Self Help Radio 111618: Sheep

(So many sheep!  Original image here.)

Sheep smell sheepy.  There were a lot of sheep in the studio this week.  I think it's not sheepist to comment on their sheeply smell.  Some people might get sheepful about it, but I've been with many more sheeping sorts & they're hardly ever offended.

In fact, they were positively ecstatic to have a show dedicated to them.  They had very few demands - keep the mutton references to a minimum, have a pasture nearby to enjoy the show in, going fifty-fifty for all the wool shorn & sold - it was, all in all, a very nice arrangement.

Though it's really hard to get rid of that "visiting sheep" smell.

The show is in the verdant pasture called Self Help Radio dot net.  Username is SHR, password in selfhelp.  It's one big ol' file, two hours long, & what's on the show is below.

Please enjoy.  Enjoy like a baby lamb in the springtime learning how to gambol!

Self Help Radio Sheep Show

"Sheep" The Living End _Sheep_
"Sheep" The Housemartins _London 0 Hull 4_
"Sheep" Zoe Lewis _Folk Playground_

introduction & explanation

"Mary Had A Little Lamb" The Three Peppers _1937-1940_
"Mary's Little Lamb" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story_
"Tuned Sheep" Stan Freberg _The Best Of The Stan Freberg Shows_
"Black Sheep" Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs _Pharaohization_
"Black Sheep R.I.P." The Playboys _Black Diamonds: Singles From The Festival Vault 1965-1969_

interview with urban shepherd David Fruchter

"Black Sheep" Ferlin Husky _Chronogical Classics 1958-1960_
"Black Sheep Boy" Scott Walker _Scott 2_
"Black Sheep" SRC _SRC_
"The Black Sheep's Song" Julian Cope _Black Sheep_
"Black Sheep" Mutual Interest _Better Than I Expected_

interview with Dr. Magdalena Muchlinksi

"Swingin' Shepherd Blues" Ella Fitzgerald _Jukebox Ella_
"The Shepherd" Culture _International Herb_
"The Shepherd" MomusMcClymont _Two_
"Flying Sheep" Monty Python _Monty Python's Flying Circus_
"The Lost Sheep" Adrian Munsey, His Sheep, Wind, & Orchestra _The Lost Sheep_

interview with my nephew Allen

"I Wanna Count Sheep (Till The Cows Come Home)" Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra _1931-1932_
"All The Sheep In The World" Elaine & Derek _All The Sheep In The World_
"A Tiny Sheep" Robbert Bobbert & The Bubble Machine _Robbert Bobbert & The Bubble Machine_
"Live Lambs" Longmont Potioncastle _The Best Of Longmont Potioncastle_
"I Prefer Sheep" Ross Beach _You Make It Look So Easy_
"Sheep May Safely Graze" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _B-Sides & Rarities_

idioms & stuff

"Sheep Go To Heaven" Cake _Prolonging The Magic_
"The Sheep Look Up" Fad Gadget _Under The Flag_
"Sheep" Toy Love _Cuts_
"Fergus! The Sheep!" Rote Kapelle _Big Smell Dinosaur EP_
"Schaf Um Schaf" Bazooka Cain _Here Come The Days Of Bazooka Cain_

conclusion & goodbye

"Dirty Deeds Done With Sheep" AC/DC _Hell's Best_

Whither Sheep?

(Sheep are cute sheep.  Image from here.)

Yesterday, on a dog walk, I was talking to the wife & saying something about sheep.

"Why are you talking about sheep?" she said.

"Oh," I said, "because that's what this week's show is about."

"Your show this week is about sheep?" she repeated to me but in the form of a question.  I nodded, & she added, "That's fun!"

"It is?" I said suspiciously.

"Yes!" she said.  She began to list the things she liked about sheep.  That was a bit unnerving.  I didn't know she was that fond of sheep.  Then she said, "Why did you want to do a show about sheep?"

I thought about it & said, "Hm, I don't know."

& the truth is, I don't know.  I don't know why I started gathering songs about sheep.  There are a lot of them, especially if you include songs about lambs & shepherds.  & ewes & flocks.

Maybe it makes you as excited as my wife is?  She wants to talk about sheep on this show this week. How can I stop her?  Serious replies only.

Tomorrow, noon, at the Self Help Radio website, Self Help Radio explores sheep.

There's no promise of it being any good, but an awful good chance of it being baaaaaaaaaaaaaaahd!

God I hate myself right now.  But I'm not going to bleat myself up about.  I lamb what I lamb.

This is so embarrassing.  I shear am feeling sheepish right now.

