Preface To Bump: A Bump On The Head

The internets is a scary place. Look at the title of this web page: A Simple Bump On The Head Can Kill You

I bump my head almost too often. It never gets as comically huge as it can - & no one has ever filmed a bump on my head on a plane - but I especially hit my head a lot when I am putting away dishes & forget the cabinet doors above the dishwasher are open.

There are many different kinds of head injuries, & luckily, this website tells me "[M]ost people recover from head injuries & have no lasting effects." You have convinced me of your benevolence internets!

Meanwhile, make sure you notice the sign that tells you not to bump your head on the sign:

Happy Birthday Gertrude Stein!

Here she is reading a poem to Picasso. (Audio only.)

Thursday Picture Of A Pet

This is my cat Beatrice. She's the pet I've had who's been with me the longest, entering my life in the summer of 2000, a very shy & skittish little thing who, before she became too big to do so, used to amuse my by running up my curtains.

I taught her how to poop! It's true. She apparently didn't know (maybe she was weaned too early) & so I looked online to discover that a mother cat will lick the baby cat's bottom to encourage poopage. I chose to use a warm towel.

She's never thanked me for that.

She's quite lovely, don't you think?

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

Oh, Self Help Radio was a greedy radio show today with all its gimme gimme gimme! What did it want? Gimme everything! it said. A difficult show to be sure but what do you expect? It's just nine years old!

There were too many gimmes on the show today & you can listen to them at the Self Help Radio web site. Should you prefer to listen to the show directly, there are links to the show's two parts here: part one & part two. You don't have to say "Gimme!" - what's in each part is listed below.

If I had thought about it sooner, or if I put any real planning into the show, I might have made gimme caps to give away. But I didn't. Oh well!

(part one)

"Gimme" Freddie Fresh _Accidentally Classic_
"Gimme Gimme" Bo Diddley _The Chess Years (1955-1974)_
"Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" Hot Lips Page _1946-1950_

"Gimmie, Gimmie" Bobbyteens _Young & Dumb_
"Gimme The Nite" Laptop _The Old Me Vs. The New You_
"Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'" The Mitch Easter Sound _Right To Chews: Bubblegum Classics Revisited_
"Gimme Some Of Yours" Rhetta Hughes _Relight My Fire_
"Gimme You" Sado Nation _History Of Portland Punk, Vol. 1_
"Gimme Gimme" The Demands _Garage Justice Vol 1_

"Gimme Some" Nina Simone _Four Women: The Nina Simone Philips Recordings_
"Gimme Some Lovin'" The Spencer Davis Group _The British Invasion: The History Of British Rock, Vol. 4_
"Gimme A Little Sign" Brenton Wood _Baby You Got It_

(part two)

"Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment" The Ramones _Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology_
"Gimme Some Truth" John Lennon _Imagine_

"Gimme Shelter" Merry Clayton _Strange Games & Funky Things Vol. 5_
"Gimme Some Slack" The Cars _Panorama_
"Gimme A Li'l Taste" Al Miller _Complete Works In Chronological Order (1927-36)_
"Gimme Danger" The Stooges _Raw Power_
"Gimme Dat Ding" The Pipkins _Super Hits Of The 70's: Have A Nice Day! Vol. 6_

"Gimme Some Skin" Delta Rhythm Boys _Dry Bones_
"Gimme A Little Kiss" Michael Landon _Hey! Look What I Found Vol. 11_
"Gimme A Try" Clarence Reid _The Dial Records Southern Soul Story_
"Gimme Bubblegum!" The Fantasies _Earth Life_
"Gimme Some Time" The Nerves _One Way Ticket_
"Gimme Your Heart" Subs _Kilt By Death: The Sound Of Old Scotland_

Whither Gimme?

There are a lot of songs with the word "gimme" in the title or within.

There are a lot more with the proper, not contracted version "give me" in the title or within.

Self Help Radio aims to explore the "gimmes" not the "give mes."

