Self Help Radio 041916: Everything's Fine

(Original image here.)

No.  No.  Everything is not fine.  How dare a radio show tell me that things are fine when they so obviously are not.  The gall!  The cheek!  The chutzpah!  The impudence!  The insolence!  The effrontery!  How brazen!  How ballsy!  How arrogant!  How impudent!  How presumptuous!

Unless.  Unless I misunderstand the nature of media.  Maybe media is not by definition in opposition to me.  Maybe media is just a viewpoint that exists, as so many do, that doesn't threaten mine at all.  Maybe taking things like radio, television, films personally belies my own insecurity.  Am I so unassured, do I have such a lack of confidence, that something with which I disagree needs to be silenced instead of accepted in a society that values the free exchange of ideas?

But wait!  People on the radio have a different platform than most of us.  I can say "Everything's not okay!" but the only people listening are my cats & someone who might be driving by with the windows down!  A person on the radio can reach more people!  Therefore my opinion doesn't have the exposure theirs does!  Their ego is by definition more successful than my ego!

This is unfair & should be stopped!

Oh hi!  That above is an excerpt from an unfinished one-act play I wrote because I disagreed this one time with something Roger Ebert wrote.  He was only a good writer, you know, when he & I liked the same things.  Otherwise he just made me mad.

Why did I share it with you?  Who knows!  I might have cat scratch fever.  Meanwhile, this week's show, with the theme, "Everything's Fine," is now available for listening at the Self Help Radio website.  The show is not an endorsement of everything, nor is it an actual description of "everything," which, as we all know, is demonstrably not fine.  It is simply another in a long line of exercises in futility which, you may have guessed, is the only real exercise I get.

Still - let's hope everything's fine for as long as you listen.

(part one)

"Everything's Fine" The Saints _Wild About You: The Complete Saints 1976 - 1978_
"Everything's Just Fine" The Waltones _Deepest_
"Everything's Just Fine" Earwig _La-Di-Da...  So Far..._

"Everything's Just Fine" Ronderlin _Wave Another Day Goodbye_
"Everything Is Fine" Numbers _Now You Are This_
"Everything's Fine" Minks _Tides End_
"Everything Is Fine" Teen Suicide _DC Snuff Film_

"All Is Fine" Tall Dwarfs _Fork Songs_
"Fine" James _Pleased To Meet You_
"Fa-Fa-Fa-Fine" Julian Cope _Jehovahkill_
"Feeling Fine" Class _First_

"I Feel Fine" The Beatle Barkers _The Beatle Barkers_
"Feel So Fine (with Patsy Todd)" Derrick Morgan _Moon Hop (Best Of The Early Years 1960-1969)_

(part two)

"Guess I'm Doing Fine" Bob Dylan _The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9)_
"Tonight Will Be Fine" Leonard Cohen _Songs From A Room_
"That's Fine" The Legendary Bang _Big Bluff_

"You Know I'm Fine" The Orchids _Unholy Soul_
"Seems Fine" The Concretes _The Concretes_
"Closer To Fine" The Smittens _Love Record Breaker_
"Fine" Burnt Palms _Back On My Wall_

"It's A Fine Day" Jane _Scared To Get Happy: Story of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"One Fine Day" David Byrne & Brian Eno _Everything That Happens Will Happen Today_
"One Fine Day" Madness _The Liberty Of Norton Folgate_
"It's Gonna Work Out Fine" Cherokees _It's Gonna Work Out Fine_

"It's The End Of The World As We Know It (& I Feel Fine)" R.E.M. _Document_
"Doin' Fine" Groovie Ghoulies _Short Music For Short People_
"Thursday Feels Fine" Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes _Cabinet Of Curiosities_

Whither Everything's Fine?

(I'm sorry, I have no idea where I found this image.)

Irony lovers take note!  This week's show has the theme "everything's fine."  But it turns out that today took a turn toward the awful, & although technically everything is okay now, it could've gone much, much worse.

A little backstory: I put the show together on my computer.  I edit my dumb "comedy" bits, I rip CDs into digital files, I digitize vinyl when I need to, I have some stuff on mp3 or mp4 or whatever.  It's more convenient to have them in a few places than carrying a bunch of records & CDs up to the station every week, like I used to do (like so many deejays, bless their souls, still do).  I am not saying my way is better, but since I am in front of a computer all day long anyway, it's just easier for me to work this way.  & I spend Tuesday mornings listening over everything, making notes in my head how I should organize the show, etc.

This morning, around 10am, the power went out.  The neighbors were milling around outside looking confused, so it was obviously an area-wide event.  One neighbor claimed to see a transformer blow.  Eventually, calls to the power company informed us that like "4,000 families are affected" or something.  Everything was, in fact, not fine.  At all.

Remember: most of my show is on a computer.  I panicked.  I despaired.  I decided that I would scrap the show, & just play music miserably (including miserable music), & I realized it would be the first time I had skipped a theme in favor of a freeform show because of circumstances beyond my control.  I despaired more.  I self-hated.  I was grumpy with the wife on the morning dogwalk.  I was rude to my poor dogs.

At the end of the walk, as we came back around to the house, however, the traffic lights in our neighborhood were back on, & everything was returning to fine.  My blood pressure would take a little longer to level out.

& now, as I write this, I am scrambling to get the show done.  I am ridiculously backing up everything every few minutes.  I am lugging out CDs & vinyl in case I have to take them up to the station.  So - you know - everything is not fine in my head.  I am preparing for something that already happened, assuming it will happen again & again.  I get that from my mom.

Will everything be fine?  Find out today from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  & blame the weirdos in Lexington who turn their A/C on when it's a paltry 80 degrees outside.  In Texas, we call that "early spring."

Preface To Everything's Fine: Alarming Information About Fines

This is a haiku about fines:

My library fines
Don't make me feel very fine
Unlike fine wine

Here is a haiku about taxes:

Choose: taxes or fines -
One's down, the other rises!
Shh! That's a secret!

Here is a haiku about parking tickets:

I used to daydream
I'd love a fair meter maid -
Dumb parking ticket!

Here is a haiku about haiku:

Too many people
Call what they write a 'haiku'
Without counting syllables

Here is a haiku about the previous haiku:

That's not a haiku!
You did what you pointed out!
Oh, now I get it.

Here is an apology for all the haiku:

Sorry about all the haikus I wrote.

Here is a link which will tell you that the plural of haiku  can be either haiku or haikus.

Here is a final haiku to people who don't like that I add an 's' to the end of haiku to make it plural.

A living language
(Like English is) also lets
Foreign words evolve.

Me & My Backyard

On the show's Twitter account today - which really should be about the show, but since the show doesn't always have a lot to say, & usually only has something to say from four to six pm on Tuesdays, so I will often fill it with my mundane thoughts & embarrassingly obvious observations - I tweeted about my backyard.

Damn do we have a big backyard.  I didn't really want the house we live in, actually.  It's too big for us, even when us is two humans, four dogs, & four cats.  But my wife wanted the house, & she wanted it much more than I didn't want it.  Honestly, I guess I didn't care.  But I wish, when I was thinking about this house,  I had thought about mowing.

Mowing the backyard - this is just the backyard - takes me about ninety minutes.  That's a hell of a time commitment.  Plus, I don't apparently get better at mowing - I don't appear to be able to learn new mowing strategies that can shave minutes off my average mowing time.  If there were some "mowing skills plateau," I reached it pretty quickly.  It takes an hour & a half for me to mow my backyard.

It takes me longer to mow the front, but that's the wife's responsibility, since she also wants to do insane shit like blow excess grass off the sidewalks & edge.

If there's a reason why I'm not good at mowing, it may be because I lived in apartments for the first twenty years of my life.  The only time I mowed was when I was paid for it by my older siblings & it was their yard(s).  & I worked cheap.  Probably did a terrible job too.

When I rented houses or duplexes in Austin, the owners paid to have the yards done "professionally." I had to buy a lawn mower only when we bought our first house, in 2005.

It's been downhill from then.

& yet.  I don't think I would be comfortable with a "riding mower."  You know who uses a riding mower?  The seventy-something-year-old man next door.  He looks so happy on it.  & perhaps that's one of the reasons I resist: who wants to be happy mowing a lawn?

Would I feel better about mowing the backyard if I had grown up being required to take care of our own back yard?  It's hard to say.  My mother never made me & my little brother do chores when we were kids - I doubt she would've made us mow a lawn.  More than likely, she would have done it.  The reasons why are more complicated than I have time to go into.  But infantilizing her sons has made it difficult for them to move away from her, which is why most of them live within a few miles of her to this day.

Okay, I went into it some.

Anyway, that's why I was talking about my backyard today.  I should probably mow it once a week, but I said that last year.  & the year before that.

