Self Help Radio 061315: Fight! Fight! Fight!

I've never actually been in a fight, I don't think.  (I don't really count all the times I fought with my little brother when we were kids.)  I'm sure I could've been in one if I wanted.  I was pretty scared of being beaten up, though, so if someone wanted to start a fight, I probably walked away.  Self-respect be damned!  Later on, when I grew a bit & was a little more threatening, I occasionally put myself in the way of someone, threatening a fight, & whoever it was backed down.  I am pretty sure they could've taken me - I was totally bluffing.

Non-physical fights I've had a lot of.  I don't keep count but I bet I've lost more than I've won.  Jeez, sometimes I think waking up in the morning is a fight I've lost.  But that's not what this show was about.  It was about real fight!  Fights I'll never have.  Fisticuffs! Combat! Rivalry!  & maybe a little about the non-physical fights.

You can listen to me chat with Hollywood guru Mark Miller!  Also with street-fighting promoter David Fruchter!  Plus, another entry in my snobby series, Dramatic Readings Of Classic Rock Songs!  Richard Edward Oliver Speedwagon does not know what's coming to him!

The show is available now for your bellicose listening pleasure at the Self Help Radio Fight Club Web Site.  Play attention to password info on the page.  The belligerent songs I played are listed below.

Thanks for listening - or are you just cruisin' for a bruisin'?

(part one)

"Looking For A Fight" Bleached _Ride Your Heart_
"Learning How To Fight" The Cribs _The Cribs_
"Fight" Tanya Tagaq _Animism_

"This Is Worth Fighting For" Richard Dawson _Hogan's Heroes Sing The Best Of World War II_
"Stand Up & Fight" Bush Tetras _Boom In The Night (1980-1983)_
"This Is Why We Fight" The Decemberists _The King Is Dead_
"Fight Scene" The Kamalas _The Kamalas_

"Lovers Town Revisited" Billy Bragg _Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy_
"Fight" Art Brut _Bang Bang Rock & Roll_
"Fight Music For The Fight" Bromheads Jacket _Dits From The Commuter Belt_
"Street Fighting Man" Lake Trout _Not Them, You_
"I'm A Lover Not A Fighter" Lazy Lester _Authentic Excello R & B_

"Fight Fiercely, Harvard (Live)" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_
"Fight Song" The Electric Company _The Electric Company_

(part two)

"Academy Fight Song" Mission Of Burma _Signals, Calls, & Marches_
"A Boy Named Sue" Johnny Cash _Johnny Cash At San Quentin_
"Lovers Not Fighters" Milky Wimpshake _Lovers Not Fighters_

"Kung Fu Fighting" Robyn Hitchcock _Uncarved Pumpkins: Live Rarities 1987-1994_
"You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party" Hot Rats _Turn Ons_
"Dog Fight" The Twistaroos _Twisted!_
"Pillow Fight" The Sixths _Wasps' Nests_

"Fight Fire" The Fantastic Dee-Jays _The Fantastic Dee-Jays_
"Fight Fire With Fire" Frances Nero _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966_
"Fight Fire With Fire" Shay Holiday _It's Not How Long You Make It_
"Fight Fire With Fire" The 2X4's _The 2X4's_

"Fight" The Cure _Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me_
"Rabbit Fighter" T. Rex _The Slider_

Whither Fight?

I can't remember why I decided to do a radio show about fighting.  I can say with one hundred percent certainty it had nothing to do with the REO Speedwagon song "Can't Fight This Feeling."  I only mention this because, every time in the last few weeks I've been thinking about doing a show with the theme "fight," that damn song - which I can't possibly have really heard since I was a kid, but which of course populates old movies, new movies (thanks, Adam Sandler), & commercials - pops into my head.  But I didn't find a good cover of it (could there be a good cover of such a bad song?) & I refuse to play it.

Okay, maybe I'll play it.  What?  Stop!

The show is on tomorrow from 7-9am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington, which I am told is streaming again at wrfl dot fm.  I'll archive the show later that day on the SHR website because I wouldn't be up that early on a Saturday if I didn't have to be.

Bonus radio!  I'm doing a show called Sugar Substitute from 6-7am!  Plus I will be subbing the children's show Ages 3 & Up from 9-10am!  If you can call that bonus radio.

I can't fight this feeling anymore.  I've forgotten what I started fighting for.  God damn it!

