Self Help Radio 090716: Knives

(Original image here.)

Hopefully this is true: no one listening to this week's show got stabbed.  If so, my work here is done.

If not, it's probably not my fault.  There was definitely an anti-stabby vibe that pervaded the show.

But my heart goes out to victims of knives everywhere.  They should probably not listen to this show; it might just be one long trigger.  So: trigger warning!

Otherwise I think it went as well as could be.  The show is available now at Self Help Radio's knife drawer.  The songs I played are listed below.  The interviews - with knife experts, as well as friends in Dallas & Hollywood - are not listed below.  You'll have to listen to get that content.

& be careful!

(part one)

"Knife" by Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians _Queen Elvis_
"Jack Knife" by Dangtrippers _Days Between Stations_
"Get A Knife Between Your Teeth" by McCarthy _Banking, Violence, & The Inner Life Today_

"Mack The Knife" by Lotte Lenya & Louis Armstrong _Lenya Sings Weill: The American Theatre Songs_
"Drac The Knife" by Gene Moss _Dracula's Greatest Hits_
"Bowie Knife" by Frankie Laine _Hell Bent For Leather!_
"The Randall Knife" by Guy Clark _Better Days_

"We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives" by Los Campesinos! _Sticking Fingers Into Sockets_
"Little Dagger" by Smack Dab _Majestic Root_
"Knives On The Table" by California Oranges _Souvenirs_
"Smiler With Knife" by Morrissey _World Peace Is None Of Your Business_

"100 Knives" by Mirah _You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This_

(part two)

"My Life Is Like A Stanley Knife (Cut, Cut, Cut)" by Golden Strings _Split 7" bywith Buy Off The Bar_
"My Valuable Hunting Knife" by Guided By Voices _Alien Lanes_
"A Knife For The Girls" by The Long Blondes _Someone To Drive You Home_

"Silver Knife" by Monster Movie _Everyone Is A Ghost_
"She's A Knife" by Looper _The Snare_
"Knives" by Jen Kirkman _Hail To The Freaks_
"Knife Set" by Tochigi _Tochigi_

"Six Inch Gold Blade" by The Birthday Party _Junkyard_
"Nife Fight" by Coachwhips _Get Yer Body Next Ta Mine_
"Dull Knife" by Milkshakes _The Billy Childish Native American Sampler: A History 1983-1993_
"Dancing On A Knife's Edge" by Bill Nelson _The Cocteau Club Singles, Vol. 1: 1982-1983_

"Knife Slits Water" by A Certain Ratio _Sextet_

Whither Knives?

(Original image here.)

Okay, that's a good question.  Why a radio show about knives?

It's not like Self Help Radio hasn't explored other cutlery before.  While still not daring to examine the elusive fork, a healthy discussion about spoons was attempted almost seven years ago to this day.  What makes the dining table such a difficult subject?

Indeed, one can argue that knives themselves transcend the mere act of eating, for they are used for other things - cutting things, killing things, being thrown, among others.  Should this show be lumped in, therefore, to the cutlery category?  Wait, is there a cutlery category?

& isn't "cutlery" one of those words that, if you say or look at them too much, stops to seem less like a word & more like a collection of nonsense syllables?  At some point I started to believe it was spelled "cutlerly," & then I started to imagine what actions one might do in a cutlerly manner.  At times it felt like a knife was carving away vital segments of my brain.

Honestly, the "knife as metaphor" proved too attractive one fateful night.  I was still in Lexington, I believe.  The lights were low, which turned out to be a bad idea, as I was chopping onions.  Two or three seconds later I was covering my newly-sliced finger with a paper towel & trying to figure out when the wife had hidden the band-aids.  Even then, I didn't settle upon the theme, no.  It was later, when I accidentally wrote a poem on the back of iPad (it was still dark) in which I said, "My life is a knife that never cuts what it's supposed to cut."

While I was cleaning the nail polish off the back of my iPad (don't ask), I recognized the words I had written in the middle of the night.  Did I say out loud, to the waiting world, "This shall be a theme for another episode of Self Help Radio?"  Did I frighten my cats & dogs by holding the iPad high above my head & exclaiming, "The show is saved for one more week for We. Have. A. Theme!!"  Did I rush to find a bottle of wine to drink a toast to the Muse, who for whatever reason can't just be direct but has to speak to me in symbol & circumstance?  Did I do all three?

Probably not, but I did think it'd be a good theme.  Will it?  You can decide yourself if you want by listening to tonight's show on from 9-11 pm EST (8-10pm CST) on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington or online at Lexington Community Radio dot org.  I'll tweet along.  Wanna listen?

It's perfectly safe!  All the knives will be in the music!

Flipping The Days

Ooops.  Today should be called "Preface To [Name Of Theme]."  Not yesterday.  My bad.  I'm still not used to this "show on Wednesday" business.  I'll get the hang of it shortly.

