Preface To Obvious: Obviously, Quotes

It may surprise you that while there are plenty of songs the use the word obvious, there aren't a lot of songs that dwell on the term.  It's been a bit of an uphill climb finding tunes for this week's show.

But what about quotes?  Surely there are obvious quote about obviousness & being obvious?

You can find a bunch of them here.  Obviously, some are better than others.

However, I'll share with you two quotes I found in nice picture formats from A - Z Quotes dot com.  I did not make these myself.  Also, I haven't checked if the quotes are in fact accurately attributed.  Oh, internet.

Two Updates

Nothing special, I just needed a small amount of housecleaning over at web site.  Two items in particular:

1) I didn't update the "upcoming themes" portion on Friday because I was running late & forgot.  I know, how were you going to plan your life without knowing what Self Help Radio was going to be exploring in mid-June?  I apologize to the damage I did to you & your loved ones.  Check it out on the web site's front page.  June 21st's gonna be fuzzy!

& 2) I mentioned on the show that I tweaked the intro - I removed one sample & added another - so now if you go to the blog page where I announced the new intro & click on the link that says Here's the 2019 Self Help Radio intro (there or here), you'll hear the new intro, & not the old one.

That's all.  I spent the better part of the day working on this week's show so it won't be late.  & tomorrow I have a meeting with another radio station in town!

Passive Dreams In A Moving Vehicle

It doesn't feel like a Monday, but it is.  & I write here on Mondays.

Yet I have nothing really to write about.  It's been a beautiful day here in Portland & we've had guests for the past few days.  They wanted to do touristy things, so we did touristy things.  & we ate so freaking much good food.  There's a sign you see in Portland:

(I got this from Next Door.)  It is a campaign to keep the speed limit in the neighborhoods to 20mph.  But the wife & I have co-opted it to mean that we'll be gaining at least twenty pounds each thanks to the amazing food here.  Seriously, I think this place may be better than New York when it comes to the eating.

We walk the dogs twice a day, I think I mentioned this before, it's a little out of guilt since the backyard here is nowhere near as lovely as the one we had in Fort Worth.  Or should I say: nowhere near as big.  It's quite lovely everywhere here.  & everyone is closer to everyone else.

It feels to me that we drive as much - we drive to get places - but places are closer.  It's more dense, less sprawl.  & because it's not achingly hot here, people come out, they walk their dogs, they work on their lawns, to breathe the fresh air filtered by the amazing trees everywhere.

Oh! I have an assignment to do spots for KBOO.  I'll do them tonight.  I figured they wouldn't need them on the holiday weekend.

& that's pretty much it.  I hope to spend a little more time working on the show this week.  Last week's show seemed shabby, & I apologize for that.  I will attempt to do better.

Self Help Radio 052419: Paranoia

(Original image here.)

Golly I am so so sorry this week's show is late.  I promise it's not to make you paranoid.  It's three hours late where I am now so it's five hours late if you listened in Texas & seven hours late if you listened in Kentucky.  But it's here now.  Not that it's anything special!

The show is pretty straightforward, I have no guests this week.  I do have guests visiting in real life so please blame them.  They took up all my time & if they hadn't decided to go sightseeing today I'd be doing the show tomorrow.  & guess what?  It rained!

You can listen, if you're not too suspicious, at the show's website, selfhelpradio dot net.  Username is SHR, password is selfhelp.  The show is a bit more personal than usual, I talk about a paranoid experience involving drugs & I talk about looking for a place for the show here in Portland.  There's a lot of me talking is what I'm trying to say.  I'd apologize for that but I'm not done apologizing for the show being so late.  I'm so sorry!

Enjoy the paranoia.

Self Help Radio Paranoia Show

"Paranoia" Big Boy Pete _Homage To Catatonia_
"Paranoia" The Freeze _Kilt By Death: The Sound Of Old Scotland_
"Paranoia" The Tranquillizers _Psycho Attack Over Europe!_

"Paranoid" The Januaries _The Januaries_
"Paranoia" Thorndike Pickledish _S. F. Bound_
"Paranoia" Holiday Ghosts _Holiday Ghosts_
"Paranoia" Latvian Radio _Pick Your Poison, Pick Your Blues_
"Paranoia" Liza Anne _Fine, But Dying_

"Paranoid" Wavves _Afraid Of Heights_
"Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid" Elefant _Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid_
"Paranoid World" Outrageous Cherry _Stay Happy_
"I'm Paranoid" Brett Newski _The Worst Of Brett Newski: Songs To Sink The American Dream_

"Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" Bob Dylan _The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964_
"Los Paranoias" The Beatles _The Beatles (White Album) (Deluxe)_
"Paranoids Anonymous" The Conception Corportation _Complete Conception_
"Too Much Paranoias" Devo _Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!_
"Amateur Paranoiac" Cleaners From Venus _A Dawn Chorus_

"Destroyer" The Kinks _Give The People What They Want_
"Paranoid Bait" White Fence _For The Recently Found Innocent_
"Paranoid" Shel Silverstein _Songs & Stories_
"Paranoia Mafia" Operation S _Operation S_
"Paranoia Man In Cheap Shit Room" The Fall _The Infotainment Scan_

"Johnny Paranoid (Live 1979)" Sado Nation _History Of Portland Punk, Vol. 1_
"Paranoia Perception" Dadistics _Paranoia Perception_
"Paranoid Anxiety Fantasy" Adam Quesnell _Can We Afford This Much Despair?_
"Paranoid Mind" Lords Of Gravity _Antipodean Screams, Vol. 2_
"Spirals Of Paranoia" Mekons _Retreat From Memphis_

"Win A Night Out (With A Famous Paranoiac)" Barry Andrews _Lost Pop Songs 78-80_

Whither Paranoia?

(I searched for "Steve Ditko" + "paranoia" & was not disappointed.  Image from here.)

Oh yeah, I need to get back into the habit of telling you why I'm covering a particular theme this week.  It was weird not doing so the past few weeks.  I found myself explaining to my cats why I was having this or that for lunch & they thought I was going insane.  Or maybe they didn't.  They're not so open with their feelings.  Sometimes I think they despise me.

Or am I being paranoid?  Is that a question you ask yourself every once in a while?  As a master of second-guessing (with a minor in third-guessing), it's not uncommon for me to imagine there are things about which I am unaware that will screw up or otherwise waylay my plans or desires.  For example.  Here's an example.

Here in Portland, there's a radio station I'd like to volunteer with.  The web site asks that you send a "resume" & let them know what you're interested in helping out with at the station.  I did so, I mentioned all the work I've done at other stations & included a link to the Self Help Radio website.  & since then, nothing.  Once I arrived in Portland, I sent another email as a kind of reminder, but I didn't want to be pushy.  No response.  A few days later I called & asked if there were an office I could visit to say hello.  The person on the phone took my number but never called.

It's natural for me to feel like I've been rejected, that the folks at the station took the time to read the email & said, "Nope, let's not have this guy at our station."  Is that paranoid?  Is it more likely that it's a small radio station with limited staff who are busy broadcasting & are not making my request a priority?  I don't know.  At this point I'm a little nervous about reaching out again, at the risk of being seen as a bother.

It's a cool station.  I think Self Help Radio would fit in.  There are other options for radio in Portland - which I am actively seeking out - but there's something about this station - especially since they seem to be playing hard-to-get - that makes me want to get involved more.

There's a better paranoid story that I am saving for the show - which happens at noon tomorrow over at the lonesome Self Help Radio website.  That's noon Pacific time, by the way.  I have no idea how early or late it is where you are!

Preface To Paranoia: I'm Not Just Being Paranoid

The word "paranoid" came up a lot today.  I have a story about paranoia & me that I am saving for the show.  It's been fascinating reading up on paranoia for the program, there's too much information & I'm not sure how I'll organize it or whether I'll get to most of it but I did discover this:

The famous phrase "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you" - which you have heard in many permutations such as "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're wrong" or "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being followed" - even Henry Kissinger apparently said "Even a paranoid can have enemies" - the whole idea being that paranoia isn't necessarily an imaginary condition -

That first phrase comes from Joseph Heller's Catch-22.  A book, I confess, I own but have not read.