Preface To Fight: Non-Confrontational Guy

One imagines that I could take an assertive class if I wanted to.  One also imagines that I might not pass it.  Because I just hate confrontation.

It's absurd - because it causes me all kinds of personal anguish - but I generally expect people to act as decently as I would.  I know.

I've learned to accept that drivers will cut me off; that people who imagine their time more valuable than everyone else's will cut in line; that in general the average person will default to rude for whatever reason.  But the great disappointment is when you're part of some community - it might be a job, it might be a volunteer organization like, oh, let's say, a non-commercial radio station - & someone there is inexplicably rude & douche-y.  It shouldn't happen - but of course the same people who are aggressive asswipes or thoughtless fuckwads in the rest of the world inhabit those places too.

I'm thinking about something that happened recently.  I subbed a show while a person at the radio station was working on the new studio.  I understood he had to be there - he was essential to the operation of the station, troubleshooting everything so we could broadcast without problems where we'll be for a couple of years plus.

This person boasted to me that he'd been working in radio for nearly three decades.  & I had no problem with him wandering around, using a drill & other instruments, picking things up, putting them down, while I was playing music.  But - listen - if you're ever in a deejay booth & the sound disappears & the deejay is about to go on the mic, you will stand very quietly, if you have any experience in a radio station, while the deejay talks.  You know any noise you make might go out over the air.

If you have any experience in a radio station.  Well, not this guy.  With nearly three decades in radio.  He proceeded to wander around the deejay booth, including several times walking behind me, occasionally bumping me, whenever I went on the air.

But did I say anything?  Of course not!  What good would it have done?  What if I my tone of voice somehow offended him?  I just suffered through those two hours while he puttered around & did his job, making my job a lot more difficult.

Maybe I should take one of those assertive classes after all.

Xpletive

Accidentally, I received a text.  Apparently, I was added to a group text although I didn't know it because I had my phone turned off while I was subbing a radio show & besides the current station set-up is deep in the bowels of a building where famously everyone complains that there's no cell phone reception.  Understandably, I joined the conversation late.  Interestingly, someone was invited to the conversation who was a wrong number.  Unsurprisingly, they were unhappy with their inclusion.

Sidebar, your honor: what are the odds that a random phone number screw-up, dyslexic-like, would actually be to a cellular phone that received texts?  Probably greater as the time goes by, but still.  Not all phone numbers are taken, right?

Back to the action:

This person was also offended by the use of the word "fuck" in an early text.  They wrote this: "Did not appreciate the xpletive on my phone."

Finding myself fascinated by this, I began to wonder about this warrior against errant texts.  This isn't a new thought - a million & more people have asked this question - but how does this person live through the world without at the very least hearing a baker's dozen of "xpletives" every day?  If this person goes to a web site on their phone, surely there's an "ass" or a "damn" that's bound to rile them.  Do they shoot out an angry email?  A text in which the word "expletive" is abbreviated by one letter?  Does it make the word dirtier if you start it with the letter x?

I've read about cult communities where the leader controls all the information coming in & going out, & of course there are people of fundamentalist religious orientations who make sure they're surrounded by nothing but people who believe the same things, but isn't a cell phone a slightly different proposition?  I mean, someone sent a text at this person &, evil outside world that it is, the text included the letters k, u, f, & c organized in a manner that causes offense to (I believe) a smaller & smaller amount of people.  But that got through!

It must be a strange, sheltered life, a life perhaps lived with a kind of siege mentality.

The person was removed from the group text, whereupon other members of the group remarked that that the person seemed like - a word also that might offend - a "douche."

Sugar Substitue Episode # 160

During the summer, I'm on the air for three hours instead of two, & so this summer, I've revived my freeform radio show, which I call Sugar Substitute, for that first hour & just play lots of pop-type music I dig.  Like the new Close Lobsters single, the sleeve of which is the picture up there.  It's really good!

Anyway - if you'd like to hear an hour of freeform music separate from a themed radio show - god, three hours of Self Help Radio would totally suck! - you can listen to this show at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention, you know, to password info.  The songs I played on the show are below.

Thanks for listening!

