Self Help Radio 020117: Apples

(Original image here.)

"Who would know there were so many apple songs? Wow!" - commentary on the show on Twitter.

It's probably never a good idea to do shows about food.  (This might be why I've always threatened, but never have programmed, a show about cheese fries.)  (Also, there aren't really many songs about cheese fries.)  (Which is a tragedy.)  Doing this show about apples, I craved apples.  So many apple songs, no apples in the house or in my stomach.

Yesterday I went to Costco, & thought, "I'll buy some apples!"  Except, you know, you have to buy very many of things when you're at Costco, which is fine if those things don't spoil, but there was no chance, as much as I really, really wanted apples, that I could eat 24 of them before they went bad.  Instead, I bought - this is true - these:

Packaged, pre-sliced apples.  I haven't felt so American in such a long time.  But it was the only way I could buy eight apples at Costco, although it did cost more than if I had purchased twenty-eight.

But buy them I did, & yes!  I ate an apple while I did the show.  I lied about it on air, but I did eat an apple - one that was pre-sliced for me like I was an invalid in some kind of asylum - but a delicious apple!

Actually, I think they're Fuji.  Or gala?

The show about apples - which I hope will encourage you to eat more fruits! - is now at the Self Help Radio online orchard.  Pay attention the password & username if you want to get in, but once you're in - all the apples you can eat!  The menu is below.

(part one)

"Apples" Ian Dury _Apples_
"Appleseed Alley" Po! _Little Stones_
"Apple Pickin' Song" Sarah Silverman _Songs Of The Sarah Silverman Program_

"Eat An Apple" Burbuja _Burbuja_
"The Apple Stem" Young Legs _Promise Of Winter_
"Foot Apple" Coyle & Sharpe _On The Loose_
"Little Apples" Momus _Folktronic_
"Apple Scruffs" George Harrison _All Things Must Pass_

"Apple" Jawbreaker Reunion _Haha & Then What ;)_
"Apples & Oranges" Pink Floyd _The Best Of The Pink Floyd_
"Apple Cider" Ken Nordine _Wink_
"Apple Vines" The Autocollants _Why Couldn't Things Just Stay The Same_
"Apple Pie" The Heart Throbs _Vertical Smile_

"In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree" Louis Armstrong & The Mills Brothers _Louis Armstrong & The Mills Brothers_
"Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider" The Four Knights _Jivin' & Smoothin'_

(part two)

"Apple Pie" Jon Isherwood _Circus Days, Vol. 4_
"Apple Suckling Tree" Bob Dylan & The Band _The Basement Tapes_
"The Laughing Apple" Cat Stevens _On The Road To Find Out_

"Little Green Apples" Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell _Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell_
"Blessed Wild Apple Girl" Tyrannosaurus Rex _The Definitive Tyrannosaurus Rex_
"Apple Juice" Hannibal Buress _Animal Furnace_
"Apple Of My Eye" Remember Fun _Souvenirs From Egg Records_
"Underneath The Apple Tree" Grant Hart _The Argument_

"Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)" The Modernaires _Singin' & Swingin'_
"One Bad Apple" The Osmonds _The Fame Studios Story 1961-1973_
"Poison Apple" Popup _A Time & A Place_
"She Fakes Apples" Acid House Kings _Review I (Marsh-Marigold)_

"Apples" Saturnine _Popular World_
"Apple Song" Chicklet _Indian Summer_

Whither Apples?

(This image from here.)

Why a radio show about apples?

Could it be because there have been so few episodes of Self Help Radio about fruit?  (Previously: limes, melons.)

Could it be because February is National Apple Month?  (It's not.  That's October.)

Could it be because apples are the most popular fruit in the United States? (They're not - according to this, bananas are more popular.)

Could it be because apples are the most popular fruit in the world?  (They're not - according to this, mangoes are way more popular.)

Could it because apples are just plain delicious?  (Even if you only eat them in a pie.)

