Preface To -Less & -Less: A Deficient Understand Of Suffixes

I've never done a suffix show before.  I have thought of doing an adverb show.  I am fond of adverbs.  In typical fashion, I hadn't paid any attention to adverbs until someone I was crazy about pointed them out to me.

It was a girl named Lauren, whom I now refer to as "the second love of my life."  I know, it's a complete misunderstanding of the term.  But I like to pretend I got three chances at love, & while I blew the first two, & fouled a couple of times, I made sure to get a base hit for the third time.

Lauren was number two.  There's a Billy Bragg line that comes to mind: "She should've been the last, but she was just the latest."  Ah well.

Anyway, Lauren liked adverbs.  So crazy was I for her that I decided, one weekend, that I'd make her an entire dictionary, just full of adverbs.  I sat down with a real dictionary - this was right before the internet was popular - I didn't even have a computer! - & I started to make a list of adverbs for her.

I didn't get very far.  There are just too many adverbs.  Just like there are too many adjectives that end with -less.  But I am not trying to be complete here!

People I Know Who (I Assume) Are Doing Well, Part III

For the past couple of weeks I've been subbing the RFL show El Tren Latino, which means "the Latin train," & which, if you search for it on the internets, you'll first find a restaurant in Irving, Texas, which is now closed, & not a radio show on Saturday nights in Lexington, Kentucky.

I know next to nothing about modern Latin music.  I know almost next to nothing about Latin jazz, which is what I've been playing on El Tren Latino when I subbed, & what little I know about Latin jazz, I owe to a show that aired on KOOP radio roughly around the same time that Self Help Radio was on the station, & that show was called Soul Sauce.

Soul Sauce was the love-child of a fellow named Dan Shiman, or, as he called himself on the air, Little Danny.  Danny called me up - this is how we met - when he found out that someone had promised the timeslot he had been promised (by someone else) to me.  KOOP in those days had a kind of screwed-up method of giving & getting shows, I should talk about it some day.  We chatted - I have a feeling he thought I'd be more intractable - & we came up with a happy solution for the both of us.  We presented our compromise to a body called the Programming Committee, which really (at the time) had no real power, & they rubber-stamped it.  He was eminently agreeable & we were always friendly with one another, if not ever friends.

He disappeared - I can see from the Soul Sauce link above - a year before I did, & seems to have landed in Marfa, Texas.  I know that because his musical curiosity - & his love of vinyl - led him to create the blog Office Naps, wherein he shares & writes about "45 RPM curios."  He also has a show on public radio in Marfa - he's one of those people you meet in radio who seem to need to be on the radio.  Sort of like me, except he's better at it.

I've been thinking about him because I couldn't sub this El Tren Latino show if it hadn't been for the education Little Danny gave me with his radio show - & I'm glad to see that he seems to be doing quite well out there in Marfa!

(I'll be subbing El Tren Latino one last time tomorrow from 6 to 8pm Lexington time.  You can listen on 88.1 fm in Lexington or online at wrfl dot fm.  It's nowhere near as good as Dan's show, though.  Listen to that on Wednesday nights on KRTS in Marfa.)

Dash Hyphen Hyphen Dash

Over on my Facebook page, a listener asked me why doesn't "Self Help Radio" have a hyphen?  After all, pretty much every time you see the phrase "self-help," like in this Wikipedia entry, there's a hyphen between "self" & "help."

My response was a little glib & I wasn't really trying to answer.  I said, "Because it's not a self-help radio show.  It's Self Help Radio."

The "real" answer is pretty dumb.  Obviously my show isn't a self-help radio show, & even more obviously, it's not a parody of self-help radio shows or self-help anything.  (Although I have tried to do that - & am just not funny enough to pull it off.)  (Though I've never tried to take calls or things like that, to dispense ridiculous advice.  I always imagine someone will take it seriously & I'll be put in the same circle of hell as televangelists when I die.)

(I know, I'm too self-important.)

The reason the show is called Self Help Radio is that, when I started the show, I honestly didn't know you were supposed to put a dash between "Self" & "Help."  Did you get that?  I just didn't know.

