Self Help Radio 120514: What A Waste!

The waste of time that is Self Help Radio celebrates all kinds of waste, including but not limited to wasting time.  & guess how much time you've wasted just reading about wasted time?  Life is a recursion, it's true.

Radio show!  You have more time to waste!  You can listen to it now & whenever you want at Self Help Radio dot net.  My gosh, there are a lot of shows there.  Why not carve off a piece of your life & dedicate it to some musical time-wasting?  You can't possibly waste as much time as I did making the shows!

(Pay attention to the username/password combination.  What I wastefully played is below.)

To paraphrase Thoreau, "How can you waste time without irking eternity?"

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Why Do You Waste My Time?" Tiny Grimes & His Rocking Highlanders _We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll_
"Wastin' Your Time" Bob Gibson _Where I'm Bound_
"Wasted" Wanda Jackson _Right Or Wrong_

"I Just Wasted The Rest" Bobby Goldsboro & Del Reeves _Bobby Goldsboro: The Complete United Artists Records Singles_
"I'm Wasting Your Time & You're Wasting Mine" Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton _Porter Wayne & Dolly Rebecca_
"What A Waste!" Ian Dury & The Blockheads _The Stiff Records Box Set_
"Beautiful Waste" The Triffids _Australian Melodrama_

"Wasteland" Colin Hicks & The Cabin Boys _La Dee Dah_
"Wasteland" The Jam _Setting Sons_
"Wasteland" A Frames _2_
"Wasteland (In A...)" Erase Errata _Nightlife_
"Baba O'Riley" Guided By Voices _Who's Not Forgotten: FDR's Tribute To The Who_

"Wasted" Blancmange _Happy Families_

(part two)

"Wasting Away" Jim Jiminee _Welcome To Hawaii_
"Wasted" Pere Ubu _Story Of My Life_
"Go To Waste" Nothing Painted Blue _Emotional Discipline_
"A Summer Wasting" Belle & Sebastian _The Boy With The Arab Strap_

"Youth Is Wasted On The Young" Chain & The Gang _Music's Not For Everyone_
"Wasted Moments" Shermans _In Technicolor_
"Wasted Daylight" Stars _The Five Ghosts_
"Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me" The Pipettes _We Are The Pipettes_

"Wasted On You" Robert Francis & The Night Tide _Heaven_
"Another Month You've Wasted" Shy Camp _Another Month You've Wasted_
"Why Waste Time" Caramel _Punkpopgaragemods_
"Wasted Away" Dum Dum Girls _Only In Dreams_

"Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" Galaxie 500 _Today_

Whither Waste?

I've already done a show about trash, including songs about garbage.  It's about time I tackle one of trash's synonyms (that's not garbage) & deal with waste.

But waste!  I mean, but wait!  Waste can mean so much more than trash!  It's true.  We waste time, often by getting wasted.  What a waste!  & not, as you might have suspected, what a trash!

The word comes from the French & appears to have originally been used with land that was uncultivated.  Flash forward a few centuries & hipsters in the 1950s start describing themselves as "wasted" - & maybe they meant they were too drunk to even appear cultivated.

I haven't been wasted in a long time, though I'm pretty good at wasting time, especially on the radio.  Don't believe me?  Listen tomorrow from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.  It'll stream online at wrfl dot fm, & I'll put it up later on self help radio on the web net.

If you're up early, I'll also be doing the 5 to 7 timeslot.  Freeform radio.  Just sayin'.

Preface To What A Waste: Wasted Days & Wasted Nights

Talking to mother, she says, "Times goes by quicker when you're old."

But she never says, "Don't waste a single moment."

It never occurs to her.

What is a life full of unwasted moments like?

It sounds exhausting.

Is life about using up all the time allotted to you?

I live in a house with eight animals, not counting me, but counting my wife.

My animals (also, not counting my wife) sleep most of the time.

Are they wasting their lives?

According to this article, "feral cats sleep less & are involved in more high-intensity activity than house cats."

But feral cats live on average four to five years, while a house cat can live three times that.

Better to live a short, meaningful life than a long, wasted one?

When I was younger, I felt bored a lot of the time.

I was keenly aware that I was wasting time by the bucketful.

As I got older, as life piled on, I found I barely had time for the things I had to do, let along the things I enjoyed.

But it seems older people need as much sleep as younger people.