"William & Mary" The Lucksmiths _The Green Bicycle Case_
"No More Honey" Blonde Redhead _Barragán_
"Now Time" Close Lobsters _Kunstwerk In Spacetime EP_

"You're Gorgeous" The Cannanes _Short Poppy Syndrome_
"Tahitian Ambrosia Maker" The Mountain Goats _Sweden_
"Some Dreams Come True" Sw/Mm/Ng _Feel Not Bad_
"I Love You Like A Ball & Chain" Eurythmics _Be Yourself Tonight_

"Fresh Milk" Katie Smokers Wedding Party _Split 7" With Atatakakatta_
"Black Pitch" Deerhoof _La Isla Bonita_
"La Isla Bonita" Mega Emotion _Uncomfortable_
"In Her Diary" The Go Betweens _Bright Orange Bright Yellow_
"Boa Constrictor" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs, Vol. 1_

"Prawns In The Bin" Haircut _Sweatshop_
"L.O.V.E. Love" Orange Juice _You Can't Hide Your Love Forever_
"Foxglove" Young Magic _Breathing Statues_

Self Help Radio 060615: Start

(Original image here.

I started doing Self Help Radio on Saturday mornings today.  How did it go?  Have you ever started something & it went swimmingly the first time?  I thought so!  Give me a break.

I'm really beat because I woke up early because I was stressing about the show because even after over twenty years of doing this I get nervous because I somehow invest my radio show with feelings about my self-esteem because probably something in my childhood because isn't that how we all are?

You can listen to the show now, later - really whenever you feel like starting down the Self Help Radio road - at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to password/username information.  It's easy to find.  But you can always ask me if you can't figure it out.  I am understanding.

The playlist is below.  The summer has started for Self Help Radio!  I am easily startled!  Or wait - am I oversharing?

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"This Could Be The Start Of Something" Ray Charles Singers _Something Special For Young Lovers_
"Stop Before You Start" Sandie Shaw _The Best Of Sandie Shaw_
"I'll Start Over" Poets In Motion _I'll Start Over_
"Starting A New Life" Van Morrison _Tupelo Honey_

"Start!" The Jam _Sound Affects_
"Just Like Starting Over" John Lennon _Double Fantasy_
"Miss The Start, Miss The End" Sparks _Indiscreet_
"Start From The Start" Nervus Rex _Nervus Rex_

"Back To The Start" Nikki Sudden _The Last Bandit: The Best Of Nikki Sudden_
"Don't Let's Start" They Might Be Giants _They Might Be Giants_
"I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" The Smiths _Strangeways, Here We Come_
"My Life Is Starting Over Again" Daniel Johnston _The Late, Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered_
"Right Back Where We Started From" The Cat's Miaow _Songs For Girls To Sing_
"Starts With A Handshake" Shirts _Street Light Shine_

"Start Again" Artisans _Why Popstars Can't Dance_
"Start Anew" Céleste _The Unheard Pleasures Of Inane - Somewhere In Europe, 1972 Vol. 1_

(part two)

"Start Again" Spearmint _A Week Away_
"This Could Be The Start Of Something Small" Airport Girl _Honey, I'm An Artist_
"Start Anew" Acid House Kings _Mondays Are Like Tuesdays & Tuesdays Are Like Wednesdays_
"Good Start" The Danny Says _Summer Bliss_

"Start" The New Year _The End Is Near_
"Start To End" Sons & Daughters _Love The Cup_
"A Shaky Start" Nothing Painted Blue _The Future Of Communications_
"The Start" The Bees _Free The Bees_

"Getting Started" Ashby _Looks Like You've Already Won_
"This Is The Start" Friends _You'll Never See That Summertime Again EP_
"The Start Of Something" Voxtrot _The Kids At The Club: An Indiepop Compilation_
"Start Again" Look See Proof _Between Here & There_

"Start New" Cloud Cult _Advice From The Happy Hippopotamus_
"The Day We Started" Afternoon Naps _Parade_

Whither Start?

I am re-starting my show.  Get it?  With a show about starting.  Starting anew.  Starting again.  It'll be on at the same time, just one day later.  How exciting is that!

Perhaps it bears mentioning that I'll also be on the air the hour before with a show playing random music.  I will play - & I'm probably the first person in Lexington to do so - the brand new Close Lobsters single - their first in two years, since they reunited after over twenty years! - & I'll play the new single by Katie Smokers Wedding Party, an awesome German indiepop band.  Plus, you know, the regular stuff I play.