However, I am pleased that it does separate me from "self-help radio" shows.  I can say I do a show called "Self Help Radio" & it does appear, at least in writing, to be different from "self-help radio."  Also, I guess, it's capitalized.

It's interesting that the listener noticed that the show's name doesn't have a hyphen, because other people not only don't notice, they don't care.  In this article from my time at WMUL, the writer (who doubtless got his or her information from the Station Manager) not only uses the hyphen but also puts the show's name in quotation marks.  Like it's the type of show I do, not the name of the show.

Or my friend Hayden, who quoted me on the Fall, over at his blog.  (I asked him to correct it but he didn't.)  (Yes I asked him to correct it!  It's not what my show's called!)

I know, self-important much?

This Week's List

√ 1. Do a show about lists.
√ 2. Try not to fuck it up.
√ 3. Apologize a lot when you fuck it up.
√ 4. Go home & beat yourself up about fucking it up.
√ 5. Get some sleep.
√ 6. After waking, put the shows up on the Self Help Radio website.
√ 7. Divide the show into two parts, part one & part two.
√ 8. Make a list available of the songs in each part.
√ 9. Pretend people are going to download the show, &, if possible, pretend they also might enjoy it.
√ 10. Thank them for listening.
√ 11. Drink to forget.

(part one)

"I've Got A Little List" Eric Idle _Mikado (English National Opera Cast Highlights)_
"List" Kanda _All The Best Meetings Are Taken_
"Favorite Things" Me First & The Gimme Gimmes _Are A Drag_

"I've Been Everywhere" Johnny Cash _American Recordings: Unchained_
"Wanted Man" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _The Firstborn Is Dead_
"Who By Fire" Leonard Cohen _New Skin For The Old Ceremony_
"A B & C" Death By Chocolate _Bric-a-Brac_
"My Year In Lists" Los Campesinos _Hold On Now, Youngster_

"The Ten Commandments" George Carlin _When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_
"Thou Shalt Always Kill" Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip _Angles_

(part two)

"Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part Three)" Ian Dury & The Blockheads _Reasons To Be Cheerful_
"Bob" Weird Al Yankovic _Poodle Hat_
"The Elements" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_

"Endless Art" A House _The Way We Were: The Best Of A House 04.85-02.97_
"The Booklovers" The Divine Comedy _Promenade_
"Bluestocking" Momus _Hippopotamomus_
"Hot Topic" Le Tigre _Le Tigre_

"Irk The Purists" Half Man Half Biscuit _Trouble Over Bridgwater_
"Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid To Know About" Tullycraft _The Singles_
"His Indie World" Mary Lou Lord _Mary Lou Lord EP_
"Scottish Pop" Spearmint _A Different Lifetime_
"88 Lines About 44 Women" The Nails _Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits Of The 80's, Vol. 3_

Whither Lists?

1. This show was not really my idea.
2. Someone emailed me(*) & said that she liked songs about lists & thought it was a good idea for a show.
3. I did too.
4. I did ask, did she mean songs about lists &/or songs that were basically lists?
5. She answered back, "Yes."
6. I took that to mean "and" not "or."
7. The show will be on tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 9:00 am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.
  7a. It appears the website is down & may not be back up till later tomorrow.
  7b. That means only Lexingtonians can listen to it live.
  7c. But you can try to listen at wrfl dot fm.
  7d. I'll archive the show tomorrow on the SHR site.
  7e. So you won't miss it.  If you might miss it.
8. It occurs to me this list could repeat every week.
9. It's pretty much the same, though probably not really.
10. Oh, & even though there are ten items on this list, it's not a "top ten" list.

(*) You can email me with theme ideas too.  This is where you can find the email address.

Preface To Lists: My "To Do" List

Do you keep a list of things to do?  I never used to.  I thought I had a great memory (& perhaps I did) (before age & alcohol started messing things up) & rarely did I have to write things down.  (I probably misremember all the times I forgot to do something or be somewhere.)  But late in life (within the past couple of years) I've discovered the joys & frustrations of keeping a list.

The joys, mostly, are involved with a process called "check things off."  Some people "cross things out."  Since my list is electronic, I just check things off - or sometimes I erase them entirely.  (Though I do have a master list of things I need to do every day.  It's true.  & one of the things on that list is:

Write in SHR blog. (Thursday through Monday).

