Preface To Shame: Shame Is Taught To The Young

I grew up poor.  My father was literally a sharecropper's son, & my mother came from hardy German working-class stock.  My father split when I was four, or was more accurately made to leave, as he was a drunk & my mother had to get herself & her children away from him.  I suppose he would've stuck around if she had wanted him to.

Anyway, being a child & not being terribly self-aware (it occurs to me that being self-aware might ruin childhood) I couldn't have told you that we were poor.  I knew a couple of facts but didn't seem to want to connect them to some overarching idea:

1) We lived in apartments, while most of my schoolmates lived in houses.
2) My schoolmates had more toys - they had more things, in general - than we did.

One big example is that my schoolmates - & I separate my schoolmates from my friends, since I was mostly friends in the "hanging out & playing together" sense with people who lived in the apartment complexes where I lived- my schoolmates generally had their parents drive them around.  My mother didn't drive - we didn't own a car - & though occasionally my older siblings took us places, they had no real sense of filial obligation & usually did so begrudgingly.

But it didn't seem weird to me because my mother didn't drive.  It was never, "We can't afford a car."  It was, "If Mom drove, we'd have a car."

My mother, however, has always felt deeply ashamed by her low economic status - although, it must be noted, certainly not so ashamed that she might work really hard to pull herself out of it - she never thought about going to school to learn a trade.  She went to work, but the jobs she chose - working at a convenience store or drug store, or a fast food restaurant - were jobs that didn't necessarily require more than the ability to count & a pleasant demeanor.

I have to point out in this long-winded anecdote that I am not trying to disrespect or criticize my mother for these choices, if indeed they were choices - she had six children to support - maybe one or two had left by the time of the divorce, but still, at least three of us were under twelve.  I have never had to do anything like that.  My mother has always been a creature controlled by shame & fear, so the strength it took for her to work to support her family is something I don't think I possess.

As I've been saying, I was completely unaware of our socioeconomic status, & blissfully so.  It meant that insults from the middle class kids at school went right over my head.  I remember once a teacher asked me if I lived in the apartments close to the school, & when I said yes, she said, "Oh, dear."  So they must've looked like an awful place to live - but at the time I was puzzled by her reaction.

Until.  This had to be a few months later.  My mother just turned to me & said, "Are you ashamed that we're so poor?"

& I wasn't.  Because I didn't know we were poor.  Only now I did.  & suddenly I was.

I Spend Too Much Time On Tumblr Blogs

It makes it sometimes difficult to write in this blog which has virtually no images at all.

Good News! (Good News?)

In honor of my lovely Bronte cat's birthday (oh, here's a picture of her; she turns five today:)

Happy birthday to her!

In honor of her birthday, I tell you this (potentially) good news: Self Help Radio is expanding from ninety minutes to two hours!  Starting this Monday!

I am not sure if I'll be able to pull it off, but for right now, I'm enjoying the excitement of the good news!

Bronte, on the other hand, is all like, "You call this a present for me?"

What A Joke!

How many episodes of Self Help Radio does it take to play songs & talk about jokes?  One, it turns out.  Oh, wait, did you think that was a riddle?  No no, this is one show about jokes that's positively humorless.

That's not true.  You'll hear a few funny things on the show today, & the playlist is below.  The show is at the Self Help Radio website, where is it saved in two parts: the hilarious part one & the delightfully witty part two.

Just stop me if you think you've heard this one before...

(part one)

"Joke Shop Man" Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band _Cornology_
"You're Joking" Evans The Death _Evans The Death_
"Cracker Jokes" Stephen Fry _Fry's English Delight_

"I Started A Joke" Dirtbombs _If You Don't Already Have A Look_
"Such A Joke" Vivian Girls _Vivian Girls_
"She Doesn't Laugh At My Jokes" Jonathan Richman _Having A Party With Jonathan Richman_
"Punchlines" The Lucksmiths _A Good Kind Of Nervous_
"That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" The Smiths _The World Won't Listen_
"These Jokes" Demetri Martin _These Are Jokes_