Now I'm feeling a little paranoid.

New Intro Time Again Again Again Again Again Again Again!

It's that time again - time for a new intro for the show.  I tend to put together a new intro every May.  Why?  Because at KOOP, the new "season" (back when they had two six-month blocks of shows) began in May, & by the time I was at WRFL, that's when the summer schedule began.

Normally it happens around the beginning of May, but during that week I was getting ready to move across the country.  & so, since this Friday will be the first new show in a while, I figured I needed a new intro.  & here it is.

Wait, no fanfare?  Just a link.  All right.

Here's the 2019 Self Help Radio Intro.

Want to hear the other intros?  In seventeen years of show, I've made sixteen.  This is how I spend my life.

You can listen to the 2002 intro (my first!) here.

You can listen to the 2003 intro here.

You can listen to the 2005 intro here.

You can listen to the 2006 intro here.

You can listen to the 2007 intro here.

You can listen to the 2008 intro here.

You can listen to the 2009 intro here.

You can listen to the 2010 intro here.

You can listen to the 2011 intro here.

You can listen to the 2012 intro here.

You can listen to the 2013 intro here.

You can listen to the 2014 intro here.

You can listen to the 2015 intro here.

You can listen to the 2016 intro here.

You can listen to the 2017 intro here.

You can listen to the 2018 intro here.

Oh gosh, I hope it's fine - you'll hear it at the beginning of every show for the next year!

Two Stray Observations About Portland

Here are two things I have noticed in my two short weeks in Portland, & these are not new revelations for anyone probably.

One: the beard game is strong in this town.  A fellow said hello to one of our dogs tonight & the wife said, "His beard is amazing!"  We discussed how I couldn't grow such a beard, & certainly she was a bit sad about that.

Two: this is a dog & dog owner's town.  We live within walking distance of two parks which feature dog parks of dog play areas.  This has made our Pauline very, very happy.

Again, I'm not pretending I'm the first person to discover this.  But if I had heard about such things before, I simply filed them away & didn't dwell.  In just two weeks, however, both facts have become blindingly obvious.

That is all.

Self Help Radio 051719: May 17th

Amazingly, there have been five episodes of Self Help Radio that have happened on May 17th!

The themes explored were: in 2008, Lemons: in 2010, What Happened?; in 2013,
Caesar; in 2016, Attack!; & lastly, in 2017,
Firsts.

& you know what?  I am making them all available in case you want to listen back over ten years, just because there hasn't been a Self Help Radio in nearly six week and in anticipation of next week's return!

So:  You can click theses links to listen to the href="http://www.selfhelpradio.net/2008.html#lenomz">Lemon
show: part one & part two.
To listen to the What Happened? show, choose either part one & part two.

You feeling like some imperial Rome-y?  Try the Caesar show: part one & part two.

Does it feel like an attack is coming on?  You're just thinking of the Attack! show, which you can hear in two parts: part one & part two.

Our maybe you believe first will be last, as is the case here.  The show about Firsts, which aired just two years ago, can be listened to like this: part one & part two.

That's five shows of nonsense from (I believe) three or maybe four different radio stations, spanning nine years of Self Help Radio!

(Please remember, you'll need to know that the username is SHR & the password is selfhelp to listen to any of the shows.)

There's A New Intro A-Comin'

Yeah, so, a few years ago, I started making new intros for my show - it's been a year since the last one, more or less - I tend to do them in May since, back in the day, it was when the new semester began at WRFL - it was also when the new "season" began at KOOP - although I am told they don't do that anymore - anyway, it became the regular thing for me to do, to make a new intro in May, & hey!  Guess what?! It's May!

Tonight I made the first meal in our new house - the pots & pans were unpacked on this very day - & gosh if only I carried a camera on me in some device that could double as a phone I'd take pix to show you how I've already unpacked my music library.  To tell the truth, I am feeling like I'm a bit behind with pretty much everything.  But I made food tonight!  I swear!

There'll be a show in about a week.  It won't be on the Portland airwaves but there will be Gary in the air in Portland soon enough.  I hope.  I want to promise.  But I can't.

But there will be a new intro for you to preview in the next few days.  That's for sure.

Busy Day

Lots of stuff still unpacked.  We ate out again tonight though I planned to make food.

It rained most of the day, but nothing too drenchy.  Walked the hounds in the morning, again at night, with the sun peeking through the clouds in the west.  Will I ever get used to the chilly spring again?

Went for a meeting at a local station & signed up to volunteer.  I am not going to be specific just yet but I am not entirely sure this station's for me.  Still, everyone was very nice & the fact that I've been involved with noncommercial radio for twenty-five years seems a big draw.  Will probably start volunteering in a week.

A couple of days ago I did purchase legally some edibles from a dispensary but keep forgetting to eat them.  I've not been much of a marijuana guy but I figure, when in Portland, do as the Portlanders do. & they must do pot a lot.  I have seen one liquor store & there are dispensaries on nearly every block.

Our new cable service has a voice-search command.  It's very weird to watch the wife enunciate into a remote control, "What. We. Do. In. The. Shadows."  But it seems to work.

New Self Help Radio in t-minus nine days & counting.  Oh shit, I need to work on a new intro!

Our Stuff Arrived Today

It's true, I went to go shopping & came back to see a giant moving van in front of our rental unloading all our stuff.

Before & after dinner, I put my shelves together & started unloading my CDs.  I'm about 3/5th of the way done, but I need to stop for the night.

The wife decided where her sofa should go, put out the pillows & cushions, turned on the television, & promptly fell asleep.

Tomorrow at noon I have a meeting with one of the stations I hope to volunteer with.  I am looking forward.

Our Stuff Hasn't Arrived Yet

Also I wish the radio stations I've contacted here would get back to me.  I am thinking on Wednesday I might just show up & say hello.

Otherwise it's been great.  Sunny but not hot, lots of walking around, too many places to find good food.  Our neighbors are great, too - they brought us banana bread tonight.  & they like our dogs & cats.

There'll be a new Self Help Radio in a little over a week.  I wonder if I'll be ready for that?

Portland, Oregon

(I've seen this sign close up! But I stole this image from here.)

Yes, we arrived safely.  Our internet was turned on today but it was a busy day but I thought as we creep into nighttime - most of you have already gone to bed - I should give one last update before I return to talking about a radio show which hasn't been on the radio for over a year & which might not be on the radio any time soon.  Thank you for indulging me as I ramble about our ramblings.

Before I go into dumb detail about our journeys, I want to give props to the wife for her amazing skill at sneaking cats into hotel rooms.  At the place in Twin Falls, the clerk told us we'd need to keep the dogs in crates if we left the room.  The wife said, "No problem.  We bring their crates in."  & she did, although of course inside said crates were three freaked-out cats.  There's a thrill - it's kinda like being naughty, isn't it - to being involved in something that feels like a caper.  Although of course the cats disappeared in our tiny hotel room & we had to turn everything over & upside down to find them before we left.  Note to self: add thirty minutes to prep time if you're taking cats anywhere.

Despite getting a decent night's sleep, I got sleepy driving through Idaho's farmlands & was grateful when we made it to Boise.  Boise is a lovely little town - the wife felt it was quite Lexington-like - & we found a vegan-friendly place that made delicious sandwiches.  We ate outside with the dogs begging for food at our feet, & we made sure the cats in the minivan were parked in the shade.  It was a lovely day & quite chilly so I was surprised when I overheard that it gets over one hundred degrees there in the summer.  "For just three weeks," the person next to us told me.  I figured that was better than three months!

Western Oregon didn't start feeling like the Oregon I expected until we found our way north to the Columbia.  What a joy to drive alongside that mighty river, that Woody Guthrie song in my head as I marveled at it.  Soon the trees became prominent & the wife was calling to tell me that the place reminded her of Santa Cruz, where she was an undergraduate.  (She also told me that the previous farmland reminded her of Sacramento & nearby environs.)  We stopped a couple of times, in Baker City, where they let me pump my own gas (to the horror of people we told in Portland), & at a rest stop, where I made the wife leave the minivan on because it had gotten warm out.  Cooked cats were not on the menu for our destination.