It's probably important to point out that no one makes me write in this blog five days a week.  That's a task I set for myself a while back when I thought, "I have this dumb blog, I should write in it."

Most of the time, of course, I have nothing to say, which hasn't stopped anyone online ever, & therefore shall not stop me.  In fact, when I have nothing to say, I sometimes (often?) spend (i.e., waste) time explaining whatever dumb rules I might have for writing on the blog, guaranteeing two things: 1) that I have something to talk about for that day; & b) that I have less & less people reading the blog.

Anyway.  There's a show about knives tomorrow.  Why knives?  I guess that's what's scheduled for tomorrow.  If I remember this time.

Preface To Knives: Three Short Knife Anecdotes

# 1

My mother worked at a convenience store in Garland, Texas, from the mid- to late-1970s.  Because Garland was "dry" - you couldn't buy any kind of alcohol in the city, you had to drive to Dallas to get your beer, wine, or booze - the convenience store made its money with pornography, which was kept on a magazine stand in view of everyone, though on the top racks, away from tiny hands, & with mildly expensive items in a glass case along the front counter like bongs, cheap jewelry, & knives.  Lots of knives.

Not cutlery, of course, but small hunting knives, jack knives, switchblades, so-called "butterfly knives," stuff like that.  I remember they went for prices like 10.95 on tiny handwritten tags connected to the knives by little loops of white thread.  At the time, it seems, all different kinds of blades were so popular that my older brothers - who were about as dangerous as the gang members in West Side Story, although less likely to break into song - carried knives in their pockets.

When I was allowed to rummage through that cabinet, I went to one particular knife, a special switchblade.  I would open it again & again.  But there was no knife in it!  There was a comb!  I would've like to have carried that knife in my back pocket!

# 2

At some point in my childhood I, like many other boys, was given a Swiss Army Knife.  I almost never used it - in particular, I wondered at the corkscrew.  Maybe when the Swiss Army Knife was invented, there were adolescents who might need to unscrew the cork from some bottle or other, but by the time I had gotten one, the only use for a corkscrew would've been a wine bottle.  & frankly I couldn't see the situation where adults needing to open a bottle of chablis but unable to would turn to the dumb little kid & the room & say, "You!  Can you help us?!"

No, the main thing I did with my Swiss Army Knife was open up, in as many ways as possible, all of its components: all the blades, the little scissors, the phillips-head screwdriver, the nail file, the corkscrew.  I liked the contrast between the little red oval of potential & the spazzy result of all its parts out, uselessly, for the world to see.

I understand that children were not the intended customers for the Swiss Army Knife, but I never, never saw an adult with one as a child.  They were generally given to children.  & as a child, I thought the thing was supposed to be a toy.

# 3

I'm a middle-aged man now, although I think I'm probably way past the mid-point of my life, & one of the things I've come to enjoy as I get older is cooking.  I doubt I'm very good at it, but it makes the wife happy & I have come to an understanding with food that lets us both do our jobs without too much time wasted & too much misery & injury.

Except of course you need knives for food preparation.  & I can count the number of times I've cut myself while chopping things many times over on the fingers I am very fortunate I still have, despite my clumsiest efforts.

In fact, I keep a first-aid kit in the kitchen now, because I will bleed like a motherfucker when I cut myself.  My ritual behavior is to first be shocked coupled with self-loathing & anger when it happens, followed by the inevitable holding of a paper towel on the affected area (usually a finger) for a number of minutes to stop the bleeding all the while cursing myself for a fool, & then, once the bleeding seems in control, the dipping of the finger in alcohol or hydrogen peroxide & the delicious sting that comes along, & finally the application of the band-aid.

Here's a confession: I am very queasy when my blood is taken at the doctor.  I sometimes come close to passing out.  But I have no qualms about a bleeding finger the tip of which I've inadvertently sliced off instead of part of a bell pepper.  It doesn't faze me.

Here's another confession: while I won't say I like it, that it tastes good or anything, I do like to taste my own blood at those times.  I'm glad I know how my blood tastes.  I don't know why that is.

This Week's Show Is About Knives

Here's a picture I found on Tumblr with some passing familiarity to the theme:

Would that it were true!

Self Help Radio 083116: Lakes

(Original image here.)

Seriously I am trying to remember the last time I was at a lake.  I know I've driven by a dozen lakes in the past year - you have to cross a lake to get into the Dallas area from the East on I-30.  There's also a super cool lake you drive over somewhere in Tennessee, if I am remembering correctly, between Nashville & Memphis.  I know!  Sometime in the past year, when visiting Dallas, we spent time at White Rock Lake, walking the dogs down there!  It wasn't quite the same lake visit that others have, but it was "time at the lake."

