I Made Mistake

So, do you remember, way back when, when I was talking about scheduling stuff for this blog?  That was so long ago.  That was like two days ago.  I think I've been either drunk or asleep for most of that time.

Well.  I am wrong.  I was wrong.  I don't start my stupid Week O'Blogging on Friday!  I start on Saturday!  I will end on Wednesday!  That's five damn days!

So ignore this last Friday.  Except for everything that did exist, for all practical purposes Friday didn't exist.  Concentrate what was Friday onto Saturday.  This Saturday.  It's like daylight savings time except you're losing a whole day.  & you will not get it back.  Not ever.

Unless my show moves again.  I may need that Friday again.  I mean, I lived through it, & so did you, but we will not speak of it again.  As far as we are concerned, it did not happen.  Not for this blog, at least.  I actually had a nice time.  Come to think of it.  I drank some beer & watched a sci-fi flick, happy in the knowledge I didn't have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning for a Saturday morning radio show.

But!  For the purposes of making sure my arbitrary schedule of posting here on this blog, the entry I posted on Friday, which is to say, anything about Friday, did not exist.

Perhaps you think I'm overreacting, & creating some kind of incident that's silly to mask an embarrassment I, as perhaps the only reader of this blog, am feeling.  That's absurd!  The plan of action I am recommending - that I am implementing! - is the only logical thing to do.  I defy you to think of something other than forced, targeted self-amnesia.

What would you want me to do?  Sheepishly apologize?  I will not!  This is not sex!

Friday I'm In Lieu

Guess what?  I haven't started working on Tuesday's show yet.  I am taking my time.  Please don't make fun of me Monday when I am freaking out.

There will be a dinner party at my place tonight.  I just went shopping.  I watched a woman who was perfectly able to bag her own groceries sit & stare at a cashier while she (the cashier) did all the work, checking the items out & then putting them in a bag, & while the line behind her got longer & longer.  I marvel at how entitled people like that idle woman feel.  When I bag my own groceries, the cashier thanks me, as does the person behind me.

By the way, who doesn't bring their own reusable bags to stores?  It's 2015.  We might be able to add another year or two at the end of the brief time this planet can sustain human life.  But you know the saying: self-important self-involved indolent pieces of entitled shit are why we can't have nice things.

This is something else I am sort of annoyed by: the stock question that cashiers ask when you get to check-out: "Did you find everything okay?"  I want to say, "Whether I did or not, this is exactly the wrong place to ask me.  If I didn't, we would hold up the line for everyone else because I wasn't smart enough to find any number of the clearly-marked employees around the store to ask for help.  In fact, you should probably say, 'If you haven't found everything you came for at this point, you're a moron & you don't deserve my help.'"

Oh man I didn't want to write about things that irk me, but I will add one more: cashiers who make conversation based on what you buy.  It's so lame.  This is I think a Trader Joe's phenomenon.  It happens there all the time.  It takes two major forms:

1) As they're checking out an item, they say, "Oh, I love this.  This is so good."

2) As they're checking out an item, they say, "Oh I've got to try this!  It looks so good."

I want to say, in the first instance, "That's interesting, I only buy this to poison the rats in my garage."  & in the second instance, "It's not.  It's awful.  But my mother-in-law's in town."

Do we need to make conversation at a checkout line?  The woman at Whole Foods today was awful cute but I'm married & also probably twenty-five years older than her, which is as much to say that she would have no interest in my aged ugly self as it would be to say that she & I would have virtually nothing in common, guaranteed.  Why waste time conversing?  What's so bad about a little silence while you do your job & I bag my own damn groceries?

Wow that got grumpy fast.  I am going to start making dinner, & also have a beer.

Reorganization Time Again

Perhaps it's well-known to anyone who well-knows me that I am of an obsessive nature.  I like a certain amount of structure in my life, & that's reflected not just in my show but also in this blog.  I especially liked doing a radio show on Friday, because I like to write on this blog (despite having virtually nothing to say) five days a week, & Fridays are a nice natural end to a workweek.

