Self Help Radio 113016: Magda's Birthday Show 2016

(Original image here.)

Another year, another two hours of birthday songs for my sweetie, whose birthday is today.  What have you other deejays done for your significant others, hunh?  Bought them things they actually liked?  Spent time with them?  Showed your love in normal, non-radio-related ways?  That seems just  fine compared to mine, & makes me feel bad about all the time I've wasted in my relationship.  Oh well!

Here's another group of songs about birthdays for my wife's birthday but also (don't tell her) for anyone's birthday.  Even yours!  Plus I talk to party planners & to my spiritual mentor, who seems to have changed his titles.  It's confusing.

The show is now at the birthday party I call "Birthday Cake Boogie" Skeets McDonald _Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes_
"Happy Birthday (German Version)" Giorgio Moroder _Singles_

"Birthday" The Beatles _The Beatles (The White Album)_
"Pig Tails" Pookie & The Poodlez _Young Adult_
"Birthday Girl" Visitor's Day _Deadliest Creatures_
"All Lives Don't Matter" Hari Kondabolu _Mainstream American Comic_
"Don't Want To Make A Show Of Myself (On My Birthday)" No Bros _Double A-Side Birthday Single_
"Birthday Party" Yuno _Marsh_

"Eric's Birthday/This Ride" Shovels & Rope _Little Seeds_
"Waving At You" The Mountain Goats _Nothing For Juice_
"Birthday" Purple _Bodacious_
"Birthday Girl" Saturday Night Kids _Birthday Girl b/w Don't Do It_

"The End Of The World" David Greenberg & Harpeth Rising _The End Of The World_

(part two)

"Birthday Girl" Emergency Bible Study _Birthday Girl_
"Happy Birthday (Turn Gold)" The Bluebells _The Singles Collection_
"Your Birthday" The Troublers _Bunny: Songs '99-'03_

"Happy, Happy Birthday Baby" Tune Weavers _Vintage Music, Vol. 3_
"All You Gotta Be When You're 23 Is Yourself" Free Cake For Every Creature _Talking Quietly Of Anything With You_
"Ken Voss Birthday Interview" Bob & Ray _New Improved Bob & Ray_
"Birthday Mambo" Adam Green _Aladdin_
"Birthday Drunk" Fruit Bats _Absolute Loser_

"It's Your Birthday" Afro Dizzi Act _Welcome Speech EP_
"Happy Birthday!" Fojeba _Happy Birthday_
"Happy Birthday" The Mignots _Happy Birthday_
"Happy Birthday" The Pillbugs _Happy Birthday_

"Birthday Song" A Giant Dog _Pile_
"C'mon, It's My Birthday!" Dick Bruiser & The Punches _Oh!_
"Birthday" White Mystery _Blood & Venom

Whither Magda's Birthday Show 2016?

(I found this here.)

Since the very beginning of Self Help Radio, I've set aside a show a year to celebrate my lovely wife's birthday, which is December 1.  (I actually missed a couple of years because I was younger & just as stupid.)  One of the things I make sure to do is not to repeat recordings, but over time, you must understand that the choice of birthday songs diminishes.  People simply don't write as many birthday songs as they do Christmas songs, even though for many people their birthday is much more special, since it's theirs alone.  That's for those who get presents on their birthdays - some of don't anymore.

The present I give my love is this show, which is on tonight from 8-10 central, 9-11 eastern on 93.9 fm WLXU
in Lexington.  You should listen!  But why?  It's for your wife, dude!  Not just for her!  For anyone who has a birthday today, had a birthday earlier this year, or will have a birthday later this year - this show's for you!
(But really, it's for you, Magda.)

Preface To Magda's Birthday Show 2016: Confession Time Again

Boy, someone "confesses" a lot on this blog, doesn't he?

A brief search through this blog finds not a lot about changes or reevaluations of how Self Help Radio was made over its somewhat long run, but if you were a listener in early 2014, you noticed something.  One, the show was no longer on WRFL - I took a semester off.  The other was that, suddenly, out of the blue, in addition to interviews, the show featured fake advertisements.  "Self Help Radio was brought to you today by.." absurd businesses or people, unconvincingly voiced by yours truly, in mostly unsuccessful attempts at being funny.  Lots of those businesses were crowding the streets of poor, maligned Paint Lick, Kentucky.

