Preface To Afraid: I'm Afraid It's The 1400th Post!

1400 posts!  Oh my gosh!

Time to do the meth!  I mean, math!

Blog start date: 09/12/16.
Post 100: 03/07/07 (176 days later).
Post 200: 08/12/07 (158 days later).
Post 300: 01/09/08 (149 days later).
Post 400: 05/26/08 (138 days later - my previous best time).
(If this were a race.)
(It isn't.)
(It would be weird if it was.)
Post 500: 10/14/08 (141 days later).
Post 600: 03/25/09 (162 days later).
Post 700: 09/23/09 (186 days later - my worst time).
(I moved that summer out of Texas.)
(It's my best excuse.)
Post 800: 02/19/10 (149 days later).
Post 900: 07/23/10 (154 days later).
Post 1000: 12/12/10 (143 days later).
Post 1100: 05/21/11 (158 days later).
Post 1200: 10/12/11 (147 days later).
Post 1300: 03/12/12 (149 days later).

Now, it has been just - if my meth - I mean, math - is right - it has just been 131 days since the 1300th post.  Can that possibly be true?  Nineteen weeks, at five posts a week, does almost equal 100 posts.  But, as usual, I feel I probably got the math wrong.

Still, I average around 150 days per 100 posts, & that makes sense.  This last 100, which may include the least informative & interesting of anything I've ever written (I know, how can tell?), could very well have been a fluke.  I'm certainly not writing any more than I used to.  Maybe I am just making sure to write five days a week.

We're leaving shortly for Nashville but I'm bringing along all the possible afraid songs for the show this week.  I won't be afraid to listen to them on the road!

To Nashville!

Going to Nashville tomorrow to see Marc Maron do stand-up comedy.  Will probably catch up on the latest episodes of the What The Fuck podcast as we drive.

Nashville is a nice city, though I haven't spent much time there.  I am genetically predisposed to like bigger cities, since they generally have more stuff.  For example, Nashville, which is more than three times the size of Lexington, has seven Ethiopian restaurants.  Yeah, seven!  That's seven more than Lexington has.

Why stay in Lexington, then?  I mean, besides WRFL, I mean?  I dunno, man.  Ask the wife.

Down The Road Apiece

I'm not going to say anything about my dumb Twitter account, which is @SelfHelpRadio.  I don't spend enough time on the Twitter to actually make connections & don't feel nearly witty enough to compose memorable tweets day in & day out.  & I never did that "I am at the donut shop with Bob!" sort of Facebook update, so why would I do it on the Twitter?

I am going to say that my wife has returned from five weeks in Costa Rica where, hanging around with howler & capuchin monkeys, she was attempting to find better company than myself & our six dogs & cats.  The fact that she returned makes me wonder if she were hanging out with the wrong kind of capuchin & howler monkeys.  Surely our beagles & kittens are less interesting than such creatures!

Speaking of, I don't think I mentioned that the past five weeks I've been living the bachelor life, as my wife was in a foreign country.  It's because I don't really talk about such things.  It has nothing to do with a radio show, but even more than that, I don't think anyone cares much what I'm doing day-to-day.  Seriously, it's hard enough to convince people to care about the radio show that takes up all of my time.

I'm rambling, I have nothing of value to say.  There are two radio-show-related things to mention, though.  One is that this October - which is of course three months away but sure, I'm trying to plan ahead - is the tenth anniversary of Self Help Radio.  Last year I celebrated the ninth anniversary with tee shirts - this year I think I'll make some Self Help Radio coffee mugs.  Well, not make.  Have made.  You know what I mean.

The other is that, on Saturday, I'll post my 1400th post on this blog.  I know.  Insert joke here about how someone who has nothing to say has said so much.  Is there something special I can do for the fourteen hundredth post?  I mean, I'm driving to Nashville to see Marc Maron.  I may make him lemon bars.  Other that that, though - what can I do for you?

-Less & -Less Of A Show

Helpless. Weightless. Careless. Breathless. Timeless. Effortless. Meaningless. Loveless. Hopeless. Heartless. Reckless. Tactless. Wireless. Senseless. Artless.  All these words & more may have been used to describe Self Help Radio.  How would I know?  No one tells me anything.

Please enjoy a show which is gormless, feckless & maybe even ruthless.  It's available uselessly at the Self Help Radio website.  Needlessly I divide the show into two parts: part one & part two.  Blameless, I put the list of songs below.

I thank you for your selfless listening.