"The Joker" Bob Bunny _Las Vegas Grind Vol. 2 (Louie's Limbo Lounge)_
"The Joker (That's What They Call Me)" Billy Myles _Greatest Hits_
"The Joker" Shawn Elliott _The Joker_
"The Jokers" Peter & Gordon _True Love Ways_

(part two)

"Joker In The Pack" The Adicts _Sound Of Music_
"The Joker (feat. Bootsy Collins)" Fatboy Slim _Palookaville_

"911 Is A Joke" Public Enemy _Fear Of A Black Planet_
"I Ain't No Joke" Eric B & Rakim _Paid In Full_
"Joking & Lying" Eugene Mirman _En Garde, Society!_
"Sick Joke" Love Parade _Past Crimes_
"? (It's A Joke, It's Supposed To Be Funny)" Mice Parade _The True Meaning Of Boodleybaye_
"The Joke" The Fall _Cerebral Caustic_

"Joke's On Me" Holiday Flyer _You Make Us Go_
"The Joke" Ed's Redeeming Qualities _Guess Who This Is_
"Joking Apart" Nightingales _Pissed & Potless: Greatest Hits_
"The Finest Joke Is Upon Us" Guided By Voices _Hardcore UFOs: Demons & Painkillers_

Whither Jokes?

I am unfunny.  & unclever.

Tomorrow!  From 7:30 to 9am!  On 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington!  & online at wrfl.fm!  Self Help Radio will:

1) play music about jokes;
2) talk about jokes;
3) tell you how to tell a joke;
4) tell you the funniest jokes in the world - as proved by science.

It should be mildly amusing.

Maybe I should have just done a show full of jokes?

(What's not funny is you might miss the show but you'll be able to listen to it later on the Self Help Radio website.)

Preface To Jokes: How To Tell A Joke

I am not a comedian no matter how funny I think I am.  I certainly amuse myself.  But here's a link from a toastmaster(*) on how to tell a joke.

I have no idea if his advice is any good, though I've noticed that one tip - "Never start off by telling your audience how funny the joke is" - is pretty true, & any preface on how funny the joke is will be in direct proportion to the amount of laughter in the room after the joke is done (assuming everyone isn't drunk or high, which changes a lot of things).  Another sign something someone said isn't funny - when the person laughs after the joke.  They're hoping that their laughter is infectious, & it's a desperate thing an insecure person will always do to alert you that they've just told a joke & if you don't laugh, it'll hurt their feelings.

There's another list here at about.com, the best advice of which is this: "Avoid telling any joke you don't understand."  I wish someone had told me that when I was a child!

Okay, I could use that advice these days, too.

(*) This is what a "toastmaster" is, but the link from the website for Toastmasters International.

A Day Off From Blogging

What? I hear you not really say.  A day off from the Self Help Radio blog?  Don't you only blog five days a week?  Why do you need another day off?  What are you, German?

Technically, though, it's not really a day off, as I am here to write about an imaginary conversation between a "reader" (certainly an imaginary person who check out this blog) & "me" (a person who does a radio show which is so inconsequential it sometimes feels imaginary).  & yet, I want to apologize for the lack of content here, since I do like to write in the blog five days a week.

Wait!  I have news!  Republican candidate What's-His-Name Ken-Doll-Guy has chosen his running mate!  It's someone some people thought it would be, but other people might be surprised about!  How dramatic!  It should make all the weekend news shows!

That was worth it, yes?  Wait.  Did you know there was an election going on?  Really?  Yeah, in the United States, we're voting for a president this year.  Wait, should I have capitalized President?  Anyway, yeah, it's the current guy - Obama - & this guy Mitt Romney.  Yeah, Mitt.  I guess it's short for Mitten?  I don't really know.  Well, he does kind of resemble a Ken Doll, but maybe a Ken Doll in his late fifties, early sixties.  Yeah, ha ha, Barbie would have had lots of plastic surgery by then.  Oh well.  Ha ha.  It's all so funny.

I have no idea what any of this means.

