Self Help Radio 060719: Talk Show

(Original image found here.)

Yeah, yeah, isn't every Self Help Radio a talky show?  Whatever.  Whatever!  Disrespect me all you want, I made an entire radio show about talking!  & you know what else?  I had six or seven more hours worth of songs about talking that I deliberately chose not to play because I didn't want to talk that much.  That's right, I showed restraint.  There's a first time for everything.

The show, as chatty & verbose & garrulous & effusive as it is, is now over at the Self Help Radio website.  Oh, how I'd love it if you had to talk into your computer to tell the password, but we don't live in a crazy sci-fi world when things are voice activated, ha ha, are you nuts?  So you'll need to type SHR for the username & selfhelp for the password.  If you want to listen.  If you want to talk, just give me a call.

The songs I played are below.  Enjoy the show.  Talk to you later!

Self Help Radio Talk Show

"Talk" Bloods _Feelings_
"Talk Talk" Talk Talk _The Party's Over_
"Talk Talk Talk" The Ordinary Boys _Over The Counter Culture_
"Talk Talk Talk Talk" Love Is All _Nine Times The Same Song_

"Happy Talk" Ella Fitzgerald _Invite You To Listen & Relax_
"Talk To The Animals" Sammy Davis Jr. _Sings The Complete "Dr. Dolittle"_
"Animal Talk" Twink _The Broken Record_
"Elephant Talk" King Crimson _Discipline_
"Talk Talk" The Music Machine _Nuggets_

"Talkin'" Ty Segall _Ty Segall_
"Some Candy Talking" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Some Candy Talking EP_
"Did I Ever Tell You About The Man That Taught His Asshole To Talk" William S. Burroughs _Spare Ass Annie & Other Tales_
"Talk To Strangers" Saul Williams _Saul Williams_
"Talkin Trash" Betty Davis _Nasty Gal_

"Small Talk" Claudine Longet _Love Is Blue_
"Talking In The Dark" Elvis Costello _Taking Liberties_
"Too Much Talk" Gangway _Sitting In The Park_
"Talky-Talky" Young Bryan Superstar _The Young Bryan Superstar EP_
"Talking In Your Sleep" Rogue Wave _Cover Me_

"Girl Talk" Julie London _Feeling Good_
"Shop Talk" John Prine _Storm Windows_
"Short Exchanges" George Carlin _When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_
"Talk" Tacocat _Lost Time_
"Talk To Me" Cloud Nothings _Leave You Forever EP_

"Talk Show" Nots _We Are Nots_
"Talk To Me" Pere Ubu _The Tenement Year_
"Trash Talk" Stephen Colbert _I Am America & So Can You_
"You Can't Talk To The Dude" Jonathan Richman _I, Jonathan_
"Why Won't You Talk About It" The Radio Dept. _Lesser Matters_

"Talkin' Loud & Sayin' Nothing" James Brown _There It Is_
"School For Double Talk" Gary Owens _Put Your Head On My Finger_
"Talking Dirty" Eugene Mirman _The Absurd Nightclub Comedy Of Eugene Mirman_
"Talk To Your Doctor" Todd Barry _Super Crazy_

Whither A Talk Show?

(I found this image here.)

Just to be clear, this isn't an episode about talk shows.  I am just trying to break up the monotony of a single theme (in this case "talk") by adding the word "show" to it because Self Help Radio is a show.  Like, last week's show I called "an ordinary show."  I think that was last week's show.  I do that sort of thing from time-to-time.

How I wish I could do a show about talk shows!  I'm sure there are a few songs about famous shows & hosts.  Maybe I could just play clips from talk shows as if they were songs.  No, that's dumb.  But I'll keep it in mind: a show about talk shows sounds fun.

As I said earlier in the week on the show's Facebook page (where I often preview some of the songs I'll play on the show), the idea for this show mostly probably came around the time Mark Hollis died.  He was (in case you didn't know) the lead singer of Talk Talk & I wanted to have an excuse to play a song by him on the show.

There were two options: find a song that fit a theme or explore a theme I've been thinking about for a while: a show in which bands sing songs that have their names in them.  That would be fun, right?  Talk Talk have a song called "Talk Talk."  There are others.

Of course I instead opted to do a show about talking, so I could play the song "Talk Talk," which I first heard on the radio back in 1982 when new wave music sneaked onto commercial fm in the states for a brief period.  I loved it, & then I missed it, only rediscovering it after I'd gone to college & had a little bit of (student loan) money to buy used records.

That's why this week's show is a talking show.  One last thing: as much as it's probably somewhat easier to do broad themes, I really hate having to go through hours & hours of songs.  It's exhausting. I prefer narrower themes, thank you very much.

It's a talk show!  Tomorrow!  At noon!  At Self Help Radio dot net!  Guests TBA.

Preface To Talking: Me Talking

Anyone who's met me - or hell, even listened to the show - knows I'm a talker.  I can talk a lot & say very little.  I think I've always talked too much.

