Self Help Radio 050114: Disappear

I promise I didn't plan it this way, but it seems funny that the show in which Self Help Radio reappears on the Lexington airwaves is a show about disappearing.  Sometimes that's just how things happen.

The show disappeared yesterday but it's reappeared now at Self Help Radio on the web.  You can also take advantage of two links to listen to either hour of the show (or both, in succession, or out of order): part one + part two.  The songs I played are below.

Don't disappear any more!

(part one)

"Disappear" Gilbert _Real Life Permanent Dreams: Happydaystoytown_
"Disappear" Madness _Absolutely_
"Disappear?" The Church _Seance_

"Disappear" Cockeyed Ghost _Keep Yourself Amused_
"Disappear" Jumprope _Holiday In Brazil_
"Disappear" The Crayon Fields _All The Pleasures Of The World_
"Disappear" Eternal Summers _Correct Behavior_

"Disappearing" Peter Murphy _Cascade_
"Disappearer" Sonic Youth _Goo_
"Everything's Disappeared" Steinski _What Does It All Mean?_

"You Disappear From View" The Teardrop Explodes _Wilder_

(part two)

"I Disappear" The Faint _Wet From Birth_
"Everything Disappears When You Come Around" Of Montreal _Cherry Peel_
"I Can't Pay You To Disappear" Thee Oh Sees _Dog Poison_
"Watch Her Disappear" Tom Waits _Alice_

"Disappear Always" Wild Nothing _Nocturne_
"Disappearing Act" U2 _The Unforgettable Fire_
"Disappearing Lessons" Courtney Love _Highlights_
"Disappearing Act" Jonny Cola & The A Grades _The Yellow Mini_

"Disappearing Act" The Mantles _The Mantles_
"Never Disappear" Majestic 12 _Searching For The Elvis Knob_
"When Will Your Friends All Disappear" East River Pipe _Goodbye California_
"Love Will Always Disappear" Chemistry Set _Chemistry Set_
"Disappear WIthout A Trace" Scrawl _Velvet Hammer_

Whither Disappear?

It turns out that the Random House dictionary disagrees with my musings from yesterday about the difference between "disappear" & "vanish."  It says:

Disappear is used of whatever suddenly or gradually goes out of sight: vanish suggests complete, generally rapid, & often mysterious disappearance.

So - let me get this straight - vanish is complete & rapid, but disappear can be suddenly or gradually?

I guess "vanish" does have mysterious connotations.  I would be more spooked by a ghost vanishing than one simply disappearing.

I am writing this Thursday morning, as I am going to be doing my first Self Help Radio on WRFL in about five months.  I am a little nervous but I have prepared a fine show & I hope someone enjoys it who isn't my mother.

That reminds me - I need to call my mother.

It's on from 10 am to noon & it's available on the link above.  However, if you miss it, & people would think you had good taste if you did, I'll put it up tomorrow like every Friday this year.  & it won't disappear for a long, long time.

Preface To Disappear: Disappearing Act

You know how, when you're a kid, you're really dumb & you think things that happen on television & cartoons are real?  Do you remember the Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies or whatever cartoons in which someone - my brain is telling me it's a cartoon mouse - but I found a picture where it's Tom the cat - puts on "vanishing cream" & disappears?

Do you remember those?  OH MY GOD I wanted so badly to find some vanishing cream in the bathroom!  (My mother didn't use that stuff, though.)

It turns out that vanishing creams, as the internet tells me, "get their name from the fact that they seemed to disappear when spread onto the skin."  Here's a link all about them.  I initially thought they made wrinkles or unwanted facial blemishes "vanish," but that's not it.  The cream vanished.  It disappeared into the skin.

It didn't make you disappear.  How disappointing was that when I found out!  Worse than the truth about Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny.

By the way - online thesauruses don't seem to think that "vanish" & "disappear" are synonyms.  Is it because disappearing appears to be instantaneous & vanishing takes time?  What do you think?

Boone

I had a whole ridiculous thing written for today & was almost going to put it up but we needed to walk the dogs after dinner.  We walked close to the house because the radar keeps looking like this:

It wasn't our usual walk, & at one point a sweet little orange cat - a kitten, really - approached us, not really afraid of the three beagles.  We didn't want it to follow us, but during the walk - & knowing about the coming storm - we worried that it was not safe, so we went to find it when we got the dogs home.