(part one)

"Helpless" Sugar _Copper Blue_
"Weightless" Blue Aeroplanes _Swagger_

"Careless" The Go-Betweens _Send Me A Lullaby_
"Breathless" Momus _Timelord_
"Restless" The Bangles _All Over The Place_
"Timeless" Zolar X _Timeless_
"Effortless" Athletico Spizz 80 _Do A Runner_
"Meaningless" Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs_

"Loveless" Lloyd Cole _Lloyd Cole_
"Helpless" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _The Weeping Song_
"Restless" Tanya Donelly _Sliding & Diving EP_

(part two)

"Hopeless" Future Bible Heroes _Memories Of Love_

"Breathless" X _Beyond & Back: The X Anthology_
"Helpless" Kim Weston _A Complete Introduction To Northern Soul_
"Heartless" Martha Reeves _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 9: 1969_
"Restless" Sonny Burgess _Hittin' That Jug! The Best Of Sonny Burgess_
"Reckless" Tilly & The Wall _Wild Like Children_
"Careless" Cinerama _Torino_

"Tactless" The Band Of Holy Joy _Manic, Magic, Majestic_
"Wireless" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Sexual Harassment_
"Senseless" Aquadays _Airpop: An Apricot Records Compilation_
"Artless" Peter Himmelman _Unstoppable Forces_

Ever So Slight Delay

Would it bother anyone if it took me longer than a day to put today's episode of Self Help Radio up on the Self Help Radio website?

Oh, you didn't know there was an episode of Self Help Radio today?  Yeah, it's on Mondays.  Since when?  I guess it's been over a year now.  Yeah, sometimes I don't make myself very clear.  What?  It's on in Lexington.  Lexington, Kentucky.  No, you see, I haven't lived in Austin for over three years.  What's that?  You didn't listen to the show when it was on there, either?  Then please, don't let me ruin your happy life!

Okay, since no one cares either way - by which I mean, no one cares - I will edit the show & put it online tomorrow.  Tonight, I battle evil wearing long underwear!

Whither -less & -less?

Self Help Radio may be artless, but it isn't boundless.  Doubtless there are those who find it charmless, & that doesn't make me speechless.  Indeed, the show is the very opposite of effortless - sometimes senseless, other times lifeless.  (Hardly ever tuneless, though.  Unless...  Well, you'd probably find it all worthless anyway.)  Regardless, though spineless at times we try to be selfless, & change the facial expressions on the emotionless & smileless & cheerless.  We're not fearless but we're also not entirely dauntless - it'd be useless to have any sort of breathless attitude like that.  In reality, we're far more gormless & feckless - which may explain why we're loveless.  We wish we're weren't so thoughtless - we wish we left you breathless - instead, we're rather witless.  We know.  We know.


Still, should you find these charges baseless, you can listen to the show tomorrow - Monday the 16th - from 7:30 to 9:00 am EST on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.  You can listen online at wrfl dot fm & I'd be careless if I didn't put the show up tomorrow at the Self Help Radio website.


Mindless fun!  Perhaps?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dash Hyphen Hyphen Dash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know, self-important much?

This Week's List

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

(part one)

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

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

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

(part two)

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

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

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

Whither Lists?

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

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

Preface To Lists: My "To Do" List

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

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

Write in SHR blog. (Thursday through Monday).

Because I do sometimes forget.

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

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

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

People I Know Who Are Doing Well, Part II

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

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

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

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

People I Know Who Are Doing Well, Part I

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swanning About

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

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

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

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"You Swan, Go On" Mount Eerie _Lost Wisdom_

"The Swan" Julee Cruse _Floating Into The Night_

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

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

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

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

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

"Swan Lee (Silas Lang)" Syd Barrett _Opel_

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

"Lovely Little Swan" Close Lobsters _Headache Rhetoric_

(part two)

"Badge" Cream _Goodbye_

"Swan Pond" Julie Doiron _I Woke Myself Up_

"Swans" Camera Obscura _The Blizzard EP_

"Black Swan" Nina Simone _At Carnegie Hall_

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

"Imagine The Swan" The Zombies _Time Of The Zombies_

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

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

"Swan Song" Marc Almond _Varieté_

"Sing Swan Song" Can _Ege Bamyasi_

"Swan Song" Tall Dwarfs _Stumpy_

Whither Swans?

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

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

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

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

Preface To Swans: These Swans, Not Those Swans

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boom! goes the Boomslang

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

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

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

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

Twitter Pimping

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


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


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


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


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

Pressure Suits Me

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

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

I can't take this pressure!

(part one)

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

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

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

(part two)

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

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

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

Whither Pressure?

Do you think you know pressure?  Do you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preface To Pressure: High Blood

Here are some facts about high blood pressure.

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

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

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

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

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

Look Ahead In Anger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I mean...  Oh hell.

But Is It Art?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She Said What?

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

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

Seriously, she said that?  Wow.