In third grade, at Caldwell Elementary School, my teacher, whose name I believe was Mrs. Carnes, she had no tolerance for chatty or squabbling kids.  If you were yapping uncontrollably, or if you were fighting, she'd put you on a little rug in the corner of the classroom, on which you'd sit & you couldn't say anything nor move.  She called it the "bicker rug."  & I spent a fair amount of time on that bicker rug.  Not for bickering though.

But I wanted to tell you two stories about how talkative I am.  The first involves a pen pal I got in twelfth grade.  I took first year French in twelfth grade for complicated reasons, involving me wanting to irk my mother, & also because I took two years of Latin & the school didn't have a third year program.  One aside: I took two years of Latin & remember very little of it.  That's kinda crazy when I think about it now.  I figure the class was pretty lame, & I remember the guys in the back corner cheating off me when we had pop quizzes, since I was probably the only person in class who memorized the vocabulary words the night before.  Another aside: I think I still have the textbook.  I liked it so much I stole it.  Anyway.

In French class we were able to get pen pals because you could write to a living person who spoke the language, unlike Latin where they encouraged you to write to priests & by the time I was in twelfth grade I was too old for them anyway.  (Sorry, stupid joke, can't help myself.)  I had three pen pals, two in France & one in Belgium.  The French girls were very silly & wanted to know how cute I was & I knew I wasn't & I stopped writing to them basically because they wanted to write in French.  I had just one year of French & I was probably not going to pursue it.

The Belgium girl however wanted to know about me & my life & my country & also she wanted to write in English.  So we stayed in touch.  All through college I would send her cassette tapes with music on them & some where I talked to her.  She did the same, & in fact, she once sent me a tape of a Dutch group called the Nits which I love to this day.

In 1992, I had the chance to go visit her, & I did, & it was an interesting journey & when we were in her room at her little co-op in Gent & I was looking through her record collection, I was blabbing away & she was looking at me quizzically & I said, "What is it?"  She said, "I didn't expect you to talk so much."

We still talk, I called her on her birthday this year & was reminded of that moment.  Because I was just yammering on & on.

There's one way to get me to stop talking, & that is to give me psychedelic drugs.  On acid I can't turn away from the experience enough to form thoughts.  The same is true on ecstasy.  In both cases I am so enraptured with what is happening in my head (& on e, with what's happening all over my body) that it takes me fucking forever to turn a thought into words.

My wife is the exact opposite.  She won't shut up.  Back in our druggy youth, I used to ask her to invite people over to keep her company while we were rolling because I simply couldn't keep up.  One friend of hers, with whom she was chatting during one of these times, noticed how quiet I was being, & I saw her whisper confidentially to the wife, "Is Gary okay?"

In typical Gary-on-drugs fashion, it took me a few minutes to process the experience & respond.  By then, they had moved on to other topics, so when I commented, they just laughed.

If you heard the show - was it last week's? the week before? - when I talked about my recent marijuana experience, you may recall I related a similar experience.  I was paying attention to what was going on in my brain - where there was an abundance of talking to be sure - & couldn't respond readily to the wife, which made her think something was wrong with me.  I did manage to tell her what I said on the show, which was this: I'd been through similar things before, I knew it would end eventually, she shouldn't worry.

It was probably the quietest evening she's had with me in a long time.

Baby Steps

So... I thought I had kinda cool news to tell you today...  I wanted to confirm it before I said anything...  You know how I told you yesterday I was going to shadow another deejay & I was technically allowed to sub at a station in Portland?  I thought I had been assigned a show to sub.  But I did ask the Program Manager & was told that actually, someone else took the show.

What I did do today is read an underwriting announcement & do a legal ID on the air.  It marks my first appearance on Portland radio.  Wanna hear it?

Well you can't.  Alas, it was in-between pre-recorded programming & the station does not archive that (since, you know, the program is available at its source).

Still, I was oddly nervous, & a little freaked out.  I mixed up the running order that was suggested to me - totally unconsciously - & then I was afraid I would be taken as contrary.

This particular place, I'm not entirely sure what's going on behind the scenes, but the programmers have all been quite nice.  They certainly enjoy what they're doing.

As soon as I know when or if I'll be on the air, I will let you know.  I thought it would be today!  It was not.

Impatience

Just a few minutes ago, I got an email from a station in town inviting me to a training session is two weeks.  Two weeks!  That's forever from now!

Tomorrow I'll go sit in at another station to get more familiar with their set-up because I am now qualified to sub there.  I'm hoping to get a chance to get on the air a bit before I even think about suggesting I do an actual show.

& I met someone who's involved at a third station, & he recommended I fill out a volunteer application online, & so I did, this weekend.  I haven't heard anything from them yet.

That's the problem.  I haven't been here for a month & I am so impatient for things to start happening.  Which is crazy because I waited over a year to get a show at KNON!

What's different is that these stations have orientations & directors who are tasked to communicate with & do outreach to get volunteers.  That was not present in Dallas.

More than anything I guess I'd love to have something more to do right now.  A reason to be out & about, a reason to explore.

But I can calm down a bit.  I have two things in the next two weeks & hopefully that will tide me over.

Also, you know, I live in a cool city now & I'm sure I'll find other stuff to do.