Calling All Dinosaurs

Hey, this may be late notice, but I am subbing WRFL's classic rock show this afternoon.  It's called the Belfry & it's uniformly excellent, so listening to me do it might be a bit of a let-down.  However, if you're around, it's from 4 to 6pm at 88.1 fm on the dial in Lexington & its surroundings, &/or it's online at WRFL's website.

To encourage you, here's a picture of an actual belfry:

The Subway Show!

I adore subways.  I wish I lived someplace where I could take a subway regularly.  I know they're loud & polluted & smelly.  I just like the idea of subways.  Well, commuter trains in general.  So I made a radio show to celebrate them!

You know how it goes: the show is waiting at the Self Help Radio station.  You'll find two lines there: one line goes to the first half of the show; the other line goes to the other half.  Song-destinations are below.

(part one)

"Subway" Sesame Street _Sesame Street: Signs!_
"Talking Subway" John Greenway _Talking Blues_
"On The Subway" The Last Poets _The Last Poets_

"Subway Joe" Joe Bataan with The Fulanos _King Of Latin Soul_
"The Underground Train" Lord Kitchener _London Is The Place For Me: Trinidadian Calypso In London_
"Circle Line" Rodney Allen _Happysad_
"Subway To The Beach" Furniture _Food, Sex & Paranoia_
"Subway Song" The Cure _Three Imaginary Boys_

"Don't Sleep In The Subway" Petula Clark _Music To Watch Girls By_
"Subway Train" New York Dolls _The New York Dolls_
"Down In The Subway" Soft Cell _Down In The Subway_

(part two)

"Subway Cutie" Melody Masters _Hot Harmony Groups 1932-1951 - That's The Rhythm, Vol. 1_
"Subway Blues" Mable Scott _1938-1950_

"Riding On The Subway" Jesse Malin _The Fine Art Of Self-Destruction_
"Man On the Tube" The Passions _Michael & Miranda_
"Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" The Jam _Greatest Hits_
"Waiting For The End Of The World" Elvis Costello _My Aim Is True_
"The Metro" Berlin _The Best Of Berlin 1979-1988_

"Downtown Train" Tom Waits _Rain Dogs_
"MTA" The Kingston Trio _Folk Song America - A 20th Century Revival_
"The Next Station Is: Shibuya" Torpedo Boyz _Cum On Feel The Boyz_

Whither Subways?

How dangerous are subways?  According to this article (which is just about the New York subway system), "most of the deaths that occur in the subway are due to sickness, accident, or suicide."  The site does allow that there is "an occasional murder."

According to this site - which features pictures of subway crashes & other rail accidents, you have been warned - the Daegu subway in South Korea is "the world's most dangerous subway."  Here is an image of an arson in 2003 when some 150 people died:

More information at the site linked above.

I am getting this out of the way because tomorrow morning on Self Help Radio we celebrate subways (although there are some songs about scary subway experiences - but I won't be focusing on that!).  Please listen - it's from 7:30 to 9:00 am on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  Archived later underground at the Self Help Radio website.  Trains run on time!  Don't miss it!

Preface To Subways: The First Time I Ever Rode In A Subway

I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, which didn't have much of a mass transit system during my childhood.  It probably had a trolley system early in the twentieth century, but (I just discovered reading this article) it had only something called the Dallas Transit System until the creation of DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) in the early 80s.  I was in high school when the yellow DART buses appeared around town, but it was widely scorned among my family & friends, with stories of empty buses parked outside of routes for the drivers to nap.  (There was probably also some racism & class insecurity involved - as minorities too the bus - a sign perhaps that you were poor to afford your own means of transportation.)  I had no previous experience in riding buses - my mother did not even want us to ride the school bus - & DART made it hard to do, since their bus stop signs did not (until the 1990s) tell you which bus stopped there.

I was very surprised to find out a girl I was sweet on took the bus to her after-school job.  I asked her how she knew which bus to take, & she produced pamphlets.  I remember asking, "How did you get those?"  At the supermarket, it turned out.  Who know?  Besides her, I mean.

I had of course read about subways, & seen them in movies, but not being terribly well-travelled & especially not ever visiting the American north-east, there would be no chance to ride a real subway until after college.