Meanwhile, I tried to bring Texas Lake Culture (tm) (as if that's a thing that's different elsewhere) to Kentucky with the first Self Help Radio on WLXU.  While I remain grateful for the opportunity to do
the show, I am still a bit ambivalent about two things: 1) doing a show so far away on a station in another city that celebrates "local" programming; & b) doing a prerecorded show that's actually airing & not downloadable as a podcast.  I am certain I can get over both these things, but I will understand completely if someone notices that SHR isn't local & wants to do another show at that time.  Completely totally understand.

Meanwhile, if you missed it, or miss the lake, or for any reason really, this week's Self Help Radio is now available at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts, there's a password, yadda yadda yoda.  The songs I played are listed below.  The interviews - there are four of them! - are not.  There!  Some enticement for ya!

(part one)

"Year Of The Lake" The Smittens _Believe Me_
"Lake Como" Celestial _Dream On_
"The Sand That Holds The Lakes In Place (Lake)" His Name Is Alive _Stars On ESP_

"Loch Ness Monster" King Horror _Wavy Gravy_
"Claramount Lake" Tomorrow _Tomorrow_
"The Lake" Laurie Anderson _Homeland_

"Lake Lagoon" Jandek _Graven Image_
"Lake Of Fire" Meat Puppets _Meat Puppets II_
"Back To The Lake" Guided By Voices _Universal Truths & Cycles_
"The Deepest Lake On The Planet" Dengue Fever _The Deepest Lake_

"The Lake Isle Of Innisfree" The Waterboys _An Appointment With Mr. Yeats_

(part two)

"Indian Lake" The Cowsills _Captain Sad & His Ship Of Fools_
"Lake House" Vivian Girls _Share The Joy_
"Chandelier Lake" Tilly & The Wall _O_

"Deep Forbidden Lake" Neil Young _Decade_
"The Bottomless Lake" John Prine _Aimless Love_
"Lake Wasood" Michael Showalter _Sandwiches & Cats_
"Lake Front" Belmondo _Lake Front 7"_

"The Truth About Lake Ronkonkama" My Favorite _Love At Absolute Zero_
"Lakeside View Apartments Suite" The Mountain Goats _Transcendental Youth_
"Great Five Lakes (Cornelius remix)" Buffalo Daughter _CM - Cornelius Remixes_

"Lake Song" The Decemberists _What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World_
"We Live By The Lake" Fanfarlo _Fire Escape_

Whither Lakes?

(This image from a Youtube video about the deepest lakes in the world.)

Why do a radio show about lakes?  Is it because I have recently traveled from a state that has fewer lakes to one than has more?  Or the opposite?  Does Kentucky have more or less lakes than Texas?

Certainly that seems a trick questions.  Texas is over six times larger than Kentucky.  You can drive from Ashland, at Kentucky's northeast tip, to Paducah, at its southwest tip, in under seven hours.  That's around 378 miles.  To get from Texarkana to El Paso (814 miles) takes half a day.  More telling, you can travel from Bowling Green in the south to Covington in the north in only three hours or so (218 miles); to travel from Brownsville, Texas, at the state's southern tip, to Amarillo, Texas, in the Panhandle (777 miles) takes another half a day - & that's not even the northernmost part of the state!

The lesson is clear: it takes a hell of a lot longer to get out of Texas than it does to get out of Kentucky.

What that has to do with lakes is this: Texas could have more lakes than Kentucky just because it's so big.  But I checked this website, which calculates what percentage of the state's area is water, & it's interesting: Kentucky is 2.3% water, while Texas is just 2.7%.  So maybe not much of a difference in lakes, after all.  (The page lets us know that the United States is 7% water.  I feel that should be more.  Don't you?)

In any event, I can safely say that the number of lakes in Texas vs the number of lakes in Kentucky had nothing to do with why the show today is about lakes.  I thought about doing a show about lakes one day while listening to Dengue Fever's last album, which is called "The Deepest Lake."  From tiny acorns of inspiration do such big radio shows grow.

& of course, the show will air tonight!  Oh my golly!  On 93.9 fm WXLU in Lexington, & online at lexingtoncommunityradio.org (please choose the WXLU side)!  That's from 9-11pm Kentucky time & 8-10pm Texas time, & other times depending on where you are & how you got there.  The show will technically air later there than here, which is a trip.

Maybe you'll be listening along with me!

Preface To Lakes: Well? Will It Be On The Radio Or Not?

(This is a lake I live near these days.  I found this image here.)

To answer my own question, yes, I think the show will air tomorrow night on 93.9 fm WLXU Lexington, & online simultaneously at Lexington Community Radio dot org (just choose WXLU).  I put the show together today & delivered it to the powers-that-be in Lexington.  I imagine I could easily have done something wrong, so never discount user error when it comes to me.

It's very strange to have finished a radio show more than a day before it airs.  I much prefer to put the show together in real time.  I miss it, & hope I'll get to do that again soon.  But for now: tomorrow night there's a new Self Help Radio airing in Lexington & all over the internets.  & I'll be around to live stream it on Twitter!