He was nowhere to be found, & we walked up & down the street.  As we were about to leave, my wife Magda said, "Oh here he is."  He let us put him in the carrier without incident & didn't meow at all on the short ride home.

He's in our guest room.  He has a scabbed-over sore on his foot, & his ears look to be nicked a bit, & he's very small & scrawny & dirty.  He's had something to eat & now he's chilling out:

He's been no trouble at all - I don't even think he feels trapped or otherwise inconvenienced.  We'll see after the vet visit tomorrow!

I don't know if he's adopted us yet - but for now, I'm calling him Boone.

Big News! (Reprise)

For my entire life pretty much I pronounced the word "reprise" like this: re-prize.  The first time I heard it pronounced the proper way - which is ruh-preez - was in a live performance of Marc Bolan on a T Rex boxed set when he was promoting his new record, "Out on Warner-Reprise Records."

I just check & the Merriam-Webster dictionary online says both pronunciations are allowed, but probably because of people like me who mispronounced them their entire lives.

That's neither here nor there - I'm just writing to confirm (as much as I can confirm) that Self Help Radio will be on WRFL this Thursday & next (May 1 & 8) from 10am to noon, & then, the next week will begin its summer home on the station from 7 to 9am on Fridays.  It's pretty exciting.  Of course, once I go on the air, everyone leaves town for the summer.  Rats!

Also: since I have an extra hour (6-7am), I've asked not to resurrect my freeform show Sugar Substitute (which I will do again one day!) but instead I told them I'd like to do a country blues show, which I am calling Woke Up One Early Morning Blues, because why not make a radio show title long & unwieldy?  It'll let me play my favorite country blues all summer long.

So, hooray!  Listen to me this Thursday & next, & then, on Friday the 16th, start listening at that time all summer long!

Self Help Radio 042514: Indiepop A To Z # 44

Well, here it is, the forty-fourth installment of the never-ending series, my weird & slightly dumb attempt to catalog bands that are considered indiepop, that influenced indiepop, or that move in an orbit somewhere around what I consider "indiepop."  On the surface, it seems like a fool's errand, but the good news is, there are lots of nice tunes here!

You can listen to the whole show now at Self Help Radio's cubbyhole on the web.  Or you can simply click on these links to go directly to the show: part one &/or part two.  The alphabetical list of artists is below.

We finished the letter I!  We started the letter J!

(part one)

"Summer's Gone" Irene _Apple Bay_
"The Curious Thing About Leather" Irving _Cook Book CD: Libro De Cucina Y Musica_
"Against The Grain Of My Life" The Irregulars _The Sound Of Leamington Spa Vol. 3_

"Revolution Nr 12" Isar 12 _Casablanca: La Colección De Cludades - Módulo 2_
"Rough Gem" Islands _Return To The Sea_
"Dancing Away" The Isolation _The Isolation EP_
"Work Day" It Hugs Back _Inside Your Guitar_
"The Music Makes Me Sick" It's A Musical _The Music Makes Me Sick_

"Avenge" Ivy _Battery Point_
"I Get The Message" Ivy _Apartment Life_
"I Was Drunk In The Underworld" Jack _Wintercomesummer_

(part two)

"Cheap Tragedies" Jack Acid _Stars Kill Rock_
"Should've Told" Jack Drag _Jack Drag_
"Thought That I Was Over You" Jack Frost _Jack Frost_

"Foolish Boy" The Jack Rubies _Foolish Boy_
"You Make It So Hard" Jack The Bear _Bearfootin'_
"Real Cool Boy" Jackson _Verano Del 99_
"Steppin' Out" Joe Jackson _Night & Day_
"Country Girl" Jacobites _Hawks Get Religion_

"Love Is So Cool (That My Heart Goes Boom)" Jacqueline _Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music_
"Not Seen, Not Heard" Jactars _The Sound Of Leamington Spa Vol. 6_
"Back Of My Hand (I've Got Your Number)" The Jags _D.I.Y.: Starry Eyes - UK Pop, Vol. 2_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 44?

