Self Help Radio 030117: In The Sky

(Original image here.)

Look!  Up in the sky!  It's a bird!  It's a plane!  Oh wait, it's just radio waves.  & what's worse they're carrying that Self Help Radio show.  What a public nuisance!

Yes, Self Help Radio was in the sky last night, & luckily there were no stray dirigibles around to knock the show about.  Instead, there were lots of songs about being in the sky, there were lots of silly interviews - the same old thing, really, except with some altitude.

The show is down-to-earth again (is that what that means?) at the Self Help Radio website.  Please note username/password information.  See the songs that almost floated away below.

Or was it all just a dream of flying?

(part one)

"In The Sky" Moston & Malente _Ursadelica_
"Sitar In The Sky" Mykej _Bombay Beats_

"Riders In The Sky" Vaughn Monroe _The Best Of Vaughn Monroe_
"Ship In The Sky" Woody Guthrie _Hard Travelin' (The Asch Recordings Vol. 3)_
"Eyeballs In The Sky" Firesign Theatre _Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death_
"Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" Circulus _Mojo Presents Sgt. Pepper... With A Little Help From His Friends_

"Signal In The Sky (Let's Go)" The Apples In Stereo _The Powerpuff Girls: Heroes & Villains_
"Up In The Sky" The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience _I Like Rain: The Story Of The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience_
"Up In The Sky Sometime" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Rockin' & Romance_
"Spirit In The Sky" Norman Greenbaum _Super Hits Of The '70s - Have A Nice Day, Vol. 2_

"Dancing In The Sky" Moonbabies _Moonbabies At The Ballroom_

(part two)

"Armenia City In The Sky" The Who _The Who Sell Out_
"Flowers In The Sky" Revolving Paint Dream _CD86: 48 Tracks From The Birth Of Indie Pop_
"Castles In The Sky" Blonde On Blonde _ Circus Days Vol. 2 (UK Pop-Sike Obscurities 1967-1970)_

"Castle In The Sky" Gerri Granger _High Voltage: The Big Top Records Story_
"City In The Sky" The Staple Singers _City In The Sky_
"Stained-Glass Windows In The Sky" Felt _Poem Of The River_
"Susan's In The Sky" Bubblegum Lemonade _Doubleplusgood_

"Home In The Sky" Cat Stevens _Buddha & The Chocolate Box_
"Hairdresser In The Sky" Music Seen _The Waaaaah! CD_
"Rain In The Sky" The Delinquents _The Delinquents_
"Star Up In The Sky" Jandek _Telegraph Melts_

"Castle In The Sky (feat Jens Lekman)" Montt Mardié _Clocks/Pretender_
"Owl Cut (White Flowers In The Sky)" Elf Power _In A Cave_

Whither In The Sky?

(Image from here.)

Why a show in the sky?  How often have I been in the sky, anyway?  I'll tell you: I first got on a plane when I was six - I've probably told this story before - going to Germany with my mother.  I was very disappointed to discover there weren't angels & other celestial beings living on the clouds - the seeds of skepticism were sowed quite early in me.

The next time I got on a plane was when I was eighteen, flying quickly down to Austin for college orientation.  I remember telling my friend Joe, who accompanied me, that it was weird that people get used to flying.  He wrote a note that said, "I was the only one on the plane who knew it would crash." He wanted to be remembered as a prophet, although people might have judged him foolish for getting on the plane in the first place.

It was a few years - six, in fact - that I got in a plane again, flying to Germany again.  Since then, I've flown back & forth to Europe twice, flown all over the country, to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, & flown the longest to Australia & back.  Since I can't really sleep on planes, the longer the trip, the harder to endure.  Flying can be exhausting.

But I don't dislike flying.  My sister Pat hated it so much she didn't step on a plane until she was in her late 50s, & afterwards said she'd never do it again.  & she didn't.  I am not so fearful, but I am aware there's something quite strange in being in a metal cylinder in the sky.  Something unnatural.

The world is too big, & it's weird & sad to not want to go see as much of it as you can.  You know?

As for what's in the sky: I am someone who's always looking up into the sky.  I love that we live on a planet that has a moon.  I love the sun, I love all the stars.  I love clouds & how they create such different light situations, not to mention storms.  I love the sudden unexpected sight of a helicopter, or a kite, or birds, in an otherwise empty sky.  I love that there are things in the sky.

Also I think it's cool that we build things called skyscrapers that are like homes in the sky.  I would love to live in one of them, not for long - I will always assume I will have dogs, & I would hate to have to talk the elevator down from the millionth floor to let them out - but for a time.

Well, let's just settle for a show in the sky.  Okay, not in the sky.  About things in the sky.  But technically, since it'll be sent out in the form of radio waves, it'll be in the sky.  Most of my shows have gone into the sky.  Gee!

It's on tonight on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington & everywhere at LCR online, from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central. Don't be afraid of heights!  Listen!

Preface To In The Sky: High Time

Warning: what follows is probably of interest to nobody but the host of this radio show.

