Self Help Radio 072815: Wheels

(Original image here.)

A radio show on wheels!  Isn't technology wonderful!

I am in no position to judge, but I think this show was all right.  Wheel songs, Dr. Howard Gently, Dr. David Fruchter, an unwanted visit from Baby Stinks - it was probably a mess, but maybe a tolerable mess.  I wouldn't know!  I can't really listen to myself talk without feeling sick.  Can you imagine - I have that voice in my head all the time!

But if listening to ridiculous radio shows is in your wheelhouse, as making them appears to be in mine, then you can listen to this one at Self Help Radio web central.  It's in two parts for some reason.  In case you're never been there before - & who could blame you? - pay attention to username/password information.  The playlist is there, but it's also below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"The Wheel" Jimmy Nelson _The Music City Story_
"I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday" Bobby Mitchell _The Spirit Of New Orleans: The Genius Of Dave Bartholomew_
"The Big Wheel" Howard Crockett _Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 3: 1963_

"Spinning Wheel" Ray Bloch Singers _Hits Of '69_
"Heart Like A Wheel" Kate & Anna McGarrigle _Kate & Anna McGarrigle_
"Wheel Of Life" Lyn Collins _James Brown's Original Funky Divas_
"The Wheels On The Bus" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Rock & Roll With The Modern Lovers_

"The Wheel" Section 25 _The Key Of Dreams_
"Slippery People" Talking Heads _Stop Making Sense_
"Wheels Go Round" Blue Train _Land Of Gold_
"Love Wheel" Daniel Johnston _Fun_

"Animals On Wheels" Sam Phillips _Omnipop_
"Dog On Wheels" Belle & Sebastian _Dog On Wheels_

(part two)

"Wheels" Black Francis _NonStopErotik_
"Bigger Wheels" I Am Kloot _Natural History_
"Watching The Wheels" John Lennon _Anthology_

"Wheels" DJ Yoda _The Amazing Adventures Of DJ Yoda_
"Wheel Made Man" The Danielson Famile _Fetch The Compass Kids_
"Training Wheels" Pataphysics _Take A Look Out Your Window_
"Someone Stole My Wheels" Biff Bang Pow! _The Acid House Album_

"Ezekiel Saw De Wheel" The Delta Rhythm Boys _Dry Bones_
"Cosmic Wheels" Donovan _Cosmic Wheels_
"This Wheel's On Fire" Siouxsie & The Banshees _Through The Looking Glass_
"Up On The Big Wheel" Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes _Billy The Whizz EP 12"_

"The Wheels Of Love" Edwyn Collins _Hope & Despair_
"Wheel Of Fortune" The Virgins _Strike Gently_

Whither Wheels?

(I found this image here.)

One might suppose I always have a fun reason for the themes I pick.  One would be mistaken.

Sometimes I can't remember why I thought of a particular topic to explore.  How do themes get chosen to be on WRFL?  I can think of perhaps four scenarios:

1) It is suggested to me by a listener.
2) It somehow relates to an anniversary, holiday, or current event.
3) It is stumbled onto by repetition, or serendipity, or chance.  Usually this means I just keep hearing the theme in song after song.
4) There is no real explanation.

Today I have to say it's number four.  At some point in the past, I created a folder in the SHR area of my computer, & that folder said, "Wheels."  (It might have said "Wheelz" because I am a dork.)  I discovered it sometime later, & began to think of songs that might fit into that folder.  Once the folder was full enough to make a radio show, I put it on the queue.  In the queue.  Whatever.

& that's why today's show is about wheels.  I really don't know what the inspiration was & that's about as much as I can say.  Wheels.  Wheel.  Whee!

The show is on from 4 to 6 pm today on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm online.  I'll archive it tomorrow.

Maybe you'll listen?

Preface To Wheels: The Wheel Of Life

Have a look at this: The United States Has Experienced On Average One Mass Shooting Per Day This Year.

Here's the graphic:

You should be able to click to enlarge.

Things like this make me realize how utterly insignificant my little radio program is.  So I'm not in the mood to chat about "wheels" today.  Maybe tomorrow.

Sigh.

Do I Have To Post A Review?

