to what Bo Burnham thinks of popular music.)

I started thinking that it's interesting that a "popular" form of art is composed of a such a narrow band of people.  The sort of musical act that makes its way to the Grammys, compared to the number of musicians out there, may make the Grammy crowd the musical 1%.

My point is that I get it.  I understand that people who have a limited knowledge of, or desire to discover, the vast amount of amazing music out there, some of which will stand the test of time in ways virtually all of this year's Grammy winners & nominees won't, I understand that they listen to & like the most convenient music that exists for them.

What I don't understand is the people I know from my radio stations who obsess & reblog & defend Grammy nominees + winners.  They know much more about the 99% of the music out there that the Grammys will never acknowledge, let alone celebrate.  & I have to ask, truly: don't they listen to their own radio stations?

Self Help Radio 020615: Tigers

Ah, tigers.  I stared at pictures of them all week.  I read article after increasingly depressing article.  I listened to a ton of songs about them.  I watched videos of their cubs.  (I stayed away from videos that show them hunting & eating large animals.)  I even cursed the world for leading them to the brink of extinction.  All of this for a radio show!  Seriously, if just you listened to the show, you got off way easier than I did!

It was I think a good show.  I interviewed an actual Bengal tiger (who came down from the Cincinnati Zoo), & also conservationist David Fruchter.  I also performed a Dramatic Readings Of A Classic Rock Song, as I am wont to be.  All this & so many songs about tigers that you'll feel like a cub again!

The show is listen-to-able at the Self Help Radio website.  Do pay attention to login/password information if you want to listen to any shows.  & the songs I played - the fearsome, nocturnal, fierce-toothed, gorgeously striped songs - they're listed below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Tiger Rag" The Mills Brothers _Blue Skies: 45 Hits From The 30s & 40s_
"Tiger Man (King Of The Jungle)" Rufus Thomas, Jr. _The Sun Records Collection_
"Tiger" Sparkle Moore _Killer 7"_
"Teach Me Tiger" April Stevens _Ultra Lounge, Vol. 8: Cocktail Capers_

"The Tiger's Wide Awake" The Romeos _The Tiger's Wide Awake_
"Paper Tiger" Sue Thompson _Suzie (The Hickory Anthology 1961-1965)_
"Tiger" Brian Auger _The Mod Years_
"I've Got A Tiger By The Tail" Buck Owens _Classic Country: The Golden 60s_
"Tiger Girl" The Tigermen _Scum Of The Earth_

"I'm A Tiger" Lulu _The Best Of The Sixties_
"Tame Me Tiger" Bonnie St. Claire _The Singles_
"Hunting Tigers Out In 'Indiah'" The Bonzo Dog Band _Tadpoles_
"Tame My Tiger" T.Rex _Dandy In The Underworld_

"Paper Tigers" The Chameleons _Script Of The Bridge_
"Plain Tiger" Cocteau Twins _Tiny Dynamite_

(part two)

"Laughing Tigers" BFG _Fathoms_
"Tyger Tyger (Dub Version)" Jah Wobble _Glitters Is Gold_

"The Black Tiger" Phillip Boa & The Voodooclub _Boa Best Singles_
"Lions & Tigers" The Soft Boys _Nextdoorland_
"The Tigers Have Spoken" Neko Case _The Tigers Have Spoken_
"My Tiger My Heart" The Boy Least Likely To _The Best Party Ever_

"Like A Tiger" Fourth Of July _Fourth Of July On The Plains_
"Tiger In The Sea" Daysleepers _Drowned In A Sea Of Sound_
"Tiger In A Cage" Suave As Hell _Ashell III_

"Tyger Tyger" Tania Rivas _Tyger Tyger_
"Albino Tiger Rescue Squad" Bearsuit _The Phantom Forest_
"Tiger Eyes" Half Japanese _Overjoyed_

Whither Tigers?

Man, whatever you do, don't read web pages about tigers.  You can look at photos of them - they're truly stunning beasts - & definitely watch videos of them, especially their cubs, on Youtube or other video web pages - but if you read about them, you'll get angry & sad because there will come a time when they won't exist on Earth anymore.  Maybe in zoos, maybe in sanctuaries.  But of the nine subspecies that have existed, three are extinct, & one is extinct in the wild.  The rest are all endangered.