In conversation with a friend, once I told this friend that the theme of this week's show is "in the sky," this friend said to me, "Didn't you do a show about skies at some point?"

This is what I'm up against.  I know for a fact this friend doesn't really listen to my show.  In fact, this friend is only vaguely aware of my show, sometimes asking about it in passing just to be polite.  &, I might add, never impressed by the theme.

There's a show somewhat similar to mine in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, which I enjoy, even if sometimes I don't really like the themes that are covered.  For example, last week, since it came before the Oscars, the show featured Oscar-winning tunes.  Something I would never enjoy - I mean, this won the Oscar for best song in 2017, & I personally find it painful to listen to.  I would rather let rats eat my extremities than subject myself to that (or, I should add, the other nominees in the category).*

When I mentioned the theme to my friend, this was the response: "Oscar songs?  That's great!"

Oh how I often feel like Tantalus!

In any event, I went to my index of themes on my website, & discovered just one theme related to skies, which was blue skies, back in 2015.  I didn't feel like confronting my friend, but it didn't seem to me that the two themes overlapped.  There was not, for example, a song called "In The Blue Sky" which might also be applicable for this show.

But there you go.  Some people are friends despite being mostly disinterested in your life.  It happens.  The bonds that hold you together are older than what you turn into as you age.  & frankly, you just like the person.

In any event, my friend won't be listening to my show tomorrow night.  Maybe you will.

* Of course, you can like what you want to. I don't think my opinion is better than yours.

Another Post Entitled "What I Did Today"

Somehow I thought it would be funny to turn this blog - ostensibly about a radio show - into a kind of mundane diary recounting dumb experiences I had during the day like anyone cares.  It's just that I don't have many experiences, dumb or otherwise.

For example, the best experiences I had today were dreams.  This morning I dreamt I went to a sort of secret party where I saw people I knew but was aware I had to call them by special names.  I sat on a sofa next to John Cleese where I ruined everything by acknowledging of him & thanking him for all the joy he gave me which led to him standing up & going to sit somewhere else.

& when I napped this afternoon, I dreamt I was in a car accident on I-30 - a road on which I am a lot, as I take that route to volunteer at KNON - & it was strange to wake up in bed & slowly realize that I wasn't in a car at all.

Other than that, I spent the day working on my show.

But I do keep a kind of diary.  It's more or less a list of things I've done - nothing interesting like thoughts or philosophizing - it's more a memory aid.  I can look at it & it lets me know things I might have done a couple years ago that I'm sure to forget.  For example, two years ago today, I read:

Woke to find out that Leonard Nimoy died.  He was 83.  Shit.  Ow, fuck.  Sad.

It occurs to me that this blog also sort of function as a diary of a kind reminding me of what might have been happening at some point in time.  For example, three years ago here, when I was writing about the theme split, I began the blog entry like so:

One day I split in two.  Was it mitosis?  Was it meiosis?  Was it youosis?  I have noosis idea.

Ho ho, what a card.

Best I stop a) talking about my life & b) trying to be funny.  Stick to the radio shit, pal!

What I Did Today

Besides driving to Dallas & back & watching the Oscars I mean.

Today was the 16th Annual Mardi Gras Gumbo Party, a benefit for KNON, at which I volunteered.  Seeing as I don't eat any animal products at all, & that the gumbo prepared by I think eight cooks was all pretty meaty, I didn't get to sample any gumbo, but that was fine.  I stood at an entrance, making sure the people who came in that way had wristbands &, if they didn't, I directed them to where they needed to enter.

A fellow on a bike with a big backpack (someone there suggested to me he was homeless) asked me what was going on at the event.  I said it was a Mardi Gras Gumbo Party.  He said, "Can you hook a brother up with some gumbo?"  I told him I couldn't because the cooks hadn't set their stands up yet.  I probably would have, though.  I suggested he come back in an hour but he didn't.

Since it was at a bar, there was drinking; since I had to drive, I didn't drink.  But surprisingly, two women - both smokers, who came to near I was standing to smoke (I was outside) - had in a short period of time consumed a good deal of alcohol, & chatted with me.  I asked them lots of questions & found out lots about their lives.

One of them told me she was a therapist & began to give me therapeutic advice.  She told me she knew why I was volunteering.  75%, she said, was because I believe in the cause of the station; the other quarter percent, she insisted, was because of a sense of obligation.  I told her that first part was probably true, but the other 25% was because I was hoping that, if I put it lots of work for KNON, I might one day get a show.  But I'm probably more selfish than that - it's probably 25-75% the other way around.  She got offended in that drunken way when I joked to a friend that she was psychoanalyzing me.  But at least I got her name!

The other person (who never told me her name) was a chef, a food critic, & one of the judges of the gumbo (it was a competition) (I didn't stay long enough to find out who won).  She complained that she got no protein in her samples, just "rice & beef broth."  She was very nice & very engaging, but when another judge came up to us, she repeated her complaint to him, & was disappointed when he told her he didn't have the same experience.  "One of my bowls," he said, "had an entire crawfish in it.  What're you supposed to do with that?"

The vegan didn't have any response for him.