This post may contain spoilers for Ant Man the movie.  Maybe.  Who knows.  You've been warned.

Yesterday I mentioned that I would go & see the Ant Man movie & I did.  I thought I'd post something of a review here because I'm almost certain no one on the internet has done that yet, & because I talked about it yesterday, & I'm pretending you're a friend who's polite enough to ask me, after I mentioned that I saw the movie, what I thought about it, even though I'm almost certain you don't care.

Because I'm a huge comic book nerd, I am surprising no-one that I go & see these incessant comic book movies, as well as watching all the comic book television shows.  What might not be self-evident is that I don't like a thing just because it's a comic book thing.  I'll probably watch it - I watched Ghost Rider, for fuck's sake - not to mention Smallville (all ten horrifying seasons) - & oh yeah Daredevil The Movie as well as Green Lantern - but I will say afterwards oh my god why did I do that?  The answer is, because I couldn't help it.

I recognize when they're badly done is the point.

Still, as I said yesterday, despite the money they're making (or perhaps because of it), the Marvel movies have given me diminishing returns.  I loved loved loved The Avengers.  I was so-so about the second Thor film.  I was never crazy about the Captain America film, so the sequel was sorta eh.  I outright didn't much like the super hit The Guardians Of The Galaxy, though I did watch it again & appreciated it a bit more.  But I noticed things in watching these movies: they kind of all have the same plot arcs.

Up there I said that maybe because they're making money, they are less interesting to me.  It could be that once a formula is established, if that formula keeps making money, that formula is what they're going to stick with.  (Which might be why Edgar Wright left the Ant Man project, I dunno.)  So each film follows roughly the same arc, with the obligatory sixties or seventies song, the seeming defeat at the denouement, & the hero triumphant at the end.  If anyone goes into a Marvel film thinking anything's really at stake, they're not paying attention - many people have pointed this out.

Even walking in with that knowledge, & low expectations, I was surprised how fluffy & inconsequential Ant Man felt.  I love me some Paul Rudd, & I am happy that that handsome & amiable fellow is making as much money as he doubtless did here, but he's not taking it terribly seriously, & the film doesn't take itself so seriously either.  I wondered if anyone seeing this was really worried Michael Douglas' shrinking machine was going to cause World War III.  Of course they weren't, this wa\sn't an Avengers film.  To underscore this, the films has a battle (as seen in the trailers, no spoiler alert here) on a child's train track, where the bad guy thinks he's going to be run over by a train, but it's a toy train, so it's played for laughs.

Detractors may say that, yes, there are those moments, but Ant Man's got the Falcon & he'll probably join the Avengers in time for the next big movie.  That's a minor part of the film.  Most of it is Paul Rudd doing his clueless, charming thing, & a lot of it is more tongue-in-cheek than grim determination.  The film's best moments - a film which, now that I think about it, is also kinda short on the battle stuff - there's a lot of exposition - seem to come with Ant Man's hapless criminal friends.  In fact, my favorite part of the movie wasn't the shrinking or the ants or the almost-incidental fight scenes, but everything Michael Peña did as Luis.  He was wonderful.  I told my movie viewing companions that I'd watch an entire film about that character.  Marvel!  Start it up!

Listen: don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film, although mostly because I didn't think I'd enjoy it.  It's fun, it's a summer film.  But it's no Avengers.  I am kinda of the opinion that if there were another great comic book movie like that one, it won't come from a movie studio the success of which is fast-tracking it to profitable complacency.  Which is too bad.

& that's the sort of dumb movie review I would write if I wrote movie reviews on this dumb site.

Swing Of Things

Oh shit! It's Saturday! I have to write in my blog!

Think think think!

I saw Trainwreck this week at my wife's favorite movie theater in Lexington (even though her Jazzercise friends say she shouldn't like it because "it's in a bad neighborhood) & very much enjoyed it.  Also, we were one of only two couples in the theater at the matinee we saw, & no one got shot.  That's a bad joke, I know.  I stole it from a friend on Facebook.  I forgot to say, at the end, "Too soon?"

