Blog-Navel-Gazing

You've been warned.

By now you're aware that I like to put barriers in my way, roadblocks, rules, restrictions.  I like to make things harder for me - at least as far as Self Help Radio is concerned.  I think it might've happened around the time Bob Dylan did his "Theme Time Radio Shows."  Not that I ever felt I was in competition with him - ha ha ha, no - but I think out of some personal sense of spite, I was like, "Oh if he's going to do a show about hair*, then I'm going to narrow my focus."

& yeah, I don't always do that - my upcoming show about faces could have thousands of songs - but I did feel like I needed to distinguish the show from all the other theme shows that exist & that pop up all the time every day.  (Do they?)

In 2008 I thought of revisiting an old theme - it's amazing that the show was only six years old at the time - when I celebrated an anniversary.  But by "revisiting," I didn't mean playing the same old show.  I didn't want to do that.  I wanted to play music I might have discovered in the intervening years.  So, for example, when I revisited my 1968 show, I didn't play anything that I played on the original show.

This week's show will probably play a few songs - maybe three - from the show about memory thirteen years ago.  But there will be a very distinct, annoying, Gary touch to it.

Which I will explain tomorrow.

Coming back to Dylan, though, I have to say: I'm skeptical that he picked all the music himself.  I mean, look at that playlist for the hair show.  Can you tell me with a straight face that you believe Bob Dylan listens to They Might Be Giants?

* Which he did in January 2007, while I covered a similar theme - & played at least one of the same songs - six months earlier.