Self Help Radio 022319: Submarines

(Original image here.)

Here it is!  The probably-not-long-awaited submarine show!  It took a while to surface but now it's finally here!

At this point there's not much else to say.  Lots of songs about submarines.  Lots of talk about submarines - even the edible kind.  Lots of lots about submarines.  See below!

Show now at Self Help Radio dot net.  Password is selfhelp, username is SHR.  Sorry it took so long.  Once I got started it went by in a flash.

Up periscope!

Self Help Radio Submarine Show

"A Submarine" Inertia _The Screen_
"Submarine" Whipping Boy _Submarine_
"Submarine" Adorable _Fake_

introduction, apologies, & definitions

"Submarine" Black Grape _It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah_
"Submarine" Mockingbirds _Mockingbirds_
"Submarine" Autumn Teen Sound _Millefeuille (Beikoku-Ongaku # 14)_
"Submarine" The Drums _Summertime! EP_
"Submarine" Grass Widow _Past Time_

interview with Jersey Mike's founder Jersey Mike

"Submarine" Still Corners _Creatures Of An Hour_
"Submarine" Robert Wyatt _Different Every Time_
"Submarine # 3" The Starlight Mints _Random Access Music Machine: US Pop Life, Vol. 7 - Experimental_
"Submarine Bells" The Chills _Submarine Bells_
"Submarine Dream" The Apples In Stereo _The Discovery Of A World Inside The Moone_

interview with submarine ride proprietor Elmer Boyden

"The Submarine Race" The Visuals _The Poplar Records Story_
"Submarine Race Watching" The Escorts _7 Wonders Of The World_
"The Submarine Races" Jan & Dean _Ride The Wild Surf_
"The Submarine Race" Bob & Ray _Bob & Ray Classic, Vol. 1_
"One Of Our Submarines" Thomas Dolby _The Golden Age Of Wireless_

a very brief history of submarines

"I'll Be Your Submarine" Jenny Adkins _I'll Be Your Submarine_
"Cute Submarines" The Jazz Butcher _Illuminate_
"Up Periscope" Insect Surfers _Wavelength_
"Midget Submarines" Swell Maps _A Trip To Marineville_
"U Boat" A Frames _Black Forest_

conclusion, apologies, & goodbye

"Purple Aeroplane" Spike Milligan _Spike: The Best Of Spike Milligan_
"Yellow Submarine" The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band _Hot Heat & Sweet Groove_
"Yellow Submarine" Bill Ramsey _Pop In Germany Vol. 2_
"Brown Submarine" Boston Spaceships _Brown Submarine_
"Thin Black Sail" British Sea Power _Valhalla Dancehall_

Show Delayed

(Image from here.)

Hey, sorry, some other things got in the way of me finishing the show today.  It's really all my fault but rather than releasing it some time tonight when my head is above water (that's not really a joke but it may seem so because the show is about submarines), I'll just delay it for a day, & the show about submarines will happen tomorrow at noon.

Thanks for your patience, & again, I'm really sorry.  I will try to make sure I'm on time regularly from now on.  Like I normally am.  This is not going to become a habit is what I mean,

Meanwhile, enjoy one other graphic, this one altered by me, the original of which I found here, which is cute but makes little sense because it's about television & Self Help Radio is (thankfully) not a television show.

Again, sorry.

Whither Submarines?

(Image from here.)

Why in the world is Self Help Radio about submarines this week?  & didn't you already do a show with the theme "underwater"?

To answer the last question first, yes, a show about things underwater aired in 2006.  That was thirteen years ago, however, & anyone who might have listened to that show is now so old they doubtless have become hard of hearing, myself included.  Although I don't think I listened to that show.  I didn't much like Self Help Radio in those days.  I often did the show under protest.  The underwater show under protest.  But that didn't help.

To answer your first question last, I am doing this show because Jenny suggested it.  That was simple, wasn't it?  Why didn't you think of that?  It's so easy!  Just contact me here or on the show's Facebook page or even on the show's Twitter page & say, "Hey man, why don'tcha do a show about _____?"  You will want to check the show's "Table Of Contents" to see if the theme has been covered before, but there's a good chance you'll have something interesting & new for me to cover.  Unless you're being cute & you think you'd like to hear a show about "chance."  I done that already.

Tomorrow at noon on Self Help Radio dives deep with a show about submarines.  Let's hope it doesn't give you the bends!  (I'm pretty sure I used that same joke thirteen years ago.  But who cares?  The people who might've listened can't hear anything very well anymore!)

Preface To Submarines: The Ballad Of Peachy & Bootsy (Part III)

Sorry.  This has nothing to do with submarines.  I am recounting my weekend adventures with two feral neighborhood cats which we trapped, got spayed & neutered (one of each), & put in my garage to recover.  When we last looked in on them (yesterday), a day had passed since their operations, & they had somewhat settled into living in the garage.

Peachy was the most brave, sleeping on a dog bed we put on a table for that very purpose.  He also seemed to be doing most of the eating.  Bootsy hid where she cold, mainly in-between shelves behind a big box.  I tried to put her food as close to her as possible, so she'd have a chance to eat.

They finally started to use the litter box, but didn't know how to cover their litter.  Feral cats, man.  Their parents don't teach them shit.  Literally.

The neighbor (who trapped them & took us to the vet for the spaying/neutering) would visit & they were way more comfortable around him - they seemed to have forgiven him for, or forgotten that he was instrumental in, trapping them.  He had been feeding them for months now, it made sense.  The wife told me that Bootsy's eyes, as big & beautiful as they were, seemed mostly full of fear.  I tried to make their stay as stress-free as possible.

