Oh shit! It's Saturday! I have to write in my blog!
Think think think!
I saw Trainwreck this week at my wife's favorite movie theater in Lexington (even though her Jazzercise friends say she shouldn't like it because "it's in a bad neighborhood) & very much enjoyed it. Also, we were one of only two couples in the theater at the matinee we saw, & no one got shot. That's a bad joke, I know. I stole it from a friend on Facebook. I forgot to say, at the end, "Too soon?"
It was an enjoyable movie, like I said. There were moments I couldn't stop laughing, & there were moments when I felt moved. As someone who appreciates rock & roll songs, which are, of course, mostly constructed the same & are different only with singers, melodies, & themes, I can appreciate the average romantic comedy because of the way it moves around the obligatory story pieces. In this sense, Trainwreck was an above-average romantic comedy.
What else what else what else!
I'm way behind on this week's show, so Monday should be hell for me. I am, however, going to see Ant Man tomorrow, so that should exacerbate things. I have very low expectations that I will think this is a great film. The Marvel movies I have seen recently have given me diminishing returns, & this troubles me, as comic book geek. I like Paul Rudd, but I never liked the shrinking superheroes, like the Atom. Though I guess I like the character on Arrow. But he's not shrinking yet. Oh well. Never say never.
Maybe I'll tell you what I think afterwards. Honestly, it's best to approach these sorts of things with little preconceived notions & hopes. I loved The Avengers so much that the sequel was bound to be a let down. Especially when Quicksilver in the last X-Men movie was so much more interesting than the Avengers one.
This must all be really boring. I have movies on the mind. & my opinions are worthless, generally. So ignore them. I'll think of something more interesting to talk about tomorrow.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Self Help Radio 072115: The Heavy Show
(Original image here.)
Here's yesterday's Self Help Radio, with the oddball theme "the heavy show," which, because I gave the last half-hour to a trainee, is actually thirty minutes shorter, or lighter one might say, than the average Self Help Radio show. The show probably thinks I'm calling it a fatty.
There are groovy songs, I chat with Mark Miller in Hollywood about filmdom's greatest heavies, & the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently calls in. If my voice weren't heard at various points during the show, I think it'd be a darn good radio show!
The songs I played are below. The show is over at Self Help Radio dot net. There's password info on that page; pay attention to it.
& please enjoy.
(part one)
"Heavy On My Mind" Dale Hawkins _LA, Memphis, & Tyler, Texas_
"Heavy With Me" Freddie May & The Power Plant _Victim Of Love_
"Yea! Heavy & A Bottle Of Bread" Bob Dylan & The Band _The Basement Tapes_
"Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom Boom)" Staple Singers _The Staple Swingers_
"Heavy Heavy Hangs My Heart" Vera Hamilton _Funk Soul Sisters_
"Heavy Love" David Ruffin _Who I Am_
"A Heavy Dude" Curtis Mayfield _Short Eyes_
"Them Heavy People" Kate Bush _The Kick Inside_
"Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way" Benjamin Soames _The Best Of The Sonnets_
"How Heavy The Quiet That Grew Between Your Mouth & Mine" Peggy Sue _Choir Of Echoes_
"Heavy Petal" Madison Electric _Indie Aid Abroad: A Little Help For East Timor_
(part two)
"Heavy" California Wives _Heavy_
"Heavy Heart" Jeffrey Lewis _The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane_
"Heavy Heart" Dark Dark Dark _Wild Go_
"Heavy As A Heart" Controller.Controller _X-Amounts_
"The Heavy" Relaxed Muscle _A Heavy Nite With Relaxed Muscle_
"Heavy" The Come Ons _Hip Check!_
"Heavy Lady" Wolfie _Putting It Together (B-Sides 1997-2000)_
"Heavy Atmosphere" Len Price 3 _Chinese Burn_
"Heavy Seas Of Love" Damon Albarn _Everyday Robots_
"Heavy Wave" Motorama _Poverty_
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Whither The Heavy Show?
It was a couple of months ago. I was listening to some 70s Soul. Specifically, I was listening to this record:
One track on the album that particularly charmed me is called "Heavy Love." Heavy love! Love does feel heavy, a lot of the time. That made me think, when I let my mind wander through all the songs up there, of the John Lennon Beatles song (written about Yoko) called "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."
We now use the word "heavy" as a nice way of saying "fat," but in the skinny 60s & 70s, they took one of the word's meaning - "deep" & "profound" - & made it close to slang. It came to mean serious or important - not too far removed from profound, if you ask me. Profundity sometimes implies importance.