It's true, it got hot!  Portland's been in the 80s the past week.  I didn't mean to bring Texas weather here but I have asked it to leave.  I am not looking forward to lots of rain but I would not trade that for six months of heat.

We arrived around five, met our next-door neighbor, a specialist in fonts named Thomas, & his sweet hound Bella, & after we had carried things in, we went for a walk.  It's true!  We were exhausted, we were discombobulated, we were barely coherent, but we took our hounds for a walk.  Pauline in particular had grown very tired of the drive, it was important to let her know her life was not in fact a car ride five hundred miles a day.

It cooled down, we enjoyed wandering around on a Friday night in a lively town, I wanted to get some whiskey, & on our way back from a liquor store, we passed a taqueria (this place) which had a prominent vegan/vegetarian menu, so we got food.

We ate & watched tv shows on Hulu & wanted to settle down to some kind of normal.  Except.  Our stuff won't arrive till Tuesday.  & this place we're renting - it wasn't easy to find a place that would accept all our animals - it's expensive & it's big.  We have four bedrooms & three bathrooms.  & so far only the cats have truly taken advantage of our delightful spaciousness.  & they spent most of the first day using it to hide from us.

Though today (Saturday) has been punctuated by dogwalks (one of them took us to this delightful place which is like a ten minute walk from where we live), I did spend a good deal of today asleep.  I don't often feel like the fifty-one-year-old that I am, but extreme fatigue caught up with me & I'm sure the heat didn't help, nor the long dog walks.  But I will say that I love that it's still spring here, & especially in this area we live, people have let their lawns & gardens grow wild, & it's an explosion of colors & fragrances & I swear I'm not talking about all the hippie types that live in this town.

Tonight we spent some time on the porch with our sweet neighbors & talked about British sitcoms & Marvel movies & our dogs cuddled with their daughters & all felt right with the world.  The cats have decided to spend time downstairs with us & they seem happy & as I write this the dogs are spent.

Thanks for reading this, I hope to have updates about volunteering at local community radio stations soon.  But no matter what happens, this town feels like the right place to end up.  The wife & me & the animals - we're great.  & tonight the windows are open & despite my nap (& perhaps because of the whiskey) I'm feeling sleepy.  Good night.

Twin Falls, Idaho

(Not Twin Falls, but Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls, image from here.)

Boy, after driving through the middle of Utah, the rest of the trip suffered from the comparison.  & driving up I-15 to I-84, through Utah into Idaho, one is exposed to many different kinds of natural beauty.  But gosh the area around Arches National Park is gorgeous!

Here's something you might not know: the speed limit in Utah & Idaho on major highways is eighty frickin' miles an hour.  That's really, really fast.  I joked with the wife that the reason is, the people who make the rules know drivers want to get out of these states as soon as possible.  But it's amazing, there's virtually no one on these roads.

We started out early, we were in a caravan of folks leaving Moab until we turned onto I-70 & everyone else went... somewhere else?  At some point the only car I could see (going either direction) was the big red Chrysler Pacifica behind me, driven maybe by cats as the wife napped?

Speaking of, the cats were very comfortable this morning & last night we blocked hiding places so they were easily nabbed & put into their carriers.  Bolan again was the most agitated - I heard him every time I talked to the wife.  The dogs were fine, although I think they are getting quite tired of the long drives.  I looked at Pauline today & I felt like I could see in her eyes that she was thinking, "This is my life now."  Except!  Wherever we stopped - outside a convenience store, at an Idaho rest stop, here in Twin Falls - she was excited & she wanted to smell everything & she pulled to go, go, go.  She's now asleep on my side of the hotel bed, she's so worn out.  I'd sleep in the chair tonight but two cats are doing that.

My favorite part of the drive was the winding road (I think it was 191) from Green River up towards Salt Lake City.  We were driving through mountains, there was a small but agitated river alongside the highway, & a pair of train tracks as well, including cool-ass tunnels for the tracks blasted through the rocks.  I felt like I was going too fast - the wife later scolded me - but I'll bet there were people behind us on the road grumbling about elderly Texas drivers.

Salt Lake City is a big place & the traffic was as bad as in Dallas.  We stopped at a nice vegan restaurant in the gay section of town (the cross street was Harvey Milk Blvd) & discovered a vegan donut shop next door.  We ate in a little park nearby & nearly froze to death.  It's quite cold up here - I forget that you can still be chilled in parts of this country in the month of May.

In fact, we saw snow not just on the mountains but on the ground in parts of northern Utah!

We didn't see any Mormon places in SLC, the wife asked me where the Tabernacle was, but I had no idea, we just drove straight through.  Five hundred miles & all that.  I almost didn't make it - the wife saw me swerving a bit on the last leg of the trip, assumed correctly I was on my last leg, & called me & made me talk.  I don't think I fell asleep, but I was feeling like I should close my eyes a bit.

Two things I should mention: the wife wondered about the constant use of the beehive on the state's signs, which I looked up & told her about.  The other is the weird street names - I had heard about the beehive before, Utah is called the Beehive State for pete's sake - every street in SLC is numbered in the hundreds.  As I have just discovered, it is in fact a Mormon thing.

In any event, we made it to Twin Falls all right, & Magda said, "This is the ugliest place we've been to on the trip."  She wasn't talking about the falls or Snake River - we'd take the dogs down to the river once we sneaked the cats in & unpacked, & once we were down there, we found it breathtaking - she meant that the place was all box stores & fast food joints & big trucks.  It reminded her of D/FW I'm sure.

The dogs were very excited & we had a great walk.  I don't understand why I am not tired right now.  We ate more food we brought ("vegan options" is not a phrase commonly found in Idaho, I'd wager) & the wife fell asleep surrounded by hounds & cats & is now snoring like a drunken lumberjack.  Not really, but if you let her know I said that, you can get me into some trouble, which may lead to hilarious shenanigans.

Tomorrow is our longest drive, & we'll get to Portland late.  We traveled there in March, you may or may not know, & we found a place, so we have a home to go to.  It's too freakin' big, but we needed a place that would accept our animals & fortunately we found one.  The weather there is supposed to be very Texas-y - a high of 89 tomorrow & Saturday! - but we'll be there for the weekend & it'll give us time to explore.  Anyway, we found out our furniture & stuff won't arrive till Tuesday.

Speaking of: I hope I haven't bored you too much with this shabby travelogue, but you've been spared another one.  We won't have cable & internet when we arrive, therefore I don't know when I'll be able to write a long, tedious description of what I've been doing.  I'll post something on Facebook but I'm not trying to compose something like this on my phone.  Although I suppose I'll written some novella-length texts in my time.  Which means: we'll see.

Tomorrow, Portland!

Moab, Utah

(Main Street in Moab around the last time I was here.  Ain't like that now!  Image from here.)

Moab, Utah, holds a special place in my heart.  I first visited here I believe in 1994 with my friend Lauren.  Our friend Abbie was working as a park ranger at Arches National Park at the time & it seemed a good excuse to come camp & hike.  (I believe Abbie also gave us her reservations at Canyonlands that same trip, so we camped there, too.)  I came back in 1995 & dropped Lauren off - she & I camped for a night I believe, then I went to California, but I picked her up when I returned.

There's simply nothing like the landscape around here.  It's not something one forgets & yet I was surprised how unreal it seems compared to memory.

Moab was a sleepy little town the last time I was here.  No more!  The Main Street is bustling, there are apartments being built on the outskirts of town, there are restaurants & businesses I don't remember seeing the last time I was here - which was twenty-four years ago, mind you.  Wikipedia says Moab in the 1990s had around 4,000 residents, & the current population is over 5,000.  But just walking down the street today, I saw far more tourists than I remember seeing in the 1990s - & far less granola/hippie types.  (It's good to know that they have a community radio station now, though.)

