Self Help Radio 061523: Haze

If it seemed like this week's Self Help Radio was in a haze - well, it was. Honestly during the show I couldn't see a damn thing. Well, I could make out some shapes. Was it you? Were you lost in the haze?

It was certainly appropriate as there were songs about hazy things & we talked to "experts" whose credentials were a bit hazy. The truth is, I'm glad there's a recording of it - my memory of the experience is somewhat hazy.

That recording is now at the Self Help Radio web page. To access it, remember the username (SHR) & password (selfhelp) required. It wasn't just me & music for two hours - there were guests as well. You can see everything that you will hear below. That's a funny sentence.

Enjoy the haze!

Self Help Radio Haze Show

"Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer" Nat King Cole _The Greatest Hits_

"A Hazy Shade Of Winter" Jason Crest _Radio Sessions 1968-69_

"Hazy Paradise" Earth & Fire _Earth & Fire_

introduction & definitions

"Purple Haze" The Flying Lizards _Top Ten_

"Hazey Daze" Chris & Cosey _Technø Primitiv_

"Another Hazy Day On The Lazy A" The Wolfhounds _Lost But Happy: The Wolfhounds 1986-1990_

"Green Hazed Daze" A.R. Kane _Americana_

interview with anti-hazing campaigner Dickie Wadlington

"Hazey Jane I" Nick Drake _Bryter Layter_

"Haze" The Shacks _Haze_

"Our Haze" Bran Van 3000 _Rosé_

"My Mind Is Hazy" Chocolate Milk _Action Speaks Louder Than Words_

interview with air quality expert Dylan Wooten

"Haze" Eric's Trip _Peter_

"Autohaze" Godzuki _Losing Money & Losing Friends_

"Hazy" Huon _Answers To Lucky_

"Hazey Moon" The Wave Pictures _Look Inside Your Heart_

interview with self-help writer & therapist Deanna Welton

"Lullaby Haze" Mates Of State _Re-Arrange Us_

"Golden Haze" Wild Nothing _Golden Haze EP_

"Estates Of Sparkling Haze" The Laughing Chimes _Arboretum Miles_

"Haze" Jack Frost _Snow Job_

interview with DEA Agent Devon Walsh

+ conclusion & goodbye

"Hazy Days" Mick Ronson _Play Don't Worry_

"Hazy Haze" Kindest Lines _Covered In Dust_

"The Haze" Elf Power _Creatures_

Whither Haze?

You might think, "Whoa! Is Self Help Radio actually doing an episode that's more or less timely? After all the haze that blanketed the East Coast last week?" & the answer is emphatically: no.

This show has been in the works for some time. It's one of those themes which came about because I heard seemingly successive songs which somehow featured the word "haze" - or "hazy." & I diligently searched all my old playlists to see if I had done a hazy show before - well, one about "haze," anyway - & I don't think I did.

Which means you can peer into the haze this afternoon from noon to 2pm Portland time on Freeform Portland - that's 90.3+98.3fm & online at Freeform Portland dot org. Lots of guests, lots of hazy tunes, lots of haze (which isn't really all that unusual - it's just more direct at this time).

Preface To Haze: It Happens Here Too

Here's a picture from September 2020, when wildfires made the skies in Portland pink then red. That's the sun up there. The sun.

It's safe to say we in Oregon sympathized with the folks on the east coast this past week. That picture was taken in the depth of the pandemic, when we were at home anyway. The idea of this happening now, when I have places (mainly radio studios) to go to makes it terrifying.

Is that the reason the show this week is about haze? Nope. I'll say something more tomorrow.

My Life With Academics

In 2002, a young grad student moved in with me.

Around 2006 or so I found myself living with a doctoral candidate.

In 2008 I married a PhD.

In 2009 I moved to West Virginia to live with an Assistant Professor.

During the next few years I lived with an Associate Professor in Kentucky, Texas, & Oregon.

& I just found out that on July 1st, I'll be cohabitating with a Full Professor.

Is it weird that they're all named Magdalena?