At this point, I don't think I have to explain anything to you.  I have done forty-three episodes of songs I consider indiepop (or which influenced indiepop or emulated some aspect of indiepop) & now I'm going to do a forty-fourth & what else is there to say?  I'm doing it for the same reason I've done the previous ones: I have a problem.  I can't help myself.  I've made a list of bands & even though I am just at the letter I, I continue.  "You'll never finish," you say, & probably not (although I have a separate list now of bands I forgot &/or are new, for an "appendix" version once I've completed the letter Z) but I have to see something through some time.  Sure, it may seem like it's a kind of achievement to have done a radio show for nearly twelve years that's been on three different radio stations in three different states (well, Kentucky & West Virginia are kind of similar, but they have different names), not to mention continuing it when it didn't have a radio station, & some romantic types may even note that I've been with the same woman for almost thirteen years, including four of them in a marriage.  & that's true, perhaps I should be proud of these things.  It's just that - I can imagine a day when I stop doing Self Help Radio.  (It may be sooner than I think!)  I can also imagine a day when my wife takes a good look at me & says, "What the fuck have I done?" & calls the divorce attorney which she has handily put on speed dial just in case.  These things are easily foreseeable - some might call them inevitable.  But I can't see this Indiepop A To Z thing ending.  Ever.  I do imagine I'll be done before it is.  & surely that is something of a problem, right?

But please, enjoy the show!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 44: Blah Blah Blah

I will finish the letter I!  I will begin the letter J!  It's exciting in an OCD way!

Here's something funny: after I was gathering the last few bands whose names begin with the letter I, something came over me that could best be described as a panic attack.  I suddenly couldn't remember which letter came after I, J or K.  I thought to myself, "What if I spend all this time gathering bands whose names begin with the wrong letter?  I'd be fucked!"

But I didn't consult a dictionary or ask Jeeves or anything like that.  No, I calmly recited my ABCs out loud until I was certain that the letter J followed the letter I.  Twice.  Just to be on the safe side.

Did I say "here's something funny"?  I meant to say, "Here's something I should be concerned about."

Big News!

I have big news, though the news is kind of unconfirmed.  It is about Self Help Radio, not me.  The last time I had big news about me, it was a very liberal use of the term "big."

This is the news: Self Help Radio is returning to WRFL.  What?  How?  Oh, none of that is important.  This is what I know:

I'll be doing two Self Help Radio shows on the first two Thursdays in May: the 1st & the 8th.  & then, when the new schedule starts…  Well, I hope I'm on the schedule!  I don't know yet.

So the "big news" might just be, "Self Help Radio will make a slight return to real radio the first two weeks of May!"  & then it's back to just me playing things for you from the comfort of my own head.

Or maybe the "big news" is, "I've applied to do a show again on WRFL!  But if I screw up the two before the new schedule begins, I might not be doing a show after that!"

I think I should have waited to share the big news until it was confirmed.

Rats.

1800

I have written 1800 blog entries for this blog.  The vast majority were things a roomful of monkeys would be ashamed to have written, but still, as someone who rarely gets anything done, it's quite an achievement.  You can't make me feel bad about it because I can do a fine job of such things myself.

I have "big news" in tomorrow's entry.  I put "big news" in quotes like that because it's really not big news.  I am using the quote marks correctly.  But it's something sort of new for Self Help Radio, which the subject of this blog (I think), so it deserves to be here.

Today, though, I'm all like: 1800 entries.  Wow.

Self Help Radio 041814: Cassettes

Today's show celebrates a piece of dying media that was very important to me for many years.  The cassette used to be a big part of nearly everyone's lives - & now has been relegated to the realm of aficionado & nostalgia.  The show, however, is more celebration, than elegy!

You can listen to it now now now at the Self Help Radio web site, where it might just fit on a ninety-minute cassette tape.  If so, here's side one & here's side two.  What would normally be written on the J-card is listed below.

As always, be kind - rewind!