That starts at 6am.  Self Help Radio starts at 7am.  As I mentioned yesterday, the live stream is probably down, so you can't listen at wrfl dot fm, but unlucky folks in Lexington can listen in real time at 88.1 fm.  I will attempt to record the show & place it on the Self Help Radio website or I will present an unreasonable facsimile.

There you have it.  What a way to re-start the show!

Preface To Start: Lowered Expectations

This morning I was on the radio for three hours.  The show went to outer space & vanished into the ether because the temporary set-up at the temporary studio doesn't have a way (that I could find*) for me to record the show.  The webstream is currently down, so I couldn't record it from home, either.  This concerns me, because I require a recording of the show to put on my website for anyone who might want to listen to my show at some other time than crazy early on Saturday mornings in the Eastern Time Zone.

I stumbled around the temporary space - marveling, truly, at the great RFL volunteers who moved a radio station lock, stock, & music library across the UK campus - & also getting the stinkeye from the wary custodial staff, who apparently work all night - which is something I sort of remember from my days at the University of Texas, except it seems to me the staff there usually went home around 3am - anyway I have lost my train of thought - let me look at this paragraph again to see what I might have wanted to say - oh yeah - I stumbled around the place looking for some way to record the show, trying not to forget that I was also programming a radio show.  Nothing.  I could find nothing.

At which point, I had a few reactions.  They were, as follows:

1) Fuck this! If I can't share my radio show, I'll only do a half-assed one**.
2) Well, I guess I can do the show, & then re-record it at home afterwards.
3) If I have to re-record the show, I will, but I'm going to make sure the show that airs is as good as I can do.

This happened over the course of seconds, but, irritatingly, it happened over & over all the morning long.  I had been awake, at 3am, for around twenty hours, & there was a good chance that many things that were happening to me were some form of sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination.  Actually, I think I had one of those on the way home, in the car, but luckily I was at a traffic light.  I closed my eyes for a second.  The world looked different when I opened them.

Even now, after a few hours of sleep, it seems to me that I am viewing the world through a kind of murky film.  But I have seven animals who are constitutionally incapable of respecting my wishes.  So I slept what little they'd let me.  I wish I never gave up caffeine!

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  So - here's what looks like will happen Saturday morning:

1) I'll be on the air from 6am to 9am.  6am to 7am will be a freeform show.  I will revive my old show Sugar Substitute for the summer.
2) Self Help Radio will be on the air from 7am to 9am.  There's a very good chance the internet stream will be down, so I will just be doing the show for the Lexington community, who, I'm sure, wake up on Saturdays around 9am.  Damn it!
3) If I can't find another way to record it, I'll re-record my airbreaks for you.  So it'll be as shabby as a podcast, but will more or less be the same show that aired that very morning.

Sound good?  No?  Sound tolerable?  No?

I know!

* It might have had one, but never underestimate how dumb I am.  I'll ask before Saturday.
** Well, more half-assed than usual.

What Does WRFL Stand For?

Look at this:

In Australia, WRFL stands for "Western Region Football League."  & of course, it's not American football, it's Australian Rules Football.  The league's website is here.

How did I come to discover this?  View the crooked path I took to write today's dumb blog entry:

--> You may have heard WRFL has moved!  This is true!  The Student Center where the station has lived since its exciting birth over two decades ago is being renovated.  That meant everything had to be packed up & carried elsewhere!

--> To my shame, I didn't help with the move at all.

--> In my defense, while WRFL folk were putting things in boxes, so was I - my things, to be moved all the way to California.

--> Jesus, Gary, can't you just let it go?

--> Sorry.

--> The station moved from the corner of the Student Center to the basement of the White Hall Classroom Building.

--> The White Hall Classroom Building, says the UK web site, was built in 1969.  & boy!  Does it look like it.  See:

--> WRFL is now in the basement, next to the Post Office.  We have no windows, so we can't even see bad public art.

--> But, you know where we are now.  If you wanna stop by.

--> What does this have to do with Australian football?

--> I'm getting to that!

--> I wanted to mention that I will be on the air from 3-6 am tomorrow morning just playing songs & stuff, & I thought, "Hey! I'll announce it & somehow tie it in with you know the move."  Since it'll be my first time in the "temporary space."

