Cradle To Grave Tonight!/Cradle To Grave News!

Here's a reminder that my other radio show, Cradle To Grave, is on tonight from 7-9pm on 95.7 fm WLXL + also too online at the same time at the WLXL website.  I hope you'll listen - birthdays this week include Paul Robeson, Mance Lipscomb, Carl Perkins, & Tom Lehrer, while folks who died on this day include Yank Rachel, Brook Benton, Phil Ochs, & Thomas Dinger - because it'll be the last time you'll hear the show on a Saturday night.

What's this?  Is it over?  Is it at long last finally over?

Well, no.  I mean, yes, it won't be on Saturdays any more, but it will move to a new time this next week, Fridays from noon to 2.

This is exciting for me mainly because it means I'll get to do the show live.  I don't mind prerecording - I've done it before when Self Help Radio is in-between radio stations - but this show took a lot of prep, & it was starting to wear me out.  Now I can do radio the way radio is supposed to be radio.

There will doubtless be another announcement here - & of course on the Twitter & the Facebook too - when the time comes.  In the interim:

Listen to the show tonight, damn it!  7-9pm!

Self Help Radio 040516: Taking Sides

(Original image here.)

Forced to choose sides, the cheese stands alone!  That's the first line of action-packed young adult novel I never finished writing.  In fact, I never started writing it.  I just have that beginning line.  Forced to choose sides, the cheese stands alone!  It's my own "It was a dark & stormy night."

That has only a tangential connection to this week's show, which is about taking sides.  Is "taking a side" the same as "choosing a side"?  Online idiom dictionaries suggest there's a difference.  To take someone's side is "to agree with or support someone," while choosing sides is "to select from a group to be on opposing sides for a debate, fight, or game."  These are specific, however.  I think I can take the side of a person, or a group of people, or a supernatural entity.  I can also choose the side of these things.  Therefore I would say the only difference is emphasis - taking a side seems more forceful, impetuous; choosing a side seems more deliberate & thoughtful.

But what the hell do I know?

The show is available at the Self Help Radio website.  In case you didn't know, there's a password requirement, but that info in on the page.  The show is in two parts, one following the other, so it's not like they're two sides competing with one another.  What's in each side - er, I mean, part - below.

Remember: if you're on Self Help Radio's side, Self Help Radio is on your side!

(part one)

"I'm On Your Side" The Frugal Sound _Ripples Vol. 3: The Autumn Almanac (Soft Rock & Folk Baroque Sounds Of The UK)_
"I'm On Your Side" Fosca _Diary Of An Antibody_
"I'm On Your Side" You Say France & I Whistle _Angry Men_

"Time Is On My Side" Wilson Pickett _The Wicked Pickett_
"Time Is On Our Side" Hot Rain _The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Vol. 1_
"Time Is Never On Our Side" Laura Watling _Early Morning Walk_
"Time Is On Your Side" Earth, Wind & Fire _The Eternal Dance_

"Hope Is Still On Your Side" The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir _...And The Horse You Rode In On_
"History's On Your Side" Shy Camp _History's On Your Side_
"God Is On My Side" Hefner _Breaking God's Heart_
"With God On Our Side" The Neville Brothers _How Many Roads (Black America Sings Bob Dylan)_

"On My Side" Mysteries Of Life _Keep A Secret_
"On Your Side" Brakes _The Beatific Visions_

(part two)

"On Your Side" The Radio Dept. _Passive Aggressive (Singles 2002-2010)_
"On Your Side" The Shondes _The Garden_
"Three Cheers For Our Side" Orange Juice _You Can't Hide Your Love Forever_

"Which Side Are You On?" The Almanac Singers _Songs For Political Action: Folk Music, Topical Songs & The American Left 1935-1954: The Almanac Singers, March 1941-July 1941_
"Which Side Are You On?" Billy Bragg _Brewing Up With Billy Bragg_
"Whose Side Are You On?" Grant McLennan _Fireboy_
"Which Side" Red Lorry Yellow Lorry _Paint Your Wagon_

"You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side" Morrissey _Your Arsenal_
"Your Side" Fear Of Men _Early Fragments_
"Shot By Both Sides" Magazine _Real Life_
"Take My Side" Will Butler _Policy_

"Down By The River" Neil Young _Live At The Cellar Door_

Whither Taking Sides?