There were precedents.  Some time in the mid-early-oughts (whatever you call them), I discovered the Firesign Theatre, & I loved their fake radio spots.  (I can't find an example, but perhaps you've heard "Ed's End Of The World Restaurant.")  At KOOP, I attempted to write & "perform" (read) some on the air, but I failed to make them funny.  I put that practice aside.

But!  Away from WRFL, without its spots to make radio lulls for which to change gears musically, I needed to make something myself, & I revisited that practice.  It became something I felt I needed to do every show.  So much so that now, your weekly Self Help Radio show features at least two fake ads.  Mostly they're silly, occasionally - very occasionally - they are somewhat amusing.  I have yet to make one that's actually funny.

Anyway.  The confession.  I have had a hell of a week.  In working on the birthday show (on tomorrow night), even though I will not repeat songs I've played previously, I lazily thought, what if I recycle a couple of fake ad spots?  Who will know?  No one who might have listened two years ago is listening now!

So this is what I did.  The two fake funny ads on tomorrow's show first appeared two years ago, on the birthday show then.  Again: nobody but me would notice.  But I feel guilt no matter what.  So.  I need to tell you what I've done.

You want to hear about all the money I've stolen from the elderly?  No?  Cool.  Cool.

Take Too Many Pictures

Here's a picture of my wife, irritated by me stopping to take pictures, like I do, when we're on our walks.  This was taken in Lexington, Kentucky, about two years ago, before we adopted our chihuahua.  I walked Winston, so I had probably handed over his leash to her - she's holding it out to give it back to me in the picture - to snap a photo of something stupid, like a chair in someone's lawn, or a chalk drawing, or a sunset.  (You can see a lot of my dumb pictures at my Tumblr blog.)

The thing is, I have a ton of pictures of my wife walking the dogs from some distance in front of me.  I take too many pictures, & I don't ever tire of that kind.  It reminds me of my life, in a way - following diligently the ones I love the most, trying to catch up, occasionally being reprimanded for lollygagging.

These are not pictures I often get to share, since they're of my wife & she hates pictures of herself, like every annoyingly beautiful person does.  (Us ugly people too!)  Since it's her birthday this week, & the show is a celebration of her, I thought that I'd share this one.  I hope she doesn't mind.

Show Names

My wife asked me today about show names.  She said, "How many different shows have you done with different names?"  It's a good question.

From 1994-1999, I did various shows at various times on KVRX.  Nowadays, it's important to have names for one's show on KVRX (I surmise from their schedule), but back in the day it wasn't a big deal.  Gary was on from so-&-so a time till so-&-so a time, there didn't need to be a name.  But!  At some point - when my show was on Mondays from 9-11pm, I toyed with the idea of calling my show "Thursdays With Gary."  The idea was the absurdity - "Every Monday, it's Thursdays with Gary!"  But then that book Tuesdays With Morrie came out & I didn't want to think my thing was a thing on the thing.

Most of my KVRX shows, therefore, were just shows with no name.  Gary is on at this time.

When I started Self Help Radio in 2002, that was its name.  It has endured.  For fourteen years!  But what other shows have I done?

There was a show called The War On Sailing that aired from 2008-2009.

Once in West Virginia, in addition to doing Self Help Radio on WMUL, I began an indie pop & rock show that I called Sugar Substitute (after the lovely Luxuriator song) as well as an electronics show I called Dickenbock Electronics.

Before I left West Virginia - & after I left WMUL - I had couple of podcasts that I didn't keep up with, one called Tags & Tricks - a jazz program - & another called The Zeke Moonshine Show - which was a country/folk deal.  My involvement with WRFL made continuing those impossible (or very, very time-consuming).

At WRFL I kept with Sugar Substitute - it was my default freeform show - but in the summer of 2014 I did a country blues show I called (clumsily) Woke Up One Early Morning Blues.  It was fun.

The next year, as I became involved with WLXU in Lexington, I did a show called Cradle To Grave which I loved to do but oy! it was a lot of work.

Is that it?

Thursdays With Gary
Self Help Radio
The War On Sailing
Sugar Substitute
Dickenbock Electronics
Tags & Tricks
The Zeke Moonshine Show
Woke Up One Early Morning Blues
Cradle To Grave

Those are the shows I've done?  Hm.  Seems disappointing in a way.