--> So I Googled WRFL in Google image search to see if there were any pictures of the outside of the station at the Student Center so I could place such a photo side-by-side with a picture (like the one above) on this blog page.

--> The Western Region Football League banner came first.

--> Mind blown.

--> Anyway.  I'll be on the radio early Thursday morning.  In case, you know.

New Intro Time Again Again Again!

Every year - around this time - I make a new intro for the show.  Normally, I do it in May.  That's when the new season starts at KOOP, & it's when the summer semester starts at WRFL.  However, as you might recall, I thought I would be traveling in May, to (sigh) the west coast.  So I thought I'd wait until my first episode out there.

But!  As you know!  I'll be on WRFL this summer starting on Saturday, so I had to make a new intro.  & so I did.  Here's the intro you'll hear on Saturday morning around 7am:

The Self Help Radio 2015-2016 Intro!

&, of course, here are the intros from shows of self help past:

You can listen to the 2002 intro (my first!) here.

You can listen to the 2003 intro here.

You can listen to the 2005 intro here.

You can listen to the 2006 intro here.

You can listen to the 2007 intro here.

You can listen to the 2008 intro here.

You can listen to the 2009 intro here.

You can listen to the 2010 intro here.

You can listen to the 2011 intro here.

You can listen to the 2012 intro here.

You can listen to the 2013 intro here.

And this is the intro from the past year.

I hope you like the new one!

Last Monday Blog Entry?

Yes, last Monday blog entry.  At least for a while.  Who knows?

But why?

I'm starting a new Self Help Radio experience, which will happen now on Saturdays.

I will write five blog posts a week, per my doctor's orders*.  Since I will most probably be posting my show on Saturday afternoons, I will be posting on Saturday.  I don't post on Saturday.  Usually I don't get out of bed on Saturday.  Now I have to.  Whose fault is that?  Mine.  Shut up.

Will Self Help Radio stay on Saturdays?  Look, I don't know, I'm just glad the radio station has kindly taken me back.  If the RFL powers-that-be thought I should do SHR on Tuesdays between four & four-fifteen a.m., I'd be a grateful fuck.

We went to Dallas this past week, the wife, the hounds, & I.  The wife & I (the hounds couldn't care less) talked about the alternate reality version of us, who were settling in to living in Los Angeles.  Actually, in that alternate universe, she would be traveling back to Lexington, & I'd be living the bachelor's life in Los Angeles, which is famously known as "Bachelor City"**.

Instead, I am sitting here, writing to you, boringly discussing rearranging my schedule.  We should talk about something else.  Jeez, didn't Game Of Thrones kill last night?  Holy crap.

Okay, I have written enough, according to my doctor.  I am working on my new intro, which will premiere Saturday.  But wait!  It may premiere tomorrow, too!  We'll see.

* My doctor is a weirdo.

** I think.

I Lived In The Dallas Area The First Eighteen Years Of My Life

I believe it's rained more there in the past month than it did during my childhood & adolescence.

I hope everyone's safe!

Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 4)

I know that doing the sort of radio show I do is an inherently (& obviously) narcissistic pastime, but boy! this week's blog offerings have been some serious navel-gazing shit.  My god.

All right.  If you will recall.  On Monday, I proffered four excuses to explain the absence of a promised Self Help Radio podcast this Friday.  I gave those excuses as:

Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking?  (The self-pity excuse.)

The truth is, I really wanted four excuses so I could fill up four days but it turns out that there were just three.  Maybe two, but yesterday's, though something of a stretch, was tolerably valid.  I am a bad planner.  My first couple of years of Self Help Radio were haphazard affairs.  But I am of the opinion I've never really gotten the show right, so I'm naturally hard on myself.

Anyway, the fourth excuse I pulled out of my ass.  I never had four excuses.  I plan poorly, I was going to be away a week, & I had a minor cold that was the nail in the coffin of an impossible idea.

Do you know what I've seen in Dallas that I've never really seen before?  Pick-up trucks hauling dumpsters.  Let me paint a picture.  These are rather well-used (though not beaten-up) Ford pick-up trucks with a small trailer attached on which is an average-sized dumpster.  I have seen three of these, & all of the dumpsters have been branded with the same dumpster company logo, so I assume the company has contracted out individuals with Ford trucks to move garbage receptacles around the Metroplex.  One truck had the end-times slogan "Prepare To Meet God!" painted on the truck's cab window, which made me wonder if the dumpster in tow was some kind of punctuation.