None of this is terribly important because I'm supposed to be writing about my journey from Texas to Oregon, but I was stunned - stunned! - at how bustling the place seemed.  When we were first here, Abbie took me & Lauren to a tiny vegetarian restaurant (that doesn't seem to exist today) where we saw Woody Harrelson!  Now there are chain motels & a craft beer place.  & there was actual traffic getting here.*

Because it was a mostly quiet drive from Santa Rosa to Moab.  Even Albuquerque didn't seem too busy.  But the trip took longer than usual because, except for I-40, most highways were the kind which went through towns, where we were subjected to reduced speeds & traffic lights.  & sporadic rain.  That has nothing to do of course with the route, but we did hear so much about the storms in Fort Worth (& all over Texas) that we feared we'd be driving into tornadoes or hurricanes or I don't know earthquakes.  The wife & I chatted less on the drive than yesterday because we drove through "dead zones," where, as she put it, "there were no bars on the phone."

Many of the areas were Indian lands, which prompted me to tell the wife this terrible joke:

"Hey, Magda, did you know that New Mexico almost didn't join the United States?"
"I didn't know.  Why not?"
"They had reservations."

She hung up on me & blamed it on the lack of cell reception.

One other funny moment happened when we stopped at a truck stop, & I was offered some snack foods when I bought a soda, a two-for-one deal, & I just said, "No, I don't need that kind of temptation in my life."  I amused the clerk quite a bit with that comment.

The dogs were fine, they were with me of course.  Pauline, our lanky beagle girl, was initially not very happy with the lack of grass in these desert areas, but she adjusted.  The cats were not, however, as happy.  In the hotel room last night, Boone found a way through a hole in the box springs to hide under the bed, so at five am we were looking for him in the hallways of the hotel.  & they very reluctantly returned to the carriers.  Okay, they fought us.  & whenever I talked to the wife, I could hear Bolan complaining in the background.  She said she often stuck her fingers in his carrier (it was in the area just behind her seat) & he would rub his face on them & calm down a little.

Once in the hotel, they were all fine.  We took the dogs for a walk & got a vegan pizza & were lost in the midst of all kinds of tourists: campers, off-road bicyclists, jeep enthusiasts, travelers, the like.  Pauline loves meeting new people, so she was happy to say hello to whomever she could - a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses stationed outside the visitors' center were waylaid by her charms, & we were gone before they could even begin to tell us their version of the Good News.  For her part, the grumpy Yoko was too overwhelmed to bark at everyone so she barked at no-one, which prompted the wife to muse that maybe she'd be a good big city dog after all.  Maybe we'll test that hypothesis on long walks in Portland!

It was a long day & everyone is pooped.  There are no hiding places in the room for the cats so they're just lying around kinda spitefully.  The hotel lets us open the window a tad, which is fine - you forget how cold it gets at night in the desert! - & we had our pizza & now we're winding down.  Just two more days of this.  The wife is yelling at someone from Spectrum on the phone because they're charging us for something & she won't have it.  A second ago Bolan tried to jump from the floor onto the desk where my computer is, he didn't quite make it, & one of his back legs used the soft but sturdy tissue of my forearm to finish the leap.  I probably should put some neosporin or something on it.  It's quite bloody.

Tomorrow: Idaho!

* The wife wanted cookies so we walked to a nearby supermarket around 9:30 & the city had quieted down considerably.  Ten pm seems to be when it goes to sleep.  But I wonder if old-timers are a little freaked out by the late hours these days!

Santa Rosa, New Mexico

(This is where we are.  Image from here.)

We made it.  516 miles.  Three dogs & me in a tiny Prius.  Three cats & the wife in a rented minivan. (A Chrysler Pacifica if you really want to know.)  The wife was happy because it had Sirius radio, & she loves the First Wave channel.  I am exhausted.

Last night I couldn't get to sleep, which is par for the course.  I get anxious before trips - my first trip by car to this part of the world, I spent the night until I collapsed from exhaustion around 3am thumbing through a Mapsco deciding the best route.  (This was in 1995, in the days before GPS.)  Then, as this morning, I woke at six.  It's 9pm New Mexico time, & I am running on fumes.  Which is great!  I'll sleep like the dead tonight.

We planned to leave at eight but it took a little longer to get the house cleaned & our shit packed - kudos to the wife for putting four & half times as much as realistically possible into the minivan - & so far the only thing we left behind was Magda's lunch.

It was sad to let the house go.  It's a lovely place, & I know even though they really can't miss it, the dogs (especially Pauline) are going to miss the beautiful yard.  I think my anxiousness about last night was equal parts going from the house & going to Portland.  The wife put so much work & so much of herself into the house & it was the most comfortable place I've ever lived.  Even after all our belongings were taken away on Thursday, I would find myself going to this room or that as I had been doing for two or more years, out of habit, surprised that my stuff wasn't there anymore.

But I love moving, I love going to new cities, I am very excited about getting to know Portland.  It's not that I have wanderlust per se, I just wish I could relocate every two or three years & spend time in a new place.

The dogs - who doubtless thought we were just going to the park - were easily cajoled into the car.  The cats, however, were freaked out - we put them in an empty room while we packed up & it unnerved Bolan, who was quite frantic.  Bronte & Boone hid in an empty closet, & they were easily grabbed & put into carriers.  Bronte & Bolan shared a large one, Boone had to be by himself in a regular-sized one.  The wife tells me that Bolan complained occasionally throughout the drive, & when we stopped & I checked on them, Bolan was meowing to get out while Boone & Bronte stayed in the back of the carriers.  I wish I could have trained them to be walked like dogs!

We hit the road after 9, I got to hear a bit of my friends Pippin & Carole begging for money on the show I used to do, the Tuesday Morning Blend.  They were much, much better at it than I was, & I was glad they were doing it & not me.  The route began on I-30 till it became I-20 & wound its way through Weatherford, past Mineral Wells, through Abilene, & made a right onto 84 at Sweetwater.  Thanks to the magic of cell phones, the wife & I talked a great deal of the drive, although I did listen to some new records, & a collection of Momus tunes I made so I could sing along.  I didn't listen to any podcasts or books on tape, though I brought those, too - I just really love to listen to music when I drive.

We made a promise to stop every hour or so, for everyone but the cats to go pee, & we pretty much kept the schedule.  We stopped outside Abilene to eat lunch - we brought a lot of food, since we ate out with friends pretty much the entire last week we were in Fort Worth (though, as I've said, the lunch Magda prepared for herself last night was left, we later realized, by our unused fireplace).  While I was eating my sandwich, I met a fellow at a gas station who had a pro-beagle bumper sticker & I also met his beautiful sixteen-year-old beagle named Buster.  The guy was so obviously pro-beagle that Winston, who is famously stingy with his love, gave him a lick when the fellow put his face close to Winston's.

The route took us around, & not through, Lubbock - which seems to have more wind turbines than oil derricks these days, hooray! but the same amount of stockyards, so boo!  - & we had to improvise to find a gas station, which we did, in a town called Littlefield, at a service station on Waylon Jennings Road.  Would you believe I was listening to Townes Van Zandt when we drove up?  I was, but you don't have to believe it.  It began to rain as we left, & the very gregarious cashier told us bad weather was coming.  How did she know? I asked.  She said, "I don't watch TV!  It's just what people tell me!"

She's very good, it turns out.  We later discovered we just missed a storm which included a tornado watch.  We had escaped over the border to New Mexico by then.

The highway was smaller, & we had to drop from 75 mph to 35 mph in a matter of fractions of a mile from time-to-time.  That happens in Texas, too, of course, & also there are generally cops there to give tickets to the unwary.  About an hour from Santa Rosa - in a town called Fort Sumner - we met a young woman who was moving from Washington State - the wife noticed her license plates - to Austin (we asked).  We talked about the Austin that we knew & she admitted that she was moving reluctantly - her husband recently got a job there.  Magda thought I might sympathize but nope!  There isn't a lot of reluctance with this move.

Highway 84 took us to Santa Rosa & I noticed we were in a new time zone.  It is earlier than it once was.  We sneaked the cats into the hotel room - luckily our room was near the back door - hey, we paid extra for three dogs! - & they were pretty unhappy.  It's been a few hours & they've finally come out to eat. They still don't know what to make about the noise in the hallway, but I think they'll be fine - although I am not entirely sure they won't hide when it's time to go.

