Self Help Radio 052215: The Unhappy Show

(Original image here

Well, here's the first podcast I've done in a while - & the first time you've heard from me since my "last show on WRFL" - & frankly, it's a mess.  For one, I recorded my "airbreaks" last night while the wife was asleep, so it sounds exactly like I'm trying to keep my voice down.  For two, I had no idea how long I should make the show so it came out around ninety minutes long.  For three, as I mentioned yesterday, I didn't feel the same sense of urgency I feel when I have to have a show prepared to be on the air, so I cobbled it all together late, late, late.  Oh well, at least the music's all right.

Plus, I talk to Dr. David Fruchter about unhappiness!  & the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently also takes my call, & tells me why I'm so spiritually unhappy!  & the music - everything I played is listed below.

It's now at the Self Help Radio website.  Username/Password?  SHR/selfhelp!  I hope it's worth listening to.  It'll be good to get back on the radio where I can screw up in real time & it feels a lot better than muttering into a microphone at my desk at midnight.

Thanks for listening!

"Glad To Be Unhappy" Helen Grayco _After Midnight_
"Little Unhappy Boy" Nancy Wilson _Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley_
"I'm So Unhappy" The Uniques _Blast From The Past, Vol. 1: Rare Teenage Classics 1960-1965_
"So Unhappy" Detroit Jr. _Chicago Urban Blues_

"Unhappy Girls" The Searchers _Sugar & Spice_
"Unhappy Boy" Twinkle _Golden Lights_
"Unhappy Girl" The Doors _Strange Days_
"Unhappy Girl (demo)" The Ramones _Subterranean Jungle_
"My Poor Unhappy Son" Tochigi _Tochigi_
"Plain Unhappy" Mussolini Headkick _Themes For Violent Retribution_

"Happy To Be Unhappy" Leroy Van Dyke _Walk On By_
"Ain't Got Time To Be Unhappy" Bob Luman _10 Years (1968-1977)_
"It Was Always So Easy (To Find An Unhappy Woman)" Moe Bandy _Honky Tonk Amnesia: The Best Of Moe Bandy_
"One Big Unhappy Family" Isaac Hayes _The Isaac Hayes Movement_
"I Hope You'll Be Very Unhappy Without Me" Esther Phillips _Anthology_

"Please Don't Make Me Unhappy" The Groove Farm _Plug (The Story Of Pop So Far)_
"Not Happy" Bruce McCulloch _Shame-Based Man_
"Unhappy Song" Lloyd Cole _Love Story_
"Lips Are Unhappy" Lucky Soul _The Great Unwanted_

"Lucky & Unhappy" Air _10000 Hz Legend_
"You Don't Have To Be Unhappy" Onward Chariots _Onward Chariots_

Whither The Unhappy Show?

I am a more or less depressive person, & I've been a little unhappy that a big life change I had been planning for for months got waylaid.  It makes sense I would celebrate it/attempt to work through it with a radio show.

I usually take much of the day Thursday to work on the show - to gather all the songs that I might play, to edit my stupid skits + fake ads, to edit the interviews with my funny friends for radio airplay - & there's a sense of urgency because I have to be on the air & I need to get things done.  Frankly, I don't much like Thursdays, since there's so much work to do.  & also: I haven't had to do it for a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow's show will be a podcast & it'll be available at noon.  Well, I hope!  My brain can't get into the groove.  I've done my recordings & I've edited most of them, but obviously I'll need to put the show together & then upload it, etc.  Putting the show together means recording airbreaks, those things I normally do as the show is happening in real time.  My brain refuses to acknowledge that I under pressure to get those done as fast as the other stuff.  Right now, it's in a kind of bargaining/denial phase that's saying, "Eh, we can do them tomorrow."  Tomorrow, when the show needs to be available by noon?!?

Let's hope it doesn't come down to the wire.  I crumble like soft rock under pressure.  I will also probably turn to drink.  Or maybe crime.  Or maybe stone, which will then crumble under pressure.  Because, let's face it, if I were a mineral, I'd be a pretty soft one.

Tomorrow! Noon! Self Help Radio website!  A very unhappy show.  Because, why not?

A Fellow Programmer Makes A Kind Offer

There's a fine programmer at WRFL who goes by the name "Uncle Foddy" (tho I call him Steve, which is all right because it's his real name).  He came to the station maybe a year & a half ago, but he has had tons of radio experience. You've probably heard him as he helps out on the Percy Trout Show.  & doubtless you've heard his show Great Great Grandmusic, which goes back as far as recorded sounds go.

