Self Help Radio 111414: Seasons

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I feel like I've done a couple of shows about summer, & at least one about spring.  A guest deejay a couple of years ago did a show about autumn, but I've never done one, nor a show about winter.  But who cares?  I did a show about all the seasons!  & I did it on two hours sleep!

It was fun, because in addition to playing lots of music, I got to talk to my Spiritual Advisor, the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently, & to Our Man In Hollywood, Mark Miller.  Plus, Tania called in & sang a song!  All that & tons of great music!  Look at all these exclamation marks!  I need to get some sleep!

The show is available for you to listen at your leisure at Self Help Radio Dot Net.  Please pay attention to the login information.  The songs I played are listed below.

Thanks so much for listening!

(part one)

"Let's Wander Thru The Seasons" Marais & Miranda _More Nature Songs_
"Each Season Changes You" Bob Ensign & The Stump Jumpers _Pickin', Grinnin', & Singin'_
"Queen Of The Seasons" Gordon Terry _Lotta, Lotta Women_

"Turn! Turn! Turn!" Pete Seeger _The Bitter & The Sweet_
"Like The Seasons" Lyme & Cybelle _Follow Me_
"Four Seasons" The Carnival _Fading Yellow: Timeless Pop-Sike & Other Delights 1965-1969, Vol. 6_
"I Love You For All Seasons" The Fuzz _Soul Hits Of The '70s - Didn't It Blow Your Mind? Vol. 4_

"Time Of The Season" Ippu-Do _Radio Fantasy_
"Seasons" Hearts On Fire _Dreams Of Leaving_
"Season Cycle" XTC _Skylarking_
"Girl For All Seasons" The Orange Peels _So Far_

"In Every Season" Pullover _Holiday_
"Seasons" The Ettes _Do You Want Power?_

(part two)

"A Reason For Every Season" Girlfrendo _Surprise, Surprise It's Girlfrendo_
"Whatever Season" Sambassadeur _Sambassadeur_
"High Hawk Season" The Mountain Goats _All Eternals Deck_

"Seasons In The Sun" Black Box Recorder _England Made Me_
"In A City Without Seasons" The One A.M. Radio _Heaven Is Attached By A Slender Thread_
"Seasons" Ian McCulloch _Slideling_

"Seasons" Earth & Fire _Earth & Fire_
"Seasons Change" The Proctors _Everlasting Light_
"When Seasons Change" Curtis Mayfield _There's No Place Like America Today_

"The Seasons Of Love" Ed Ames _When The Snow Is On The Roses_
"Seasons Of My Heart" George Jones _Country Song Hits_

Whither Seasons?

I think I say this too often: I grew up in a place without seasons.

I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, & occasionally it got cold & snowed, but in general, it was hot.  It got hot around the middle of March & stayed hot until the middle of October.  There were no promises that you wouldn't be experiencing 90 degree weather in December.

It was worse in Austin.  I used to joke that Austin had two seasons: hot, & not so hot.  The truth was, the winter was mostly mild (there might be some bitter cold for a week or two, & god help the town if there were ice), & there were always a couple of weeks of spring & fall - those were the times I loved Austin the best.  It was a beautiful city those times, & then it would grow oppressively hot, oppressively humid, with the leaves on the trees always the darkest green.

Moving to Kentucky was a strange revelation.  I tell this story a lot, too:

At a planning meeting at WRFL, the discussion was about perhaps doing an outdoor show in late September, at night.  It was nixed immediately - "It would be too cold" was the immediate concern.

Too cold!  In late September!  I believe that that's when ACL Fest happens in Austin & it's still hot as a furnace around that time!  What a difference a few lines of latitude make.

So I pay attention to seasons.  It got cold today.  It's going to be a long winter.

Self Help Radio's show about seasons will air tomorrow morning (when it'll be 25 degrees out) from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington.  It will also stream live on wrfl dot fm.  & later on I'll stick it up on the website.  You know how it is.

Preface To Seasons: Garage Door Replacement

This is something I never thought I'd ever say: we're having our garage door replaced.

Who has garage doors that belong to them?  Who thinks to themselves, "When I grow up, among the things that I will own will be a garage door"?  I guess when I was a kid, I might have imagined that I might one day own a house, or at the very least a car I slept in as I kept a few steps ahead of the law, but a garage door?