Perhaps, I thought, this would be a good theme for my radio show. I began the task of assembling songs not about heaviness in terms of weight - although I'll probably play some of those - but heaviness that mirrors the "profound"/"important" meanings.
Self Help Radio's heavy show is on today from 4 to 5:30 pm on WRFL Lexington, 88.1 fm in town, wrfl dot fm on your computer. (The last half hour goes to my trainee, who needs the practice. My show is not so heavy it can't give up a little time every once in a while.) I'll put the show up tomorrow, if you plan on missing it.
But don't! Please listen!
(image courtesy of discogs.com)
One track on the album that particularly charmed me is called "Heavy Love." Heavy love! Love does feel heavy, a lot of the time. That made me think, when I let my mind wander through all the songs up there, of the John Lennon Beatles song (written about Yoko) called "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."
We now use the word "heavy" as a nice way of saying "fat," but in the skinny 60s & 70s, they took one of the word's meaning - "deep" & "profound" - & made it close to slang. It came to mean serious or important - not too far removed from profound, if you ask me. Profundity sometimes implies importance.
Perhaps, I thought, this would be a good theme for my radio show. I began the task of assembling songs not about heaviness in terms of weight - although I'll probably play some of those - but heaviness that mirrors the "profound"/"important" meanings.
Self Help Radio's heavy show is on today from 4 to 5:30 pm on WRFL Lexington, 88.1 fm in town, wrfl dot fm on your computer. (The last half hour goes to my trainee, who needs the practice. My show is not so heavy it can't give up a little time every once in a while.) I'll put the show up tomorrow, if you plan on missing it.
But don't! Please listen!
Monday, July 20, 2015
Preface To The Heavy Show: It Ain't Heavy, It's My Radio Show
A song I'm not going to play tomorrow is a song that I had to listen to a lot when I was a kid, because my mother loved Neil Diamond, & had a greatest hits live collection she would listen to, & that song was the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." Wikipedia has a page about the song. I'm not sure I heard the Hollies version when I was a kid. But damn did I hear sweaty, bedazzled Neil Diamond croon that song a lot.
Here's the thing. When I was a kid, I made a lot of assumptions about the way the world worked. I would make assumptions instead of asking questions much of the time. I think the idea that I had figured something out made me a little happy, a little proud. & sometimes I would blurt my assumptions out & get mocked, usually by family members, for saying something stupid.
For example: I came to conclusion at some point that all cities were bordered by railroad tracks. It seemed so perfect to think that you knew you were in one place because you drove or walked over train tracks. (It would have been better to have actual drawn borders, but this was good, too.) One time, in the car with one or more of my siblings, we passed over train tracks - I can tell you exactly which ones they were, too: the ones crossing Kingsley Road right before Kingsley intersected with Garland Road in Garland, Texas - & I said, happily, "We're in another city!" I was derided immediately by my family members. At the very least, I'm sure I was told I was stupid & to shut up.
The effect of this was not to make me ask more questions, but to make me not express my assumptions out loud. (Thanks, siblings!) Many questions I had didn't even make it to assumptions, actually. Many of them just stayed unanswered. I guess they were mysteries, but they didn't really bug me too much. Most of the time.
However, I could never figure out what the hell the line "he ain't heavy, he's my brother" was supposed to mean. I'm completely serious. What sort of parallel structure of choices existed in the universe where the two options were "heavy" & "brother"? I tried to make sense of it as a kid. But - & this is crucial - I didn't try to make sense of it by listening to the damn song.
You see, if I had just listened to the lyrics, I would have heard Neil Diamond croon melodramatically: "I'm strong, strong enough to carry him. He ain't heavy, he's my brother."
Honestly, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. An adjectival description of someone doesn't negate their relation to you, after all. "She ain't diabetic, she's my sister." "He ain't a little feverish, he's my father." "She ain't waifish, she's my second cousin, twice removed."
But the song does explain the "heavy" part, which baffled me.
Again, I didn't spend a whole lot of time pondering this. I was a kid, I had Star Wars things to daydream about. & I know why I couldn't much pay attention to the song itself - the sweaty Neil Diamond in the bejeweled Evel Knievel outfit on the cover of the live album (which is how I remember it) made me very uncomfortable. Elvis Presley in the same period frightened me a little, too. They should've been jumping semi-trucks on their motorcycle instead of singing!
Anyway, I won't play that song tomorrow. & I'll tell you why, tomorrow.