It's been a long day.  I need to sleep now.

Oh What A Mess I Am

It might not seem so, but there's a lot of work that goes into an episode of Self Help Radio.  Not to be whiny about it, but it does take some time, & I have been waylaid by the deadline of the Wednesday show which - I believe - is tomorrow.

Tomorrow!  I am woefully unprepared!

In fact, there's a good chance that I might not be able to premiere (or re-premiere) on WLXU this Wednesday.  If so, I'll put the show up - it's prerecorded no matter what - on Friday.  I hope it doesn't come to that.  I'm going to be working as hard as I can to get it done.

By the way, this is me lowering expectations.  I shouldn't have to - certainly expectations of me are as low as is pretend polite - but I received some nice responses to my announcement yesterday that, even if they were sweetly faked sentiments, it seems to me I should be responsive to them.  & so.

Self Help Radio may or may not be on on WLXU on Wednesday! I will do all in my power to make sure it is! But my power is hardly ever enough! This is my admonishment!

You Can Take The Show Out Of Kentucky... Or Can You?

(Oh, you know about this place!)

Stranger & strangerer is the life of Self Help Radio.

Some things are certain:

1. I no longer live in Kentucky.
2. In fact, I live in Fort Worth, Texas.
3. Self Help Radio has yet to find a radio home here.
4. That doesn't matter, I'll do it anyway, & just post it online.
5. Meanwhile, back in Lexington.
6. The people I knew in radio in Kentucky were the coolest people in the world.
7. WLXU has offered Self Help Radio a spot from far away.
8. So Self Help Radio is returning to the Kentucky airways.

Yeah, I know.  The marvelous folks at WLXU, which is one-half of the Lexington Community Radio stations at which I did Cradle To Grave for about half a year, have said they'll air Self Help Radio (pre-recorded, of course) starting (I hope) next week.  Next Wednesday in fact.  From 9-11pm EST.

(My brain needs to translate: that's 8-10pm CST.)

Much gratitude to the station & especially station manager Chuck Clenney for this opportunity.  If you enjoyed listening when the show was on WRFL, maybe it'll be as much fun on WLXU.  Folks keep asking me if the show is "syndicated," which is silly - of course not!  It's airing exclusively on WLXU.  For now.  When I find a home here, I'll do it here, although that may not preclude me doing it back there.  Or a different show.  Or something.

So. Ain't that a kick in the head?!?

Self Help Radio 082616: Indiepop A To Z # 51`

(Images of some of the records heard on today's show, taken from discogs.com.)

Ha ha!  A show on time!  I might get the hang of this, eventually (although yes I am still courting radio stations these things take time!).  This week's show continues the Indiepop A To Z series, from within the letter L: Lin to Lou.

One thing that should be said about this process is that it takes a lot of time & I listen to far more records than make it onto the series.  I probably forget a bunch as well, but I shouldn't say that.  Let's forget I said that.

Artists from the UK, the US, Sweden, France, Norway, New Zealand, & more appear on today's show.  As such, it's the equivalent of a small vacation in your head.  I hope you enjoy it.

The show is available now at Self Help Radio website page & the instructions for downloading (you need a password & username) are in the text at the top of the page.  The songs I play - although not what I say about the songs I play - are listed below.

(part one)

"Nerve Pylon" The Lines _Scared To Get Happy: The Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"Supercheri" Lina _Redevenir Modeste_
"Happy New Year" Lasse Lindh _The Sound Of Young Sweden, Vol. 2_

"When I Get To California" Linus Of Hollywood _Your Favorite Record_
"This Scene Is Happening" Liquid Faeries _La-Di-Da...  So Far..._
"Team Player" Liquorice _Listening Cap_
"The English Softhearts" Literature _Chorus_
"Happiest Times" Little Big Adventure _The Hateful Eye EP_

"Ruining Things Like Everything" Little My _Little My's Sixth_
"Nobody Loves You" Little Name _How To Swim & Live_
"Happy" Little Red Schoolhouse _When I Find You_
"In The Morning" Lizard Kisses _In The Morning_
"Something Nice" Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons _Something Nice_

"Busman's Holiday" The Loch Ness Mouse _Busman's Holiday_
"Kicking Sand" The Lodger _Grown-Ups_

(part two)

"Up The Hill & Down The Slope" The Loft _Creation Soup, Vol. 2_
"Press Play & Record" Lois _Press Play & Record_
"Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl" Loney, Dear _Citadel Band_

"Small Talk" Claudine Longet _Love Is Blue_
"Cactus Cat" Look Blue Go Purple _LBGPEP2_
"Mirror Man" The Looking Glass _Dreamworld, 1985-1987_
"Never Understand" Loons _Dim Movies_
"On The Flipside" Looper _The Geometrid_

"Stop What You're Doing" Lorelei _Why Popstars Can't Dance_
"Brooklyn Bound" The Lorimer Sound _Green Streets_
"Why Can't You Be Yourself For A Change?" The Losers _Dalmatian Generation_
"Dock Ellis" Lotion _Full Isaac_
"German Girl" Lotus Eaters _No Sense Of Sin_

"Falling" Lotus Eaters _Falling_
"Inverness" The Loud Family _Plants & Birds & Rocks & Things

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 51?