(part one)

"She Said" Hasil Adkins _Out To Hunch_

"She Said" Holly Golightly _Truly She Is None Other_

"She Said" Yeah Jazz _She Said_

"What She Said" The Smiths _Meat Is Murder_

"What She Said" The Feelies _Time For A Witness_

"She Said" Longpigs _The Sun Is Often Out_

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

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

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

"She Said She Said" The Beatles _Revolver_

"She Said Yeah" Larry Williams _Bad Boy_

(part two)

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

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

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

"She Said Goodbye" Billy Hambric _Nitty Gritty_

"Jennifer She Said" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Mainstream_

"Sylvia Said" John Cale _The Island Years_

"Melody Said" Bill Pritchard _Happiness & Other Crimes_

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

"She Said" Scratch Acid _The Greatest Gift_

"She Said" Red Lorry Yellow Lorry _Nothing Wrong_

"Drive, She Said" Julian Cope _Peggy Suicide_

"She Said" Gang Of Four _Content_

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

Whither What She Said?

It's really because of this song:



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

Assuming there is magic.  How would I know?

Preface To What She Said: That's NOT What She Said

This week's theme, "What She Said," was something I had planned to do before the wife started watching "The Office" (the American version) on The Netflix in the evenings.  Though I wasn't really paying attention - the first episodes are really just pale versions of the superior British series - I confess, over time, I got sucked in.  The characters really drew me in.  & then the wife & I scrambled to watch the entire series.  In all of this, I forgot about this show I had vaguely planned with the theme "what she said" & never even thought about it when I heard Steve Carell's character's oft-repeated punchline: "That's what she said!"

It's such a character trait that it is (spoiler alert!) the last thing the character says (or mouths, really) as he leaves the show to be with his perfect love in Colorado.

That's not on this (unfortunately unembeddable) Youtube collection of slightly out-of-sync clips from the series, featuring Carell & others using the line.

This has happened before, & it's the fault of planning things in advance - the weird coincidence of culture coinciding with my dumb little radio show.  Although to be fair, Carell left the show over a year ago - I can't recall if people use the line as much or as often anymore.

That's what I say, anyway.

The Neighbor No One Likes

There's a man in the neighborhood whom I call the neighbor no one likes, not because no one likes him, because he's very likable, but because he acts like no one likes him.  I think he might be more proud than offended to be called "the neighbor no one likes."

The other day, he asked me about the my radio show, since I mentioned WRFL.  & since Lexington is still really a small town, he asked me about people he knew at the station.  He didn't really want to hear about my show unless he had actually heard of it.  Which of course he hadn't.  But that didn't stop him from telling me about people he knew at the station.  I listened patiently & I said, "Wow, Lexington is a small town!"

That same day I was fretting about not mowing the lawn in a while.  It wasn't crazy overgrown, but it was unkempt - the sort of unkempt that invites people in beat-up pick-up trucks with lawn care equipment piled in the back to come to your door & ask to mow your lawn.  It only suffers in comparison with the well-manicured lawns that our neighbors have.

The "neighbor no one likes" listened to me & gave me his advice.  He said, "Let it grow until it's really crazy.  That'll piss 'em off."

That's why I call him the neighbor no one likes.  Maybe he's more the neighbor who doesn't care if anyone likes him.  Hey!  I know two things about him: he sits & watched fireflies in the dusk & drinks white wine while he does it.

I wrote a truncated version of this helpless anecdote on my Twitter page.  I still have hardly any followers.  I need to synch my Twitter with my Facebook.  Maybe that will encourage people to follow me.  I expect it'll end in tears.  & those tears will be mine.

Man, What A Manifesto!

I like the word sobriquet.  I've never had a nickname.  At least not one that was not derogatory, but technically, that would be an epithet, not a proper nickname.  For example, I knew a kid in middle school whose name was Larry, but everyone called him Rocko.  That's a nickname.

Interestingly, a person I see on my dog walks is named Rocco, but that's a proper Italian name & not a nickname at all.

The closest I've had to a nickname was my last name.  Because in middle school & in high school pretty much everyone had to take a P.E. class, & because the coaches in "physical education" classes called everyone by their last name, I was usually called "Dickerson" by my classmates.  These did not include my closest friends, or the high school equivalent (I am currently in touch with only a few of the people I went to high school with, &, tellingly, none of them were in my graduating class).  My teachers also called me "Gary."  But it's enough that, if someone were to say "Dickerson," I'd respond as if they called me by my first name.

What would I have liked my nickname to have been?  How the hell should I know?

I do know what I am glad it isn't.  My father, who had the awesome named Everett Ray Dickerson, had a nickname, & not a very inventive one: people (including my mother) called him "Dick."  I'm sure the word had the same double meaning at the time (it's what people have called a penis for centuries I bet) but it was common enough that, rather than being called by the lovely name Everett, my father preferred "Dick."

As did his brother, my uncle Harold.  It's true!  One time I happened to be with both of them at their work - they worked together at that point in their lives - & someone said, "Dick!" & both of them turned around to answer.  That was freaky.

The Toast Was Not Burnt

I've never been more hungry while doing a radio show.  & WRFL's toaster is on the fritz!