The home we currently live in, my wife, my beagles, my cats, & myself, this house which we can say "we own" even though we owe way too much money on it to use the word "own," this house we live in was once owned by a person who was apparently a "slumlord."  We have discovered, piece by piece, the corners he cut to get the cheapest possible things to keep the house warm, dry, not on fire, up to code (but just up to code).  One of those corners was a (possibly self-installed) garage door opener that had been, in its years of use, so poorly & cheaply put together that it was curving & about to split.  It made a horrible racket whenever it opened.  When its innards went bad & we had to get someone in to fix it, the garage door specialists (because there are such things) said that it needed replacing pronto.

Luckily, I was in no way involved in the purchasing of a new garage door.  Frankly, anything having to do with the house, I let the wife choose.  I have no aesthetic opinion about the color of walls or the arrangement of furniture or whatever choice one has to make about garage doors.  (For the record, she chose sandstone.)

Why don't I care?  Because there are far more important things to argue about.  I save my energy for those arguments, not ones about the color of garage doors.  In high school & in college, I put things on the wall - mainly music-related posters - as a way to inform the rare visitor that these were my interests.  I don't care to do that anymore.  It's probably a relief to the wife.

We also have no photos, professionally made or otherwise, of us or the animals on the wall.  I find those weird, like you need to remind yourself that these people are, in fact, related or married to you.  We put pictures on the fridge, but really, if we didn't have them, I wouldn't care.  Time already buries us; one doesn't need peripherals like photos & mail & stickers & magnets to weigh down the already suffocating memories.

As I write this, & listen to music for Friday's show, there's all kinds of knocking & banging noises.  They're almost done.  I'm a little worried, myself - the old, falling-apart garage door was noisy as hell.  This one probably won't be.  & while I'm not a guilty person, & I can't imagine what I'd be doing that the wife can "catch me" at, I did like the noise that indicated she was returning.  That will probably be gone.

Maybe I should make her wear a bell around her neck.

Update: it's a pretty quiet garage door.  Damn.

The Croup

Before the internet, & with no dictionary handy, one had to guess what the hell people were talking about by trying to understand the context.  I guess one could interrupt & ask, but they didn't always seem to be proper or polite, no matter what kind of annoying child or person you were.  When I was a teenager, I would keep a dictionary handy to look up words I didn't know, but often I was so caught up in the reading that I just let it pass - again, trusting in context.

Naturally, many words I thought I knew I didn't really know.

Just now, lost in my dumb thoughts, I remembered being told that a schoolfellow had "the croup."  I must've been very young but also impressionable, because it stayed with me - I think I recall that word in a strange, familiar way.  My childhood reasoning went something like: "Croup sounds horrible.  It sounds like a horrible soup.  A horrible hot soup that burns your insides."

Come to think of it, maybe I had the croup.  I should ask my mother.

Today - as I was saying - I was thinking about "the croup."  Immediately my brain said, "That's a made-up thing if I ever heard one!"  It did sound like something someone would say in fun.  My high school history teacher characterized all colds as "the epizootic."  As in, "Hey, Paul's not here today."  "No, bet he's got the epizootic!"

But croup is for real.  As it says in the Wikipedia,

Croup (or laryngotracheobronchitis) is a respiratory condition usually triggered by an acute viral infection of the upper airway. The infection leads to swelling inside the throat, which interferes with normal breathing and produces the classical symptoms of a "barking" cough, stridor, & hoarseness. It may produce mild, moderate, or severe symptoms, which often worsen at night. It is often treated with a single dose of oral steroids; occasionally inhaled epinephrine is used in more severe cases. Hospitalization is rarely required.

Croup is a relatively common condition that affects about 15% of children at some point, most commonly between 6 months & 5–6 years of age. It is almost never seen in teenagers or adults.

Before the advent of vaccination, croup was frequently caused by diphtheria, & was often fatal. This cause is now a historical one in the Western world due to the success of the diphtheria vaccine & improved hygiene and living standards.

Yay vaccines!

So there's a fifteen percent chance I had the croup when I was a kid.  Sorry - that I had laryngotracheobronchitis.  That doesn't sound like bad soup.

As a postscript: if I had read that definition above in an encyclopedia, I would've had to go get a dictionary to look up the word "stridor."  Never heard it before.  But luckily I just had to click on it.  & I discovered:

Stridor (Latin for "creaking or grating noise") is a high-pitched breath sound resulting from turbulent air flow in the larynx or lower in the bronchial tree.