Ho ho, I bet you didn't think I could finish this week's show on time, but I have n't.  But that's because it's not time!  I have until noon tomorrow!  & I'll be finished with it then!  I hope.

No one's really ever asked me about my fascination with indiepop, & where it began, & why I would want to do a never-ending series about it.  I'm not sure if I could answer satisfactorily if someone did.  Certainly my obsession with alphabetization & with order have something to do with it, but I could easily have done a "postpunk a to z" or a "garage a to z."  Why indiepop?

It probably had something to do with a show on KOOP radio called "Ear Candy."  It began when I was at KVRX under a person named Tina whom I met only once or twice, but when the two Jennifers took over, it was, for many years, the best thing on a station full of great radio shows.  When I became involved at KOOP, I would often sub the show, doing a shabby job no doubt, but generally being nice enough to the women in charge that they let me help out from time-to-time.

But before I knew what "indiepop" was, I did like a lot of twee, naïve music, especially Jonathan Richman.  Friends who knew me for years as a fan of the Smiths, Joy Division, Leonard Cohen, etc., thought I had gone crazy when I fell for Jonathan Richman.  Because every angsty teen appreciates the first Modern Lovers record, but not too many people can stomach the eight-minute-long version of "Ice Cream Man."

Indiepop was a world with beautiful melodies but often rather dark lyrics.  A sprightly song might have some depressing undertones.  One friend of mine, who doesn't care much for lyrics, thinks the music is too happy.  He once asked me, "Is that all you listen to now, upbeat music?"  & trying to explain that to someone who can't hear what I hear is like trying to describe color to the blind.

What strikes me most about this experiment is how good the music is.  I'm sure there are some terrible indiepop bands - I mean, if I reject a band for the series, I must not think they're very good - but the ones that make the cut have an excellence that belies their overtly simple trappings.  I hope tomorrow's show demonstrates that.  I hope all the shows in the series do!

Another entity to give thanks to is Napster.  For the few years (or was it months?) that it existed, it enabled me to sample other people's music libraries, including tunes unavailable - or expensive & rare - in the United States.  Indiepop is an international phenomenon, but its roots are in the UK.  People shared stuff way out of print, & I gobbled it up greedily.  Though ethically dubious, it was a grand time for people like me who otherwise wouldn't have known so much existed.

Well, the two Jennifers knew.  & I took notes when I listened to their show.  & some of those notes, I hope, are what I'm reading off of when I do the Indiepop A To Z show, although one time one of those Jennifers, when I was doing the show with her on Ear Candy, said, "Ugh! This will never end!"

She was right, but, like Edwyn Collins said, just like the Four Tops, I can't help myself.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 51: Who's Counting?

I'm so embarrassed, I didn't remember which number of the Indiepop A To Z series I was on when I mentioned it on the show last week.  I remembered the letter L.  But I said it was like number 53 or something; the last show I did in the series was the eventful number fifty!  I should remember such things.

But unfortunately, I don't.  People who are being politely curious about the show will often ask me, once I've told them it's theme-based, "Oh?  What was your last show about?"  & I can't remember.  Standing there like a fool, I will wrack my brains, I will mentally try to walk back through time, even try to recall where I stood or what I was doing to bring songs to mind, but it's useless.  My brain dumps that information very soon after the show, because it knows there's another show I need to start working in.  It's one of the reasons I need the check if I've covered a theme before - I will never remember if I have.

This is so incredibly self-indulgent.  I'm so deeply uninterested with myself, which makes me feel bad as the son of a narcissist.  Speaking of dear old Mom: she lives less than an hour away now, & I have to adjust my memories of returning to Dallas from Austin.  We visited her Sunday & I was shocked when we got to the I-30/35 interchange (from a different direction, but you know what I mean) & so little driving time had passed.  I had purchased two newish stand-up albums, one each by Emily Heller &  Hari Kondabolu - & both are excellent - but the ride to Dallas was longer than the albums.

There's another reason for this: we need to update our GPS.  The highways around here have changed so much - mainly because there are so many toll roads up here - hooray for the Libertarian spirit of Texas! - that we can be driving along & suddenly our GPS will shout "Route recalculation!"  At times like that, the wife would turn the CD off - or worse, turn it down - usually during a punchline - to figure out where the hell we were supposed to go.

Seriously, though, toll roads.  Beautiful new toll roads.  Named after presidents named Bush, who were against, you know, taxes & shit.  Lots of toll roads.  & if you use them, they'll mail you the bills.  Best to avoid them until I understand exactly what that's all about.  Texans are funny.  They'll accept being taxed to death in dribs & drabs but suggest a state income tax & they go all Yosemite Sam on you.