Self Help Radio 112316: Black & White

Hello, it's the day after Thanksgiving.  I decided not to put the show up yesterday because it was a holiday & also I was very busy.  Not doing holiday stuff, at all.  But busy nonetheless.  Hey - life isn't always black & white!

But this week's show was!  In addition to tons of songs about things both black & white, I talked to a famous film director who only makes black & white movies, & to a world-renowned artist who has chosen to only paint in black & white, & we talk to my spiritual mentor about rigid belief systems that see things in only black & white.  Wow!  That almost excited me, & I was there!

The show is of course at the Self Help Radio website.  There's a password you know, it's on the page.  Lots of black & white songs are below, you synesthete you!

(part one)

"Black, Brown & White" Brownie McGhee _Songs For Political Action, Vol. 6: The People's Songs Era 1945-1949_
"Black & White" The Raincoats _The Raincoats_
"Black & White" Crippled Pilgrims _Down Here (Collected Recordings 1983-1985)_

"Black & White" Serge Gainsbourg _Initials B.B._
"Black & White" The Windbreakers _Meet The Windbreakers_
"Black & White" The Nuns _Rumania_
"Black & White" The Upper Room _Other People's Problems_

"Black & White" Generationals _Actor-Caster_
"Black & White" Parquet Courts _Sunbathing Animal_
"In My Black & White" Plasticland _Mink Dress & Other Cats_
"Black & White Unite" Belle & Sebastian _Storytelling_

"Black Or White" Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel _Timeless Flight_

(part two)

"Black & White Thunderbird" The Delicates _Hot Rods & Custom Classics_
"Black & White Incident" Marc Bolan _Love + Death_
"Black & White World" Elvis Costello _Taking Liberties_

"Black Minds, White Lies" Salty Pirates _The Kids At The Club_
"White Face, Black Eyes" Andrew Jackson Jihad _Can't Maintain_
"White Lung/Black Lung" GRMLN _Soon Away_
"Black In A White World" The Watts Prophets _Things Gonna Get Greater: The Watts Prophets 1969-1971_

"Me & The Black & White Dream" The Orchids _Unholy Soul_
"In Black & White" Easy _In Black & White_
"Black & White (& Blue All Over)" Cleaners From Venus _Back From The Cleaners_
"Born & Raised In Black & White" The Highwaymen _The Very Best Of The Highwaymen_

"Black Tie White Noise" David Bowie _Black Tie White Noise_

Whither Black & White?

(This image from here.)

Eek, I don't have a lot of time but I do need to tell you that tonight's show - which has the theme "black & white" - will be on the air in just like three hours oh hell! in Lexington 93.9 fm WLXU!!

Plus I will be on the air tomorrow morning at 7am holy moley! in Dallas on 89.3 fm KNON!!

Seriously, I barely know whether I am going or going or coming or going or coming or coming or going.  Where am I?  What am I?  I which it were all as simple as black & white!

Preface To Black & White: A Week On The Radio

Check this: I am going to have three radio shows on three different radio stations this week, in two different cities!

No, I won't be traveling around like some kind of Phil Collins going from one Live Aid to another*, that would be crazy!  But here's the Gary you'll hear if you care to hear some Gary this late in the year:

1) My regular show, on 93.9 fm WLXU, Self Help Radio, from 8-10 central, 9-11 eastern, a show in black & white, that's the theme, tomorrow night, like always, Lexington Community Radio dot org.

2) My first ever sub show on 89.3 fm KNON in Dallas!  7-9 am central, 8-10am eastern, Thanksgiving morning, covering Dave Chaos' Thursday Morning Blend, KNON dot org.  Very excited about this - my first radio show in the metroplex!

3) Early morning radio on 88.1 fm WRFL, 1-4 am central, 2-5am eastern, taking (in a remote way) some shifts while the kids are away for the holidays.  It'll be my regular late night fare, nothing to wake up for, you've heard it & turned it off, WRFL dot fm.

It's complete insanity!  But I hope I have a lot of fun.  Also, that I don't fuck it up.

* Very dated 1980s reference.

