Preface To Quite A Show: No More Non Sequiturs For Me, Thanks

Back when I used to smoke - I used to smoke - I quit smoking a while ago, I think it must be over ten years now, although my smoking heyday was from 1995-2005 or so - about ten years as a moderately heavy smoker - a pack a day - more if I were out drinking - I remember one night hanging with my friend Molly I ran out of matches & so I kept lighting a new cigarette with the one I had been smoking & she said, "Gary! You're chain smoking!" - until then I don't think I knew what chain smoking meant - anyway, I quit around 2005 or so - it was Halloween, I remember - maybe 2006 - it was uncomfortable but after a couple of days I was fine - but I still kinda longed for a cigarette - & I took it up again in the summer of 2008 - at that point I was a "secret smoker" - I found quiet places to smoke & only told a few people I smoked - of course I smoked at home - I guess I was a smoker when I moved from Austin to West Virginia in 2009 but I don't remember smoking on the drive - I had to quit smoking for good in the fall of 2009 because of my health - so I suppose I smoked for eleven years? - I had a couple cigarettes since then - probably the last in 2012 or so - usually when I was drinking - if I smoked a cigarette sober I'd do two things immediately: I'd get incredibly nauseous & I'd really, really need to take a shit - I remember I had a cigarette in Atlanta in 2013 - I bummed it off a cute girl at a bar - it was something awful, like a Marlboro Light - I was drinking but the cigarette really fucked me up - my hands got numb - anyway - back when I used to smoke - as I was saying - what was I saying? - I was going to say something about what my life was like when I smoked - but the memories came flooding back & I can't remember now (ironically) what I was getting at when I wrote "back when I used to smoke" - there was a time when everyone smoked - I grew up in a haze of tobacco smoke - my mother smoked - nearly every one of my siblings smoked - it was stupid of me to take up smoking when I did but in a way - I suppose I might not be saying this if I had a condition like lung cancer or COPD caused by smoking - in a way I'm glad I was a smoker -  something about the experience is nice to have under one's belt - but I am far more glad that I no longer smoke - it's not worth the cost, financially & to your health - & I never feel like a non-smoker - I feel like an ex-smoker - it's funny, or maybe it's sad, it's funny & sad, near KBOO is what I think is a halfway house for women & children - there's no sign that says that, but that's because - especially if they come from violent homes - they usually don't advertise such places - anyway, they obviously don't allow smoking on the premises - so the women will find a place just outside the boundaries of the complex & they'll smoke there - sometimes it's like an open air cocktail party (without the cocktails) there are so many women just standing there smoking - & I try to not bother them - I will cross the street instead of having to walk through them - but there's a woman I've seen twice - none of these women seem older than thirty - there's a woman who I've seen standing there, smoking, looking at her phone, & she looks seven or eight months pregnant - & it bothers me but I have a confession to make - I was outside my work sometime earlier this century smoking & a woman stopped me & asked for a cigarette - I was never greedy, I always shared, what a merchant of death I was - & when I was lighting her cigarette, she told me she was three months pregnant - I know I should've knocked the cigarette out of her mouth & told her to go elsewhere - but instead I just said, "I guess I'm going to hell" - she tried to make me feel better but I felt awful - & I remember my mother telling me she never smoked when she was pregnant - & I don't know if I believe her - one of my brothers is so addicted that even after he had a stroke he continues to smoke - but what the fuck do I know about pregnancy, maybe it makes you have strength to do such things - in any event - I thought I'd remember what I was going to say but it doesn't look like I will - but I used to smoke - if there's anything to take away from this, it's that I used to smoke - & another thing - I don't miss it at all.  Not anymore.

Just Watched Tonight's Real Time With Bill Maher

& now I know I'm going to have nightmares about the coronavirus.

Yep, I'm going to spend the rest of night sipping whiskey & reading too much about this disease.  I'll try to stay away from alarmist websites.  But I make no promises.

Another thing: I need to clean the boards & the mics & the stuff I use at radio stations starting now.  That's what I will do.  Good lord.

Three Possible Flavors (Mostly Unpalatable)

Early Tuesday morning, when I was doing the show I do on XRAY, I came to a weird realization.  It may not seem like it, because all the shows I do have me in them, but I think there's three different (not wildly different, but perhaps demonstrably different) kinds of me who host the shows.

Take Sugar Substitute, the XRAY show.  I mainly just play music, but I jot down notes about the bands & will mention them (that band is from Philadelphia!) when I back-announce.  But more often than not, I'm not making much sense in a stream-of-consciousness style, somewhat like I used to do at KNON.  Basically, I won't stop talking.

This stands in direct contrast to The Dickenbock Report, which, since it's supposed to be a kind of newscast, is pretty scripted.  I ad-lib a little, but mainly I'm reading during airbreaks.