I have nothing else to say right now.  But those two comedy CDs are aces.  Emily Heller &  Hari Kondabolu.  Awesome stuff.

Fort Worth Stories No. 1

(Image from Google Maps.)

Honestly I have no idea if anyone who reads this blog cares about where the host of Self Help Radio lives or what he does or anything about his life - hell, even about the show! - but in case someone does, here's the first of some stories about living in the city known as "Cowtown" & also "Dallas' Sullen Younger Brother."

My family is living in a small house in a cool section of town that, I discovered as movers were carrying boxes of our things into the house the evening we arrived, is near a massive railyard.  It is in fact the Union Pacific Davidson Yard, & it's just south of us.  You can see it on the map above, where an inch is about a thousand feet (once you click on the image).  Not only that!  Look!  Someone filmed it for YouTube!



While you can hear a lot of noises in that video - including air on the microphone, train bells, & someone making a farty sound - one thing you can't hear is the one sound I hear all the damn time.  It is the sound of trains braking.  It's a constant sound - I can hear it in the quiet of this house as I am typing this - a constant, eerie noise that would give Brian Eno an erection & would make John Carpenter incorporate it into one of his soundtracks.

Everyone tells me that, living here, one learns to ignore it - it becomes the background to one's life here - but every new train braking - would someone give them some oil or something to maybe make their stoppings smoother? - is like a new slow scratch down the chalkboard of this environment.  It's not in itself unpleasant - it's just a more drawn-out sound than the shorter, more immediate sound of a car screeching to a halt - but it is uncommonly creepy in its unpredictable length, in the volume one whine differs from another.  Were Franz Kafka renting a room around here, he would have written a story that began, "Josef K woke that morning, as usual, to the sound of trains slowing on their tracks with a ghostlike cry.  But today was the day he truly listened to it."

In the right conditions, that uncanny scraping sound could be the background music to an unsettling David Lynch scene.  & oh shit!  It's the sort of thing that sets off the presumed normal Stephen King character!  Eventually no one hears it - but the protagonist.  Does it turn her into a killer, or is it affecting everyone else subconsciously?  I don't know!

We've lived here almost three weeks now & that noise sings slow, monotonous lullabies to me as I fall asleep, & that noise occasionally wakes me in the middle of the night.  Worse, that noise follows me into my dreams - recently I dreamt there was a person learning how to play a weird pipe-like instrument, & the noise coming out was...  Trains squealing to a halt just a few hundred yards away from me.

But don't worry!  I am not tortured by it.  I am just aware of the possibility of being tortured by it.  I am sufficiently convinced that I'm not trapped in a Stephen King story or a David Lynch film.  & we are looking for homes in other neighborhoods than this.

However.  The longer I live here...  Who knows when I will start hearing voices in that ubiquitous disquiet?

Bringing Weather Along

At some point, she thought, the weather was all they had in common.

So, because she loved him, she began bringing it along.  Little cloudy days stuffed into small notebooks, or a rainbow in the sunshine fancily placed in a little box as a surprise present.  That one cold day in September, when it's not supposed to be too cold, saved like a postcard in a memory book, or that strange warm day in the middle of the winter, that would melt snow if there were snow, scribbled like an afterthought on a scrap of note paper.

Eventually she began leaving the weather at his place.  It began absent-mindedly, a small drawing of a crisp autumn dusk forgotten on the coffee table, & an envelope of spring rain that fell behind the sofa when the cat jostled it, walking by.

At some point, she began to wonder where all the weather went.

Her mother, in the weekly phone call, found it impertinent that she couldn't talk about such a simple subject.  Yet she would look around helplessly when asked, "What's the weather like there, dear?."  I was like someone had misplaced her perceptions.

Once she was with him, it was, of course, all they talked about, & their discussions began to take on giant proportions: a night comparing a century of hurricanes that was the closest to passion they'd had in years; an evening drinking hot beverages & slowly trudging through Ice Ages.  His eyes flashed like lightning & she thought he was falling in love with her again.

At home, looking out of her bedroom window, the world looked empty & dull.  She knew, this was not what he was seeing.  When she looked out his window, it was like she was looking at a meteorologist's map, it's lines, arrows, & numbers a magnificent language she felt fluent in.

Surely she had to get the weather back!  But how?

He noticed parts of it missing as soon as she started to steal bits of it away.  Truthfully, she wasn't subtle at all - the first thing she fled home with were those two perfect weeks of spring that anyone would miss.  So he told her to stop taking his weather, or visit him no more.  In his mind, the weather had always been his; he had no idea how much of it she had brought, over the course of the past year, to a home mostly filled with beer commercials & sports on the television.

