Self Help Radio 012825: Tornados

One would think a show about tornados would be scary. But this one is not. One might think a show about tornados could be educational. Maybe this one is. There sure were lots of songs about tornados. Some learning might have sneaked by.

Listen to this show if you'd like at either the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website. If you choose the latter, remember you might need the username SHR & the password selfhelp. Everything that happened on the show - well, okay, most of what happened on the show - is listed below.

Unlike with a tornado, it is perfectly safe to listen to this show under a bridge.

Self Help Radio Tornados Show

"T.O.R.N.A.D.O." The Go! Team _Rolling Blackouts_

"My Tornado" The Raveonettes _Whip It On_

"Tornado Love" Blacktop _Up All Night_

introduction & definitions

"Dancing With The Tornado" The Veils _Time Stays, We Go_

"This Tornado Loves You" Neko Case _Middle Cyclone_

"Tornado" Dale Hawkins _The Chess Story 1957-1964_

"That Mean Old Twister (Backwater Blues)" Lightnin' Hopkins _The Acoustic Years 1959-1960_

"Tornadoes" Seana Carmody _Struts & Shocks_

interview with storm chaser Martin Andrews

"Tornado Time In Texas" Guy Clark _Workbench Songs_

"Tornadoes" Drive-By Truckers _It's Great To Be Alive!_

"Texas Tornado" Buck Owens _The Warner Brothers Recordings_

"Tornadoland" Regina Spektor _Remember Us To Life_

"Tornado" Sharon Van Etten _Because I Was In Love_

interview with meteorologist Terrence Harrison

"Tornado Alley" Graham Parker _Your Country_

"Tornado Alley" Carrie Newcomer _The Age Of Possibility_

"Fearing A Tornado" The Jags _No Tie Like A Present_

"Tornado" Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments _Career Interruption Code_

"Tornado" Faire Osciller _Drifting_

our resident cinephile Chuck stops by!

"Black Tornado" Dan Bern _New American Language_

"Tornado Head" Sean Rowe _The Darkness Dressed In Colored Lights_

"Tornado '87" The Rural Alberta Advantage _Departing_

"Gov. Bill Williams Tornado Preserve" The Firesign Theatre _Boom Dot Bust_

"Baby Tornado" Melys _Kamikaze_

conclusion & goodbye

"The Human Tornado (45 Version)" Rudy Ray Moore _The Human Tornado (Original Soundtrack)_

"Twister" James Keelaghan _House Of Cards_

"Tornado Longing For Freedom" The Music Tapes _Music Tapes For Clouds & Tornadoes_

Whither Tornados?

(Gertrude Abercrombie, "Owl & Tornado" {1956} from here)

One might imagine that growing up in Tornado Alley as I did, that might have been the inspiration for the show. Or perhaps the recent remake or sequel to the 1990s film Twister could have been a catalyst - but I never saw it. Maybe that recurring dream I have about The Wizard Of Oz? Nope.

The truth is, I have no idea what inspired me to make a show about tornados. We don't have a lot of tornados in Oregon. Wait. Is there a Newhart episode about a tornado? There is! It's the one where Tom Poston's character wants to fix the bell tower but he's afraid of wind. Bob Newhart's character shows him The Wizard Of Oz. Holy shit I think because we were watching Newhart late last year & earlier this year that episode may have inspired me to do a show about tornados. Altho I apparently have never done a show about wind.

Howsoever it began, it turns into a radio show at last tonight from midnight to 2am on 90.7fm here in Portland & online everywhere at kboo dot fm.

It was indirectly about The Wizard Of Oz then. Maybe.

Preface To Tornados: Living In A Place With Very Few Tornados

("Tornado crossing Interstate 30 in Garland, Texas illuminated by a power flash" from here)

Where I grew up, in Garland, Texas, tornados were a pretty common threat. This website says that historically, Garland averages three tornados a year, altho I'm sure there are more these days thanks to climate change. I can attest that they felt like a very real threat in my childhood & adolescence.

In school, in elementary school, in the 1970s - I guess I was in first through fifth grade from 1974 to 1979 - we didn't have atomic bomb drills but we did have tornado drills. We'd sit in the hallways. I seem to remember leaning against lockers so perhaps there were similar drills in middle school. & when I moved back to Texas, to Fort Worth, in 2016, there were regular reports of tornados to the west.

But there's not a personal tornado encounter I can share. Except. A vague memory. It would've been before I even started school. On a road like Northwest Highway, which now is very developed, but which, in the early 1970s was not, nor were there lots of business lining its every mile. I seem to recall me & some members of my family - mother? brothers? sisters? - pulling over to the side of the road because of the threat of a tornado, getting out of the car, & going down into some kind of ditch, maybe even getting underneath something. That's all - a fragment of a recollection of something scary. I didn't see a funnel cloud. I didn't experience the horrors of being trapped in the path of a tornado.

Which isn't to say I don't find tornados terrifying. Or that I'm not grateful to be living in a place where tornados are rare. Not counting the one tornado that showed up about two months after we moved here...