So what happens now that I am doing a show on Tuesdays?  Well, fuck.  That throws the whole week out of whack.

I wrote this when my show was suddenly on a Saturday:

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.

I was mentioning that I would no longer post something on this blog on Mondays, since I had shifted one day.  Now I've shifted three days.  So I will be writing on Mondays again.  I wrote on a Monday this week!  But not, I guess, on Wednesdays & Thursdays.

The show will be posted on Tuesdays.  I'll resume the week on Fridays.  I will write all weekend long.

It's very weird to me that I don't have to wake up early on a Friday or a Saturday.  I used to set two alarm clocks - because I usually didn't get to bed till around midnight the night before, & it takes me a while to fall asleep & I wanted to make sure I woke up - & since both clocks are on Apple products - iPhone, iPad - they would go off simultaneously.  I'd push myself out of bed, stumble to the shower, & try to wake myself up as so many Americans do by standing under hot water until I was conscious that I was standing under hot water.  (This is something that Californians might not be able to experience much longer.  Maybe someone will invent a sonic shower now?)  Then I'd let the dogs out & they'd misbehave & I'd try not to yell at them because it was five o'frickin' clock in the morning.  They'd get to go back to bed.  I'd go sit at my computer & try to get my shit together enough to get in the car, drive to the station, & do an exceptionally stupid radio show.

Now I can wake whenever on Tuesdays, as long as it isn't 3:45pm (which it won't be - I have eight animals who never let me sleep longer than 9am), & even have lunch & other things before my show.  That seems weird as fuck.  I don't even know how that's going to feel in the long run.

Ask me later.  Meanwhile - the new sequence of blog entries start tomorrow.  I'm sure you're excited.  I will try to find something interesting to write.  But.  Don't hold your breath.

Self Help Radio 071415: The Blues

(original image here

Well, here it is, the first Self Help Radio on a Tuesday afternoon.  Two hours of songs about "the blues," with most of them actually blues.  Imagine that!  I hope it served a decent transition from the previous show, Black n Blues, & my own erratic dumb show.

It's now resting at the Self Help Radio website.  If you've not noticed, there's a username & password you need to know - that's on the front page.  & all the songs I played are below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Mr. McTell Got The Blues # 1" Blind Willie McTell _Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1_
"Blowin' The Blues" Chuck Darling _Harmonica Blues 1920s & 30s_
"How Can You Have The Blues" Kansas City Kitty & Georgia Tom _Blues Connection, Vol. 1: How Long Blues_

"I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues" Louis Armstrong _Blue Skies: 45 Hits From The 30s & 40s_
"The First Time I Met The Blues" Little Brother Montgomery _When The Sun Goes Down, Vol. 2: The First Time I Met The Blues_
"Just A Good Woman Through With The Blues" Trixie Butler _Female Blues Singers, Vol. 7 G/H_
"Trouble Ain't Nothing But The Blues" Lonnie Johnson _Essential Blues Masters_
"If You Ever Had The Blues" Earl Williams _The OKeh Rhythm & Blues Story_

"Moanin' The Blues" Hank Williams _The Complete Hank Williams_
"I Dreamed The Blues" Valerie Carr with Gene Redd & His Orchestra _Rare Blues Girls From King_
"I Got The Blues For You" Al Collins & Orchestra _The Ace Blues Masters, Vol. 3: Tuff Enuff_
"Too Young For The Blues" Ella Fitzgerald _Jukebox Ella_
"Birth Of The Blues" Gordon McRae _The Best Things In Life Are Free_

"Boppin' The Blues" Carl Perkins _Original Golden Hits_
"Singing The Blues" Tommy Steele _The Best Of Tommy Steele_
"Home Of The Blues" Johnny Cash _The Essential Johnny Cash_

(part two)

"Sittin' & Cryin' The Blues" Willie Dixon _Willie's Blues_
"Livin' With The Blues" Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee _Rediscovered Blues_
"Singing The Blues" George Jones _Ragged But Right: The Starday Years Plus_

"Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues (Take 8)" Elvis Presley _Elvis At Stax_
"The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me" The Greenbriar Boys _The Best Of The Vanguard Years_
"Yonder Comes The Blues" Fred Neil _Bleecker & McDougal_
"I Chose To Sing The Blues" Ray Charles _Genius & Soul: The 50th Anniversary Collection_
"I Call It Pretty Music But the Old People Call It the Blues (Part 1)" Stevie Wonder _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 3: 1963_

"You Give Me The Blues" Lightnin' Slim _Bell Ringer_
"Singing The Blues" Jason Eddie & Centremen _Joe Meek Rarities Vol. 2: The Beat Groups Era_
"Don't Knock The Blues" TV Slim _When Girls Do It_
"Why I Sing The Blues" Betty Barney & The Pazant Brothers _Funk Soul Sisters_
"My Middle Name Is The Blues" Abner Jay _Last Ole Minstrel Man_
"Preaching The Blues" The Gun Club _Fire Of Love_

"Killing The Blues" John Prine _Pink Cadillac_

Whither The Blues?

Man, am I nervous.  In less than two hours, I'll start my new timeslot - who knows if it'll be permanent? - for the summer, four to six in the afternoon on Tuesdays.  As I've mentioned before, the timeslot was home to one of WRFL's most beloved shows, Black n Blues, which just went off the air last week.  So I am like - what could be the most awful analogy? - I'm like a person marrying someone who has just experienced the death of the love of their life.  It's crazy.  They should have just aired repeats or
something for a month.  There's no way I can live up to that show.

I'm a fool, but I'm going to try.  Sort of.  I'm going to do a show about "the blues."  Basically, if the song expounds on some aspect of the blues, it was worthy of being chosen by me.  Most, but not all, of the songs will actually be in the blues idiom.  But some won't.  & still those people had the blues!

It's on from 4 to 6 this afternoon (like I said) on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online wherever people have the blues (& that's everywhere, friend) at wrfl dot fm.

Normally I put the show on the Self Help Radio website a few hours after the show, but seeing as I'm on afternoons again - I think I'll do it tomorrow.  If you don't mind.

Sugar Substitute # 164

Well, here it is, the last Sugar Substitute for a while - since I'm now doing Self Help Radio on Tuesdays, I have one less hour, & that means, sadly, no extra sixty minutes of freeform radio.

This week, among other things, I feature a cool Beatles cover by my favorite Austin band, Luxuriator.  Fun fact!  Luxuriator technically have appeared on every episode of Sugar Substitute, since I use their song of the same name as the intro music (with dumb samples I added).  So the show is not only named after a Luxuriator song, it also features that song in a brief snippet at the beginning of the show.  I'm very glad they have never asked me for royalties.

You can find the show here on the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to the username password nonsense.  The songs I played are below.  The gratitude I have for your listening time is enormous.

See you tomorrow at 4pm!

"Piggies" Luxuriator _Piggies_
"Trespassing" Strange Names _Use Your Time Wisely_
"The Book Of Love" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs_

"Vieux Loop" The Acorn _Vieux Loup_
"High Flying Bird" Richie Havens _Mixed Bag_
"Choked Out" The Mountain Goats _Beat The Champ_
"Spyglass" The Hush Now _Sparkle Drive_
"Train In Spain" The Human Circuit _Frequent Seas_

"Private Hell" The Jam _Setting Sons_
"Staring Contest" Mates Of State _You're Going To Make It_
"Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell _You're All I Need_
"Tall Cool One" The Fabulous Wailers _The Fabulous Wailers: The Original Golden Crest Masters_
"Before The Stars" Is/Is _Shadow Days_

"The Nineteen Sixties" Baxendale _You Will Have Your Revenge_
"Octopussy" The Wedding Present _Seamonsters_
"Never Wanna See That Look Again" Christopher Owens _A New Testament_
"Firestation Towers" The Close Lobsters _Forever Until Victory_