Because I do sometimes forget.

These are called "to do" lists (for things you have to do) but the show this week won't have many of those.  I don't think I have a song at all that's a "to do" list.  Which is a shame, because, like I said, they are full of joy.

The frustration is when you don't finish what's on the list.  In general, my "to do" list is tasks I hope to complete every day.  I never do even half of them.  That does concern me.

But not enough to give up on the list or try harder to complete it.  Because even though my list could easily turn out to be very judgmental, it hardly ever is.

People I Know Who Are Doing Well, Part II

If you're in Dallas, you should stop by the place above - it's a bar but it's also now an art gallery - to have a drink & to look at the art of another old friend - the artist, Scott Lackey.

I met Scott over twenty years ago when he was in a class with my girlfriend at the time.  She raved about his art.  He stayed friends with me even after she dumped me, which was nice.  I needed all the friends I could get back then.

We drifted apart over time & he wandered the world in search of adventure, but thanks to the magic of Facebook, we've become friends again, & I wish I could go to this opening.  It's at least as hot here right now as it is in Dallas!

It's fun to see how excited he is by this exhibit - it means a lot to him.  I wonder if he has a web page for it?  Well, he has a Yelp page.  Good luck to him!

People I Know Who Are Doing Well, Part I

This book - pictured above, linked over there - which I own but have not read - was written by a fellow I have known since I was six or seven years old.  His name is Dale Smith & I seem to remember considering him my best friend in first grade.

One day, after we had talked about his collection of fully posable action figures - this would have been before Star Wars, so they were probably super heroes - he invited me over to his house after school to see them.  I was quite impressed!  I remember that his mother was quite young & pretty - she might have been as young as twenty-five.  When I was seven, my mother was forty-five.  It seemed a delight to have a pretty mother.

As I walked home, I was stopped by a police car.  I had neglected to tell anyone I was going to Dale's house after school, & my mother had called the police.  I don't remember if I was punished, but I do recall being scared by the police car.  I don't think I rode in it, though.

Dale & I knew each other all through elementary & middle school, but were never quite as close.  His family moved from Garland after ninth grade was over.  In that curious way that life has of making coincidences seem portentous, we actually had lockers next to each other in that first year of high school.  He didn't come back to our school for the tenth grade year, & because we weren't really friends at the time, I didn't take much notice.

We became reacquainted in 1988 or 1989 in an English class at the University of Texas.  His family had moved to Austin, & we both happened to be English majors.  As the teacher called roll that first day, in alphabetical order, I turned around when I heard the name "Dale Smith."  He must've wondered when he heard my name.  We talked after class.  We would, again, become good friends.

Now he's an actual perfesser at a college in Canada & I just do an obscure radio show that's not really as good as most of the programs on my wonderful radio station.  I think at a different time I might have been terribly jealous, but I am just so happy he's where he is - I know that's where he wanted to be, teaching people, writing books, writing poetry.  That sort of happiness destroys even the seed of jealousy in me.

Swanning About

You might be thinking, "Is this show a reaction to those weird stories we were told as children about gods turning into swans to rape women?"  If so, you had the same reaction I did.  Maybe not as badly as the whole shower of gold thing - christ that would have hurt - but still, a swan?  Gods have a sick sense of humor, in general, but horny gods are the worst.

No, no, the show's not about that.  Nor about the time I caught the whooping cough from a whooper swan.  It turned my neck black & I was mute for a month.  All of my breaths sounded like trumpets & my throat was as dry as tundra.  But I digress.  (Ha ha, swan humor!)