Delicious songs are listed below.  The show of course is at the Self Help Radio website but if you're too impatient, you can listen to the show directly by clicking the links here: part one | part two.  Make sure you have a working toaster & a lot of bread handy!

(part one)

"Toast & Jelly" Poi Dog Pondering _Poi Dog Pondering_
"Doc Clock (The Breakfast Time Friend)" Sylvia & Murray Winant _It's Fun To Eat_
"Toast" Heywood Banks _If Pigs Had Wings_

"More Than Toast" The Mr. T Experience _Big Black Bugs Bleed Blue Blood_
"She Don't Use Jelly" The Flaming Lips _Transmissions From The Satellite Heart_
"At The House Of Toast" Bob & Ray _Classic Bob & Ray, Vol. 2_
"Toast" Archers Of Loaf _Icky Mettle_
"Guava Jelly" Johnny Nash _The Harder They Come_

"Cheese & Toast" BMX Bandits _My Chain_
"Jelly" The Bagdads _Double Shot Of Soul_
"Coffee & Toast" James _The Collection_
"Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" Pink Floyd _Atom Heart Mother_

(part two)

"Toast" Streetband _Toast_
"I'm A Poached Egg (Without Toast)" Ella Fitzgerald _Jukebox Ella_

"Scraping The Toast (with George Murphy)" Alice Faye _The Ultimate Collection_
"It Must Be Jelly ('Cause Jam Don't Shake Like That)" Glenn Miller _Glenn Miller - Army Air Force Band_
"Peanut Butter & Jelly" Beastie Boys _Hello Nasty_
"Jam Up & Jelly Tight" Tommy Roe _Greatest Hits_
"Bread & Butter" The Newbeats _Golden Classics Collection_
"Smoky Toast" Space Ghost _Yeah, Whatever_
"Crazy Ellen's Home Made Blueberry Jam" Reneri's Raiders _Lost Jukebox, Vol. 80_
"Black Raspberry Jam" Fats Waller _1936_

"Toast & Marmalade For Tea" Tin Tin _Super Hits Of The '70s: Have A Nice Day! Vol. 16_
"Jelly Dancers" Bruce Haack _Listen Compute Rock Home: The Best Of Dimension 5_
"Jelly Belly" The Electric Company _The Electric Company/Original Cast_
"Jelly Covered Cloud" Scaffold _Lily The Pink_

Whither Toast & Jelly & Jam?

I was hungry damnit!

I am writing now about the history of toast & the history of jam.  I will read about them on my show tomorrow.  You must listen to find out.  7:30 to 9:00 am in Lexington at 88.1 fm on the dial.  You can listen live anywhere (as long as you adjust for the time zone difference) at WRFL dot fm.  I will archive it later at the Self Help Radio website.

A toast to you!  With toast & jelly & jam!

Preface To Toast & Jelly & Jam: Breakfast For Dinner?

Hell yeah!

In the past couple of years I've been doing most of the cooking in the household.  It is something one needs to turn to when one is vegan & lives in a town with few vegan/vegetarian options.  I've heard of vegans who can't cook but I believe being a passable cook (if I am that) is mostly a matter of time & will.  If you want to cook something well, you probably can - but you did need to want it & you need to have the time.

I have no idea how housewives of yore - & today - manage it.  A tasty meal, night after night?  Astounding.

Being vegan, I don't eat eggs, & as such I miss one of my favorite Tex-Mex dishes: migas.  You can click the link to see what those are.  In the United States, I haven't been able to find migas outside of Texas.  Vegans often make a similar dish - really, though, they're just trying to make a version of scrambled eggs - called tofu scramble.  The ubiquitousness & mundanity of tofu scramble makes some people feel the need to update it or zazz it up.

With my knowledge of both migas & tofu scramble, I've created a hybrid which would be great for breakfast - though I make it usually for dinner.  I call it scrapple.

But wait! you say.  There's already something called scrapple - & it ain't vegetarian.

Sue me.  That's what I call my tofu scramble/migas mash-up.  I fill it full of vegetables - green bell peppers, onions, carrots, jalapeños (pickled & fresh) - I add tofu & I add potatoes - I even crumble up tortilla chips in it like they do in migas - I add tomatoes at the end so they're extra fresh - mmmmmm.

There's spices & oats & nutritional yeast, too, but this isn't a cooking blog.  It's for a radio show.  Silly.

& one day I'll master pancakes & make them for dinner too!

Are You Or Someone You Love Afflicted With Homophobia

Now there's a website to help!

Hooray!

Twitster

So I listen to Marc Maron's WTF podcast a lot - not obsessively, since sometimes I don't know the guests or they're just not interesting to me - & he's always going on about Twitter.  I really don't know a whole lot about it, but it seems to work for him (of course, he's a famous comedian - I'm just a guy in Kentucky who does a little radio show) & he talks about how everyone should be on Twitter.  He's talking about comedians, not guys in Kentucky who do little radio shows.  It just kinda got into my head.