Toward A More Depressing World

Imagine if I were an actual kind of columnist, & had to sit down on a regular basis (for some reason, in my mind's eye, I am thinking of sitting down to a typewriter*) & write a regular column for an actual publication.  Yes, perhaps this is what this blog is about, but here's something you have suspected said out loud by me: I actually have almost nothing to say.

Except of course I do.  For example, here are my last couple of tweets (which you could read as they happen if you follow the show on Twitter):

1) When I first heard,"Good artists make, great artists steal," I thought it meant that good artists compel great artists to commit theft.

That's an awkwardly worded confession about confusing sentence structure crammed into 140 unforgiving characters.  Hardly amusing, but I heard someone say that sentence today & it reminded me how confused I was when I first came across the adage.  "How in the world," I thought to myself, "do merely good artists somehow force actual great artists to steal?  & what kind of stealing?  Shoplifting?  Bank robbery?  Trump-style investment rip-offs?"  Then I saw the comma & went, "Ohhh."'

2) These tweets were a two-fer:

One of my pet peeves is when a movie or TV show uses a dreadful but familiar classic rock song at some dramatic moment.  It's like, I know Hollywood is controlled by baby boomers but for fuck's sake some really great music has been made in the last fifty years.

This was a result of a pretty decent season finale of the wonderful show Better Things having the mother drive her daughters somewhere while a horrendous old song by Alice Cooper called Only Women Bleed.  But it's a song that's been played on the radio pretty much all my life, & Louis CK & Pamela Adlon are just a little older than I am, & they probably haven't listened to any new music since they were in their 20s.

Mainly I felt it was a disservice to make the young female actors learn the words to that overblown attempt at rock & roll social relevance.  "The song is often mistakenly presumed to be about menstruation," Wikipedia says.  No shit?  Why's that?  Idiots.

But ultimately none of this matters, because I don't have a hand in doing anything creative in Hollywood but it pains me, as someone who spends a great deal of time listening to new music - & certainly not the sort of music Louis CK & Pamela Adlon listen to on commercial radio with their kids, music they most definitely roll their eyes at - but really great new music that will never find its way onto television shows (or commercial radio).  & I wish they knew it.

& don't say, "But Gary, that's a great song."  It might be, but I doubt it.  It's a familiar song.  Just like every fucking familiar song in every fucking movie trailer, even the ones for millenials.  It's just depressing how for the most part, no one in any creative sphere seems to think there's been any music worth listening to for the past thirty plus years.

When they do use music, they use disposable commercial pop that will date the movie terribly in the years to come.

That's my opinion anyway.  I wish I had a job picking music for movies.  I'd be all right at it.

But as a columnist cranking out a daily think-piece?  Like with this blog, man, I'd suck at it.

* It's probably because everything I learned about newspapers I learned from the 1950s Superman TV program.

These Moments, Every Second Just Stuffed In

The year almost over, it's a shame the leaves haven't fallen yet.

Except they have, in places unlike this one.

You're too shy, aren't you, to ask the stranger about the lake.

You just wanted to take pictures of the birds there.

The signs say "lost" as if losing time & place was intention.

Appointments are like bills, paid with different currency.

Spend a long time driving now, another meditation.

Apartment blocks along the highway seem built of sorrow.

You imagine music coming out of places where no music lives.

Finally remembering to sing a song into your phone so you don't forget it.

There are faces, there are voices, which can cripple you.

The blink of a lover's eye, better than anything on film.

A cat leaps up, sits close, doesn't need a reason.

She stole a glass for you, she even claimed she thought of it herself.

Wait!  A complaint!  Imagine it in silver or gold.

& remember how to open & close doors just in fucking case.

Self Help Radio 111616: Letting Go

(Original image here.)

It's time to let go.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, But how can I let go?  It's mine, I claim it, I just can't let go.  Yes, you can!  You can let go by embracing letting go!  You can embrace letting go by listening to a radio show about letting go!  Then, once you're done that, let that go!  Until you have nothing!  Because you've let it all go!

After that, of course, you're on your own.  Quite literally.

Does this seem too extreme?  Of course it is!  This is just a dumb radio show!  It's probably of no help to anyone at all!  So it might be better to just listen to it for the music & the occasional absurd interview.  & who knows?  Maybe even Idina Menzel will stop by!  (She won't.)

