I believe it's rained more there in the past month than it did during my childhood & adolescence.
I hope everyone's safe!
Friday, May 29, 2015
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 4)
I know that doing the sort of radio show I do is an inherently (& obviously) narcissistic pastime, but boy! this week's blog offerings have been some serious navel-gazing shit. My god.
All right. If you will recall. On Monday, I proffered four excuses to explain the absence of a promised Self Help Radio podcast this Friday. I gave those excuses as:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
The truth is, I really wanted four excuses so I could fill up four days but it turns out that there were just three. Maybe two, but yesterday's, though something of a stretch, was tolerably valid. I am a bad planner. My first couple of years of Self Help Radio were haphazard affairs. But I am of the opinion I've never really gotten the show right, so I'm naturally hard on myself.
Anyway, the fourth excuse I pulled out of my ass. I never had four excuses. I plan poorly, I was going to be away a week, & I had a minor cold that was the nail in the coffin of an impossible idea.
Do you know what I've seen in Dallas that I've never really seen before? Pick-up trucks hauling dumpsters. Let me paint a picture. These are rather well-used (though not beaten-up) Ford pick-up trucks with a small trailer attached on which is an average-sized dumpster. I have seen three of these, & all of the dumpsters have been branded with the same dumpster company logo, so I assume the company has contracted out individuals with Ford trucks to move garbage receptacles around the Metroplex. One truck had the end-times slogan "Prepare To Meet God!" painted on the truck's cab window, which made me wonder if the dumpster in tow was some kind of punctuation.
It's been humid as hell here, but it's also been more rainy here than is natural, which is good, as the lakes are filled & the city can delay the inevitable talk of drought until mid-July. I've seen more family than I usually do, which has been a little exhausting, but I always eat well here. I've having Ethiopian for lunch. That means it will be a good day.
But there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast tomorrow. My excuses are lame. I'll get back on the horse next week. Promise!
No really, I promise. I do. You can trust me... Oh never mind,
All right. If you will recall. On Monday, I proffered four excuses to explain the absence of a promised Self Help Radio podcast this Friday. I gave those excuses as:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
The truth is, I really wanted four excuses so I could fill up four days but it turns out that there were just three. Maybe two, but yesterday's, though something of a stretch, was tolerably valid. I am a bad planner. My first couple of years of Self Help Radio were haphazard affairs. But I am of the opinion I've never really gotten the show right, so I'm naturally hard on myself.
Anyway, the fourth excuse I pulled out of my ass. I never had four excuses. I plan poorly, I was going to be away a week, & I had a minor cold that was the nail in the coffin of an impossible idea.
Do you know what I've seen in Dallas that I've never really seen before? Pick-up trucks hauling dumpsters. Let me paint a picture. These are rather well-used (though not beaten-up) Ford pick-up trucks with a small trailer attached on which is an average-sized dumpster. I have seen three of these, & all of the dumpsters have been branded with the same dumpster company logo, so I assume the company has contracted out individuals with Ford trucks to move garbage receptacles around the Metroplex. One truck had the end-times slogan "Prepare To Meet God!" painted on the truck's cab window, which made me wonder if the dumpster in tow was some kind of punctuation.
It's been humid as hell here, but it's also been more rainy here than is natural, which is good, as the lakes are filled & the city can delay the inevitable talk of drought until mid-July. I've seen more family than I usually do, which has been a little exhausting, but I always eat well here. I've having Ethiopian for lunch. That means it will be a good day.
But there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast tomorrow. My excuses are lame. I'll get back on the horse next week. Promise!
No really, I promise. I do. You can trust me... Oh never mind,
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 3)
Are you tired of these yet?
On Monday, I whined out four excuses why there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast this week. To remind you, they were:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
Today I will talk about excuse three.
Look. If you're me, & you've done the same radio show thing for years & years (this October it'll be THIRTEEN years), it's natural to develop a system. An average show takes weeks, sometimes months, to make, usually because they start as an idea & then slowly grow until I think they're ready to be an actual radio show.
& yeah - lots of shows never happen. I can't make them happen. They don't seem to want to happen.
