Self Help Radio 071115: Sense & Nonsense

(original image here)

A show about sense + nonsense doesn't make any sense!  Should it?  Make sense I mean?  Or not?

I dunno.  Here it is though.  Trying to make sense of things.  You know how it is.  Still.  There's some nonsense too.  You have been warned.  Or, should I say, nonsensically, you have been warmed.

The show is where you expect it to be: at Self Help Radio on the web.  In addition to the music played, listed below, there's a conversation with our man in Hollywood, Mark Miller, who's trying to make sense of that industry, & a professor in New Mexico who teaches, & he says this himself, nonsense.  Do pay attention to the username/password stuff there.  It's how you get to listen to the show!

Sense?  Nonsense!
Thanks for listening!

(part one)
"Sense & Nonsense" Adorable _Vendetta 7"_
"It Don't Make Sense" Fiestas _Oh So Fine_
"It Don't Make Sense" The Carpettes _The Early Years_

"Nothing Makes Sense" Jennifer Gentle _Valende_
"Several Thousand Light Years Of Talking Nonsense" The Crimea _Secrets Of The Witching Hour_
"The Sense" Crippled Pilgrims _Down Here (Collected Recordings 1983-1985)_

"You Make No Sense" ESG _Come Away With ESG_
"No Sense" New Model Army _No Rest For The Wicked_
"Make Sense Of It" Split Enz _Time & Tide_
"Makes No Sense At All" Hüsker Dü _Flip Your Wig_

"Common Sense" John Prine _Common Sense_
"Empire Of The Senseless" The Mekons _The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll_

(part two)
"You Stopped Making Sense" The Radio Dept. _Clinging To A Scheme_
"Logic Makes No Sense To Me" The Would Bes _Silly Songs For Cynical People_

"Treasury Of Nonsense" New Christy Minstrels _Tell Tall Tales! Legends & Nonsense_
"No Sense Nonsense" Jeremiah _USA Garage Greats 1965-1967: Hypnotized!_
"Sense Sickness" Del Amitri _Scared To Get Happy: A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"Senseless" The Sullivans _The Sullivans_
"Sense" Terry Hall _Home_

"We Make Sense" Noise Problems _Emma Acs Live At The Festival Of Endless Gratitude_
"Only The Sea Makes Sense" Gorky's Zygotic Mynci _Gorky 5_
"Makes No Sense" Soundpool _Mirrors In Your Eyes_
"No Sense" Bailterspace _Strobosphere_

"Songs Of Fun & Nonsense (with Martyn Green)" Julie Andrews _Once Upon A Time_

Whither Sense & Nonsense?

There are a few things to say about this show, which I will enumerate in Roman numerals because I am reading a book about Romans right now.

I. I have no idea why I thought about doing a show about sense & nonsense.

II. I don't normally do shows about opposites like this.

III. I think I thought I couldn't find enough songs about one or the other.

IV. But it turns out there were many more songs about making sense than songs about nonsense.

V. Which is not to say nonsense songs.

VI. Like, I was going to play the song "O Susannah."  That song delighted me as a child.

VII. I only picked a couple for the show.

VIII. Every time I do a show with two things - if I've ever done a show with two themes…

IX. I can't remember if I ever have.

X. I'm too lazy to go check.

XI. Anyway, I thought I could do a sense song, then a nonsense song, then a sense song, etc.

XII. There weren't enough nonsense songs.

XIII. There were tons of song about "the senses," though.

XIV. I eliminated them.  That's a whole other show!

XV. Not to mention the individual senses!

XVI. Has it rained every day this summer?

XVII. Uh, I've lost my train of thought.

XVIII. You don't expect me to make sense anyway, right?

XIX. Anyway, I'm moving the show to Tuesdays after this next show, you know.

XX. So listen!

That made no sense.  Appropriately.  Self Help Radio's last Saturday morning show, at least for now,
on 7-9 am, wrfl.fm / 88.1 fm.  You know the drill.

Preface To Sense & Nonsense: Homecoming

My wife has been in Spain for the past three weeks.

Ooo, you might say to yourself.  Ooo, Spain.  Well!  What a terrible wife, not to take her lonesome husband to the beautiful & ancient old country, to visit its beautiful beaches, its museums, to partake of its culture, its sangria, its siestas in the hot, dry summer!

It's okay - she's not really a terrible wife - she's actually there to work.  She's spent the past few days holed up in what I can only assume is a refurbished Inquisition-era torture room dissecting animals for her next big scientific paper.  She's an anthropologist, you see.  She's told me things about the animals she's cut up that would've led to divorce papers from a weaker spouse.

I do throw up all the time when she talks about her work, though.