The show about swans, which includes me swanning about, is now available in its own habitat at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts: swanshow part I & swanshow part II.  & all the swan songs are listed below.  Please note: the show features several songs about swans but four actual swan songs, three more than is legally allowed.  My bad.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"You Swan, Go On" Mount Eerie _Lost Wisdom_

"The Swan" Julee Cruse _Floating Into The Night_

"The Swan (from 'Carnival Of The Animals')" Camille Saint-Saëns _Classical Comedy: Wagner's Rinse Cycle_

"Swan Blues" King Pleasure _Moody's Mood For Love_

"La Cigona (The Swan)" Honeybus _She Flies Like A Bird: The Anthology_

"Swans & Butterflies" The Green Pajamas _Seven Fathoms Down & Falling_

"Clang Of The Concrete Swans" Comet Gain _Howl Of The Lonely Crowd_

"Swan Lee (Silas Lang)" Syd Barrett _Opel_

"Ride A White Swan" T Rex _Ride A White Swan_

"Lovely Little Swan" Close Lobsters _Headache Rhetoric_

(part two)

"Badge" Cream _Goodbye_

"Swan Pond" Julie Doiron _I Woke Myself Up_

"Swans" Camera Obscura _The Blizzard EP_

"Black Swan" Nina Simone _At Carnegie Hall_

"Blue Swan" Cleaners From Venus _The Wayward Genius Of Martin Newell_

"Imagine The Swan" The Zombies _Time Of The Zombies_

"Here Come The Swans (Acoustic)" Kitchens Of Distinction _Capsule (The Best Of Kitchens Of Distinction 1988-94)_

"My Swan Song" Dave Frisberg _Honky Soul, Race Music, Hard Bop & Anachronistic Jazz_

"Swan Song" Marc Almond _Varieté_

"Sing Swan Song" Can _Ege Bamyasi_

"Swan Song" Tall Dwarfs _Stumpy_

Whither Swans?

I was listening a few weeks back to a record by King Pleasure called Moody's Mood For Love & enjoying very much this song called "Swan Blues."  In that funny way one's brain works while one is doing something else, a note was scribbled in my head which read "you should do a show about swans."

It was only after I thought about it later, when I had begun to gather songs about swans, that I realized there aren't really any swans in King Pleasure's song.  It's just the title.  Oh well!  I'll play it anyway, since it was my inspiration.

The show is very swanny & it'll be on tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.  You can listen to it online too at wrfl dot fm.  & I'll archive it later at the Self Help Radio website.

No jokes about the show being an ugly duckling wishing it could be a swan!

Preface To Swans: These Swans, Not Those Swans

There are a few rules that I've followed from day one with Self Help Radio, & those rules are as arbitrary as the show, & they're not rules I've publicized or otherwise written out - I've just known I would do the show this way & I have.

One of them is this: the themes are about the songs, not the bands.  Or, to put it another way, I don't allow the name of the band (or any of the people in the band) to qualify for a show's theme.  For example, there was a fellow in Austin who always wanted me to do spectacularly easy themes - he once said I should do a show about "cars" - & he called in when I did a show about zombies.  "Are you going to play the Zombies?" he asked.

If the Zombies did a song about zombies, I would play them, I told him.  It seemed just too lazy to say, "Since this show is about the living dead, here's an unrelated band that happens to have the same name as today's theme, let's listen to 'She's Not There!'"

Which is my long-winded way of saying I won't be playing the band Swans during the show.  Unless they have a song about swans I don't at this moment know about.

I did one time want to do a show about songs about bands.  You know, people singing about the Beatles or what-not.  It turns out that another show the day I thought of it had just completed that show.  That was in 2002.  I am still trying to make sure there's a safe enough distance between our two shows so that it won't seem like I am copying the other show.

Oh, & I also one day will do a show about bands who have songs that are the band's name.  Like, you know, Belle & Sebastian have a song called "Belle & Sebastian."  I have hesitated because I am unsure whether I can count songs like "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream."  Can I?

Boom! goes the Boomslang

I happened to be in the WRFL offices today just in time to overhear (that's a nice way to say "eavesdrop on") a discussion about the station's annual music festival, which is called Boomslang (not this boomslang - that would be scary, but this Boomslang), & there are some exciting things happening when the event takes place in September.  Maybe I wasn't supposed to overhear  & therefore I shouldn't talk about the "unconfirmed" guests, but I can say you should keep an eye on the official Boomslang website because there might be a reason to visit in September.  I got an extra room.