Self Help Radio is a mix of both - there's not always a lot of time to completely off the rails like I do on Sugar Substitute, but I'll sometimes find myself doing that.  But since there's usually some information I'd like to convey, I do have notes I have taken, which I attempt to read.  But a lot of it is me clumsily riffing.

That was a weird thing to come to terms with - the fact that I have different approaches for different shows.  My brain just said to me, "If I ever get a fourth show..."  & then there was just screaming, screaming from everywhere, inside & out.

Self Help Radio 022420: Bees Revisited

(Look at that beauty.  Original image here.)

This was a bittersweet show to do.  It was by request from Freeform deejay Jaxxmaster Kevrock - the fellow whose show has followed Self Help Radio for the past six months - & it turns out it's his last show for a while.  He's taking six months off (that's the length of the Freeform schedule).  He will be missed!

So I'm glad I did the show when I did!  I wish I had recorded his first airbreak - Kev is actually a beekeeper & he said some powerful things about bees.  Instead, all you get is my silliness & lots of songs about bees.  By the way, for the record, the show is about 33% new.  I suspect if I hadn't relied so much on the original show, I might have found many more new bee songs.  As it happened, there are ten songs I didn't play on the original, & I think that's grand.

Listen to the show now at Self Help Radio dot net - pay attention to the username & password info (it's SHR & selfhelp).  See what you'll hear on the show below.

& for fuck's sake save the bees!

Self Help Radio Bees Show Revisited
"Why Does A Bee Buzz?" Marais & Miranda _More Nature Songs_
"Busy Bee Boogie" Hal Serra & Carol Mark _Animal Hootenanny_
"Buzz Buzz Buzz" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Back In Your Life_
"Honey Bee" Mountain Man _Made The Harbor_

introduction & definitions

"Flight Of The Bumble Bee" Harry James & His Orchestra _Swingin' The Classics_
"Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee" Julie London _Swing Me An Old Song_
"Honey Bee (Keep On Stinging Me)" Diana Ross & The Supremes _Love Child_
"Bee Sting Stings" Tullycraft _City Of Subarus_
"Honeybee" Girlfrendo _One_

interview & performance by beetronica musician Oscar Maize

"Me & The Bees" The Softies _Holiday In Rhode Island_
"Like A Honey Bee (Honey Bee)" The Carousel _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_
"Bees" The Hepburns _In The Mean Time_
"One Bee At A Time" Negativland _True False_
"A Sleepin' Bee" Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderly _Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderly_

interview with millennial experts Alyssa & Jason

"Beehive" Boss Hog _Boss Hog_
"Taster Of The Honey (Not The Keeper Of The Bee)" The Jones Girls _The Music Merchant Story_
"Bee Kind To The Bugs" Culture Abuse _Bay Dream_
"The Bees (The Bees)" His Name Is Alive _Stars On ESP_
"Honey Bee" Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon _The Golden Torch Story (A Collection Of 18 Classic Northern Soul Shakers)_

interview with Rev Dr Howard Gently (replay)

"Honey Bee" Jon & Robin _Elastic Event_
"The L.S. Bumble Bee" Peter Cook & Dudley Moore _We Can Fly, Vol. 1_
"Beeswing" Richard Thompson _Mirror Blue_

interview with master beekeeper Lana "Swarmy" Swarms

"Beestung" Kristin Hersh _Hips & Makers_
"Tumble Bee" Karl Blau _Shell Collection_
"Humble Bee" John Wesley Harding _The Confessions Of St. Ace_
"I'll Be The Bee" Ruth & Al _Crescent City Soul: The Sound Of New Orleans 1947-1974_

conclusion & goodbyes

"Sweet Honey Sucking Bees" W. H. Auden _An Evening Of Elizabethan Verse & Its Music_
"Queen Bee" John Lee Hooker _The Classic Early Years 1948-1951_
"New Bumble Bee" Memphis Minnie _Queen Of The Country Blues: All The Published Sides 1929-1937_
"Beehive (feat. Tony Allen, Akenya Seymour, & Isaiah Oby)" Chicago Afrobeat Project _What Goes Up_

Whither Bees (Again)?

(Image from here.)

The reason why Self Help Radio's show this week is about bees is very simple: someone asked me.  Yes, someone said, "I hear you on the radio all the time saying if I'd like you to explore a theme, just ask, & so, I'd like you to do a show about bees."

But there was a twist!  I had already done a show about bees, back in 2016, on a station in Kentucky!

But there was another twist!  That show was done nearly four years ago & over two thousand miles away.  The chances of anyone in Portland ever having heard that show were infinitesimal.  (The chances of anyone having heard it at the time were also vanishingly small.)  So why revisit the theme?  Update it, if you will, with some new songs & new interviews!

& that's what will happen.  Tomorrow morning, Monday, February 24, from 6-8 am, on Freeform Portland, 90.3 + 98.3 fm, freeformportland.org - a show about bees.

You know, I could've done a show about honey or something - made it somewhat new.  But nope!  I wanted to revisit the theme!