Self Help Radio 082214: Bulls

Yup, the radio show today was about bulls.  Not papal bulls, not people who are confident in the stock market, not police officers.  The male version of cows.  Bulls.  Lots of songs about those kinds of bulls, & especially bullfighting & bull riding.  I even had guests to talk about it!

It's not available for you to listen to at Self Help Radio: the website.  Pay attention (if you go there to listen) to username + password information.  The songs I played are below.

Toro!  Toro!

(part one)

"The Bull Is Coming" Lee Fields & The Devil's Personal Band _Rare Funk Liberation_
"Ride The Bull" Quasimodo Jones _Robots & Rebels_
"Lezomkomo (Praise The Cows & Bulls)" Ladysmith Black Mambazo _Songs From A Zulu Farm_

"Little Black Bull" Pete Seeger _Sing With Seeger_
"Little White Bull" Tommy Steele _The Best Of Tommy Steele_
"Ferdinand The Bull" Slim & Slam _The Original 1938 Recordings, Vol. 1_
"El Toro De Goro (The Peace Loving Bull)" Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs _Li'l Red Riding Hood_

"The Cattle Call" Eddy Arnold _Heroes Of The Big Country_
"Bad Brahma Bull" Tex Ritter _Collectors Series_
"Oscar The Yodeling Bull" Peter Denahy _Peter Denahy_

"El Matador" The Kingston Trio _Sold Out_
"The Matador" Johnny Cash _Legend_
"The Matador" Major Lance _Best Of Soul Time: A Selection Of Northern Soul Classics From The Archives_

(part two)

"Old Bull" Wylie & The Wild West _Bucking Horse Moon_
"Bull In The Pen" Black Uhuru _Anthem_

"The Bullfighter Dies" Morrissey _World Peace Is None Of Your Business_
"The Bulls (Les Taureaux)" Shawn Elliott & Company _Jacques Brel Is Alive & Well & Living In Paris_
"Bull Rider" Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell _Old Yellow Moon_
"Bulls" Tania&Juan _Bulls_

"Bull In The Heather" The Go! Team _Proof Of Youth_
"Bullfighters' Bones" The Shrubs _Full Steam Into The Brainstorm 12"_
"Bullfighting" Airport Girl _Slow Light_
"Bullfighter Jacket" Miniature Tigers _Fortress_

"Cattle & Cane" The Go-Betweens _Before Hollywood_
"The Bull Run" Titus Turner _A Walk On The Wild Side_

Whither Bulls?

A long time ago, I was dating a girl, & she liked to go camping.  We would go camping together.  We knew someone who was a park ranger in Utah, so we'd go camping there.  I didn't own a car, so I'd rent a car, & we'd drive together from Austin to Utah to go camping.  Once, after driving forever on what was probably 183 past Llano - or maybe it was 290 west - or maybe it was I-10 on the way to El Paso, depending on how we were getting to wherever we were going - we stopped because she wanted to see some cows who were near the fence.  We pulled the car to the shoulder & walked over to say hello.  They were friendly & glad to have the company I supposed.

At some point some highway patrol officers appeareded & wanted to know what we were doing.  We said we were saying hello to the cows.  They told us we were on private property & needed to be moving along.  They seemed amused that we wanted to say hello to cows.  "You never seen cows before?" they asked us.

I hadn't grown up with cows but a couple of years before I had visited with other friends a dairy where the calves were very friendly & would suckle your fingers.  We slowly realized that it was kind of sad, since they wanted their mothers' milk, but the mothers were busy being milked to give to humans.

Anyway, when we were on the highway, walking back to the car, the highway patrol officers wondering if we were on drugs or something, I noticed that there was a lone bull in a separate section of the fenced-off land.  I guess if he were with the cows he'd be mating with them.  Or maybe he was a steer, a castrated bull, who was just separated from others I couldn't see.  Or maybe I just saw a cow I thought was a bull & made up an entire story from looking at him.  I do that.  You do that too.

I tried to find photos, using Google search, of handsome bulls, but all that comes up is pictures of pit bulls, who are dogs & not bulls at all.  (Some were quite handsome, though.)

The reason for the show is I wanted to play something from the new Morrissey record & I liked the song "The Bullfighter Dies."  I had to scramble to put the show together in less time than I usually take for my show.  I hope it's all right.

Tomorrow from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, Kentucky, & online at the same time at wrfl dot fm.  I'll put the show up later in the day on the Self Help Radio website in case you can't wake up or won't wake up or read this years later.