She comes back tomorrow.  So I've been working on Saturday's show all day today so I could spend maximum time with her tomorrow.  There!  You thought I wasn't a crazy romantic fool.  But you were wrong!

Update: just got a text from her.  It just says "plastered."  It's after midnight in Valladolid.  She's having way more fun than I am, that's for sure.

Whenever It Rains A Lot I Think Of The Novel "One Hundred Years Of Solitude"

It's been raining a lot here.  It reminds me of a story.  A long time ago, maybe even ten years ago now, I was fortunate enough to see The Lucksmiths, the best indiepop band ever, live at Emo's in Austin, Texas.

I don't remember what year it was but the Lucksmiths were supporting an Elephant Six band like Olivia Tremor Control or Ladybug Transistor.  I wasn't there to see that band (whichever one it was, or another I'm forgetting), & I'm not suggesting the bands are interchangeable, as I enjoyed them, but I had discovered the Lucksmiths by reviewing a CD for KVRX in 1999 & never thought this Australian band would make its way to the United States.

(They made it back to Austin one more time, probably around 2007, & I also saw them three times in San Francisco, trips I made specifically to see the band.  I loved them so much.)

Honestly, I had never seen a band win over a group of people who didn't know about them before.  & this was at Emo's, where people were only allowed in if they were sufficiently jaded.  I overheard later on that the band sold an amazing amount of merchandise after their short set, & I also talked to people who wanted to know more about them.

But my favorite comment about the band was this: "Where they come from, it must rain a lot."

I hadn't thought of it before, but they do in fact sing a lot about rain.  To people in Austin, Texas, in the middle of a hot summer, it seemed noteworthy.

Where are they from?  Brisbane, I believe.  Does a rain a lot in Brisbane?  This website (which is metric!) doesn't seem to suggest that it does.  (I translated it.)  25 inches a year?  That's about half what Lexington gets.  Even less than what Austin averages!

But rain is thoughtful, rain is poetic.  Rain sets the mood.  & rain makes me a lonesome boy.  Who's going to go listen to the Lucksmiths right now.

Sugar Substitute # 163

Here's another episode of the one-hour "free-form" radio show I do before my regular show, Self Help Radio, on Saturday mornings.  It turns out this is the next-to-the-last Sugar Substitute for a while, because, as you know, Self Help Radio is moving to Tuesday afternoons next week & I won't have that extra early-morning hour to play around with like I do now.

This week's show features a three-song tribute to the newest member of our household, a ridiculous chihuahua girl we called Yoko, who is, I am happy to say, fitting in tolerably well.  Beagles are notoriously accepting, cats are notoriously aloof, & she is notoriously sweet & cute.  It's working out better than I could have expected.  So she deserves some songs!

You can listen to the show now at this link, & if you don't know the username/password combo, I can only say like I am whispering SHR + selfhelp.  Otherwise you're on your own.

The songs I played are below.  Hope you enjoy!

"Why" Yoko Ono _Plastic Ono Band_
"Oh Yoko!" John Lennon _Imagine_
"Be My Yoko Ono" Barenaked Ladies _Gordon_

"Song Will" Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin _The High Country_
"Aquarium" Robyn Hitchcock _Eye_
"Foolin' Around" Crocodiles _Boys_
"Los Testigos No Descansan En Domingo" Clint _Alegrame El Dia_

"Bad Love" Summer Camp _Bad Love_
"Anywhere" Interpol _El Pintor_
"Young Girls" Pins _Wild Nights_
"Digital" Joy Division _A Factory Sample_
"Powder Keg" Church Girls _Church Girls EP_

"Mark & John (Bring On The Glitter Kids)" The Secret History _Desolation Town_
"Zoo Music Girl" The Birthday Party _Drunk On The Pope's Blood_
"Where's Sweetboy" Purling Hiss _Weirdon_

Self Help Radio 070415: Flags

(Original image here.)

Hooray for Independence Day!  Hooray for flags!  But oh!  I'm exhausted.  All that flag waving this morning - I might have to get my forearm repaired.  But!  If you like flags, here's a show for you!  Flag songs out the wazoo, wherever that is; plus I talk to Mark Miller in Hollywood, & to a descendent of Betsy Ross!  Man, those exclamation points are exhausting me too.  I need a nap.  Wake me with fireworks.

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website, where it'll be all Fourth Of July long.  There's a password + username, pay attention.  The playlist is on the site, but also below.

Enjoy the holiday! Thanks for listening.