The show can be listened to now at the Self Help Radio website.  There are password & username issues, pay attention to that.  Two hours of songs in two parts are listed below.

Now I let you go, little radio show!  Fly away!  Fly!

(part one)

"I Gotta Let You Go" Martha Reeves & The Vandellas _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 10: 1970_
"Let Me Go" The Julie Ruin _Hit Reset_
"Jenny Let Him Go" Antoinette _The Girls Scene_

"Let Her Go" The Lodger _Grown-Ups_
"Letting It Go" Bears _Simple Machinery_
"If You Love Him, Let Him Go" The Wilderness Children _If You Love Him, Let Him Go_
"Let It All Go" Elmo Williams & Hezekiah Early _Takes One To Know One_

"Just Let Go" The Seeds _A Web Of Sound_
"Let Go" Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers _L.A.M.F._
"Let Go" The Plugz _Electrify Me_
"Let Me Go" Nouvelle Vague _Bande A Part_

"Letting Go" Karsh Kale _Liberation_

(part two)

"Please Let Me Go" Owen Gray _Island Records' 40th Anniversary, Volume 1: 1959-1964 - Ska's The Limit_
"Let Me Go, Lover!" Hank Snow _Country USA 1954_
"Now, Let It Go" Loney Dear _River Fontana_

"I Let It Go" The Thermals _Now We Can See_
"Let Us Go" The Church _Further Deeper_
"Let It Go" Bangles _Different Light_
"Let It All Go (feat. Preservation Hall Jazz Band)" Beats Antique _Shadowbox_

"Let It Go" The Chesterfields _Crocodile Tears_
"Letting Go" Fat Tulips _Starfish_
"Let Go" Siouxsie & The Banshees _Downside Up_
"Let Go" The Postmarks _The Postmarks_

"Let 'Em Go" TV Smith _Immortal Rich_
"I'm Letting Go" Sam Kogon _Psychic Tears_

Whither Letting Go?

(Image from here.)

Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?  After the week we've had?  We need to let go.  Otherwise we'll all go batshit crazy.

Oh no - could this be one of these times when Self Help Radio actually has some element of self-help in it?  That's a bad sign.  I'm always afraid it'll tip that way & soon enough I'll be in a blazer hosting seminars.  But.  What's done is done.  & what's dun is dun.  & that's as far as I'm going to go with that.

Listen, if you need help letting go, tonight from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central, on 93.9 fm in Lexington & online at lexington community radio dot org.  I'll be glad you did!

Preface To Letting Go: Never Letting Go Of Morrissey

Oh no!

Look, I'd be astonished if I actually got to see Morrissey.  I've bought tickets to see him four times, & have only seen him once - & consider myself quite lucky.  But I really did want to see him tomorrow night.  So I am a bit bummed out.  The hits keep coming, 2016.

Here's the thing: my show airs the same time as the concert, so I wouldn't be able to live tweet it, had I gotten to go to the show.  So, thanks Morrissey?  I get to listen to my show & tweet it.  So much more exciting than seeing one of my idols perform live.

I'll still get to see Todd Barry on Thursday.  That will help with the pain.

Leonard Cohen

(Image from discogs.com.)

When I found out Leonard Cohen had died, Thursday evening, I was listening to a show I like on KTCU, a station here in town (that didn't want me as a deejay even though it does have non-student deejays), called Night Skool.  I had to turn the station off.  I was completely wrecked.  & since I had been posting stuff on Facebook, I wrote a bunch on Facebook.  I started with this:

I first became aware of Leonard Cohen when I saw the video for "First We Take Manhattan" on 120 Minutes on MTV in 1988. That guy who hosted it, Kevin whatever, laughed when he announced the video, like, "What the fuck?" But I was intrigued by the first lines of the song:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within

I went out & bought "I'm Your Man" as soon as I could. I didn't know anything about him. I just felt I needed that album - & boy did I.

I continued:

Later I saw a best of collection at a used record store in Garland, which I snatched up.  I put the record on with my friend Dale probably in 1989 or 1990.  The song "Suzanne" was first.  Both of us looked at each other when the song was over like "This is the shit."

My relationship with Leonard Cohen deepened to utmost importance.  I became obsessed.