If I were some kind of crazy magician, I'd multiply the tiger species by a factor of a million or so & give them a fighting chance to take back their habitat from humans.  Also, I'd take away from humans the ability to defend themselves unfairly with weapons like guns & bombs.  Tiger claw & teeth vs human claw & teeth.  There'd be a whole swath of Asia, basically, which just be the nation of Tiger.  Imagine how glorious a place that would be!

Tomorrow's show will therefore have a tinge of melancholy to it, but I hope it's great nonetheless.  It airs Friday morning from 7-9am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm.  I'll put it up on the Self Help Radio website later in the day.

& if you're up early, I'll be doing the two hours before Self Help Radio as well, because, why not?  It'll be freezing cold outside & I'm a weirdo!

Preface To Tigers: Save The Tigers!

Holy crap tigers are majestic creatures. It's terrifying to think we may one day live in a world where there aren't any. The World Wildlife Federation lays out the challenges of tiger conservation (salvation?) here.

This is information I may share on Friday, too, so don't be surprised if some of the things I say on the radio feel familiar to you.

Even Killing Machines Were Babies Once

The second love of my life used to do this cute thing when she was in a playful mood.  She'd light up like a spring morning & smile wide & say to me, "You were a baby once!"  Her reverie, which was adorable as all hell, would end with "Everything was a baby once!"

In that spirit, here's a compilation of baby tigers being super fucking cute:

Coming Up: A Radio Show

It's true!  This week, the show is about tigers.  Tigers as in ferocious beasts much, much bigger than my housecats, although my housecats think they're tigers & act as though every moment they refrain from leaping upon me & ripping out my throat is a gift they beneficently bestow upon me.  Indeed, in this picture:

They pretty much think they're the big tiger &, unless I'm feeding them, I'm the annoying little tiger.  See how amazingly patient they are with me?  Why, they could eat me alive!  They're so good to me.

I took that picture from this place: The Mighty Tiger: 15 Facts & 25 Stunning Photos.  You may want to bone up on that before this week's show.  Although I might have chosen 15 Photos & 25 Stunning Facts.  Because that is how I am.

Self Help Radio 013015: Jerks

(Original image here.)

God, some people are such jerks.  Did you know, some jerks get an entire radio show about them?  Can you even imagine it?  What sort of jerk makes a radio show about jerks?  A big ol' jerk, I bet!  But does it make you a jerk to listen to a radio show about jerks?

That's for you to find out!  You can listen to Self Help Radio's show about jerks any time you'd like because it's now over at the Self Help Radio website.  The site is kinda password protected, so please make sure you see the login (SHR) & the password (selfhelp) while you're there.  Yeah, I just gave them to you - I'm not some kind of a jerk!

The jerky songs I played are below.  About half of them appear to be about a dance craze in the mid-60s that for some reason never attached itself to the pejorative "jerk."  I guess that's how dance crazes are.

Thanks for listening!  (You're not a jerk.)

(part one)

"Bongo Jerk" Laurel Aitken _Laurel Aitken: Ska Legend_
"Buzz The Jerk" The Pretty Things _Get The Picture?_
"Can You Jerk Like Me?" The Contours _The Very Best Of The Contours_
"Cool Jerk" The Go-Go's _Return To The Valley Of The Go-Go's_

"Don't Be A Jerk, Jonny" The Drums _Summertime!_
"Everybody Jerk" Jackie Lee _The Duck_
"How Not To Get Jerked" Boogie Down Productions _Sex & Violence_
"I Can Be A Jerk" Eddy Current Suppression Ring _Rush To Relax_

"I Do The Jerk" Bill Pinkney _Jerk! Shake! & Vibrate!_
"Jerk" Buzzcocks _Buzzcocks_
"The Jerk" The Clarendonians _Trojan Mod Reggae Box Set_
"Jerk" The Haywains _Desperately Seeking Something_

"The Jerk" The Larks _The Jerk_
"The Jerk" Martha & The Vandellas _Dance Party_
"Jerk It With Soul" Willie Walker _Northern Soul Fever, Vol. 3_