(part one)

"Betsy Ross & The Flag" Stan Freberg _The United States Of America_
"Rally 'Round The Flag" The Weavers _The Weavers' Almanac_
"Your Flag Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore (live)" John Prine _The Singing Mailman Delivers_

"You're A Grand Old Flag" James Cagney & The Warner Bros. Chorus & Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra _Yankee Doodle Dandy_
"The Ragged Old Flag" Johnny Cash _The Ragged Old Flag_
"Face The Flag" John Wayne _America, Why I Love Her_

"Pink Flag" Wire _Pink Flag_
"I Am Your Flag" The Beat _Wha'ppen?_
"Flag Night" The Passage _For All & None_
"Under The Flag II" Fad Gadget _Under The Flag_

"From The Flagstones" Cocteau Twins _Sunburst & Snowblind_
"Flag Day" The Housemartins _Live At The BBC_

(part two)

"Empire" Eddie Izzard _Dress To Kill_
"The Red Flag" Billy Bragg _The Internationale_
"Let Your Freak Flag Fly" The Hummingbirds _Va Va Voom_

"Gimme Back My Flag" Julian Cope _Jehovahkill_
"Red Flag New York" The Bartlebees _What Is It All About?_
"Flags Of Freedom" Neil Young _Living With War_

"This Is Not My Flag" The Dentists _Behind The Door I Keep The Universe_
"They'll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day" Ballboy _Club Anthems_
"Flags" Sons & Daughters _This Gift_
"White Flag" Guided By Voices _The Bears For Lunch_

"Waving Flags" British Sea Power _Sea Of Brass_
"Wave The White Flag" Boat _Pretend To Be Brave_
"A Flag In The Court" Thee Oh Sees _Help_

Whither Flags?

I kinda explained yesterday* why I am doing a show about flags.  I mean, Fourth Of July!  Flags!  Hurrah!

Now, to dispel some rumors my cats have been spreading.  I will not be burning a flag on air during the show.  That would be a fire hazard.  I will not be undressing & wrapping myself in a flag so it touches my naughty parts.  That would also be a fire hazard.  & finally, I will not wipe my ass with the flag.  That would be disgusting & anyway that's what my flag-decorated toiler paper is for.  I don't know why my cats like to promulgate falsehoods about me nor why my dogs enjoy re-tweeting such items but suffice it to say that while I know it's perfectly legal to do any of that, I'm not going to, & even if I did you couldn't see me do it because I'm on the radio!  Good grief.  Use your heads!

Tomorrow morning: flags on the radio from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.  Online at wrfl dot fm.  Archived in time for fireworks at .  I hope you'll wake & listen!

* Why do I link it?  It's right below this entry!

Preface To Flags: I'm Not Used To Being So Topical

Sometime in the last month, or maybe in May, when I realized I was going to be doing a show on Saturdays, I had a look at the calendar.  I looked at the June calendar (that was when I'd start doing the show again).  Then I looked at the July calendar.  Uh oh!

(calendar courtesy of time & date dot com)

Do you see what the first Saturday in July is?  It's the frickin' frackin' Fourth Of July!

I've done a July 4th show before, this one about America.  (I also apparently did a show on July 4th last year about limes, which makes no sense*.)  For some reason, my brain said to me, "Let's do a show about flags."

Flags!  Of course!  People in my neighborhood have some group come by before Memorial Day, Independence Day, & Veteran's Day, & put flags on their lawn.  I never see the flags being erected & they're gone the next day, so I can only assume this weirdly patriotic group works in darkness.

So - yeah, flags.  I guess I was supposed to talk about this tomorrow, but that's the origin of this week's show.  I thought I'd do a show about flags because Self Help Radio happens to fall on Independence Day this week.  Um.  Spoiler alert?

But holy smokes, have you been paying attention to flags in the news?!?  Here's a cartoon by Jonathan Schmock to give you a taste:

That's right!  In the weeks before I was going to do a show about flags, flags are in the news!  Confederate flags disgraced at last!  Gay rights flags flying triumphantly!

Flags are on the tip of everyone's tongues!  I was in a Shell station somewhere in southeastern Kentucky - a Shell station with a Schlotsky's (not unusual) but also an entire, weirdly immaculate supermarket in the back (very unusual) - just buying a soda - & the clerk yelled back to someone in the grocery aisles, "Keep it up, I'll burn every gay pride flag I see!"

It's almost like I'm up to date on current events!

It's freaking me out.

* Here's what I wrote on my blog in regards to my Fourth Of July show about limes:

"Yes, I know it's the Fourth of July & you'll be in bed, but I couldn't be bothered to do an America-themed show.  Anyway, there's a parade & stuff later.  You can go to that.

Limes!  What was I thinking?"