Yes, that's a picture of her up there, with our two youngest. The dorkiest person I ever met is the love of my life & she's now a capital P Professor. Congrats to her!

Martin Duffy

(Image from here, where one can read a sad tale.)

When Martin Duffy died in December of last year, I mourned him on Facebook but didn't have any radio tributes to him. The shows I was doing at the time - the Dickenbock Report & Self Help Radio - wouldn't really allow me to carve up a portion of them for a proper thank you to the keyboardist whose work has haunted me since I first heard it on my first Felt album, The Pictorial Jackson Review, in 1987.

Tonight on my KBOO show - which seems to be where I can carve up a portion of time for a small tribute here & there - I'll play some Felt songs that showcase Duffy's beautiful playing. The reason for this is the news that his bandmates in Primal Scream - whom he played with after Felt disbanded - treated him unnecessarily cruelly & didn't help him financial as he struggled with both cancer & alcoholism.

It remains to be seen if I can ever play Primal Scream on the radio again. But I can & will play Martin Duffy's other projects. Like tonight, five Felt tunes.

Midnight to 3am KBOO Portland 90.7fm kboo dot fm.

Self Help Radio 060823: Perfume

(Original image here.)

What started out as something kinda stinky this week got a whole lot worse. I mean, perfumes can smell nice & all but too much perfume soaks your head in scents & it can be a headache. So, you know, that's kinda like this show.

Lots of songs about perfume & some silly guests & there's nothing else I can say about it except if you wanna listen, you need to do so at the show's website, where the username SHR & the password selfhelp will be very useful. As I point out on the show, listening won't make you smell better. But there might be some songs you like.

As one of our guests says, "Smell you later!"

Self Help Radio Perfume Show

"At A Perfume Counter (Bob Eberle, vocals)" Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra _Forgotten Gems_

"Red Silk Stockings & Green Perfume" Roy Hogsed _Cocaine Blues_

"Spanish Perfume" Jimmy Rice _The Red Bird Sound, Vol. 4: Dressed In Black_

introduction & definitions

"Lança Perfume" Rita Lee _Lança Perfume_

"Ed's Perfume" The Frantics _Frantic Times_

"In A Perfumed Garden" Television Personalities _They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles_

"Perfume Garden" The Chameleons _What Does Anything Mean? Basically_

interview with archaeologist Norman Shed

"Perfume-V" Pavement _Slanted & Enchanted_

"The Night It Rained Perfume" Feverfew _Something Of Nothing_

"Old Perfume" Amy Millan _Masters Of The Burial_

"Perfume" Sparks _Hello Young Lovers_

interview with perfume r&d specialist Jennilee Lee

"Discontinued Perfume" The Caribbean _Discontinued Perfume_

"The Perfumed Garden Of Gulliver Smith" Marc Bolan _Love + Death_

"What's That Perfume You Wear?" Jens Lekman _Life Will See You Now_

"Strange Perfumes" Laurie Anderson _Homeland_

interview with serial entrepreneur Saul Thompson

"Perfume" Guerilla Toss _Eraser Stargazer_

"Perfume" The Coathangers _Nosebleed Weekend_

"Whiskey Or Perfume" John Mulaney _New In Town_

"Of Purgatory & Perfume" David J _Missive To An Angel From The Halls Of Infamy & Allure_

interview with anti-perfume activist Claude Cotton

+

conclusion & goodbye

"Monsoon Of Perfume" Dengue Fever _Venus On Earth_

"Garden Of Perfume" Temple Of Sound & Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali _People's Colony No 1_

"Perfume Well" Box & The Twins _Everywhere I Go Is Silence_

"A Strange Perfume" The Membranes _What Nature Gives... Nature Takes Away_

Whither Perfume?

(my home's most common fragrance - image from here)

My earliest memories of a perfume involve either the ridiculous atomizers that appeared in cartoons - which would pump out noxious pink smoke - or my mother's favorite perfume, which I noticed people would buy her for her birthday or Christmas - which was Charlie. I don't recall my mother ever wearing it, mind you - I don't really know if I ever noticed the way my mother smelled in the 1970s - but boy do I remember those commercials!

