Self Help Radio 081018: Cindy's Show

(I found these images courtesy of Google image search.  Virtually none of these Cindys are on the show, though.)

Do you know anyone named Cindy?  I don't think I know anyone named Cindy.  Do you think you can enjoy a show about Cindys if in fact you're not a Cindy?  Of course you can!  Why couldn't you? You enjoy songs with other people's names in them, right?  So stop being weird about a show about Cindys!  Must you always make this so difficult?

Despite the lack of Cindiness in my life, I found that Cindy has been a fertile subject for many excellent songs, & not just that folk song of which there are a thousand versions.  I also manage to talk to three neighbors about their troubles with a fourth neighbor named Cindy, & our resident Kabalarian talks about the power of the name Cindy.  Entertaining & informative.  But especially if your name is Cindy.

Wait!  I didn't mean that!  It's for everyone!  Maybe more for a Cindy than for you, but still!

Listen now or at your leisure at Self Help Radio dot net.  Make sure you know about the username (SHR) & the password (selfhelp).  The songs played are listed below, as are the interviews in-between.

It's true, though: Cindys are hard to charm.

"Cindy's Show"

"Cindy" The Temptations _Wish It Would Rain_
"Cindy" Gary Wilson _You Think You Really Know Me_
"Cindy" Bruce Springsteen _The Ties That Bind: The River Collection_

introductions & definitions

"Cindy (feat. Nick Cave)" Johnny Cash _Unearthed: Redemption Songs_
"Cindy" Ola Podrida _Ola Podrida_
"Cindy" The Weekend _The Weekend (The Pink Album)_
"Cindy" Connections _Private Airplane_

interview with my neighbor David

"Cindy Melody Yeah" Drug Boyfriend & Holy Worm _Cindy Melody Yeah_
"Cindy's Been & Gone" Harvey Williams _California_
"Cindy & The Barbi Dolls" Big In Japan _'The Zoo' Uncaged 1978-1982_
"Cindy Is A Crybaby" Visiting Kids _Visiting Kids_
"Cindy's On Methadone" Screeching Weasel _My Brain Hurts_

interview with my neighbor Jeff

"Cindy Tells Me" Brian Eno _Here Come The Warm Jets_
"Cindy Of A Thousand Lives" Billy Bragg _Don't Try This At Home_
"Taste Of Cindy" Jesus & Mary Chain _Psychocandy_
"Indie Cindy & The Lo-Fi Lullabies" Lemon Demon _Dinosaurchestra_
"Indie Cindy" Pixies _EP1_

interview with my neighbor Mrs Padalevski

"Snow Song, Pt 1" Neutral Milk Hotel _Everything Is_
"The World At Large Alone" Stephen Tin Tin Duffy _The Ups & Downs_
"Pictures (Of Cindy)" Josef K _Young & Stupid_
"Cindy Sherman" The Shermans _Happiness Is Toy-Shaped_
"Cindy+Me" Caged Animals _In The Land Of The Giants_

interview with our resident Kabalarian

"Lou Cindy Lou" Walter Brown _Confessin' The Blues_
"Cindy Lou" The Flairs _She Loves To Rock_
"Cindy Lou" Dick Penner _Your Honey Love_
"(Ah Ha Who?) Cindy Lou!" Keith O'Conner _Teen Town USA Vol. 5_
"Cindy Lou" The Gay _You Know The Rules_

conclusions & goodbyes

"Cindy Gal" Carolina Chocolate Drops _Genuine Negro Jig_
"Lookout For Cindy" The Belmonts _Tell Me Why: The Very Best Of The Belmonts_
"Cindy & Kathy" Mirrors _Another Nail In The Remodeled Coffin_
"Love Song For Cindy" Hard-Ons _Hot For Your Love, Baby_

Whither Cindy's Show?

(Image from here.)

Now, I suppose at this point you're thinking, "Who is this Cindy person & what is she to Gary that he's doing an entire show about her?"  Also: "When his wife finds out, he's gonna get it!"

Oh, relax.  I did a show a couple of weeks ago about mail carriers & I've never worked for the Post Office.  As I explained yesterday, I don't really have any Cindys in my life.  Doesn't mean I can't do a show about people named Cindy.

But it does mean that doing a show about people named Cindy is kinda weird, if you don't know any Cindys, right?  To which I respond, "Have you heard Self Help Radio before?"  Earlier this summer I did a show about glitter.  Next week the show is about neon.  There's neither really rhyme nor reason when I comes to this show.

In fact, that's a comment that was shared with me early on.  At KOOP, we had peer reviews, & another programmer said, "I just don't know why he explores these arbitrary topics."  I suppose it would have made her more comfortable if my show conformed to events that happened on the date of the show, like holidays or "National Pull Your Own Tooth Day."  But that never seemed much fun to me - when would subjects like glitter or neon come up?  Not to mention Cindy?

Okay, there's a Saint Cynthia (Cinthia), who could probably be called Saint Cindy if you have a hip, young priest who's trying to get in with the cool priests.   & her feast day is February 8.  So that wouldn't be arbitrary & it would please the programmer above as not being inexplicable.  But to her, I would ask, "Have you heard Self Help Radio before?"