Things Change More

I guess I can announce this…

You know there's this excellent radio show on WRFL called Black N Blues.  It describes itself (quite correctly) as "hip shakin' rhythm & heart breakin' blues."  It's almost a damned institution!

Well, the host, Dan Black, is relocating down south - appropriately to Nashville.  & the Program Manager has asked me to move Self Help Radio to that timeslot.

What?  Hunh?  How in the world can I even hope to live up to that?  I play some old blues & some r&b & love pretty much everything Dan played, but - well - I don't know!  It makes me queasy just thinking about it.

But. Boy! the idea of not having to wake up so early in the morning appeals to me.

So I said yes.

It's in a couple of weeks.  July 14th, actually.  Bastille Day.  For Pierre's sake!

I'll still do Self Help Radio this Saturday & the next.  It means that there'll be one week with two Self Help Radio episodes.  I apologize in advance.

I'm also very sorry about all this moving around.  I heard that Dan Black himself commented on the decision: "I'm glad he got it," he is reported to have said, adding, "Bastard."

What do you think?  Can Self Help Radio be an afternoon show?

Private Eulogy

My oldest sister died last week.  She had pancreatic cancer.  It happened very fast.  I was very fortunate, since she lived a thousand miles away, to have visited her about a month ago (before anything was diagnosed) & to have spoken to her a week before she died.  I loved her very much.  I went to her memorial this weekend (which is why I didn't do my show) & stood in the house that was so much hers - her favorite place to be, the place she was happiest - & told my younger sister, "She's still here.  It's so hard to be here because everything is telling me she's still here."

I have dreamt about her pretty much every night since it happened.  I remember when I was told the machines turned off & she was no more.  I said, "I held out hope."

In a hotel room in Memphis last night, I wrote a letter to someone I haven't spoken to in many, many years.  I didn't send it.  Here's what I wrote:

It's a stormy night in Memphis.  I've been here four times in a month this year.  It's halfway between Lexington & Dallas.  I like the city, we stop here, we forage for vegan food here, we rest our weary heads here after eight hours driving from Lexington.  I'm sort of by myself.  Magda is in Spain.

I drove to a pet store around the area near the airport because I am with a chihuahua.  She was named Chica but in our normal tradition, since we're adopting her, we wanted to rename her.  Unlike our normal tradition, Magda named her, & from afar: she wants to call her "Yoko" because, as she says, "she's breaking up the beagles."

Yoko belonged to my sister Pat.  Pat adopted her last year, though she swore she'd never get another dog after her last dog, Sarge, died.  Sarge was a sweetie.  Pat seemed to be struggling with depression of some kind & Yoko/Chica would visit her from another family's house where, according to Pat, there were pit bulls who wouldn't let the poor thing eat.  So Pat fed her, &, as she was Pat, she fed her bad food.  Wet food, human food.  The little girl is fat like a sausage.

Pat died of cancer a few days ago.  Before she did - when she had just found out there was a tumor on her pancreas - she worried about the fate of Chica/Yoko.  She said, "Could you take her?"  I said of course.  What's one more dog in our hoard?  She's a sweet thing.  She just needs better habits.

Anyway, what sort of heel refuses what surely was a dying wish?

Pat's memorial was in Dallas yesterday.  I couldn't not come.  Afterwards, I took Yoko to my hotel room, drove to Memphis today, & I make sure she's always with me.  I hope she'll be better when she's part of a pack, but right now I bet she needs to poop + pee & it's raining like crazy.  Ridiculously warm summer rain, I bet.  Rain like you'd find in a swamp.

Pat was a generous big sister but over the last decade we had become friends.  I loved to listen to her gossip.  Last night, exhausted, I finally got Yoko to calm down in bed, & I asked myself questions for Pat & answered them in my head in her voice.  At the memorial, I saw my brothers, all of whom I haven't seen in four years or so, plus lots of people I might not have seen in decades, old school friends of her son's, friends of the family she kept in touch with that I had all but forgotten.  I wanted to call Pat & listen to her impressions of everything & everyone there.  But I can't.  Not anymore.

She leaves behind a husband & a son, both of whom are acting like they're in control.  I don't for a second think it's true - her son was there when they turned the machines off, for Pat had a DNR - & no one's a fucking Vulcan.  All I could do is say, "Before you compartmentalize this in such a way it explodes all over you, please talk to me, let me listen to you."

My brothers & my other sister are writing about Pat on their Facebook pages but I've never done that.  I will write something on my blog.  I will tell my closest friends personally, or privately.

I'm reminded of a Bob Dylan lyric that I once associated (since that was his intent) with lost love:

I'm going out of my mind

With a pain that stops & starts

Like a corkscrew to my heart

Ever since we've been apart

That sounds like grief to me.  But everything sounds like grief to me right now, as I am grieving.