(I found this image here.)

This is a true story: at some point during my time at KOOP radio, there was a call for volunteers to submit some art & copy for the upcoming Membership Drive.  (We are WRFL are sooooo lucky we don't have to do pledge drives!)  I drew a picture - very rough, I'm not a great artist - with two panels:  one had a sweet little girl lying in front of a radio labeled "KOOP," a huge smile on her face, a heart emanating from her to show how happy she was; the other had a giant monster radio with its mouth open, shoveling money into its gaping maw - it was labeled "corporate radio."  The text at the bottom said "KOOP Membership Drive - Choose Sides!"

The station manager at the time - who openly didn't like me, so it was always extremely awkward talking to her - asked me to come to her office & sat me down, to reject the idea.  "It's so provocative," is the only comment she made about my submission.  She chose instead a perfectly nice, but decidedly more neutral, piece made entirely of clip-art.

Why in the world am I thinking about this?  Because of today's theme, silly!  I initially just wanted the show to be about songs with "my side" or "your side" in them, because of the song that gave me the idea: Neil Young's "Down By The River," which begins with the lines,

Be on my side

I'll be on your side, baby

But obviously there are more sides that yours or mine.  So the show grew from there.

Excluded from the show are songs about the actual sides of things.  No songs about being by your side, or on the sunny side of something, or even boys who may or may not have thorns in their sides.  It's really all about taking sides today.

Which is why I need to tell you that the show will be on (naturally) from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  The show won't necessarily encourage you to choose a side, but chances are, during or after the show, you'll make the decision to defect to the other side.

Preface To Taking Sides: Napping

If you want me on your side, make sure your side takes naps.  Because I love naps.  I can sleep a full, uninterrupted, delightful eight hours & still want a nap in the afternoon or early evening.  I used to not be able to take short naps - & frankly I don't think any nap shorter than an hour is worth it - but for example today I took a 75-minute long nap.  & it was great.

One of the things that I love about naps is that, for whatever reason, my brain goes straight into REM sleep.  I dream like a crazy person.  I know listening to people's dreams is super boring, so prepare to be super-bored, because here's what I dreamt about sometime between 1 & 2:15 pm this afternoon:

The dream I remember begins in the middle, it's a "driving around" dream, & I witness an accident in front of me.  I get out of my car to help (later in the dream I try to remember whether I parked the car properly or not), but already there are good citizens freeing someone who's been trapped under a crushed car.  The person is okay!  WRFL is nearby (in reality, it's nowhere near a busy road), so I go in, & I need to go to an office to talk to one of the directors.  Lots of people are there, & they're excited to talk to me, because somehow they think I am the hero of the recent car crash.  I tell them that I didn't do anything, but they try to get me to give them details.  I manage to lose them in labyrinthine hallways which of course don't exist in the station.  The director I talk to asks about my foot, because I am limping, & I figure something happened in the accident (when in reality I did hurt my left toe, & it was throbbing as I slept).

The dream changed course & I'm not sure whether there was a segue or whether I woke up (even in REM sleep, I am a light sleeper) & settled back into the dream, but suddenly:

At a dinner party at my house, one of the guests tells me she's never heard Blood On The Tracks.  I can't believe it - she has told me she's a big Dylan fan - so I go to the room in my house where I keep my CDs to let her borrow it, where I discover that my wife has rearranged the room.  In the process, all of my CDs are out of alphabetical order, & when I try to find the Dylan CD, it's not with its compatriots.  Worse yet, trying to sort the CDs makes the shelf tip over, & CDs spill onto the floor.  Grumpily, I swear to myself that I will make my wife clean it up.

Now, the dream changes again into some kind of video game thing - I am swimming across a moat toward a chameleon-like monster who may or may not be my ally - when my alarm wakes me up.  I rush to tell my wife about the cool dreams, but she's napping in the living room.  There are lots of reasons we married, & our love of naps is maybe one of those reasons.

As I've probably said before, I don't think dreams "mean" anything.  They do however keep my mind agile in a world where days can be humdrum, especially Mondays, when I have to put together a radio show, which can be fun but can also be tedious.