Flash forward to years later when I might be dating women who wore perfume - & generally speaking, they didn't. I can only think of one woman I knew who did wear a particular scent & I didn't really like it, though I never felt it was my place to tell her so. After all, she liked it. Wasn't that all that mattered?

Yes, there has been a Self Help Radio about smells. But there were no songs about perfumes on that show. It seemed appropriate to return to one of the senses this week. This is a bit more specific & yet there'll still be discussions of an olfactory nature. & because it's radio you won't know how smelly I truly am,

The show is on from noon to 2pm Portland time on Freeform Portland - which is on the air in town at 90.3+98.3fm & online at Freeform Portland dot org. This one time the show might make scents!

Preface To Perfume: Have I Seen This Movie?

(image from the IMDb)

It will probably not surprise you if, during the course of tomorrow's episode of Self Help Radio, there are samples from the movie "Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer," from 2006, directed by Tom Tykwer & starring Dustin Hoffman. It is about perfume after all.

There were a couple of great quotes from the movie that I found. But while I was watching (re-watching?) the film to get the quotes, I had the sensation that I had actually never seen the movie before. But I know I had. I have a memory of talking to someone about it at work after I watched it - maybe she even recommended it to me. Even though I no longer get DVDs from Netflix (& they don't send them anymore), I kept a copy of the films I rented from them & I have a record of getting the film in the summer of 2007.

But except for a couple of things, possibly sparked by searching for suitable quotes, I have absolutely no memory of the movie. That's a fascinating thing, isn't it? To have spent two hours with a movie & discussed it with someone & have nothing you can recall.

Now I know I've had thousands of conversation with people I will never remember (the conversations I mean, but certainly in many cases the people), but it seems like movies, in their easy-to-digest two-hour packages, are designed to be at least a little memorable. I think I enjoyed the movie. Apparently I didn't enjoy it enough for it to have a place in my brain.

Which come to think of it probably how most people think of Self Help Radio.

A Brief History Of Awkward Exits

The image above is almost certainly not a place I've ever been. But this is a story about a place much like that one, in Garland, Texas, which I visited more than once when I was in high school & afterwards.

For some reason, my high school American History teacher took a liking to me. Well. Maybe not a liking. I think he saw something in me he hoped to cultivate but unlike others in my class whom he more successfully influenced, I was an anomaly. He was conservative & quite Christian. I was not. He saw through a lot of my insecurities but chose to confront me with them in a more direct & stern way than was probably diplomatic - it just made me defensive. I was flattered that he, an adult, might be interested in me, but I left his home more than once absolutely baffled by the interactions I had.

The very last time I visited him, I was in my third year of college. I can't remember if I were invited or if I cold-called him. I believe it was in the fall, perhaps in September when I would come home for my mother's birthday. It had to be the weekend - he was still teaching so it would be a day off.

There are few things I remember about the encounter, but the weirdest one was that at some point, he just disappeared. I don't know if I missed some cues or he wasn't clear about what he was doing, but I was left in his patio area for a long period of time with no one interacting with me. His wife showed up as if out of nowhere & seemed surprised I was still there. We had a brief exchange & she asked me - as if she had listened to our conversation - if I were "a liberal." I said I guess I was. & that was all she said to me.

Eventually my old teacher reemerged, & I realized he had taken a nap. How long I had sat there I didn't know, but realizing how awkward it was, I said my goodbyes & left. The whole experience was so difficult & unpleasant I never spoke to him again. &, it must be noted, he never reached out to me either.

The internet in its limited knowledge tells me he's still alive. I'm certain he hasn't given me a thought in the intervening years - over thirty-five years it's been. I was one of a few students whom he tried to guide, none of whom I am in contact with, although I am certain they are still in contact with him. What little I know about their lives suggests they more happily fulfilled his ideas of what they should be than I did.

It wasn't my last awkward exit. It was almost certainly not my first. But the strange moments I spent sitting alone in that patio, wondering what was happening, unable to talk to anyone, not sure what I should do - that memory haunts me. That man attempted to influence my life in some way, but he did more by somehow not communicating to me effectively that he was going to take a nap & I should probably go than any lesson he might have shared from high school.