I have no idea where I'm going with this.

Just scribbling thoughts out loud.

& no, I probably won't play that Freddy Fender song.

Where Does Human Waste Go After We Flush?

The show this week is about waste & wasting but probably not much about human waste.  Still, if you're as juvenile as I am, you naturally think about poop & pee when someone says the word "waste."  Here's a great vid from the cool kids at Sci Show that tells the story:



(I need to find out if our house has a septic tank!)

Holiday Season

Someone on Tumblr wrote today, "I can't believe it's already Christmas 1."

I don't really celebrate Christmas.  While I like the music, I don't exchange gifts with anyone, & as concerns my family, I don't enjoy the forced nature of the holiday.  I have a pretty large family, four brothers & two sisters, & while I am pretty close with my sisters, whom I genuinely like, I haven't spoken to any of my brothers in years.  & the reverse is true: they haven't spoken to me, or made any attempt to, in years.

I marvel at families who really seem to like each other, to be around one another.  The only thing that keeps my family sort-of together is our mother - mainly my family gathers for her birthday, for Thanksgiving, & for Christmas.  It also helps, I guess, that most everyone in my family, except for me & my oldest brother, live in the Dallas area.  Most, actually, live in the same town as my mother.  Which should say something about her apron strings.

I've told my mother that I don't imagine I'll speak to my brothers again after her funeral.  She characterizes that as me "hating" them.  I tell her, "How can I hate someone I don't really know?"

There's a scene in the wonderful movie "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" in which the older brother of the main character comes home from college.  The older brother is a college sports hero, while the little brother is emotionally troubled.  The older brother takes the time to sit with his little brother & ask how he's doing.  They couldn't be any different from one another, but there's a love that comes from being family that's their bond.

I'm not being self-piteous when I say that that scene was utterly alien to me.  I can't imagine any member of my family - my sisters & mother included - caring that deeply, that openly about me.  I have been through some awful emotional moments, & the most sympathy I ever got was the advice to "man up."  Indeed, when one of my brothers was being what I considered emotionally abused by his spouse, & could have used counseling & a good amount of empathy, that was the advice my mother continued to give him.

It's the lack of any kind of warmth that keeps me away from family gatherings.  I feel like I did my time - I probably attended every Christmas until I was forty - but the sheer claustrophobic unpleasantness of the holiday - basically an evening spent around virtual strangers - in which, in later years, I made sure I had some whiskey to make it at all bearable - I began to excuse myself.  & of course now being hundred of miles away makes it easier for me to stay away.

I am fascinated why my family is this way.  (& by the way, I know I have much of this in me.  I don't have many friends, & I don't long for that, & I don't reach out to most of my siblings.  I also married a woman who has a distinct lack of empathy.)  I came into the family when most of my siblings had gone
through puberty, & I also arrived at the tail-end of my mother & father's marriage.  So they were there most of the time, while I was raised mostly by my mother & I was generally left alone (something for which I'm grateful).  Being a child, I wasn't really able to pay attention to what was going on, & in fact, it's taken me most of my adult life to even notice all of this.

What I'd like to do is ask my siblings - who doubtless don't dwell on the past the way I do - to maybe Skype with me for an hour & let me ask them questions.  I wonder if they'd do it.  I'd like to record the sessions & maybe make them into some sort of narrative, if only just for me.  The energy it would take might be too much, as would the possible resistance.  But if it's true, as I think it is, that I won't speak to any of them once my mother dies, this might be a good idea.

I'll let you know what I do.

Self Help Radio 112814: Magda's Birthday Show 2014

(Original image here.

Every year I do a birthday show for my lovely wife.  (You can look at the playlist for all eleven shows I've done linked in this section of my "themes index.")  I try not to repeat myself.  There are far more awful birthday songs than good ones, but I think I've found another set of good ones.

The show can be listened to now & whenever you have a birthday at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to password/login info.  The songs I played are listed below.  Thanks for listening, & please enjoy Buy Nothing Day!