Here's the thing. When I was a kid, I made a lot of assumptions about the way the world worked. I would make assumptions instead of asking questions much of the time. I think the idea that I had figured something out made me a little happy, a little proud. & sometimes I would blurt my assumptions out & get mocked, usually by family members, for saying something stupid.
For example: I came to conclusion at some point that all cities were bordered by railroad tracks. It seemed so perfect to think that you knew you were in one place because you drove or walked over train tracks. (It would have been better to have actual drawn borders, but this was good, too.) One time, in the car with one or more of my siblings, we passed over train tracks - I can tell you exactly which ones they were, too: the ones crossing Kingsley Road right before Kingsley intersected with Garland Road in Garland, Texas - & I said, happily, "We're in another city!" I was derided immediately by my family members. At the very least, I'm sure I was told I was stupid & to shut up.
The effect of this was not to make me ask more questions, but to make me not express my assumptions out loud. (Thanks, siblings!) Many questions I had didn't even make it to assumptions, actually. Many of them just stayed unanswered. I guess they were mysteries, but they didn't really bug me too much. Most of the time.
However, I could never figure out what the hell the line "he ain't heavy, he's my brother" was supposed to mean. I'm completely serious. What sort of parallel structure of choices existed in the universe where the two options were "heavy" & "brother"? I tried to make sense of it as a kid. But - & this is crucial - I didn't try to make sense of it by listening to the damn song.
You see, if I had just listened to the lyrics, I would have heard Neil Diamond croon melodramatically: "I'm strong, strong enough to carry him. He ain't heavy, he's my brother."
Honestly, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. An adjectival description of someone doesn't negate their relation to you, after all. "She ain't diabetic, she's my sister." "He ain't a little feverish, he's my father." "She ain't waifish, she's my second cousin, twice removed."
But the song does explain the "heavy" part, which baffled me.
Again, I didn't spend a whole lot of time pondering this. I was a kid, I had Star Wars things to daydream about. & I know why I couldn't much pay attention to the song itself - the sweaty Neil Diamond in the bejeweled Evel Knievel outfit on the cover of the live album (which is how I remember it) made me very uncomfortable. Elvis Presley in the same period frightened me a little, too. They should've been jumping semi-trucks on their motorcycle instead of singing!
Anyway, I won't play that song tomorrow. & I'll tell you why, tomorrow.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Sunday Gone
Bear with me, please, as I get a handle on this "blogging during the weekend" process. It's not something I usually do. Usually, my show ends on Saturday mornings, so I spend the weekend decompressing & sometimes recording my fake interviews with my buddies for the show. But no! I have a show in less than 48 hours so I need to get cracking!
But instead, what I did today, which is something I do more & more as I get older & older, is napped. I napped for like three hours today. I napped with a little chihuahua attached to me like a weird growth, I napped & didn't remember any of my dreams which seemed somewhat important when I was waking up, I napped while a hot & humid Lexington afternoon happened without me.
I did nap after I mowed the lawn. Most of the lawn. Most of the backyard, actually. When I looked on my phone - & I was sweating so much there was more moisture outside my body than inside - it said, "92 degrees. Feels like 108 degrees. You moron." At that point, I threw in the towel, which was wet anyway from mopping up my interminable sweat.
Maybe I deserved my nap. My wife certainly didn't think so. She rolled her eyes at me, made me put sunscreen on her, & finished the job. I sat & let me body sweat for another forty-five minutes until I was properly desiccated, then I napped. I napped!
It might have actually been appropriate to write in this blog at that point. But instead, I napped.
Since I slept so much, I won't be able to go to sleep tonight till late. Damn it.
But instead, what I did today, which is something I do more & more as I get older & older, is napped. I napped for like three hours today. I napped with a little chihuahua attached to me like a weird growth, I napped & didn't remember any of my dreams which seemed somewhat important when I was waking up, I napped while a hot & humid Lexington afternoon happened without me.
I did nap after I mowed the lawn. Most of the lawn. Most of the backyard, actually. When I looked on my phone - & I was sweating so much there was more moisture outside my body than inside - it said, "92 degrees. Feels like 108 degrees. You moron." At that point, I threw in the towel, which was wet anyway from mopping up my interminable sweat.
Maybe I deserved my nap. My wife certainly didn't think so. She rolled her eyes at me, made me put sunscreen on her, & finished the job. I sat & let me body sweat for another forty-five minutes until I was properly desiccated, then I napped. I napped!
It might have actually been appropriate to write in this blog at that point. But instead, I napped.
Since I slept so much, I won't be able to go to sleep tonight till late. Damn it.