Self Help Radio 120716: Travel

(Original image found somewhere around here.)

Travel!  Who doesn't love to travel?  Well, come to think of it, my oldest sister hated to travel.  She only got on a plane twice in her life.  She loved to stay at home.  & actually my mother hates to travel - especially since 9/11 - she imagines that every plane that goes up with explode in the sky.  All right, let me ask this again: Who doesn't love to travel who isn't a female member of my family?  Damn it, it's a rhetorical question!

I love to travel, & I don't get to travel as much as I want, since we have eight animals in the house.  The wife travels a lot for her work, & to visit her family, & I usually don't get to go, since I have to watch the eight animals in the house.  My cats don't like to travel, actually - the trip from Lexington to Fort Worth was pretty unpleasant for them.  The dogs, however, love to travel - I wish I could drive everywhere & take them with us.

None of this has anything to do with this week's show except that the show was about travel.  A celebration!  A consternation!  In addition to the songs I played (which are below), I talked to a beleaguered travel agent, to a libertarian who made it his life's work to take down travel agents, & to my spiritual mentor, who blew my mind with a philosophical perspective on travel.  Also, I took a phone call from a couple of traveling musicians down in New Orleans.  It was as hastily assembled, over-packed, & hectic as your average long journey!

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website.  Have a listen: it's like taking a trip, without all that traveling & having great times & enjoying yourself!

(part one)

"Traveling Solves Everything" Violent Femmes _We Can Do Anything_
"Lonesome Traveller" Marianne Faithfull _Come My Way_
"Weekend Travel" Winter Vacation _Hit Music Only_

"Travelling Man" The Woodentops _Giant_
"Travelin' Man" Psychic Ills _Hazed Dream_
"A Travelin' Man" The New Christy Minstrels _Ramblin'_
"Hot Travel Tips" Todd Barry _Super Crazy_
"Have Love Will Travel" The Sonics _Here Are The Sonics!!!_

"Travel Agent Man" The Sound Apparatus _Garageaholic! Psychedelic! Outsider Music!_
"Travel Agent" Monty Python _Monty Python's Previous Record_
"Travelin' Blues" T-Bone Walker _The Original Source_
"Hard Road To Travel" Jimmy Cliff _Jimmy Cliff_

"Red Travelin' Socks" Malcolm Middleton _Waxing Gibbous_

(part two)

"Traveling Alone" The Mekons _Existentialism_
"Hard Travelin'" Woody Guthrie _Selections From The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection_
"Travelin' On" Simon Bonney _Everyman_

"Have Blues, Will Travel" Eddie Noack _The 'D' Singles Collection, Vol. 1_
"Travelin' Mood" Wee Willie Wayne _Crescent City Soul: The Sound Of New Orleans 1947-1974_
"Air Travel" Chris Farlowe _The Mod Scene_
"International Travel" Lewis Black _Rules Of Enragement_
"Travelogue" Glo-Worm _Glimmer_

"I Believe In Travellin' Light" Belle & Sebastian _I'm A Cuckoo_
"Travelling Light" Lloyd Cole _Antidepressant_
"Travellin' Light" Peter Case _The Man With The Blue Postmodern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar_
"Traveling Light" Leonard Cohen _You Want It Darker_

"Why Do The Wrong People Travel?" Noel Coward _Noel Coward Sings Sail Away & Other Coward Rarities

Whither Travel?

(I found this image here.)

This week's Self Help Radio knows that December is the month of travel, whether it's a far away trip to reunite with friends & family or just over the river & through the woods to grandmother's house!  It therefore celebrates this holiday migration to & fro with a show all about travel.

Not only is there the musical equivalent of Travel Scrabble, whatever that means, but also the show will contain an interview with an endangered travel agent, & with a person who fought to destroy travel agents, & with my spiritual mentor the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently, who's well-traveled, at least on the astral planes.  Also, how do you spell the word "traveled"?  Is it "travelled" or "traveled"?  Is it the same with "travelling" & "traveling"?  My spell-check says no!  My heart says yes!

A show about travel for travelers (travellers?) of all kinds, tonight on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington, online at Lexington Community Radio dot org.  9-11pm Lexington time, 8-10pm Fort Worth time, check your travel watches for other time zone times.

They say travel broadens the mind, but does a show about travel do that?  Listen to find out!

Preface To Travel: Staying At Home & Watching Things I Like

There are people I know who enjoy the Youtube for watching people play video games.  Others enjoy the watching of people talking about their lives, being sassy, stuff like that.  Others will enjoy comedic bits made by people who hope one day to be comedians.  I guess I like the latter, too, but really only one specific one, which is CinemaSins.  I must be a masochist, because I really enjoy watching the videos of movies that I enjoy.

Or maybe I think they're funny?  Anyway, if you have a hankering & the time - my wife points out that some of their videos are just 1/6 or 1/8 the actual runtime of the movie - just pick a movie you've seen & watch them tally the "sins" they find in the film.  It's very entertaining.

For me, at least.  For others, too, I presume.  But I just made my wife watch three of them in a row, so you know I enjoy them.

Radio Free America

No, this is not the soon-to-be-needed rallying cry for real, factual information after the Trump Administration bans the news media.  This is about radio.

Even though I archive all my recent shows on the Self Help Radio website, my current station, WLXU, & my former station, WRFL, have signed up for accounts at Radio Free America, where you can listen to other (probably better) shows than mine on those station archived for up to two weeks.  (You'll need to create an account, & it's not the most navigable set-up.)  (But it's a chance to listen to shows when you miss them live!)

Pretty exciting, yes?  Let's hope all the deejays at the stations sign up!

Worst Worthwhile Wind

The neighbors noticed, now the blinds are closed.  Unclothed, he stares defiantly, then needs to turn the heater on.

On any other day he might be offended; today he felt more or less vindicated.  More or less, he thinks to himself.  Comme ci, comme ça.  An outline of tepidness, like the splashes of water around the bathmat.  But it doesn't matter.

Nevertheless, the day aches to begin, & he jams his thumb reaching for something in the medicine cabinet.  He curses - as his dad used to say - like he was cursed.  There was nothing to do but wiggle it helplessly, as if the pain could be complained away.  Then the phone rang.

Bad news travels fast, faster still on a beamed satellite stream.  He wasn't ready for the news, now he's unsteady, sitting on the edge of the bath, bathed in sweat.  Was it a death in the family, or worse, a friend?  Was it the loss of love, a job, an opportunity?

You can't spell opportunity, his dad used to say, without r-u-i-n.  His dad had fallen asleep at a traffic signal one morning, & then at his desk later that day.  That night, the cleaning crew found him dead at his desk, an unfinished game of solitaire on his computer.

Death wouldn't even let him finish a game, a co-worker had said.  Not even a new high score!

Why he had thought of his father at that moment?  He tells the story to the voice on the phone, but then stops, confused, confusing.  Such expensive silence.

He never told anyone why he broke down that day, though he did lie & say he'd broken his thumb.  Someone noticed on social media he had "checked in" to some establishment two towns over, but soon even the speculation was over, & life continued against most everyone's wishes.

When the neighbors moved away, he'd stare at the empty window, & when those nights got too lonesome, he'd stare into his own eyes, which were emptier still.