You know what that means: I've started a Self Help Radio Twitter account.  It's @SelfHelpRadio.  It's going to end badly.

I know I just started it today, but I so far have only two followers, both people who happened to read my post on the Facebook, & I've "followed" many more.  That's the trick, I am told: have a lot of people you're following, re-tweet stuff, be active.

A few years ago, pretending it was ten years before, I added a "guestbook" to my web site.  I hoped people would write nice things about my show.  But bad things happened, which I talked about here.  Eventually the guestbook had to go.

Will bad things happen with the Twitster account?  Oh, I am expecting them to.

But  I suppose I'll be trying to write clever & witty every day or so.  Do you want maybe to follow me?  If you, I'll follow you.  Seriously.  Anywhere.

A Show Full Of Ups & Downs

Self Help Radio's possibly inappropriate exploration of elevators & escalators had several double entendres of the sort one might expect when talking about things that go up & down.  Being run by a naive fellow who's really only a danger to himself, Self Help Radio apologizes for "sexing it up" on Monday mornings without properly contacting a ratings authority.  In case such things exist.

The show has its ups & downs, ho ho ho.  The show is stuck between floors at the Self Help Radio web site.  Should you wish to access the mp3 files directly, the first part is on the up escalator & the second part is on the down escalator.  The list of the songs on each level are below.

(part one)

"Elevators & Escators" PBNJ Buchanan _Ups & Downs_
"Elevator Hopper" Kid Koala _Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs_
"Elevator Love Letter" Stars _Heart_

"Elevator Man" Roy Nelson _Northern Soul Fever, Vol. 2_
"Elevator" Hannibal Buress _Animal Furnace_
"The Elephant Elevator Operator" Sesame Street _Sesame Street: Silly Songs_
"Escalator Of Life" Robert Hazard _Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80's, Vol. 5_
"Elevator Baby" Frankie Starr _Western Dance, Vol. 1_
"Up The Down Escalator" The Chameleons _Script Of The Bridge_

"Elevator Papa, Switchboard Mama" Butterbeans & Susie _Please Warm My Weiner: Old Time Hokum Blues_
"Elevator Girl" Rainbow Red Oxidizer _Recorded Lies_
"The Crystal Escalator In The Palace Of God Department Store" Bill Nelson _The Love That Whirls (Diary Of A Thinking Heart)_

(part two)

"I'm Gonna Be Your Elevator" The Fresh & Onlys _Grey-Eyed Girls_
"Elevator Operator" Gene Clark _Echoes_

"Escalator Over The Hill" Talulah Gosh _Backwash_
"Elevator À Go-Go" Die Fünf Freunde _Inspektor, Inspektor_
"Hit H" Bitesize _The Best Of_
"Escalator" Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs _Medicine County_
"Elevator" Eugene Mirman _God Is A Twelve-Year-Old Boy With Asperger's_
"Hippy Elevator Operator" W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band _Where The Action Is! (Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968)_
"Elevator Boogie" Bill Johnson & His Musical Notes _The Jive Is Jumpin': RCA & Bluebird Vocal Groups, 1939-52_

"Elevator Boy" Laid Back _Keep Smiling_
"Elevator Man" British Road Runners _The Super K Kollection, Volume 1_
"Elevator" Grapefruit _Lost Jukebox, Vol. 8_
"Elevator Man" AstroPuppees _Little Chick Tsunami_

Whither Elevators/Escalators?

The place I used to work - at the University of Texas - sort of doesn't exist anymore.  It's called Batts Hall & while this is what it looks like from the front, the inside is totally different because of a renovation that happened a few years ago.  The halls I used to walk down every day for a decade no longer look the same, & the rooms in which I worked are not there.

I miss two things most of all.  One is the marble foyer that stood outside an old auditorium.  I had several classes in that auditorium when I was a UT student.  In one psychology class, I fainted.  In another government class, I slept - a lot.  The teacher had to stand at a lectern at the stage right - there was a stage there - & I enjoyed, when there were no classes, wandering through the barely-used-anymore dressing rooms backstage.  The auditorium was fine, but that foyer was lovely.  I liked walking through to get to my office.

That's all gone.

& the old Otis elevator is gone too.  Toward the end, I seem to remember seeing the Otis repairman around several times a year.  The building had four stories (I suppose it still does) & the elevator went up to the third.  I used the elevator most days - some days I felt I should take the stairs (I worked on the second floor) - & I loved one thing about the elevator: you could stop it, pry open the doors without much trouble, & then get out (after opening the doors at the floor) & leave the elevator stuck.

I know, it's a little dickish, but I only did it once.  In some cases, it's just nice to know that something is possible.