I remember walking - walking! - on a damp November day in 1992 across the fields that are now the townhomes & shops that are "The Triangle" in Austin to get to the Sound Warehouse (or whatever chain store it was) on Burnet Road just to buy a copy of "The Future."  It was a cold day by Austin standards but the album had just been released, it was confirmed in stock by a phone call, & I had heard "The Future" on the radio - probably KUT.  I consumed that record.

I consumed all his records. They are sacred to me. I listened to his new one last week & was a little disappointed, although I love the title track. He could disappoint, but he was never disappointing.

One thing I feel so lucky about is that I got to see him in 1993.  Here is me from Facebook talking about it:

I got to see him live just once, in 1993, at the Backyard, back when it was in the middle of nowhere. He was amazing. He did four sets, two of them all by himself. I went with my friends Lauren & Russell. Lauren remarked about how strange it was that there were all these women her mother's age who were swooning like teenagers over the Beatles. At one point, he came out with just a guitar, & sang a few songs without his band, & he was doing "A Singer Must Die," & you could hear a police car approaching in the distance. He stopped, & he said, "Listen." The audience waited quietly, reverently, as the doppler sirens faded, & he said, "What a sad & beautiful sound," & he started a different song.

At the end of the show, as he was wont to do, the band & he sang a hymn acapella.  As we were leaving - as we were feeling better than any human ever really should feel, as we were all part of whatever beauty & truth & darkness & light he could conjure up with a whisper or impart with a growl or melodic & tunelessly sing, someone behind us was complaining.  He said, "What the hell?  After all that making fun of religion, & he ended with a hymn?"  My friend Russell said to me, "It's weird to think someone could sit through such an experience & that was all that could take away from it."

My conclusion was this:

I've read both his books - The Favourite Game & Beautiful Losers - I prefer the former - & all of his poetry.  I've listened to all of his albums so many times that they're a part of my fucking DNA.  I am weeping over the keyboard as I write this, because there isn't anyone like him, & there never really was anyone like him, & I owe him so much.  That gracious, gracious man, who had only a dim understanding what vitriol was, who could put into a simple words the deepest of feelings, whose voice, as it deepened with every cigarette he smoked, sounded like it was something that came from before humans knew how to speak, observations of a kinder cosmos to people who thought they needed redemption especially when they didn't, that lovely, lovely man, from whom I've taken so much & given so very little.

Or as he would say to me, "Hey, that's no way to say goodbye."

I have nothing else to say.  This is a tremendous loss to me, to the world.  But how fortunate to have lived for a time in a world where Leonard Cohen lived!

In the new year, I'll do a tribute radio show for him.  For now, the wound is too fresh.

I Can't Go On, I Must Go On

Apologies to Samuel Beckett.

Apologies to you, if you're someone who reads this blog.  I won't be able to talk about the election without sounding like the entire time I'm shaping a rope into a noose & looking around for which ceiling beams will hold my weight.  It's just too much.

& then, to lose Leonard Cohen.  Oh for fuck's sake.

So.  Give me a little time.  I'll write something about the latter tomorrow.

The former?  I'm just going to suffer in silence, like I imagine all the dumb, dumb people who voted for the president-elect will have to do when they realize he couldn't give a shit about them.

My country.  Damn.

Self Help Radio 110916: Guitars

(Original image here.)

In my mind's eye, I was approached by an irate, possibly overly literal listener, who accosted me & said, "A show about guitars should have featured great guitarists, not simply songs about guitars!"  As is my way, I am loathe to defend my meager radio offerings, but smiled & agreed, thinking, sure "Great Guitarists" might also be a swell theme in the future, although my first inclination would be to look for songs about great guitarists (like the Richard Thompson song at the end of the show) rather than to celebrate & play them - something I feel like you can find anywhere, in lists by magazines & websites, in opinion pieces by opinionated people, really, anywhere.  Self Help Radio likes to pretend there's something here that you might not find in a lot of places, though it understands the derivative nature of its premise all too well!

When I live-tweeted the show last night, I was struck by how innocent it all felt, even though it was recorded just about thirty-six hours earlier.  I don't want to harp on this - I have a feeling this election means tremendous changes are coming to my country, & while there are many who believe such changes will be great, I have an ominous feeling it will be exactly the opposite.  But.  I am pessimistic to the bone, man.