When was my first subway experience?  Technically, I rode a train that went underground in May of 1992 when I was in Germany, but it wasn't a proper subway.  The first real subway I rode was later that summer in Mexico City.  It was especially charmed by the color coding - it made everything so easy!

I have loved subways ever since & would require every medium-to-large-sized city build one if I were in charge.

Interestingly, I didn't ride in the New York subway until 2004.  So my first experience with subways - & trains as mass transit - happened in two countries outside my own.  & my first American subway experience happened eight years after that.

I was going to say something about Boomslang...

You know, Boomslang, the annual music festival WRFL puts on in September.  This year's headliners are the Jesus & Mary Chain.

You heard me!

I saw them almost exactly twenty-five years ago in Austin, Texas.  November 1987.  It was amazing.  I can't imagine it will be any different.

Do you think they'll remember me?

Summer Music Deals

Says an email I just got.  What sort of deals are they?  Do they mean more money for people who don't have a lot?  Because it seems most indie bands don't make much money at all.

One way they might make money is through "performing rights organizations" like BMI.  I don't pretend to understand how BMI works (this article isn't entirely helpful) but at WRFL recently I volunteered to tally playlists for three days to report to BMI.  The understanding is that this "random sampling" would enable the company to fairly distribute royalties.

Except RFL isn't a playlisted radio station (that would've made my job easier).  Each deejay picks more or less what he or she wants to play (there are requirements to play new material but the deejay can pick from hundreds of new releases) so even if we might play one particular band or artist, we might not have played them on those three days.  (That does explain how crappy bands like the Eagles keep making money from radio, though - on commercial "classic rock" stations, they're played two dozen times a day - & that's just "Hotel California.")

More interesting to me is that some of the deejays at RFL chose to play bands during that period who didn't need any of the money we pay in fees to BMI.  Among the folks to whom we sent money were commercial rap superstars like Kanye West & T-Pain, filthy rich rock & roll dinosaurs like Fleetwood Mac & Pink Floyd, any group Jack White's been involved with, & (even though I appreciate them, I would have avoided playing them during this time) great but super rich artists like Bowie & Ray Davies.

I used to say, back in my KVRX days, that every time someone plays a band or a record that they can hear virtually anywhere else, it takes time from a band or performer that no one's ever heard - which, let's be honest, has a fifty-fifty chance of being better than the commercial radio mainstay.

To be fair, I am not entirely sure the deejays at RFL understood what BMI was or what it meant to them personally, but the fact that they play the stuff they were playing regardless might make me a little worried about non-commercial radio...

Except the vast majority of what was played was by great, deserving, mostly unknown artists.  It's nice to know that some BMI money - if they have accounts - is going to them.  So I can grumble about some of my colleagues playing commercial radio crap - knowing full well more than most of them don't.  & won't.

No More Tears!

Don't cry!  I've finally gotten around to putting this week's show, which is about weeping, on the Self Help Radio website.  It's not anything to be upset about.  So no more tears, soldier - let the show weep for you.

The show is at selfhelpradio.net but it's in two parts so if you would like to listen to a specific part (& what songs I played during each part are listed below) you can do so by either clicking part one or part two, depending on which one you want to listen to.

Dry your eyes & listen!

(part one)

"Weeping Blues" Rosco Gordon _The Complete Sun Singles, Vol. 1_
"Weepin' & Cryin'" The Griffin Brothers' Orchestra _Blowing The Fuse_
"Now I Lay Me Down To Weep" Skeeter Davis _Let Me Get Close To You_

"The Weeping Song" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _The Good Son_
"Weeping Eyes" Justin Hinds & The Dominoes _Travel With Love_
"Weep, Weep, Weep" The Parrotts (with the Red Saunders Orchestra) _Sun Ra: The Eternal Myth Revealed_
"Willie The Weeper" Dave Van Ronk _The Folkway Years 1959-61_
"Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers" Elvis Presley _Elvis For Everyone!_