I hear her voice.  I see her face.  It's stupid, strange, horrible that she's gone.

I'll see if the rain has stopped.  Again, apologies if this is inappropriate or an intrusion. I hope all is well with your family & with you.

Never sent.  Just needed to write it, I guess.  You can pretend I wrote it for you.

When my sister joined Facebook, for a long time she left out her profile picture.  I said, "Do you not know how to put a picture up?"  She said, "No, I just don't like any picture of me."  So I sent her this picture, which I said reminded me of her:

It's Medusa, from the Inhumans, as drawn by Jack Kirby.  It's been her profile picture ever since.

It's strange, she still has a Facebook page.  One more thing you can't take with you.

It's sad that I now live in a world without my favorite sibling.  Here's the thing about Pat: I think she was every one of my brothers' & my sister's favorite sibling.  That's how amazing she was.  Kind & generous to a fault.  Stubborn but loving.  & probably the best mother I've ever known.  She was pretty much one-of-a-kind.

Tomorrow, I go back to work on my radio show.  Tonight, I'll watch Yoko learn about her new family & hopefully we'll all get a little rest.  Pat sometimes listened to my radio show, something none of my siblings have ever done.  I think she was doing it to be nice.  But of course I appreciated it.

I hope she understood how appreciated she was.  I owe her so much.  I miss her so much.

Whither Roads?

Actually, I'm on the road.  I might not be on the road from 7-9am tomorrow, but if I'm not, & I'm not asleep, I'll be listening to Maria & Macy as they do a Self Help Radio episode about roads!

You can find it on 88.1 fm on your dial +/or online at wrfl dot fm, which is how I'll be listening!

You are in for a treat!

Grief

I've written about grief before, when I talked about the death of my dog George, & I am still flabbergasted by how powerful grief is.  I know I wrote this already, but the night George died, I drank an extraordinary amount of whiskey - probably enough to put most anyone to blackout sleep - but my mind wouldn't let me get drunk.  It was so absorbed in the pain I was going through that it said "fuck you" to the alcohol in my head.  On Facebook, I wrote: "grief > alcohol," a mathematical equation I haven't tested since then.  Nor do I want to.

To a friend today I wrote this:

"I was walking the dogs yesterday & trying to understand why grief seemed to be the most powerful emotion I've ever felt.  I think it's because it's every emotion you feel for the thing you have lost - not just the love, but the dumb things, the frustration, the anger, the impatience, the worry - everything that goes into a living, breathing relationship with someone - & all the years are dropped on you all at once.  It's crippling.  You lose a little of yourself, & you know it."

It seems strange to me that we survive grief.  It must be that grief transforms us somehow.  Transforms us without making us colder.  If anything, it makes us more sensitive.  That seems counter-intuitive.

Despite the name of my radio show, I don't really read much self-help or even listen to those shows.  I've never seen an episode of "Dr. Phil," just clips on shows like "The Soup."  I am resisting reading what social scientists say about grief because at some level I don't think understanding it will help any.  Not when you're so deep in it.

Like every emotional battering, grief makes it hard to be logical.  But look at me, here, making a stab at it.

Family Matters

There will be a Gary-less (not, as is usual, garrulous) Self Help Radio on Saturday morning.  But there will be a Self Help Radio, which is wonderful.  The two delightful women who brought you the twins show earlier this year will step in for me & do a show about…  Well, I don't know!  They haven't told me.  They are Maria & Macy, of course.

Macy & Maria

(or is it Maria & Macy?)

I have to be out of town on family matters.  It's a sad story that I don't want to talk about just yet but it does require my presence.  For lots of reasons.  I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being coy.

I've been pretty candid about my relationship with my family on this blog, probably because so few people read it, & also because I really love to talk about my family.  I don't know if I really love my family as a unit, but there are members I love dearly.  The truth is, most of them are whatever is slightly less than strangers to me.  Because of that, I have toyed around with starting a blog called "Gary Complains About His Family."  But of course there was always a part of me that thought that would be a little tacky.

Anyway.  I'll discuss things once I'm slightly more clear headed.  I'm very glad that Maria & Macy will be hosting the show, though.  I think they're dynamite.

Sugar Substitute # 162

I'm sorry I'm posting this so late, but I've had a hell of a day.  About which more later this week.

This is the freeform show I do before Self Help Radio, & I play lots of different stuff, as you can see in the playlist below, including something from the delightful, strange & weird new collaboration between Scotland's Franz Ferdinand & the legendary band Sparks.  Again, what I played is below.

You can listen now by going to the Self Help Radio website.  Is there a problem with a username & a password?  Did you mean SHR/selfhelp?  I thought so.