It was an enjoyable movie, like I said.  There were moments I couldn't stop laughing, & there were moments when I felt moved.  As someone who appreciates rock & roll songs, which are, of course, mostly constructed the same & are different only with singers, melodies, & themes, I can appreciate the average romantic comedy because of the way it moves around the obligatory story pieces.  In this sense, Trainwreck was an above-average romantic comedy.

What else what else what else!

I'm way behind on this week's show, so Monday should be hell for me.  I am, however, going to see Ant Man tomorrow, so that should exacerbate things.  I have very low expectations that I will think this is a great film.  The Marvel movies I have seen recently have given me diminishing returns, & this troubles me, as comic book geek.  I like Paul Rudd, but I never liked the shrinking superheroes, like the Atom.  Though I guess I like the character on Arrow.  But he's not shrinking yet.  Oh well.  Never say never.

Maybe I'll tell you what I think afterwards.  Honestly, it's best to approach these sorts of things with little preconceived notions & hopes.  I loved The Avengers so much that the sequel was bound to be a let down.  Especially when Quicksilver in the last X-Men movie was so much more interesting than the Avengers one.

This must all be really boring.  I have movies on the mind.  & my opinions are worthless, generally.  So ignore them.  I'll think of something more interesting to talk about tomorrow.

Self Help Radio 072115: The Heavy Show

(Original image here.)

Here's yesterday's Self Help Radio, with the oddball theme "the heavy show," which, because I gave the last half-hour to a trainee, is actually thirty minutes shorter, or lighter one might say, than the average Self Help Radio show.  The show probably thinks I'm calling it a fatty.

There are groovy songs, I chat with Mark Miller in Hollywood about filmdom's greatest heavies, & the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently calls in.  If my voice weren't heard at various points during the show, I think it'd be a darn good radio show!

The songs I played are below.  The show is over at Self Help Radio dot net.  There's password info on that page; pay attention to it.

& please enjoy.

(part one)

"Heavy On My Mind" Dale Hawkins _LA, Memphis, & Tyler, Texas_
"Heavy With Me" Freddie May & The Power Plant _Victim Of Love_
"Yea! Heavy & A Bottle Of Bread" Bob Dylan & The Band _The Basement Tapes_

"Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom Boom)" Staple Singers _The Staple Swingers_
"Heavy Heavy Hangs My Heart" Vera Hamilton _Funk Soul Sisters_
"Heavy Love" David Ruffin _Who I Am_
"A Heavy Dude" Curtis Mayfield _Short Eyes_

"Them Heavy People" Kate Bush _The Kick Inside_
"Sonnet 50: How Heavy Do I Journey On The Way" Benjamin Soames _The Best Of The Sonnets_
"How Heavy The Quiet That Grew Between Your Mouth & Mine" Peggy Sue _Choir Of Echoes_
"Heavy Petal" Madison Electric _Indie Aid Abroad: A Little Help For East Timor_

(part two)

"Heavy" California Wives _Heavy_

"Heavy Heart" Jeffrey Lewis _The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane_
"Heavy Heart" Dark Dark Dark _Wild Go_
"Heavy As A Heart" Controller.Controller _X-Amounts_
"The Heavy" Relaxed Muscle _A Heavy Nite With Relaxed Muscle_
"Heavy" The Come Ons _Hip Check!_

"Heavy Lady" Wolfie _Putting It Together (B-Sides 1997-2000)_
"Heavy Atmosphere" Len Price 3 _Chinese Burn_
"Heavy Seas Of Love" Damon Albarn _Everyday Robots_
"Heavy Wave" Motorama _Poverty_

Whither The Heavy Show?

It was a couple of months ago.  I was listening to some 70s Soul.  Specifically, I was listening to this record:

(image courtesy of discogs.com)

One track on the album that particularly charmed me is called "Heavy Love."  Heavy love!  Love does feel heavy, a lot of the time.  That made me think, when I let my mind wander through all the songs up there, of the John Lennon Beatles song (written about Yoko) called "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."

We now use the word "heavy" as a nice way of saying "fat," but in the skinny 60s & 70s, they took one of the word's meaning - "deep" & "profound" - & made it close to slang.  It came to mean serious or important - not too far removed from profound, if you ask me.  Profundity sometimes implies importance.

