Oh, Hey

Um, I did my last episode of Cradle To Grave yesterday, & normally I put the show up on the day after, but, you know, it's weird, it was draining, I just wanted to take a day off.

So I took the day off.  I hope you don't mind.

Self Help Radio 061416: Fog

(Original image here.)

Yes, a radio show about fog.  It occurs to me I didn't mention why I was doing a radio show about fog.  The answer is, I'm not sure.  I don't know when the idea came to me or why it came to me in the first place.  Honestly, I usually don't pay much attention.  It's like I'm in a fog much of the time.

Luckily, it was perfect weather for a foggy show, & you can find that show (& maybe even some weather) over at the Self Help Radio website.  It was two hours long, but for reasons that I don't understand, I've divided the show into two, & the music in each part (but not the chatter, nor the interviews) is listed below.

Interviews!  Yes!  I interviewed a meteorologist who likes fog, a cult leader whose organization worships fog, & my own spiritual advisor, who has help lift me out of my own personal fog.  That's in the show, too!  It's not just music.  Duh.

Geez, I can't see my hand in front of my face!

(part one)

"FOG" Richard Davies _Barbarians_
"Fog" Peppermint _Keep Your Chin Up There, Sailor_
"Fog" Kristin Hersh _Sky Motel_

"Foggy Mountain Breakdown" Flatt & Scruggs _1964-1969_
"Foggy River" Bill Monroe _Bluegrass (1959-1969)_
"Foggy Mountain Top" Hasil Adkins _The Wild Man_
"Footsteps In The Fog" Ceramic Hello _The Absence Of A Canary_

"Foggy Foggy Dew" Paddy Roberts _Songs For Gay Dogs_
"Bad Fog Of Loneliness" Neil Young _Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972_
"Shadows On A Foggy Day" Flying Machine _Flight Recorder_
"Fogbound" The Smoke _The Smoke_
"Foggy Bottom" Halo Benders _The Rebels Not In_

"Foggy Notion" Velvet Underground _Peel Slowly & See_

(part two)

"Fog Song" Antarctica Takes It! _The Penguin League_
"The Fog Of Trujillo" The Lucksmiths _Warmer Corners_
"Foggin' Up The Window" Robin Luke & Roberta Shore _Robin Luke: The Complete DOT Records Singles_

"Foggy Eyes" Beat Happening _Music To Climb The Apple Tree By_
"Foggy" BMX Bandits _Bee Stings_
"The Morning Fog" Kate Bush _Hounds Of Love_
"Feel Like Snakes Twisting Through The Fog" Liliput _Kleenex/Liliput_

"Fog Bound Pinhead" Thee Headcoats _The Kids Are All Square - This Is Hip!_
"Fog Over Frisco" Yo La Tengo _That Is Yo La Tengo_
"The Fog Rose High" Craft Spells _Idle Labor_
"A Foggy Day" Lyn Collins _Check Me Out If You Don't Know Me By Now_

"Foggy Tuesday" Saker _We Can Fly, Vol. 5_
"Kisses & Fog" Pines _All Is Fair In Love & Chickfactor: CF Mixtape 1_

Whither Fog?

(Lots of fog pictures like this one here.)

Before I moved to this part of the world, an acquaintance regaled me with stories about the epic fog that happened in the Appalachian Mountains, telling me that there were times that highway 64 was closed down because of so much fog.  It reminded me of a time when I was returning from Houston - this had to be in the 1990s - back to Austin, driving down highway 290, which was at the time basically a one-lane road, & which that night was covered in fog.  There was no light save the light from my control panel in the car, & the light from the headlights was basically stopped by a wall of white just a few feet away.  I couldn't see houses or businesses I was passing, I couldn't see streetlights.  I concentrated on the yellow lines, & I drove slowly - a car could easily come out of the fog right in front of me - or worse, someone could be driving faster than I was behind me, & ram me.  Texas drivers, like every other kind of American driver, are assholes.