There was an article I once read about a dude whose rigorous timetable had him awake for eight hours at a time, & slept between those eight hours exactly four hours.  I think I might even have wanted to try that at some point (I was in college so it was impossible, since classes were scheduled all around the daytime hours).  Now when I think about that schedule, it kind of horrifies me.

You see: no naps!

Cradle To Grave, Episode Seventeen

Here is a radio show that never aired.  It was never on the radio.  It was supposed to be on the radio.  It was made to be played on the air.  Why was it not played when it would normally have been played?  I don't know.  What's more, I have no evidence to even speculate.  But I think I can say with certainty one thing: it wasn't pre-empted because of some qualitative assessment.  That is to say, the management of WLXL didn't give it a listen & say, "Oh jesus, this is terrible.  Do not under any circumstances air that program!"

If that was something that was a possibility, nothing I do would ever be allowed on the air!

No, my guess is it was an error.  All the weekend shows at WLXL are pre-recorded, & so, as happens from time-to-time, a mistake was made.  The wife was very apologetic to me last night, as if she had a hand in it; I know she was thinking of all the work I put into the show.  But I know how hard they're working at WLXL to make a radio station - it's something I can't imagine myself being able to undertake without fucking up all the time.  That there are so few mix-ups is a testimony to how seriously they're taking that great task, & I for one am in no position to do anything but help in what little way I can & to watch (& listen) with admiration.

Again, they're building a radio station from the ground up.  That's incredible.

Anyway, I knew I could put my show on my website if anyone wanted to listen.  & so I have.  It's at the regular place.  You can listen if you want.  Lots of great people celebrated & commemorated on that day.  Yesterday.  The day before.  The songs I played are below.

(birthdays)

"Novelty Blues" Jazz Wizards _Omer Simeon: The Rarest & Greatest Tracks 1929-1954_
"Jim Jam Stomp" Joe Marsala's Chicagoans _That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History (1895-1950)_
"Sometimes I'm Happy" Benny Goodman & His Orchestra _Bunny Berigan: The Pied Piper (1935-1940)_
"Beer Barrel Polka" Jim Robinson _Jim Robinson With Kid Thomas, Ernie Cagnolatti, & De De Pierce_
"That's Entertainment" Jack Buchanan, Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray, & Oscar Levant _The Band Wagon OST_

"Walkin' Home" J.T. Brown _Ham Hocks & Cornbread_
"Pepino The Italian Mouse" Lou Monte _Your Hit Parade: Golden Goofers_
"True Love Ways" Buddy Holly & The Crickets _Greatest Hits_
"A Six Pack To Go" Leon Russell _Dylan, Cash, & The Nashville Cats: A New Music City_
"Here Come The Martian Martians" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers_

"Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus" Serge Gainsbourg _Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg_
"Love Hurts" Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris _Grievous Angel_
"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" Marvin Gaye _What's Going On_
"Rock & Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This)" Handsome Boy Modeling School _So... How's Your Girl?_

(death anniversaries)

"Onion Eating Mama" Cliff Carlisle (as Bob Clifford) _Roots 'N' Blues: The Retrospective_
"Chain Gang" Sam Cooke _The Man & His Music_
"April In Paris" The Modernaires with Paula Kelly _Singin' & Swingin'_
"Harbor Lights (vocals Kenny Gardner)" Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians _Enjoy Yourself: The Hits Of Guy Lombardo_
"The Very Thought Of You" Al Bowlly with The Ray Noble Orchestra _Al Bowlly With Ray Noble 1931-1934_

"Moten Stomp" Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra _Body & Soul: 80 Years Of RCA Jazz_
"S'il Vous Plait" Miles Davis Nonet _The Complete Birth Of The Cool Sessions_
"Shank's Pranks" Bud Shank (with Shorty Rogers) _Bud Shank Quintets_
"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" The Buddy Rich Big Band _Mercy, Mercy_

"Love's Made A Fool Of You" The Esquires _The Singles... Plus_
"Send Me A Postcard" Shocking Blue _We Can Fly, Vol. 3_
"Hot Smoke & Sassafras" Bubble Puppy _A Gathering Of Promises_
"Anywhere" B.J. Baker _Anywhere_

"Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On" Edwin Starr _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol 11A: 1971_