Preface To Sheep: I Once Dated A Shepherd

Anyway, that was her last name.

Last names are strange things.  There was a time when most people didn't have last names.  As this website says, "Tracing the origins of surnames can help us gleam more insights into the lives of our ancestors. Early last names were often linked to occupations, geographical features, nicknames, or even a combination of their mother’s & father’s name."

My last name - which is Dickerson - according to this site - is basically the same as "Richardson."  But check this:

"This interesting surname is a patronymic form of Dick, itself a pet form of the given name Richard. Richard originated from a rare Anglo-Saxon name 'Ricehard,' meaning rule-hard. An 8th Century English Kinglet of this name died at Lucca, in Italy, on his way to Rome, & is there still venerated as St. Ricardo, but it was the Old German Ricohard that was spread by two pre-Conquest Dukes among the Normans, & brought by them to England. A Ricard is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086; but the softer French Richard prevailed, with several short forms, such as Rich, Rick, Dick, Hick, Dickie, Richie, etc.. The surname is first recorded in the mid 14th Century. One, John Dykonesson, is noted in the register of the Freemen of the City of York (1388). In the modern idiom the surname has many variant spellings including Dickenson, Dickinson, Dickeson, Dickison, Dickason, etc."

Just taking a brief moment to emphasize this sentence, which I promise this is a coincidence I did not know this when I started yammering about last names:

"On November 9th 1629, Dorithy Dickerson married William Sheapheard at St. Giles Cripplegate, London."

Boom!  Connection!  It concludes:

"The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Dykounson, which was dated 1366, Subsidy Rolls of Lancashire, during the reign of King Edward 111, 'The Father of the Navy,' 1327 - 1377. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to 'develop' often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling."

If you can tell any disappointment from me in any of this, well, there is.  The German word for "fat" is dick.  German has the -er ending (I suppose English took it from there) to indicate comparative adjectives, so "dicker" can mean "fatter" or "thicker."  The German word for "son" is Sohn, so I kind of assumed that - possibly because I have German relatives on my mother's side, even though my last name is my dad's name - the name had Germanic roots.  Therefore, my last name could be translated as "fat man's son."  Or even better, "fatter dude's kid."

But nope.  At some point some ancestor of mine was named Richard, possibly referred to as "Dick," & I'm descended from one of his kids.

Not coincidentally, my father, whose first name was Everett, was called Dick by everyone, including my mother.  So in a very real way, I am the son of Dick.

This has nothing to do with sheep.  Except that weird bit where a Dickerson married a Sheapheard.  It was just a rabbit hole I found myself in just now.

Holy Spit! I'm About To Reach 3000 Posts!

It's kind of a milestone, yeah? Or is it a millstone?

Today I had another pledge drive show for the Tuesday Morning Blend, which was only successful because a friend made a big pledge. That was amazing. Even my wife pledged, although not much, & she later apologized for being so cheap. She was raised by a man who was wealthy because he never spent any money if he didn't have to. My wife is one of those people who will buy something for $9.99 but not for $10.00 - one is a bargain, the other is overpriced.

Still, I tried to be positive about the show & I'm not letting my self-esteem get damaged by something over which I have not very much control. I still maintain people should naturally support the things they want to, they shouldn't need to be guilted into it, or lured by gifts. But that's not the way the world works, & I'm probably never going to be good at selling anything, even something I value as much as community radio. Hell, my wife knows that I believe in community radio more than most anything & have given more of my heart & soul & time to it in four different cities & at more than six different stations, & even she was like, eh, it's not worth that much.

Speaking of the wife, she visits with her surgeon tomorrow to find out how much longer she needs to wear her hard collar (she had spinal surgery in the neck region) & what her allowed range of motion will be.  That will hopefully be a good thing. It may also take some pressure off me - she might not have been the perfect patient, but I've not been the perfect caregiver.

Tonight I'm going to drink whiskey & catch up on my comic book shows. The wife is already asleep, hooray for muscle relaxants! & I'll try & think if there's something (anything) I should do to celebrate taking the time to write three thousand of these blog posts. Probably not. Mostly they were worthless. At best they conveyed a little information. At worst - which was most of the time - I had nothing to say. & still I said it. Over & over.

The Week After A Certain Theme

Is when I tend to find funny stuff about that theme.  Like this image:

It was apparently shared on Facebook four years ago.  Interestingly, I found it on the cover of a book on Amazon that came out in 2017. So I don't know where it originated. I probably just found it on a Tumblr blog many moons ago.

How nice would it have been if I had found it this time last week though?