Though I still wish I had a giant set of encyclopedias.

Autumn Sweater

Do you have a problem with excessive sweating?  Why do people sweat anyway?  The internet says (here):

Sweating is an essential & natural biological process that starts soon after we are born. Sweating, or perspiring, is the body’s mechanism of keeping us cool & preventing us from overheating in a warm environment or during exercise or exertion. Our body also produces sweat when we experience strong emotions or stressful situations, during hormonal changes, & it helps to play a role in fighting infections.

Normally our bodies produce almost 1 liter of sweat per day; however most of this evaporates as soon as it is produced, so we don't notice it. The body produces more sweat during exercise or in warmer environments in order to help cool us down. If a person exercised very hard in the heat they could produce up to 10 liters of sweat in a day.

10 liters of sweat a day?!?  If I knew the metric system I might be horrified!

Oh yeah, so then why do I sweat so much?

Sweat's pretty gross.  Speaking of gross, why do men sweat more than women?  Why do I sweat more than men & women combined?

Checking the Self Help Radio "kind of a table of contents page", one will discover that Self Help Radio has never done a show about sweat.  & this week's show isn't about sweat.  I was just thinking of the song "Autumn Sweater" by Yo La Tengo & my brain, in its dumbass way, imagined for a second that the song wasn't about a piece of clothing but rather about someone perspiring in the fall.

But if there were a show about sweating what songs might we hear?  Of course "Cold Sweat" by James Brown.  "Coldsweat" by the Sugarcubes, sure.  "Sweatbox" by the Wolfgang Press, yes.  Maybe that Jonathan Richman song with the awkward title "The Lovers Are Here & They're Full Of Sweat"?  Not "The Lovers Are Here & They're Covered In Sweat," Jonathan?  "Full Of Sweat"?  Really?

No, I'm not ready to tackle a show about sweat just yet.  It gives me the sweats thinking about it.  I'm not going to sweat it, though - & even if I did, & I was too sweaty, it doesn't matter!  It's cold out!  I just sweat inside my sweater & no one notices.  Except maybe the smell.

Self Help Radio 110714: Saws

I know, right?  A radio show about saws?  I'm not even a crafty guy!  Ask my wife.  She wishes I would take up carpentry or something like that.  The most sawyer I am, alas, is Tom.  & I have a fence to paint.

Still, I managed to rustle up a couple hours worth of saw songs.  The show only aired ninety minutes, because I gave the last half hour to my trainee, Ethan, who did wonderfully.  At home, later, I added thirty minutes of music, to bring it to the full two hours.  So if you heard the show this morning - there's bonus content!  Suddenly I feel like a Blu-Ray Video Disc!

The show is listenable (arguably listenable) at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to passwords & such, available on the page.  The sawsy songs I played are listed below.

As always, thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Cross Cut Saw Blues" Tommy McClennan _Big Joe Williams & The Stars Of Mississippi Blues_
"The Great Big Saw Came Nearer & Nearer" Spike Jones & His City Slickers _...And The Great Big Saw Came Nearer & Nearer & Nearer & Nearer & Nearer!_
"Saw Funny Rug" Hajime Sakita _Musical Saw Songs "S"_

"Chainsaws" Drew Hastings _Farmageddon_
"Chainsaw" The Cut-Outs _'No More Of Your Fairy Stories': An Indiepop Loveletter To The Ramones_
"Chainsaw" Fat Tulips _Starfish_
"Chainsaw" Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra _Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra_
"Chainsaw Charlie" Angry Johnny & The Killbillies _Hankenstein_

"Buzzsaw" The Turtles _The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands_
"God's Buzzsaw" Ya Ya Choral _Can't Stop It! II : Australian Post-Punk 1979-1984_
"Radial Arm Saws" The Styrenes _It's Still Artastic_
"Pavement Saw" Big Black _Songs About Fucking_

"Saw Mill" Buck Owens _On The Bandstand_
"Son Of A Sawmill Man" Osborne Brothers _Up To Date & Down To Earth_
"The Day The Saw Mill Closed Down" Bobby Bare _A Bird Named Yesterday_

(part two)

"Saw Mill River Road" Chet Atkins _Mr. Guitar: The Complete Recordings 1955-1960_
"Sawmill" Miles Davis & John Lee Hooker _The Hot Spot_
"Sawmill Holler" Watermelon Slim & The Workers _The Wheel Man_