Even though there are a lot of "give me" songs that we will not get to play. Because the songs aren't entitled "gimme." We must therefore assume, although it does seem like a lot of the singers are singing "gimme," that in fact they are singing "give me."

What a shame.

Gimme Self Help Radio, you say? It's on tomorrow morning at 7:30 am in Lexington on 88.1 fm WRFL. You can listen online at WRFL dot fm, & because someone asked for it, here's a direct link to the stream.

The show will be archived later tomorrow at self help radio dot net.

Gimme, gimme, gimme. Greedy! You're greedy!

Preface To Gimme: Give It Me

According to the Wikipedia, a "gimme" in golf is "a shot that the other players agree can count automatically without actually being played." I remember once when someone requested a song for a particular theme, it seemed such an obvious choice, I said, "That's what we in the biz call a 'gimme.'" I don't know if at the time I knew the meaning of the golf term but it seems like I did. Though I didn't use it in quite the same way. Chances are my brain was repeating the phrase from a movie or a television show.

Looking for the phrase online, I am seeing it used not as "something obvious" but as "something free." So I used the word incorrectly. But the sentence felt right when I wrote it. So I think I will continue to use it in that way. & perhaps I can encourage other people to use it in that manner, which means, according to the rules of grammar, it may acquire that additional meaning in 350 years.

Start now!

By the way, I am so not "in the biz." I have never been paid to deejay nor do I imagine I ever will be. It's like a joke a friend of mine made to another Gary when that Gary (I swear it wasn't me!) said he would make a great gigolo. My friend, "Don't ever try to be a prostitute, Gary - you'll lose money on the deal."

That's how I feel about me being a professional deejay - I'd end up paying someone to do it. It would not be a 'gimme.' Not for me, anyway.

Damn it I used it correctly!

Happy Birthday Patton Oswalt!

This Self Help Radio favorite is just a year younger than the Self Help Radio host. Egads!

I bet he won't celebrate his 43rd birthday in any special manner...

Learn Those Minced Oaths!

You do not want to offend nor profane nor blaspheme. Oaths may find their way up up up to the Lord's ears. Learn instead to mince your oaths for the sanctity of your soul.

Say "begorrah" instead of "by God!" & "bejabbers" instead of "by Jesus." Other replacements for "by God!" are "by George," "by gum," "by gosh" (boring), "by golly," & "by Jove!"

If you must damn someone in the place of our Lord's more acceptable damnation, you can avoid saying "God damn" or "God damn it" by saying "Dad gum!" or "Dagnabbit!" "Doggone!" is also an acceptable "Goddamn!" Someone you just damned could be "gosh darned." Say "dang" or "darn" to fool the omniscient Creator of the Universe, & feel free to refer to the state of damnation as "tarnation."

If you must refer to the Son of God, you can call him by his first name secretly as "gee whiz" & "gee willikers" & "jeebus." As his last name (or is it his title?) you can say "Crikey!" & "Criminy!" & "Cripes!" Must you say his full name? It's your eternal soul! Try "Cheese & Rice" or "Jeepers Creepers" or "Jeezy Creezy!" Heck, some even say "Judas Priest" is code for the Son Of Man. How's that for breaking the law?

You might want to simply add, for emphasis, the phrase "for Christ's sake," but that would be breaking a commandment. So how about "Chrissakes" or (even safer) "for crying out loud!" There is of course the chance He (junior) wouldn't be too happy about that, so you might want to reference his subordinates. In case they have punishing powers up above, say "for Pete's sake" or "for the love of Mike" to refer to Saint Peter & Saint Michael, respectively.

There are more archaic but just as surreptitious oaths you can say, which may baffle the Old Dude Upstairs since no one really uses the phrases they are hiding. Say "cor blimey" to mean "God blind me" & He probably won't know what you're talking about. Say "Drat" to mean "God rot it." Say "crivvens" not just because no one you've ever known has, but because it means "Christ defend us!"

