Purposeful Criticism In Highly Reactive Media

My dog Pauline turned ten today.

It affects you not at all.  It affects a radio show not at all.

When I was growing up, I encountered a few people now & then obsessed with "the apocalypse."  Mostly I didn't have conversations with them. I wasn't in their religion & nothing that said seemed to make sense to me.

It seems weird to me that they have long been predicting the end of the world & it seems very likely that in the near future it'll be very hard for humans to live on this planet so it might well be considered the end of the world & these people are like, "No! The end of the world we envision involves bloody things in the sky!"

Mostly I hope Pauline stays alive for a few more years because I love her.  She's very pretty.  She looks like this:

She also likes to meet new people.  It's kind of embarrassing.  It makes me feel she doesn't love me very much, the way she's so emotional with strangers.  Anyway, it doesn't make me love her less.

As you might imagine, I met a Christian obsessed with the apocalypse today.  We didn't see eye-to-eye.

But hey!  Pauline was very sweet to him.

Films Of 1970/Books Of 1970

(image from the IMDb)

On this past week's show - wherein I not only revisited the theme of my favorite music of 1970 but also celebrated the show's 20th anniversary - you should go listen, it was a lot of fun - at the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website - but also our resident cinephile Chuck talked about his favorite films of 1970.  They were, in the order he talked about them:

The Dunwich Horror.
Multiple Maniacs.
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.
Joe.
The Projectionist.
& finally, his favorite, Brewster McCloud.

Follow Chuck on Twitter to keep up with what he watches for the show!

Also our favorite librarian Carole stopped by to talk about five of the most significant children's books from 1970.  They were (in the order she discussed them):

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.
The Trumpet Of The Swan by E.B. White
Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
& Frog & Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel

During the show, someone called & asked me what my favorite movie from 1970 was.  Well!  I keep a poorly-updated list of my favorite movies & the only one from that list from 1970 is M*A*S*H.  I got to see it in the theater a few years ago & find it immaculate.

& no one asked but if I had to say which book from 1970 I enjoyed the most, I'd probably have to be the geek I am & admit it was Ringworld by Larry Niven.  It's a book I've read more than once!

Although I did read the Judy Blume book when I was a kid just to see what the fuss was about, & found it very helpful for understanding girls.  Not that that did me any good!

Self Help Radio 100422: 1970 Revisited - The 20th Anniversary Show!

(all album art from Discogs.)

There it is.  Three more hours of music & fun from 1970 plus me reminiscing about the show as well as the voices of friends of the show past & present.  Who stopped by you might wonder?  Gosh, let me see - Chuck, Chris, Carole, Russ, Allen, Clayton, Denver, Jon, Jerome, & Kevin I believe!

Other than that, the show's about the music.  Lots of music.

& you know I'm fully aware that Self Help Radio is mostly a dumb show but if you ever listened, thank you!  Thank you to the stations that let me play on their airwaves: KOOP, WMUL, WRFL, WLXU, Freeform Portland, & now KBOO!  I probably won't do twenty more years of this but I've had so much fun, I hope at least to keep doing it for a bit longer.

You can listen now & whenever at both the KBOO website or the Self Help Radio website.  At that last one, user SHR as a username & selfhelp as a password please.  The songs I played are below. You'll have to listen for the guest appearances!

Again - thank you for 20 ridiculous years!

Self Help Radio 20th Anniversary Show - 1970 Revisited

"Theme De Yoyo" Art Ensemble Of Chicago _Les Stances À Sophie_

"Across The Universe" The Beatles _Let It Be_

"Parallelograms" Linda Perhacs _Parallelograms_

"Worried Worried" Mayo Thompson _Corky's Debt To His Father_

"Your Key Don't Fit It Anymore" Marie Queenie Lyons _Soul Fever_

"Blue Nile" Alice Coltrane _Ptah, The El Daoud_

"Pressure Drop" The Maytals _Monkey Man_

"Completeness" Minnie Ripperton _Come To My Garden_

"Preciso Urgentemente Encontrar Um Amigo" Mutantes _A Divina Comédia Ou Ando Meio Desligado_