She tried to explain to him that no-one owned the weather, & then promised sweetly to return all that she had taken some day.  She simply wanted to check some of it out, like library books.  His covetousness, his jealous anger, frightened her.  He roared like thunder at her, & the only thing she managed to leave with, that last day, was a fog she found herself in.

But she was right: no-one owned the weather.  & one morning a stray raindrop found its way into her eye & acted like a kind of prism to break up her weatherless world with desultory storm clouds & a furtive sun peeping behind them.  She began to feel the wind again.  She couldn't believe she had forgotten things as simple as humidity or hail.  She greedily took even the hottest days, the gloomiest nights of rain, until she had filled her house like a hoarder with all types of weather.

& she missed him no more.  But she wondered, was there enough weather for everyone?

Self Help Radio 082016: A Distant Show

(Original image here.)

Oh man.  What an almost-complete disaster this show has been!  Not only was it ill-timed - I was nowhere near ready enough to put a show together after just being a new town for two weeks! - but I promised to have it done at noon Friday & as I write this it is after 2pm Saturday.  During the recording of the airbreaks - which I did after listening to each set of songs, simulating the radio experience - I forgot to save a couple of them, which means I had to re-record them, so the show will probably sound even more out of joint.  & then!  As I was putting the show onto my website, I noticed: I've already done a show about distance.  It's been six years, but I do play a lot of the same songs.  It's a bit embarrassing.

Because I know my memory will fail me more & more as older I grow.  I do.  I created that page, in fact, to help me make sure I don't duplicate themes. But what good is a resource like that if I don't check it now & again?  Good grief.

But hey!  Here's the first Self Help Radio from Fort Worth, Texas.  Available now & anytime at the Self Help Radio web site.  Remember this: username = SHR | password = selfhelp .  & though there's a list of songs below, there's also interviews with a writer named David Fruchter & with my spiritual advisor the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently, & a report on podcast rules in Fort Worth by Marge Most.  & two distinct airbreaks completely out of joint!

Still, I hope you listen.

(part one)

"Distance" The Kit Kats _Distance_
"Distance" Acid Drops _Messthetics # 101_
"Distance" Beach Fossils _Face It + Distance EP_

"Distant Drums" Roy Orbison _The Monument Singles Collection (1960-1964)_
"The Distant Man" All Cats Are Grey _Chance_
"Distant Creatures" The Daysleepers _Drowned In A Sea Of Sound_
"Distant Thunder" Heidi Berry _Heidi Berry_

"Respectable Distance Away" R. Dean Taylor _Motown Unreleased 1963_
"Lurking With A Distance" The Embassy _Tacking_
"Glutton For Distance" The Worriers _Imaginary Life_
"No Distance Left To Run" Blur _13_

"Distant Stations" The Mountain Goats _All Hail West Texas_
"Distant Station" Mixel Pixel _Let's Be Friends_

(part two)

"Distance" Editors _The Back Room_
"Distance" Makthaverskan _II_
"Distance" Glowfriends _A Farewell To Fair-Weather_

"Comfortable Distance" Casino Ashtrays _Just Like Me E.P._
"In A Distant Place" Poprace _Hanggliding At Sea_
"Long Distance" Go Sailor _Go Sailor_
"The Loneliness Of A Middle-Distance Runner" Belle & Sebastian _Jonathan David_
"Longitude & Latitude" Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans _Space Songs_

"Almost In Walking Distance" Shoc Corridor _Holding Treasure_
"Those Distant Lights" The One AM Radio _A Name Writ In Water_
"The Distance Between Us" Arrogants _Nobody's Cool_
"Shimmering Distant Love" Robyn Hitchcock _Eye_

"Long Distance Dedication # 1 (live)" Negativland _These Guys Are From England & Who Gives A Shit

Whither A Distant Show?

Yes, yes, finally!  Tomorrow there'll be a new Self Help Radio!  & since I've traveled some distance to get from there (which was in Kentucky) to here (which is in Texas), I thought a show about distance - whether it be miles or personal space - would be appropriate.

We're always some distance away from each other, you & I, when I do these shows, & maybe now we're even further away.  I am in fact only relatively close to my cats at the moment.  They're awful close to me.  I think perhaps I should ask them to keep their distance.  They're annoying!

Anyhow, it behooves me to get to work!  A show must be prepared before noon tomorrow.  That's another distance: time.  Sometimes I wish I could slow down the rate at which I travel that distance.  Especially if it means more sleep.  I could always use more sleep.

Yes, yes, all right.  Tomorrow.  A new Self Help Radio podcast.  This time for real.

Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So

Sigh.  I don't have my shit properly together.  (In fact, most of my CDs are still in boxes.) So I won't have a new Self Help Radio for you by noon tomorrow.  I'm sorry.  I'll definitely have it ready by noon Saturday.  I hope it remains relevant.

But!  I hope to always have new podcasts by Friday noon!  That's my weird promise to me, & by extension, you!  Tonight, though: I unload boxes & boxes of CDs.

