More Tags, Less Tricks

That doesn't make any sense, I know.

But hey! There's a new episode of Tags & Tricks, the jazz show I do, featuring such jazzy geniuses as Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, Billy Harper, Lester Bowie & more! available for you now to listen to at selfhelpradio.net. All this & Jackie Gleason gets slightly trash-talked too!

Aw, he's a big boy, he can handle it.

You should go listen! It's jazztastic!

Too much? Yeah, I know.

Done Declared

Are you telling your stories again? Did you bore and or offend someone with your constant chatter? I told you so. I told you so.

Some of those stories you tell are unwelcome, friend. People need to be receptive. You can't just start talking.

I know you want to tell the stories about the not-very-good radio station from which you so recently escaped. There's a good story or two there. Maybe. You need time to tell the story, though. Just jumping in - well, most people haven't been to that place, or been involved in non-commercial radio like that. You need to build up to the craziness, the small-mindedness, the wasted opportunities.

Oh, & recently you've been reminded of the story about the man deranged by his battles with a crooked board of directors at another tiny radio station. That's an awesome story, because it's got a main character that's both repulsive & sympathetic. But, again, you just jump to the end. You need a patient audience on your side, & their attention & interest.

I know the stories you want to tell. They can be very entertaining & thought-provoking, & some of the characters are colorful & comical.

You should get a blog!

Yay! Hooray! A Brand New Show Today!

While it's nowhere as interesting as an actual carnival, Self Help Radio's show this week is the next best thing: ninety minutes of songs about carnivals! True, there are no rides, but there are also no carnies trying to grift you, neither. So close your eyes, relax, go to... Wait, open your eyes. Now, go find the show at self help radio dot net - it should be at the top of the page - download it, & then, on whatever device you're playing it (it won't work on turntables, but you can try!), start the show - NOW you can close your eyes, relax, & imagine you're in a slightly squalid, previously abandoned lot near the highway, now occupied with creaky motorized rides, creepy people calling for you to try your luck at "games of chance" that seem a little dishonest, & the smell of the port-o-potties fighting with the smell of overly fried food.

Yay! Hooray! You're in a carnival in your head!

Have fun! Be careful! Thanks for listening!

Whither Carnivals?

I was just telling the wife how much I loved riding amusement park rides when I was a lad, & that's what'll always be a "carnival" to me - but that's not really what carnivals were.

Carnivals are supposed to have rides but also booths where you win stuff & then stages where freaks & magicians & odd people do odd things. If they have a main stage or places where people perform ("rings") they become a circus. Did you ever see the HBO series "Carnivàle"? That's what a carnival's supposed to be. & carnies are wiser & craftier than us regular folk.

Speaking of, a quote from this week's "The Mentalist": "There are two kinds of people, carnies & marks." That's a paraphrase.

The show happens tomorrow morning, you know, way too early for you to listen. But if you must, it's 4:30 on WRFL 88.1 fm. Sugar Substitute is on at 3. But if you're a normal person & you're asleep, I'll but it on the Self Help Radio website some time tomorrow.

Listen, or I'll get the freaks to come after you!

Preface To Carnivals: A Sweet Childhood Moment

I'm not entirely sure when this happened - I was in middle school, & it must've been seventh or eighth grade, as I don't believe my mother gave us lunch money when I was in sixth grade - but at some period of time, probably in the fall or the winter, a carnival came to Garland, Texas, & set up shop in the parking lot of the Ridgewood Shopping Center, right in front of the Minyard's. It was a small affair - maybe five or six rides, nothing fancy, & a few games in shabby wooden booths - but there was one ride, which was called "The Tilt-A-Whirl," which I just loved. If you don't know what the ride is like, this Wikipedia article shows a picture & a description. To me, the ride was somewhat like a game - it approximated merry-go-rounds, which I loved & missed a great deal* - & the trick to master was to get the car in which you sat to just spin & spin & spin**.

Every day for the week or two that the carnival was there, I would take the money I saved by skipping lunch & spend it on rides on the carnival's Tilt-A-Whirl. Tickets were a quarter, or maybe fifty cents, & in those days my mother gave my little brother & me a dollar each for lunch. (I think the school lunch was 85 cents with fifteen cents for a carton of milk or juice.) So I'd get either four or two rides - seriously, barely ten or fifteen minutes worth of fun - but it meant the world to me. The carnival was around the corner from where I lived, so I'd run there after school, ride the ride (I don't think there was ever a problem of my age or height - most probably the carnies didn't care), & then run home, dizzy & happy.