Through it all, my backyard, mowed or unmowed, wet or dry, green or brown, it mocks me.  All day long.

Let me check.  Yes.  All night long, too.

Cradle To Grave, Episode Nineteen

Oh, the first "live" episode of Cradle To Grave was a mess.  Inside the building (which is a high school) which houses Lexington's community radio station is actually two stations: WLXL & WLXU.  WLXU just went on the air.  I misunderstood a communication with the station that I would remain on WLXL when I moved, when obviously space had opened up during the week on the new station.  So I chatted amiably with station staff until I noticed the show on WLXL was not ending - at which point, I asked - a bit too late - if I were still on the schedule.

That's why you'll hear me correct myself, saying WLXL instead of WLXU a couple of times.

Then there's the whole issue of getting used to a new station.  One radio control board looks about the same as the other, & works the same (I've used about five different ones at four different stations), but you still have to get used to how the channels are marked, where things in the deejay booth are located, all that.  For example: I usually stand when I do my shows.  The deejay booth at WLXU is designed for the deejay to sit, not to stand, in.  There's a different vibe one gets when one is sitting when one is on the air.  I've found.

At one point, while I was talking, my mind wandered, & I read the facts about one artist I was featuring incorrectly.  So embarrassing.  I complain that I was tired on the air, but the truth is, I was a little baffled.  I was nervous, confused, befuddled, & lost.  It gets a little better, I think, in the second hour - I hope, I haven't listened to the show - but it's still quite a mess.

The music is great, though!  Lots of births to celebrate & deaths to commemorate for Tax Day!  You can listen to the show (if you want to after that introduction) at the Self Help Radio website.  You can see the songs I play below.  You can hope I get used to do this show live, so it becomes actually listenable!

(birthdays)

"St. Louis Blues" Bessie Smith _Louis Armstrong & The Blues Singers_
"Washboard Blues" Casper Reardon & His Group _The Big Broadcast, Vol. 8: Jazz & Popular Music Of The 1920s & 1930s_
"The Swing Session Is Called To Order" Mezz Mezzrow & His Orchestra _Mezz Mezzrow 1936-1939_
"The Friar & Dr. Goulding" Herb Pomeroy & His Orchestra _Band In Boston_
"Bourbon Street Parade" Young Tuxedo Brass Band _Jazz Begins_

"Gonna Make You Mine" Frank Frost _Harmonica Blues Benders_
"Winehead Baby" Little Sonny James _Mardi Gras Blues_
"Red Hot" Bob Luman _Rockin' Bones: 1950's Punk & Rockabilly_
"Twelfth Street Rag" Roy Clark _The Lightning Fingers Of Roy Clark_
"Ramona" The Blue Diamonds _ Always... The Blue Diamonds_

"Banana Boy" Eden Ahbez _Eden's Island_
"Sweet Dreams (Of You)" Mighty Sam McClain _The Amy Records Sessions (1966-1969)_
"Sweet Thing" Van Morrison _Astral Weeks_
"Medicine Man" Barclay James Harvest _Barclay James Harvest & Other Short Stories_
"Girls Talk" Dave Edmunds _The Best Of Dave Edmunds_

(death anniversaries)

"The Boogie Woogie" Cleo Brown _Boogie Woogie_
"My Blue Heaven" Kid Thomas & His Algiers Stompers _Best Of Jazz Crusade_
"Tanga (Part 1)" Machito & His Afro-Cuban Orchestra _The Roots Of Funk 1947-1962_
"Wild, Wild Young Men" Rose Maddox _Whistle Bait!_
"Just A Dream I Got On My Mind" Dewey Corley & Walter Miller _The George Mitchell Collection_

"Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" The Ramones _Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology_
"Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)" John Fred & His Playboy Band _Judy In Disguise With Glasses_
"Dirty Robber" The Wailers _The Fabulous Wailers_
"My L.A." Tacey Robbins & The Vendells _Girls In The Garage, Vol. 6_
"The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack" The Nice "The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack_

"My Pal Foot Foot" The Shaggs _The Shaggs_
"Peanuts" Little Joe Cook & The Thrillers _Peanuts_
"Mellow Chick Swing" Sean Costello _Cuttin' In_
"I'm Qualified" Jimmy Hughes _The Birth Of Soul, Vol. 1_
"Woman Of The Ghetto" Phyllis Dillon _Funky Kingston: Reggae Dancefloor Grooves 1968-1974_

"The Real Sheila" Game Theory _Lolita Nation_

Self Help Radio 041216: Laws

(Original image here.)

A funny thing.  I mentioned a couple of days ago that I saw a car speed through a red light right in front of a cop, who didn't bother to follow said car to write him a ticket.  I have had enough experiences in Lexington with the city's awful drivers to believe that that's the norm - in fact, & this is absolutely true, the only people I've met in Lexington who've been stopped by the police for traffic offenses have been people of color.  But I digress.

The radio station, WRFL, is located on campus, & to get to the station, you have to come into campus a particular way & drive down a one-way street.  Not surprisingly, I very often see people going the wrong way down that street, & have never seen a cop stop them, & have only heard of one person being ticketed for doing so.  But as I walked to the station yesterday - I was walking from the other side, so walking the other way up the one-way street - I saw a campus police officer standing at the parking lot at the end of the one-way street writing tickets for people traveling the wrong way up the street.  & to the cop's credit, the dumb person I saw getting the ticket was not a person of color.  Or rather, the color of that person was white.

Wouldn't it be a weird turn of events if Lexington was the city where the campus cops were better police than the city cops?  Or to put it in the idiom of the show, if they enforced the law better than the city cops?  Undoubtedly both get paid terribly; but surely campus cops (I have to resist calling them kampus kops) get paid less.

Oh!  I just thought of something!  At the University of Texas, parking tickets were giving out like crazy because the campus police were funded in part by the moneys brought in by parking fines.  Maybe that's the case at UK too.  Ah well.

Not a funny thing, then.  & speaking of not funny things, this week's show about laws has been place under arrest & forcibly imprisoned at the Self Help Radio Maximum Security Website.  You'll need a password to get in!  It broke so many laws this week - in fact, I list them below.

You can't visit, either.  Naturally, the show's in solitary confinement.

(part one)

"The Law" John Maus _A Collection Of Rarities & Previously Unreleased Material_
"The Law Of Things" The Bats _The Law Of Things_
"The Law" Leonard Cohen _Various Positions_

"I'm Just A Bill" Jack Sheldon _Schoolhouse Rock: America Rock_
"There Oughta Be A Law" Mickey & Sylvia _Love Is Strange_
"There Oughta Be A Law ('Bout The Stuff I Saw)" The Newbeats _Bread & Butter_
"I Am The Law" Momus _Reproductions: Songs Of The Human League_

"Advice On Arrest" Desperate Bicycles _Another Commercial Venture_
"Against The Law" Billy Bragg _'Til We Outnumber 'Em (The Songs Of Woody Guthrie)_
"I Fought The Law (live)" The Clash _On Broadway_
"All Of The Law" The Psychedelic Furs _Midnight To Midnight_

"This Side Of The Law" Johnny Cash _I Walk The Line_
"Knock Out The Lights (& Call The Law)" Jack Hart _MGM Hillbilly, Vol. 2_
"Where's The Law" Dee-Dee Gaudet _Hot Boppin' Girls, Vol. 4_

(part two)

"It Is The Law" The Envelopes _Demon_
"Breaking The Law" The Meteors _These Evil Things_
"Breakin' The Law" The Babies _The Babies_

"The Whole Of The Law" The Only Ones _The Only Ones_
"One Law For Them" The 4 Skins _The Good, The Bad, & The 4 Skins_
"Law & Order" John Mulaney _The Top Part_
"Law" Mighty Mighty _A Band From Birmingham_

"It's A Law" Natural History _Beat Beat Heartbeat_
"New Law" Gloria Cycles _Campsite Discotheque_
"Laws Of Physics" Charming Hostess _Eat_
"Law Of The Jungle" Richard Barone _Clouds Over Eden_

"Wheel Of The Law" Kendra Smith _The Guild Of Temporal Adventurers_
"Squid Law" The Fall _Seminal Live_

Whither Laws?

(I found that image here.)

In the middle of the week, I go shopping for food for the cooking I'll do over the next seven days.  I don't go to just one place - it's usually three, maybe four.  It takes me a couple of hours, & my wife slowly found other things to do (like "work") so she doesn't have to accompany me, which is fine - she dawdles.  Plus, she doesn't know where anything is in these stores whose layouts I have mastered.  Since I'm alone, I need to find something to listen to as I drive around town, & if it's not something new I'm obsessing about, I grab a random CD from my collection that I haven't listened to in ages.