& I know some of the best radio programmers grab a bunch of stuff & decide what to play the second they're on the air. I've done that before - it's thrilling! But I've found I can't do Self Help Radio that way.
Like, once I was doing a show about - oh I don't know. Let's say it was a show about lotions*. A person called & said, "I hear you're looking for songs about lotions." I responded - I didn't want to be mean - but I responded by saying, "I have plenty of songs - why would I come up to the radio station to do a show about lotions & not have two hours of songs about lotions?" The caller seemed a bit insulted anyway.
The point is: I have a system. It's designed to work over long periods of time. When it's disrupted, it just doesn't work.
Because aside from this, I don't plan well at all. I honestly thought I could gather enough songs, make a few funnies, record some airbreaks, & get it all together in less than three days. I thought this completely aware that, even if I worked on the show during all my waking hours, it was probably not enough time.
Seriously, what was I thinking? I'll beat myself up about that tomorrow.
* My friends in the excellent Austin band Luxuriator actually have a great song about lotions.
On Monday, I whined out four excuses why there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast this week. To remind you, they were:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
Today I will talk about excuse three.
Look. If you're me, & you've done the same radio show thing for years & years (this October it'll be THIRTEEN years), it's natural to develop a system. An average show takes weeks, sometimes months, to make, usually because they start as an idea & then slowly grow until I think they're ready to be an actual radio show.
& yeah - lots of shows never happen. I can't make them happen. They don't seem to want to happen.
& I know some of the best radio programmers grab a bunch of stuff & decide what to play the second they're on the air. I've done that before - it's thrilling! But I've found I can't do Self Help Radio that way.
Like, once I was doing a show about - oh I don't know. Let's say it was a show about lotions*. A person called & said, "I hear you're looking for songs about lotions." I responded - I didn't want to be mean - but I responded by saying, "I have plenty of songs - why would I come up to the radio station to do a show about lotions & not have two hours of songs about lotions?" The caller seemed a bit insulted anyway.
The point is: I have a system. It's designed to work over long periods of time. When it's disrupted, it just doesn't work.
Because aside from this, I don't plan well at all. I honestly thought I could gather enough songs, make a few funnies, record some airbreaks, & get it all together in less than three days. I thought this completely aware that, even if I worked on the show during all my waking hours, it was probably not enough time.
Seriously, what was I thinking? I'll beat myself up about that tomorrow.
* My friends in the excellent Austin band Luxuriator actually have a great song about lotions.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 2)
Yesterday I listed four excuses why there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast this week. To remind you, they were:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
Today I will explain excuse number two.
As soon as I finished Friday's show (still available at the SHR website), I set to work on the next week's show. I had already recorded an interview with David Fruchter, & I had about eighty to hundred songs I had gathered to listen to, some of which I did in fact listen to on Friday.
But I don't just work on my radio show - that would make me a duller boy than I already am. No, I oftentimes cater to the needs of my dogs. On Saturday we drove to Shaker Village to take the dogs on a nice long walk down to the Kentucky River.
Here's something that I've heard about living in Kentucky: if you don't have allergies when you get here, you'll probably have them before you leave. During the walk, I sneezed a lot. My nose ran. I began to get the sneaking suspicion that I was, in fact, the unhappy recipient of the Bluegrass State's gift of allergies. But as we made our way back to the car, after a delightful walk, I began to feel tell-tale congestion in my head. Oh no! I was getting a cold!
It made sense. Back in Texas, I always got a cold in the spring when the temperature was erratic. My body hates it when it's 50 degrees one day then 90 the next. (In Texas, that happens in the summer when it's 100 outside & 65 degrees indoors.) When we got home, I prepared myself for my personal cold remedy: take lots of sudafed-type drugs, & sleep.
I basically slept 24 hours. How could I work on a podcast during that time?
I'm better now - my cold remedy works, & I was lucky this was a mild case & I caught it at the beginning. But surely if I had planned better, I'd still be able to make a podcast, right? Right?
I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
Today I will explain excuse number two.
As soon as I finished Friday's show (still available at the SHR website), I set to work on the next week's show. I had already recorded an interview with David Fruchter, & I had about eighty to hundred songs I had gathered to listen to, some of which I did in fact listen to on Friday.