Please to enjoy.

"1/2" Barcelona _Simon Basic_
"The Power Couple" FFS _FFS_
"Yuppie Restaurant" Barnabys _Augustus Loop_

"Notches On A Frame" Barna Howard _Quite A Feelin'_
"Riding Lightning" Crushed Out _Teeth_
"Crazy" Winter _Supreme Blue Dream_
"It Could Have Been Cheryl" The Brotherhood Of Lizards _The Wayward Genius Of Martin Newell_
"The Pattern" Ceremony _The L-Shaped Man_

"Oh No! The Unicorns Are Knife Fighting Again" Ladybirds _Regional Community Theater_
"Clap Your Hands!" Clap Your Hands Say Yeah _Clap Your Hands Say Yeah_
"Antwoman" Robyn Hitchcock _Jewels For Sophia_
"Going On Cold" Blind Mr. Jones _Stereo Musicale_

"Paul Newman" The Fontaines _The Fontaines EP_
"Life Is Strange" T.Rex _Tanx_
"Willie Goes To The Seashore" Tullycraft _Old Traditions, New Standards_

Self Help Radio 062015: Drifting

(Original image here.

I have to do this fast or I may drift away!

I did a radio show this morning with the theme "drifting."  Lots of driftful music (there's no such word as 'driftful') was played and very drifteous discussions (seriously, there's no such word as 'drifteous,' either) were had, all captured digitally for your driftaneal enjoyment (please stop making up words with 'drift').  I spoke with an actual drifter, with my spiritual mentor (who confessed he was once a drifter), & with a drifting friend in Hollywood.  As the show was happening, the continents drifted slowly - very slowly - away from one another.

When it was done, the show drifted over to the Self Help Radio website where it is not anchored firmly in place.  You can listen to it there!  You should pay attention to username/password information on the page!  You can peruse the playlist there or below!

Excuse me now, while I drift off to sleep….  (Thanks for listening.)

(part one)

"Drifting Along" The Riverside Ramblers _Black & White Hillbilly Music: Early Harmonica Recordings 1920s-1930s_
"Driftin' Blues" Johnny Moore's Three Blazers _Charles Brown 1944-1945_
"I'm A Drifter" Fred Neil & Vince Martin _Tear Down The Walls_

"Vagrants, Tramps, Hoboes, Drifters, Transients, Bums, & Winos" George Carlin _When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_
"The Drifter" Ray Pollard _Big City Soul, Vol. 1_
"Drifter's Escape" Bob Dylan _John Wesley Harding_
"The Drifter" Heidi Bruhl _The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection_

"Drift Away" Narvel Felts _Drift Away_
"Drifting" Claude Huey _Moaning, Groaning, Crying - A Galaxy Of Soul_
"Drift" Heinz Kiessling _The In-Kraut, Vol. 3_
"The Drifter" Green On Red _Gas Food Lodging_

"Frantic Drift" The Chills _Kaleidoscope World_
"Adrift Again" Bradford _Shouting Quietly_

(part two)

"Drift 13" Jane From Occupied Europe _Coloursound_
"Driftin Blues" His Name Is Alive _King Of Sweet_
"Drifting" The Rockingbirds _Rough Trade Shops: Country, Vol. 1_

"Crowd Of Drifters" The Magnetic Fields _The Charm Of The Highway Strip_
"Drifter In The Dark" Ween _Chocolate & Cheese_
"I'm A Drifter" Johnny Cash _Unearthed_

"You Drift Away" The Postmarks _The Postmarks_
"Drifting" Goodnight Monsters _Summer Challenge_
"Drift" Vermillion Lies _Separated By Birth_
"Drifting" Sugar Plant _After After Hours_

"Garage In Drift" The Hit Parade _Cornish Pop Songs_
"Drifter" Wild Nothing _Gemini_

Whither Drifting?

This is the first image that comes up

when one writes "drifting away" in

Google image search

It's from here.

Haven't we all at one point or another felt like we were drifting?  Hasn't every one of us, when thinking about actually drifting, or when feeling like we're drifting, or when imagining our selves & consciousnesses just drifting away, started looking really, really hard at the word "drift" & came to think, "That's a weird-looking word.  It doesn't look right.  Is that really how you spell 'drift'?"

& hasn't every person who's had this experience suddenly developed a temporary brain injury, where the word "drift" looks so much better spelled "drfit" or "dritf" or even "difrt"?  & then, magical new pronunciations enter the head?  & the desire to revenge on those who have wronged you grows mightily within?

No?  Have I gone too far?