Here!  Have a radio show about guitars!  It's breezy fun even if you don't know what a chord is (I sure don't)!  At the Self Help Radio website in two parts!  The songs I played are below!  Why so many exclamation marks!  I don't know!  I just don't know!

Hope you enjoy.

-----

(part one)

"You & My Old Guitar" Jimmie Rodgers _Jimmie Rodgers: The Singing Brakeman, Vol. 1_
"I'm A Guitar King" Tommy McClennan _The Bluebird Recordings 1939-1942_
"Talking Guitars Blues" Lonnie Donegan _The Collection_

"Guitar Man" Elvis Presley _Elvis Presley's Greatest Hits_
"Tennessee Flat Top Box" Johnny Cash _The Essential Johnny Cash 1955-1983_
"Best Guitar Picker" George Jones _She Thinks I Still Care: The Complete United Artists Recordings, 1962-1964_
"Guitar" Louis C.K. _Live In Houston_
"New Guitar In Town" The Lurkers _The Collection_
"Guitar" The 2X4's _The 2X4's_

"Electric Guitar" Talking Heads _Fear Of Music_
"Fender Stratocaster" Jonathan Richman _Jonathan Richman_
"The Guitar" They Might Be Giants _Apollo 18_
"Cool Guitar Boy" Heavenly _Heavenly Vs Satan_

"This Old Guitar" Neil Young _Praire Wind_

(part two)

"Acoustic Guitar" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs_
"My Guitar" Dear Nora _Dreaming Out Loud EP 7"_
"Five Guitars" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Ponyoak_

"Sucker For A Cheap Guitar" Marc Bristol _Rockabilly Hall Of Fame, Vol. 1_
"You Stepped On My Guitar" Bikeride _Summer Winners, Summer Losers_
"The Jokes With Guitar" Demetri Martin _These Are Jokes_
"Guitar Man" David J _Guitar Man_

"This Old Guitar" Lucinda Williams _The Music Is You: A Tribute To John Denver_
"Working Girl's Guitar" Rosie Flores _Working Girl's Guitar_
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" The Drowners _Muted To A Whisper_
"My Guitar" The Submissives _Do You Really Love Me_

"Guitar Heroes" Richard Thompson _Still_
"Drunken Guitar" The Lushes _Las Vegas Grind, Vol. 2_

Whither Guitars?

(That picture from here.)

Well.  I'm sure you appreciate how difficult it would be to do a radio show in the current climate.  I mean, though Self Help Radio is pretty ridiculous, it certainly supports love over hate, it plays music by people of color all around the world, by women, by musicians of every sexual stripe.  It abhors hate, it abhors exclusion.  Where you can hear Self Help Radio has always been on college &/or community radio stations where diversity is celebrated, appreciated, desired, treasured.  Sexual predators, bigots, homophobes - I suppose I've lived in a bubble, but they did not find their way to the noncommercial radio stations where Self Help Radio has called home.

The truth is, I probably wouldn't do a show tonight if I had my druthers - my heart's not in it today.  But.  Self Help Radio is prerecorded.  I live in Fort Worth, it airs in Lexington & streams all over the world.  I put the show together earlier yesterday, a million years ago it seems now.  You'll hear me explaining that I just don't know who would be president.  But I had hoped it wouldn't have turned out this way.

& I do think it's a fun show.  Lots of songs about guitars, plus the funniest friends I have pretend to be ridiculous guests & hopefully will make you laugh as much as they do me.  I interview my old guitar teacher, a legendary guitar god, a maker of artisan guitars, & a friend in Hollywood who talks about actors who are musicians.  Maybe it will take your mind off how ugly the world is today for some of us.

The show is on tonight from 9-11pm Eastern, 8-10pm Central, on 89.3 fm WLXU in Lexington, & online at lexingtoncommunityradio dot org.  I'll live tweet the show from my sad computer, so follow me on Twitter & join in on the "fun."

& love each other, & prepare yourself.  It's going to get really quite awful.

Preface To Guitars: You Can't Seriously

Ask me to talk about a stupid radio show when the fate of the republic is at stake, can you?

No.  No.

The Election Day Dilemma

Here's the weirdest thing about this week's show (which is about guitars): I will have finished the show, which airs on Wednesdays, before I'll know who's won the presidency.