A few weeks back, I lazily grabbed a fine collection of singles by the band Mighty Mighty.  The first song I ever heard from them was from a discounted double LP of British independent singles from 1987 or so.  (It found its way to Austin, Texas, probably thanks to an enterprising employee of Waterloo Records, but, no one showing interest in it, its $21.99 mark-up was reduced to a delightful $3.99, almost as if just for me.)  The song was the lovely "Built Like A Car", which is still one of the catchiest songs ever recorded.

As I drove, I was reminded of how great a band they were, & especially I was reminded of the song that ended up on the legendary C-86 collection, "Law."  It made me wonder, as I listened to it more than once, how many songs there were out there about laws.  & not just laws that humans made for cops to enforce, but what about laws of physics, or heck, even religious laws.  That was the genesis of this show.  So, thanks Mighty Mighty!

Now you have some background as to why, from 4-6 pm today, on 88.1 fm WRFL, wrfl dot fm, there'll be a show about laws airing.  I'm not going to say it's illegal to listen, but why take the chance?  See you there!

Preface To Laws: Breaking The Law All The Time

This probably won't shock you, but everyone breaks the law all the time.  It's not just the petty shit, like running a red light, which apparently isn't even a law you can break in Lexington, since just last week I was sitting at an intersection & a n SUV zoomed through a red light right in front of a police car, & the officer inside didn't seem to notice, or to care.  No, people steal & cheat pretty much all the time.  I think it's actually part of our economy.

Not that I'm an economist or anything, & not that I have any more information than some (actually quite dated) anecdotes.  Come to think of it, all of these stories I am going to tell involve convenience stores, so maybe I should have said at the outset that everyone breaks the law all the time in convenience stores.  But I've seen it happen many times, even outside of convenience stores, & I am such a pessimist, that I'm convinced it happens pretty much all over the place, despite the industry.  Anyway, the Panama Papers seem to suggest that the very rich have made their habit of cheating into a damned art form.

So, three stories:

1) When I was a boy, my mother worked in a convenience store.  Not only would she let us (her family members) take anything they wanted for free (when the boss wasn't there) (this included junk food, comic books, candy, & sodas), which meant she was stealing from the place she worked, but she told me later that her boss, at the end of the day, would take one hundred dollars out of whatever money they made, & put it aside, & not claim it.  This basically meant he made $36,500 every year tax-free.  That's in 1970s dollars.  & sure, he pocketed it, but also maybe that helped pay for all the things his employees stole.  Because surely he knew they stole!

2) & you know what?  I have a sneaking suspicion he did know, because in 1989, I had a job at a Seven-Eleven in Austin, Texas, & I was told by the manager, whose last name was Bailey so everyone called him "Beetle" (true story), that he basically wrote off a hundred dollars a day of the store's earnings as a loss due to theft.  This wasn't about the employees - it was the company's policy to do so, just because it assumed that people were constantly stealing from the store.  I myself caught a lot of folks stealing, actually, since I worked the 11pm-7am shift.  That was when people tried to steal beer & very cheap wine.  But you've probably seen people shoplift before.  I see it at my local convenience store weekly, sometimes in front of employees, who often don't say or do anything about it.  As someone at Seven-Eleven once said, which is kind of a mantra for folks doing retail work, "They don't pay me enough to care."

3) Speaking of Seven-Eleven, Beetle also made sure I watched the Oak Farms vendors like a hawk.  Oak Farms was the dairy that supplied the store with the milk, ice cream, butter, etc.  It seemed strange to me that we were to be suspicious of a company which had a pretty exclusive relationship with our store, but I soon found out that many of these people would try to "short" the store (ie, give less than what they claimed on the orders) so they could take the leftovers to independent convenience stores & sell them for cash.  This was such a common practice that, although I never caught him cheating my store, the Oak Farms guy I worked with for my first couple of months was fired for theft abruptly during my time at the store.

Does this prove anything?  No.  Are there honest people?  Sure.  I feel less inclined to take advantage of such situations these days because I am able to afford stuff.  Recently, for example, at the self-check-out at Kroger, I missed a couple of things in my basket, & noticed them when I got to the car, & I went back inside to buy them.  (The person overseeing the self-check-out area didn't notice me leaving without paying for stuff in the basket, not did he notice me bring stuff from outside, run it through the self-check-out minutes after buying stuff, & leaving again.  Probably not paid enough to care.)  I wouldn't have done that when I was in college.  I would have felt a little guilty, but the cool feeling of naughtiness would have balanced the scales somewhat.  Also, I was poor.

But is it fair to take these personal narratives & somehow, by analogy, claim the entire country, if not the entire world, is like this?  Probably not, but as I said, I'm not an economist.  But if you, like me, have a sneaking suspicion that capitalism fundamentally depends (& encourages) on a certain level of dishonesty if not outright theft, then having these experiences in my memory banks has not suggested any more integrity-rich alternatives.

Cradle To Grave, Episode Eighteen

Hey!  This one actually aired!

As I said yesterday, this will be the last prerecorded Cradle To Grave, as the show moves to a new timeslot & gets the - advantage, maybe? - of being live.  You may not believe this, but I don't really like my voice all that much, & more than that, I usually hate to hear what comes out of my mouth.  So doing the show at home was problematic for the reason that I would be tempted to edit most everything I said.  & I succumbed to that temptation a lot.  This will not be the case for this Friday's live version of Cradle To Grave, so it could be more terrible than even these prerecorded versions - so bad I'll wish I could edit it.  Honestly, if it weren't for the convenience, I'd prefer to be able to cut my ramblings down to spare the world from them.

Also, on this week's show, I celebrate the life of a producer, Martin Hannett.  I don't know if I've done this before.  I've focused on songwriters, but not the people behind the recordings.  That probably won't be a common thing, but Hannett produced a lot of my favorite music, so it would've been difficult for me to exclude him.  I promise to draw the line at "executive producers"!

The show is resting, as in a cradle or a grave, at the Self Help Radio website where else?  The show, of course, is in two parts: birthdays in the first hour, death anniversaries in the second.  You can see what songs I played in each part below.

(birthdays)

"Franklin Street Blues" Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight _Breaking Out Of New Orleans_
"Look What You've Missed" Sharkey Bonano _The Good Time Jazz Story_
"Barnyard Blues" Eddie Edwards & His Original Dixieland Jazz Band _Eddie Edwards & His Original Dixieland Jazz Band with Tony Sbarbaro_
"Coolin' With Dash" Julian Dash _Chicken Shack Boogie, Vol. 4_
"Sho' Nuff Melon" Reuben Wilson _Blue Break Beats, Vol. 3_

"Water Boy" Paul Robeson _Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival_
"Texas Blues" Mance Lipscomb _Songster_
"Matchbox" Carl Perkins _The Sun Records Collection_
"Put It On" Count Rockin' Sidney with the Dukes _Southern Funkin': Louisiana Funk & Soul 1967-1970_
"Mutual Admiration Society" Virginia Gibson & Ethel Merman _Happy Hunting (Original Broadway Cast Recording)_

"Forever & A Day" Terry Knight & The Pack _Reflections_
"The Night Chicago Died" Paper Lace _Super Hits Of The '70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 13_
"Tiger Feet" Mud _Jackie The Album_
"We Will All Go Together When We Go" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_
"Maybe You'll Appreciate Me Someday" Kay Adams _Killers Three OST_

(death anniversaries)

"At The Jazz Band Ball" The Original Dixieland Jass Band _Remastered_
"Royal Garden Blues" The Mezzrow-Ladnier Quintet _Mezz Mezzrow: 1936-1939_
"Blues Negres" Cleoma Falcon _Hot Women: Women Singers From The Torrid Regions Of The World_
"Hobo Blues" James Yank Rachell _Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2 (1938-1941)_

"You Got Me Hummin'" Sam & Dave _The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968_
"La-La (Means I Love You)" The Delfonics _La-La Means I Love You: The Definitive Collection_
"Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" Brook Benton _Home Style_
"Kulu Sé Mama" John Coltrane _Kulu Sé Mama_

"Changes (Live)" Phil Ochs _Farewells & Fantasies_
"Live Like A Lady" The Remo Four _Smile!_
"She's Lost Control" Joy Division _Unknown Pleasures_

"Negativland" Neu! _Neu!_

Cradle To Grave Tonight!/Cradle To Grave News!

Here's a reminder that my other radio show, Cradle To Grave, is on tonight from 7-9pm on 95.7 fm WLXL + also too online at the same time at the WLXL website.  I hope you'll listen - birthdays this week include Paul Robeson, Mance Lipscomb, Carl Perkins, & Tom Lehrer, while folks who died on this day include Yank Rachel, Brook Benton, Phil Ochs, & Thomas Dinger - because it'll be the last time you'll hear the show on a Saturday night.

