Self Help Radio 060615: Start

(Original image here.

I started doing Self Help Radio on Saturday mornings today.  How did it go?  Have you ever started something & it went swimmingly the first time?  I thought so!  Give me a break.

I'm really beat because I woke up early because I was stressing about the show because even after over twenty years of doing this I get nervous because I somehow invest my radio show with feelings about my self-esteem because probably something in my childhood because isn't that how we all are?

You can listen to the show now, later - really whenever you feel like starting down the Self Help Radio road - at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to password/username information.  It's easy to find.  But you can always ask me if you can't figure it out.  I am understanding.

The playlist is below.  The summer has started for Self Help Radio!  I am easily startled!  Or wait - am I oversharing?

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"This Could Be The Start Of Something" Ray Charles Singers _Something Special For Young Lovers_
"Stop Before You Start" Sandie Shaw _The Best Of Sandie Shaw_
"I'll Start Over" Poets In Motion _I'll Start Over_
"Starting A New Life" Van Morrison _Tupelo Honey_

"Start!" The Jam _Sound Affects_
"Just Like Starting Over" John Lennon _Double Fantasy_
"Miss The Start, Miss The End" Sparks _Indiscreet_
"Start From The Start" Nervus Rex _Nervus Rex_

"Back To The Start" Nikki Sudden _The Last Bandit: The Best Of Nikki Sudden_
"Don't Let's Start" They Might Be Giants _They Might Be Giants_
"I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" The Smiths _Strangeways, Here We Come_
"My Life Is Starting Over Again" Daniel Johnston _The Late, Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered_
"Right Back Where We Started From" The Cat's Miaow _Songs For Girls To Sing_
"Starts With A Handshake" Shirts _Street Light Shine_

"Start Again" Artisans _Why Popstars Can't Dance_
"Start Anew" Céleste _The Unheard Pleasures Of Inane - Somewhere In Europe, 1972 Vol. 1_

(part two)

"Start Again" Spearmint _A Week Away_
"This Could Be The Start Of Something Small" Airport Girl _Honey, I'm An Artist_
"Start Anew" Acid House Kings _Mondays Are Like Tuesdays & Tuesdays Are Like Wednesdays_
"Good Start" The Danny Says _Summer Bliss_

"Start" The New Year _The End Is Near_
"Start To End" Sons & Daughters _Love The Cup_
"A Shaky Start" Nothing Painted Blue _The Future Of Communications_
"The Start" The Bees _Free The Bees_

"Getting Started" Ashby _Looks Like You've Already Won_
"This Is The Start" Friends _You'll Never See That Summertime Again EP_
"The Start Of Something" Voxtrot _The Kids At The Club: An Indiepop Compilation_
"Start Again" Look See Proof _Between Here & There_

"Start New" Cloud Cult _Advice From The Happy Hippopotamus_
"The Day We Started" Afternoon Naps _Parade_

Whither Start?

I am re-starting my show.  Get it?  With a show about starting.  Starting anew.  Starting again.  It'll be on at the same time, just one day later.  How exciting is that!

Perhaps it bears mentioning that I'll also be on the air the hour before with a show playing random music.  I will play - & I'm probably the first person in Lexington to do so - the brand new Close Lobsters single - their first in two years, since they reunited after over twenty years! - & I'll play the new single by Katie Smokers Wedding Party, an awesome German indiepop band.  Plus, you know, the regular stuff I play.

That starts at 6am.  Self Help Radio starts at 7am.  As I mentioned yesterday, the live stream is probably down, so you can't listen at wrfl dot fm, but unlucky folks in Lexington can listen in real time at 88.1 fm.  I will attempt to record the show & place it on the Self Help Radio website or I will present an unreasonable facsimile.

There you have it.  What a way to re-start the show!

Preface To Start: Lowered Expectations

This morning I was on the radio for three hours.  The show went to outer space & vanished into the ether because the temporary set-up at the temporary studio doesn't have a way (that I could find*) for me to record the show.  The webstream is currently down, so I couldn't record it from home, either.  This concerns me, because I require a recording of the show to put on my website for anyone who might want to listen to my show at some other time than crazy early on Saturday mornings in the Eastern Time Zone.

I stumbled around the temporary space - marveling, truly, at the great RFL volunteers who moved a radio station lock, stock, & music library across the UK campus - & also getting the stinkeye from the wary custodial staff, who apparently work all night - which is something I sort of remember from my days at the University of Texas, except it seems to me the staff there usually went home around 3am - anyway I have lost my train of thought - let me look at this paragraph again to see what I might have wanted to say - oh yeah - I stumbled around the place looking for some way to record the show, trying not to forget that I was also programming a radio show.  Nothing.  I could find nothing.

At which point, I had a few reactions.  They were, as follows:

1) Fuck this! If I can't share my radio show, I'll only do a half-assed one**.
2) Well, I guess I can do the show, & then re-record it at home afterwards.
3) If I have to re-record the show, I will, but I'm going to make sure the show that airs is as good as I can do.

This happened over the course of seconds, but, irritatingly, it happened over & over all the morning long.  I had been awake, at 3am, for around twenty hours, & there was a good chance that many things that were happening to me were some form of sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination.  Actually, I think I had one of those on the way home, in the car, but luckily I was at a traffic light.  I closed my eyes for a second.  The world looked different when I opened them.