(part two)

"Jerk" Noise Addict _Meet The Real You_
"Jerk" Senseless Things _Christine Keeler_
"Jerkin' Back & Forth" Devo _New Traditionalists_
"Jerks On Ice" Elk City _House Of Tongues_

"Jesus What A Jerk" The Verlaines _Some Disenchanted Evening_
"Knee Jerk Reaction" The Green Circles _Antipodean Screams, Vol. 1_
"Long Time Jerk" The Clash _Super Black Market Clash_
"Planet Jerk" Barcelona _Transhuman Revolution_

"Serenade To A Jerk" Spike Jones & His City Slickers _Strictly For Music Lovers_
"She Loves The Jerk" Elvis Costello _Goodbye Cruel World_
"Tear Jerker" Personal & The Pizzas _Raw Pie_
"We're All Jerks" Impanada _Business Deal Band Lotto 2_

"When In Rome (Do The Jerk)" Rocket From The Crypt _All Systems Go III_
"You're A Bigger Jerk Than Me" The Karl Hendricks Rock Band _Oh, Merge_

Whither Jerks?

[This is this blog's 2000th post!  Hooray!]

Frankly I'm surprised there aren't more songs that call jerks what they are.

[2000 of these!  It's kinda crazy, right?]

I found so many damn songs about the 60s dance craze called the Jerk, & frankly, it's kind of a dumb dance.

[I've never done 2000 of any thing!]

So the show tomorrow will be jerk-heavy, but not entirely the kind of jerk you're thinking about.

[Probably not even 2000 radio shows!]

I resisted finding general songs about assholes.  I thought all kinds of the jerk ought to be represented.

[I'm so much more excited about this than anyone else!]

Just giving you a taste of what to expect tomorrow morning.

[Well.  Maybe not that excited.]

As usual, it's on from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.

[My cats are looking at me with more withering stares than usual.]

Also simulcast (I don't think I've ever used that word before) at wrfl dot fm.

[They're jerks.]

& of course later at the Self Help Radio homepage.

[Nothing excites them.]

Hope you listen.  Also, congrats to me for 2000 blog posts!

[You noticed!  Hooray!]

1999 Poem

This is not a poem about 1999, a year I don't really remember (that's not true).  It's a poem I've created by laboriously (some may say foolishly) going through & picking the first word of every blog post (including this one, which will be the last word of the poem) I've written for this blog.  It will therefore have 1,999 words.

It goes a little something like this (hit it!):

Hi this when here's but quick this I in I we why Halloween amazingly as before hey
I I do oh you what normally I I I it's recently Halloween as I hey this ah today my I I
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Yea a hey OH MY GOD THIS IS INSANE!

I barely got through the first five months of 2007!  (I started this blog in late 2006.)  There's no way I'd have the time (not to mention the energy) of going through one thousand nine hundred & ninety nine posts.  What am I, nuts?

Can I at least say I tried?  & maybe not feel like such a loser?

Countdown To 2000

Suddenly it's two days before the end of the world!  Not really.  The 2000 I am referring to is the 2000th post on this dumb blog ostensibly created to supplement my radio show.  Alas!  It does not.

This is post # 1998 (I think) (let me check) (yeah, okay, it is) & I haven't any idea how to of if to make # 2000 a big deal.  There are many things working against making a small milestone (oh god) such as this something to celebrate:

1) No one reads this blog, so the only one who might celebrate is me.
2) I've tried to make little every-hundredth-post milestones (that word) something to celebrate but nobody (since no one reads this blog) made reference or contacted me or whatever so things I had planned to giveaway were never given away.
3) I had thought of a third but forgot because I was distracted by my wife wanting me to hold my diabetic cat so we could check her blood sugar, a two-person job to be sure.

Is it really a big deal?  I dunno.  But I don't want to keep talking about it.  Instead, I should mention that so far this year my favorite record is Malcolm Middleton & David Shrigley's Music & Words.  I think it's quite clever & really funny.  I find it very odd that I never knew who David Shrigley was before.  Now I see him everywhere.  I've just followed him on Twitter!

The record is pretty profane, full of lots of bad words, so most of it I can't really play on the radio.  Like the first track, which I share below.  It's great!