What's this?  Is it over?  Is it at long last finally over?

Well, no.  I mean, yes, it won't be on Saturdays any more, but it will move to a new time this next week, Fridays from noon to 2.

This is exciting for me mainly because it means I'll get to do the show live.  I don't mind prerecording - I've done it before when Self Help Radio is in-between radio stations - but this show took a lot of prep, & it was starting to wear me out.  Now I can do radio the way radio is supposed to be radio.

There will doubtless be another announcement here - & of course on the Twitter & the Facebook too - when the time comes.  In the interim:

Listen to the show tonight, damn it!  7-9pm!

Self Help Radio 040516: Taking Sides

(Original image here.)

Forced to choose sides, the cheese stands alone!  That's the first line of action-packed young adult novel I never finished writing.  In fact, I never started writing it.  I just have that beginning line.  Forced to choose sides, the cheese stands alone!  It's my own "It was a dark & stormy night."

That has only a tangential connection to this week's show, which is about taking sides.  Is "taking a side" the same as "choosing a side"?  Online idiom dictionaries suggest there's a difference.  To take someone's side is "to agree with or support someone," while choosing sides is "to select from a group to be on opposing sides for a debate, fight, or game."  These are specific, however.  I think I can take the side of a person, or a group of people, or a supernatural entity.  I can also choose the side of these things.  Therefore I would say the only difference is emphasis - taking a side seems more forceful, impetuous; choosing a side seems more deliberate & thoughtful.

But what the hell do I know?

The show is available at the Self Help Radio website.  In case you didn't know, there's a password requirement, but that info in on the page.  The show is in two parts, one following the other, so it's not like they're two sides competing with one another.  What's in each side - er, I mean, part - below.

Remember: if you're on Self Help Radio's side, Self Help Radio is on your side!

(part one)

"I'm On Your Side" The Frugal Sound _Ripples Vol. 3: The Autumn Almanac (Soft Rock & Folk Baroque Sounds Of The UK)_
"I'm On Your Side" Fosca _Diary Of An Antibody_
"I'm On Your Side" You Say France & I Whistle _Angry Men_

"Time Is On My Side" Wilson Pickett _The Wicked Pickett_
"Time Is On Our Side" Hot Rain _The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Vol. 1_
"Time Is Never On Our Side" Laura Watling _Early Morning Walk_
"Time Is On Your Side" Earth, Wind & Fire _The Eternal Dance_

"Hope Is Still On Your Side" The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir _...And The Horse You Rode In On_
"History's On Your Side" Shy Camp _History's On Your Side_
"God Is On My Side" Hefner _Breaking God's Heart_
"With God On Our Side" The Neville Brothers _How Many Roads (Black America Sings Bob Dylan)_

"On My Side" Mysteries Of Life _Keep A Secret_
"On Your Side" Brakes _The Beatific Visions_

(part two)

"On Your Side" The Radio Dept. _Passive Aggressive (Singles 2002-2010)_
"On Your Side" The Shondes _The Garden_
"Three Cheers For Our Side" Orange Juice _You Can't Hide Your Love Forever_

"Which Side Are You On?" The Almanac Singers _Songs For Political Action: Folk Music, Topical Songs & The American Left 1935-1954: The Almanac Singers, March 1941-July 1941_
"Which Side Are You On?" Billy Bragg _Brewing Up With Billy Bragg_
"Whose Side Are You On?" Grant McLennan _Fireboy_
"Which Side" Red Lorry Yellow Lorry _Paint Your Wagon_

"You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side" Morrissey _Your Arsenal_
"Your Side" Fear Of Men _Early Fragments_
"Shot By Both Sides" Magazine _Real Life_
"Take My Side" Will Butler _Policy_

"Down By The River" Neil Young _Live At The Cellar Door_

Whither Taking Sides?

(I found this image here.)

This is a true story: at some point during my time at KOOP radio, there was a call for volunteers to submit some art & copy for the upcoming Membership Drive.  (We are WRFL are sooooo lucky we don't have to do pledge drives!)  I drew a picture - very rough, I'm not a great artist - with two panels:  one had a sweet little girl lying in front of a radio labeled "KOOP," a huge smile on her face, a heart emanating from her to show how happy she was; the other had a giant monster radio with its mouth open, shoveling money into its gaping maw - it was labeled "corporate radio."  The text at the bottom said "KOOP Membership Drive - Choose Sides!"

The station manager at the time - who openly didn't like me, so it was always extremely awkward talking to her - asked me to come to her office & sat me down, to reject the idea.  "It's so provocative," is the only comment she made about my submission.  She chose instead a perfectly nice, but decidedly more neutral, piece made entirely of clip-art.

Why in the world am I thinking about this?  Because of today's theme, silly!  I initially just wanted the show to be about songs with "my side" or "your side" in them, because of the song that gave me the idea: Neil Young's "Down By The River," which begins with the lines,

Be on my side

I'll be on your side, baby

But obviously there are more sides that yours or mine.  So the show grew from there.

Excluded from the show are songs about the actual sides of things.  No songs about being by your side, or on the sunny side of something, or even boys who may or may not have thorns in their sides.  It's really all about taking sides today.

Which is why I need to tell you that the show will be on (naturally) from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  The show won't necessarily encourage you to choose a side, but chances are, during or after the show, you'll make the decision to defect to the other side.

Preface To Taking Sides: Napping

If you want me on your side, make sure your side takes naps.  Because I love naps.  I can sleep a full, uninterrupted, delightful eight hours & still want a nap in the afternoon or early evening.  I used to not be able to take short naps - & frankly I don't think any nap shorter than an hour is worth it - but for example today I took a 75-minute long nap.  & it was great.

One of the things that I love about naps is that, for whatever reason, my brain goes straight into REM sleep.  I dream like a crazy person.  I know listening to people's dreams is super boring, so prepare to be super-bored, because here's what I dreamt about sometime between 1 & 2:15 pm this afternoon:

The dream I remember begins in the middle, it's a "driving around" dream, & I witness an accident in front of me.  I get out of my car to help (later in the dream I try to remember whether I parked the car properly or not), but already there are good citizens freeing someone who's been trapped under a crushed car.  The person is okay!  WRFL is nearby (in reality, it's nowhere near a busy road), so I go in, & I need to go to an office to talk to one of the directors.  Lots of people are there, & they're excited to talk to me, because somehow they think I am the hero of the recent car crash.  I tell them that I didn't do anything, but they try to get me to give them details.  I manage to lose them in labyrinthine hallways which of course don't exist in the station.  The director I talk to asks about my foot, because I am limping, & I figure something happened in the accident (when in reality I did hurt my left toe, & it was throbbing as I slept).

The dream changed course & I'm not sure whether there was a segue or whether I woke up (even in REM sleep, I am a light sleeper) & settled back into the dream, but suddenly:

At a dinner party at my house, one of the guests tells me she's never heard Blood On The Tracks.  I can't believe it - she has told me she's a big Dylan fan - so I go to the room in my house where I keep my CDs to let her borrow it, where I discover that my wife has rearranged the room.  In the process, all of my CDs are out of alphabetical order, & when I try to find the Dylan CD, it's not with its compatriots.  Worse yet, trying to sort the CDs makes the shelf tip over, & CDs spill onto the floor.  Grumpily, I swear to myself that I will make my wife clean it up.

Now, the dream changes again into some kind of video game thing - I am swimming across a moat toward a chameleon-like monster who may or may not be my ally - when my alarm wakes me up.  I rush to tell my wife about the cool dreams, but she's napping in the living room.  There are lots of reasons we married, & our love of naps is maybe one of those reasons.

As I've probably said before, I don't think dreams "mean" anything.  They do however keep my mind agile in a world where days can be humdrum, especially Mondays, when I have to put together a radio show, which can be fun but can also be tedious.

There was an article I once read about a dude whose rigorous timetable had him awake for eight hours at a time, & slept between those eight hours exactly four hours.  I think I might even have wanted to try that at some point (I was in college so it was impossible, since classes were scheduled all around the daytime hours).  Now when I think about that schedule, it kind of horrifies me.

You see: no naps!

Cradle To Grave, Episode Seventeen

Here is a radio show that never aired.  It was never on the radio.  It was supposed to be on the radio.  It was made to be played on the air.  Why was it not played when it would normally have been played?  I don't know.  What's more, I have no evidence to even speculate.  But I think I can say with certainty one thing: it wasn't pre-empted because of some qualitative assessment.  That is to say, the management of WLXL didn't give it a listen & say, "Oh jesus, this is terrible.  Do not under any circumstances air that program!"

If that was something that was a possibility, nothing I do would ever be allowed on the air!