Perhaps, I thought, this would be a good theme for my radio show.  I began the task of assembling songs not about heaviness in terms of weight - although I'll probably play some of those - but heaviness that mirrors the "profound"/"important" meanings.

Self Help Radio's heavy show is on today from 4 to 5:30 pm on WRFL Lexington, 88.1 fm in town, wrfl dot fm on your computer.  (The last half hour goes to my trainee, who needs the practice.  My show is not so heavy it can't give up a little time every once in a while.)  I'll put the show up tomorrow, if you plan on missing it.

But don't!  Please listen!

Preface To The Heavy Show: It Ain't Heavy, It's My Radio Show

A song I'm not going to play tomorrow is a song that I had to listen to a lot when I was a kid, because my mother loved Neil Diamond, & had a greatest hits live collection she would listen to, & that song was the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother."  Wikipedia has a page about the song.  I'm not sure I heard the Hollies version when I was a kid.  But damn did I hear sweaty, bedazzled Neil Diamond croon that song a lot.

Here's the thing.  When I was a kid, I made a lot of assumptions about the way the world worked.  I would make assumptions instead of asking questions much of the time.  I think the idea that I had figured something out made me a little happy, a little proud.  & sometimes I would blurt my assumptions out & get mocked, usually by family members, for saying something stupid.

For example: I came to conclusion at some point that all cities were bordered by railroad tracks.  It seemed so perfect to think that you knew you were in one place because you drove or walked over train tracks.  (It would have been better to have actual drawn borders, but this was good, too.)  One time, in the car with one or more of my siblings, we passed over train tracks - I can tell you exactly which ones they were, too: the ones crossing Kingsley Road right before Kingsley intersected with Garland Road in Garland, Texas - & I said, happily, "We're in another city!"  I was derided immediately by my family members.  At the very least, I'm sure I was told I was stupid & to shut up.

The effect of this was not to make me ask more questions, but to make me not express my assumptions out loud.  (Thanks, siblings!)  Many questions I had didn't even make it to assumptions, actually.  Many of them just stayed unanswered.  I guess they were mysteries, but they didn't really bug me too much.  Most of the time.

However, I could never figure out what the hell the line "he ain't heavy, he's my brother" was supposed to mean.  I'm completely serious.  What sort of parallel structure of choices existed in the universe where the two options were "heavy" & "brother"?  I tried to make sense of it as a kid.  But - & this is crucial - I didn't try to make sense of it by listening to the damn song.

You see, if I had just listened to the lyrics, I would have heard Neil Diamond croon melodramatically: "I'm strong, strong enough to carry him.  He ain't heavy, he's my brother."

Honestly, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  An adjectival description of someone doesn't negate their relation to you, after all.  "She ain't diabetic, she's my sister."  "He ain't a little feverish, he's my father."  "She ain't waifish, she's my second cousin, twice removed."

But the song does explain the "heavy" part, which baffled me.

Again, I didn't spend a whole lot of time pondering this.  I was a kid, I had Star Wars things to daydream about.  & I know why I couldn't much pay attention to the song itself - the sweaty Neil Diamond in the bejeweled Evel Knievel outfit on the cover of the live album (which is how I remember it) made me very uncomfortable.  Elvis Presley in the same period frightened me a little, too.  They should've been jumping semi-trucks on their motorcycle instead of singing!

Anyway, I won't play that song tomorrow.  & I'll tell you why, tomorrow.

Sunday Gone

Bear with me, please, as I get a handle on this "blogging during the weekend" process.  It's not something I usually do.  Usually, my show ends on Saturday mornings, so I spend the weekend decompressing & sometimes recording my fake interviews with my buddies for the show.  But no!  I have a show in less than 48 hours so I need to get cracking!

But instead, what I did today, which is something I do more & more as I get older & older, is napped.  I napped for like three hours today.  I napped with a little chihuahua attached to me like a weird growth, I napped & didn't remember any of my dreams which seemed somewhat important when I was waking up, I napped while a hot & humid Lexington afternoon happened without me.

I did nap after I mowed the lawn.  Most of the lawn.  Most of the backyard, actually.  When I looked on my phone - & I was sweating so much there was more moisture outside my body than inside - it said, "92 degrees.  Feels like 108 degrees.  You moron."  At that point, I threw in the towel, which was wet anyway from mopping up my interminable sweat.

