For no reason I can readily discern, there have been a lot of Self Help Radio episodes on May 3rd. If the show has been on for eighteen years - & it has - that's a total of one May 3rd show every three years. & here they are:
In 2006, the theme explored was Painters, Painting, & Painters Painting. (That's a theme I'd like to revisit some day.)
In 2010, & this was one of my favorites, it was Miss Brown. There were a surprising amount of songs about women with the last name "Brown."
In 2011 - just a year later! - the theme was "bounce." I don't know why I felt the need to put the word bounce in quotation marks when I haven't done that for any other theme, but there you go.
In 2013, it was necks - see, no quotation marks! - & just three years ago it was bees. A year later, the theme was Turn It & now I'm wondering, why did I capitalize that particular theme? Who knows.
What you're thinking now is, can I listen to any of these shows? The answer is, yes! But not all of them. I found a treasure trove of old shows on cassette recently but they're in a box now on the way to Oregon.
The shows you can listen to are: the bees show, part one & part two.
Plus: the turn it show, part one & part two.
Remember! You'll need a password & a username, one of which is SHR & the other of which is selfhelp. I got that backwards but it's not hard, flip it around if you get it wrong the first time.
There's a real relief on my end that I didn't do another May 3rd show today. There have been too many. For a May 3rd, anyway.
Friday, May 03, 2019
Thursday, May 02, 2019
Empty House Blues
Five days before we leave - five days! - movers came & took almost everything in our house away. As I write this, I am standing (not sitting) at the kitchen counter where my computer is. We have two chairs we've saved, but the counter is too high & I feel like a child trying to figure out a parent's or older sibling's login information, my hands seemingly above my head. But doing it standing up isn't really any better. Perhaps I should sit down.
Why, you may ask, are we sending our stuff on ahead of us? First of all, it'll actually arrive the day after we get there. That's because they move lots of folks' things. & there are only so many hours in the day to gather up a household & put it in a big truck. The fellows today - who commended my wife on her packing prowess, prompting her to ask them if she could get that in writing, maybe perhaps on a certificate - were here from around 8 till around 1.
Second of all, it was a little about comfort. We had to make the decision whether we'd want to be here, in our familiar home, obviously without a sofa or bed to sleep on, but still, the place we've lived for over two years (we're sleeping on one of these), in a more or less chill setting, than adding extra weird complications to an already weird night: first evening in a new place.
The house seems huge without anything in it. I keep wanting to wander into my room to check stuff on my computer - even though I am writing on that very computer in the kitchen! & it reminds me that it's a lovely house. I've loved living in it. But I don't know if I love it enough to stay - in Texas, where it's going to get very hot very soon; in Fort Worth, which is a fine place, but I wish were as cool as Dallas, & closer to Dallas; in a place where I can't do Self Help Radio. A house is a home, but home is where the heart is. & my heart wants to be somewhere else.
Do I have the Empty House Blues? Nah. I am looking forward to whatever's around the corner.
Why, you may ask, are we sending our stuff on ahead of us? First of all, it'll actually arrive the day after we get there. That's because they move lots of folks' things. & there are only so many hours in the day to gather up a household & put it in a big truck. The fellows today - who commended my wife on her packing prowess, prompting her to ask them if she could get that in writing, maybe perhaps on a certificate - were here from around 8 till around 1.
Second of all, it was a little about comfort. We had to make the decision whether we'd want to be here, in our familiar home, obviously without a sofa or bed to sleep on, but still, the place we've lived for over two years (we're sleeping on one of these), in a more or less chill setting, than adding extra weird complications to an already weird night: first evening in a new place.
The house seems huge without anything in it. I keep wanting to wander into my room to check stuff on my computer - even though I am writing on that very computer in the kitchen! & it reminds me that it's a lovely house. I've loved living in it. But I don't know if I love it enough to stay - in Texas, where it's going to get very hot very soon; in Fort Worth, which is a fine place, but I wish were as cool as Dallas, & closer to Dallas; in a place where I can't do Self Help Radio. A house is a home, but home is where the heart is. & my heart wants to be somewhere else.
Do I have the Empty House Blues? Nah. I am looking forward to whatever's around the corner.