"I Broke My Saw" Love Tractor _Themes From Venus_
"My Buzzsaw Baby (Really Cut Me Up)" Johnnys _My Buzzsaw Baby (Really Cut Me Up)_
"Not Track Five, Not Chainsaw Juggler" Mitch Hedberg _Mitch All Together_
"The Saw-Playing Musician" Utah Phillips _Fellow Workers_
"Saw & Calliope Organ On Wire" The Music Tapes _Mary's Voice_

"Sawing On The Strings" The Mayfield Brothers _Vintage Recordings 1948-1956_
"Saw Fiddle Saw" Red Steagall _It's Our Life_
"Chainsaw" Little Gold _Weird Freedom_
"The Black Country Chainsaw Massacreee" Pop Will Eat Itself _CD86: 48 Tracks From The Birth Of Indie Pop_
"Bury The Hatchet, The Chainsaw, & Whatever Else You Got" Hair _The Magic's Gone_

"Buzz Saw" Xiu Xiu _The Air Force_
"Sawed Off" Dub Narcotic Sound System _Out Of Your Mind_
"Chainsaw The Horse" The Dentists _Dressed_

Whither Saws?

In the beginning, there was a song.  Or two.  Both of them had the word "buzz saw" in them.  It seemed promising.  An idea had begun.

An idea that got lonesome.  Because there were so few "saw" songs forthcoming.  Maybe a song about a chainsaw here.  A song about a sawmill there.  More often there were the temptation songs.

The songs about "see-saws."  There are a lot of us see-saw songs, they's see-sing in a sing-song voice.  & they were right.  There were a lot of see-saw songs.

But in the back of your head, you said to yourself, The saw in see-saw is just the past tense of 'see.'  It refers to the experience on the playground toy.  It's not a saw like a buzzsaw or a chainsaw!

The songs about "jigsaws" were next.  We're actually named after a type of saw, they said in rumbly-mumbly way, like pieces of a puzzle poured out of a box.  There are loads of us, boxes full of us!

But in the back of your head, you told yourself, The jigsaw may be what is used to cut the puzzle pieces but the songs are about the puzzle itself.  They aren't really songs about an actual jigsaw.

& many weeks passed, & you would think about the saw show, & the songs that inspired it.  & one day, in a fit of pique, you said out loud, to the universe, I will do a show about saws!  & I will find songs about saws to fill an entire show!  & if there are not enough saw songs, I shall write & perform enough for the show!

The universe is indifferent, but thankfully it turns out there are plenty of songs about saws, enough to fill an entire show.  Anyone interested will be able to hear them tomorrow morning on Self Help Radio.

It's on from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.  It'll stream simultaneously on wrfl dot fm.  Later in the day, it'll come to rest on self help radio dot net.  Where it shall sleep, & dream of a log being sawed, which will emulate its snoring.

Preface To Saws: Call Of Duty

I asked the wife if we'd seen more than the first "Saw" movie, which was very successful & spawned seven or so sequels (including one called "The Final Chapter," although I'm sure there'll be more of that cash cow, even though there are diminishing returns which each Roman numeral after the title), & she assures me we saw at least the first two.  I have no memory of them - even reading the summary on the IMDb, it doesn't sound familiar to me.  IFC did a marathon over Halloween & I'd swear in court I never saw any Saw movie.

That's just age, though.  I've forgotten more movies, perhaps, than I'll see in the rest of my life.

I had to sub a show on RFL tonight so I am a little discombobulated.  Also, I want to watch Arrow but the wife wants to finish last night's Sons Of Anarchy & then watch American Horror Story.  But I want to watch Arrow!  & drink a lot of wine.  But I don't have any wine & I don't get to watch Arrow.  Unhappy face.

Musical Saws

On this depressing election night, I am retreating into my show, which this week is about saws.  One of the things I plan to play are people using the saw as a musical instrument.  So here's a fellow playing my favorite Beethoven piece, the Moonlight Sonata.  Enjoy!

Something I Like

I spend a lot of time bouncing around nonsense on the internets, most of it being amused, some of it educating myself, & a few times I find stuff that really knocks my socks off.  Today, I discovered these paintings by Gill Rocca, a sample of which is above.  Socks were knocked off.  Why?  I like the fogginess, the blurriness, the way the absence or lack of light is so impressionistically captured.  The link has more of this artist's moving paintings.