Truly since then in weird social situations I focus deep attention on the moments when I need to fucking leave.

Tree Overshadows House

Is that what I called this picture? Was I attempting a pun?

Tonight is my show Corporate Standardized Programming on KBOO. It's the first week in a long time that a major musician hasn't died - at least one I deeply admire. I have been afraid the show would become the "Gary pays tribute to dead artist" program & I don't want it to be that. I do want to have the time & space to do that - but not every week.

Tonight it's mainly music, bands coming to town, birthdays, & some jazz. Placed happily in the middle of the night where it can't bother anyone & no one is awake to hear it.

Seriously though, imaging living in that house & knowing your house cannot compete with that tree!

Self Help Radio 060123: Meteors

Oh no! Coming crashing into your radio atmosphere completely unwanted is Self Help Radio's show about meteors! It spent so long in the emptiness of space as a Self Help Radio show about meteoroids & now that it's wrecked your radio it's a show about meteorites but look how it burned so bright as a show about meteors!

Sorry I'm so proud of myself learning the proper terminology. I might be the only person who learns anything from my ridiculous radio programs.

Listen to the show! Now & whenever! It's at the Self Help Radio website! Remember you'll need a username & a password. Those are SHR & selfhelp. It's two hours of shooting star fun, & everything on the show is listed below.

Watch your head!

Self Help Radio Meteor Show

"What Is A Shooting Star?" Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans _Space Songs (From Ballads For The Age Of Science)_

"Meteor" Day Sleeper _When The Meteor Comes_

"Meteors" The Seals _1/3_

introduction & definitions

"The Wayward Meteor" Man Or Astro-Man? _The Sounds Of Tomorrow_

"Meteor Shower" Seely _Julie Only_

"The Biggest Meteor I've Ever Seen" Laura Brino _How We Survived_

"Meteor Shower" Tanya Donelly _Swan Song Series_

our resident cinephile Chuck stops by to talk about meteor movies

"Born Under A Meteor" Everything Everything _Raw Data Feel_

"Rock Paper Scissors Meteor" Joel Plaskett _44_

"Meteorite" Zombina & The Skeletones _Taste The Blood Of Zombina & The Skeletones_

"To A Meteorite In A Museum" Clock Hands Strangle _Distaccati_

interview with my friend Josh Roberts, who's afraid of meteors

"A Meteor At A Time" The Walker Roaders _The Walker Roaders_

"Big Bangs, Black Holes, Meteorites" Love Is All _A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night_

"Meteor In Your Mind" Shaft _Meteor In Your Mind_

"Meteora Blues" Yves Tumor _Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)_

interview with Eustace Connor, founder of the Junior Meteors Amateur Astronomy Group
memories of my days as a Junior Meteor

"Riding Meteors" The Happy Bullets _Blue Skies & Umbrellas_

"Meteors" The Happy Hollows _Concordia_

"Meteorites" Warm Jets _Future Signs_

"Meteorites" Echo & the Bunnymen _Meteorites_

interview with meteor monitor Reuben Green
also! conclusion & goodbye

"Backwater" Brian Eno _Before & After Science_

"Meteor Boy" David Steinhart _The Almighty Nest_

"Meteor Rock" The Cassettes _O'er The Mountain_

"Meteor" Masters Of The Hemisphere _Masters Of The Hemisphere_

Whither Meteors?

(image from Wikipedia)

In a story I might have told before on this blog, I was driving through Nevada in the summer of 1995 when I stopped on Highway 50 (the one I discussed here) at dusk & lay on the very warm hood of my rental car & watched the sky turn black. Amazingly I could see quite clearly for the first time this thing called "The Milky Way" I had read so much about. But what was really stunning was that, at a rate of one every two or three minutes, I could see shooting stars.

At first I though I was just tired & maybe even imagining, as I had been driving all day. If I stared enough into a section of the sky, it would seem like a star would become dislodged & leave a tiny trail as it disappeared from the darkness. There would have been a time when humans, looking up, would have found this commonplace, maybe even imagined stars lived & died as they did. It was a beauty that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen before.

