Preface To Relax: How Do You Want To Relax Today?

I'll be taking a relaxing drive to Atlanta today. There I shall relax with my friend Joe, who's turning 44 today, which is 1/15th of 666. He's got so long to go.

I'll be back in time to do a show about relaxing, don't worry. Seriously. Chill out.

Poor, Burning Texas

As you may or may not have heard, my hometown (well, the town I lived in for over twenty years, & the town where I did most of my radio) of Austin is very close to a gigantic fire that's burning just thirty or so miles to the east of it. The city of Bastrop has basically been evacuated & much of the lovely Bastrop State Park has burned down.

Here's a terrifying video of some of the fire & how fast is spreads:



This site has maps of the fire & information about it. Two people have died. 38,000 acres have burned. 550 "structures" (I'm assuming that is some kind of weird euphemism for "homes) have been destroyed.

Friends in Austin - all of whom are safe, thankfully - report that the air smells like smoke, & that in some places there have been ashes coming from the sky. & of course there's this famous picture of the Austin skyline & the smoke to the east.

It's all terrifying, & all the more strange since it's been cold & rainy in Lexington the past week. I am very grateful for social media, which has allowed me to keep tabs on people without being a worry-wart & a buttinsky. Mostly I'm glad people I know are safe, as I am sad for the folks who had to be evacuated & who lost their homes. I take no pleasure in noting that most of them probably supported Rick Perry for governor, even as he cut funding for fire departments by 75%.

It's a Texas thing. You wouldn't understand.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Eleven

Are you tired of me being so negative about the unfunny A Joke A Day service? Do you wish that I'd just unsubscribe & go back to writing nonsense only vaguely related to my radio show? Do you understand that I am just talking to myself?

If you answered "meh" to any of the above questions, you're more eloquent than I thought.

This week actually had a joke that was told to me a long time ago by one of my nieces or nephews. Probably a nephew. Told poorly, but charmingly nonetheless. I give you, then, a pretty good children's joke as told by someone who submitted it to the A Joke A Day joke subscription service:

A panda bear walks into a bar & orders a sandwich. The waiter brings him the sandwich. The panda bear eats it, pulls out a pistol, kills the waiter, & gets up & starts to walk out. The bartender yells for him to stop. The panda bear asks, "What do you want?" The bartender replies, "First you come in here, order food, kill my waiter, then try to go without paying for your food." The panda bear turns around & says, "Hey! I'm a Panda. Look it up!" The bartender goes into the back room & looks up panda bear in the encyclopedia, which read: "Panda: a bear-like marsupial originating in Asian regions. Known largely for its stark black & white coloring. Eats shoots & leaves."

I corrected the misspellings in the joke. I remember there was a chick at KVRX whose email address was eats.shoots.and.leaves@whatever.com. She was not, to my best recollection, a panda.

Why does a bar have a set of encyclopedias?

A Day Of Labor Day Show

It's a Monday, it's a holiday, who am I to be contrary, why not do a Labor Day show about working? If I'm still on Mondays next year maybe not, but for right now, it seemed a good idea. & it's also appropriate that I, who don't work, should have to "work" on Labor Day.

So here are some songs for the beleaguered workers of the United States, & the world too, & although I mention it in the show, I want to share with you my favorite quote about work, from Andre Breton: "There is no use in being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life's meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work."

The show works in two parts, which are labelled helpfully part one & part two. What's in each part is listed below.

(part one)

"Welcome To The Working Week" The Methadones _21st Century Power Pop Riot_
"Working Man's Song" The Falcons _United Artists Doo-Wop Vol. 4_
"Work, Work, Work" Lee Dorsey _Ride Your Pony/Get Out Of My Life, Woman_
"I'm A Hard Workin' Man" Abner Jay _Swaunee Water & Cocaine Blues_

"The Work Song" Tommy Hunt _Dancing 'Til Dawn_
"Sixteen Tons" Tennessee Ernie Ford _Workers & The Workplace_
"Bracero" Phil Ochs _There But For Fortune_
"There Is Power In A Union" Utah Phillips & The Entertainment Workers IU 630, IWW _Don't Mourn, Organize! Songs Of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill_
"There Is Power In A Union" Billy Bragg _Talking With The Taxman About Poetry_

"I'll Do Anything But Work" Ray Charles _The Swingtime Records Story_
"You Won't Get Me Workin'" Symon Grace & Tuesday Blues _Quagmire Volume 3: Being A Compendium Of Olde-Time Killer Punk Selections From The 1960s_
"Work Is A Four-Letter Word" The Smiths _Girlfriend In A Coma_
"Working Man Is Proud Of A Job He Hates" Onion Radio News _Onion Radio News_
"Work Today" Lightning Love _November Birthday_

(part two)

"Never Work" Mekons _Retreat From Memphis_

"Go to Work You Jerk" Benny Bell _Go to Work You Jerk_
"Whistle While You Work" Louis Armstrong _Disney Songs The Satchmo Way_
"A Hard Day's Night" Peter Sellers _A Celebration Of Sellers_
"Housework" Carol Channing _Free To Be You & Me_
"Working In A Coal Mine" Devo _Pioneers That Were Scalped: The Anthology_
"The Worker" Fischer-Z _Word Salad_
"Work" Lou Reed & John Cale _Songs For Drella_

"You Gotta Go To Work" Rex Griffin _American Yodeling 1911-1946_
"Workin' Man Blues" Merle Haggard _Down Every Road: 1962 - 1994_
"Work" Spizz Energi _Spizz Not Dead: 1978-88 Decade Of Spizz History_
"Shift-Work" The Fall _Shift-Work_

Whither A Day Of Labor?

Since my show is now on Mondays - & since I hope it'll be on Mondays for a while - I have to get used to the preponderance of holidays that fall on Mondays. Memorial Day, President's Day, MLK Day - & of course Labor Day. So maybe it'll be a "regular feature" of the show that, on Labor Day, I do a work-related show.

This year, it's about work. That's all. You can hear the show on a day you may not have to work at 7:30 am tomorrow morning, on the FM dial at 88.1 in Lexington & the surrounding villas, & online at the WRFL web site everywhere & then some.

I'll archive it later at self help radio dot net because of course you'll sleep in. I don't get to, but you do.