Something was happening in my head, & I had turned off whatever I was listening to - or, since it was a cassette, I think it came to that point on the cassette where there was silence leading to end of the side - & suddenly it was just me, the car, the headlights, & the fog.  & I reached over & turned off the headlights.

To this day I have no idea what the fuck I was doing.  I was suddenly driving a car at around 45 miles per hour on a highway in the middle of Texas in a thick, thick fog, with no lights on.  I don't know how long I did this - probably just seconds - but I felt a pain behind my eyes & said, "Shit!"  I turned the lights back on, & changed the cassette - very carefully.

There's no explanation for what happened.  Certainly I had no death wish at the time, nor was I ever prone to daredevil thrills.  Later on I wondered if there were some kind of "fog sickness" that's just as insidious as seeing a mirage in the middle of a desert.  Or if I were just a dumbass.

Speaking of me being a dumbass, Self Help Radio is on from 4-6 today on 88.1 fm, wrfl dot fm online.  I'll have a dry ice machine in the studio!

No, no, I won't.

Preface To Fog: Cloudy Days

(This image found here.)

Actually, I'm a little freaked out by fog.  I've never even seen the movie The Fog.  I think it might really freak me out.

You probably already know this but there is a Facebook page for the show, & sometimes I link to these dumb blog posts, & yesterday's Facebook post was read by & reacted to by a lot of folks.  I'm sorry the announcement wasn't more interesting.  I'll try to really have something important to announce the next time I make a big deal about announcing something.

But here's an embarrassing story: This morning I was very, very tired, but I had to take the dogs on the daily walk.  I try to walk them every morning around eight, & usually there's no one around, but today I ran into a couple & their little girl in a park with their dog, whom I had met before, & I asked about her name.  The little girl told me, & I repeated it, & I said, "Yeah, she's really fucking cute."

The parents didn't respond but I immediately felt mortified, & my dogs were barking to play with the other dog so I skulked away without apologizing.  There isn't any excuse, it was an awful thing to do, & I have been angry at myself all day for it.  I'm not going to be neighborly anymore, & certainly not with only a couple hours sleep in me.

How I wished it had been foggy this morning!

Another Damn Announcement

(Clip art found here.)

You may recall that last year I made a couple or three "announcements" on this blog.  The first announcement was in anticipation of leaving Lexington, which was a plan that fell through, as announced a little over a month later.  God, that was humiliating.

Later on, I announced that I would be doing another radio show.  That show, called Cradle To Grave, has run for twenty-four episodes, with its twenty-fifth airing this Friday.  This announcement has nothing to do with the first announcement; instead, this "announcement" has to do with the latest announcement, as kind of a booked.  That announcement goes like this:

The twenty-fifth episode of Cradle To Grave will be the last one I do, at least for now.  If you haven't heard the show, well, you're not missing anything; but if you have, you may wonder how much work goes into it.  It turns out, a lot.  It's partially my fault.  For example, a show on KOOP radio in Austin called Graveside Service, which was an inspiration for Cradle To Grave, wisely devotes its time to musicians who have died during the week of the show, not just the day of the show.  I doubled-down, in my usual unthinking way, by focusing on both death anniversaries & birthdays.  I do a lot of research, & for artists who are not band leaders or big names, I have to spend time to discover if, for example, a notable jazz bassist has played on any records I have.  It is rather time-consuming.

& honestly I can't say I have better things to do, but I do have other projects (at least one of which I get paid for) that are taking up more & more of my time.  & I don't want to sacrifice the time it takes to do Self Help Radio, which is my baby, & a show I have the most fun doing.

Therefore.  Sigh.  To reiterate: this week's episode of Cradle To Grave will be the last one I do.  At least for now.  If in the future I find myself with the free time, I'll come to WLXU, hat in hand, on my knees, begging it please, might I have another go.  But for the present, I would like to walk away from the show doing it the way I designed it, the way I wanted to do it, & not be forced to change it just because I don't have the time for it.

As always, I hope you understand.