After the antipsychotics took effect, I was able to appreciate the word "drift" again for its many uses, for the feeling one gets when one's mind drifts, for the eternal desire which I believe all troubled humans share to just one day drift away, hopefully to some happy eden where there's lots & lots of pizza.

That's how this show came about.  & it's happening tomorrow morning from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  If I don't completely drift away after the show - if I don't become a drifter - I'll archive the show on the Self Help Radio website.  But I hope you drift on by to listen.  If you get my drift.

2100

This is the twenty-one hundredth post on this blog.

For a long time, I counted wrong, so you can (but don't) go through this blog & see me writing little celebrations of yay! making it to an arbitrary even number divisible by 100.  Many times I am wrong about that.  There is an awful good chance I am wrong right now.  Here's what I have as a kind of record-keeping that I just did because I don't trust anything I wrote in the past:

Post 1: September 12, 2006
Post 100: March 7, 2007
Post 200: August 13, 2007
Post 300: January 11, 2008
Post 400: May 29, 2008
Post 500: October 19, 2008
Post 600: April 2, 2009
Post 700: October 4, 2009
Post 800: March 2, 2010
Post 900: July 30, 2010
Post 1000: January 4, 2011
Post 1100: May 30, 2011
Post 1200: October 23, 2011
Post 1300: March 11, 2012
Post 1400: July 30, 2012
Post 1500: December 23, 2012
Post 1600: May 23, 2013
Post 1700: November 22, 2013
Post 1800: April 21, 2014
Post 1900: September 12, 2014
Post 2000: January 29, 2015
Post 2100: June 18, 2015

I have been doing this a long, long time.  Gosh, sometimes I even write about my radio show!

Hout There

Sitting at the computer, he wrote the word "hout."  His spellcheck seemed untroubled by it.  Usually, he thought, there would be a little red line - oftentimes dashed - underneath the word, indicating it was misspelled.  Sometimes there might be suggestions, depending on the program: "Did you mean hour?  Might you have meant house?"  But although he was certain that there wasn't an English word called "hout," the computer chose not to consider it an error, and indicate it as such.

A quick search online found that it was a word in Dutch.  It meant "wood."  It was also a word in Finnish, a plural version of the word "hoku," which meant "rhyme."  Hout, in Finnish, therefore, meant "rhymes."

In neither case did he look up pronunciation.  He continued to say the word, in his head (for at no point since the mistake did he say the word out loud), as though it rhymed with "bout" or "scout."

One last thing: the word meant "today" in a language called Vilamovian.  Vilamovian!  Now there was a word that his spellcheck did. not. like.  It seemed to him that the dotted red line under the name of this obscure language pulsed like an angry vein in someone's neck!  It seemed to him that his spellcheck hated this word.

As usually happened in cases like this, he willingly found himself going down the rabbit hole of curiosity, even if he knew - and he knew - that any information he found would not be of any use to him afterwards.  So he discovered this:

Wymysorys, also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic micro-language actively used in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland (Wymysoü in Wymysorys), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near Bielsko-Biała. It is considered an endangered language. At present, there are probably between 70 and 100 native users of Wymysorys, virtually all bilingual; the majority are elderly.

Micro-language!  Endangered language!  West Germanic language spoken in Poland!  For a few minutes, it occurred to him that he could learn this language and be one of the one hundred people who knew it.  That would be exciting!

Then he noticed that his spellcheck didn't like the word Wymysorys, either.  So he said (again, in his head, not out loud), "Aw screw it.  I don't want to learn a language my spellcheck doesn't recognize."

He did like the way Wymysorys looked, however.  He thought the word might cool good on a shirt.  A conversation started.  He'd get to say to whomever asked, "It's an endangered language!"

All of this brought him back around to why he wrote the word "hout" in the first place.  He thought about it, and he realized he wanted to write "hot out there."  As he got older, as his typing skills got sloppier, he often found he'd inadvertently combine words or add letters intended for one word to the end of the word preceding it.  Since he was just writing an email, and not anything of consequence, it didn't really matter much, but it did waste a tiny bit of time every time he stopped to correct it.  He was glad he read over his emails before he sent them.

Because there was nothing he hated more than wasting time.

Sugar Substitute Episode # 161

As I have explained previously, & will probably explain again, I am playing music for an hour before Self Help Radio this summer.  It's a show without a theme, it's what we in the biz used to call "freeform" radio (who knows what it's called now), & it's hopefully an entertaining mix of stuff, including a tune from a seminal Brian Eno record (pictured above).  Because I would hate for a radio show to be called "Gary's Fucking Around For An Hour On The Radio," I call it instead "Sugar Substitute," which is the name of a freeform radio show I used to do not too long ago.  It makes it feel like it's more of a prepared package, when in fact it's really just me fucking around on the radio for an hour.

