The Gary Files # 22: Gary Condit

(This image is from his Wikipedia page.)

An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself.  This is the twenty-second of a series!

Gary Condit is, according to the Wikipedia, "a former politician & member of the Democratic Party who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003."  The article continues, "Condit gained significant national attention for an extramarital affair with intern Chandra Levy, which was exposed after Levy's disappearance in May 2001."

When did you first become aware of him?  Around the time the rest of the country did, when he was suspected to be Levy's murderer.

Did you think he was guilty?  I did.  But so did everyone else.  Except maybe the police.

Did you follow the case closely?  No.  I am constitutionally unable to pay much attention to scandals that the media loves to cover.  I barely read anything about the OJ Simpson trial when it was happening, & I can't watch that new television drama about it.

Do you remember when he was vindicated?  I think so.  Apparently some guy who had killed two women in the same area turned out to be the killer.

His lawyer said, "It's a complete vindication but that comes a little late. Who gives him his career back?"?  It's hard to feel sorry for him, though.

Really?  It seems to me - this is just my opinion - that he chose to protect himself rather than be forthcoming when Levy went missing.  While being candid about the affair, etc., might not have helped Levy, it still showed that he decided to protect his career & personal life over the vanished woman.

For someone who didn't pay attention to the whole affair, you seem to have strong opinions about it.  Snap judgments are a way of life.

Was his name really Gary?  Gary Adrian Condit, yes.

Do you know why he was named Gary?  He was born in 1948.  You figure it out.

Do you know whatever happened to him?  He lost reelection after the affair, even though he was never charged.  Wikipedia says, "After his departure from office, Condit moved to Arizona & operated an ice cream store franchise."

It's weird to think that that's what someone does after being in the US House Of Representatives!

Self Help Radio 022316: You Will Never

(Original image here.)

You will never?  I will never!  At least I was never going to.  Now I always might.  You say I shouldn't ever.  What if I sometimes may?  Could you then often?  For now I know I usually can.

What an absurd show.  Luckily I had cool guests & the music was great.  & Michael Ian Black retweeted me on the Twitter!  (I got 125 likes - the most I've ever gotten for anything on Twitter - have a look!)  That had nothing to do with the show, though it did discombobulate me for a time.

The show is now where all my radio shows go to die.  There will be a username & password required, but that information is on the same page.  Don't despair!  The show is in two parts, the two parts have the songs in theme as noted below!

Will you ever? No, you never will.  I knew it!

(part one)

"You'll Never Be Alone" The Books _Music For A French Elevator & Other Short Format Oddities By The Books_
"You'll Never Get Away" Teresa Brewer & Don Cornell _Music! Music! Music! The Best Of Teresa Brewer_
"You'll Never Get To Heaven" Bill Morrissey _The Essential Collection_

"You'll Never Come Back" Buck Griffin _Let's Elope Baby_
"You'll Never Change Me" Lonnie Allen _Born Bad, Volume Five_
"You'll Never Live Before Your Time" The Wind _Guest Of The Staphs_
"The Man You'll Never Be" Momus _JoeMus_

"You'll Never Be Sorry" Gerald Sims _You Better Believe It! Vol.1_
"You'll Never Be A Man" Elvis Costello & The Attractions _Trust_
"You'll Never Never Know" Dislocation Dance _Music Music Music/Slip That Disc!_
"You'll Never See That Summertime Again" Friends _Roads Leading Everywhere_

"You Will Never Be No Good" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Rattlesnakes_
"You'll Never Know (My Love)" Edwyn Collins _Home Again_

(part two)

"You'll Never Walk Alone" Elvis Presley _The Complete Single Collection_
"You'll Never Leave Him" The Isley Brothers _The Isley Brothers Story, Vol. 1: Rockin' Soul (1959-68)_
"You'll Never Make The Grade" Eddie Parker & Sunlovers _The Northern Soul Of L.A., Vol. 1_

"You'll Never Leave Cirencester" The Casswells _The Casswells_
"You'll Never Be That Young Again" Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes _Cabinet Of Curiosities_
"You'll Never Be A Star" Shy Camp _You'll Never Be A Star_
"You Will Never Learn To Play The Cello" Ad Frank _The World's Best Ex-Boyfriend_

"You'll Never Find Brian Here" Fischer-Z _ Red Skies Over Paradise_
"You'll Never Do It Baby" Lyres _Lyres Lyres_
"You'll Never Get That Guy" The Manhattan Love Suicides _Burnt Out Landscapes_
"(You'll Never Be) So Wrong" Bass Drum Of Death _Bass Drum Of Death_

"You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" Lou Rawls _All Things In Time_

Whither You Will Never?

(Original image here.)

You know how you do this radio show, right?  You've tasked yourself for the last thirteen or so years with exploring a different theme or topic each week?  Furthermore, you've snobbishly decided you probably won't do shows with easy topics like "cars" or "dancing" or any of the other themes that most other topic-based shows (like this one) tend to do?  Right?

What do you do, then, to make your show somehow different than those?  Do you notice, when you're listening to music, when there appear to be recurring imagery, phrases, & the like?  Sure you do!  & doesn't that sometimes lead to some really awkward themes?  Of course it does!

That's why this week's show has the theme "you will never."  It seemed like, at some point in the past, I noticed there were lots of songs I was listening to that kept using the phrase "you will never," mostly contracted to "you'll never."  In a weak moment, I thought to myself, "Hey!  That would make a good show!"  In a weaker moment, I thought, "Hey!  I'll do that show!"

Which means "you will never" is this week's theme.  Oh no!  Oh yes.  It's on from 4-6pm today on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, online at wrfl dot fm.  I can't promise anything, but if you've suffered through one episode of Self Help Radio before, this'll probably be about the same experience.