That elevator, of course, is gone.  The one that replaced it is as impersonal as all new stuff invariably is.

Speaking of impersonal, Self Help Radio is of course having a show about elevators & escalators tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 8:00 am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington & you can of course listen online at wrfl dot fm.  I don't use any elevator at the University of Kentucky, but assuming I don't get trapped in an elevator, I'll post the show later on at self help radio dot net.

Going up!

Preface To Elevators & Escalators: Which Do You Prefer?

Some opinions here & here.

People on the Straight Dope message board discuss it here.

There's no word for a fear of elevators (it's close to claustrophobia) but if you are - & I think I know a claustrophobic person who does not in fact ride elevators - here are some tips to help out.

(Snap a rubber band?)

Apparently being afraid of escalators has a name, & it's escalatophobia.  These aren't quite tips, but here's a lot more information about escalatophobia.


Myself, I was always much more afraid of escalators than elevators.  To this day, the first step is a deliberate one - after all, there's an evil, reverse side of the escalator that we can't see - but which, it always seems, is lit with evil green light.  Isn't the light coming from the inside of an escalator always green?  What is lit with green light?


Evil is.


The scariest escalators in the world are in Washington, D.C.'s subways system.  Falling down this is not how I want to die:

Please Wait Ten Seconds

Does anyone remember Colorforms?

Do they still make Colorforms?

I wish I could go back in time & watch myself play with Colorforms.  I have memories of entire stories unfolding on that two dimensional space, with the strange plastic shapes ("forms") moved around like terrible animation by me, often mixing in some other Colorforms characters from different sets.  I remember sometimes continuing stories over the course of days.  Me, all by myself in a room, making a movie with my hands, my little brain & a couple of Colorforms stages.

I know that kids today get used to having constant stimulation & find such immobile things dull.  A friend of my wife tells me his kids find Mister Rogers boring.  Imagine!  I have no illusions that any child would have the same experience I had with Colorforms.

What I would like to hear were the stories I acted out.  I am a terrible storyteller - a failed writer - which I think is obvious - & I have no sense of plot or character development - & the adventures I was enacting were probably cliched & dull, whole narratives lifted from comic books or cartoons.

But what if they weren't?  I think it wouldn't hurt for me to find out.

Though I never will.

Grackle

I have a bird feeder.  I like to see birds very happily flutter around it & eat.  In general, I'd love to have many, many different kinds of birds, but over time it gets overrun with sparrows with the occasional dove, blue jay & cardinal hanging around.  I'd prefer a few more finches.

I bought the kind of bird feeder which is supposed to be primarily for small birds, "songbirds."  It has a circular metal grill that surrounds it which should only allow birds of a certain size, but because seed falls to the feeder floor, a larger bird can grasp the feeder & stick its head in.(*)  I don't always mind when it's a lovely bird, like a cardinal, although the bigger birds do tend to shoo the smaller birds away.

At some point recently, though, the most hated of birds descended upon my feeder: the grackle.  Suddenly they were everywhere, & they're big bullies, & they were battering the bird feeder to make the seed inside fall to the ground.  Big & stupid is one thing - big & smart is a bad combination.

In Austin, the grackles rule the University of Texas campus.  They are a trouble for the entire city - as this recent article in the city's "newspaper" reports.  They are such a fact of life that the smell of their excrement, their screeches from the trees at sunset & otherwise, & the ever-present danger of being shat upon as you wander across campus, all these things are almost taken for granted.

But in Kentucky?  I suppose I would see them in parking lots, but not in neighborhoods.

Eventually, I had to remove the bird feeder.  Just stepping outside, I could hear their calls, which sound like a sick animal clearing its throat, & they'd be visible at the tops of trees as the leaves were slowly coming back, at the end of winter/beginning of spring.  I imagined they were calling me names, but I know they're resourceful birds who can survive on most everything.  It was, as always, the smaller creatures that suffered.  All these grackles, everywhere, making noise that reminded me a little of home.

Until this past week.  I noticed the grackles had gone.  I put the bird feeder back out.  So far, no big bully-bird to bother the others.  & of course I have even seen a few finches, though of course the sparrows will probably crowd them away.  The sparrows have one thing the grackles don't have - they're awful cute.

I'm not anywhere near an amateur ornithologist, but I wonder: do grackles just come to my neighborhood to breed in early spring?  Do they go somewhere else when their children can fly?  I've asked a couple of people who've lived here a long time, but they didn't know what a grackle was.  Lucky souls!

I just hope it wasn't my bird feeder that brought them here in the first place.

(*) It's also supposed to protect from squirrels, although I've caught very young squirrels leaping into it from tall branches.

Double Double

Seeing double, or double vision, is a condition called diplopia & it can be caused by many things, all of them things I am terrified of &, as a hypochondriac, certain that I now have.  But just because each of the songs on the show today is somehow about something doubled doesn't mean you have diplopia.  It's just me.  I'm the one with the brain tumor & Graves Disease that's causing this double vision double vision.