If anything, one contributing factor to a visit has to be the weather.  It's been really hot (by Kentucky standards) the last few days - over 100 degrees Fahrenheit today, & I don't think it's been that hot in this region in the three years I've been here.  But I took the dogs for a walk just now & it feels fine out there.  For one, there's usually a nice breeze.  In Texas, the breezes get trapped by the dead trees, who suck the life out of them.  The boys were panty & I got a little sweaty, but 8 pm in Lexington on a late June day is different than Austin, even when the highs are the same - it's ten degrees cooler here than there at that time.  Although the humidity is the same.  So maybe it wasn't honest sweat.

But in September, ah!  There was a discussion about an outdoor event at last year's Boomslang & I recall it was decided not to have it at night because "it would be too cold."  Too cold at night!  In September.

That's a thing to like about living in the midwest.

Twitter Pimping

I just wrote this ("tweeted") on my Twitter account:


"That's it! If Canada gets reelected I'm moving to Obamacare!"


That is just the sort of hard-hitting political observational humor you'll get from me, as well as short sentences that mean not a whole lot, if you "follow" me on Twitter.  It's @SelfHelpRadio.  You can read my ridiculous twits here.


Oh!  If you go there, you'll see I have only a handful of "followers."  That is appropriate but it makes me sad.  Why don't you "follow" me?  I'm not really going anywhere, but, you know.  It's something to do.


I'm really bad at this, aren't I?

Pressure Suits Me

Finally!  A searing exposé into the high-pressure world of non-commercial radio!  Listen as the deejay plays music on an empty college campus!  Overhear in the background the sound of a computer idling with disuse!  Sense the horrible regret almost forming as the deejay tells the caller ONE MORE TIME that he's pretty sure No Doubt never wrote a song about pressure!  It may break you!  It may shake you!  It may take you ninety minutes to listen to it!

The pressure-filled songs are listed below.  Hurry, before the pressure gets too great - & I'm not even talking about the peer pressure - & listen to the show over at the Self Help Radio website.  If you must have instant satisfaction - & in this high pressure high stakes world, who has time for satisfaction that takes longer than an instant - you can listen to part one here & you can listen to part two here.

I can't take this pressure!

(part one)

"Pressure's On" Red C _Flex Your Head_
"The Pressure's On" Rudi _Babylon's Burning - The Rough & Ready Rise Of Punk Rawk 1973 - 1978_
"Pressure Zone" Beat Union _Disconnected_

"Under Pressure" Xiu Xiu _Women As Lovers_
"Too Much Pressure" Selecter _Too Much Pressure_
"Pressure Drop" Toots & The Maytals _The Harder They Come_
"The Pressure" A Tribe Called Quest _Beats, Rhymes & Life_
"The Pressure Of Life (Takes The Weight Off The Body)" Fun Boy Three _Waiting_

"Inna City Pressure" Dr. Israel _Inna City Pressure_
"Inner City Pressure" Flight Of The Conchords _Flight Of The Conchords_

(part two)

"How Much Pressure (Do You Think I Can Stand)" Roscoe Robinson _The Sweet Sound Of Success_
"Get Up Offa That Thing (Release The Pressure)" James Brown _Star Time_

"Pressure Suit" Adult. _Resuscitation_
"High Blood Pressure" Bobby Marchan & The Clowns _Huey "Piano" Smith's Rock & Roll Revival_
"Can You Stand The Pressure" Bobby Freeman _Double Shot Of Soul_
"Pressure" The Kinks _Low Budget_
"Peer Pressure" The Defekts _Red Snerts_
"No Pressure" Secret Cities _Strange Hearts_

"Pressure" Neil Young _Landing On Water_
"Pressure" Bram Tchaikovsky _Pressure_
"Of Pressure" Mirah _You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This_
"The Intolerable Pressures Of Modern Life" The Otto Show _The Otto Show_

Whither Pressure?

Do you think you know pressure?  Do you?

Today while I was working on the pressure show for tomorrow, my computer shut down.  It wasn't just my computer - the electricity in the entire house turned off.  I went outside - fearing I might not have paid a bill recently - & everyone was walking outside, asking what happened?