No, my guess is it was an error.  All the weekend shows at WLXL are pre-recorded, & so, as happens from time-to-time, a mistake was made.  The wife was very apologetic to me last night, as if she had a hand in it; I know she was thinking of all the work I put into the show.  But I know how hard they're working at WLXL to make a radio station - it's something I can't imagine myself being able to undertake without fucking up all the time.  That there are so few mix-ups is a testimony to how seriously they're taking that great task, & I for one am in no position to do anything but help in what little way I can & to watch (& listen) with admiration.

Again, they're building a radio station from the ground up.  That's incredible.

Anyway, I knew I could put my show on my website if anyone wanted to listen.  & so I have.  It's at the regular place.  You can listen if you want.  Lots of great people celebrated & commemorated on that day.  Yesterday.  The day before.  The songs I played are below.

(birthdays)

"Novelty Blues" Jazz Wizards _Omer Simeon: The Rarest & Greatest Tracks 1929-1954_
"Jim Jam Stomp" Joe Marsala's Chicagoans _That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History (1895-1950)_
"Sometimes I'm Happy" Benny Goodman & His Orchestra _Bunny Berigan: The Pied Piper (1935-1940)_
"Beer Barrel Polka" Jim Robinson _Jim Robinson With Kid Thomas, Ernie Cagnolatti, & De De Pierce_
"That's Entertainment" Jack Buchanan, Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray, & Oscar Levant _The Band Wagon OST_

"Walkin' Home" J.T. Brown _Ham Hocks & Cornbread_
"Pepino The Italian Mouse" Lou Monte _Your Hit Parade: Golden Goofers_
"True Love Ways" Buddy Holly & The Crickets _Greatest Hits_
"A Six Pack To Go" Leon Russell _Dylan, Cash, & The Nashville Cats: A New Music City_
"Here Come The Martian Martians" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers_

"Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus" Serge Gainsbourg _Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg_
"Love Hurts" Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris _Grievous Angel_
"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" Marvin Gaye _What's Going On_
"Rock & Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This)" Handsome Boy Modeling School _So... How's Your Girl?_

(death anniversaries)

"Onion Eating Mama" Cliff Carlisle (as Bob Clifford) _Roots 'N' Blues: The Retrospective_
"Chain Gang" Sam Cooke _The Man & His Music_
"April In Paris" The Modernaires with Paula Kelly _Singin' & Swingin'_
"Harbor Lights (vocals Kenny Gardner)" Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians _Enjoy Yourself: The Hits Of Guy Lombardo_
"The Very Thought Of You" Al Bowlly with The Ray Noble Orchestra _Al Bowlly With Ray Noble 1931-1934_

"Moten Stomp" Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra _Body & Soul: 80 Years Of RCA Jazz_
"S'il Vous Plait" Miles Davis Nonet _The Complete Birth Of The Cool Sessions_
"Shank's Pranks" Bud Shank (with Shorty Rogers) _Bud Shank Quintets_
"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" The Buddy Rich Big Band _Mercy, Mercy_

"Love's Made A Fool Of You" The Esquires _The Singles... Plus_
"Send Me A Postcard" Shocking Blue _We Can Fly, Vol. 3_
"Hot Smoke & Sassafras" Bubble Puppy _A Gathering Of Promises_
"Anywhere" B.J. Baker _Anywhere_

"Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On" Edwin Starr _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol 11A: 1971_

April's Fool

It's very windy outside now.  In a little over an hour, I'll be doing my other radio show, "Cradle To Grave," on 95.7 fm WLXL in town, online at lexington community radio dot org.  I think today's show will be fine, because I've already done it.  The show is pre-recorded.  You knew that, right?

There's a part of me that feels the need to apologize for the low energy of the show.  I recorded the airbreaks very early Friday morning.  I'm talking 4am.  Everyone in the house was asleep - even the cats, who generally have a blast at night.  In fact, if I'm remembering the process as it happened, I appear to perk up late in the show, when I am talking about how some of the musicians died (botched tonsillectomy, aneurysm after a show at Carnegie Hall).  It makes me come across as a kind of ghoul, I think.  Apologies for that.  I want to say something like, "It was the caffeine kicking in," but since I don't drink caffeine, that can't be the case.

Maybe it was the sun coming up.  I rarely am awake at sunrise, it's always a little thrilling to watch the world brighten slowly.  Where I sit, at my computer, where I also record my airbreaks & the other nonsense for Self Help Radio, I have a window to my left, & I can look into our sun room.  The world was waking up, maybe it helped me wake up too.

However, for most of the show, I am what Donald Trump would call "low energy."

This doesn't mean the show will suck.  There's a very good chance it will suck, of course - it's a radio show I am doing, after all.  But I think the music is great.  Birthdays today include Serge Gainsbourg, Emmylou Harris, & Marvin Gaye.  Deaths on April 2 include Kentucky's own Cliff Carlisle, plus Buddy Rich & Edwin Starr.  The music on the show makes it all worthwhile, I think.

Yeah, seriously - ignore the me talking.  It'll pass.  Enjoy the show instead!

Self Help Radio 032916: The Neighborhood

(Original image here.)

Did I use up all the neighborhood references during this week's show?  I said "neighborly" at least twice.  I had a song by Mr. Rogers, a parody of Mr. Rogers, & I said something about it being a wonderful day for a neighbor.  I talked about neighbor associations & I talked about neighborhood watches - probably too much.  Yes, I believe I killed that joke to death.  Nothing subtle about this radio show!

Speaking of, on the show I did talk to my next-door neighbors, as well as Mark Miller in Hollywood about his neighborhood, & found out that Howard Gently is coming to our neighborhood.  Plus, you know, songs.  I played songs.  I get to do that.  Play songs.  On the radio.

If you feel brave enough to venture into Self Help Radio's neighborhood - I mean, it's not unsafe or anything - at worst you might get bored - you can do so at the front gate.  There is a password to get in but don't worry, our alcoholic "guard" will tell it to you because he needs to get back to sleep.  The neighborhood is two hours long so it's split into two halves; the sites you'll see are listed below.

Property values?  Are you kidding?

(part one)

"Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Mister Rogers _Bedtime_
"The People In Your Neighborhood" Bob McGrath & The Muppets _The People In Your Neighborhood_
"A Neighborhood Is A Friendly Place" Ella Jenkins _Multicultural Children's Songs_
"New Kind Of Neighborhood" Jonathan Richman _Modern Lovers '88_

"In The Neighborhood" Tom Waits _Swordfishtrombones_
"So Many People In The Neighborhood" Ween _Quebec_
"Neighborhood Threat" Iggy Pop _Lust For Life_
"Neighborhood Watch" Mike Krol _Turkey_

"Brand New Neighborhood" Fletcher Smith _Rhythm & Blues Goes Rock & Roll_
"Strange Neighborhood" Gene McDaniels _Big City Soul, Vol. 1_
"On The Avenue (In The Neighborhood)" Jimmy Ruffin _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 8: 1968_
"I Killed The Neighbours" Misty's Big Adventure _Misty's Big Adventure & Their Place In The Solar Hi-Fi System_

"We Are Neighbors" The Chi-Lites _(For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People_
"Hey Neighbor" Jenny O _Automechanic_

(part two)

"Mr. Roberts # 1" Christopher Guest & Bill Murray _That's Not Funny, That's Sick_
"Neighborhood Children" Tiny Tim _Tiny Tim's Second Album_
"Neighbor, Neighbor" Jimmy Hughes _Sweet Soul Music_

"In My Neighborhood" Bonniwell Music Machine _Beyond The Garage_
"Neighbours" The Bats _Compiletely Bats_
"Neighborhood Survival Gunstore" Firesign Theater _Eat Or Be Eaten_
"The Neighborhood" Jackie Lee _The Duck_
"You Woke Up My Neighborhood" Billy Bragg _Don't Try This At Home_

"My Neighborhood" The New Year _The New Year_
"Neighbours" Shack _Waterpistol_
"Neighborhood" David Byrne _Look Into The Eyeball_
"My Next Door Neighbor" Jerry McCain & His Upstarts _Folk Music In America, Vol. 7: Songs Of Complaint & Protest_

"The Universality Of Neighbourliness" Tall Dwarfs _Throw A Sickie_
"My Neighbor" Tochigi _Tochigi_
"Have You Seen Your Neighbour In The Bath" Pig Rider _Bloody Turkey Sandwiches_
"Neighbors" And The Kids _Turn To Each Other_
"Pretty Little Neighbor" Giant Drag _Hearts & Unicorns_

Whither The Neighborhood?

(I found this silly clip art here.)

