(I found this image here.)
It was probably late summer/early autumn 2000 - around fifteen years ago - that I put in an application for a show at KOOP radio in Austin, Texas. I had no idea what I was getting into. The station had been rocked by in-fighting for a couple of years - you can see on this webpage what the losing side in the battle thought - but I was blissfully unaware of what I was getting into.
Without going into specifics - there were some crazy things that happened at that station during my eight years there - I began to volunteer but found out they had no real path for newcomers to get a show. Programmers basically got to keep their shows as long as they wanted them, unless they did something really stupid, like steal or, worse, cross the people in charge. I knew a lot of people there - many of them former KVRXers like myself - so I helped train, I got involved, & I waited. I waited & waited & waited.
Something happened - a few hours opened up - I don't recall how or why - in September 2002 - & I campaigned for a show. The name "Self Help Radio" is something I came up with at the very last minute - I remember then-Station Manager Angela Keaton laughing happily when I told what I was going to call my show. I had toyed with many others - my friend Joe suggested I called the show "Be My Radio Friend," & I even worked out a Mr. Rogers-type theme song for it. But "Self Help Radio" - a reference, ultimately, to my own desperate need for all kinds of self-help - took, & despite some people thinking it's an actual self-help radio show - like dozens of my "followers" on Twitter - I am happy I called it that.
The themes were there from the beginning as well, but if I had a copy of that first show for you to listen to, you'd be surprised how unfocused it was. I didn't actually come up with the idea of talking about the themes, along with playing songs about them, until perhaps the end of the year. It was so obvious that of course I missed it. The show has always been, & will continue to be, a shambling work-in-progress.
The first show aired on October 9, 2002. Now it's thirteen years later. I don't even want to count the number of shows I've done, or the number of themes I've covered. Doubtless it's over six hundred shows, maybe the same number of themes (though I revisit them from time-to-time - like today!). & yet I feel like I have a few more shows in me. Silly old me.
You can listen today from 4-6 pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington - that's WRFL, you know - & you can listen online at wrfl dot fm if you're out of town &/or don't own a radio. I'll be speaking with lots of guests, including the show's head writer & a fellow who sued me over the idea of the show, & of course there'll be lots of songs about roller coasters - & hopefully not some of the same as I played the first time around.
Oh yeah - you can win a tee shirt too! If you listen!
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