(part one)

"Cicero Pig (December)" Mel Blanc with the Sandpiper Chorus & Orchestra _Bugs Bunny Songfest_
"Everyone Likes Ice Cream" Sesame Street _Happy Birthday From Sesame Street_
"Birthday Polka" Pete Seeger _Song & Play Time_
"Birthday Song" Marcia Berman _Activity Songs For Kids_

"You Can Find Me In Da Birthday" The Zvonimir Boband _I Don't Think You Understand Just How Long Eighty-Four Minutes Actually Is_
"Birthday Song" Frankie Cosmos _Zentropy_
"On Your Birthday" Jim Boggia _Misadventures In Stereo_
"Birthday" The Mars Volta _The Bedlam In Goliath_

"The Unbirthday Song" Jerry Colonna, Ed Wynn, & Kathryn Beaumont _Disney's Alice In Wonderland_
"Birthday Present" Mirah _The Old Days Feeling_
"Girlfriend's Birthday" Paul Gilbert _King Of Clubs_
"Bobby's Birthday" Kensington Market _Bobby's Birthday_
"Birthday" The Fall _Sinister Waltz_

"Seymour Gutkin's Birthday Party" Woody Allen _The Night Club Years 1964-1968_
"Planet Birthday" Beverly _Careers_

(part two)

"Birthdays" Jim Gaffigan _Economics II_
"16 Candles" The Pixies Three _The Pixies Three: Our History_
"Birthday" The Stereo Bus _Brand New_
"Birthday" Stephen Wright _I Have A Pony_
"Happy Birthday, Dear Dad, Wife, Daughter" Rosemary Clooney _Memories Of You_

"Birthday" Paul Weller _Birthday_
"Billy's Birthday" Romeo Void _Instincts_
"To Die A Virgin" The Divine Comedy _Victory For The Comic Muse_
"Birthday Movie" Rank Strangers _I Only Fear That We Are Modern_

"Birthday" Ben & Amy _Science_
"Broken Hearted Birthday" Barbara Chandler _Girl Talk_
"Birthday" Easter _We Have Such Straight Teeth_
"Next Sunday Darling Is My Birthday" Gene O'Quin with Boots & His Buddies _The Guys Of The Big "D" Jamboree_
"Happy Birthday" Technohead _Happy Hardcore_

"Uncle Josh's Birthday" Cal Stewart & Ada Jones _Uncle Josh's Birthday_
"Feliz Cumpleanos, Dulce Dieciseis" Neil Sedaka _Boppin' Sedaka - Hits & Rarities_

Whither Magda's Birthday Show 2014?

I'll do a show tomorrow celebrating not only my wife's birthday, but all birthdays in general.  It's on tomorrow from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm, & archived later at Self Help Radio dot net for those of you sleeping off all the food you eat today.

But here, for you, is a Tex Avery Thanksgiving cartoon!  Enjoy & have a wonderful day!

Preface To Magda's Birthday Show 2014: So Many Birthdays Later

The Magda in the "Magda's Birthday Show 2014" is my wife.  Yes, that's her real name.

As I mentioned in last year's blog about this annual event: "I am contractually obligated by a deal I made before my marriage with my wife's lawyer to celebrate my wife's birthday on the air every year on the closest date to the actual birthday date (December 1)."

Who signs contracts like that?  It's worse than working for Clear Channel!

I have also complained about the fact that, since I don't repeat shows, I'm probably going to run out of birthday songs before too long.  I wish people who listen to my show would write birthday songs for the show.  A few musicians I know, I have begged for them to do so.  But they understand that it's simply not worth it - they get very little out of being on my dumb radio show, while I of course derive all the benefit from their talent.

Do you know any selfless but extremely talented musicians who want to write a birthday song for the show?  It helps also if they don't know that no one really listens to the show.

I'm thinking of having a "classic" set or two during the show next year, to re-play some of the songs that I've previously played.  But I have enough for another show this year.  Maybe for two years.  If more people would make more birthday songs!

This will be the tenth or maybe the eleventh birthday show I've done for my Magda, with the only "repeats" being covers of the a popular song, like the Beatles' "Birthday."

There are actually a lot more birthday songs than I could ever play, but a lot of them just suck.  They're really awful.  They share that trait with Christmas songs.  You could probably play unique Christmas recordings for 24 hours a day for 365 days & never have to repeat one.  Birthday songs might fill a week.  Or maybe a day.  Two days.  But most of the songs of that day (as with the Christmas songs for the year) would be awful.

Check back with me in 2016.  I should be pretty desperate then.

