Random thoughts & other unrelated information from the dude who does "Self Help Radio" - a radio show which originated in Austin, Texas & now makes noise in Portland, Oregon. Listen to new & old shows & look at playlists at selfhelpradio.net.
Friday, April 10, 2020
The Socket For The Power Plug Has Become Adrift
People are writing all over the internet about missing socializing, their friends, going out, & etc. I mostly miss the weird routine I had - I miss waking up in the middle of the night to drive to a radio station to do radio for the few people up at that hour who happen to be listening to the radio. There are quite a few people up at that hour in Portland who are not listening to the radio, & I should know: I see them on my drive to the radio stations. Such people aren't exactly the houseless, although there are quite a few of them. The ones who don't have tents - & I assume at night when I drive by one of the many tents that line the streets of Portland there are people in them - but who appear houseless tend to be sitting alone, or walking from place to place carrying bags full of recycling. But I see people - this would include people around 1:15 or so, which is when I would leave for XRAY on Tuesday mornings; people around 5:15 or so, which is when I would leave to go to Freeform on Monday mornings; people around 2:30 or so, which is when I would leave to go to KBOO on Thursday mornings; & of course any of the myriad times of night I might be subbing a show at Freeform or KBOO - I see people out walking, exercising, getting home from somewhere, sometimes accompanied by a companion or a dog, often quite determined as it's dark & possibly dangerous. I've also seen deer, cats, & one time a family or raccoons. & more than once I've seen coyotes, which initially I mistook for dogs. I drove past too many stray or lost dogs in Texas, I now try to stop to see if they'll come to me, but coyotes look very, very different from dogs when you're up close. Anyway, I know the coyotes & the houseless & the people out for whatever reason so very early in the morning are not going to be listening to the radio. It's funny, I went out the other night & though it was only twilight, it felt like driving around at 3am. & it made me miss driving around at 3am. I have a friend who lived in Portland in the mid-90s & he told me he was mugged here. I am not cavalier about my surroundings but I don't feel unsafe here, although often when I leave one of the radio stations at night, I do sometimes wonder how fast I could get back into the building if I sensed some danger. & I've never been mugged, not just in Portland. I miss that most of all, I guess I miss the routine I had that included radio, & I'm not sure how different or otherwise changed it will be when or if things return to normal. I've taken to staying up late instead of going to sleep early to wake early. In that sense, this staying up late, reminds me of summer vacation in grade school, although I didn't drink & there were no computers around in my life back then. I used to miss that time, & then I didn't, & now I'm kind of reliving some aspect of it. At this point I want to stop writing but I don't feel I've sufficiently wrapped up or concluded my thoughts. I will say that I just reread what I wrote & mostly I like the phrase "writing all over the internet" because it makes me think of the internet as a giant wall vandals are tagging & scribbling over. Other than that, this is pretty standard & tedious blog post by me. My apologies for wasting your time, if you made it this far. & even if you didn't.
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