It's years later.  I never stop to say hello to cows anymore.  But I do wave from the car.

Preface To Bulls: The Power Out

It has been a weird day.  I took a nap as is my wont & woke up, ready to make dinner, & there was a magnificent thunderstorm happening.  (I could've slept through it, but the wife woke me by saying, "Wake up & fix me dinner, depressed person!")  As I walked into the kitchen, everything in the house just stopped working.  At first, it seemed like there was still power, as the washer or dryer continued to spin even as it lost electricity.  But no, the whole house was off.

Here's the news, which I was able to access thanks to my smarty-pants phone: power outage story.

We decided to order out, but it took a while - probably a nearby cell phone tower was out or otherwise incapacitated.  We managed to call one of our few favorite local restaurants - the poorly named Asian Wind - & I ventured out into the world.

Two things first: our garage door opener is of course electric.  So I had to hold the door open as the wife drove the car out.

The other thing was Twitter.  When I finally got some bars, I checked the Twitterworld to see what folks were saying about the power outage.  What they said was, basically, DON'T GO DOWNTOWN.  Apparently students are moving in right now & the absence of power took out all the traffic lights.  Crash smash chaos.  But Lexington loves its sirens, & the power wasn't out for five minutes before we heard screaming sirens all around the city.

I didn't see any accidents, but I did see people being kind as traffic cops waved us through intersections without lights.  It wasn't much of a problem getting to the restaurant to pick up the food, but there was a problem with finding a place to park - lots of folks were escaping from their homes to go out to eat.

We watched old SCTV episodes on the computer while we ate by candlelight.

Which is all my way of saying that I meant to write something else but the world intervened.

I used to tell folks that big storms like we have in Texas don't really happen around here.  At least with the fierceness or regularity that is characteristic of Texas thunderstorms.  But I can't do that anymore.

Man, I am glad the power's back on.  It's sad, strange, & weird how our lives - or at least my life - needs its electronics.

Solidarity

Woke Up Early One Morning Blues, Episode Thirteen

Alger "Texas" Alexander

For my next-to-the-last episode of Woke Up Early One Morning Blues (next-to-the-last? what? see next paragraph!), I played some catch-up.  I would find so many songs to play for each show but couldn't fit them all in one hour, so this show contains songs that "belonged" to previous shows.  I still think there's a nice flow.

So next-to-last - well - the new WRFL schedule starts a week from today, & there'll be many more students back in town who need precious airtime, so I am losing an hour of my show.  That hour will be Woke Up Early One Morning Blues.  I am sad to see it go, but my focus has always been on Self Help Radio.  The show will reappear at some point - possibly next summer - because the early blues is always on my mind, & I enjoy doing a blues show.

You can listen to this past week's show now at the Self Help Radio website.  The mismatched collection of songs is listed below.

"Whiskey & Women" Black Ace _Texas Slide Guitars 1930-1938_
"Romance In The Dark" Lil Green _Romance In The Dark_
"Where He Leads Me I Will Follow" Blind Willie Harris _Goodbye, Babylon_

"Lonesome Lovesick Blues" Katherine Henderson _Vol. 2 (1927-1932)_
"Whiskey Headed Blues" Sonny Boy Williamson _Sonny Boy Williamson: Complete Recorded Works, 1938-1939_
"On My Way To Heaven" Blind Roy Hays _Sinners & Saints (1926-1931)_
"Snatch It Back Blues" Walter "Buddy Boy" Hawkins _William Harris & Buddy Boy Hawkins (1927-1929)_
"Black Gal, What Makes Your Head So Hard?" Joe Pullum _The Easin' In: Essential Recordings Of Texas Blues_

"Six Weeks Old Blues" John Henry Barbee _Memphis Blues 1927-1938_
"Lonesome Road Blues" Sam Collins _Before The Blues Vol. 1_
"Ain't Going To Lay My Armor Down" McVay & Johnson _Kentucky Mountain Music, Part 3_
"Friday Moan Blues" Alfred Lewis _Harmonica Blues 1920s & '30s_
"Boogie Woogie Stomp" Albert Ammons & His Rhythm Kings _The Many Faces Of Boogie Woogie_

"Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground)" Blind Willie Johnson _Dark Was The Night (1927-1930)_
"Long Lonesome Day Blues" Texas Alexander _Texas Alexander Vol. 1 (1927-1928)_