It could be for all these reasons!  (Even though three of them are demonstrably not true.)

Apples are the subject of tonight's Self Help Radio airing in Lexington on 93.9 fm WLXU & streaming everywhere at lexingtoncommunityradio.org!  From 9-11 pm eastern, 8-10 pm central!

Listening to this radio show will give you the same amount of vitamins & minerals as a barrel of apples.  (That's definitely false.)

Preface To Apples: Only In Pies

Confession time: I haven't eaten an apple in ages.  I don't know why that is.  Just no apples in the house - except - uh oh - in apple pies.

& not just any apple pie - giant Costco apple pies!  These pies:

(I found this image here.)

They're pretty good.  & happily for me, vegan!

Yes, I know they sell actual apples at Costco, too - even expensively pre-sliced.  But the wife prefers grapes & pineapples if we do buy fruit.  Not apples.

Spending all day, however, listening to songs about apples, preparing for tomorrow's show, has made me crave apples.  Not enough to go actually buy some - I'll go to Costco tomorrow & decide if I need a convenient pack of seventy-two Granny Smiths - but enough to look at images on the internet & get all drooly.

By the way - the apple pies above do nothing for me right now.  I think I'd pass that sweetness up for a chance at a seventy-two pack of a Fuji or a Red Delicious.  But it might just be because I have been listening to apple songs all day long!

Know Your Apples

The show this week is about apples, so here's something to study before the show:

(I found that here.)

A Day Of Peril In A Time Of Peril

I very much sympathized with this tweet today from Morgan Murphy:

Before I comment, though, I have to wonder out loud - do you have to be of a particular orientation to like a radio show like Self Help Radio?  Does the show seem liberal or conservative?  That would be weird, right?  Except I have heard conversations about some of the shows on stations I've been at that featured country music or the blues & in those conversations it was expected that the hosts of the shows were in fact conservative.  Does that make the show also conservative?  Did the hosts of the show talk about political issues on the show?

Please understand that I think that's perfectly fine - I think deejays should be allowed to say whatever they want, including their political opinions.  (The FCC thinks so, too, as long as the programmers makes it clear that her opinion is not that of the station's.)  & frankly I'm not sure that just playing a certain genre of music is a political statement.

Having said all that, I have talked politics on Self Help Radio, usually around election time.  I haven't done any particularly political themes (though I'm sure a show with the theme "abortion" would be a real hoot) but I am not sure there are many conservatives who enjoy indie music.  I understand I could be proven wrong.

Today, though, with the protests against Trump's ban of Muslims, & the subsequent protests, I feel like I am standing on the sidelines of history, because, like Morgan Murphy above, my skill set does not include many tools for revolution.  (I responded to her tweet with something like, "I think I might be very good at being struck repeatedly by a fascist with a truncheon.")

My heart does swell at my fellow citizens taking action against Trump's unconstitutional orders.  I just feel, as a rule, mostly useless.  A lot helpless.  & of course I'm extremely pessimistic.

There's something else I want to say apropos this issue of a music-based radio show having a political slant.  I was snooping on a conversation a Facebook friend (from Kentucky) was having with another Kentuckian.  The not-friend was complaining about Ashley Judd (who, like me, is a former WRFL deejay) & her speech at last week's march.  I'm not going to remember it word-for-word, but I think you've read similar things.  It said something like, How dare this woman criticize the president she's no longer a daughter of Kentucky she's a traitor etc. etc.

This is a serious question: when did someone disagreeing with you politically make them a traitor?  That seems so weird.  It also feels very un-American.  But even if I'm not feeling judgy, I just wonder where that comes from, the absolute hatred that rises when someone doesn't agree with you on an issue or policy position.  What kind of world do people like that want?

& would they not want to listen to Self Help Radio if they knew I was some kind of liberal commie freak?

(Not that I have to worry about that - nobody listens to Self Help Radio!)