The show is now available for listening at self help radio dot net.  It's in two parts - you're not seeing one show twofold! - & part one is available here part one is available here while part two is available here part one is available here.  The single list of double songs is below.

(part one)

"Science Fiction Double Feature" Me First & The Gimme Gimmes _Are A Drag_
"Double Trouble" Half Japanese _Greatest Hits_
"Double Up" C. L. Blast _The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968_
"Old Double 'E'"The Electric Company _The Electric Company/Original Cast_

"Double Life" The Cars _Candy-O_
"Double Summer" The Chills _Heavenly Pop Hits (The Best Of The Chills)_
"Double Groove (Unfinished Outtake)" Talking Heads _Remain In Light_
"Double Dutch" Malcolm McLaren _Duck Rock_

"Agent Double-0-Soul" Edwin Starr _Beg, Scream, Shout: The Big Ol' Box Of 60's Soul_
"The Double Act" Grow Up _The Best Thing/Without Wings_
"Do The Double Take" Boat _Dress Like Your Idols_
"Do The Double Bump" Rufus Thomas _The Funkiest Man Alive: The Stax Funk Sessions 1967-1975_

(part two)

"Periodically Triple Or Double" Yo La Tengo _Popular Songs_
"Popcorn Double Feature" The Searchers _Ripples, Vol. 2: Dreamtime (British Sunshine Pop)_

"Double Knots" Bitesize _Sophomore Slump_
"Double Dare" Bauhaus _In The Flat Field_
"Double Chocolate Malted" Jonathan Richman _It's Time For Jonathan Richman_
"Double Fisted" Invisible Cities _Watertown_
"School Of Doubletalk" Gary Owens _Put Your Head On My Finger_
"Doubled Up" Heather Nova _Blow_

"Doubleplusgood" Eurthymics _1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother)_
"Double Vegetation" Julian Cope _Peggy Suicide_
"Double Talk" Shoes _Shoes' Best_
"Double Double Dare" Hoyt Axton _Quagmire, Vol. 8_

Whither Seeing Double?

Can I just say that nothing messes with my brain more than watching Game Of Thrones & Mad Men back-to-back.  I love both shows to distraction but for completely different reasons.  I sometimes don't know how I keep my brain in my head.

Anyway, I have to go to bed because I have to wake up again early (that is a terrible bargain in so many ways) to do a radio show.  The theme is "seeing double."  It is not inspired by actual events.  My eyesight grows poor with age, but I've never "seen double."  I've have so much to drink that the room has spun.  But never did the room split in two before me.

But there's still time!

Self Help Radio is on tomorrow morning - mere hours from now - from 7:30 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington & its nearby satellites.  You can always listen online from anywhere, even a satellite, at wrfl dot fm.  I have been dreadful in the last couple of weeks at putting the show online but I promise I will do it soon after at self help radio dot net.

Now it's time to go to bed.  Now it's time to go to bed.

Hey wait a second.  Hey wait a second.

What's going on? What's going on?

You think this is funny?  You think this is funny?

Ah, screw it.  Ah screw it.

Preface To Seeing Double: Adventures With Foreigner

Foreigner is one of those "classic rock" bands that you cannot escape on modern commercial radio.  & you couldn't escape them back then, either.  When I was a sprog in the late 70s, they were hugely popular.  My brain, thanks to constant exposure to those radio stations, still knows the words to songs like "Feels Like The First Time," "Cold As Ice," "Hot Blooded," &, of course, "Double Vision."

Will anyone request "Double Vision," seeing as how this week's theme is "seeing double"?

The guitarist for Foreigner is named Mick Jones, & he's British, but he's not the same person as my idol Mick Jones of the Clash - but wouldn't it be hilarious if he was & I never knew?  (Mick Jones is apparently the only original member of the band, which still exists.)

That's how little I knew about the band Foreigner - you could have mentioned the names of any of their members over the years & I would have drawn a blank.  But reciting the lyrics to "Hot Blooded"?  Hey, check it & see, I got a fever of a hundred & three, come on baby you can do more than dance!  I just wrote all those out without consulting a lyrics site because my brain has them stored up.  Memories of my childhood shoved away so I could remember mediocre "classic rock" songs.

That being said, I can't say I "hate" Foreigner.  They're probably still making lots of cash from constant airplay & I'm sure there are people my age & older who go to see them in moderately large venues - tonight they're playing a casino in Indiana & earlier they played amphitheaters in Michigan.  But I have never never nerver met anyone who will say anything like "Foreigner were the consummate rock band of the 70's" or "Foreigner changed the rock & roll landscape."  There's not a Foreigner album anyone's ever said I have to listen to.  No one cites Foreigner as an influence - well, no one good, anyway, & certainly not anyone I would be listening to, or that would be making any sort of mark .  There are some seriously overrated bands that people utterly worship who are as successful as Foreigner that otherwise right-thinking people consider to be great.