Maybe I deserved my nap.  My wife certainly didn't think so.  She rolled her eyes at me, made me put sunscreen on her, & finished the job.  I sat & let me body sweat for another forty-five minutes until I was properly desiccated, then I napped.  I napped!

It might have actually been appropriate to write in this blog at that point.  But instead, I napped.

Since I slept so much, I won't be able to go to sleep tonight till late.  Damn it.

I Made Mistake

So, do you remember, way back when, when I was talking about scheduling stuff for this blog?  That was so long ago.  That was like two days ago.  I think I've been either drunk or asleep for most of that time.

Well.  I am wrong.  I was wrong.  I don't start my stupid Week O'Blogging on Friday!  I start on Saturday!  I will end on Wednesday!  That's five damn days!

So ignore this last Friday.  Except for everything that did exist, for all practical purposes Friday didn't exist.  Concentrate what was Friday onto Saturday.  This Saturday.  It's like daylight savings time except you're losing a whole day.  & you will not get it back.  Not ever.

Unless my show moves again.  I may need that Friday again.  I mean, I lived through it, & so did you, but we will not speak of it again.  As far as we are concerned, it did not happen.  Not for this blog, at least.  I actually had a nice time.  Come to think of it.  I drank some beer & watched a sci-fi flick, happy in the knowledge I didn't have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning for a Saturday morning radio show.

But!  For the purposes of making sure my arbitrary schedule of posting here on this blog, the entry I posted on Friday, which is to say, anything about Friday, did not exist.

Perhaps you think I'm overreacting, & creating some kind of incident that's silly to mask an embarrassment I, as perhaps the only reader of this blog, am feeling.  That's absurd!  The plan of action I am recommending - that I am implementing! - is the only logical thing to do.  I defy you to think of something other than forced, targeted self-amnesia.

What would you want me to do?  Sheepishly apologize?  I will not!  This is not sex!

Friday I'm In Lieu

Guess what?  I haven't started working on Tuesday's show yet.  I am taking my time.  Please don't make fun of me Monday when I am freaking out.

There will be a dinner party at my place tonight.  I just went shopping.  I watched a woman who was perfectly able to bag her own groceries sit & stare at a cashier while she (the cashier) did all the work, checking the items out & then putting them in a bag, & while the line behind her got longer & longer.  I marvel at how entitled people like that idle woman feel.  When I bag my own groceries, the cashier thanks me, as does the person behind me.

By the way, who doesn't bring their own reusable bags to stores?  It's 2015.  We might be able to add another year or two at the end of the brief time this planet can sustain human life.  But you know the saying: self-important self-involved indolent pieces of entitled shit are why we can't have nice things.

This is something else I am sort of annoyed by: the stock question that cashiers ask when you get to check-out: "Did you find everything okay?"  I want to say, "Whether I did or not, this is exactly the wrong place to ask me.  If I didn't, we would hold up the line for everyone else because I wasn't smart enough to find any number of the clearly-marked employees around the store to ask for help.  In fact, you should probably say, 'If you haven't found everything you came for at this point, you're a moron & you don't deserve my help.'"

Oh man I didn't want to write about things that irk me, but I will add one more: cashiers who make conversation based on what you buy.  It's so lame.  This is I think a Trader Joe's phenomenon.  It happens there all the time.  It takes two major forms:

1) As they're checking out an item, they say, "Oh, I love this.  This is so good."

2) As they're checking out an item, they say, "Oh I've got to try this!  It looks so good."

I want to say, in the first instance, "That's interesting, I only buy this to poison the rats in my garage."  & in the second instance, "It's not.  It's awful.  But my mother-in-law's in town."

Do we need to make conversation at a checkout line?  The woman at Whole Foods today was awful cute but I'm married & also probably twenty-five years older than her, which is as much to say that she would have no interest in my aged ugly self as it would be to say that she & I would have virtually nothing in common, guaranteed.  Why waste time conversing?  What's so bad about a little silence while you do your job & I bag my own damn groceries?