But we couldn't keep them forever, & they would have been very hard work to tame, to integrate into a household.  They were feral from day one.  So I needed to plan to let them out.  That's the whole purpose, of course, of trap, neuter, return (or catch, spay, release) programs.

One big obstacle was our neighbor.  He & his wife already have maybe six cats, & couldn't adopt new ones, but I think he expected me to keep them as long as I could to possibly adopt them.  He was mad, for example, that they clipped the ferals' ears, since he felt that might hinder future adoptions.  He cautioned me to keep them a day longer.  He was philosophical when I told him I planned to let them go on Monday.  But he didn't try to guilt me any more than he had.

The truth is, I always intended to let them go.  But I wanted to make sure they were well.

On Monday, I opened the garage door.  It was loud & we were there, so the cats continued to hide.  I lowered the garage door to cat-height, & the wife & I went for a walk with our dogs.  When we got back, our feral guests were gone.

Something in me was sad & offended - I thought they might want to stick around.  But most of me knew they were miserable in there.  They had never really known shelter & confinement.  It wasn't their way.

At some point today I saw Peachy wandering around.  I haven't see Bootsy but the wife says she has. I think we've probably done as much for them as possible - the neighbor will continue to feed them.  I hope they live long lives in their freedom.  I feel like we've given them a chance of sorts.

But, yeah, I miss them.  I go into the garage & it feels wrong.  Every cat should have a place with some human, like my cat Bronte is sitting & purring next to me as I write this.  It's a sadness that this is not the case.

The Ballad Of Peachy & Bootsy (Part II)

As discussed yesterday, a neighbor helped me & my wife trap two ferals - named Bootsy & Peachy - & we took them this past Friday to get spayed/neutered.  We believed Bootsy was a girl, & Peachy was a boy.  We were right!  We dropped them off in the morning.

The neighbor & I returned before three (the information they gave us warned that they closed at four, no exceptions! which made me wonder if we didn't show up, did they just let the animals go?), & picked the sweeties up.  We discovered, yes, Peachy was male, & that not only was Bootsy a girl, but that she had been about a month pregnant.  This may offend the antichoice people out there, but Bootsy's litter was prevented from being brought to term.  Cats have a gestation period of around two & a half months, & we had noticed Bootsy's milkshake bringing all the toms to the yard earlier in the year, so apparently there had been successful coupling.  She was in fact around a month pregnant.  Well, no more.  For me, it was a relief - who knows what lives those kittens - or Bootsy herself - would have led?  Hunger, privation, suffering, death.  I felt somewhat gratified that we broke the cycle that Bootsy's mother probably lived in.

They were sedated when we brought them home, which means freaked out in most cats.  Seriously, they do not chill on pain meds.  We knew Bootsy would need more calm to recover in, so we put her in the two-floor cage we bought for Vincent, in our garage.  We let Peachy out, into the garage, & he promptly hid.

One thing my neighbor told me is this: "I've never met a cat who didn't know how to use a litter box."  Well.  I met two!  Oh, they eventually learned how to use it, but not before Peachy pissed on lots of things in our garage.  Not only that, but once he stopped being doped up, he decided to climb.  To climb!  Here he is at the top of our garage:

Poor thing.  The vet said he was three or four years old, & his face suggests he's seen some skirmishes.  The neighbor told me that, once he uses up his testosterone, he won't want to fight for mating or territory any more.

Bootsy (whom the vet said was one or two years old) stayed in the cage for a little over a day, & she didn't really eat or drink.  She was quite miserable.  As you can see:

At some point on Saturday, we let her out of the cage - not the garage! - we thought she was better & we hoped she might relax a little bit.  Fat chance!  Like Peachy, she found a place to hide & retreated there when I showed my face.  But I knew they were safe from the cold & that there was food & water for them.

& a litter box too, if they would just learn to use it.

The Ballad Of Peachy & Bootsy (Part I)

On Thursday, using traps we borrowed from the nice folks at Panther City Feral Cat Coaltion, we caught - well, I should say our neighbor caught - he had been feeding them so they trusted him as much as they were able - this is convoluted - there were two ferals our neighbor had been feeding.  He was the one who brought the cat who was known as Wookie but who is now called Vince to our house as I discussed previously here when Vince showed up looking bad & all torn up.  Anyway, there were these two other ferals, we discussed trapping them to fix them, & got the traps.  But it was our neighbor who got the ferals to be comfortable around the traps, & he then put food in them, & they walked right in.  It was the first time I'd seen that & it was extraordinary.

They were so frightened.  We put them in my garage & covered them up.  We needed to keep them overnight to take them to a clinic the next day to get them spayed & neutered.

We called the two cats Peachy (he was the one we thought was male, & we think he could be related to Vince, perhaps his son or grandson) & Bootsy (we presumed she was female & her name had nothing to do with bass guitar but with cute little white "boots" she seemed to have on her feet, contrasting with her mainly furry black body).  I was up late Thursday working on the show & I could hear the cries from the garage - mainly I think from Bootsy.  I don't think Peachy vocalizes except perhaps when he's in a fight.  While Bootsy is black & sweet & demure, Peachy is scarred & rugged.  I of course felt sad hearing it & I had to keep reminding myself we were helping them, not torturing them.

The next morning, our neighbor drove us to a clinic in Cleburne (just a few miles down the road) (he has a truck) where they offer free spaying & neutering but only for the first twelve or so cats.  We arrived more than thirty minutes early, & Bootsy & Peachy were fourth & fifth.  I was impressed, & a little terrified, at the assembly line process they have, but they're doing good work.  I was a little sad to leave the kittens there but I knew they were in good hands.

There's more!  I'll continue tomorrow.  Plus, I'll have pictures.  Promise.