You can refer to odd things that the Good Lord owns, like his hooks ("gadzooks" equals "god's hooks") or his wounds ("zounds" means "god's wounds," or "by His wounds"). "Strewth," which you're likely to hear mainly on British comedies, is "His truth" truncated, but the French sacré bleu is apparently a minced oath from France meaning "sang de Dieu," the blood of God.

Or you can profane & blaspheme like Sylvester the Cat. Did you know "suffering succotash" meant "suffering savior"? Now you do!

Self Help Radio Is Everything

"Everything is..." said Self Help Radio. Everything is what? Why do ellipses bother me so? Mightn't I have simply put a blank space (as in "fill in the blank") rather than those three dots that mean a thought is trailing off? What is everything! Tell me now!

The show tried to finish that sentence but you will have to decide if it truly did. To make that decision, you'll have to listen. To listen, you'll have to find where I've put the files. To find where I've put the files - oh, you know. They're at the Self Help Radio website. If you're impatient & would like to download the shows directly, that can be accommodated. Part one of the show is on this side of everything while part two of the show is on that side of everything. Everything that's in each part is listed below.

(part one)

"Everything Is" Neutral Milk Hotel _Everything Is_
"Everything Is Black" The Faintests Ideas _What Goes Up Must Calm Down_
"Everything's Alright" David Bowie _Pin Ups_

"Everything's Explodin'" The Flaming Lips _Oh My Gawd!!!... The Flaming Lips_
"Everything's Coming Up Roses" The Modernaires _Like Swung_
"Everything's Wrong" A House _Rarities_
"Everything's Alright (w/ Danielle Ferguson)" Kimya Dawson _My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess_
"Everything Is Broken" Bob Dylan _Oh Mercy_
"Everything Is Relative" Beatnik Filmstars _In Hospitalable_

"Everything Is Cool" The Pork Chops _Rhythm & Blues Vol. 3_
"Everything's On Fire" Shriekback _Naked Apes & Pond Life_

(part two)

"Everything's Gone Green" New Order _Movement_
"Everything Is Fresh Today" Jack Hodges The Raspberry King _Songs The Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us_

"Everything's Fine" Adorable _Sistine Chapel Ceiling_
"Everything Is Not OK" Miles Hunt _Hairy On The Inside_
"Everything Is Good About You" The Supremes _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 5: 1965_
"Everything Is Weird" They Go Boom!! _Beyond Tomorrow_

"Everything's Disappeared" Steinski _What Does It All Mean?_
"Everything's Just Fine" Earwig _La-Di-Da... So Far..._
"Everything's Alright When You're Down" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Barbed Wire Kisses_
"Everything Is Average Nowadays" Kaiser Chiefs _Yours Truly Angry Mob_

Whither Everything Is...?

Some things don't fill in the blank. Please don't bring up the logical fallacy of appeal to consequences of a belief. Some things do fill in the blank. These are the things that deserve a proper attention span.

When one's brain processes time (apparently) differently, it's not unusual to look up & see that three minutes have passed. Older people often express the same kind of thought when looking over their overlooked life. When it has so much to teach, why is boredom all but forgotten by the mass of humanity?

Everything is. Nothing isn't. These generalities can be embarrassing. The brain has a prescribed memory capacity, it can make things easier for itself when it gathers what it needs to know underneath a generic plural noun or pronoun.

There was once a man who couldn't help but speak in couplets. Sometimes he added internal rhyme. Assonance was not unknown, though he did eschew alliteration. It made passers-by imagine things were going horribly wrong somewhere.

Was there something else? At the sound of the bell, there will be another Self Help Radio, for better or for ill. On the air in Lexington Kentucky from 7:30 to 9:00 am on Monday morning at 88.1 fm on the dial. Will there be a live audio stream? If not, there is always the show archived later at that website.

Everything is all right. Unless everything is not.