Lying there, in some quiet Nevada valley on a lonely highway, I almost fell asleep, when the only other car on that road (for over an hour) zoomed past me, & the driver leaned on his horn. Because the temptation to be an asshole is everywhere & always a strong one.

This doesn't explain why I'm doing a show about meteors today. But maybe it explains why I love them.

Please listen this afternoon, noon to 2pm Portland time, on 90.3+98.3fm in town & online at Freeform Portland dot org. The show won't be anywhere as lovely as a meteor but it will be just as ephemeral.

Preface To Meteors: An Embarrassing Confession

(image from here)

Self Help Radio has been on the air for over twenty years now. Mostly it's not paid attention to, so I am the one who needs to monitor the themes I've covered. A few years ago, I made what I call a table of contents which is just a list of the subjects the show has explored. I haven't counted them - please don't make me count them - & to add insult to injury, I've started adding links to other shows I do (like the Dickenbock Report) if the theme has not been explored on Self Help Radio. Usually if it took the whole show. I use this list, this "table of contents," to make sure I don't repeat a theme on SHR.

That's important, because I don't mind repeating a theme on the Dickenbock Report. I think of it as a kind of updating. & because the format is slightly different, my airbreaks will be different. If it's a theme, for example, that I covered on SHR which featured a lot of interviews, it will feature more of me talking on the Dickenbock Report episode. It doesn't feel to me like a repeat.

However. While I was listening to songs this week about meteors, the songs seemed too familiar. I checked & double-checked the list on the website. It says I have never done a show about meteors. But at some point there was something like déjà vu happening too often so I checked the individual year pages & scanned the old playlists.

Well damn. Apparently, almost exactly three years ago, songs about meteors were part of an episode of The Dickenbock Report when it was on KBOO. At that time, the show was two & a half hours long & I had other segments on it. So it never occurred to me to note it on the "table of contents" page.

This has caused me some anxiety so I have attempted to find more new meteor songs for this show but I suspect I'll play some of the ones that I played three years ago. There will be new interviews & I'll be doing the show live at the Freeform Portland studios rather than recorded or remotely during a pandemic. But some of the songs will be the same.

You may be asking, "What's the chance someone who heard the show then will hear it now?" I don't know. I don't have any idea who was listening then or now. But I have already done a lot of prep for the show so it would be dumb to just not do it.

It's really embarrassing though.

Meteor Shower Story

(image from here)

This week's show's theme is "meteors." I always thought it would be romantic to take someone out to see a meteor shower. I hadn't actually witnessed one, always living in an urban area where the light pollution made it impossible. In fact, it wasn't until I was on a road in the middle of Nevada in 1995 that I even saw the actual Milky Way - & in fact saw a number of meteors as well. It was lovely & thrilling.

A few years later, wanting to hang out with a woman I liked, I had a rental car from a recent visit to Dallas to see family, & I had checked some astronomical website & I found a place far enough from Austin where I thought we might be able to see some summer meteor shower - possibly the Perseids. She agreed & off we went, driving west from town on some small highway.

Not very far outside of the city, probably near Cedar Valley, I caught a sudden sight out of the corner of my eye & very quickly felt the impact of something striking the car on the driver's side, right at the corner where the windshield met the body of the vehicle. I don't recall if the car spun but I do know I got it as quickly as possible to the side of the road. I haven't been in many car accidents in my time. I hope I reacted well.

The driver's side mirror was gone, & there was a large dent in front of the door (which opened with difficulty). More horrifying to me was tufts of coarse hair stuck in place where there were cracks or folds. We were not alone on the highway, though other cars were few & far between, & a kindly driver stopped & asked if we needed help. They had a cell phone (something that was a rarity in the 1990s) & called the Highway Patrol. I looked around & the creature that struck the vehicle was nowhere to be found.

When the law showed up, they escorted us off the highway to a closed shopping mall & got all the information. They opined about the deer - whether it would live, how big its antlers must have been to scratch up the car, how sad if it died & "all that venison went to waste." I wasn't comforted by their conversation but needed their report so I wouldn't be charged for the damage at the rental car place.