The power was off for six hours.  My phone was at less than 20% battery power.  I realized late into the process I could charge it in the car but I didn't want to sit in a hot garage.  Why sit in a hot garage? We have an electric garage door opener.  Oh I figured how to open the damn garage "manually."  It didn't charge the phone fast enough.  It wasn't fun, sitting in a car.  I played sudoku.  I tried to call the power company to get information about the outage.

No one answered at the power company.  I was on hold for half an hour.  I gave up.  I tried to nap.  I read an entire issue of Harper's.

I was stomping around outside, wondering if I could drive somewhere with my computer - which had my show on it, remember - & work on it in a coffee shop with free wi-fi or something.  Then the neighbors said, "Hooray!"  I looked in one of my windows.  The ceiling fans were turning again.

Six hours!  I nearly went mad.  We still don't know what happened.  Will we ever?

Think I'll talk about this on the show?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

The show is on tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 9:00 am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.  Online it's a-streaming everywhere at WRFL dot FM.  I feel a lot of pressure to put it up later in the day at the Self Help Radio website.  It's the sort of pressure that never goes away.

Preface To Pressure: High Blood

Here are some facts about high blood pressure.

One in three adults in the United States have high blood pressure.  Much of this is probably related to the fact that one in three adults is also obese.  (I think I've mentioned this before, but being obese is the notch above being overweight - & something like 2 in 3 Americans are overweight.)

I confess I have high blood pressure, & I take medication to deal with it.  I'm not in the best of physical shape - I never have been - but when I found out, I stopped putting salt on my food & I gave up caffeine.  My doctor also suggested I stop drinking, to which I said, "Ho ho, you're funny!"

Most, if not all, of my siblings have high blood pressure, & I've been told it's genetic.  One of my sisters even told me how she lost a lot of weight & still had high blood pressure, all the while puffing on a cigarette.  I personally think it's probably more related to our health than our genes.

I take stumbling, half-assed steps to try to get in better shape in order to one day lose the pills, but I lack commitment & follow-through.  But I was raised by a fearful mother to take fear very seriously, & my reptile brain is kept alert by reading things like "high blood pressure greatly increases the risk for heart disease & stroke, the first & third leading causes of death in the United States."

A stroke!  Parts of your brain dying!  That should make everyone go see a doctor!

Look Ahead In Anger

There are things you can do to make sure you're not angry all the time.  I have several myself.

I don't watch local news, or any show about celebrity gossip.  Unless you count the Soup, which makes fun of shows like that but also sometimes makes me angry.

I don't listen to commercial radio.  Classic rock or pabulum rock stations ensure that shitty songs that are stuck in my head because I listened to radio when I was younger are more permanently etched in my brain; modern stations remind me how sad & soulless the music industry really is.

I mean, the same songs that I loathe now that I had to listen to over & over when I was ten are not only still being played, but if you're a ten-year-old & your parent is listening to whatever godawful radio station plays the ordure that you might see at a Grammy or American Music Awards ceremony, you're now, years later, in the same boat we all are: we know all the words to fucking Billy Joel songs.  There's got to be some way to make our parents pay for that.

I don't engage in any online discussions ever.  About two years ago I had a simple question I asked a conservative friend & she decided to respond by shitting vitriol into my eyes.  It's already a cliché that people are bigger assholes behind their screen names than they would actually be in real life.  But Christ, why even bother?  Have you ever been swayed by a rational argument on a message board?

I don't always tell people my opinion about something.  It's much easier to smile & nod while someone talks to you about a transcendent experience at something they did which was so obviously horrible that you wouldn't wish Gitmo detainees to experience it.  Oh, & I hope they do the same for me.

I do try not to be so negative.  I try not to say "don't" all the time.  Especially in lists.

I mean...  Oh hell.

But Is It Art?

I had to sit at a table today while incoming freshmen & freshwomen were accompanied by their always-embarrassing parents during - I guess it's orientation? - & student groups were showing off what they were & what they do.  I was of course at the WRFL table.  We had very little swag - unlike the Student Government table next to us which was giving away UK sunglasses, lip balm, & even hand sanitizer.  That was popular with the always-embarrassing parents.  They scorned us for not even having a pen to snag!

Really, there were horrible-looking women from some holler in Kentucky with bags just throwing things in them as if it were some kind of Halloween buffet.