But seriously, if you have any ideas about how to celebrate two thousand Self Help Radio blog posts, let me know.

Also PS: New Louis CK special.  That's fucking awesome!

I'll Never Fly Again

The TSA - the Transportation Security Administration of the United States - has a blog which I've never read before.  Someone commenting on Tumblr led to last Friday's chilling post, TSA 2014 Year In Review.  If that doesn't sound scary - & it really doesn't, I'm not saying it is, or else I'd be frightened by the very thought of year-end lists - please take a second to read the article.  If you do, you'll see pictures like these:

These are grenades (mostly inert) & guns (mostly loaded) taken by the TSA in the past year.

& there's more.  My favorite by far is this one:

The caption reads, "An 8.5" knife was discovered in an enchilada at the Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport (STS)."

In an ENCHILADA?  At the CHARLES M. SCHULZ airport?  Good grief!

I think it's great that the people we entrust to keep our air travel safe appear to be doing their job, but wow, can you imagine what actually gets through?  Or is that a weird thing to focus on?  Am I really that cynical?

A KNIFE in an ENCHILADA for fuck's sake.  I can't stand it!

Self Help Radio 012315: Shoulders

(Original image here.)

Well, after the show today & all week on this blog, what can I say about shoulders that I haven't already said?  Lots!  I haven't said anything about shoulders!  I didn't talk about shoulder anatomy or shoulder health or even stuff like "what your shoulders say about you"!  I barely scratched the surface of shoulders.  Okay, that sounds weird.  It sounds like I'd get skin under my nails & there'd be some blood.  Anyway.  Shoulders, am I right?  Am I right?

The shoulders Self Help Radio show is where it was always meant to be at Self Help Radio Shoulders Central.  While there, pay attention to login + password information.  All the songs I played, but not my terrible rendition of Denver John's "Sunshine On My Shoulders," are listed below.

Take care of your shoulders!  & thanks for listening.

(part one)

"There's A Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" McKinney's Cotton Pickers _Bix Restored, Vol. 5_
"Don't Come Cryin' On My Shoulder" Louis Jordan _Louis Jordan& His Tympany Five, Vol. 1: 1938-1940_
"There's A New Moon Over My Shoulder" Tex Ritter _Collectors Series_

"(Danger) Soft Shoulders" Sonny Til _Solo_
"Cold Shoulder" Johnny Cash _The Man In Black 1954-1958_
"Angel On My Shoulder" Shelby Flint _Shelby Flint_
"Look Over Your Shoulder" Helen Shapiro _At Abbey Road 1961-1967_
"You Can Cry On My Shoulder" Brenda Holloway _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 5: 1965_

"Don't Cry On My Shoulder" Sam Cooke _The Man Who Invented Soul_
"Head & Shoulders" Pattie Young _Detroit's Golden Soul: The Ron Murphy Masters_
"Go Cry On Somebody's Else's Shoulder" The Mothers Of Invention _Freak Out!_
"Soft Shoulders & Dangerous Curves" The Willis Brothers _Thunder On The Road_
"Shoulder To Shoulder" George Jones _Where Grass Won't Grow_

"Ride On My Shoulder" Paul Revere & The Raiders _Hard 'N' Heavy (With Marshmallow)_

(part two)

"Chips On My Shoulder" Soft Cell _Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret_
"Shoulder Pads # 1 & 2" The Fall _Bend Sinister_
"Looking Over Your Shoulder" Even As We Speak _A Three Minute Song Is One Minute Too Long_
"Across My Shoulder" The Primitives _Lazy 86 - 88 (Singles Collection)_

"Over Your Shoulder" Echo & The Bunnymen _Echo & The Bunnymen_
"No Hard Shoulder To Cry On" Julian Cope _Jehovahkill_
"Over My Shoulder" I Am Kloot _Gods & Monsters_

"Young Shoulders" Magic Bullets _Magic Bullets_
"Shoulder" The School _Loveless Unbeliever_
"Let Me Lend My Shoulder" Big Harp _White Hat_
"Cold Shoulders" Gold Motel _Gold Motel_

"Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder" Jens Lekman _I Know What Love Isn't_
"Over My Shoulder" Paul Banks _Banks_

Whither Shoulders?