Preface To A Distant Show: What's Going On With Your Radio Search, Gary?

(Image from Google Maps.)

First of all, I want to say that I am extremely unprepared for this week's Self Help Radio.  I haven't spent nearly enough time on it & my wife has scheduled me to take the car in for a check-up on Friday at 1pm so if I have the first new podcast up by noon that day (which is my plan) it will be because I scrambled at the last minute to get it done.  Therefore you have been notified of its almost inevitable shabbiness.

Second of all: I've met with nice people at KTCU & KFTW this week.  Here are my brief reports:

KTCU is the most immaculate college radio station I've ever been to.  (Remember, at WRFL, even guests feel obliged to leave their mark on the walls.)  The Station Manager is not a student, but a faculty member, & while I feel like we had a nice meeting, after chatting with me for an hour or so, he asked me if I had any references.  Well, I did!  I sent them to him the next day.  I liked the place & hope there might be a home there for Self Help Radio but if not I hope I can help out some.  College radio is in my blood.

The charming couple who run KFTW met me today at a local coffee jernt where I had a delicious soy latte & thrilled to hear the voice of a deejay from my youth.  The founder of the station is a giant in Metroplex radio, & it was a joy to listen to him talk.  I hope both of them liked me, but, as I suspected, since they feature one-hundred percent local music, it would be difficult to do SHR there - although the suggestion was made to "re-tool" it for the station, so not impossible - but I think I have a lot to offer anyway.  They had lots of cool ideas which we'll be exploring I hope in the weeks to come.

Interestingly, we had already sort of "met" the night before, when we passed in the neighborhood while they were walking their dog & the wife & I were walking our four.  The two girls - Pauline the beagle & Yoko the chihuahua - barked at them, for different reasons: Pauline wants to be friends, Yoko wants to be mean.  That's one of the reasons I feel Fort Worth is a small town masquerading as a big city.

As for KNON - no response yet.  But I've decided to go visit them sometime next week, like I did with KTCU, just drop in, see if there's any volunteering I can do, put an ugly face to my application.  & then, on the way home, get take-out Ethiopian from my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in the Dallas area.

There!  That's what's going on.  Are you glad I'm keeping you in the loop?

These Are Weird Things About House Hunting/House Owning

Here is a weird thing about owning a house: owning trees.  If the lot on which the house you own has trees, you are the de facto owner of the trees.  I have owned three houses now (not simultaneously) & all three have had trees.  I was the owner of trees.  Still am, I guess, since I still own a house in Lexington which is currently on the market.

Not only was am I an owner of trees, I watched a tree die.  In Austin, one of our trees died.  It died.  Trees have lifespans.  A tree I owned died.  In Lexington, a tree we owned was too close to the house, its roots possibly damaging the house's foundation, so we killed it.  Well, we didn't kill it.  We hired someone to do it.  Someone killed our tree for us.

Isn't that strange?  A human being can own a tree.  A human being can watch a tree he or she owns die helplessly.  A human being can murder a tree he or she owns.  Isn't that sad & weird & strange?

We're looking for a house to buy in Fort Worth now, & here's a weird thing about looking for a house: you get to go into houses where people still live & look around.

For example, a house we looked at yesterday had literature by the bedside from Al-Anon.  Here's what that organization does.  That seemed an awfully personal thing to discover about a stranger.  Not only that, but my wife, myself, & our realtor stayed in the house, where they had something cooking in a crock pot, for almost an hour talking about the house, sometimes saying unflattering things.  Imagine!  People coming into your home, noticing extremely intimate things from which they might draw any number of conclusions, & then being critical about it while still in your home.

That seems like a very strange way to do things.

Today we went to a house (which my wife liked very much) & asked the realtor about the previous owners, who we knew had recently died.  She quickly said to us, "They didn't die in the house!"

Neither my wife nor I are superstitious, & of course everyone has to die at some point, but it seemed something of an indignity that a deceased person must suffer (even though, of course, they can't be offended, since they're dead) if they had the bad fortune to not only die, but to die in their own home.

& if they did, the realtor's probably going to lie about anyway.

Not only that, but if the person died & there's stuff in the house, whoever's responsible for the estate - their children, or grandchildren, or bankers, or whoever - they've got to either sell or throw away that stuff.  So you're looking at all the stuff from a person's life that they quite literally couldn't take with them.

Oh, listen, I understand, there's often circumstances that make it impossible to empty a house before it's put on the market - & it's equally weird to go into those houses that are "staged" with cheap furniture & the inevitable tables with glass fruit on them - but even if the owners are still alive, I feel like I'm going into a house after a murder.  I should be carrying scientific equipment with me.

These are weird things about looking to buy a house.  I always feel so ill-prepared for this adulthood I entered decades ago; but even if they had taught this in school, I would've thought they were blowing it out of proportion.  Like gerunds.  A whole section on gerunds?  Really?