(side one)

"Cassette Squeaking/Venetian Blind" Charlie & Todd _Party Fun With Recorders Volume 1_
"C30 C60 C90 Go!" Bow Wow Wow _Girl Bites Dog_
"Cassettes" R. Stevie Moore _Kaffeeklatsch_
"On Tape" Pooh Sticks _CD86: 48 Tracks From The Birth Of Indie Pop_

"Mix Tape" Michael Shelley _I Blame You_
"I Have Made You A Mix Tape" Daniel Ledwell _Two Over Seven_
"Compilation Cassette" Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern _Pram Town_
"Mix Tape" Stephanie D'Abruzzo & John Tartaglia _Avenue Q - The Musical_
"The Black Cassette" My Favorite _A Cult Of One_

"The Cassingle Revival" The Lucksmiths _Where Were We?_
"Cassette Revival" King Bear _Cassette Revival Therapy EP_
"Books On Tape & 45s" The Casino Ashtrays _Long After The Commercials Have Ended_

(side two)

"I Still Like Cassettes" Brother JT _The Svelteness Of Boogietude_
"Play Me A Tape" Miss Kittin _Batbox_

"Tape From California" Phil Ochs _Tape From California_
"Hiss On The Tape" John Martyn _Well Kept Secret_
"Tape Recorder Man" Momus _Folktronic_

"Tapehead" Francis International Airport _We Are Jealous We Are Glass_
"Veronica Made A Tape" Horowitz _Frosty Cat Songs_
"Cassette" Oh No _Dr. No's Oxperiment_

Whither Cassettes?

I am going to wax eloquent about cassettes on tomorrow's show, so I want to save something for that.  But here's a nice collection of musings about cassettes that may put you in the proper frame of mind for the show.

The weird thing is, putting the show together has made me feel like I miss cassettes more than I really do.  That's a little disturbing.

Okay.  Gotta go work on this week's Self Help Radio.  I think it'll be all right.

Preface To Cassettes: The Ultimate Fate Of Mix Tapes

I was a teenager during most of the 1980s (I turned 20 in 1988) so I believe I was at the prime age for the use of the cassette as a vehicle for romance & sharing: the mix tape.  Nowadays there are places online where you can gather songs; back then, you had to press record at the right time when you put the needle on the record.  I made hundreds of them, for several girls, & a lot for my male friends.

One great mix tape I got when I met a fellow who loved Tom Waits.  At the time, I had never heard anything by Tom Waits.  He offered to make me a tape of his favorite Tom Waits songs, but he asked, "What have you got?"  I was really into Nick Cave then, so I made him a Nick Cave tape.  Later on - it's sad I can't remember this guy's name - I asked how he liked it.  He loved it.  I loved the Tom Waits tape.  We couldn't agree who got the better bargain.  That was probably my best mix tape exchange.

There were bad experiences, too.  I was crazy about this chick named Amy, who shared a similar musical taste to me, & made her a mix tape in which there were, apparently, a lot of songs she already knew.  I expected it would convince her to be mine.  Instead, she said to me, "You're making me hate songs I used to love."  That relationship didn't go anywhere.

Mix CDs, though more convenient, & of course with much better sound quality, seem less personal.  I guess the whole process of sitting in front of your stereo, taking the records out of their sleeves, cleaning them, putting them on the turntable, turning the tape recorder on, playing the entire song, then making sure you pause before the next track on the LP starts - not to mention the process of scribbling in the tiny lines on the tape's cover - or whatever you call it - all of this took time & care.  & once it was done, you couldn't move the tracks around, like you can on a CD before you burn it.  You had to think about the tracklisting before you started.

& what has happened to all the mix tapes I've made?  Probably all thrown away, long ago.  Most of the women I made mix tapes for probably got rid of them after they got rid of me - & anyway, as the years went by, they also probably got rid of the cassette decks.  They used to be standard in cars; they aren't any more.  I know many people who've even gotten rid of their CDs, prefer to keep all their music on mp3s in an iPod &/or some kind of "cloud."

To be sure, I'd hate to have to sit down to make an actual mix tape again.  I miss vinyl much more than cassettes.  (& yes, I know, both are still around.  There are even cassette-only record labels.  I just don't collect anything in cassette or vinyl anymore.)  I hated the sound loss in cassettes, & of course I hated when the tape broke or got eaten by the player.  I have a couple of cassettes that I played too often, & have been demagnetized, & I keep them imagining I can play them again one day to save them - though I probably won't be able to.

But I think of the mix tapes I made with fondness, & would love to see some of them again.  I would also love to see some of the people I made them for again, too.  Probably, though, they, like the mix tapes I made them, are lost to me forever.