Pogo Birthday Special

In honor of a show about birthdays, here's the entire Pogo Birthday Special from 1969.  Apparently, Walt Kelly hated this after it was done, & I confess I haven't watched it all yet, but I didn't know anyone had actually tried to made a Pogo cartoon.  Let's watch it & talk about it tomorrow!

Ice Bombs!

What do you believe?  What don't you believe?  It seems like some people take the things that they take on faith very seriously.

Like, I used to work in a building called Batts Hall at the University of Texas at Austin.  There was a prankster who, about once a month, wrote, in the building's only elevator, in Sharpie, sometimes large but usually rather small, on the inside elevator door, this budding graffiti artist would write, "Jesus was gay."

As someone who doesn't really believe in anything supernatural, I was not in the least offended.  Of course, this was in the 1990s, when calling someone gay was considered an insult.  When I told my ex-sister-in-law Julie a few years ago that her husband at the time (& my brother) Steve told me when I was in seventh grade that she thought that I was gay, she apologized to me profusely & said she never had.  She believed that I thought she had insulted me.

The point of this story is that, however strong your faith is, it seems like a three-word sentence written in magic marker on the inside of an elevator door would be the least of your worries.  But every time I saw that, I could be certain that the next time I used the elevator, someone would have taken another magic marker (or a pen, or a nail) to violently scratch that little bit of graffiti out.

I'm sure that person who wrote it - who had to arrive before me, probably for an early class, since I had to be there at eight - checked on his or her work afterwards, & was probably amused as hell.

If you think that someone having an opinion about your deity/holy person/prophet is offense - well, I don't know why you're here -  but in case you are, ignore the next paragraph & please don't try to scratch my blog out with magic marker or a nail - you'll just hurt your monitor!

But if you're not offended - & in fact find things every shade of delightful - you may enjoy the Tumblr blog Christian Nightmares, from which I got the above image.  I recommend it for fun & information.

Also - "The Coming Ice Bombs?"

Self Help Radio 112114: The World Of Self Help Radio

(Original image here)

Today's Self Help Radio was an exceedingly ridiculous affair which embarrasses us all.  Still, there was a great deal of good music shared, as well as a poem by Sir Archibald Von Poesy & an interview with Mr. Professor, whose show World Of Science delighted & confused me as a child.  But such things hardly make up for a show with the theme "world of Self Help Radio" in which there's very little about that world & a plethora of material about other words, from a world of one's own to a world of liars.  Which actually might also be a world of one's own.

The songs that were played are below.  The show is available wherever in the world you are at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to password information.  This is a world of cyberdouches, & they like to pick on dumb websites like my own.

As always, thanks for listening!  To me you are a world of joy.

(part one)

"World Of Glass" Neil MacArthur _She's Not There_
"I'm In A World Of Trouble" Sweet Things _Best Of Soul Time: A Selection Of Northern Soul Classics From The Archives_
"My World Of Dreams" Mary Wells _Looking Back: 1961-1964_

"Wonderful World Of Children" J.P. Rags _Wonderful World Of Children_
"A World Of Our Own" The Seekers _All Bound For Morningtown (EMI Recordings 1964-1968)_
"A World Of My Own" TV Smith's Explorers _The Last Words Of The Great Explorer_
"World Of Your Own" The Skeptics _Snallygaster_

"In A World Of Pretty Faces" The Models _Bend Me, Shape Me_
"Questions In A World Of Blue" Julee Cruise _The Voice Of Love_
"World Of Love" Gentle People _Soundtracks For Living_
"World Of" Tania & Dave MH _World Of_

"Wonderful World Of Sound" Monty Python _Monty Python's Previous Record_
"World Of Whisky" Robin Laing _One For The Road_

(part two)

"World Of Trouble" Big Joe Turner _The Rhythm & Blues Years_
"World Of Trouble" Lou Rawls _Anthology_
"World Of Darkness" David Ruffin _My Whole World Ended_

"The World Of Broken Hearts" Elvis Costello _Imperial Bedroom_
"Rosemary Davis World Of Sound" The Jazz Butcher _Waiting For The Love Bus_
"World Of Your Own" The Mayfields _World Of Your Own_
"The World Of Professional Golf 1994" The Lucksmiths _Get-To-Bed Birds_

"World Of Her Own" The Wake _Here Comes Everybody_
"You Do My World A World Of Good" Harvest Ministers _You Do My World A World Of Good_
"World Of Light" Ivy Green _Dreaming Of You_
"World Of Crime" Cinnamon _Vertigo_

"World Of Liars" The Apartments _Apart_

Whither The World Of Self Help Radio?