"Exuma, The Obeah Man" Exuma _Exuma_

"My Only Child" Nico _Desertshore_

"Sugar Man" Rodriguez _Cold Fact_

"Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City" Yoko Ono _Plastic Ono Band_

"Jones Comin' Down" The Last Poets _The Last Poets_

"Conversation" Joni Mitchell _Ladies Of The Canyon_

"Blistered" Johnny Cash _Hello, I'm Johnny Cash_

"Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow" Funkadelic _Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow_

"I Have Learned To Do Without You" Mavis Staples _Only For The Lonely_

"Willie & Laura Mae Jones" Clarence Carter _Patches_

"Apeman" The Kinks _Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround, Part One_

"Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number Nine (Parts I & II)" Wilson Pickett _In Philadelphia_

"Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" Melanie _Candles In The Rain_

"My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama" The Mothers Of Invention _Weasels Ripped My Flesh_

"Sunday Coming" Alton Ellis _Sunday Coming_

"The Ghetto" Donny Hathaway _Everything Is Everything_

"I Don't Like You" Bo Diddley _The Black Gladiator_

"Gator Tail" Lee Dorsey _Yes We Can_

Whither 1970 Revisited?

(image from here.)

Self Help Radio had its first episode on October 9, 2002. It was a Wednesday in Austin, at 2 in the afternoon.  I've told the story about the weird hoops I had to jump through to get on the air on KOOP many times before, so I shan't again, but I will say that I had no idea I'd be doing the show twenty years later.  I wasn't sure I'd be doing the show a year later, to be honest.

The show aired on KOOP from 2002 to 2008. It didn't exist except as a podcast for a year, then it aired from 2009 to 2010 on WMUL in Huntington, West Virginia. We moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where it aired from 2010 to 2016 on WRFL. Though we moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in the summer of that year, it continued to air in Kentucky on WLXU in Lexington for a couple more years. It was a lonesome podcast again after that until it found a home on Freeform Portland in 2019, just a few months after we arrived, & it moved to KBOO in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, where it has been ever since. I myself have done shows on a few more stations that never aired Self Help Radio though I tried doing the show there! For different reasons, they wouldn't let me.

Once upon a time, I counted all the themes I've covered. I won't do that right now. It's been a lot. There's a list on the website, actually. One of the things I started to do for my anniversary shows - it looks like in 2008, on the show's sixth anniversary - is to revisit an old theme. & I decided this year to revisit my favorite music from 1970, a theme I first explored in 2006. I explained yesterday how I'll do this & I've been sharing music videos of the songs I previously played this past week on the show's Facebook page.  I won't play any of those releases tonight.

& you know what? I have much more music I love from 1970 than even the music I'll play tonight. It's maddening how much music is out there that I love to listen to. I'm glad I have a radio show so I can share it with you!

Celebrate twenty years of Self Help Radio (if you can) tonight on 90.7fm KBOO Portland. We're online everywhere at kboo.fm. Oh yeah. It's on midnight to 3am.

Preface To 1970 Revisited: 1970 Again

(image from here.)

Every year around the time of the show's anniversary, Self Help Radio revisits an old theme.  This week's show is the 20th anniversary show (!!) so I looked back & decided I would find some more of my favorite songs from 1970 & play them.  Looking back at that old playlist, I am struck by one thing that unnerves me: the musicians featured are all men (unless you count the two women in the Free Design, who sing with the men in the group) & all but three are white.  I am saddened & disturbed by that.  I knew I loved a more diverse range of music from that year.

The original 1970 show aired the week of my birthday, like I do, & I usually write on the blog about things happening to me that year.  This blog started in late 2006, so I wasn't writing anything about the show when it first happened, but also, I was two years old in 1970.  I have almost no memory about anything that happened that year of my life, & what memories I do have come from stories my mother or my older siblings told me.

What I do know is that it was a pretty great year for music - even if I almost certainly don't like most of the music love from that year.  So I am glad to get a chance to revisit it.

Hope I don't fuck it up!