For Lack Of A Better World

Take this quiz, quickly.  No quibbles!  It's quality quizzing:

1) Do you or have you ever maybe even once?

a-No
b-Yeah
c-Oh
d-Dang

2) Did I ruin it for you or is that your thing?

a-Always
b-Sometimes
c-Never
d-Why

3) You had the chance, you took the chance - how do that make you feel?

a-I suppose
b-I thought so
c-I got it
d-I demure

4) The one you love loves you not.

a-Fury
b-Petulance
c-Assignation
d-Career

5) Hold your breath if you want to live.

a-Parentheses
b-Semicolon
c-Ellipsis
d-Starboard

6) Have you made it this far?

a-Superstar
b-Bombshell
c-Matinee Idol
d-Heartthrob

7) Your score indicates:

a-I have a pulse
b-I have to go
c-I have strange feelings that I can't explain
d-I must've been blind

8) You meet Leonard Cohen in early 1983.  You say:

a-I'm your man
b-Bob Dylan
c-That's no way to say hello
d-(Throat exercises)

9) A quiz should have at least ten questions, right?

a-That's a good question
b-Check out my website
c-Fundamentalist
d-Bob Dylan

SCORING! If you answered any of the questions correctly, give yourself five points.  If you answered any of the questions incorrectly, go ahead & give yourself more points so that you can feel better about yourself.

A score of 160 or more indicates you accidentally took a test by Cosmopolitan, but your relationship is all right.

A score of 20 or less indicates you probably shouldn't think what you think about the Greek God Dionysius, since he's real & knows what you're thinking.

A B+ or higher moves you quickly past second grade & into fourth grade.

A C or lower is average.  A D or higher is not.

Spoiler, A Lert

This is something my brain often does: it will separate the syllables of words that begin with sound "uh" as represented by the letter a, like alert, or again, or ahead, or askew.  It will assume that the letter a in the word is actually an article & will try to make sense of the word in that context.

For example, the phrase "Full speed ahead!" will seem, if I am exhausted or otherwise not paying attention, to be saying, "Full speed, a head!"  This will confuse me.

Or as the title of this blog piece seems to say: there's a lert named Spoiler.  But what's a lert?

I know from my readings in etymology that there's a linguistic term, called rebracketing (also called misdivision), in which words like "napron" & "nadder" become, because of how people decide to pronounce them, "an apron" & "an adder."  One word that goes the other way is "notch" - it used to be "an otch."  But it happens more often that the consonant is lost from the word, not that a consonant is gained.  (Not a gain! my brain says.)

But my brain is practicing a sort of rebracketing & the interesting thing is that most of the words - unlike alert - are words in their own right, like gain, head, & skew, with the a added as a prefix.  That might be the reason my head does that.

I remember when I was learning the days of the week, it helped me to learn to spell them to pronounce them, in my head, how they were spelled.  So Wednesday, which is normally pronounced Whensday, became, to me, Wed Nes Day in my brain.  My head still pronounces it that way.  I'm sure I sometimes will say it that way.

When I was young & my brain was limber, I could hold those words separate & know they were still the same word.  As I age, I think those mind-shortcuts are slowly unravelling up there, with consequences like this one: when someone says "the door is ajar," I have to rally myself to remember that that means it's partially open - not that someone has replaced my front door with the biggest mason jar I'll ever see.

Self Help Radio 041114: Breath

A show about breath!  It has left me short of breath!  I fear I've been wasting my breath!  Don't hold your breath or mutter things under your breath!  Help me catch my breath!  In the same breath I want to save my breath.  Or should I bate it?

Here you go, breathless one: a new show at Self Help Radio web central.  Or, if you prefer, individual halves of the show: half one & half two.  Breathy songs are below.

As always, you're a breath of fresh air!