If you are a weirdo & read this blog with any regularity, I want to apologize for writing so late on Thursdays.  I try to write earlier, but I spend Thursdays putting the show together, & I'm totally a last minute sort of guy.  Most of the papers I wrote in college were written the night before.  So if the show seems shabby - well, that's why.

Self Help Radio is a family show, so I would never talk about ridiculous sexual stuff on the air, but I do want to point out that shoulders are things that both men & women find attractive (this articles says women choose mates by shoulder size first), & like most everything in my life, I found that out in a weird way, with my best friend in high school exclaiming that a woman in another car (we were driving) that she had "amazing shoulders."

Listen, puberty was confusing for me, & what I mostly fixated on was the girls I thought were pretty, & I remember being in Home Economics class in eighth grade listening to guys comment about a particular girl's ass.  An ass?  You can be attracted to the thing people poop out of?  All very confusing.  Mostly, I remember, a girl's face & something about a her shape - the curve of her body - was what made my blood boil.

I wish I could've been more open about my perplexity, but I just filed it away: "my friend likes women's shoulders."  & I paid more attention to shoulders after that.

What happened later on in life, of course, is that if I fell in love, I tended to appreciate pretty much all of the object of my affection.  Including their shoulders.

None of this will be discussed tomorrow on Self Help Radio, but there'll be many other shoulder-related things discussed as well as lots of shoulder songs.  That's from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online everywhere at wrfl dot fm.  & of course it'll end up on the the Self Help Radio website.

See you then!

Preface To Shoulders: Shoulders The Band

Some time in the early 1990s, someone gave me a cassette tape of a local Austin band called Shoulders.    They don't play out as much as they used to, but at that time they seemed to be on the verge of some kind of fame (or infamy) that never quite materialized.  (This happened to so many bands & musicians I saw in Austin during the twenty years I lived there, but there's no reason to believe that doesn't happen in pretty much any city with a thriving music scene.)  You can see their website (not updated since last September) here, & there's a Wikipedia page here with more information than I'll give on this blog.

Though the Wiki page calls their work "drunken carnival music," it's not a stretch to simply say they sounded, from the music to lead singer Michael Slattery's voice, like Tom Waits.  Pretty much every band these days that's trying to make "drunken carnival music" (there's a band in town called the Ford Theatre Reunion that does pretty much the same thing) is chasing the dragon that is Tom Waits' two seminal 1980s records, Swordfishtrombones & Rain Dogs.  I don't believe this is an insult - there's a whole genre of music, power pop, which is a subset of bands trying desperately to make perfect pop a la the Beatles.  & truly, there were some Shoulders songs that were much, much better than what Waits was doing at the same time.

I listened to that cassette a lot, & was a little let-down when they released a record which contained re-recordings of many of the songs on the record.  Too slick, I thought.  In particular, they had somehow managed to overproduce a lot of the delightful rough edges of my favorite Shoulders song, "Uncle Achin."  I had seen them play at least half a dozen times, but (if the Wikipedia page is to be believed), they achieved some notoriety in Europe, & toured there.  At some point, I didn't go see them anymore; in fact, I feel like they weren't even gigging in Austin anymore.  Or I just wasn't paying attention.

I bring the band up because (although this hasn't happened) it's usual for me, when I do a show, to get a request not for a song that fits a theme, but for a band whose name that fits the theme.  Maybe in the next couple of days someone will ask me to play a Shoulders song.  But as I've talked about before, it's one of my dumb rules that it's the subject of the song, not the band's name, not the name of the album, that qualifies a song for my show's theme.  If Shoulders did a song about shoulders, yes!  I'd play them.  But as far as I know - & I confess I never heard their second record - they don't.  So I won't.

It doesn't stop me from sharing one of their songs here, though.  Here they are, three years ago, performing my favorite song of theirs, at one of my favorite pubs in Austin, which sadly no longer exists:

Today Is My Birthday

Yes, I was born on this day forty-seven years ago.  I know this because it says so on all my official documents.  I don't have any memories of the day itself.  So of course everything I say about that day should be taken with a grain of salt, which is an odd idiom meaning "with healthy skepticism."