The hotel is on what used to be Route 66, so we walked the dogs a mile or so down the road & back & I took a lot of pictures of cool signs & abandoned places, two of my favorite things.  I'll post the ones I like best at some point - to my personal Facebook page & to the show's Tumblr blog - but knowing how long it takes me to get through my pictures, I'll be settling into regular life in Portland by the time they make their appearances.  Hey!  I take a lot of dumb pictures!  I go through them chronologically!  They remind me how much I forget things!

For dinner, we ate leftover enchiladas I made in Lexington*.  There are not a lot of vegan choices in Santa Rosa.  Let me rephrase that.  There are hardly any vegan choices in Santa Rosa.  Might I try again.  I would be surprised if there were vegan choices in Santa Rosa.  The enchiladas were good.  If I don't say so myself.  Though I just did.

It's earlier than I feel, but I am exhausted.  The wife has already fallen asleep.  I had last driven in this part of the world maybe twenty-five years ago, & for some reason back then I usually drove around here at night.  But the desert is lovely in its way & I've missed it.  Like Jonathan Richman says, "When I'm in the desert, I wanna see the desert some more."

Luckily we're driving up into Utah tomorrow!

*  (I wrote this sentence at the end of a very long day; of course I meant Fort Worth)

Last Day In Texas

Sort of.  I'll be here until the morning.  I'll take your questions now.

Are you having too many feels?

Strangely enough, no.  I'm looking forward to this next adventure.

How long will the trip take?

Four long days of driving, about five hundred miles a day.

Why are you driving?

In addition to the human I live with, I'll be bringing along the six cats & dogs who live with me, too.  Most of them are afraid of flying.  The rest like road trips.  None of them could afford the bus.

That's a lot of animals crammed into a little car, isn't it?

Oh, we're renting a minivan.  Dividing the cats & dogs.

Are you camping or what?

We're staying in motels.

Which ones?

Why are you being so creepy?

What if I were, you know, nearby?

You're basically just me inventing questions!

Oh yeah.

But.  We're going to be in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, on the first night; Moab, Utah, the night after that; Twin Falls, Idaho, the third night; & Portland finally on Friday night.

Hey, I'll be in Moab when you will be!

No, you won't.

We should hang.

We're done here.

Self Help Radio 050319: May 3rd

For no reason I can readily discern, there have been a lot of Self Help Radio episodes on May 3rd.  If the show has been on for eighteen years - & it has - that's a total of one May 3rd show every three years.  & here they are:

In 2006, the theme explored was Painters, Painting, & Painters Painting. (That's a theme I'd like to revisit some day.)

In 2010, & this was one of my favorites, it was Miss Brown.  There were a surprising amount of songs about women with the last name "Brown."

In 2011 - just a year later! - the theme was "bounce."  I don't know why I felt the need to put the word bounce in quotation marks when I haven't done that for any other theme, but there you go.

In 2013, it was necks - see, no quotation marks! - & just three years ago it was bees.  A year later, the theme was Turn It & now I'm wondering, why did I capitalize that particular theme?  Who knows.

What you're thinking now is, can I listen to any of these shows?  The answer is, yes!  But not all of them.  I found a treasure trove of old shows on cassette recently but they're in a box now on the way to Oregon.

The shows you can listen to are: the bees show, part one & part two.

Plus: the turn it show, part one & part two.

Remember! You'll need a password & a username, one of which is SHR & the other of which is selfhelp.  I got that backwards but it's not hard, flip it around if you get it wrong the first time.

There's a real relief on my end that I didn't do another May 3rd show today.  There have been too many.  For a May 3rd, anyway.

Empty House Blues

Five days before we leave - five days! - movers came & took almost everything in our house away.  As I write this, I am standing (not sitting) at the kitchen counter where my computer is.  We have two chairs we've saved, but the counter is too high & I feel like a child trying to figure out a parent's or older sibling's login information, my hands seemingly above my head.  But doing it standing up isn't really any better.  Perhaps I should sit down.

Why, you may ask, are we sending our stuff on ahead of us?  First of all, it'll actually arrive the day after  we get there.  That's because they move lots of folks' things.  & there are only so many hours in the day to gather up a household & put it in a big truck.  The fellows today - who commended my wife on her packing prowess, prompting her to ask them if she could get that in writing, maybe perhaps on a certificate - were here from around 8 till around 1.

Second of all, it was a little about comfort.  We had to make the decision whether we'd want to be here, in our familiar home, obviously without a sofa or bed to sleep on, but still, the place we've lived for over two years (we're sleeping on one of these), in a more or less chill setting, than adding extra weird complications to an already weird night: first evening in a new place.

The house seems huge without anything in it.  I keep wanting to wander into my room to check stuff on my computer - even though I am writing on that very computer in the kitchen!  & it reminds me that it's a lovely house.  I've loved living in it.  But I don't know if I love it enough to stay - in Texas, where it's going to get very hot very soon; in Fort Worth, which is a fine place, but I wish were as cool as Dallas, & closer to Dallas; in a place where I can't do Self Help Radio.  A house is a home, but home is where the heart is.  & my heart wants to be somewhere else.

Do I have the Empty House Blues?  Nah.  I am looking forward to whatever's around the corner.

Bolan's Thirteenth

My cat Bolan turns 13 today, a very lucky age for a black cat.  He has issues with his urinary tract (I hope he doesn't mind me telling you) so he eats a special food, but I gave him wet food today, which he very much enjoyed - the dish was cleaner when he was done than it was when I put the food in!

He's a precious thing, brought home when he was a kitten from a vet clinic where he was waiting to be adopted.  Despite have two other cats in the house, he glommed on to our beagles Ringo & George, & he's been much more doglike than catlike in his life.

It occurs to me I've written about him on the blog before, especially when I did a Halloween show about black cats.  (Many pictures of Bolan there!)

Two other times here on the blog I focused on him: once in 2012 when I was sharing pictures of my pets & again in 2017 when I did a "meet my pets" series.

He's a sweetheart, the only cat unafraid of visitors, & definitely willing to eat your hair if you sit still on the sofa.

Happy birthday, old man!  Stay with us for a while, please!

Yesterday In Boxes

A week from now I should be in New Mexico, in a small town a hundred miles from Albuquerque, which happens to be around five hundred miles from where I am now.  The place we'll be living in Portland is over two thousand miles away so we're going to need to drive five hundred miles a day to make it.  We'll be in two cars, our own & a rented minivan.  The plan now is to have the dogs drive with me, & the cats in the minivan.  They will be in carriers, to minimize stress.  The dogs will sleep as they always do in the backseat.

As for me, I'm a little leery of such long drives.  It has to be done, & we'll do it, & we won't be driving through densely populated areas, so it should be fine.  When we drove from Memphis to Fort Worth nearly three years ago, we arrived in town on a Friday at four pm.  It took longer, it seemed, to get from Dallas to Fort Worth than from Texarkana to Dallas.

Today I finished packing up my cassettes.  I found a whole lot of old radio shows, most of them from my KVRX days.  Way back when I did my seventeenth anniversary show, I tried to find a copy of the original show to digitize to share.  I found it, actually.  It was in another box with all my other radio shows.  I listened, briefly, to a couple of them.  I feel like I should digitize them - who knows when the cassettes will finally give out? - but I don't think I'll listen to them any more than I do my current shows.  & no one else really wants to listen to them, do they?

A few years back - it's been ten years! - when we moved from Huntington to Lexington, I gave away most of my vinyl.  (If I had known how beloved vinyl was at WRFL, I would've waited to donate it to that station.)  I now have three boxes of it, including my singles.  I really thought I'd have more.  I have five of the same boxes of cassettes.  I really need to have less.  & oh shit, where the hell are my videotapes?

Also I started packing my CDs.  That'll be done early tomorrow.  The movers come to take all of that away on Thursday, & then - we have an empty house for a few days.  It's going to be quite strange.

It's all going to be strange, until it isn't.  It's such an adventure, this moving.  I guess I never felt like I'd stay in Fort Worth forever.  Anyway.  Enough of this.  More packing to do.

Today's News

One: I got new glasses.  They're progressive lenses, so I imagine I will have difficulties.

Two: I am going to see Endgame.  The movie is seventeen hours long.  So, you know.  My day is shot.