The thing is, incoming students at this or any other university are not very likely to even know what radio is.  When my co-tabler, the station's Program Manager, told a parent we played "alternative music," the parent turned to his couldn't-have-cared-less kid & said, "You like alternative music, right?  You listen to that channel on Sirius!"

I'm not really in any position to advise the station on how to do outreach but it was a big waste of time. It's best to either have a station-centric event - which could have food or music or some other kind of incentive or enticement - or to let people find the station on their own.  Radio is not something kids really think about.

This made me think of a friend I have recently reconnected with.  When he knew me, I wanted to be a writer.  If you've read any part of this blog, you have had the same realization that I did many years ago: I'm not very good at it.  He seemed to think that me saying, "I'm not a very good writer," was some manifestation of low self-esteem, & tried to tell me that, no, I was a good writer, & I inspired him as well!

(This conversation was all texted, by the way.  What a shitty way to communicate.)

I shut him up by saying, "I never loved writing like I love radio.  Radio is my art form."

If radio is an art form - it may not be, but it can be a means of expressing oneself - it's certainly becoming something as rare as the fine arts of sculpture & painting & etc.  Which is why the WRFL table at the college orientation wasn't very successful - it was as successful as someone in a beret wearing a smock asking people to join a sculptor's club would be.

I think you can teach people to be tolerably good deejays, but you can't teach them to love & appreciate good music.  I know that fully 99.9% of the people in that building at any given time had terrible taste in music.  & that's because 99.9% of everyone has terrible taste in music.  Have you heard what people like recently?

She Said What?

What did she say?  Did anyone get that?  Should I have been listening?  Was it important?  Why am I asking you?  Did you even hear what she said?  Don't you think if what she said was serious she should've said it louder?  Maybe cleared her throat or something beforehand, like people do when they want to get someone's attention?  Will anyone tell me what she said?  Or do I have to listen to an entire radio show to find out?

Bingo!  Find out what she said at the Self Help Radio website.  If you want direct links to what she said, she said this first & then she said this second.  A preview of what she said is below.

Seriously, she said that?  Wow.

(part one)

"She Said" Hasil Adkins _Out To Hunch_

"She Said" Holly Golightly _Truly She Is None Other_

"She Said" Yeah Jazz _She Said_

"What She Said" The Smiths _Meat Is Murder_

"What She Said" The Feelies _Time For A Witness_

"She Said" Longpigs _The Sun Is Often Out_

"All The Things She Said (Peel)" Cinerama _Peel Sessions, Vol. 3: Holiday_

"He Said She Said" Bruce McCulloch _Shame-Based Man_

"She's Sad She Said" The Judybats _Down In The Shacks Where The Satellite Dishes Grow_

"She Said She Said" The Beatles _Revolver_

"She Said Yeah" Larry Williams _Bad Boy_

(part two)

"Just A Girl She Said" Dubstar _Stars: The Best Of Dubstar_

"Molly's Lips" The Vaselines _The Way Of The Vaselines: A Complete History_

"My Baby Said She Loved Me This Morning" Chris Hills/Everything Is Everything _Comin' Outta The Ghetto_

"She Said Goodbye" Billy Hambric _Nitty Gritty_

"Jennifer She Said" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Mainstream_

"Sylvia Said" John Cale _The Island Years_

"Melody Said" Bill Pritchard _Happiness & Other Crimes_

"Ooh, She Said" The Wonder Stuff _The Eight Legged Groove Machine_

"She Said" Scratch Acid _The Greatest Gift_

"She Said" Red Lorry Yellow Lorry _Nothing Wrong_

"Drive, She Said" Julian Cope _Peggy Suicide_

"She Said" Gang Of Four _Content_

"She Said Go" Private Dicks _The Heartbeat Singles Collection 1978-1981_

Whither What She Said?

It's really because of this song:



But it has become a lot more!  Tune in tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 9:00 am in Lexington on the 88.1 fm frequency, or online anywhere at wrfl dot fm to find out "what she said."  I'll archive the show later at the Self Help Radio website, but what if doing that destroys some of the magic?

Assuming there is magic.  How would I know?