It's been humid as hell here, but it's also been more rainy here than is natural, which is good, as the lakes are filled & the city can delay the inevitable talk of drought until mid-July.  I've seen more family than I usually do, which has been a little exhausting, but I always eat well here.  I've having Ethiopian for lunch.  That means it will be a good day.

But there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast tomorrow.  My excuses are lame.  I'll get back on the horse next week.  Promise!

No really, I promise.  I do.  You can trust me...  Oh never mind,

Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 3)

Are you tired of these yet?

On Monday, I whined out four excuses why there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast this week.  To remind you, they were:

Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking?  (The self-pity excuse.)

Today I will talk about excuse three.

Look.  If you're me, & you've done the same radio show thing for years & years (this October it'll be THIRTEEN years), it's natural to develop a system.  An average show takes weeks, sometimes months, to make, usually because they start as an idea & then slowly grow until I think they're ready to be an actual radio show.

& yeah - lots of shows never happen.  I can't make them happen.  They don't seem to want to happen.

& I know some of the best radio programmers grab a bunch of stuff & decide what to play the second they're on the air.  I've done that before - it's thrilling!  But I've found I can't do Self Help Radio that way.

Like, once I was doing a show about - oh I don't know.  Let's say it was a show about lotions*.  A person called & said, "I hear you're looking for songs about lotions."  I responded - I didn't want to be mean - but I responded by saying, "I have plenty of songs - why would I come up to the radio station to do a show about lotions & not have two hours of songs about lotions?"  The caller seemed a bit insulted anyway.

The point is: I have a system.  It's designed to work over long periods of time.  When it's disrupted, it just doesn't work.

Because aside from this, I don't plan well at all.  I honestly thought I could gather enough songs, make a few funnies, record some airbreaks, & get it all together in less than three days.  I thought this completely aware that, even if I worked on the show during all my waking hours, it was probably not enough time.

Seriously, what was I thinking?  I'll beat myself up about that tomorrow.

* My friends in the excellent Austin band Luxuriator actually have a great song about lotions.

Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 2)

Yesterday I listed four excuses why there won't be a Self Help Radio podcast this week.  To remind you, they were:

Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking?  (The self-pity excuse.)

Today I will explain excuse number two.

As soon as I finished Friday's show (still available at the SHR website), I set to work on the next week's show.  I had already recorded an interview with David Fruchter, & I had about eighty to hundred songs I had gathered to listen to, some of which I did in fact listen to on Friday.

But I don't just work on my radio show - that would make me a duller boy than I already am.  No, I oftentimes cater to the needs of my dogs.  On Saturday we drove to Shaker Village to take the dogs on a nice long walk down to the Kentucky River.

Here's something that I've heard about living in Kentucky: if you don't have allergies when you get here, you'll probably have them before you leave.  During the walk, I sneezed a lot.  My nose ran.  I began to get the sneaking suspicion that I was, in fact, the unhappy recipient of the Bluegrass State's gift of allergies.  But as we made our way back to the car, after a delightful walk, I began to feel tell-tale congestion in my head.  Oh no!  I was getting a cold!

It made sense.  Back in Texas, I always got a cold in the spring when the temperature was erratic.  My body hates it when it's 50 degrees one day then 90 the next.  (In Texas, that happens in the summer when it's 100 outside & 65 degrees indoors.)  When we got home, I prepared myself for my personal cold remedy: take lots of sudafed-type drugs, & sleep.

I basically slept 24 hours.  How could I work on a podcast during that time?

I'm better now - my cold remedy works, & I was lucky this was a mild case & I caught it at the beginning.  But surely if I had planned better, I'd still be able to make a podcast, right?  Right?

I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.

Why There Won't Be A Self Help Radio Podcast This Week (Excuse # 1)

I am always full of excuses.  But this week, I had planned to go ahead & make another Self Help Radio podcast because - why the hell not?

There are four (4) reasons why the hell not.  I will explore them this week.  But in the interest of not keeping you in suspense (like you care), here they are:

Excuse # 1) I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.
Excuse # 2) I got sick.
Excuse # 3) I am a terrible planner in general.
Excuse # 4) What the hell was I thinking?  (The self-pity excuse.)

Today, I will talk about excuse # 1.  I am going to visit my mother in Dallas.

