Self Help Radio 030119: So Much

(Original image here.)

On this week's show, which is so much show, we not only hear lots of songs about things & stuff that are so much, but we have special guests related to the So Muchies, the awards given for folks who have, do, or are just so much!  This is pretty amazing.  If you, like me, loved watching the So Muchies earlier in the week, you'll be thrilled to know we have its host & two of the winners!

My mind is still reeling with this.  Go listen to it already!  It's at the Self Help Radio website & you'll need, you know, the username (SHR) & the password (selfhelp) to listen.  The show's two hours long & what happens during the show is listed below.

Thanks so much for listening!

Self Help Radio So Much Show
"So Much" Jackie Wilson _So Much_
"So Much" Count Five _Psychotic Reaction_
"So Much" The Windbreakers _A Different Sort_

introduction & explanation

"So Much Song" Tanya Donelly _Beauty Sleep_
"It Hurts So Much" The Superbs _Anthology_
"So Much More" Tim & Adam _Tim & Adam_
"You Could Have It So Much Better" Franz Ferdinand _You Could Have It So Much Better_
"So Much About You" Lunchbox _The Magic Of Sound_

interview with So Muchies host & coordinator Kippa Love

"So Little Time (So Much To Do)" Louis Armstrong _The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-46)_
"I Love You So Much It Hurts" Floyd Tillman _The History Of Country & Western Music, Vol. 13 (1947)_
"The Book Was So Much Better Than The Picture" Jerry Lewis _Jerry Lewis: Capitol Collector's Series_
"Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" Brian Eno _Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy_
"Only So Much You Can Do" Archie Powell & The Exports _Great Ideas In Action_

interview with So Muchie winner for So Much Anxiety, Todd Grub

"So Much Hate" East River Pipe _Oh, Merge: A Merge Records 10 Year Anniversary Compilation_
"So Much Fault" Dislocation Dance _Music Music Music/Slip That Disc!_
"So Much To Learn" Nikki Sudden _Fred Beethoven_
"Love You So What" Lloyd Cole _Bad Vibes_
"I Got So Much Trouble On My Mind" Joe Quarterman & Free Soul _Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul_

interview with So Muchie winner for Rocking So Much Harder Than Anyone, Lars Mars

"I Hate Myself For Loving You So Much" Betty Cody _The Successful Hillbilly Era Of Betty Cody (1952-54)_
"Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love" Jonathan Richman _Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love_
"So Much More" B'ehl _Bright Eyes_
"So Much To Do" California Oranges _California Oranges_
"Why Do You Have So Much Fun Without Me?" Barcelona _Simon Basic_

conclusion & goodbye

"So Much For Love" John Cale _Walking On Locusts_
"It's So Much Easier" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Ponyoak_
"So Much To Lose" My Dad Is Dead _The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get_
"Miss It So Much" Röyksopp _Junior_

Whither So Much?

(Image from here.)

What can I say about a show that's about so much?  I should be able to say so much about such a show.  Instead, I find myself not really saying too much.  Which is not like me.  Is it?

In case I haven't told this story before: when I was in high school, to irritate my mother, who is German, I refused to take German as my foreign language requirement.  I took Latin instead.  Get it? It's a dead language!  Anyway, my high school only let you take two years of Latin, so I had to take another language for my senior year, & this time I chose French.  Fuck you, Mom!  (Don't worry, I decided to be a good son & took German in college.)

In French class, as opposed to Latin class, they had a penpal service you could use to write to people in the countries whose languages you were studying.  (I guess they wisely chose not to let teenagers write to priests who spoke Latin.)  I had like three penpals but they were too teenager-y & wrote only in French.  My French was not good.  But a girl from Belgium wrote me - her native language was Dutch - so she was mainly interested in writing in English.  That was easy for me!

Years later, I visited Germany & sneaked over to Belgium to meet her, & we were sitting in her dorm room - she lived at a Catholic co-op that very kindly also furnished me with a room for the night - & even though we had written many letters & even sent tapes back & forth to one another, she paused after I said something & said, "I didn't know you would talk so much!"

We're still friends.  I still talk so much.  But there's so much more to this week's show than my talking, thankfully.  Find out tomorrow at noon at Self Help Radio dot net.  You might find it so much fun to listen to!