Self Help Radio 103114: Halloween 2014 - Mummies!

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It was hard but rewarding to find two hours worth of songs about mummies but find them I did & that was today's show.  I did have to break into a pharaoh's tomb to get some of the music, but you & I know that those curses are a bunch of hooey, right?  Right?  Oh no.

The show can be listened to at the Self Help Radio web page now & well past Halloween.  Hey, & if you want to hear some of my previous Halloween shows, they're at the top of my Self Help Radio archive page for today - shows about hell, haunted houses, graveyards, nightmares, & zombies are there - in addition to the mummy show I did today.  Maybe perfect for your Halloween party?  Probably not.

Have a safe one & thanks for listening - the mummy songs I played are below.

(part one)

"The Mummy" Bob McFadden & Dor _Songs Our Mummy Taught Us_
"The Mummy" Marshmallow Overcoat _The Very Best Of Marshmallow Overcoat_
"The Mummy's Bracelet" Lee Ross _Bomp In The Night_
"The Mummy" Uncle Vin _Boo_

"The Mummy" The Naturals _The Mummy_
"Homemade Mummy" Aesop Rock _Skelethon_
"The Mummy's Ball" The Verdicts _These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits For Halloween_
"When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy" Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band _Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)_

"Me & My Mummy" Bobby 'Boris' Pickett & The Crypt Kickers _The Original Monster Mash_
"Mummy Beach" Hot Lava _Lavalogy_
"My Mummy" Mel Calvin & The Kokonuts _My Mummy_
"My Daddy Is A Mummy" Richard Thompson _RT: The Life & Music Of Richard Thompson_
"The Mummy" Benji Hughes _A Love Extreme_

"The Mummy Piece" William S. Burroughs _Best Of William S. Burroughs: From Giorno Poetry Systems_
"Sarcophagus" Telephone Company _The King's Surprise?_

(part two)

"Mummies" Toyah _The Blue Meaning_
"The Mummy" Jad & David Fair _26 Monster Songs For Children (A-Z)_
"Mummy Walk" Bo Diddley _Hey! Bo Diddley_
"The Mummy's Monkey" The Eastsiders _Halloween Oldies But Goodies Of The '50s & '60s_

"The Mummy" The Slackers _The Question_
"The Way Out Mummy" Bob Ridgely _Lost Treasures! Rarities From The Vaults Of Del-Fi_
"The Mummy" Black Time _Midnight World_
"Mummy's Curse" Luna Vegas _Second Shot_

"The Mummy" 4Corners Crew _Show Me The Lighta EP_
"Bad News" Spooklight _Spooklight_
"Mummified" Future Clouds & Radar _Peoria_

"King Tut" Steve Martin _A Wild & Crazy Guy_
"Tutankhamun" Dynasty _The Electric Asylum, Vol. 3_
"The Mummy's Revenge" Wade Denning & Frank Daniels _Monster Mash (Sounds Of Terror!)_

Whither Mummies?

I have a hell of a thing going with these Halloween shows.  I don't like to repeat myself (well, except for anniversary shows); even the shows I do every year that are about the same - like the Christmas show - I try to play stuff I have never played before.  So if I'm going to do a different Halloween show every year, at some point, I'm going to run out of Halloween icons, right?

Here's what I've done so far in my twelve long years on this show:

2002: general Halloween songs
2003: ghosts
2004: (no Halloween show)
2005: vampires
2006: monsters
2007: zombies
2008: witches
2009: werewolves
2010: haunted houses
2011: graveyards
2012: nightmares
2013: hell

I've complained about this before - I'm running out of scary things!  With mummies, I believe, I've finished off the golden age pantheon of movie monsters.  What can I do next year?  I don't know!

Please listen to my ridiculous mummy show tomorrow from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm.  & I'll put it up in time for Halloween if you so desire at the Self Help Radio website.

Preface To Mummies: Run For Your Life, Charlie Brown!

User CitizenWolfie has created a fabulous collection of Schulz-inspired Halloween creatures which he calls Run For Your Life, Charlie Brown!  I have included above, appropriately, his "Linus as the Mummy" drawing above for your pleasure.

Visit the link!  They're all great!

Is It Cater-Corner Or Kitty-Corner?

This might not be a question they ask in England or Australia - I've heard people with accents pronounce the "cater" in "cater-corner" like the word "cater" as in "I want to have a vegetarian restaurant cater my Thanksgiving" or "I won't cater to your whims, human" (which is something my cats say to me all the time).