My mother, about whom anyone who has read this blog will know I have incredibly mixed feelings, is in her mid-80s.  When I lived in Austin, feeling as though it were somehow my duty as her son, I would visit my mother every couple of months.  Dallas is about three hours away from Austin.  I would drive up, sit for a while, perhaps take her to lunch, & then drive home.  It felt exactly like a duty.  It made her happy, I guess.  I would get Ethiopian food from our favorite Ethiopian restaurant in town & then drive home to my hungry wife.  It made her happy, I know.

Now that I live farther away from my mother, I try to make it back there once a year.  She always says, "I'm glad you're coming home," but I don't really feel like it's home.  It was barely home while I lived there - now that it's been decades since I've spent longer than a couple of days in Dallas, it's just another place where I stay in a motel & try to find good vegan food.  It just so happens my mother lives there, which is what makes it different from Memphis or Atlanta.

The upshot is, I'd have no time during the week to do a podcast (or even a radio show) because I'll be driving to Dallas, staying in Dallas, & then heading back.

Why schedule it then?  Well, my plan was to make the podcast this weekend, & then upload it on the road from wherever I am on Friday, & voila!  It's like brand new!

But other things interfered.  Stay tuned for updates as we have more excuses all this week!

Self Help Radio 052215: The Unhappy Show

(Original image here

Well, here's the first podcast I've done in a while - & the first time you've heard from me since my "last show on WRFL" - & frankly, it's a mess.  For one, I recorded my "airbreaks" last night while the wife was asleep, so it sounds exactly like I'm trying to keep my voice down.  For two, I had no idea how long I should make the show so it came out around ninety minutes long.  For three, as I mentioned yesterday, I didn't feel the same sense of urgency I feel when I have to have a show prepared to be on the air, so I cobbled it all together late, late, late.  Oh well, at least the music's all right.

Plus, I talk to Dr. David Fruchter about unhappiness!  & the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently also takes my call, & tells me why I'm so spiritually unhappy!  & the music - everything I played is listed below.

It's now at the Self Help Radio website.  Username/Password?  SHR/selfhelp!  I hope it's worth listening to.  It'll be good to get back on the radio where I can screw up in real time & it feels a lot better than muttering into a microphone at my desk at midnight.

Thanks for listening!

"Glad To Be Unhappy" Helen Grayco _After Midnight_
"Little Unhappy Boy" Nancy Wilson _Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley_
"I'm So Unhappy" The Uniques _Blast From The Past, Vol. 1: Rare Teenage Classics 1960-1965_
"So Unhappy" Detroit Jr. _Chicago Urban Blues_

"Unhappy Girls" The Searchers _Sugar & Spice_
"Unhappy Boy" Twinkle _Golden Lights_
"Unhappy Girl" The Doors _Strange Days_
"Unhappy Girl (demo)" The Ramones _Subterranean Jungle_
"My Poor Unhappy Son" Tochigi _Tochigi_
"Plain Unhappy" Mussolini Headkick _Themes For Violent Retribution_

"Happy To Be Unhappy" Leroy Van Dyke _Walk On By_
"Ain't Got Time To Be Unhappy" Bob Luman _10 Years (1968-1977)_
"It Was Always So Easy (To Find An Unhappy Woman)" Moe Bandy _Honky Tonk Amnesia: The Best Of Moe Bandy_
"One Big Unhappy Family" Isaac Hayes _The Isaac Hayes Movement_
"I Hope You'll Be Very Unhappy Without Me" Esther Phillips _Anthology_

"Please Don't Make Me Unhappy" The Groove Farm _Plug (The Story Of Pop So Far)_
"Not Happy" Bruce McCulloch _Shame-Based Man_
"Unhappy Song" Lloyd Cole _Love Story_
"Lips Are Unhappy" Lucky Soul _The Great Unwanted_

"Lucky & Unhappy" Air _10000 Hz Legend_
"You Don't Have To Be Unhappy" Onward Chariots _Onward Chariots_

Whither The Unhappy Show?

I am a more or less depressive person, & I've been a little unhappy that a big life change I had been planning for for months got waylaid.  It makes sense I would celebrate it/attempt to work through it with a radio show.

