Preface To Elephants: A Show That Wasn't

Look!  It's another damn playlist!

Above is the playlist reflecting the first time Self Help Radio did a show about elephants.  You see, eight years ago, when the show was six years old, I said to myself, "Since I'm in this for the long haul, & since I have made a promise to myself to never revisit themes, maybe I can make an excuse, & revisit themes that I've done on my anniversary shows."  & so it has been the case.

But!  If you look at the header for the playlist above, it says, "Imaginary Radio Show."  What's up with that?

You can one day sit with me in a bar & drink beer & I'll tell you the long version, but since we're on the computer together, & I'm all out of beer, I will tell you the short version here:

The radio station which aired Self Help Radio, KOOP Austin, was a very political place, with camps competing for control of its meager resources & especially its airwaves.  To get a sense, here is a web page describing a struggle that happened at the station at the end of the last century, before I came aboard.  The people whose fight is detailed in that web page, alas, lost.

At some point during my first few years at KOOP, I became involved in the more political aspects of the station, although I was at first skeptical that dirty tricks could be played on me, the goofy guy who did a silly show.  I was elected to the Community Council, the body that chose the Board of Directors.  The opposition won that election, but it was pretty obvious there were shenanigans.  I spoke about them, asked questions about them, & became a political enemy of the opposition.

My own penchant for being a big dork & saying stupid things backfired on me, & was used by them to take my show away from me.  I came back from a visit to New York to discover I was suspended "indefinitely."  I continued to volunteer - I felt obligated to do so as an elected representative of the station, but, missing my show, during that summer of 2004, I continued to make an episode of Self Help Radio a week, sharing mp3s with friends.  I made playlists of the songs I gathered & noted the show on the website as "imaginary."

The suspension didn't last for more than a couple of months, & the people who suspended me made even more egregious mistakes (not the least of which was not paying attention to the station's by-laws) & were out by the end of the year.  That's a pretty interesting tale in itself.  But - not enough beer!

Maybe the fact that they suspended me on petty grounds helped the station recognize the need for more transparency & democracy (later on, the by-laws were changed to allow direct election of Board members by the station membership, for example), & if so, it was worth it to sit out two months of radio, even if it was & has always been the thing I love to do the most.  But how would I know such things?  In the middle of it, it was pretty awful.

Now, though, the elephant show can be actual instead of imaginary.  & it's happening tomorrow night!

(By the way - on the show tomorrow, I will play only seven or eight of the songs I "played" on that first show - which is a reason to revisit themes - new stuff is always out there!)