I wish I could remember my reaction when they finally packed up & went. I'm sure I've ridden Tilt-A-Whirls since, but I know I've never enjoyed them as much as that time. It may seem a lonesome memory - my little brother had no interest in going with me, & probably "told" on me to my mother, to whom I doubtless promised I'd never do it again - but many of my happiest childhood memories were just me & my mind discovering what we loved in the world.

* I talked about my love of merry-go-rounds on this page here.

** Usually the carnival was deserted so I was the only person in a car, but a couple of times I had to ride with others, & usually they made the ride more crappy. I had figured out how to get a decent spin started, but others had not. & some, of course, were scared of getting sick.

Bonus! Here's a picture of a Tilt-A-Whirl!

Okay, That Last Entry?

I changed my mind. I've posted this week's Dickenbock Electronics where it ought to be on a Saturday like this over at self help radio dot net. Moody robots all over the world would rejoice - if only they had emotion chips. But if we gave them emotion chips, what would happen next is - well, you've seen the Terminator movies. Or at the very least, Knight Rider.

Go & listen! It's ninety minutes of delicious electronica. & very little me. I was sleepy when I made the show.

This Week's Dickenbock Electronics...

...will be posted tomorrow. The day was lovely & I was lazy. Also, a little hungover. Though that's never stopped me before!

I bet you thought I was going to say it would be pre-empted for a week. That's if you thought about it at all. Which you didn't. Well, I didn't. I am delaying it temporarily. I have other things to do.

I must go shopping now. For soda & socks. I'll let you know when the show is available for your listening pleasure. Or, as the case may be, for your shunning pleasure. I understand both. Sometimes the most fun thing to do is to shun. In a sense, I am shunning now. Although "shirking" is more what I'm doing. Shirking my work. When shunning is fun.

Something like that.

The Best Phone Calls

Any person who's spent more than four hours on the radio - especially if those four hours are at night - will tell you that you get some interesting phone calls when you do a radio show. I can only speak as someone who's done non-commercial radio - I'm certain that there are screeners for commercial radio call-in shows who have great stories to tell, too - but the types of listener feedback one gets ranges from the sweet to the scary.

I will share one that happened this week during Sugar Substitute. If you've heard my shows - & I wouldn't expect you to have, especially if you like good radio - you may note that I do take requests. I like phone calls. I like to know someone's listening. So Tuesday morning - this would have been very early, before 4am, I get a call. It goes something like this:

"Hey, I'm sitting here trying to make love to my lady & she wants to hear something by the Magnetic Fields."

I ask if it's anything specific - mainly because I really don't think of the Magnetic Fields as "sexy." "Sad" & "romantic" do come to mind...

"I know," he says, "some of their songs are sarcastic but if there's anything you can play that will help my seal the deal..."

I promise to do what I can. I have the first disc of "69 Love Songs" & am thinking about playing something sad but lovely like "All My Little Words" when the title of the ninth track just leapt out at me. So, when I could, which was about two songs later, I played "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits."

He didn't call back. I assumed it did the trick.

Eep! New Show!

Yes, this week's episode of Self Help Radio (as well as this week's episode of Sugar Substitute) are now available for listening at self help radio dot net. Consult your local augurs for ramifications. & be good to yourself!

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 29?

This is in no wise a complaint, but I am now involved with a radio station which (rightly) reports its charts to chart-compiling authorities, but that means that, for the pleasure of doing Self Help Radio with impunity (ie, ninety minutes without requirements) I do have to fulfill the station's "playbox" directives whilst doing Sugar Substitute. This is sort of a bummer, because the previous radio station with which I was involved - well, their focus was not on music at all, & their music department was in disarray, not having had a real music director in almost a year. (&, well, the one they got was more interested in sports anyway) - so I could easily play whatever I wanted & that meant this:

When I did the Indiepop A To Z, I could "spill over" into Sugar Substitute so I tore through the list faster. But, alas! No more!

Yes, I will have to slow to a crawl again, for Sugar Substitute (which is of course new tomorrow) must needs also prominently feature new WRFL playbox material as well as my own pop choices, & there'll just be ninety minutes of Indiepop A To Z tomorrow. We're still in the Fs, but we are making a dent.

Listen! Tomorrow morning! 88.1 fm! Very early! Sugar Substitute at 3am! Self Help Radio at 4:30am! Online at wrfl.fm! Archived sometime later at selfhelpradio.net!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 29: Did I Just Plan This Because I Was On Vacation?