So these are the facts (or "facts"):

I was my mother's sixth child.  She was thirty-nine years old when I was born, & it had been around seventeen or eighteen years since her first child was born.  What a weirdo.

According to my oldest sister, my mother kept her pregnancy a secret, beginning what would be a lifelong embarrassment of me.  How does one keep a pregnancy in its seventh month a secret?  Baggy clothes I guess.  Ancient German deception.  When my mother went to a nearby clinic for a check-up or because she wasn't feeling right, my sister told all my other siblings that she was going to give have a baby.  She probably should have wagered on it; no one believed her.

I was born in a little clinic on the corner of Shiloh Road & Miller Road in Garland, Texas, at 9:30am.  January 20, 1968, was a Saturday.  The little clinic actually stood there, a glaring reminder of those responsible for my existence, until only a few years ago, when it was torn down & replaced by a more appropriate landmark: a giant gas station/convenience store.  I confess I have stopped there since & bought a soda.

(There's a picture of the clinic that I took in the nineties, but it's in a box somewhere & I'll never be able to find it right now.)

I was two months premature, but I've never heard anyone talk about my early moments on this earth being touch & go.  I had assumed I spent some time in an incubator or other contraption that preemies are kept in safety, but my mother tells me she took me home as soon as she could.  Again, I have no memories of that time.

Forty-seven years later, it just feels like another day.  Not nearly as dramatic as a secret pregnancy, a premature birth, a brand new gas station/convenience store!

But I'll try to enjoy it nonetheless.

I Have A Martin Luther King Jr. Story

Not that I met him or anything - he was assassinated when I was barely three months old.

This is not a good Martin Luther King, Jr., story.  It's a story about the American South, white people, & racism, & of course it involves my family.

I'm not going to mention which family member is involved.  No need to embarrass anyone who may have evolved since the incident.  A couple members of my family seem to have reformed & speak more respectfully about African-Americans now than they did in my childhood.  They voted for Obama, & not just because they are Democrats.  More members of my family, however, are unrepentant racists, & it's one of the reasons I don't enjoy visiting them.  After the 2008 election, one member of my family on Facebook just inserted Obama's name into what were already moldy racist jokes.  It's the kind of family I come from.

I hate to pussyfoot around this, but the story uses the n-word, but I'll just write "n-word."  You know what that means.

A family member was in Austin (though not to visit me).  I had already lived there for a while.  That family member met me on campus (where I worked) & we went to get something to eat.  At that time, you could drive through campus from 26th Street (now called Dean Keaton) to MLK (which was previously called 19th Street).  We were going to eat somewhere that we could get to more quickly by taking I-35, so I told my family member to go south through campus & take a left on MLK, toward the highway.  My family member noticed that the street was called Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard, & off-handedly made the observation, "They've got a street named for that [n-word] everywhere."

I sputtered & told this family member that I completely disagreed with the comment in no uncertain terms.  I was, frankly, shocked & appalled that anyone would make that observation, even one of my unrepentantly racist family members, about Martin Luther King.  Who in the world outside of Klan members didn't show him a modicum of respect?  The fact that my family member would even say the n-word in reference to him outraged me into a kind of angry incoherence.

But despite that, my reaction didn't lead to any confrontation or animosity, as this family member probably expected that from me, & besides was pretty secure in their racism.  We went to get food.  I doubtless continued to shake my head in bafflement for a while.

I have kept this memory while my family member has probably forgotten it.  One of the reasons this memory has stayed with me (in addition to its blatant awfulness) was that I was angry with myself for not standing up to this person or at the very least having something devastating to say in response.  So when I have told the story in the past, I have made myself more of a hero, adding a (what I think is) clever retort that I thought of later.  I guess I'm lying, but really it's only a lie in the sense that I made my comeback more of what I was thinking (but couldn't at that time put into words) than just me saying in horror "Oh fuck did you really say that?"

Here is how it should've gone, or did go, if my family member could have read my thoughts:

Family Member: They've got a street named for that [n-word] everywhere.
Me: Ha! You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.  Compared to Martin Luther King, we're the [n-word]s!

But really, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference to my family member's racist world view.