It's nearly six o'clock & I'm not done with my show.  What does "done with my show" mean?  It means gathering all the component parts (songs, background music, stupid "comedy" bits I make) & putting them in a rough running order for the show tomorrow.  Why a "rough" running order?  Because inevitably I make changes.  & sometimes people call with requests.  & sometimes I remember something that would fit perfectly & try to find it to play it.  The show's really not finished until it's finished, around 9am on a Friday morning.  As much as I wish differently.

This week's show kind of reveals a flaw in my method of finding themes for the show.  I'm a contrary sort, & I know there are many radio shows that are theme-based (there appear to be at least two more on the WRFL schedule right now, for example).  So I tend not to opt for "easy" themes.  I've never done a show about cars, or women, or rain, & I confess I tended to be a little snooty when I looked at the (to me) generic themes on Bob Dylan's old themes show.  I want my shows to be odd, & somewhat challenging, & they tend to be, whatever you might think of the results.  It nearly broke me, for example, finding enough songs about mummies to do a mummy show for Halloween!

So: I am listening to music, I am noticing a pattern, I start collecting songs.  I probably heard three or four songs a few months back that had the phrase "world of" in the title.  I thought, "Ha! "A World Of Self Help Radio!"  & then started collecting songs.

But there's nothing really to discuss about this theme.  What sort of interviews do you do with people about that theme?  It's downright silly, is what it is.

I think I've been dragging my heels with this show because I'm pretty certain it won't be that good.  I'm sorry about that.  I should've probably ditched this theme like I do so many others.  I could probably put a show about "rain" together pretty quickly.  If I had a mind to.

But no.  The show will go on.  At 7am, lasting till 9am, tomorrow.  On 88.1 fm in Lexington, online at wrfl dot fm.  & later on the website.

"The World Of Self Help Radio."  What a dumb theme!

Preface To The World Of Self Help Radio: Really?

The World Of Self Help Radio.  What world is that?  It's obviously a very small fraction of the World Of Radio, which is, of course, the terminally sick member of the World Of Media.  So why would anyone make a radio show called "the World Of Self Help Radio"?  Is it just that it's on a show called "Self Help Radio"?  Isn't that - nepotism?

According to the Wikipedia, nepotism is "favoritism granted in politics or business to relatives. The term originated with the assignment of nephews to cardinal positions by Catholic popes & bishops. Nepotism is found in the fields of politics, entertainment, business, & religion."

Can I add - radio?

But wait!  Is it nepotism if a radio show is promoting itself?  Isn't a radio show its own promotion?  Do I have to coin a new word: autonepotism?

Perhaps.  But probably not.  One person (perhaps the only person ever) who has listened to Self Help Radio has commented (one imagines), "At least 50% of the show is music I think, which means it's not always the Gary show.  Which could also be called 'the World Of Self Help Radio'!"

Indeed, this seems to be a naked ploy to make the show entirely about Self Help Radio.  It's a scandal & it's a disgrace.

& I am writing this as someone - indeed, the only one - involved in the show.  If I am offended, who is to blame?  Who made the decision, if not me, to have a show entirely about itself?  & if there is no one to whom I answer, who besides me exists to stop me from promoting Self Help Radio inside an episode of Self Help Radio?

Tomorrow, in the blog, I talk to a radio show lawyer about what options I can take against myself & my show to stop this travesty from happening.

(P.S. Is a radio show lawyer a lawyer who appears on a radio show or, as I am beginning to suspect, a person who pretends to be a lawyer on the radio?)

Snow Day

Can a blog take a snow day?  It's fricking cold out there.

Plus I'm doing a late night show tonight.  From 2 to 5 am.  Gotta gather stuff.

Gather music like firewood to keep the airwaves warm.

I should probably nap too.

Is it cold where you are?  The low tonight is supposed to be 12.

The low tonight is a "tweenage."

The wife was complaining that we had no autumn.  She may be right.

It Was Cold Today

I took that picture, of our backyard, this morning.  It's been very cold today & continues to snow, although it probably won't stick or stick around much.  But it has very much affected my mood.  Snow in the middle of November?  Where do I live, Siberia?

Self Help Radio 111414: Seasons

(Original image here.

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.