Maybe. But it wasn't really a vacation. I was visiting the family.

But it's true, since the "indiepop a to z" process is simply creating an alphabetical list & following it, it's not really as challenging as, you know, coming up with a theme like "serial killer sonatas" - & then having to find an ample amount of songs that cover the theme.

No, I'm not doing a show about "serial killer sonatas." There's no such thing.

I did daydream on the plane about two things. One is that I might find myself living, in a few years, on a planet without frogs & bees. That describes every other planet in our solar system, but it's a little disturbing for this particular planet.

Also, I have lately wanted to write two particular novels. ("Wanted" is a strong word.) One is a sci-fi novel about people living inside human brains. The other is a fictionalized version of some somewhat exciting stuff that happened at a radio station I used to be involved with. It occurred to me while I was trying to fall asleep on the plane ride home that I could combine the two. Beings in brains sabotaging a non-commercial radio station's pledge drive?! Now that would be gripping reading!

I actually finished a novel (reading) on the plane, Lorrie Moore's new book. It was (as expected) rather sad & amazingly funny & I wish I had more of it to read. Did I ever tell you, I wanted (a long time ago, after I read her book "Anagrams") to write her a gushy fanboy email but couldn't find an address for her online? It turns out that she teaches somewhere - the University of Wisconsin at Madison I think - & all I discovered was an office phone. So I waited until the middle of one afternoon & called her up. When a woman answered, I just quickly said "I love you!" & hung up.

The last part of that isn't true. I never called her. Long ago I stopped wanting to chat with people I admired. Somehow they're uncomfortable with my wide-eyed love of their work. They expect me to be cool or something. Like regular people do.

I've missed talking to you! Okay, I'm back now. What were we going on about?

A Morning's Worth Of Mambo

There were ninety minutes of mambo madness this morning on Self Help Radio. Did you miss it? Don't worry! The show in its tireless entirety is now available for your listening pleasure - hip injuries notwithstanding - at self help radio dot net. If you're just feeling poppy, there's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute. So much goodness, such an old-school website.

I will be visiting family in Dallas for the rest of the week so you won't hear hide nor hair from me until Sunday at the earliest. That means this week's Dickenbock Electronics has been delayed for a week, so it'll happen next weekend. Self Help Radio will be on next Tuesday though, so don't fret. Just have a wonderful week!

Whither Mambo?

4:30 in the morning may seems an inappropriate time to discuss a dance & musical style that was popular over sixty years ago. You are wise to suggest that. I have however become painfully aware of certain (shall we call them) rogue elements in our fair city who are determined - nay, resolved - to not march to the beat of the same civic & cultural drum we ourselves use to keep time. I've heard of early morning screenings of late-night talk shows; of impromptu Jazzercise sessions; of kids taken to school in the early evening & made to endure home room at dinner time; & of course, mambo.

They mambo whenever inconvenient: in the line at the jewelry store; in the corner of your eye when you're enjoying too much Chinese food at a buffet; on national television during the news or any car commercial after ten p.m.; with friendly police officers who don't know any better; on a Thursday night in the privacy of their own backyards.

You see, 4:30 am may be the only time to expose these anarchists, these agents of chaos, these exceedingly silly folk.

& I shall. Tune in to Self Help Radio tomorrow morning at 4:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL. You can listen online. You can also enjoy the show later that day on self help radio dot net.

It will be part exposé, part cultural commentary. But a lot of it will just be mambo.

Preface To Mambo: Can YOU Mambo?

I can't. In fact, at this late date, mere days before I do a radio show about the mambo, I still am not quite sure what a mambo is. There just seemed to be, you know, so many songs about mambos - or songs that were mambos - out there. I figured I'd catch on at some point.

I haven't done any research yet - really, I don't do much research at all, but even so - so I wonder if the "mambo" as a dance is related to the "mamba" as a snake. Or if the two of them have a similar origin.

Can you imagine this fellow dancing to Latin rhythms?



(I can!)

Zeke Three

Ayep, the Zeke Moonshine Show's Third Episode is now available for your down-home listening pleasure over at selfhelpradio dot net. It features the finest in country & blues & country blues & even some sanctified music. It also features a poorly-disguised "Gary" as "Zeke Moonshine" talking in the worst Southern accent you've ever heard. Really, it'd be terrible if the music weren't so fine. Have a listen. Who's it gonna hurt? At selfhelpradio dot net. Now. Saddle up!