The experience was draining & I just took the woman home. It occurred to me as we rode in silence that in the blackness of the highway, waiting for the cops, I never once looked up at the sky. & I had bad dreams that night about the deer, hoping against hope it survived its head-on experience with the car.

& wishing I had seen my first meteor shower instead.

Waiting For A Sign

A picture I recently posted on Facebook. I'll later post it on Tumblr. It's not all that clever but it makes me feel a little clever. & that's nice.

Self Help Radio 052523: Trembling

Things you can tremble with: fear, excitement, anticipation, indignation, anger, cold. Will you tremble with any of these on this show about trembling? Or would you rather quiver? Or shiver?

Howsoever you prefer to tremble, there's a radio show for you, & it's this week's Self Help Radio. There are plenty of songs about trembling as well as the usual silly interviews & awkward airbreaks. It might be worth a few furtive trembles.

Listen to it now at the Self Help Radio website. Remember there's a username/password requirement - try SHR/selfhelp. Hey buy you can download the show if you wish! Everything that happened is listed below.

Self Help Radio Trembling Show

"Standin' Here Tremblin'" Muddy Waters _The Chronological Muddy Waters 1948-1950_

"Tremblin'" Wynonie Harris _Lovin' Machine_

"Tremblin'" Birdie Green _Super Soul Sisters_

introduction & definitions

"Tremble" Malcolm Dodds _The Malcolm Dodds Story_

"Talk Back Trembling Lips" Debbie Stuart _Hazy Memories Volume One_

"Tremblin'" Gene Pitney _Young & Warm & Wonderful + Just One Smile_

"I Tremble For You" Waylon Jennings _Love Of The Common People_

"Tremble" George Hamilton IV _To You & Yours, From Me & Mine_

interview with writer/director Otto Glenn

"Tremble (My Girl Doesn't)" The Wolfgang Press _Water_

"All Of A Tremble" St. Christopher _Dig Deep, Brother 1984-1990_

"Tremble" The Verlaines _Ready To Fly_

"Knee Trembler" Close Lobsters _Headache Rhetoric_

interview with Dr. Stanley Gadd

"Not The Trembling Kind" Laura Cantrell _Not The Trembling Kind_

"Make Me Tremble" Joey Ramone _...Ya Know?_

"Tremble" Better Than Ezra _Surprise_

"Trembling Peacock" Destroyer _This Night_

interview with sound collage artist Theodore Sand

"I Thrust These Trembling Fists Into The Air" The Love Letter Band _Even The Pretty Girls Take Medicine_

"Tremble" Carnivores _If I'm Ancient_

"Trembling Away" Baby Jesus _Baby Jesus_

"Feel Me Tremble" Did You Die _Royal Unicorn_

interview with historian Roberta Garson

"Trembling" Lemuria _Recreational Hate_

"Tremble" Kalbells _Mothertime_

"Silver Trembling Hands" The Flaming Lips _Embryonic_

"Trembling Stylee" Little John _Trembling Stylee_

conclusion & goodbye

"I Tremble" The Winnerys _...And The Winnerys_

"Hothead Handshake Tremble" Charlie Fawn _Charlie Fawn_

"Tremble" The Information _Mistakes We Knew We Were Making_

Whither Trembling?

(from here)

Trembling is such a delicate thing - shaking seems downright vulgar compared to it. Trembling also seems to indicate a vulnerable situation - your lips tremble for a kiss. I think of nervous moments where my body seemed to tremble uncontrollably - & yet it also seemed my trembling was unnoticed - & unnoticeable.

Once again thinking about how I only have two hours for Self Help Radio these days, I have been looking for themes that will give me enough songs to fill that time - but only just enough. I'm not sure when the idea of trembling entered my head, but I think I couldn't initially find enough songs. Which was a challenge of a sort. So I went ahead & scheduled the show.