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" The Beatles _Anthology 3_
"Weeping Mary" Alabama Sacred Harp Singers _Southern Journey, Vol. 9: Harp Of A Thousand Strings_
"Weeping Wine" Lloyd Cole _Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe_

(part two)

"I'll Weep No More" Betty Everett _Birth Of Soul: Special Chicago Edition_
"Weeping Willow Blues" Odetta _Odetta & The Blues_
"Weep Day" They Might Be Giants _Then: The Earlier Years_

"Willow Weep For Me" June Christy (with Stan Kenton & His Orchestra) _Tampico_
"Weep & Mourn" Israel Vibration _The Same Song_
"This Man, He Weeps Tonight" The Kinks _Arthur_
"Now I Lay Me Down To Weep" Simone Dina _Cool '60s Girls - Felines Of Northern Soul_
"Losers Weepers (Part One)" Etta James _Heart & Soul: A Retrospective_

"Weep No More My Baby" Brenda Lee _Rocks_
"Baby Don't You Weep" Garnet Mimms _Cry Baby/Warm & Soulful_
"Weepy Doesn't Know" Utah Phillips _The Telling Takes Me Home_
"Weeping Like A Willow" Paul Chandler _Teenage Time, Vol. 10_
"Weeping Wall" David Bowie _Low_

So This Is Really The 1400th Post

As I explained in this post, I have been miscalculating my number of posts.  This is really the 1400th post on this blog.  I'm going to have to go through & figure out how wrong I've been for my last few hundred posts.  Sigh.

It's not really worth celebrating.  So I won't.  Oh, & I'll put today's show up tomorrow.  The day just escaped my grasp.  Forgive me.  I might weep.

Whither Weeping?

It just seemed more important than plain old crying.

Don't weep!  You can listen to Self Help Radio's show about weeping tomorrow - if you're in Lexington, it's on 88.1 on your FM dial.  If you're not in Lexington - or if your FM dial is a computer - you can listen online at the WRFL web page.

If you're not awake - if you procrastinate - if you're afraid of live radio - I'll archive the show tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday - it depends) at the Self Help Radio website.

Also, I'll be on the radio from 10 am to noon, too.  In case you still want to hear my stupid voice after Democracy Now!.

Preface To Weeping: What Is The Difference Between Weeping & Crying?

There does appear to be a difference.  According to these people over at English forums, "Weeping accompanies grief, loss, & intense sadness, whereas crying can result from a wider range of emotional states - rage or frustration, for example."

A good example on the page is the use of the word "weeping" when describing an upset child.  You say, "The child is crying" not "The child is weeping" - that verb makes no sense when it's not something related to actual sorrow.

Is there a continuum of crying?  Is it sobbing, crying, weeping?  What about blubbering, whining, bewailing, keening, whimpering, sniveling?  Perhaps this week's Self Help Radio will attempt to create a flowchart!

Oh nos!

Well, don't I feel a little like an idiot.  Let me tell you, as often as that happens, it never feels great.  Ever.

Do you remember a few days back when I went on & on about my 1400th post?  No?  Well, anyway, funny story.  I was relying upon the numbers in Blogger, which say things like, "1397 posts, last published [date], etc."  It told me that I had 1400 posts.  It did!  I swear.

Then I noticed something yesterday - for whatever reason, I had seven "drafts" on the posts page.  Looking at them, they weren't what you'd call drafts - most were from before 2009, & most looked like blog entries that I just titled & didn't write anything in - you know, I thought I had something to say but then thought better of it.

Well! said I.  I shall delete these weird drafts as they make absolutely no sense!

But.  Then.  Oh no!  My total blog count went down by seven.  The stupid blog was counting the drafts as well as the published blog posts!  Therefore - the 1400th post hasn't happened yet.  What a fool!  What a maroon!  What an idiot!

I should've known there was a reason my count was always off.  Well, another reason besides the obvious one: "user error."

The good news is, there'll be a 1400th post soon!  For you to ignore!  Again!