What do you mean, Gary?  You mean, you don't know?  Self Help Radio is prerecorded.  I turn the show in Tuesday afternoons.  But you know what else is happening Tuesday?  Right: either the historic election of the first woman President Of The United States, or the last election for an American President, as Emperor Trump takes the tacky gold-plated throne.  & there's absolutely no way for me to know which (I mean, polls favor Clinton, but I am pessimist & know there are going to be stories about white supremacists beating people of color up tomorrow).  & certainly that would affect how I would act on the show - elation & relief if Clinton won, fear & exasperation if Trump won.

None of that will be on display on this week's show.  Because I won't know.  It will be as if the show took a twenty-four hour nap & woke up & gabbed about shit for two hours like nothing monumental has happened.

It's driving me nuts!  I almost thought about skipping the show this week.  But my "guests" have contributed, & I have all these damn songs about guitars, so...

Fallen Colonels

Because, I guess, I am a morbid fuck, I spent some time yesterday looking at this web site (from which the weirdly pro-Confederate picture above comes from*): Fallen Colonels.  There's also a Facebook page with photos, though it's hard to get through, as there are no names attached to the photos until you click on them.

How I found about the site, of course, was when my sister Pat died last year, & she & I - actually, all of my siblings - went to South Garland High School.  (Only four of us graduated from the school, though.  Three of my siblings dropped out, which was apparently the cool thing to do in the 1970s.)  My brother Steve informed whoever's in charge & her name's there, & her picture is on the Facebook page.  For some reason, a year & a half later, I found myself back at the site.

What fascinated me yesterday was the people in my high school class (we graduated in 1986) who have since left this mortal coil.  The site lists 21, out of a class of 430, although one of them, Marla Jones, died when she was a freshman (she committed suicide**), & another, Christy Ann Holland, apparently also attended only as a freshman, so that adds two to the number.  However, if we do the math, that's a little under 5% of the class - which means a little less than 1 in 20 people I graduated high school with are no longer with us.

& look at how they went!  Five died in car accidents, five by heart attack.  Four have causes that are unknown, while two were taken by cancer.  There was one murder, one suicide, & two congenital diseases.  Finally, Miss Holland, mentioned above, died of "unspecified health issues."

Interestingly, it more or less jibes with the stats by the CDC.  Heart disease is the number one cause of death in this country, followed by cancer.  Accidents are fourth.  More than half of my classmates died of these three causes.

Here's the thing: except for Marla Jones, whom I never really knew, & two others I'll discuss below, I have no idea who any these people are.  I don't have any memory of them whatsoever.  That may seem callous, & I certainly feel uncomfortable about it, but it's pretty obvious that I couldn't have known all 430 members of my graduating class.  But what of the two I think I knew?

While scrolling through the Facebook page, I came across Mark Taylor.  I don't recall the name, but the face - from the yearbook - definitely was familiar.  I may have sat next to him in one class or two, & remember him being friendly with me.  Perhaps he sat in front of me in English class in the 10th grade.  I was a pretty chatty fellow, & if that were Mark, he was easy to talk to, & easy to crack up, something I required.  If it wasn't him - well I have no idea either way.

The other was a girl named Jackie Bodiford.  I remember the name - it's actually quite fun to say - & I recall her face, even without seeing her yearbook picture.  We must have had some interactions, as I have a fleeting memory of making her laugh.  But that's all.  She makes me saddest of the group - she died very young, at the age of 22, when I was finishing college, & the site doesn't tell us how she died.

Mostly I confess I feel strangely fortunate to still be around thirty years after graduation.  I wasn't popular, I didn't have a lot of friends, & I'm not in contact with anyone I knew from school in 1986.  But sometimes we need to stand face-to-face with our mortality, & let it fuck up our minds a bit.  So I took some time to do that today.

* As I've talked about before, like here, my high school's mascot was "the Colonel," which was a diminutive military type dressed in Confederate garb.  My school's motto was "The South Shall Rise Again."

** I have very strong memories of first-period algebra the Monday after Marla Jones committed suicide.  She locked herself in a garage on a weekend night & turned the car on.  I was fascinated by seeing all of these girls - Marla's friends - just crying in the class, & my feelings about her death were mixed - she & those other girls had enjoyed making fun of me most of the semester.  I'm not sure we were ever told why she took her own life.