But in the States, we say "cater-corner" as if we're saying "cat" in the "corner."  Which is why I think some people say "kitty-corner," since "cat" & "kitty" are both names for those fickle beasts to whom we give our love, only to watch most of them treat our hearts like crippled mice, & play with them.

Sob!

The great Word Detective, who you can read at word-detective.com, & who'll get you addicted to etymology, tells the story of this weird word here, which I will reproduce below:

"Cattycorner" does not actually have anything to do with cats, although cats are notoriously fond of sitting in corners and staring at the wall (at least mine are). The proper word, in fact, is "catercorner" or "catercornered." The "cater" is an Anglicization of the French "quatre," or "four," and "catercornered" originally just meant "four-cornered." To specify that something is "catercorner across" from something else is to stress the diagonal axis of an imaginary box, as opposed to saying "directly across" or just "across."

According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, our great national repository of English as real folks speak it, "catercorner" first appeared around 1883 in the South, and originally meant "askew" or "out of line." The "diagonally across" meaning soon took over, however, as did the transition from "cater" to "catty." Linguists call this process "folk etymology" -- people replacing an unfamiliar element in a word or phrase ("cater") with a familiar one ("catty" or "kitty"). "Cattycorner" has remained purely an Americanism, so don't expect folks to understand the word if you use it on your next trip to London.

Now, I know other countries are familiar with this word, or at least the brainiacs in the Lucksmiths do, since they use it (pronouncing it with a long a) in the song Midweek Midmorning.  Nyah.

I miss the Lucksmiths.  That's a brilliant song.  I remember when I bought the single way back when.

Why am I thinking of this?  Because as I sit here working on my next show (the Halloween show, about mummies, this Friday), I can hear the sounds of children screaming.  That's a daunting sentence, implying horrors, with the words "Halloween" & "scream" so close together, but actually, I live with a daycare-in-a-church catercorner from my house, & children scream when they're playing, mainly to annoy me.  My dogs & cats, who doubtless have more excellent hearing than I do, seem unfazed, but it alarms me every time one of them lets out a particularly screechy shriek.  I think the people hired to watch over them (who, I found out, have the inflated title "teachers") wear earplugs while the kinders play.

Anyway, I answered my own question by going to the Word Detective: it's catercorner.  Not even a dash!

Forget I said anything.

A Comedy Of Terrors

You think you're so clever, making a pun on a Shakespeare play (& referencing something your wife has taken to saying when the pets do something funny) & then you check on it.  You discover (naturally) that this simple-to-make pun has been used probably since the first critic of the play.

"Master Shakespeare's new play is not so funny; indeed, one might call it a comedy of terrors!" - The Stratford-On-Avon Times

Check it out: it's a horror film with Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, & Vincent Price (using the article "the" instead of "a"), & also a Bollywood film that has a little infamy because it was sued by Warner Brothers for apparently ripping off Harry Potter (although it seems to have mostly ripped off Home Alone).  Plus it's an eBook & also someone wants to make it a role playing game.  Now it's the title of one of my dumb blog posts!

Shakespeare's play is about two twins separated at birth that end up in the same city & hilarity ensues.  The Comedy Of Terrors is about an undertaker who kills people to get more clients.  Wouldn't it have been more fun to have Karloff & Price be two killers who were separated at birth?  A real opportunity was missed there.

I can't imagine there'll be much comedy in my show this week, or do I mean terror?  There are quite a few songs about mummies (it's my Halloween show!) & a lot of them are novelty tunes.  I suppose I'll talk about that a bit more as the week wears on.

Self Help Radio 102414: Walk Away

(Original photo here.

This morning there was a Self Help Radio with the improbable theme "walk away."  I wonder how many people subconsciously stop listening to a radio show that constantly tells them to walk away?  It's something I should've thought through before I went ahead & did it.