Is it safe to say everyone lives in a neighborhood?  I mean, maybe not hermits.  Or maybe not people who live in high-rises - would you call the folks that live on the 17th floor "a neighborhood"?  How about people who live in isolated rural areas?  There's a county in Texas, Loving County, where there are less than one hundred people living there.  Is the entire county a neighborhood?  Probably not.

Can I then say that a majority of people in the United States lives in a neighborhood?  As a child, I lived mainly in apartments, but we often befriended & played with kids who lived in the neighborhood.  Did they think of the apartments of part of the neighborhood?  Can people who live in apartments join neighborhood associations?  Oh dear, this little scribble of mine is asking more questions than I can answer.

Let's play it safe & say some people in the United States live in neighborhoods.  & let's hope you're one of them!  Because today's show is for you!  Or maybe I can say, lots of folks want to live in neighborhoods, so today's show is also for you!  Hey, & I can add, a great deal of people lived in neighborhoods, found it horrible, & fled to places like Robertson County, Kentucky (the state's least populated county), so listening to today's show will remind them why they made that decision - so this show is for those folks too!

The show is on from 4-6pm today on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl.fm in your favorite online neighborhood.  Wait.  Is there such a thing as an online neighborhood?

Damn it!  More questions!

Preface To The Neighborhood: Spell Checked

Do you know what the CDDB is?  If not, you can read about it here.  If so, you know the experience: you put a CD into your computer, & as a program like iTunes reads it, it queries the database & returns the CD's tracklisting, artist name, album name, genre, etc.

There are some real numbnuts out there who take delight in propagating incorrect names - or misspelled names - or other idiot errors when putting the data into the database.  This isn't a complaint about them.  Most of the time, their errors are easy to fix - especially if you know how common words in English are spelled, or if you have the frickin' CD in front of you & can see how the two separate tracklistings match up.  Anyway, to complain about that would take too long.

No, this is a complaint about a particular spelling error that has popped up in many of the CDs I've listened to in regards to this week's show.  It has to do with the way Americans spell the word "neighbor," as opposed to how the British & the Canadians spell it, which is "neighbour."

Want to argue about which is the correct spelling?  Too bad!  You can't.  One nation spells it one way, some others (all associated with a dead empire) spell it the other.  I have no problem with that.  If you're visiting Boston from Toronto, you'll perhaps learn about the exciting history around Boston Harbor.  If you're visiting Victoria, British Columbia, from Seattle, you may enjoy spending time at the Victoria Harbour.  The way the people spell it is how you spell it, despite how insistent my (American) spellcheck is that I'm misspelling "harbor."

Here's the rub.  If you're some dude in Montreal & you get to be the first people to enter into the CDDB let's say Jonathan Richman's CD "Jonathan Sings!" & you get to the track "The Neighbors," spell it the way it is on the CD.  It's not "The Neighbours."  It isn't.  If Jonathan Richman had a track called "Muzza Fazza Babba," you'd copy it exactly that way, wouldn't you?  You wouldn't assume he means "Mother Father Baby" & put that into the database, right?  What's more, you don't grammar correct song titles, do you?  Like, you wouldn't enter the song "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" as "I Can't Get Any Satisfaction," would you?

It seems as disrespectful as it is irritating.  & I noticed it over & over & over when I listened to CDs for this week's show.

Interestingly, I hardly ever - maybe never - saw the opposite.  I never had a CD by an English, Scottish, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand band where the CDDB spelled a track "neighbor" instead of "neighbour."  I wonder what's up with that.  I guess respect isn't always a two-way street.

No one who enters shit into the CDDB will ever read this, but if they do, here's a thing: just put the names of the songs & the band & the record down as it says on the damned CD please.  When you see the playlist of songs from the show tomorrow, you'll see the two different spellings, & you'll know whether the band is American or from a former British colony.  Because that's how the artists who made the music spelled it.  Not you, sitting at your computer, being all pedantic & shit.

While we're at it, can you also look up when the actual album was released & not the year your version came out? This pertains to reissues, of course, but also, use your damn common sense.  How much more difficult is it to take the time to find out when something was actually recorded than just the lazy copyright on the CD's back cover?  If you're not going to do that, don't submit the info to the database.  You aren't being helpful.  You're passing on bad information that most probably is going to stay there, because I don't think people at the CDDB check any of it anyway.

Which is probably the real shame.

Cradle To Grave, Episode Sixteen

Cradle To Grave is back!  & cradle to graver than ever!

Did I explain it here or on the Facebook or whatever?  I had a couple of issues pop up last week (the week before last, I guess you'd say), which totally waylaid me & sucked up all my time.  Since it does take a while to gather first the information about birthdays (I use several sources) & death anniversaries (ditto), & then to actually go through the music to decide what to play, it takes me almost an entire "work day" to put the show together.  If anything happens - say, an animal needs a veterinary visit - the entire day is shot, & the chances of successfully putting the show together diminish greatly.

This is my way of saying that sometimes I choose sleep over making a radio show.  I hope you understand.

However, this week the show returned & I think it's pretty good.  You may say to yourself, "Why would I want to listen to a show about people who were born or who died on the day that was yesterday?"  If you feel that way, perhaps you can download the show & wait 364 days until it's relevant again.  That might be the correct way to approach it.

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts, one for artists who were born on March 26, the other for artists who died that day in history.  The song I played are below.  I hope you enjoy.

(birthdays)

"Flight Of The Bumblebee" Rafael Méndez _The Legendary Trumpet Virtuosity Of Rafael Méndez, Vol. 1_
"Gone With The Gin" Hot Lips Page & His Band _1938-1940_
"Nightmare" Joe Loco _Let's Go Loco_
"You Can't Hurry Love" The Supremes _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966_
"Can Your Monkey Do The Dog" Rufus Thomas _The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968_

"Wally Ballou, Roving Reporter" Bob & Ray _Bob & Ray On A Platter_
"Mr. Blue Sky" Electric Light Orchestra _Out Of The Blue_
"Phasors On Stun" FM _Black Noise_
"Moments In Love" Art Of Noise _(Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise!_
"Cubik" 808 State _90_

"Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose" Teddy Pendergrass _Life Is A Song Worth Singing_
"Never Can Say Goodbye" The Communards _Red_
"Myspace/Email" Todd Barry _From Heaven_

(death anniversaries)

"Traumerai" Albert Spalding _The Definitive Collection Of The 19th Century's Greatest Virtuosos_
"April Kisses" Eddie Lang _Jazz Guitar Virtuoso_
"A Room With A View" Noel Coward _This Year Of Grace_
"Backtrackin' (Dr. Daddy-O)" Paul Gayten _Gettin' Funky: The Birth Of New Orleans R & B_

"Betty Betty Go Steady With Me" Dickie Pride _The Sheik Of Shake_
"Lookie, Lookie, Lookie" Ronnie Smith & The Poor Boys _Buddy's Buddies: Holly For Hire (1957-1959)_
"I've Been Wrong" The Buckinghams _Pebbles, Vol. 6: Chicago Part 1_
"Dead Man's Curve" Jan & Dean _All The Hits, From Surf City To Drag City_
"Jumping At Shadows" Duster Bennett _Smiling Like I'm Happy_
"I'm In The Mood" The Chesterfield Kings _Drunk On Muddy Water_

"Country Girl" The Jacobites _When The Rain Comes_
"Lyke Wake Dirge" Pentangle _Gather In The Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground (1968-1974)_
"Mama Told Me (Not To Come)" Three Dog Night _It Ain't Easy_
"Streets Of Calcutta" Ananda Shankar _Look Into The Flower (Trip On Psychedelic Grooves With Blue Note)_

"We Want Easy" Easy-E _The NWA Legacy_

Garry

For the past several weeks, I've been running a stupid series on Saturdays that I was calling "The Gary Files," in which I featured a different famous Gary, since the name is going extinct.  In fact, I did one for Garry Shandling, which you can read here.

In many ways, I had very little to say about these other Garys, & a lot of the time, I tried to be funny rather than attempt something substantive, since I mostly copied info from their Wikipedia page.  Funny was attempted with the Garry Shandling entry, in which I pretended to have an argument about whether the names Gary & Garry were the same or different.

But in that entry, I did say he was a genius.  & I believe it.  He was an amazing stand-up, & when I was a kid, I liked it when he hosted The Tonight Show.  I confess I wasn't able to appreciate It's Garry Shandling's Show when it was on - I was too young, there were too many levels of comedy going on.  But when I saw The Larry Sanders Show, oh shit.

The first episode I saw was the one in which Elvis Costello is on & trashes the green room because Larry Sanders talks during his musical performance.  I watched it because I am a big Elvis Costello nerd - but I ended up liking the show in its entirety - I even think I thought Costello's performance was the least interesting thing on the show!

Somehow - I didn't have HBO at the time - I managed to acquire several episodes of the show.  I consumed them.  I talked the show up to friends, made them watch them.  & I evangelized up till this very day.