Preface To Everything Is...: Is What?

Oh criminy crackers Self Help Radio's doing it again. Why couldn't Self Help Radio have a normal theme, something that's a noun. Not another phrase! "Everything is..." What could that possibly mean?

Do you know the number of perfectly good themes that Self Help Radio hasn't covered yet? It's gotta be a bazillion plus! What about "cars" or "rain" or some other simple type theme? People can get behind that shit! They might even like a show about "shit"! Well, the FCC probably wouldn't. What if it was "fecal matter"? There's sure a lot of shitty music out there!

That was a terrible joke but it was only as terrible as a theme that's a phrase. Remember when Self Help Radio did as a theme "Here he/she/it/you/they come(s)"? What a mess that was! People turned their radios off in disgust! Or turned to the new hip hop station. That's a good station. They don't even do "themes" there. They just play the hits!

Not Self Help Radio, no. Remember when Neil Young did that "It's Time For Themes! Radio Show"? He had themes like "work" & "famous people" & "Christmas." That's how radio shows with themes ought to be. It's too bad that guy stopped making those shows. Did he get fired? Can someone fire Self Help Radio?

Maybe Self Help Radio should do a show about getting fired! & quitting! Maybe it can air instead of "everything is..." They can play that song "Take This Job & Shove It." & other songs! What a great idea! Someone make Self Help Radio do that! Before everything is ruined!

Wait a second...

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today I am 44! Jesus Christ that's old! I never imagined I'd live to be forty-four. Do you want to know who else didn't make it past their forty-fourth year?

Robert Louis Stevenson.

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Billie Holiday.

Anton Chekhov.

D.H. Lawrence.

Jackson Pollock.

Stephen Vincent Benét.

Henry David Thoreau.

& Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Terrible losses, all. Still, if I don't make it through this year, I can at least know it's probably not because of tuberculosis, which took the lives of at least three of the folks up there. (Alcohol did most of the rest.)

Blackout Drunk Blog

Just in case you were wondering why this blog (or selfhelpradio.net) wasn't blacked out yesterday during the day without internet, it's not that Self Help Radio supports the ridiculous SOPA & PIPA bills. It opposes them. Adamantly. Fervently.

It's just that the Self Help Radio website gets less than ten hits a day. This blog is lucky to get ten hits a week. It would have been an empty gesture to go black for a day when there's a better than average chance that no one would notice. It would've been far more powerful if Google had gone down for the day. Or reference sites for music lovers, like the All Music Guide. As usual, Wikipedia held the moral high ground.

As with most things in American politics, the greedheads are too obvious, & their stooges too willing to do anything for all that money. Some people choose to believe such corporate lackeys & their labored explanations for taking away the freedom built into the internet. Self Help Radio doesn't need those sorts of people to listen to its shows. The people who might enjoy this clumsy, stumbling radio program have almost certainly already helped out & let their representatives know how they felt. There's a link if you haven't yet.

Self Help Radio feels guilty it didn't stand in solidarity with the internet yesterday. It just really didn't think anyone would notice or care if it did.

The Spirit Of '76

As you know, it's my birthday week, & every year on my birthday week, I use Self Help Radio as an excuse to go back in time & explore my favorite music from a particular year. I started in 1968, the year I was born, & have found my way now in 1976, America's bicentennial, when punk was saving rock & roll & scaring the bejebbus out of British people. Looking over the year I also managed to find some early new wave, some funky stuff, & even my favorite disco song of all time. I asked to have an extra thirty minutes for the show because so many songs were so damn long. I had to play the entire title track of Bowie's "Station To Station" because it's awesome.

The show is of course at the Self Help Radio web site where it sits in two lengthy parts, the contents of which are listed below. Part one is here. & then: Part two is here.

I was told by a caller that on this day in 1976 Peter Frampton released "Frampton Comes Alive." Alas, he did not make the list of my favorite music of the year. I did not feel like he felt.