But again, no promises!  You'll never hear those sorts of promises from me.

Preface To You Will Never: I Will Never Know How To Write About Shows With Themes Like These

This is a true story: I used to be on several mailing lists, like those that existed in the early days of the Internet, or maybe the middle-aged days of the Internet, as I have no idea how old the internet really is.

(According to this site, the Internet is 8,967 days old; Google answered the questions "How old is the Internet?" with a report from 2014 which said, "The World Wide Web is 25 years old & this year the Internet is 45 years old. Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989.")

Okay, so I was involved in the Internet in its single-digit years.  In those days, I signed up for a million mailing lists for a million different things I was interested in, & soon I discovered that most people who are interested in things are so interested in them that they are not at all interested in criticism about the things they're interested in.  So it became in my best interest to leave most of these mailing lists, because soon enough I was being called a hater before I even knew there was such a thing as a hater.

(On one band mailing list, for example, I was ganged up on because I didn't like the new solo album of the band's lead singer.  When I mentioned I liked the band's second record best of all, I was not only told that I didn't understand the singer at all, but also that a couple of the critics hadn't yet gotten around to listening to the first two records, so I had ruined it for them.  It was quite confusing.)

There were a couple of mailing lists I did stay on for a time, although currently I am just on my radio station's mailing list, which is mostly utilitarian.  Anyway, on those old mailing lists, I would announce, like I do here, & on the Facebook, & on the Twitter, when I have shows, & I would mention the show's theme.  At some point, I started doing themes like the one I'm doing this week, which consisted of a phrase or phrases that recur in songs.

(Interrupting here to note that I once had a somewhat friendly argument with a person who did a show similar to this one who told me that such things, phrases & grammatical things, did not constitute actual "topics" for a radio show.  He was referring to the show with the theme Here I/You/He/She/It/We/They Come.  It really, really bothered him.  I agreed to disagree with him.  He agreed with himself that he was right.)

Boy this is turning out to be a long story.  On this mailing list, when I announced a show with a theme that was just a phrase that happened to be in a lot of songs, one person whom I did not really know or interact with on the mailing list sent a message in response to my email about the theme with the simple line, "Is it just me, or is Gary losing it?"

(Seriously, I've dreamed of losing it.)

It still doesn't help me when tomorrow I have to try to explain why I'm covering this theme, though.

Cradle To Grave (Episode Twelve)

After two weeks away, it's good to get back to the bipolar birth/death fun that is Cradle To Grave.  I won't pretend to be modest & say that this was an easy episode - well, the birth parts were slightly more accommodating, as I got to play a Cramps song & an X song, which was awesome - but if you listen to the second half, you'll notice that there's not a hugely famous death on February 20.  So the people being celebrated are less likely than usual to be household names.

& I love that!  Part of my philosophy of radio includes the idea that programmers should be sharing with listeners music they might not have head before.  Personally, it kind of bugs me if I play the same song more than once - & when I say more than once, I mean more than once in the time I've been doing radio.  That's the complete opposite of how radio is thought to work!  But there it is.

The show is now available, although it's not February 20 anymore, at the Self Help Radio website.  When you get there, notice the username & password information - you'll need it to get to the show.  What's in the show is below, but you'll have to listen to see exactly whose birth or death I'm make a big deal about - as with Billy Zoom & Poison Ivy, it's the name of their bands on the playlist, not their names!

Enjoy.

(birthdays)

"Besame Mucho" Oscar Aleman Y Su Orchestra _Cuban Latino Jazz 1930-1949_
"Latin Simone (¿Qué Pasa Contigo?)" Gorillaz _Gorillaz_
"Funky Butt" Charles Kynard _Killer Jazz Funk From The Mainstream Vault II_
"Ain't Misbehavin'" Leroy Jones _Props For Pops_

"Reach Out For Me" Nancy Wilson _The Look Of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection_
"Love's Enough" David Ackles _American Gothic_
"The Circle Game" Buffy Sainte-Marie _Fire & Fleet & Candlelight_
"Hi-De-Ho" Blood, Sweat, & Tears _Blood, Sweat, & Tears 3_
"Anywhere Is Everywhere" Alan Hull _Phantoms_

"Surfer's Playmate" The Fleetwoods _Hey, Beach Girls! Female Surf & Drag 1961-1966_
"Going Down" Stone Roses _The Complete Stone Roses_
"24 Hour Party People" Happy Mondays _Squirrel & G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)_
"Mama Oo Pow Pow" The Cramps _Stay Sick!_
"Blue Spark" X _Under The Big Black Sun_
"Son Of A Gun" Nirvana _Incesticide_

(death anniversaries)

"(Those Ole) Uranium Blues" Loy Clingman With Al Casey & The Arizona Hayriders _Atomic Platters_
"Stranded In The Jungle" The Cadets _Best Of Burlesque_
"Court Of Love" The Unifics _Sittin' In At The Court Of Love_
"Vibration 2.2" The Celebrated Renaissance Band _Vibration 2.2_
"Pumpkin Pie" Joe Thompson _Family Tradition_

"Soliloquy (from Carousel)" John Raitt _American Musical Theater: Shows, Songs, & Stars, Vol. 2_
"The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" Gordon Lightfoot _The Complete Greatest Hits_

"Sunny Days" Lighthouse _Sunny Days_
"I Don't Care (What They Say)" The Melroys _The Melroys_
"Drive All Night" Rachel Bissex _Between The Broken Lines_

"Lebanese Blonde" Thievery Corporation _It Takes A Thief: The Very Best Of Thievery Corporation_