In any event - should you desire listening to such a thing - you can do so now & whenever at the Self Help Radio website.  Like Self Help Radio episodes, there's a username/password combination it's easy to find, & like my blogger posts about Self Help Radio, I'll tell you what songs I played (besides Brian Eno) below.

I hope you enjoy!

"Black Cloud" Morrissey _Years Of Refusal_
"All I Can Do" Eggplant _Anorak Twat_
"No Ladder" Coves _Soft Friday_

"The Great Pretender" Brian Eno _Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)_
"Camouflage" Ed's Redeeming Qualities _More Bad Times_
"North Marine Drive" Ben Watt _North Marine Drive_
"Last Man Alive" The Grifters _Ain't My Lookout_
"Needle & A Knife" Tennis _Ritual In Repeat_

"Days Of Grace" Tanya Donelly _Sleepwalk EP_
"I Started A Blog Nobody Read" Sprites _Modern Gameplay_
"Slit Skirts" Pete Townshend _All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes_
"No Smoke Without Fire" James Hunter _People Gonna Talk_

"Sugar Factory" So Cow _The Long Con_
"Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends" Phil Ochs _Live In Lansing 1973_
"Be Fast Be Clean Be Cheap" Age Of Chance _Crush Collision_

Self Help Radio 061315: Fight! Fight! Fight!

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

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

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

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

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

(part one)

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

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

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

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

(part two)

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

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

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

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

Whither Fight?

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

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

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

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

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

Preface To Fight: Non-Confrontational Guy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xpletive

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

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

Back to the action:

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar Substitue Episode # 160

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

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

Thanks for listening!

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

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

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

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

Self Help Radio 060615: Start

(Original image here.

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

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

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

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

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

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

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

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

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

(part two)

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

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

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

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

Whither Start?

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

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

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

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

Preface To Start: Lowered Expectations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sound good?  No?  Sound tolerable?  No?

I know!

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

What Does WRFL Stand For?

Look at this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

--> Sorry.

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

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

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

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

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

--> I'm getting to that!

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

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

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

--> Mind blown.

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

New Intro Time Again Again Again!

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

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

The Self Help Radio 2015-2016 Intro!

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

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

You can listen to the 2003 intro here.

You can listen to the 2005 intro here.

You can listen to the 2006 intro here.

You can listen to the 2007 intro here.

You can listen to the 2008 intro here.

You can listen to the 2009 intro here.

You can listen to the 2010 intro here.

You can listen to the 2011 intro here.

You can listen to the 2012 intro here.

You can listen to the 2013 intro here.

And this is the intro from the past year.

I hope you like the new one!

Last Monday Blog Entry?

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

But why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

* My doctor is a weirdo.

** I think.

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

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

I hope everyone's safe!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you tired of these yet?

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

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

Today I will talk about excuse three.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today I will explain excuse number two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self Help Radio 052215: The Unhappy Show

(Original image here

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

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

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

Thanks for listening!

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

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

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

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

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

Whither The Unhappy Show?

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

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

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

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

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

A Fellow Programmer Makes A Kind Offer

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Tired/It's Entirely My Fault

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Rains Every Day

It seems like since we decided to stay (in Lexington) it rains every day.

Not like the rains in my home turf (in Dallas) which have carried house & families away.

But like the rains in swampy climes, as when, as a child, I spent the summer in Albany, Georgia.

I sat on a friend's porch yesterday, under some kind of giant Costco gazebo, as rain poured down.

It was noon, the gazebo leaked.  The friend was more amused than irked.

At the end of the day, the world was dry, we walked the dogs, it was cool but 85% humidity.

85% humidity & I was covered in moisture like sweat.  The wife, the dogs, unaffected.

Did I mention I saw Stephin Merritt on tour in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday?

We drove there to see him, ate a nice dinner here, then saw the show.

Then we drove back.  Dead deer littered the roadside between Columbus & Cincinnati.

I think I have finally learned to spell Cincinnati properly.  It took four years.  To ns, one t.

Columbus has some kind of dying river coursing through it.  It smelled terrible.

Merritt was fabulously grumpy.  I had never heard him sing "100,000 Fireflies" before.  It was wonderful.

The wife & I walked the dogs this morning so we wouldn't have to worry about rain tonight.  There's a small chance it will rain.

& then, perhaps I spoke too soon, a week without rain.  Or I spoke too late, we'll have a week without rain.

I am not happy with the Mad Men finale.  I seem to be alone in this.

I did my last WRFL Sub Show about a week ago.  Then things changed.  I'll do my next last WRFL Sub Show Tuesday morning.