That show happens today! Wow. I'm all a-tremble! It's on noon to 2pm Portland time on Freeform Portland, which is on the Portland radio dial at 90.3 & 98.3 fm & luckily online everywhere at Freeform Portland dot org. Lots of fun stuff planned. Hope you can tune in.

Preface To Trembling: A Haiku

(a trembling icon found here)

Here goes:

You can't say trembling

Is something that's resembling

Plain old dissembling

First of all, bonus points for me, a haiku whose lines also rhyme. Even if it makes no sense.

Also: dissembling is a word I learned from a person in ninth grade who used it incorrectly. He would often accuse me of dissembling when he thought I was lying. I looked it up & tried to correct him but he felt I guess it was close enough to lying to be used in that way. I remember I said to him once, in response, "I'm no dissembler, I'm just mendacious," & he started using the word "mendacious" all the time.

For some reason, I think the fellow's name was Troy. We met in a Theatre Arts class, & maybe he was a junior or even a senior, because I didn't see him or talk to him after that class. Anyway, years later he came up in conversation with a pal & that person said, "He was always accusing me of dissembling!" & I said, "It was his way of calling you a liar." My friend said, "But that's not what dissembling means!"

High Above The Clouds

Two years ago today, I was flying up in the air away from the Dallas area & back to Portland. I had given the eulogy at my mother's memorial, which I wrote about here. My mother had died the previous September but because of the pandemic we had to wait a few months to gather.

Someone asked me today if I am "visited" by my mother in any form. Since I don't believe in anything supernatural, I wouldn't see a ghost or a spirit or anything like that. I don't think such things exist. But I do occasionally hear her voice, accompanying a memory, & since I spoke to her every Sunday for most of the last twenty years of her life, I will sometimes reflect on her on Sundays.

This is a story I've probably told before, but in 1974, when I was six years old, my mother took me & two of my brothers to Germany to visit family there. I had no real sense of what Germany was, how far away we would travel, anything like that. What I did know what that I was going up in a plane above the clouds, & I was going to see what I knew for a fact would be there: angels.

It's true. I thought angels lived on top of the clouds. I worried a bit about the plane hitting them, but figured they knew how to avoid them. & when I looked out the window - I told no one about my expectations, having learned that my family often called me "stupid" or worse when I said something as fact that wasn't so - I was shocked & disappointed that there weren't any angels there.

It was crushing. Once we got to Germany, I think I was still a bit sad to find out angels didn't live above the clouds. & it might've explained some of my reaction to the experience. But that's a story for another time.

It would be twelve years before I got on a plane again, on a short flight to Austin in the summer of 1986 for college orientation. Looking out the window to see the clouds is always a highlight. How much more amazing are they now without the expectation of anything silly as angels.

Andy Rourke

(image from Johnny Marr's Twitter account)

When I first starting listening to the Smiths, I was listening to the words that Morrissey sang. That was the most immediate, most important thing to me. I had been listening to music my entire life but wasn't a musician, so didn't know much about guitar, bass, keyboard, drums. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to experience the songs if the music weren't also something I liked.

As I got deeper into music, as I found music that affected me like the Smiths, as I continued to listen to the Smiths long after they no longer existed, I started to pay attention to the musicianship. I came to understand how incredible Johnny Marr's music was - especially when later both he & Morrissey abandoned that sound. Songs that I had listened to hundreds of times, I discovered, became new to me when I focused on individual instruments. In the case of the Smiths, it was Marr's shimmering guitar - & then, Rourke's melodic bass.

It turns out I have a thing for bass players whose instrument sings instead of simply keeping time. I think of Bruce Thomas of the Attractions & Mark Monnone of the Lucksmiths. There are moments in Smiths song where the guitar & bass seem to be singing a duet. Rourke's playing was never showy, but it always felt essential. I am not a musician but I thought if I were a musician I would love to be playing along with someone like Andy Rourke.

He was four years older than I am. It seems a little selfish to say 59 is too young to die. But it surely is.

Gosh, I wish I could've said thank you to him for being such an amazing part of so much music I love. But I suspect lots of people - scores of people - hundreds of people - told him that. & so tonight I'll play some Smiths on the radio, because thank you Andy Rourke.