Preface To So Much Show: MIA Today

Certainly I would like to tell you that I spent the day working on the show ("I worked on it so much today") but I didn't, really.  I mean, I usually put a slew of possible songs on my phone & listen when I can - making dinner, driving somewhere, on dogwalks if the wife is talking to her mom - that's usually several hours worth of songs.

Quick aside: the most covered song of the week, wanna guess what it was?  I'll tell ya later.

No, today I spent a great deal of time obsessing about the Michael Cohen testimony.  I read about it on Twitter, I watched clips online, when we went for a dogwalk, I read Cohen's prepared remarks to the wife.  It felt historical.  It felt like the beginning of the end.  But what the hell do I know?

Of course I have no insights about any of this.  I don't know if I've shared many political opinions on this or any other radio show I've done.  I can't imagine what I would say if I had to stand up & express my views with a bunch of people.  I am apparently bad at that.  For example:

There were people I used to know, I met them on a Usenet group in the 90s, it turned out they were very conservative although for some reason politics never came up, at least in email exchanges or whatever.  I used to joke that I was "somewhat to the left of Leon Trotsky," a line I stole from somewhere, or maybe I was repurposing a comparison I had heard about Reagan or someone that said he was "somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan."  Trotsky was pulled out of my ass, for no real reason.  I never really had any sympathy for communism in practice.  Anyway.

Years later, in a dumb discussion on Facebook, one of these people got angry at me & said I had "terrible, revolutionary ideas."  The person said, "I know how you really feel."  I didn't remember saying anything really political to this person, except maybe the Trotsky line.  So, you know.  It somehow triggered this person to believe I deserved an icepick to the brain.

& yeah, I am not revealing the gender of the person because I still know them a little & don't want to out them if they still pay attention to me.  I don't think they do, but I don't want to argue about something as dumb as my unexplained politics versus their hyper-partisan politics.

See?  This is what watching C-Span does to you!

& the song - it's Floyd Tillman's "I Love You So Much It Hurts."  I had a few covers of that.  I think I'll play the original, though.

Here's some dumb trivia: when I worked at the University of Texas, & managed students that helped faculty in the College of Liberal Arts with instructional technology, one of those students had the last name Tillman.  I jokingly asked if he were related to Floyd, & he said, "I am.  Probably distantly, but the family talks about him."

That was cool.

I Am Tired, I Am Weary

Do you know the song I am quoting?

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years

It is of course the song "Venus In Furs" by the Velvet Underground, which I did not play on the radio this morning, choosing instead the less long & disturbing "Femme Fatale."

On the air I mentioned I have a huge crush on the long-dead Nico, who sang the song, which prompted a caller to ask me if I had to choose to between Nico & Ultra Violet, whom would I choose?  I said Nico, duh.  He seemed okay with that, so I suggested we double-date.

Here's a picture of Nico's "Screen Test" for Andy Warhol which I took in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh last summer:

That she was beautiful is beyond reproach.  Something about her singing seems to have puzzled as well as mesmerized many listeners.

There's a chance I may be dreaming this, but I recall reading an interview with Leonard Cohen - who had a dalliance with her, the lucky fool - in which he describes in some detail his encounter, & how puzzling it was, until he realized that she basically deaf.  I have scoured the internet for confirmation of this but have found none.  It's not like the kind Mr. Cohen to be pejorative.  But it seems he was incorrect.

In any event: I wake at 4am to go to KNON to do a show at 7am.  The drive is around fifty minutes from there to here (& back again) give or take the regularly scheduled stupid traffic accident.  Today that happened literally right before the exit to KNON.  How thoughtful!  A freak-out about being late for the show right as I neared the station!

& yeah, look, I know "Venus In Furs" isn't about being tired because you've been up way too long.  I get it.  But why should things we quote necessarily have anything to do with context?  Pretty much anyone who quotes a religious text is foregoing context.  For me, Lou Reed is as close to a religious text as I'll ever get - so I'm sure he'd understand.

Or maybe he wouldn't, but who cares?  As anyone who's studied literature will tell you, at some point it has nothing to do with what the author intended.  So many dissertations have flowed from this.  & it's fucking beautiful.

Tumblr Blog I Like # 5

Again, this is not a Tumblr blog, though I discovered this on Tumblr.  It's a site called They Can Talk.  I find it goofy & charming.  For example:

If we were friends on Facebook, you would have hidden me from your feed by now because I'm always posting comics like this.