Also I followed Shandling on Twitter, & Bill Maher this week showed clips from his many appearances on Real Time, which I saw.  I watched all the extra interviews he did for the first DVD reissue of Larry Sanders.  I loved it when he hosted the Emmys.  I was a fan.  I was an admirer.  I kind of worshipped the guy.

As you know, he died this past week, at the age of 66.  It is so sad, so tragic on many levels.  66 is too young, & I like to believe he had some other greatness he was preparing to unleash on the world.

This is my way of saying, you know what?  With one less Gary in the world (this one spelled Garry), I think I'm going to retire my Gary files.  It might not have been much fun to read, but it'll certainly be less fun for me to do it.

Goodbye, Garry Shandling.  Thank you for being so smart & funny.  I'm going to pretend for the rest of my life that I was named after you.

Self Help Radio 032216: Slow Down

(Original image here.)

Self Help Radio this week is showing its age.  Yes, at an elderly thirteen years old, it has taken to grumpily mounting a rocking chair on the front porch, a wine cooler in one hand, the other hand balled up into a fist, ready to hurl invectives at cars going even one half-mile over the speed limit on the road in front of its house.

But it isn't just speedy drivers that has irked this show.  No, it's the fast pace of the modern world - its internet, its power lunches, its frantic afternoons at the gym fast-forwarding through streaming media on smart phones - that has gotten the show's dander up.  Didn't know a radio show could have dander?  You learn something new every day!

The result is this week's episode: slow down!  An imperative sentence said again & again & again with the hopes that, maybe, just maybe, someone out there could slow down a tiny bit.  Slow down & see the world at its regular speed.  Fall back into the regular vibrations.

Once the show was over, of course, everything would naturally accelerate again.

You can relive the futile attempt to slow things down whenever you have a space two hours at the Self Help Radio website.  To slow you down, a password & username will be required.  That information is on the front page.  The show is in two leisurely parts.  The songs played are below.

Self Help Radio will now be going down slow.

(part one)

"Slow Down" Anita O'Day _The Complete Anita O'Day Verve/Clef Sessions_

"Slow Down Baby (Russell Jacquet, vocals)" Illinois Jacquet _The Chronological Classics: Illinois Jacquet 1947-1950_

"Slow Down" Lou Mac _Rockin' At Midnight At The Parrot Club_

"Slow Down" Larry Williams _Loud, Fast, & Out Of Control: The Wild Sounds Of 50s Rock_

"Slow Down" The Cochran Brothers _Eddie & Hank: The Cochran Brothers_

"Slow Down Sandy" Eddie Quinteros _Rockin' On Broadway: The Time/Brent/Shad Story_

"Slow Down" Gus Jenkins & Orchestra _Jericho Alley Blues Flash! Blues In Los Angeles 1956 - 1959_

"Slow Down Brother" Ferlin Huskey & His Hush Puppies _Out & Out Rockabilly_

"Slow Down Heart" The Temptations _Emperors Of Soul_

"Slow Down" Tammi Terrell _The Essential Collection_

"The Merry-Go-Round Is Slowin' You Down" The Surprise Package _The Other Me 7"_

"Slow Down" Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge _Breakaway_

"Slow Down" Taboo _Violators: The No Future Years_

"Slow Down" Maduu _Bombay Beats, Vol. 1_

(part two)

"Slow Down" The Feelies _The Good Earth_

"Slow Things Down" The Soup Dragons _Hang-Ten!_

"Slow Down" Blur _Leisure_

"Slow Down" Dump _I Can Hear Music_

"Hold On, Slow Down" Earlimart _Treble & Tremble_

"Slow Down" The Jordans _Katydid_

"Slow Me Down" Aberfeldy _Young Forever_

"How Do You Slow This Thing Down" Gothic Archies _The Tragic Treasury: Songs From A Series Of Unfortunate Events_

"Slowing Down" Blank Dogs _Under & Under_

"The Steady Slowing Down Of The Heart" Lloyd Cole _Cleaning Out The Ashtrays: Collected B-Sides & Rarities 1989-2006_

"Slowing Down the World" Savages _Adore Life_

"Slow It Down" The Frank & Walters _Greenwich Mean Time_

"Slowdown" Peter Murphy _Ninth_

Whither Slow Down?

(Image found here.)

A show about slowing down, eh? Yes!  Has the show been moving too fast?  No.  Does it seem to go by in the blink on an eye?  Heavens no!  If someone has ever been asked, "Does it seem like there's not enough Self Help Radio?" has the answer ever been "Yes!"  No, never!

Yet here we have a show about slowing down.  Well, the theme is "slow down."  Perhaps the show is being bossy.  Maybe the show thinks anyone who might be listening should slow down!  Maybe even slow the hell down!  But why would the show think that?

A related question might be: is life in Lexington - Central Kentucky - more fast-paced than any other place in the United States?  Can that be true?  Does this city deserve a radio program that's asking - or even telling - its listener to "slow down"?  Moreover, are these questions the show will answer?

Damn, there are a lot of questions here.  & they were only really answered in the first paragraph.  So.  Here's a stab at some answers for the rest: Because it thinks whatever it wants.  No, most definitely not.  No, not even in its most New Yorkish dreams.  It does not.  No.

Well!  Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, we can listen to another meaningless Self Help Radio today from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  Yes, I'll archive it later.  If you slow down too quickly to listen.

Preface To Slow Down: Wouldn't A Better Theme Be "Slowing Down"?

Ugh, everybody prefers the gerund.

Did I ever mention I took Latin in high school?  It wasn't because I was on my way to be a pretentious twat, although certainly that road was right there in front of me.  No, I did it to spite my mother & my family.

My mother, you see, is German, & all her other kids took German in high school.  The same high school I was at, actually.  The same damn German teacher, too; her name was Frau Phillips.  I had actually had Mrs. Phillips for English in the tenth grade.  When the time came to take a foreign language, though, I chose Latin.

It might have broken my mother's heart.  Or it might just have irritated her.  Or she might have thought, well, he's a smart boy, & smart people learn dead languages.  Or she didn't give a fuck.  She never said.  But the idea that I was doing something that no one else in my family had done - that I was somehow breaking with what maybe the family felt was tradition - that pleased me.

It's no surprise that my family didn't like me much when I was that age.  I assume they like me less now, but most certainly being different, when they all worked so hard to be the same, must have baffled them.  Well, if they stopped to think about it, which they didn't.  "Gary's weird," is probably as deep as that thought went.  Mostly I don't think they noticed me.

Damn it, I didn't want to start talking about my family!  I wanted instead to talk about Latin.  Latin!  I remember impressing Mrs. Phillips by using the word celerity - she didn't know that word - in a poem I wrote for her class.  "It comes from the word celer," I told her.  "Latin for 'speed.'"  Helpfully, I added, "Like in the word accelerate."

Did I say 'impress'?  She might have just thought me a pretentious twat.

Actually what I learned most about Latin - this is true - was how English works.  I knew all about nouns, verbs, pronouns, etc., mainly because of Schoolhouse Rock - but there were ways the parts of speech worked in a sentence that completely escaped me.

Latin nouns have endings depending on their use - they call them "declensions."  I learned about indirect objects, objects of prepositions, etc.  & of course Latin verbs conjugate much more regularly than English verbs.  Putting a Latin sentence together was kind of a puzzle, the rules of which were laid out before you if you took the time to know them.

In English class, I had struggled with the idea of the passive voice.  In Latin, it made sense because the pieces of the puzzle had to fit a certain way to make the sentence do what it needs to do to be correct.

The fact is, I learned more about English from studying Latin than I learned in English class.

Also, I almost got beat up in Latin class for saying I thought Eddie Van Halen looked "a little gay" in the video for "Jump."  But that's neither here nor there.

In any event, I don't feel tied to the idea of noun forms for my show themes.  They can be short sentences, like "slow down."  I might have thought that subjects should be nouns once upon a time, but no more.

Also, I've retained virtually no Latin.  What I remember from two years taking that language is pretty much the word "celer."  Also, "agricola."  That means "farmer."  Hence, "agriculture."

Damn, I am such a pretentious twat!

2,301 Posts

Wow, I completely missed the three-thousand-three-hundredth post of this blog!  I would have missed it even more if I had spent the Sunday, as I usually do, posting the week's Cradle To Grave show.  So, hooray?

2301 posts is a lot of writing.  I guess it will soon be ten years - ten years! - that I have had this blog. & I still don't know entirely what I'm doing with it.