Self Help Radio 042619: April 26th

Holy moly, I am counting six times Self Help Radio has fallen on April 26th!  This is interesting (to me at least) because there are days of the year when no Self Help Radio has aired.  Despite doing around fifty shows a year for nearly eighteen years.  That's more shows than there are days in the year!  For example, there has never been an episode of Self Help Radio on February 3rd.  That's odd, right?  Is it because that's Norman Rockwell's birthday?  I don't know!

But on April 26th, the following themes were explored:

Pennies (April 26, 2006)
Busy Busy Busy (April 26th, 2010)
Indiepop A To Z # 31 (April 26, 2011)
Indiepop A To Z # 40 (April 26, 2013)
Indiepop A To Z # 50 (April 26, 2016)
& Indiepop A To Z # 53 (April 26, 2017)

You'll notice a bit of a trend toward the end there - it's been my habit since 2014 to return to my never-to-be-finished series "Indiepop A To Z" every four months.  I almost made it every three months & maybe one day I will.  It will take me a decade to get through the letter S.

All of the indiepop a to z episodes are over on the Self Help Radio Archive Page.  There's a lot more to listen to.  Remember: username is SHR, password is selfhelp.

We are just a little over a week away from leaving.  My room is a mess.  I'm a little nervous.  But gosh I think it was a good idea to stop doing the show for a time.  I would be even worse now if I did the show up until the very last minute!

True Doctor Story

This was just shared by me on Facebook:

Today I got a physical & afterwards they handed me some paperwork I didn't bother to read.

Sometime in the afternoon, I got a call from the doctor's office.

"Mr. Dickerson?" the person on the line said. "We're so sorry about the mistake on your patient report."

"What mistake?" I asked.

"Instead of noting your blood pressure," she said, "we accidentally wrote that you're HIV positive."

"Oh my!" I said.

"We're very sorry," she said. "If you'd like to come in for a corrected report, we can give it to you."

"No, no," I responded. "This one is all right. Anyway, I'd really like to scare my wife."

Too Many Cassettes: An Introspection

We are moving, as you know, in less than two weeks.  I have too many cassettes.  They fall into these categories:

1) Very old cassettes of me as a kid recording shit with friends & alone
2) Cassettes of things I recorded from vinyl that I either sold back or borrowed from someone (later I would do the same with CDs)
3) Cassettes people made for me
4) Cassettes I made for people but never sent (not a large number)
5) Recordings of radio shows I've done (I stopped recording them on cassette - this is true - around 2006!)
6) Commercial cassettes I either bought, got somewhere, or were given to me
7) Mix tapes I made for myself back in my walkman days (this includes tapes of albums that I taped because I couldn't carry a turntable with me on the bus)

There are a lot of cassettes.  Too many.  & I am getting rid of some, especially the ones that I have other forms, in better quality media.  Why keep them?  It's silly.

The ones that are most interesting to me are the old recordings, because I haven't listened to them in years, perhaps decades.  Some of them I don't even remember making.  There was a time when I had cassettes & a recorder nearby always, because I would send tapes to friends or I would want to talk into the recorder or whatever.  Cassettes were ubiquitous.  It's why I have so many!

But my weird insight today is this: I have romanticized my life with cassette tapes.

Let me clarify: I don't miss them.  I never liked their sub-par sound quality.  I never liked the fact that, if you had a certain number of minutes per side, you'd have to fill all of it, or get long hissing silences.  (CDs stop when the tracks you've burned onto them end, you know.)  I of course hate rewinding.  I have cassettes that I have obviously "operated" on - I cracked the case & used tape to splice broken ends together.  Scotch tape!  Nothing fancy!

What I'm talking about is that I felt like there were treasures on these tapes.  I wish I could explain it better.  I thought the me on these tapes was worth preserving, & carrying around from Austin to Huntington to Lexington to Fort Worth, from numerous residences in those cities, & now to the Pacific Northwest.  & you know what?  It's not.  The me on the tapes isn't really worth preserving.

If most of those tapes disappeared tomorrow, I might be a little sad, but I don't think I would miss them much.  I don't even know if I'll ever listen to them again as it is.

Tonight I digitized one of them, a faux recording session with two friends in high school.  They are musicians, I am someone trying (& failing) to be funny while yelping in a microphone.  These days I am way too self-conscious to do such a thing - I guess I hadn't yet become entirely aware how utterly talentless I was - so there is a kind of wistfulness to experiencing my exuberance.  I knew I was pretending to be a rock & roll star but I still also kinda believed I could be a rock & roll star.  Life had yet to knock me down a few pegs, a few feet, a few flights of stairs, a few levels.

The radio show tapes may demostrate the same thing, & maybe one day I'll digitize more of them.

Still.  I'm taking a lot of them to Portland.  But I'm hoping to leave a lot of them behind.  Half, maybe?  Or more?

"What a treasure trove!" a friend said today when I sent a pic of a big box of cassettes to her through text.  Oh yeah.  It's treasure.  But it's fucking cursed.

Still Thinking About This House That Is Emptying Slowly

As I write this, a nasty storm is rolling through Fort Worth.  I am not a meteorologist or anything, but I do notice that storms are nastier in this part of the world than in other places.  In Lexington - which, don't get me wrong, has nasty storms as well as tornados & such - it seemed like it could rain all day & it would just be rain.  No thunder, no lightning, just endless rain.  That hardly ever happens here.

Another thing to note: it usually doesn't rain during the day here.  It happens at night, like now, where there's always a chance the power will go out.  I type frantically in anticipation of that event.

This is a dumb thing I remember about rain in West Virginia, where, like in Lexington, it didn't seem to storm much.  I told a friend that the rain was more beautiful unaccompanied by lighting & thunder, that it seemed more "poetic."  She made fun of me for weeks after that, she'd ask, "How is your poetic rain?"  I deserved that.

My little dog Winston hates the thunder, & needs to be cuddled while it's storming.  He gets nervous & shivers & for some reason wants to go outside, to panic in the rain.  Like he thinks the thunder is coming from inside the house.  It's a shame he feels this way, & it's something he's picked up in his later years, possibly since we've returned here.  I don't know if it storms like this in Portland.

Speaking of: two weeks from tonight, I will be sleeping in a hotel room & not in this house.  We moved in here at the end of the year 2016, so we only lived here for two years or so, but I have loved this place like no other home I've had.  I don't know why that is - I haven't been crazy about the town, or the sad lack of opportunities for Self Help Radio, or the perpetual months of heat, but I've loved this house, this little room where I've made the show, the kitchen where I cooked, the backyard where the dogs played.  I know a home is just a place & you find your home where the things & people you love are, & I trust my wife to find another place in Portland for us, but that doesn't make it any easier knowing we'll be saying goodbye to this place soon.

Now I need to see if the dogs will brave the rain before they go to bed for the night!  Rain is something else we'll have to get used to, too.

A Modest Observation

In about two weeks, we leave this home where I've lived for over two years.  We are boxing things up & getting rid of things & taking things off walls.  In certain rooms, there is a pronounced echo that wasn't there a week ago.  In these ways does a house stop being a home.

& it makes me think: how strange it is that the last moments one lives in a place so resemble the first moments one lives in a place.  Because when we moved into this house a little over two years ago, it so resembled what I am seeing now.

Except.  I was unfamiliar with everything, & now I know this place as much as I've known anywhere I've lived.  It's a strange sadness, a feeling of loss, & luckily keeping busy keeps that at bay.

Self Help Radio 041919: April 19th

There was an idea I had: while the show was on hiatus, I'd feature some show from the past - I mean, I've been doing this for almost seventeen years! - that happened on the same date.  It turns out, April 19 is a pretty well-traveled moment on the calendar for Self Help Radio!

Two years ago, I did a show about umbrellas.  Should you be so inclined, you may listen to that show in two parts right now: part one & part two.  (You'll need a username & password, & that will be SHR & selfhelp in case you didn't know.)

Three years ago, in 2016, there was a show with the theme everything's fine.  Do you remember, back in 2016, when everything seemed fine?  Me neither.  But you can listen to that show, if you want, by clicking on part one & then part two.  Same password situations apply.

But wait!  There's more!

In 2013, on April 19, there was a show with the theme on my mind.  You were on my mind then.  But I didn't reupload the show, sorry.