Even now, after a few hours of sleep, it seems to me that I am viewing the world through a kind of murky film.  But I have seven animals who are constitutionally incapable of respecting my wishes.  So I slept what little they'd let me.  I wish I never gave up caffeine!

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  So - here's what looks like will happen Saturday morning:

1) I'll be on the air from 6am to 9am.  6am to 7am will be a freeform show.  I will revive my old show Sugar Substitute for the summer.
2) Self Help Radio will be on the air from 7am to 9am.  There's a very good chance the internet stream will be down, so I will just be doing the show for the Lexington community, who, I'm sure, wake up on Saturdays around 9am.  Damn it!
3) If I can't find another way to record it, I'll re-record my airbreaks for you.  So it'll be as shabby as a podcast, but will more or less be the same show that aired that very morning.

Sound good?  No?  Sound tolerable?  No?

I know!

* It might have had one, but never underestimate how dumb I am.  I'll ask before Saturday.
** Well, more half-assed than usual.

What Does WRFL Stand For?

Look at this:

In Australia, WRFL stands for "Western Region Football League."  & of course, it's not American football, it's Australian Rules Football.  The league's website is here.

How did I come to discover this?  View the crooked path I took to write today's dumb blog entry:

--> You may have heard WRFL has moved!  This is true!  The Student Center where the station has lived since its exciting birth over two decades ago is being renovated.  That meant everything had to be packed up & carried elsewhere!

--> To my shame, I didn't help with the move at all.

--> In my defense, while WRFL folk were putting things in boxes, so was I - my things, to be moved all the way to California.

--> Jesus, Gary, can't you just let it go?

--> Sorry.

--> The station moved from the corner of the Student Center to the basement of the White Hall Classroom Building.

--> The White Hall Classroom Building, says the UK web site, was built in 1969.  & boy!  Does it look like it.  See:

--> WRFL is now in the basement, next to the Post Office.  We have no windows, so we can't even see bad public art.

--> But, you know where we are now.  If you wanna stop by.

--> What does this have to do with Australian football?

--> I'm getting to that!

--> I wanted to mention that I will be on the air from 3-6 am tomorrow morning just playing songs & stuff, & I thought, "Hey! I'll announce it & somehow tie it in with you know the move."  Since it'll be my first time in the "temporary space."

--> So I Googled WRFL in Google image search to see if there were any pictures of the outside of the station at the Student Center so I could place such a photo side-by-side with a picture (like the one above) on this blog page.

--> The Western Region Football League banner came first.

--> Mind blown.

--> Anyway.  I'll be on the radio early Thursday morning.  In case, you know.

New Intro Time Again Again Again!

Every year - around this time - I make a new intro for the show.  Normally, I do it in May.  That's when the new season starts at KOOP, & it's when the summer semester starts at WRFL.  However, as you might recall, I thought I would be traveling in May, to (sigh) the west coast.  So I thought I'd wait until my first episode out there.

But!  As you know!  I'll be on WRFL this summer starting on Saturday, so I had to make a new intro.  & so I did.  Here's the intro you'll hear on Saturday morning around 7am:

The Self Help Radio 2015-2016 Intro!

&, of course, here are the intros from shows of self help past:

You can listen to the 2002 intro (my first!) here.

You can listen to the 2003 intro here.

You can listen to the 2005 intro here.

You can listen to the 2006 intro here.

You can listen to the 2007 intro here.

You can listen to the 2008 intro here.

You can listen to the 2009 intro here.

You can listen to the 2010 intro here.

You can listen to the 2011 intro here.

You can listen to the 2012 intro here.

You can listen to the 2013 intro here.

And this is the intro from the past year.

I hope you like the new one!

Last Monday Blog Entry?

Yes, last Monday blog entry.  At least for a while.  Who knows?

But why?

I'm starting a new Self Help Radio experience, which will happen now on Saturdays.

I will write five blog posts a week, per my doctor's orders*.  Since I will most probably be posting my show on Saturday afternoons, I will be posting on Saturday.  I don't post on Saturday.  Usually I don't get out of bed on Saturday.  Now I have to.  Whose fault is that?  Mine.  Shut up.

Will Self Help Radio stay on Saturdays?  Look, I don't know, I'm just glad the radio station has kindly taken me back.  If the RFL powers-that-be thought I should do SHR on Tuesdays between four & four-fifteen a.m., I'd be a grateful fuck.

We went to Dallas this past week, the wife, the hounds, & I.  The wife & I (the hounds couldn't care less) talked about the alternate reality version of us, who were settling in to living in Los Angeles.  Actually, in that alternate universe, she would be traveling back to Lexington, & I'd be living the bachelor's life in Los Angeles, which is famously known as "Bachelor City"**.

Instead, I am sitting here, writing to you, boringly discussing rearranging my schedule.  We should talk about something else.  Jeez, didn't Game Of Thrones kill last night?  Holy crap.

Okay, I have written enough, according to my doctor.  I am working on my new intro, which will premiere Saturday.  But wait!  It may premiere tomorrow, too!  We'll see.

* My doctor is a weirdo.

** I think.