I usually take much of the day Thursday to work on the show - to gather all the songs that I might play, to edit my stupid skits + fake ads, to edit the interviews with my funny friends for radio airplay - & there's a sense of urgency because I have to be on the air & I need to get things done.  Frankly, I don't much like Thursdays, since there's so much work to do.  & also: I haven't had to do it for a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow's show will be a podcast & it'll be available at noon.  Well, I hope!  My brain can't get into the groove.  I've done my recordings & I've edited most of them, but obviously I'll need to put the show together & then upload it, etc.  Putting the show together means recording airbreaks, those things I normally do as the show is happening in real time.  My brain refuses to acknowledge that I under pressure to get those done as fast as the other stuff.  Right now, it's in a kind of bargaining/denial phase that's saying, "Eh, we can do them tomorrow."  Tomorrow, when the show needs to be available by noon?!?

Let's hope it doesn't come down to the wire.  I crumble like soft rock under pressure.  I will also probably turn to drink.  Or maybe crime.  Or maybe stone, which will then crumble under pressure.  Because, let's face it, if I were a mineral, I'd be a pretty soft one.

Tomorrow! Noon! Self Help Radio website!  A very unhappy show.  Because, why not?

A Fellow Programmer Makes A Kind Offer

There's a fine programmer at WRFL who goes by the name "Uncle Foddy" (tho I call him Steve, which is all right because it's his real name).  He came to the station maybe a year & a half ago, but he has had tons of radio experience. You've probably heard him as he helps out on the Percy Trout Show.  & doubtless you've heard his show Great Great Grandmusic, which goes back as far as recorded sounds go.

He's been doing the latter show this past month on the air from seven to nine a.m. on Saturdays.  When he found out that I was staying in town, he so generously offered to let me "have" the timeslot for Self Help Radio.

I of course initially declined.  I couldn't take someone else's timeslot when I had given mine up because I thought I wouldn't be here to do it!  But he was insistent.  He does a lot of work for the station's music department & he is alternating with Kenn on Mondays on the Percy Trout Show.  He felt he could easily leave his Saturday morning gig because he had so much else to do.

How could I say no to such magnanimity?  I couldn't.  I just couldn't.  I said yes.

I feel so ridiculously selfish & greedy!  But it's so kind of Steve to offer, & the powers-that-be at the station are fine with the move, so I guess it's as done a deal as I'm allowed to have these day.  I'll be visiting my mother next week so I told them I'd take over the first Saturday in June.

& there you have it: Self Help Radio returns to the Lexington airwaves in about two weeks.  I'm not making a big deal about it, though.  I've learned my lesson when it comes to making a big deal about things.

I'm Tired/It's Entirely My Fault

I decided - after doing my last-ever late night shift on WRFL last week, to do another late night fill, this morning from three to six a.m.

Long ago, I realized that, if you're going to do a radio show at three in the morning - or at four in the morning - or at two in the morning - it's best just to stay up instead of trying to get to sleep at a normal time which, in my case, is usually after midnight.

In my later adult years, I have mastered the art of "fake naps," which is to say, if I have to, I can close my eyes for a couple of hours, but I consider them fake as I derive no real benefit from them.  But those usually work best during the day - in the case of night time hours, my brain can't correctly comprehend why the hell, if we just went to bed a couple of hours ago, we have to wake up again when almost literally everyone else is asleep.  My brain will overrule any other decision, which is a bad thing if you're supposed to be at a radio station in the middle of the night.

Staying awake is the key, so yesterday I was up from early in the morning, minus a short nap-like experience in the afternoon, until around the same time this morning, when I returned home from playing around on the radio one more time after my previously announced last time.

What did I do when I got home?  Did I go to sleep?  Oh hell no.  I waited until my wife was awake, & then went to sleep.  I slept for around two hours, when I had to wake to feed the animals.

Realizing I was quickly resembling one of the walking dead, I went back to sleep for a couple more hours, but had to wake then to record an interview with my friend David for this week's SHR podcast.  (Spoiler alert: he's hella funny!)

Back to sleep I went a little after that, but was wakened by the wife coming home from work.  I've been up since then - hell, I made dinner & went for a dogwalk!

All told, I slept around six hours today.  Which isn't that unusual for me, unless you consider that it's been maybe eight total hours of sleep in a thirty-eight hour period.  That's no healthy.  I'm tired!  But it's all my fault.

I had something important to tell you today.  But.  It'll have to wait until tomorrow.