On this day in 2011, the show explored songs involving the word crawl.  That would've been one of the earlier WRFL shows.  How wonderful it might be to hear that show!  But you can't.

A year earlier, in West Virginia, the show examined the theme mushrooms.  No one listened to the show in West Virginia except people at WMUL, & the Station Manager himself called & said it was amazing I did a show about mushrooms on 4/20.  Except it was 4/19.  & I'm not that clever.

We can go way back, though.  To one of my favorite episodes, which aired in 2006.  I have no idea if the show is any good, but I enjoyed making it.  Self Help Radio wasn't even four years old.  I had the idea of making a show where all the songs were covers of 1980s tunes.  I called it "the eighties, translated".  I don't know if it were well-received or what.  But I had a lot of fun.

Believe it or not, there are still days in the calendar which have never had an episode of Self Help Radio aired on them.  April 19 is not one of those days.

Now.  Back to packing!

Our Correspondence Was Very Weird

Guess what I'm doing here:

A process in the weather of the heart
He put on his clothes & stepped out & he died.
I who was shapeless as the water
Of unremembered skies & snows
Shall I unbolt or stay
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks
My world was christened in a stream of milk
I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only
The jacks of frost they finger in the hives
But for the common wages
For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound
Possessed by the skies
And the doors burn in their brain
And every stone I wind off like a reel
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime
Escapes to the flat cities' sails
He drowned his father’s magics in a dream
Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids
Know now the flesh's lock and vice
Or waves break loud on the seashores
Being innocent, he dreaded that he died
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away
Your sport is summer as the spring runs angrily

What I did was, I was reading Dylan Thomas poems, & I took lines from them - the first line from the first one, the second line from the second one, all the way down to the twenty-fourth line & poem.  It almost makes sense!

This I'm doing instead of packing.  Aren't I glad I gave up my radio shows?

Putting Stuff In Boxes (An Obloquy)

This is the way my mind works: I decide to write about putting things in boxes, & suddenly I think of this word: obloquy.  What the hell?  Where did it come from?

Well, according to Etymology Online, it's from the Late Latin obloquium, meaing "speaking against, contradiction," from comes ultimately from the Latin obloqui, "to speak against, contradict."

It means verbal abuse, usually in public.  But that's not what I meant.  I was asking, "Where did it come from in my mind?"

Why would I want to hurl verbal abuse ("evil speaking") at putting stuff in boxes?  Is that even possible?  Does a task have agency?  Or would I be targeting myself, as the person who is putting things in boxes?  Is there any way to know?  Do I even care?

This post has nine questions.  Here are the answers:

1) I know!

2) Asked & answered.

3) You know a lot of words, sometimes they just pop up, unwanted.  It doesn't have to mean anything.

4) You wouldn't.

5) Probably not, unless it's in a poem or some shit.

6) Again, probably in a poem.

7) No, I think the question (such as it was) was about the act, & therefore you couldn't really be obloquious toward it.

8) Sure.

9) Not really.  But there's space to fill.

There's not going to be a countdown or anything, but we leave in about twenty days.  That's not a lot of time.  I probably should be putting things in boxes instead of talking to you.

It's So BORING To Talk About DREAMS

Uh oh.

This is true: I dream a lot.  I always have.  Sometimes my dreams have felt more real than my life, which says nasty things about my life, not my dreams.  I had a dream I fell in love with a girl I never met in a dream in high school, & almost convinced myself she was real.  It was only when I tried to figure out how someone could appear to you in your dreams - trying to work out the mechanism - that I realized it was only a dream.  Also, she looked a lot like a girl I was crushing on in school.

There's one recurring dream - it's not that the dream is recurring - there's an element of dreams that happens or has happened enough times that it's seemingly recurring.  It's this: I dream that I have written & maybe even performed a song.

It's usually just one song.  In the dream, I'm reflecting on how hard it was & sometimes I even think I don't like the song, but I say to myself, "Hey! At least I wrote a song!"

& it's not like I just wrote the words.  Nope, in the dreams what gives me satisfaction is that I not only did that, but I wrote the music & possibly even played some of the music.

It probably wouldn't surprise you that not only could I fail to carry a tune in a bucket but also I have no natural ability when it comes to music.  I can barely grasp the basics of music theory.  Oh hell yeah I can talk for hours about lyrics in a song & I can chat about some elements of the composition but ask me what key it's in?  Forget it.

The treacherous thing about these dreams is not just that I am somehow goofily proud & even a little smug that I wrote a song, but that often - like this morning - I wake up thinking, "Yeah, I'm glad I was able to write that song that one time, & then record it."

Of course, I've never done that.  & it dawns on me as the morning wears on & I start trying to think about the song.  When did I do all that writing & music playing?  Why?  Where is the song now?  Why am I not thinking about it all the time if I'm so durned proud about it at the moment?

Oh yeah.  There's no song.

Yes, I was in a "band" in high school where I shouted improvised lyrics into a recording device.  But my friend Russ went back & added all the music touches - all the instruments, really.  The song was barely mine & I of course wasn't singing & didn't have a sense of melody or anything.  The same thing happened in my living room fifteen years ago with friends from radio where they played their guitars & I sang along with them.  But those weren't my songs.

Still, I am not angry about these dreams.  They let have a feeling of accomplishment I don't normally feel in real life.  If only I could remember as I'm waking up that there's no song, no song of mine, anywhere but my dreams.  That sleepy realization is the worst part.

Hm, this wasn't entirely about dreams.  Still, it probably was pretty boring.

The Beginning Of Six (Or So) Long Weeks

There was this book I was fascinated with when I was a kid because I like trivia, it was called the Book of Lists.  I must've thumbed through it hundreds of times.  At some point, one of my older brothers brought home - or I saw at his house - something called The Book Of Rock Lists (which existed because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery & also because The Book Of Lists was bestseller).  I was a big Beatles fan at the time & there was a whole section for the Beatles, including something I had never heard: rumors of Paul McCartney's death & replacement in the mid-1960s.  That freaked me the fuck out.

The original copy is long gone, so my memory might be faulty, but I recall a long list of how rock & rollers died.  One of those was a fellow named Johnny Ace, whose music I had never heard at the time.  He was in the list of "rock & roll suicides."  He had died on Christmas Day, 1954, backstage, while playing Russian Roulette.

Years later, when I was finally exposed to some of his songs, I remembered that entry & wondered, "If you die by Russian Roulette, is it really suicide?"  The other thought is, "How shitty is being a musician if in your down time you wile away the hours playing Russian fucking Roulette?"

It just so happens that today I was listening to some Johnny Ace & of course the story of his death popped into my mind.  I wanted to read more about him.  That Wikipedia article I linked to mentions how he died, but suggests a more sensible scenario, told by the bass played for Big Mama Thornton, his name was Curtis Tillman (Ace was touring at the time with Thornton): "I will tell you exactly what happened! Johnny Ace had been drinking & he had this little pistol he was waving around the table & someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ & he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded… see?’ & pointed it at himself with a smile on his face & ‘Bang!’ — sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran out of the dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed himself!'"

There must be a word for the satisfaction one feels when something that was unexplained but which one took to be true is cleared up.  I felt that today.  & it made it easier to enjoy the tunes I was digging.

Hey! I told you I'd write in the blog in the usual way despite the show being on hiatus!  This is the sort of shit you're going to have to get used to!  (For a while.)

Self Help Radio 041219: Indiepop A To Z # 59

(All covers found on Discogs.)

Here it is, the first installment of Indiepop A To Z of 2019 - & the last Self Help Radio from Fort Worth, Texas.

It's been a bit weird, I realized that fact (you'll hear it on the show) toward the end & now everything feels a little sad.  I wasn't this sad when I was at KNON, probably because I wasn't doing the show I love doing, & also from inside my home with my animals around.  I have spent about two & a half years in this room of mine with all my music around me, with a dogbed under my desk & just behind me (often populated by cats), & soon enough - in just a little over three weeks - this space will no longer be mine.  The power of endings is intense.

Speaking of endings, I also didn't finish the letter M.  I have like three or four more bands.  Why not just put them on the show, Gary?  Because I didn't want to go over two hours.  But in August, I promise, we finish M & start the letter N.