But!  Did it I did, & it's available now at the Self Help Radio website for your listening ambivalence.  Pay attention to the password information on the page.  & you can see the songs I played below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Walking Away by C. Day Lewis" Jill Balcon _Poetry Please: The Anniversary Edition_
"Walk Away" Jess Conrad _Jess For You: The Decca Singles Compilation_
"I Walked Away" T-Bone Walker _The Complete Imperial Recordings: 1950-1954_
"Walk Away" Mitty Collier _Shades Of Mitty Collier: The Chess Singles 1961-1968_

"Walk Away Renee" The Left Banke _There's Gonna Be A Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966-69_
"Walk Away Renee" Billy Bragg _Reaching To The Converted_
"Walk Away" Suburban 9 To 5 _Quagmire, Vol. 7_
"Walkin' Away" The Fifth Order _Sixties Rebellion, Vol. 1_
"Walk Away" The Dirty Shames _Coconut Grove_

"Walk Away" Ann Peebles _This Is Ann Peebles_
"Love You Just Can't Walk Away" Dean Courtney _Big City Soul, Vol. 3_
"Walk Away" Frank Sinatra _The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings_
"As If You Walked Away" Claudine Longet _Cuddle Up With Claudine Longet: The Complete Barnaby Records Sessions 1970/74_
"Walk Away From Love" David Ruffin _Hard To Find Motown, Vol. 1_

"Walk Away" TV Smith's Explorers _The Last Words Of The Great Explorer_
"Laugh & Walk Away" Shirts _Street Light Shine_

(part two)

"Walk Away Boy" The Hit Parade _The Sound Of The Hit Parade_
"All You Ever Do Is Walk Away" The Magnetic Fields _Holiday_
"Walk Away" The Sisters Of Mercy _First & Last & Always_

"Walk Away" The English Beat _Wha'ppen?_
"Don't You Walk Away From Me" Miss Ludella Black & The Masonics _From This Witness Stand_
"Walk Away" Pink Industry _Who Told You, You Were Naked?_
"Don't Walk Away From Love" Simon Bonney _Everyman_

"Walk Away" The Sleepers _Painless Nights_
"Walked Away" Shirley Lee _Shirley Lee_
"Walk Away" Tony Molina _Dissed & Dismissed_
"I Love You When You're Walking Away" Plumtree _Moshi Moshi (Pop International Style)_

"Atmosphere" Joy Division _Closer_
"Walk Away" Shimmering Stars _Violent Hearts_
"She Tore It Up & Walked Away" Go-Kart Mozart _Instant Wigwam & Igloo Mixture_

Whither Walk Away?

This is a story about a man named Gary, who was always walking away.  For example, when he was
young, in the mornings, he often walked away from his home, &, later, walked away from the school where he spent his days.

Later, he walked away from every class he took, at least once a day.  When he got older, he walked away from home nearly every weekday morning, & then in the late afternoon, sometimes later, he'd walk away from the place he worked.  He did it so many times, it's a wonder he was never fired!

He does a radio show now, on Friday mornings.  But after two hours, he walks away from it.  Every week.  & perhaps to flaunt it, this week he's doing a show with the theme "walk away."  What nerve!  What gall!

Don't encourage this disrespectful behavior!  If you have the radio tuned to 88.1 fm WRFL (or are listening online at wrfl dot fm) tomorrow morning from 7 to 9 am, just walk away from the show.  Make him understand what it feels like, all that walking away!

It's more well-mannered to run away, after all.

Preface To Walk Away: Walk Over Here

Is it that time of the time again that I plug the Self Help Radio Tumblr site?  Initially I used the site for music videos because I had no other real use for it.  Now I use it as a place to put all the dumb digital photos I take when I am walking the dogs or am walking around in other places, including my home.  Some pictures I think are neat, some I think are dumb, & some I think are curious, but none of them I think are good compared to photographers who have a great eye.

I especially like the pictures I take that are turn out fine even though the circumstances are accidental.  This one, which was taken on my dog Pauline's birthday, was me snapping the picture before she got into place - but it was better than any other picture I took of her that day:

Anyway, there are lots of pictures of stuff that I notice while I'm walking, & lots of pictures of my pets, & thankfully no pictures of me, at selfhelpradio.tumblr.com.

All right!  Time to stop the bad self-promotion for awhile.  I'm really uncomfortable with it.

Dreams Are Boring

A scientific fact: dreams are boring.  Not individual dreams specific to the dreamer.  Dreams except for ones that you have dreamt are boring.  Unless.  Unless you believe dreams are full of hidden imagery, a signal that your subconscious is trying to explain you to yourself, or any number of supernatural other explanations of dreams.  In that case, both the dreams & the people who feel that way about dreams are boring.