Books I'll Never Write, Part I

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a writer.  I know, I can feel you shaking your head in embarrassment for me.  I was unusually smart & wised up & realized I wasn't a very good writer, but it's something that's still in me, not the desire so much, but the thinking about stories & ideas for novels & all that.  (I also wrote poetry but, really, the less said about that the better.)

I didn't write terribly autobiographical stuff - I was barely in my 20's, I had very little life to write about.  But when I think about writing these days, it is autobiographical, since I have a few decades of life behind me & probably less before me.

One book I was thinking about writing these past couple of weeks is about my father.  I know virtually nothing about him - he & my mother were divorced when I was four, & he was an alcoholic who appeared intermittently throughout my childhood.  By the time he kicked the booze, I was in high school, & he showed no interest in getting to know me, & I guess I was too self-involved to care.  He died I believe in my last year of college.  I wasn't sad at his funeral, unlike my sisters, who were devastated.

The book would be called something like "All The Times I Saw My Father," & I would just tell the stories of my (strangely few) memories of him.

But I don't think I'll write such a book, for a couple of reasons.  One is, of course, that I'm not a good writer.  But the other is that it would be a lot of hard work.  A lot of digging through memories that I might not have any more - not to mention trying to contextualize those memories.  I don't think I have the persistence & wherewithal to pull something like that off.

I can think about it, though.  & write about thinking about it.

Don't Be Afraid!

I'm afraid I'm late posting this.  I should've done it yesterday, but I was gripped by an illogical & incomprehensible terror - in a sense, I saw the eternal Footman hold my coat, & snicker - in short, I was afraid.  Weird, right?  To be afraid to post a show about being afraid?  What could go wrong?

Nothing went wrong, despite a shabby show made more tiresome by my own tiredness.  Still, I have put the show over on the Self Help Radio website.  Hey!  If you are afraid of strange websites & don't want to try to find it amongst my myriad shows, you can download the first part here & you can download the second part here.  & so you're not afraid of what might be on the show, what I played is below.

Being afraid is silly!  Enjoy the show!

(part one)

"Who's Afraid" How Do I Learn? _How Do I Learn?_
"So Afraid" Flare _Metamophosis_

"Afraid Of Everyone" The National _High Violet_
"I Am Afraid" A House _The Way We Were: The Best Of A House 04.85-02.97_
"Too Afraid" Thee Headcoats _In Tweed We Trust_
"I'm So Afraid Of You" Damien Youth _Alchemy_
"Afraid To Dream" Louis Prima _Louis Prima (1937 - 1939)_

"I Am Not Afraid" They Came From The Stars (I Saw Them) _Lo & Behold!_
"Don't Be Afraid, You Have Just Got Your Eyes Closed" Múm _Finally We Are No One_

(part two)

"Are You Afraid To Die?" The Louvin Brothers _Satan Is Real_
"I Was Afraid Of That, Pt. 2" Blind Blake _All The Published Sides_

"Been Afraid" P.O.S. _Never Better_
"I'm Afraid Of Americans" David Bowie _Bowie At The Beeb_
"Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf" Ben Bernie & His Orchestra _Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? Great American Songs Of The Depression_
"Who's Afraid Of Thunder" Dorothy Collins _Experiment Songs_
"Be Afraid Of Your Parents" The Indelicates _Songs For Swinging Lovers_

"Girl Afraid" The Smiths _Hatful Of Hollow_
"Don't Be Afraid" The Smoking Popes _Get Fired_
"Not Afraid" Small Factory _Suggestions 7"_
"My Baby Is Afraid Of Sharks" Herman Düne _Next Year In Zion_

Whither Afraid?

I'm sorry, this blog is not available at this time.  This blog is on its way back from Nashville, Tennessee.  This blog may well be listening to songs about being afraid in a desperate attempt to have the radio show ready by tomorrow morning, a show for which this blog has done very little work.

It may be a mess, but this blog recommends you listen to the potential train wreck that will be this week's Self Help Radio tomorrow morning at 8am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.  On the web page, linked previously, there is a stream you can listen to anywhere there's an internet.  Also, the show will be archived shortly thereafter on the Self Help Radio website.

Unless something happens on the Bluegrass Highway.  Oh no!

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.