Yes! A Peter Frampton joke! You heard me!

My apologies.



(part one)

"Station To Station" David Bowie _Station To Station_

"Amelia" Joni Mitchell _Hejira_
"Isis" Bob Dylan _Desire_

"Chrome Sitar" T.Rex _Futuristic Dragon_
"Let's Stick Together" Bryan Ferry _Let's Stick Together_
"I Like Girls" Sparks _Big Beat_
"X Offender" Blondie _Blondie_
"Heat Treatment" Graham Parker _Heat Treatment_

"Roadrunner" The Modern Lovers _The Modern Lovers_

(part two)

"Final Solution" Pere Ubu _Final Solution_
"Blitzkrieg Bop" The Ramones _The Ramones_
"(I'm) Stranded" The Saints _(I'm) Stranded_
"New Rose" The Damned _New Rose_
"Anarchy In The UK" The Sex Pistols _Anarchy In The UK_

"Pastime Paradise" Stevie Wonder _Songs In The Key Of Life_
"Everything Is On The One" Parliament _The Clones Of Dr. Funkenstein_
"Get Up Offa That Thing (Release The Pressure)" James Brown _Get Up Offa That Thing_
"The Rubberband Man" The Spinners _Happiness Is The Spinners_
"More, More, More (Pt. 1)" Andrea True Connection _The Disco Years, Vol 1: Turn The Beat Around (1974-1978)_

"Important In Your Life" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers_
"I Want More" Can _Flow Motion_
"La Düsseldorf" La Düsseldorf _La Düsseldorf_

Whither 1976?

This week I will turn 44 years old, & since the beginning of Self Help Radio, on the show that happens on or before my birthday, I have gone back in time to explore my favorite music from a bygone year. I started at 1968, the year I was born, & have progressed one year with each year of the show. I have now reached - or will reach tomorrow - 1976.

In 1976 I had my first real contact with a disc jockey. I had already become obsessed with music. Certain songs, especially the ones with stories, intrigued me. At Christmas this year, I would receive my first album: Elton John's Greatest Hit, primarily for the song "Rocket Man."

But when I made contact with an actual radio station, it was this song I wanted to hear: Rhinestone Cowboy by Glenn Campbell. I remember asking my mother, while she was doing things as I sat on the floor listening to the radio, if I could call the radio station to request that song. The deejay had, after all, said the number several times. She said I could!

I called & requested the song. I remember being very surprised that the deejay himself answered. Even now, I get calls from people asking to speak to "the guy who was just on the radio." As if there's someone between the deejay & the listener. But not in 1976. He said he'd play it. I was ecstatic.

I waited for over forty minutes for the song. At one point, my mother yelled at me for turning the radio up too loud, but I had to go to the bathroom & had to keep listening. It seemed to me that the station played one or two songs more than once in that little span of time, but no "Rhinestone Cowboy." I don't recall whether I asked my mother for permission, but I called the deejay back.

I told him I had requested the song, & he had said that he'd play it, & that that had happened nearly an hour ago. Now, I obviously sounded like a little kid. I had a high voice & was all of eight years old. But the deejay lied to me. He said, "I just played it. You must have missed it."

I don't know if I already knew that adults could just lie to you like that - I come from a family of bullshitters, ones that are terrible at lying but do not let that stop them. But I was astonished that the man on the other end of the line could be so brazen. I had been listening faithfully for an hour, & he dismissed me.

What life lessons I took from this immediately, I don't know, but over time I became suspicious of fm radio. I remember - this is much later, when I was in my teens - even casually marking down, while I was doing homework, the songs that one station played over & over. Perhaps I was learning that it was a scam, & perhaps it made me appreciate non-commercial radio all the more when I finally discovered it.