Stumpy

I just sent, in an email to a friend, this line:

> Actually, I tried to take her [my basically feral cat Beatrice] but instead lost
> the pinky on my left hand. Now people can call me "stumpy" for something
> other than my small, misshapen penis!

What does it say about me that I would share such a thing?

Except that I think it's a pretty funny joke?

Off... In The Distance... A Radio Show!

In the distance you see the new episode of Self Help Radio. You'll want to keep your distance. Surely it cannot possibly go the distance. Yet as your distance yourself, you think perhaps you could handle a long distance relationship with the show. Although those never work. & now, with a distant look in your eyes, you stare off into the middle distance, wondering why the show & you seem so distant from one another...

Though it feels like it happened in the distant past, this morning's episode of Self Help Radio - which, despite what you heard, wasn't a tribute to crinkly things, but rather about distance - just happened. & you may have been too far away (or too aloof) to listen to it live, but you can hear it now at selfhelpradio.net. It's waiting there for you, no matter what distances you must travel to get to it.

There's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute, but it's not as pretentious as that other show.

Whither Distance?

Right now I am around 860 miles away from the place where I was born. I am about one thousand & seventy miles away from the city where I spent more than half my life - & where I've spent most of my adult life. & I am (gratefully) about 130 miles from the horrible little town in which I spent the past year.

In this hemisphere, I've never been farther north than Boston, nor farther south than Mexico city. Boston is nearly two thousand miles from where I lived at the time, & Mexico City is 750 miles from the same place.

The farthest west I've gone is San Francisco, & the farthest in the other direction is Frankfurt, Germany. Right now the love of my life is very far away from me, in Kyoto, Japan, although I can chat with her on Skype & she sounds clearer than when she's yelling at me in the next room.

How far away are you from me? One of the nice things about WRFL is that you can listen anywhere (as long as you have access to a computer). So if you're awake at whatever time it is where you are, you can listen to Self Help Radio tomorrow, it's on at 4:30 am my time.

& one day, the radio waves that WRFL is sending out may travel vast distances in space & landing on alien ears - or however they are able to interpret the noise we're making.

Preface To Distance: You're So Far Away

Hey. You. Can you hear me? No? You're so far away.

I said YOU'RE SO FAR AWAY!

As I've gotten older, my voice - which admittedly got deeper - also got quieter. I don't really like to shout or yell. But I was a loud kid.

I said I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU! I'M TALKING TO MY BLOG.

I wonder why you're so far away anyway. It seems like a bad idea. Distance, distance seems so pervasive in this universe that it doesn't make any sense why people try to get so far away from one another.

Or maybe it does. For the same reasons.

I said I'M JUST TALKING TO MYSELF. IF YOU WANT TO TALK, COME OVER HERE!

Do you know, I moved from a dying little hamlet to an actual town? It is a town full of hospitals & churches & (perhaps as a result of the first two) sirens. There are sirens all the time. I have yet to witness an accident of any kind, but I hear sirens all the time. Do you know what's going on?

I said DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON? WAS IT AN AMBULANCE OR A FIRE ENGINE?

Oh for Pete's sake.

I used to have a dream - a nightmare really - when I was a kid & more attached to my mother - that involved me getting separated from my mother - usually on some kind of island or a cliff - where she would be on the other side - & we'd be getting farther & farther apart - it was the distance that would be so terrifying. Later on, after I kind of realized my mother was full of shit, & didn't need her any more, the dream would be just me, all alone, being aware of the vastness of everything, & I'd be separate from it all, & it would seem almost exponential the way the distance would increase. Leaving me more & more alone.

I had a similar version of that dream just the other day, but it was more about time, & it was my brain taunting me about trying to get to sleep.

I said I HAD A SIMILAR oh. You're right here now!

What? More Jazz?

Yes, it's Saturday again, so it's time for another of my rotating Saturday shows. There are only three, of course, but wouldn't it be awesome if I had a giant Price-Is-Right-ish wheel I spun on Saturday morning that had a dozen different genres & I had to make a radio show that day using only that genre? That would be fun! I shouldn't even think about it.

No, today is my jazz show, now in its third episode, it's called "Tags & Tricks," & today features mostly modern stuff from the likes of Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, & more. You can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net. It might make you hipper.

Okay, it won't make you hipper.

I shouldn't say such things.