As usual, I noticed I was listening to a bunch of songs about someone named Cindy.  I thought it might be a fun show.  After a few weeks I figured I had enough songs.  I thought I might meet a Cindy before the show, but I only came close: a neighbor who walks his dog that we see regularly (I don't know his name, but his sweet hound's name is Blue), he mentioned just yesterday that his girlfriend's name is Cindy.  & as I was driving my wife to the airport I noticed a place in town very close to where I live called Cindy's Hair Design which has apparently been in existence for decades but which has virtually no online presence.  I shoulda took a picture.

If you know a Cindy, tell her there'll be a radio show about her or people with her name tomorrow at noon on Self Help Radio's website.  It may turn out there are more Cindys than even I know about.

Preface To Cindy's Show: Do I Even Know Any Cindys?

Or is it Cindies?

A long time ago, I knew someone named Cynthia.  She didn't like to be called Cindy.  She was very religious, & didn't like me reminding her that she had "Cyn" in her name.

Years after that, but many more years before now, I knew a woman named Cindy who was my landlord, or she & her husband were my landlord.  I forget his name now.  I sort of remember what he looks like, kind of doofy, in a Mike Birbiglia type of shape.  He seemed harmless but he was sitting drunk on the porch one night (I lived in the apartment above their house) & he hit on my girlfriend.  But Cindy, who was a scary redhead, was never anything but pleasant & businesslike with me.

My wife worked with a woman named Cindy who was deeply conservative, but I never met her. I just heard my wife complain about her a lot.

Nope, there is no one named Cindy in my world at the moment.  I definitely don't know any famous people named Cindy.  Holy crap that's a long list!  Where the hell have I been?  I need to make more friends.

One Last Post About How Much I Suck At Pledge Drive (Until The Next One)

Have you ever heard of Grit?  It was this "family newspaper" they advertised in comic books to get kids to sell door-to-door.  You can read about it on Wikipedia.  There used to be comic ads they ran featuring none other than Richie fucking Rich in which his father said they got rich because he sold Grit!

(I knew I didn't dream it.  I found this here.)

You can probably see where this is going.  As a kid whose family didn't pay much attention to him - whose mother was working most of the time - I thought, "Wow, if Richie Rich can do this, so can I!"

At the time I lived in an apartment complex & we were rather poor.  As were our neighbors.  When the first stack of Grit arrived - there were like fifty copies, a giant stack of newspapers, & I seem to remember them being a tabloid format - I made a very half-hearted effort to sell them door-to-door.  I think I got to maybe five doors before the whole process began to seem hopeless.  I tried a few more, getting weird looks from the people who acted at though they never saw me before, & getting no one to buy a copy.  I didn't finish going through the apartments.

Back at home, I read an issue all the way through.  It promoted itself as being positive & even the very young & not at all cynical me seemed to think that was a bit saccharine.  At some point my mother told me to take them to the trash, so I did.  & then next week another stack came.  & another the week after.  & the little envelopes telling me I had to send them money to pay for the stacks of home-town newspapers they were sending me.

What could I do?  I was never going to sell all those copies, never going to be as rich as Richie Rich's dad.  & I didn't have any money.  I was probably in sixth or seventh grade.  Maybe even younger.  Were they going to sue me?  Would they end up writing my mother?

At some point, the newspapers stopped coming.  Then the letters stopped, too.  They were entrusting children with their business, it wasn't like a newspaper boy who reported to an adult.  My guess it happened all the time, & probably more & more as time went on.  A business model from the 1950s was not going to survive into the 1980s.

(Grit still sort-of exists, but as its website shows, it's nothing like the newspaper with 'good news' stories & comics that I failed to sell in my childhood.)

But more than that, I came to realize that I was not designed to be a salesperson.  A different me could easily have tried to try more doors in my apartment complex, to walk up & down the streets in my neighborhood.  I am guessing they gave me fifty issues, it could've been more, but I'll bet if I had just tried a little harder, I could've sold half of them.  I lived next door to a shopping center, I could've tried to hawk them in front of the Minyard's.  But I didn't.  The initial rejections were too much for my fragile self.

The point is, I've been sucking at selling things for a long, long time.  & I'm sorry.

Once More Unto The Breach

Yep, tomorrow is the seventh day of the 2018 KNON Summer Pledge Drive.  It will be the first day of the drive for the show I do there, the Tuesday Morning Blend, & I am none-too-excited about it.  Why?  Because I'm terrible at raising money.

& it's not it's something I can't learn.  I have been reading website about proper pitches.  But I don't have the instinct for it.  You've met salespeople, haven't you?  Could sell coals to Newcastle?  Yeah, that's not me.  Ultimately I feel weird about capitalism, maybe because I grew up poor.

Really, I feel it would be nice if folks just had a sense that they should support a station like KNON as a matter of course, but instead you know how it is: you have to beg, to cajole, to entice with gifts.  I've done it myself, at stations I've been involved with - I look for the good premium before I make a pledge.

So I am gearing up for trying, trying again.  If you want to support me on the radio in Dallas - I know, I wish it were Self Help Radio, but this is the only place I can deejay in town - think about calling tomorrow morning or perhaps making a donation at this place on the web.  Make sure you mention me or the Tuesday Morning Blend to get me some credit.

& think nice thoughts.  I'm so going to suck at this.