(part one)

"Breath" Tall Dwarfs _Weeville_
"Every Breath I Take" Gene Pitney _Phil Spector: Back To Mono_
"Save Your Breath" The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir _...And The Horse You Rode In On_
"Take Your Breath Away" Prince Edward Island _This Day Is A Good Enough Day_

"Lose My Breath" My Bloody Valentine _Isn't Anything_
"The Last Breath Of Summer" Peter Himmelman _This Father's Day_
"Breath Control" Boogie Down Productions _Ghetto Music: The Blueprint Of Hip Hop_
"Cigarette Breath" Shinehead _The Real Rock_

"Baby's Breath" Bill Callahan _Apocalypse_

(part two)

"Onion Breath Baby" Elroy Peace _Onion Breath Baby_
"Dog Breath, In The Year Of The Plague" Frank Zappa _Uncle Meat_
"Out Of Breath" Ronnie Whitehead _Eccentric Soul: Mighty Mike Lenaburg_

"Every Breath You Take" The Swirlies _Damon Andy Rob Ron: The Yes Girls_
"Candy Breath" Honeybunch _Time Trials: 1987-1995_
"Catch Another Breath" Choo Choo Train _Briar High_
"Bated Breath" The Room _No Dream (Best Of)_
"One Breath" Anna Calvi _One Breath_

"Breathless" X _More Fun In The New World_
"Breathless" Momus _Timelord_

Whither Breath?

Has anyone ever written a poem in which all the lines rhyme because it's the same word?  I wanted to write a trifling little piece of doggerel about "breath" but there aren't many words that rhyme perfectly with breath: death, meth, Beth & Seth are the only ones I can think of.  The others are "near-rhymes" like "breast," relying on rhyming of the internal vowel sounds rather than the ending sounds (is that assonance?).

Anyway, I wrote a poem about breath that just rhymed breath with breath all the way through.  It went like this:

Because I could not stop for breath
I had to go & shop for breath.
Said she, "I see you're spilling breath."
Said I, "Better than killing breath."
Said she, "You should perhaps change your breath."
Such statements can derange your breath!
Still I worried about my breath.
Could I do without my breath?
I think I'll have to mint my breath.
A sweet taste just to tint my breath.
But what if I can't fix my breath?
Find something with which to mix my breath?
Seriously, what goes good with breath?
Like fire goes with wood, with breath?
I don't want chewing gummy breath.
I don't want Jamaican rummy breath.
I don't want super cheesy breath,
Lemon squeezy easy-peasy breath.
Since I can't have nothing breath,
I need to work on bluffing breath.
Said she, "You think too much of breath.
I even think that you love breath!"
Said I, "Until you tasted my breath,
I would have said I wasted my breath."
Said she, "Come here!" & took my breath
& with her lips she shook my breath.

I understand that I made the phrases all rhyme, not just the last words.  I couldn't help myself.

The first line is of course an Emily Dickinson riff.  I couldn't help myself there, either.

Preface To Breath: Sad Reflections On Childhood

Do you remember when suddenly it became a big deal whether your breath smelled bad or not?  Did it have something to do with puberty?

I remember my sixth grade Social Studies teacher, Mr. Schwartz, was the first "close talker" I ever met. He would almost pull me to him to let me know something in confidence.  (Why he needed to confide in a twelve year old is another story.)  Mr. Schwartz's main problem was that he was most probably a three-pack-a-day smoker.  In those days, teachers would disappear in-between classes to puff down an entire cigarette in a five minute period.  & even though virtually every member of my family at that time smoked, I was astonished when he would come close to me, talk in low tones, & his breath smelled as bad as his teeth were yellow.

Being an ugly & fat child, I didn't get to play the boy-girl games of puberty & anyway I did my best to keep myself inconspicuous & out of trouble.  But I think it was some time in eighth grade when someone spat out that damning word for the first time in my life: halitosis.  It's a word that sounds as bad as it is.  It was probably in my Home Economics class (a class I took because at the end of the school year you learned how to make a pizza) when some of the more popular guys I sat next to complained of some dude who had halitosis.  They had discovered this fact not because they themselves noticed, but because a girl had complained about it when she kissed him.

I knew at that point I would never ever never kiss a girl.

Whether or not I myself had bad breath I couldn't say.  I didn't have cigarette breath, that was true.  But at the time I definitely didn't have terribly good dental hygiene, which is the easiest way to guarantee decent-smelling breath.  In my favor, however, was the fact that my family ate bland, white European food, with the most daring spice being salt, so I didn't smell of garlic or curry or anything like that.  But I drank a lot of soda, & ate a lot of crap junk food.  Chances are, I didn't have breath that smelled of posies.

None of it mattered, of course - I didn't have friends with whom I whispered all the time, & when I was finally able to communicate with the opposite sex, I would be talking to girls who weren't quite as shallow as the boys in my Home Ec class.