He's been doing the latter show this past month on the air from seven to nine a.m. on Saturdays.  When he found out that I was staying in town, he so generously offered to let me "have" the timeslot for Self Help Radio.

I of course initially declined.  I couldn't take someone else's timeslot when I had given mine up because I thought I wouldn't be here to do it!  But he was insistent.  He does a lot of work for the station's music department & he is alternating with Kenn on Mondays on the Percy Trout Show.  He felt he could easily leave his Saturday morning gig because he had so much else to do.

How could I say no to such magnanimity?  I couldn't.  I just couldn't.  I said yes.

I feel so ridiculously selfish & greedy!  But it's so kind of Steve to offer, & the powers-that-be at the station are fine with the move, so I guess it's as done a deal as I'm allowed to have these day.  I'll be visiting my mother next week so I told them I'd take over the first Saturday in June.

& there you have it: Self Help Radio returns to the Lexington airwaves in about two weeks.  I'm not making a big deal about it, though.  I've learned my lesson when it comes to making a big deal about things.

I'm Tired/It's Entirely My Fault

I decided - after doing my last-ever late night shift on WRFL last week, to do another late night fill, this morning from three to six a.m.

Long ago, I realized that, if you're going to do a radio show at three in the morning - or at four in the morning - or at two in the morning - it's best just to stay up instead of trying to get to sleep at a normal time which, in my case, is usually after midnight.

In my later adult years, I have mastered the art of "fake naps," which is to say, if I have to, I can close my eyes for a couple of hours, but I consider them fake as I derive no real benefit from them.  But those usually work best during the day - in the case of night time hours, my brain can't correctly comprehend why the hell, if we just went to bed a couple of hours ago, we have to wake up again when almost literally everyone else is asleep.  My brain will overrule any other decision, which is a bad thing if you're supposed to be at a radio station in the middle of the night.

Staying awake is the key, so yesterday I was up from early in the morning, minus a short nap-like experience in the afternoon, until around the same time this morning, when I returned home from playing around on the radio one more time after my previously announced last time.

What did I do when I got home?  Did I go to sleep?  Oh hell no.  I waited until my wife was awake, & then went to sleep.  I slept for around two hours, when I had to wake to feed the animals.

Realizing I was quickly resembling one of the walking dead, I went back to sleep for a couple more hours, but had to wake then to record an interview with my friend David for this week's SHR podcast.  (Spoiler alert: he's hella funny!)

Back to sleep I went a little after that, but was wakened by the wife coming home from work.  I've been up since then - hell, I made dinner & went for a dogwalk!

All told, I slept around six hours today.  Which isn't that unusual for me, unless you consider that it's been maybe eight total hours of sleep in a thirty-eight hour period.  That's no healthy.  I'm tired!  But it's all my fault.

I had something important to tell you today.  But.  It'll have to wait until tomorrow.

It Rains Every Day

It seems like since we decided to stay (in Lexington) it rains every day.

Not like the rains in my home turf (in Dallas) which have carried house & families away.

But like the rains in swampy climes, as when, as a child, I spent the summer in Albany, Georgia.

I sat on a friend's porch yesterday, under some kind of giant Costco gazebo, as rain poured down.

It was noon, the gazebo leaked.  The friend was more amused than irked.

At the end of the day, the world was dry, we walked the dogs, it was cool but 85% humidity.

85% humidity & I was covered in moisture like sweat.  The wife, the dogs, unaffected.

Did I mention I saw Stephin Merritt on tour in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday?

We drove there to see him, ate a nice dinner here, then saw the show.

Then we drove back.  Dead deer littered the roadside between Columbus & Cincinnati.

I think I have finally learned to spell Cincinnati properly.  It took four years.  To ns, one t.

Columbus has some kind of dying river coursing through it.  It smelled terrible.

Merritt was fabulously grumpy.  I had never heard him sing "100,000 Fireflies" before.  It was wonderful.

The wife & I walked the dogs this morning so we wouldn't have to worry about rain tonight.  There's a small chance it will rain.

& then, perhaps I spoke too soon, a week without rain.  Or I spoke too late, we'll have a week without rain.

I am not happy with the Mad Men finale.  I seem to be alone in this.

I did my last WRFL Sub Show about a week ago.  Then things changed.  I'll do my next last WRFL Sub Show Tuesday morning.