Which reminds me: Self Help Radio is on one fine non-commerical radio station, WRFL, for two whole hours tomorrow. That's 88.1 fm on the dial, online at wrfl.fm. I know it's a holiday, so you can wait until it's archived at self help radio dot net if you want. But it's going to be all my favorite music from 1976, so why wait?

Preface To 1976: Thugs Hangout Late

I was eight years old for three hundred & forty-six of 1976's three hundred & sixty-six days. (It was a leap year.) I was in second grade when it started, & lived at that time in an apartment complex on Kingsley Road in Garland, Texas, called the Lockwood Arms. (It's still there, but the name has changed. (I wrote about that place here.) We moved to another apartment complex a street over called Little Brook Apartments some time during the year. I was too young to know why we moved. I just know we did.

In our apartment at Little Brook was me, my little brother Chris, my sister Karin, & my older brothers Ralph & Steve. I'm not sure if Ralph was calling himself Ralph yet. His full name is James Ralph, but he started getting people to call him Ralph because everyone was calling him "Jamie," which I suppose seemed feminine to him. My oldest sister Pat & my oldest brother Eddie had already moved on. I believe both were married - Pat married that year. She & her husband got married in a civil ceremony at City Hall, so I wasn't invited to a wedding that year. The apartment had, if I recall correctly, three bedrooms & two bathrooms. Chris, Karin & I slept in one, Ralph & Steve in another, & Mom (& her boyfriend Ed) in the big one, which had the second bathroom. I remember the main bathroom did not have a lock that worked. That sucked. Lots of walking in on Gary doing number two!

I have many memories of Little Brook Apartments. It was close to my elementary school, Caldwell Elementary, so we walked there, rain or shine (more rain than shine in Garland, Texas) & hot or cold (more hot than cold). I had a couple of really good friends there, & I even remember being more than smitten with a girl - but I can't remember her name now. The property at the time was fenced on three sides (the front was open) but the area behind it was empty & there were a couple of abandoned, dilapidated houses which, when we discovered them, seemed like heaven to us, but we were told not to go to them by our mother & because I suppose we (I mean me & my little brother, we were inseparable then) were obedient, we didn't go back. The area behind the apartments was a dirt bike & go-kart trail, & once my little brother stepped into a fire ant hill & had an allergic reaction. I remember crying & thinking he was going to die.

Across Cranford Road was an empty load with pecan trees. One of the few memories I have of my father was him walking with us to a convenience store on Kingsley Road, called the Time Saver (which would figure heavily in my teen years), & showing me which pecans were good to eat. He was most definitely drunk at the time, but I didn't know that.

The place is still called the Little Brook Apartments, which means it's had the same name for probably as long as I've been alive. It even still sort of looks the same, although it used to be brown:



The apartment is now in a "bad part of town," which means, in Texas, it's predominantly poor & Hispanic. You can read a few bad "reviews" of the place here. I am especially fond of the comment, "Thugs hangout late roaming the Cranford St."

I have a particularly happy memory from that place. The apartment was a little under a half mile from train tracks, & every morning about six-thirty - usually when I would wake up to get ready to go to school - a train would come by. I learned to wake up to that train. Especially on sunny mornings, it seemed so nice to know this train was passing by regularly, & I would always wake up to it.

I remember throwing away old comics at that apartment. Bad Gary! I also had a terrible experience with a disc jockey at that apartment - but I'll tell that story tomorrow.

Raise This Profile

Today is January 13, 2012, the fest day of St. Glaphyra, a popular saint among the chaste, wherever they may be.

The little boy downstairs is listening to the blues. The neighbor bums him out by telling him it's a dying art form.

In this holiday season everyone from everything & everyone expects only the best, most honest & sincere. The devil in front of the newspaper editor began to open long-faded pictures of his origins & sentenced him to write some 35 years.

But the story actually goes far past the 20th century, which was carried out in tents & vaudeville on South America with a strong tendency of migration to the north.

Of course, even today, the situation has not changed significantly, but the possibilities of affirmation are now much higher & that is, they inevitably open doors.