Wow that got grumpy fast.  I am going to start making dinner, & also have a beer.

Reorganization Time Again

Perhaps it's well-known to anyone who well-knows me that I am of an obsessive nature.  I like a certain amount of structure in my life, & that's reflected not just in my show but also in this blog.  I especially liked doing a radio show on Friday, because I like to write on this blog (despite having virtually nothing to say) five days a week, & Fridays are a nice natural end to a workweek.

So what happens now that I am doing a show on Tuesdays?  Well, fuck.  That throws the whole week out of whack.

I wrote this when my show was suddenly on a Saturday:

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.

I was mentioning that I would no longer post something on this blog on Mondays, since I had shifted one day.  Now I've shifted three days.  So I will be writing on Mondays again.  I wrote on a Monday this week!  But not, I guess, on Wednesdays & Thursdays.

The show will be posted on Tuesdays.  I'll resume the week on Fridays.  I will write all weekend long.

It's very weird to me that I don't have to wake up early on a Friday or a Saturday.  I used to set two alarm clocks - because I usually didn't get to bed till around midnight the night before, & it takes me a while to fall asleep & I wanted to make sure I woke up - & since both clocks are on Apple products - iPhone, iPad - they would go off simultaneously.  I'd push myself out of bed, stumble to the shower, & try to wake myself up as so many Americans do by standing under hot water until I was conscious that I was standing under hot water.  (This is something that Californians might not be able to experience much longer.  Maybe someone will invent a sonic shower now?)  Then I'd let the dogs out & they'd misbehave & I'd try not to yell at them because it was five o'frickin' clock in the morning.  They'd get to go back to bed.  I'd go sit at my computer & try to get my shit together enough to get in the car, drive to the station, & do an exceptionally stupid radio show.

Now I can wake whenever on Tuesdays, as long as it isn't 3:45pm (which it won't be - I have eight animals who never let me sleep longer than 9am), & even have lunch & other things before my show.  That seems weird as fuck.  I don't even know how that's going to feel in the long run.

Ask me later.  Meanwhile - the new sequence of blog entries start tomorrow.  I'm sure you're excited.  I will try to find something interesting to write.  But.  Don't hold your breath.

Self Help Radio 071415: The Blues

(original image here

Well, here it is, the first Self Help Radio on a Tuesday afternoon.  Two hours of songs about "the blues," with most of them actually blues.  Imagine that!  I hope it served a decent transition from the previous show, Black n Blues, & my own erratic dumb show.

It's now resting at the Self Help Radio website.  If you've not noticed, there's a username & password you need to know - that's on the front page.  & all the songs I played are below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Mr. McTell Got The Blues # 1" Blind Willie McTell _Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1_
"Blowin' The Blues" Chuck Darling _Harmonica Blues 1920s & 30s_
"How Can You Have The Blues" Kansas City Kitty & Georgia Tom _Blues Connection, Vol. 1: How Long Blues_

"I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues" Louis Armstrong _Blue Skies: 45 Hits From The 30s & 40s_
"The First Time I Met The Blues" Little Brother Montgomery _When The Sun Goes Down, Vol. 2: The First Time I Met The Blues_
"Just A Good Woman Through With The Blues" Trixie Butler _Female Blues Singers, Vol. 7 G/H_
"Trouble Ain't Nothing But The Blues" Lonnie Johnson _Essential Blues Masters_
"If You Ever Had The Blues" Earl Williams _The OKeh Rhythm & Blues Story_

"Moanin' The Blues" Hank Williams _The Complete Hank Williams_
"I Dreamed The Blues" Valerie Carr with Gene Redd & His Orchestra _Rare Blues Girls From King_
"I Got The Blues For You" Al Collins & Orchestra _The Ace Blues Masters, Vol. 3: Tuff Enuff_
"Too Young For The Blues" Ella Fitzgerald _Jukebox Ella_
"Birth Of The Blues" Gordon McRae _The Best Things In Life Are Free_

"Boppin' The Blues" Carl Perkins _Original Golden Hits_
"Singing The Blues" Tommy Steele _The Best Of Tommy Steele_
"Home Of The Blues" Johnny Cash _The Essential Johnny Cash_

(part two)