It's fun to fuck with people like that.  They're so self-important & faux-earnest.  One fellow I knew, once upon a time, when I was telling someone else within his earshot about a recent dream (I was boring the hell out of her, though it had been a neat dream), overheard me say something in the (long-forgotten) dream about a window.  "Whoa," he said, exaggeratedly wide-eyed in an exaggerated manner, "Don't you know how important it is when you dream about windows?"

Boring.  But I affected a wide-eyed manner & asked him to explain what windows mean in dreams.  It didn't take too long before he used the word "archetype" & of course "Jung," which he pronounced with a hard J.  The other person I was talking to knew I was pretending like I gave a shit, so she did her best to stifle her laughter.  It ended with the dream interpreter giving me his card & telling me he'd give me a discount on the first visit.

Having said all that, I have to tell you about a dream I recently had.

No, I don't.  I don't have to.  I feel compelled to tell you because sometimes dreams are the most interesting thing to happen to me.  They're not only interesting to me, they're mostly consistently interesting.  Things one might think are interesting that I do aren't always as interesting.  For example: I enjoy doing my radio show, but talking to people about my radio show, the process of doing the radio show, things that may happen behind the scenes during my radio show, those aren't usually too terribly interesting.  The show itself may be interesting (probably not) but what I do during the show - with the exception of the occasional goofy phone call - not too interesting.

My dreams, though - virtually every morning I wake up & think: wow, that was an interesting thing that happened to me!

One reason dreams are boring to anyone except the dreamer is that most dreams are experiences that are felt & don't travel in a narrative arc.  Last night, I dreamt that I was in a bad part of town (what town? who knows? in the dream KVRX & WRFL were basically the same place) but when I wanted to show the bad part of town to someone, suddenly there were shops & stores there, & it didn't seem as derelict as I believed it was earlier in the dream.  The whole place changed, & I was a little surprised, but the dream moved on.  That was probably very boring, but it wasn't for me, & whatever the narrative was in the dream, I thought about it a lot when I was waking up.

In fact, I (& I'm probably not alone) often try to get back to dreams if I am wakened before the time I've supposed to actually get up.  That's how interesting my dreams are to me!

& yet - boy, are dreams boring.  It's sneaky of me to have shared a snippet of a dream in this denunciation of dreams.  I didn't meant to be sneaky.  I needed to make a point.  A point of how tedious dreams are.  Oh my god.  Let's not talk about dreams anymore.  Not to each other.

Please.

The Weather Turns

I've probably observed/complained here before that I now live in a place where it's cold much more often than it's hot.  Having grown up in Texas, & spent most of that time in Austin, I am used to the opposite.  Austin has a fitful winter, which is often interrupted with warm spells, & a truncated autumn & spring.  Lexington (where I now live) tends to have a spring that slowly frees itself from the icy muck of winter & then casually waits around for summer to get started.

But autumn officially began last month & the idea of it has taken hold.  I write this with a window to my left, & out of the corner of my eye I can see the occasional yellow leaf fall.  The trees here are still mainly green, but there are those that have embraced the autumn colors of red, orange, yellow, & a few that have already dumped their leaves for the winter.

& it's colder.  This week it'll get no higher than 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  Just like the house gets warmer when it's warmer outside, it gets colder in here when the nights are below 40 degrees,

But the reason this is on my mind is not because I think you're interested in the weather, or even my banal observations about differences in geography.  It's because - well, here, let me show you.  This is what my left hand looks like right now:

(I couldn't take a picture of both hands because one had to hold the camera, but my right hand is equally attired.)

I am not a beggar on the cold streets of London - I am a person whose hands are freezing.

That was the most fascinating thing about living in this part of the world - it gets cold in your house during the winter, & one's extremities get cold.  When we first moved here - the first season in this clime - I suffered through the entire winter with frozen hands.  My arms, legs, feet, even head, I could keep covered, but as long as I was tapping on my computer, my hands were exposed & it was cold.

& generally speaking, it's hard to use a keyboard in mittens or your average winter gloves.  It was probably the wife who suggested these - probably after watching me try to warm my hands by sitting on them, or, worse, putting them down my pants.  To warm them, I mean.  Anyway.

(My fingers are still cold.)

The summer seems short now, but there were days when the heat & humidity were pretty unbearable.  All of that now is so very far away - we have at least six months now of mainly cold, cold weather, with the prospect of a crippling winter & the return of the polar vortex on the grey horizon.

My dumb point is this: when the weather turns around here, it doesn't turn back.  Not for a while.