For those keeping count at home, we began the letter M in episode 53.  We'll finish in 60.  I should do some sort of accounting... No!  Gary!  You have to start packing!

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website.  Remember to find the username + password there, or here: SHR/selfhelp.  The songs I play, hopefully with the artists in alphabetical order, are below.

No new show till the middle of May!  However did you get so lucky?

Self Help Radio Indiepop A To Z # 59

"Riches & Wonders" The Mountain Goats _All Hail West Texas_
"Devil In The Deep Blue Sea" Mousefolk _Hazy Tambourine Days_
"Living Room Picnic" Moustache Of Insanity _Moustache Of Insanity_

"Love Me Or I'll Kill You" Mouth _Love Me Or I'll Kill You_
"Michael, Michael, Michael" The Moving Jelly Brothers _You Can't Be Loved Forever 2_
"Blay" Moving Pictures _Without Friends_
"Save It" Stuart Moxham _Personal Best_
"Number 4 St. James's Square" Mr. Martini _Abracadabra: The "Magnificent Triviality" Of Él Records_

"Around The May Pole" Mr. Wright _The Fancy Man_
"Bent Backwards" Mrs. Kipling _Sunny Sunday Smile_
"Solace" Muggins _A Chance To Shine: A Dorian Records Compilation_
"The Two Of Us" Mumbles _Breaking Up EP_
"Demain" Mumbly _Seven Summers (International Pop Vol. 2)_

"Go Honey" Greg Murray _Go Honey_
"Dream Sequence 1" Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls _Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls_
"Giving Way To Trains" Murrumbidgee Whalers _Giving Way To Trains_
"Going Crazy" Musical Chairs _Time Lapse EP 7"_
"Plain" My Autumn Sons _Perfect_

"Cigarette In Your Bed" My Bloody Valentine _You Made Me Realise EP_
"Burning Hearts" My Favorite _The Kids Are All Wrong_
"She Fakes Apples" My Finest Hour _Grimsby Fishmarket 4 Norrkoeping 0_
"Better Things To Do" My Friend Wallis _Split 7" with Watermelon_
"Something" My Guru Says _3 Seasons Are Enough!_

"You Feel Loved" My Laundry Life _The Art Of Science_
"You Don't Sparkle (In My Eyes)" My Life Story _Mornington Crescent_
"Kowloon Park Swimming Pool" My Little Airport _Hong Kong Is One Big Shopping Mall_
"My Little Brother" My Little Brother _A House Full Of Friends_
"Capital Of Norway" My Little Pony _Making Marks_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 59?

(I had to ask dictionary.com.)

Here we are, again, listening to & talking about this almost-forgotten musical genre called "indiepop," plus progenitors & influences when possible.  Do you really need me to talk about it some more?  I normally program this show every four months but (in case you've really not been paying attention) (& if so, good for you!), I'll be taking a break while we move from Texas to Oregon.  I have a lot of records & CDs & stuff I'm going to pack earlier than usual.  The wife gets a little stressed out & we're not in Portland yet where it's legal to buy things to help with one's stress.  You see?

Also: I thought I'd finish the letter M tomorrow but now I'm not so sure.  I have spent the day gathering music & I always find more than I intend to.  Now & then I wish I has simply gone down the list at twee dot net but of course that's not me.

Okay.  Tomorrow at noon at Self Help Radio dot net, two hours of indiepop.  Hope you can join me.

Should I also mention that this is the blog's 3100th post?  No?  Then I won't.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 59: Fifty Nine?!?

Is there a word for when you end a sentence with more than one question mark or exclamation point?

Is there?!?!

If you end a sentence with more than one period, it becomes an ellipsis.  I understand that an ellipsis is generally thought of as three dots, but I've known people who use as little as two & have seen sentences end with four or more.  I'm an old-fashioned three dot ellipsis kind of guy myself.  Anyway, I'm not talking about ellipses.  I promise...

At the radio station I just left, one of the fellows who does promotions loves to double up his exclamation points.  I would link to a page but it probably won't still be there after some time so let me get a screen shot.  I haven't seen this, I just know it's going to be there.

Yup:

Seven sentences in the copy (not counting the header).  Five end with double exclamation points, one surprisingly has only one (what did Cynthia ever do to KNON?), & one (the only imperative sentence) rates a period.

For me, I prefer three or more exclamation points to indicate boundless excitement & three or more questions marks to demonstrate serious confusion.  But my favorite is the mixture of exclamation points & question marks that I asked about at the beginning of this post.

If there's a name for it, I wanna know.  I love using it in combinations like:

This one?!?

Or this one!?!

Or some version of this one!?!?

But never ever like this!!??

Or this??!!

That doesn't make any sense.

Nor does anything I've written here.  What does any of this have to do with indiepop?!?!

Whatever I May Misremember

I woke up this morning at 5am.

Lots of people do that, I know, I'm not asking for applause.  But you must understand, most every Tuesday for the past year, I've awakened at 4am, taken a shower, let the dogs out, gave the cats a little more food, grabbed the last few things I wanted to play, & headed out (around 5:30) to Dallas to do a show.  A show called the Tuesday Morning Blend.  Which happened this morning without me.

Please don't think I'm sad about it.  I'm really not.  But my body & mind, which know things I might not be entirely aware of, wanted me up this morning at 5am.  I wandered around the house - this house that I won't live in in a month - & I drank some water & I think I might have hit my arm because I woke with a gash - with my little dog Yoko licking it suspiciously - in any event, it was a lovely night, the windows were open, I went back to sleep a little confused.

That'll pass.  A few minutes ago I listened to the first few minutes of today's show hoping I might get a slight mention but nope.  It's not my show anymore.  This is going to sound a bit envious & pathetic but it's true.  I handed over the Facebook page I created for the show to its new host, & he has many, many more Facebook friends than I do & doesn't mind blanket-requesting them to like the show*.  So while I had for the year I did the show maybe fifty "likes," over the past week it has more than quintupled.  I gave the new host admin privileges but can't seem to delete myself, so I keep getting these likes for a page that is no longer mine.  I suppose I've become numb to it but when KNON deejays who knew me, who knew I had a show, but chose not to "like" the show's page, & yet are now doing it when another person has taken it over - you know, it makes me feel I was not very much cared for at the place.

But of course I'll never be there again, & at some point I'll figure out how to extricate myself from that situation.  The truth is, despite the sting of one's peers being absolute dicks to you & not even knowing it, I don't miss the place or the show.  I didn't feel an emptiness or anything like when I have left other stations.  But then again, those stations/shows weren't disrespecting me right & left in ways I can monitor.  Maybe I would've hated that too!

Seriously, I have no idea how I cut my arm.  The wound is about an inch long, & there's blood on my sheets.  I remember the first time I heard about hemophilia, I worried for a moment I was hemophiliac & feared bleeding to death when I didn't know I was bleeding.  What I have might be far worse.  I injured myself in a kind of confusion & don't even feel pain.  I just notice it later.

UPDATE: I think I removed myself as any kind of person who can affect the page.  Let's hope now the notifications will stop!

* I didn't do that.  I asked maybe twenty people.  Many people who are "friends" with me on Facebook I haven't seen or spoken to in five or more years.  I don't really interact with them on Facebook, either.  They have never shown an interest in listening to me on the radio & if they "liked" the show it would be out of politeness & doubtless they'd make me like something they're doing that I would do out of obligation.  I don't think the new host of the show has the same qualms.

Hey! Didya Know?

(Remind me to tell you about the origin of the phrase "Hey! Didya know?"  I could probably also share some samples.)

You might not have listened to last week's Self Help Radio, but if you did you might not have noticed something - something I am stupidly proud of.

It was I think quite an achievement - a radio show full of songs that all mentioned every day of the week.  That was cool.  I think I did a good job.  But!

Hey!  Didya know?  All the other pieces, created by me & my collaborators - the interview, the fake ads, the interstitial "funnies," & the airbreaks - even the intro! - all of them also mentioned every day of the week.

Did I do that on purpose?  Of course!  Am I a little too self-satisfied right now?  You bet!