But I don't just work on my radio show - that would make me a duller boy than I already am. No, I oftentimes cater to the needs of my dogs. On Saturday we drove to Shaker Village to take the dogs on a nice long walk down to the Kentucky River.
Here's something that I've heard about living in Kentucky: if you don't have allergies when you get here, you'll probably have them before you leave. During the walk, I sneezed a lot. My nose ran. I began to get the sneaking suspicion that I was, in fact, the unhappy recipient of the Bluegrass State's gift of allergies. But as we made our way back to the car, after a delightful walk, I began to feel tell-tale congestion in my head. Oh no! I was getting a cold!
It made sense. Back in Texas, I always got a cold in the spring when the temperature was erratic. My body hates it when it's 50 degrees one day then 90 the next. (In Texas, that happens in the summer when it's 100 outside & 65 degrees indoors.) When we got home, I prepared myself for my personal cold remedy: take lots of sudafed-type drugs, & sleep.
I basically slept 24 hours. How could I work on a podcast during that time?
I'm better now - my cold remedy works, & I was lucky this was a mild case & I caught it at the beginning. But surely if I had planned better, I'd still be able to make a podcast, right? Right?
I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 1)
I am always full of excuses. But this week, I had planned to go ahead & make another Self Help Radio podcast because - why the hell not?
There are four (4) reasons why the hell not. I will explore them this week. But in the interest of not keeping you in suspense (like you care), here they are:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
Today, I will talk about excuse # 1. I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
My mother, about whom anyone who has read this blog will know I have incredibly mixed feelings, is in her mid-80s. When I lived in Austin, feeling as though it were somehow my duty as her son, I would visit my mother every couple of months. Dallas is about three hours away from Austin. I would drive up, sit for a while, perhaps take her to lunch, & then drive home. It felt exactly like a duty. It made her happy, I guess. I would get Ethiopian food from our favorite Ethiopian restaurant in town & then drive home to my hungry wife. It made her happy, I know.
Now that I live farther away from my mother, I try to make it back there once a year. She always says, "I'm glad you're coming home," but I don't really feel like it's home. It was barely home while I lived there - now that it's been decades since I've spent longer than a couple of days in Dallas, it's just another place where I stay in a motel & try to find good vegan food. It just so happens my mother lives there, which is what makes it different from Memphis or Atlanta.
The upshot is, I'd have no time during the week to do a podcast (or even a radio show) because I'll be driving to Dallas, staying in Dallas, & then heading back.
Why schedule it then? Well, my plan was to make the podcast this weekend, & then upload it on the road from wherever I am on Friday, & voila! It's like brand new!
But other things interfered. Stay tuned for updates as we have more excuses all this week!
There are four (4) reasons why the hell not. I will explore them this week. But in the interest of not keeping you in suspense (like you care), here they are:
Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking? (The self-pity excuse.)
Today, I will talk about excuse # 1. I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
My mother, about whom anyone who has read this blog will know I have incredibly mixed feelings, is in her mid-80s. When I lived in Austin, feeling as though it were somehow my duty as her son, I would visit my mother every couple of months. Dallas is about three hours away from Austin. I would drive up, sit for a while, perhaps take her to lunch, & then drive home. It felt exactly like a duty. It made her happy, I guess. I would get Ethiopian food from our favorite Ethiopian restaurant in town & then drive home to my hungry wife. It made her happy, I know.
Now that I live farther away from my mother, I try to make it back there once a year. She always says, "I'm glad you're coming home," but I don't really feel like it's home. It was barely home while I lived there - now that it's been decades since I've spent longer than a couple of days in Dallas, it's just another place where I stay in a motel & try to find good vegan food. It just so happens my mother lives there, which is what makes it different from Memphis or Atlanta.
The upshot is, I'd have no time during the week to do a podcast (or even a radio show) because I'll be driving to Dallas, staying in Dallas, & then heading back.
Why schedule it then? Well, my plan was to make the podcast this weekend, & then upload it on the road from wherever I am on Friday, & voila! It's like brand new!
But other things interfered. Stay tuned for updates as we have more excuses all this week!