What they - or the boys in middle school, or even my friends - said about my breath behind my back is another thing entirely, & something I am not privy to.

Sympathy For The Dribble

Things are a little sad in Lexington to-day - the college basketball team, which was poised to win the college basketball championship, lost to another team.  "Second place isn't so bad" doesn't heal the hurt feelings of people whose happiness & pride had been tied up in a sports team for an exciting season.  People I know who are at the school were saying things on Facebook like, "I'm so proud of my school!"

On a dog walk during a play-off game, with the streets quiet & near-deserted, the wife told me she didn't understand sports fans.  She said, "I can understand wanting to play sports, but watching them?"  She assumed that they knew what she does, that the spectators are not in any way responsible for how the games turn out, & that the coaches & administration & players reap all the rewards.

I grew up in a family that loved sports, & was a child when the Dallas Cowboys won a couple or three Super Bowl victories in the late 1970s.  Even in those days, however, I didn't feel much of a connection to the athletes on the television.  When once I praised what I thought was an outstanding play, but one the other team had made, I was almost struck by one of my brothers.  Rooting for the other team was apostasy.  & I remember how frustrated & sad they would be when their team lost.

In Huntington, one time, a kid at WMUL was talking about the Marshall team taking on their rivals at the University of West Virginia.  "If they beat us," he told me, "I'll kill myself."

I understand how thrilling sports are, & I also understand it's a human tendency to take sides.  (Recently, I read an internet forum about "Marvel" vs "DC" movies.)  I know I tend to take things like the recent Supreme Court ruling as a "loss" to my team (people who want everyone in the United States to be healthy, well-fed, happy, & safe) & a "win" for the 1% who already control way too much.

It's in our nature.  So I sympathize, a little, with the "losers" who had no real stake in the game, who now feel as though they've been dealt a major blow in life, like discovering they have a medical condition, or they've lost a great deal of money.  (Well, the gamblers out there who are also school partisans may actually have.)  It doesn't make me care any more about the actual sport, & it certainly doesn't change my opinion that there's too much money in college sports & far too little in the liberal arts.  But I hope my friends who are feeling a little crushed today feel better soon.  "It's just a ball game," is no consolation, because, to them, it isn't.

Maybe next year?

Movie Review?

This blog features virtually no reviews of music.  It has some comments I felt like making after some musicians or artists who meant a lot to me died, but not really any "reviews" per se.

I've written hundreds of reviews of records for the various radio stations I've been at.  I never felt any of them were worth printing.  My favorite reviews, actually, were for things that weren't very good, or for things that I didn't have much to say about, so I would take the opportunity to write something dumb.  For example, there was a band whose name was the same name as one of my middle school teachers, so the review began like this:

My eighth grade English teacher was named [band name].  I kind of liked her, but everyone else thought she was a servant of the devil because she held us to high school standards.  She was small but stern, & obviously loved the stuff she taught us.  She introduced me to Poe!  Anyway, this band – which is two brothers – has nothing to do with that.  

This doesn't help you understand the band at all, so I do describe their sound & what tracks I like.  It's standard stuff for a radio review, which (usually) isn't meant to be read by anyone but a deejay thinking about playing a song on the air.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate criticism.  I love to read what people think about stuff.  I don't agree with probably most of it, but I don't mind it.  Sometimes someone else's opinion reinforces my own - or, better yet, makes me think more deeply about what I believe or think.  For some people, however, criticism can seem to be a writer showing off his/her style, or it may just be a bad argument, someone trying to change your opinion, & that can be irksome.

But I was thinking of writing a review of a movie I recently saw, for no other reason than I just saw it.  Occasionally I write a review of something on the Internet Movie Database - very occasionally, actually - I recently wrote something for the first time in seven years - but I am rarely moved to comment on a movie in the same way lots of people are & do.  (You can read my handful of reviews here, if you'd like.  None is essential.)

& then I started thinking, this morning, how much more I enjoyed the Game Of Thrones season four premiere far more than the movie.  There were a few dull, expository stretches through the movie - but all the dialogue (& it was a talky premiere) in the television show seemed essential.

& what is the point, anyway?  If you like some of the music I like, you'll like some of the shows I've put together.  An album review or a movie review or a television review won't make much of a difference.  Will it?  How could it?