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Bolan's Thirteenth
He's a precious thing, brought home when he was a kitten from a vet clinic where he was waiting to be adopted. Despite have two other cats in the house, he glommed on to our beagles Ringo & George, & he's been much more doglike than catlike in his life.
It occurs to me I've written about him on the blog before, especially when I did a Halloween show about black cats. (Many pictures of Bolan there!)
Two other times here on the blog I focused on him: once in 2012 when I was sharing pictures of my pets & again in 2017 when I did a "meet my pets" series.
He's a sweetheart, the only cat unafraid of visitors, & definitely willing to eat your hair if you sit still on the sofa.
Happy birthday, old man! Stay with us for a while, please!
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Yesterday In Boxes
A week from now I should be in New Mexico, in a small town a hundred miles from Albuquerque, which happens to be around five hundred miles from where I am now. The place we'll be living in Portland is over two thousand miles away so we're going to need to drive five hundred miles a day to make it. We'll be in two cars, our own & a rented minivan. The plan now is to have the dogs drive with me, & the cats in the minivan. They will be in carriers, to minimize stress. The dogs will sleep as they always do in the backseat.
As for me, I'm a little leery of such long drives. It has to be done, & we'll do it, & we won't be driving through densely populated areas, so it should be fine. When we drove from Memphis to Fort Worth nearly three years ago, we arrived in town on a Friday at four pm. It took longer, it seemed, to get from Dallas to Fort Worth than from Texarkana to Dallas.
Today I finished packing up my cassettes. I found a whole lot of old radio shows, most of them from my KVRX days. Way back when I did my seventeenth anniversary show, I tried to find a copy of the original show to digitize to share. I found it, actually. It was in another box with all my other radio shows. I listened, briefly, to a couple of them. I feel like I should digitize them - who knows when the cassettes will finally give out? - but I don't think I'll listen to them any more than I do my current shows. & no one else really wants to listen to them, do they?
A few years back - it's been ten years! - when we moved from Huntington to Lexington, I gave away most of my vinyl. (If I had known how beloved vinyl was at WRFL, I would've waited to donate it to that station.) I now have three boxes of it, including my singles. I really thought I'd have more. I have five of the same boxes of cassettes. I really need to have less. & oh shit, where the hell are my videotapes?
Also I started packing my CDs. That'll be done early tomorrow. The movers come to take all of that away on Thursday, & then - we have an empty house for a few days. It's going to be quite strange.
It's all going to be strange, until it isn't. It's such an adventure, this moving. I guess I never felt like I'd stay in Fort Worth forever. Anyway. Enough of this. More packing to do.
As for me, I'm a little leery of such long drives. It has to be done, & we'll do it, & we won't be driving through densely populated areas, so it should be fine. When we drove from Memphis to Fort Worth nearly three years ago, we arrived in town on a Friday at four pm. It took longer, it seemed, to get from Dallas to Fort Worth than from Texarkana to Dallas.
Today I finished packing up my cassettes. I found a whole lot of old radio shows, most of them from my KVRX days. Way back when I did my seventeenth anniversary show, I tried to find a copy of the original show to digitize to share. I found it, actually. It was in another box with all my other radio shows. I listened, briefly, to a couple of them. I feel like I should digitize them - who knows when the cassettes will finally give out? - but I don't think I'll listen to them any more than I do my current shows. & no one else really wants to listen to them, do they?
A few years back - it's been ten years! - when we moved from Huntington to Lexington, I gave away most of my vinyl. (If I had known how beloved vinyl was at WRFL, I would've waited to donate it to that station.) I now have three boxes of it, including my singles. I really thought I'd have more. I have five of the same boxes of cassettes. I really need to have less. & oh shit, where the hell are my videotapes?
Also I started packing my CDs. That'll be done early tomorrow. The movers come to take all of that away on Thursday, & then - we have an empty house for a few days. It's going to be quite strange.
It's all going to be strange, until it isn't. It's such an adventure, this moving. I guess I never felt like I'd stay in Fort Worth forever. Anyway. Enough of this. More packing to do.
Monday, April 29, 2019
Today's News
One: I got new glasses. They're progressive lenses, so I imagine I will have difficulties.
Two: I am going to see Endgame. The movie is seventeen hours long. So, you know. My day is shot.
Two: I am going to see Endgame. The movie is seventeen hours long. So, you know. My day is shot.