"Sittin' & Cryin' The Blues" Willie Dixon _Willie's Blues_
"Livin' With The Blues" Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee _Rediscovered Blues_
"Singing The Blues" George Jones _Ragged But Right: The Starday Years Plus_

"Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues (Take 8)" Elvis Presley _Elvis At Stax_
"The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me" The Greenbriar Boys _The Best Of The Vanguard Years_
"Yonder Comes The Blues" Fred Neil _Bleecker & McDougal_
"I Chose To Sing The Blues" Ray Charles _Genius & Soul: The 50th Anniversary Collection_
"I Call It Pretty Music But the Old People Call It the Blues (Part 1)" Stevie Wonder _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 3: 1963_

"You Give Me The Blues" Lightnin' Slim _Bell Ringer_
"Singing The Blues" Jason Eddie & Centremen _Joe Meek Rarities Vol. 2: The Beat Groups Era_
"Don't Knock The Blues" TV Slim _When Girls Do It_
"Why I Sing The Blues" Betty Barney & The Pazant Brothers _Funk Soul Sisters_
"My Middle Name Is The Blues" Abner Jay _Last Ole Minstrel Man_
"Preaching The Blues" The Gun Club _Fire Of Love_

"Killing The Blues" John Prine _Pink Cadillac_

Whither The Blues?

Man, am I nervous.  In less than two hours, I'll start my new timeslot - who knows if it'll be permanent? - for the summer, four to six in the afternoon on Tuesdays.  As I've mentioned before, the timeslot was home to one of WRFL's most beloved shows, Black n Blues, which just went off the air last week.  So I am like - what could be the most awful analogy? - I'm like a person marrying someone who has just experienced the death of the love of their life.  It's crazy.  They should have just aired repeats or
something for a month.  There's no way I can live up to that show.

I'm a fool, but I'm going to try.  Sort of.  I'm going to do a show about "the blues."  Basically, if the song expounds on some aspect of the blues, it was worthy of being chosen by me.  Most, but not all, of the songs will actually be in the blues idiom.  But some won't.  & still those people had the blues!

It's on from 4 to 6 this afternoon (like I said) on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online wherever people have the blues (& that's everywhere, friend) at wrfl dot fm.

Normally I put the show on the Self Help Radio website a few hours after the show, but seeing as I'm on afternoons again - I think I'll do it tomorrow.  If you don't mind.

Sugar Substitute # 164

Well, here it is, the last Sugar Substitute for a while - since I'm now doing Self Help Radio on Tuesdays, I have one less hour, & that means, sadly, no extra sixty minutes of freeform radio.

This week, among other things, I feature a cool Beatles cover by my favorite Austin band, Luxuriator.  Fun fact!  Luxuriator technically have appeared on every episode of Sugar Substitute, since I use their song of the same name as the intro music (with dumb samples I added).  So the show is not only named after a Luxuriator song, it also features that song in a brief snippet at the beginning of the show.  I'm very glad they have never asked me for royalties.

You can find the show here on the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to the username password nonsense.  The songs I played are below.  The gratitude I have for your listening time is enormous.

See you tomorrow at 4pm!

"Piggies" Luxuriator _Piggies_
"Trespassing" Strange Names _Use Your Time Wisely_
"The Book Of Love" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs_

"Vieux Loop" The Acorn _Vieux Loup_
"High Flying Bird" Richie Havens _Mixed Bag_
"Choked Out" The Mountain Goats _Beat The Champ_
"Spyglass" The Hush Now _Sparkle Drive_
"Train In Spain" The Human Circuit _Frequent Seas_

"Private Hell" The Jam _Setting Sons_
"Staring Contest" Mates Of State _You're Going To Make It_
"Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell _You're All I Need_
"Tall Cool One" The Fabulous Wailers _The Fabulous Wailers: The Original Golden Crest Masters_
"Before The Stars" Is/Is _Shadow Days_

"The Nineteen Sixties" Baxendale _You Will Have Your Revenge_
"Octopussy" The Wedding Present _Seamonsters_
"Never Wanna See That Look Again" Christopher Owens _A New Testament_
"Firestation Towers" The Close Lobsters _Forever Until Victory_

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.