The little boy screams at the negative neighbor, "If you thought you heard all the blues, you are terribly wrong!"

Quiet, calm, fully relaxed without any euphoria & some additional stimulus, no fan preferences pure heart & good conscience.

Stop now! It's cold. Go, go & make a cake for your wife!

Hello, Snow!

January twelfth is the time & day when it first snowed in earnest in Lexington, Kentucky, in twenty twelve (2012). It rained a bit, then it snowed. It snowed a bit, then it snowed. It was all quite lovely.

The Almanac said, "Snow, then snow showers, cold." Tomorrow, it will be, "Sprinkles, very mild." The poor snow, come all this way to just be sprinkled off.

Science has confirmed (inasmuch as science "confirms" anything) that no two snowflakes are alike. You can catch one in your hand (but better if it's on your glove) & marvel at its crystal beauty.

You may need a guide to snowflake types. This is not available in the Almanac which, as has been demonstrated, treats the snow with scorn. "Sprinkles, very mild," sounds more like an order at a restaurant than a weather prediction!

Can you imagine, some folks even ask the question is the Farmer's Almanac accurate?

Does tell those farmers that the word "almanac" comes from the Arabic al manakh, which means calendar!

Gray Or Grey?

Is it gray or is it grey? On a gray day in Lexington, Self Help Radio taught a city how to properly spell the word for an unassuming color & then reported on what people thought the color meant. (For example, it "unsettles," but also "creates expectations," perhaps for unsettling things.) & lots of songs about the color & things of its color were played, all in grayscale. (What a terrible pun. I couldn't resist.)

The show has rested on the graying Self Help Radio website, but it is in two parts, gray part one & gray part two. What's in each part is listed below. Will the show make you gray? It certainly has made me gray.

(part one)

"Grey" Ken Nordine _Colors_
"Grey" Witches _Forever_
"Grey" New Young Pony Club _Fantastic Playroom_

"Gray Goose" Leadbelly _Midnight Special_
"Ofay & Oxford Gray" Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five _The Hoy Hoy Collection: Rock Before Elvis!_
"When You Are Old & Gray" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_
"Blue Turns To Grey" The Rolling Stones _December's Children (& Everybody's)_
"Here Come The People In Grey" The Kinks _Muswell Hillbillies_
"Turning Grey" The Boys _The Boys_

"White & Grey" Math & Physics Club _Movie Ending Romance_
"This Is Green, This Is Grey" Spearmint _Airpop Terminal 2_
"Grey Cell Green" Ned's Atomic Dustbin _The Brit Box: UK Indie, Shoegaze, & Brit-Pop Gems Of The Last Millennium_

(part two)

"Grey Lagoons" Roxy Music _For Your Pleasure_
"Fade To Grey" Visage _The Edge Of The Eighties_

"All Cats Are Grey" The Cure _Faith_
"All Cats Are Grey" Cleaners From Venus _Back From The Cleaners_
"Girl With Grey Eyes" Big Country _Steeltown_
"Grey Skies" Secret Shine _Fountain Island_

"Grey Flannelette" Jazz Butcher _In Bath Of Bacon_
"Wrapped In Grey" XTC _Nonsuch_
"Grey Day" Madness _7_
"Grey-Eyed Lie" Belmondo _Project: Echo_

Whither Grey/Gray?

Sez the wikipedia, "In photography & computing, a grayscale or greyscale digital image is an image in which the value of each pixel is a single sample, that is, it carries only intensity information. Images of this sort, also known as black-&-white, are composed exclusively of shades of gray, varying from black at the weakest intensity to white at the strongest."

There was a time when the entire world was shades of grey (or gray), as is discussed in this important historical document:



(You can click to make it bigger.)

Self Help Radio turns gray tomorrow at 7:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington. You can listen anywhere online at wrfl dot fm. & it'll settle into its grayness later at self help radio dot net. Listen in!