Self Help Radio RERUN: November 17, 2004 - Storms

(Original image here.)

Well, this is gonna be embarrassing.

Since there wasn't a new Self Help Radio today, I thought I'd reach back into my archives & play a show from over a decade ago.  This show, which aired in Austin, Texas, on KOOP in November 2004, from 2 to 3 pm, apparently came at the heels of a stormy week.  I have no memory of any of the circumstances.

It was hard to re-listen to the show - probably as hard as it will be for you to listen!  I talk way too fast, probably because I only have an hour.  I'm more amused by myself than probably anyone listening to the show.  But the music is fine.

Here are a few things of note:

1) We gave away a lot of stuff at KOOP!  I miss that.

2) More people tended to call my show & make requests back then than they did here in Lexington.  I am reminded how active KOOP listeners were!

3) My show didn't have any underwriters, but there were two promos for shows that no longer exist on KOOP:

Queerwaves was a delightful show that, as you might expect, focused on GLBTQ music way before that acronym became popular.  The ebullient host, Taylor Cage, does not appear in the promo, but does lend his voice to a recorded PSA late in the show.

The Liberated Space was KOOP's resident libertarian show.  Host Angela Keaton left the station not too long after this show aired, but I believe did the show from California for a while.  I haven't heard from her in years.

4) I'm very surprised anyone ever let me do a radio show if my early shows were as awful as this one.

At any rate: I will leave the show up for a week if you'd like to listen, so it's now available at the Self Help Radio website, the first show on the page.  It's password protected, you know, so just remember SHR/selfhelp if you can't find it on the page.  The songs I played are below.

Don't let this squander any good will I've managed to gain over the last couple of years!

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"Stormy Weather" The Pixies _Bossanova_
"Swamp Thing" The Chameleons _Strange Times_
"Snowstorm" Galaxie 500 _On Fire_

"The Storm" The Guild League _Inner North_
"Storm Boy" The Steinbecks _Recorded Music Salon_
"Calm Before The Storm" The Bats _Daddy's Highway_
"Lazy Thunderstorms" Blueboy _Unisex_

"Skin Storm" Bradford _Shouting Quietly_
"Icestorm" Sportique _Modern Museums_
"Stormy Weather" Glossary _Southern By The Grace Of Location_
"Electrical Storm Girl" Julian Cope _The Skellington Chronicles_

"Storm Window" E*Vax _Fuzzy Boombox Vol. 1_

Whither… The First Week In A Long Time Without Self Help Radio?

It may seem weird.  A day without Self Help Radio.

Except when it's not!  I have a plan.  It's not a good plan.  But it's a plan.

I talked about things I could do in the long interim when I won't be doing Self Help Radio the other day.  My plan is to do one of those things.  Maybe not the same thing each week.  But one of those things.

I post different stuff (sometimes) than what I post here on the show's Facebook page.  Not terribly interesting stuff, but sometimes different than here.  Might you like the show's Facebook page?

& hey - I just finished watching the film Wild.  It was pretty good.  Did you think so?

An Irregular Reminder Of Social Media Related To This Dumb Radio Show

Here's something you may not know. There's a Self Help Radio Tumblr page that has virtually nothing to do with Self Help Radio. Instead, I put photos I take there, including LOTS of photos of my animals, like this one of Winston. It's here.

It's not like it's impressive or anything. Just there.

Staying Relevant

I have been thinking - when I should be packing - of things I can do to keep reminding you that there's a radio show called Self Help Radio that is currently on hiatus but which - I promise! - is returning soon.  But what things can I do?  Here are some of my dumb idears:

1) Revive "Self Help Radio Extra"

I used to do a (mostly) monthly mix of music I was listening to - hardly ever organized around a theme - which I would call "Self Help Radio Extra."  It gave me a chance to put together music that was free of the thematic constraints of SHR & also was often skewed toward the new.  I listen to stuff all the time, & I stopped making "Self Help Radio Extra" because I could play that music on WRFL when I subbed other people's shows.*  Now that I'm not doing that anymore - should I bring back "Self Help Radio Extra"?

2) Present a "classic" Self Help Radio episode

I remove episodes of Self Help Radio from my website after a while, but of course I don't throw them away - I have copies of them.  I can feature an old, probably embarrassing episode in lieu of producing a new one.  But - embarrassing.  Yeah.  Okay.  I guess I can handle that.

3) Make a new episode, damn it!

I boasted yesterday that I could easily make a show while packing.  Of course I could.  That is, until I pack all my CDs & records.  & then.  Er.  But I could do a lot of preparation for a lot of shows & then pack everything, making sure I pack my computer last.  I could even record some of my podcast airbreaks on the road.  "Self Help Radio live from Paducah!"

Truth is, none of these seem like very good ideas.  My wife has already voted that I stop whining about this nonsense & pack my crap up.  But I do feel like the more time it takes for me to get back to Self Help Radio, the farther away the show gets in everyone's minds.  & it barely exists there already!

What a worry-wart I am.

* At WRFL, they still call them "fills."  At KVRX & KOOP they were called "subs" & I never stopped saying "subs."  I got somewhat used to saying "block show" instead of "specialty show," & could use "grant" & "underwriting" interchangeably, but I stayed with "sub" for some reason.  I was always against using "back-sell" instead of "back-announce."  I have a problem with "back-sell."  But the others I didn't have a problem with, they were just competing with nearly fifteen years of saying the same things differently.  Apologies for the geeky radio talk.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Is the name of a song by Bacharach & David.  I never heard any of the versions of that song in the 1960s - surprisingly, not even Dusty Springfield's - when I was young, but I did hear Elvis Costello's version - probably from the Live Stiffs record - & I probably didn't know it wasn't an Elvis Costello song.

That's not what I'm writing about today, though.  The song title just reflects my situation.  Without a radio show to do this week, I'm a little at sea.

Oh I know what you're thinking.  Hey Gary, aren't you moving?  Don't you have to put a bunch of things into boxes?  Like books, records, CDs?  & you don't know what to do with yourself?

It's a fair point.  I think I could do both, actually, a radio show & putting things into boxes.  But my days have been structured around my weekly radio show for so long that it's weird to not have to do it.  To want to do it.  But not have to do it.

A friend just Facebook wrote me & said something about me doing radio in L.A.  That is not in any way a done deal.  I will try to find some place to deejay there but there's as good a chance that no one will have me that I will find somewhere to be.  I actually think the odds are kind of bad - maybe 20 to 1 against me.

But also I am a pessimist.  I get that from something in my DNA.  We'll see.  We'll see!