Having said that, a friend of mine who pretty much only listens to classic rock radio once got mad at me for quoting the lyrics to "Cold As Ice" to her.  She said, "Don't sing Foreigner to me!  They ruined rock & roll!"  I don't think she understood that many of the bands she loved had already destroyed rock & roll at that point - & that Foreigner was something arbitrary she picked out to focus her self-loathing.  The rest of us, of course, allowed ourselves to be rescued by punk rock.

Please don't request "Double Vision" on my show.  I could sing it to you over the phone but I won't play it, especially since the classic rock station further up the dial is probably playing it anyway - hurry!  Or you'll miss the guitar solo!

PS I just discovered that Brave Combo do a cover of "Double Vision" on their record "The Process."  I don't own it so I can't play it.  But I can't imagine it's any good.

In Season

Suddenly it's hot in Kentucky.  & humid.  It reminds me of home.  & being sweaty all the time.  I apologize, Austin.  I realize now I was sweaty all the time.

I live with a woman who watches too many documentaries who doesn't want to turn on the air conditioner despite the fact that it is 80 degrees in the house because (she says) it will kill the planet.  The documentaries tell her that.  & I am the creature with the second-least amount of fur.  Also, my computer emits tremendous amounts of heat.

I know it's nothing like Austin.  Or is it?  Outside it's 79 degrees in Lexington.  It's 81 degrees in Austin.  Thanks Weather Underground!  It's mostly the same temperature where I am & where Austin are.

Except Austin has (I believe this is the scientific term) a shit-ton more vegetarian restaurants.  Most of these seemed to open after I left.  How many?  Have a look at this web site.  If you are a vegetarian or vegan in Lexington, this should make you sad.

I have to go now.  I am going to see how hot it is in our house.  81 degrees!  It's the same temperature in our house as in Austin.  At nine o'clock at night!

Hours Later

I can't remember when I came up with a theme called "hours."  I think I've already done a show about clocks, & then later, a show called "what o'clock is it?" which mentioned specific times (ie, five o'clock).  I don't remember an epiphany, a moment when the ghost of Dead Pop Star came to me & said, "This would be a great idea for a show."  It wasn't such a great theme, after all.  Do you think my cats are fucking with me?

In any event, here's the show in all its glory.  To be fair, I read some neat information from The Discoverers by Daniel J Boorstin, which is a cool book.  The songs I played are below & the show is where it art to be at Self Help Radio dot Net.  In two parts: part one & part two.

Yes, it's a show about hours in ninety minutes.  Time is more malleable that you ever dreamed.

(part one)

"An Hour Is Sixty Minutes Too Long" Imitation Electric Piano _Trinity Neon_
"A Few Hours After This" The Cure _Join The Dots_

"Blinder By The Hour" The Triffids _Calenture_
"Hours N Hours" Boat People _Chandeliers_
"First Few Desperate Hours" The Mountain Goats _Tallahassee_
"Favourite Hour (Church Studios Version)" Elvis Costello _Brutal Youth_
"After Hours" The Velvet Underground _The Velvet Underground_

"Sweet Tasting Hours" The Go-Betweens _Spring Hill Fair_
"Dead Hour" The Guild League _Speak Up_

(part two)

"Happy Hour" The Housemartins _London 0, Hull 4_
"My Finest Hour" The Sundays _Reading, Writing & Arithmetic_
"My Finest Hour" The Lodger _Life Is Sweet_

"In The Midnight Hour" Wilson Pickett _This Is The Modern World_
"After Hours" A Tribe Called Quest _People's Instinctive Travels & The Paths Of Rhythm_
"Hourglass" Squeeze _Babylon & On_
"Hourglass" Twig _Hourglass 7"_
"Golden Hours" Brian Eno _Another Green World_

"First Hour Of The Day" The Band Of Holy Joy _The Big Ship Sails_
"None But Shining Hours" The Books _Lost & Safe_
"Sleepless Hours" Originals _Las Vegas Grind Vol. 3_
"Amateur Hour" Sparks _Kimono My House_

Whither Hours?

Can I confess something to you?  I thought this would be a more interesting theme than it's turned out to be.  Because there are a LOT OF SONGS having to do with "hours."  Apologies in advance for what might turn out to be a dull show.

Come to think of it, I should always preface my shows that way.

It will be a show about hours that only lasts ninety minutes & it will air tomorrow morning (Monday the 21st) on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.  You can listen live online at wrfl dot fm.  You can live recorded later at self help radio dot net.  You can try to travel into space faster than light, catch up to the stray radio waves, & listen to it as you return to Earth.  It's up to you!