Using the internet randomizer tool at random dot org, I will share with you portions of four random posts from the blog's almost-ten years.  See if any of them make any damn sense:

(from post # 768, January 9, 2010: Vulgar Boysenberry):

Here then is a threshold parallelogram which we daresay may one day serve as a simulacrum of the course to steer to free you of the filthy waters & harsh desert nights of rejection & abjection. You may even consider this, due to the serious nature of our newly-crapped-out decade, first in a series:

1) Cards & letters are all but useless in moments of sheer decision. Learn adorable ways to hem & haw.
2) Do not rush romance unless you can afford generous quantities of moderately-priced & delicious alcohol.
3) If the partner says a tattoo is not necessary, this is an easy "out" & not as many presidents have told us in their State Of The Union messages a "dare."
4) Bleached teeth frighten thieves.
5) No one really carries around their money in bags with dollar signs painted in green on the side. Really? Really.
6) Hand holding may be a lost art, but do not imagine that foot-whipping nor thigh-tickling share the same room in the Mansion of Glorious Petting. They do not. They live in the Creepy Third-Floor Apartment Of Sado-Masochistic Awkwardness.
7) Let's return once again to the societal glad-handling called the "gentle reminder."
8) Love poetry? More like love pottery!
9) Tears should not be accompanied by either screaming or clawing. If you find it such, you also have an explanation as to why the local constable is asking you to put your hands behind your back.
10) Something about an omelet is both nasty & ridiculous. Be careful.

(from post #1336, January 15, 2011: Does The Cat Want Her Medicine?):

You were at that impressionable age when you thought every example was the perfect example, when you thought the types you met were the only types that existed. You'd hear snatches of conversation that made absolutely no sense so you'd twist them around in your head until they made your kind of sense. Like that man who made the comment about "the next door over, past the railroad tracks." You got it into your head that a town's limits were circumscribed by railroad tracks. You finally got brave enough to tell your observation another kid & he said scornfully, "What did they use before railroads? Moats?"

(from post # 485, May 12, 2008: From Dynamite To Los Angeles):

Suddenly I am regretting not beginning all of my blog entries with a salutation. What a dreadful miscalculation! Now my blog has no personality! It's just like me!

(from post # 2205, November 9, 2015: Preface To Turtles: The Hunt For Turtle Songs):

Of course a radio show that's all instrumental is fine.  I have programmed electronic & jazz & surf shows which featured predominantly non-vocal music.  But something about Self Help Radio makes me want to make sure that the songs at the very least mention the theme, or something relating to the theme. 

I know one thing I can glean from this: the show's blog has become less interesting as time has gone by.  That's a shame.  Well.  Probably nothing I can do about that!  Happy anniversary!

The Gary Files # 25: Gary Grimes

(I found this image here.)

An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself.  This is the twenty-fifh of a series!

Gary Grimes is, according to the Wikipedia, "a former American actor."

What does that mean, "former"?  It means he acted for a time, & left the business.

Would I know him from anything? He appeared in a handful of television shows, & only six motion pictures.  They were: Summer Of '42 (1972), The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), Class Of '44 (1973), Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973), The Spikes Gang (1974), & Gus (1976).

Then he just quit?  Apparently so.

Was it because of drugs or something like that?  Did he go insane?  Not at all.  According to an interview he did in 2011, he said, "I got to the point where the work wasn't up to the quality that I wanted."

Were you familiar with his work?  Not a lot.  I mainly know about him as the guy who walked away.  Not a lot of folks leave a life of stardom behind.

Even if he might not have been a big star?  It seems to me that there are people in the industry that hold on to the smallest amount of fame & milk it for whatever they can get.  I kind of feel like most television I watched in the 1970s was filled with "stars" desperate to extend their fifteen minutes.

Did you know there was another Gary Grimes who was somewhat famous?  There was?  Who?

This guy.  Freaky.  That's a crazy thing to me, to build a career essentially performing as another musician, & one that's still alive.  The really Paul McCartney outlived his fake twin.

Apparently both of them were really named Gary.  The living Gary Grimes is probably sad to see the name go.  Plus!

What?  His name is alliterative!  That's too cool.

Self Help Radio 031516: Connections

(I have no idea what this image is supposed to mean except it's called "connections" & the original version of it is here.)

During Spring Break, when students go home or go to Austin for SXSW or go to the beach or just plain go, campus is pretty deserted, as is the radio station, & I assume, with forty thousand or so people no longer in the city, so is the listenership of WRFL.  It's of course at that point that Self Help Radio decides to make a radio show about connections.  Connecting with people, connecting things, managing things that connect us (like telephones).  All when there's less of a chance for people to be listening than usual.  Timing!  One day the show will master it!

Luckily you can now connect with the show anytime at the Self Help Radio website, which itself is someplace where connections are made.  The show is in two parts, & what songs I play in the two parts are below.  What's not below is that I talked to a person who makes connections, to the inventor of the "loose connections" section of the classifieds, & to my spiritual mentor the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently.  But that happened too!

Thanks for trying to connect.  I find I try less & less as I get older & older.

(part one)

"Connection" The Rolling Stones _Between The Buttons_
"Connection" Can _Unlimited Edition_
"Connection" The Brunettes _Paper Dolls_

"Connection" Elastica _Elastica_
"Connection" King Tuff _Was Dead_
"Connection" Call & Response _Tiger Teeth_
"Connections" Smog _Julius Caesar_

"Super-Connected" Belly _King_
"Get Connected" The Jessica Fletchers _Less Sophistication_
"The Connector" The Futureheads _The Chaos_
"The Connection Man" Ty Segall _Manipulator_

"Loose Connections" Channel Light Vessel _Excellent Spirits_
"Bad Connection" Tullycraft _Lost In Light Rotation 7"_

(part two)

"Bad Connection" The Square Peg _Kilt By Death: The Sound Of Old Scotland_
"Making Connections" The Saps _C'mon Already, Start A Fire_
"The Farm Yard Connection" Fun Boy Three _Waiting_

"The Rainbow Connection" Majestic _Just For A Day_
"Love Connection" Annette Snell _Southern Grooves_
"Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love?)" Bob Dylan _Empire Burlesque_

"Me! I Disconnect From You" Tubeway Army _Replicas_
"Disconnected" The Creatures _Anima Animus_
"Disconnect" Plastikman _Closer_
"Disconnected" Beat Union _Disconnected_

"Mothership Connection (Star Child)" Parliament _Mothership Connection_
"Only Connect" Harper Lee _Go Back To Bed_

Whither Connections?

(I found this image here.)

As someone who's spent an entire life having difficulty making connections with people, I am the last person on earth to pretend to be an expert about connections.  I'm not even an expert about the television series Connections, which I've never watched, or I should say, I watched a couple of episodes, & found the connections the host made a little strained.

Indeed, I know so little about connecting with other human beings that I doubt it's even some kind of therapy to do a show about connections - a chance for me to learn more about connecting with others.  Because, seriously, if I haven't learned basic human interaction at this point in my life - way past its halfway mark, almost certainly - then what are a few songs going to teach me?

But you might find something helpful!  So have a listen today from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington, &/or online at wrfl dot fm.  Who knows?  Maybe we'll make a connection ourselves!

Okay, probably not.

Preface To Connections: Missed Connections

Spoiler alert: one of the fake interviews I'll be doing tomorrow involves that section of the old classifieds (which one can now find on Craigslist) called "Missed Connections."

Did you ever peruse this section of the paper?  I never did - like Morrissey, "having learned my lesson, I never left an impression on anyone"* - but I remember working for a time in a hip video store in Austin, & the hip boys who worked there often read that section every week to see if they got any shout outs.  (If that's what you call a mention in a "missed connections" column.)  They struck pay dirt once (maybe more than once, but only once when I was there), & the "missed connection" co-worker went through a bunch of customers' accounts to see if he could figure out who had placed the ad.  As far as I know, nothing came of it - the people there made very little money, & certainly not enough to respond to an ad in the classifieds!

(Is it me or has that section always leaned heavily on men looking for whatever?  Even in the Craigslist link it skews heavily toward dudes.  I guess men are still more aggressive in our society.)

My favorite section of those kind of classifieds was the "Variations" section.  Not because I was ever into that sort of thing, but because when I used to do long, long fills on KVRX back in the 1990s - I'd be on the radio from midnight to 9am sometimes - I would often run out of things to say during airbreaks, & would also be delirious from lack of sleep, & one thing that would focus me was reading the Variations column from The Austin Chronicle  to weirdos who might be listening late at night or very early in the morning.

Luckily no one ever got mad at me for reading their ads!

& probably no one ever had a Missed Connection that began: "You: very tired, on the radio, trying to figure out what BDSM means..."

* After I wrote this, someone on Facebook noted that today was the 28th anniversary of Viva Hate, the record from which the song I'm quoting comes.  I'd like to believe Morrissey was working his magic through me on this special anniversary.