Preface To Knives: Three Short Knife Anecdotes

# 1

My mother worked at a convenience store in Garland, Texas, from the mid- to late-1970s.  Because Garland was "dry" - you couldn't buy any kind of alcohol in the city, you had to drive to Dallas to get your beer, wine, or booze - the convenience store made its money with pornography, which was kept on a magazine stand in view of everyone, though on the top racks, away from tiny hands, & with mildly expensive items in a glass case along the front counter like bongs, cheap jewelry, & knives.  Lots of knives.

Not cutlery, of course, but small hunting knives, jack knives, switchblades, so-called "butterfly knives," stuff like that.  I remember they went for prices like 10.95 on tiny handwritten tags connected to the knives by little loops of white thread.  At the time, it seems, all different kinds of blades were so popular that my older brothers - who were about as dangerous as the gang members in West Side Story, although less likely to break into song - carried knives in their pockets.

When I was allowed to rummage through that cabinet, I went to one particular knife, a special switchblade.  I would open it again & again.  But there was no knife in it!  There was a comb!  I would've like to have carried that knife in my back pocket!

# 2

At some point in my childhood I, like many other boys, was given a Swiss Army Knife.  I almost never used it - in particular, I wondered at the corkscrew.  Maybe when the Swiss Army Knife was invented, there were adolescents who might need to unscrew the cork from some bottle or other, but by the time I had gotten one, the only use for a corkscrew would've been a wine bottle.  & frankly I couldn't see the situation where adults needing to open a bottle of chablis but unable to would turn to the dumb little kid & the room & say, "You!  Can you help us?!"

No, the main thing I did with my Swiss Army Knife was open up, in as many ways as possible, all of its components: all the blades, the little scissors, the phillips-head screwdriver, the nail file, the corkscrew.  I liked the contrast between the little red oval of potential & the spazzy result of all its parts out, uselessly, for the world to see.

I understand that children were not the intended customers for the Swiss Army Knife, but I never, never saw an adult with one as a child.  They were generally given to children.  & as a child, I thought the thing was supposed to be a toy.

# 3

I'm a middle-aged man now, although I think I'm probably way past the mid-point of my life, & one of the things I've come to enjoy as I get older is cooking.  I doubt I'm very good at it, but it makes the wife happy & I have come to an understanding with food that lets us both do our jobs without too much time wasted & too much misery & injury.

Except of course you need knives for food preparation.  & I can count the number of times I've cut myself while chopping things many times over on the fingers I am very fortunate I still have, despite my clumsiest efforts.

In fact, I keep a first-aid kit in the kitchen now, because I will bleed like a motherfucker when I cut myself.  My ritual behavior is to first be shocked coupled with self-loathing & anger when it happens, followed by the inevitable holding of a paper towel on the affected area (usually a finger) for a number of minutes to stop the bleeding all the while cursing myself for a fool, & then, once the bleeding seems in control, the dipping of the finger in alcohol or hydrogen peroxide & the delicious sting that comes along, & finally the application of the band-aid.

Here's a confession: I am very queasy when my blood is taken at the doctor.  I sometimes come close to passing out.  But I have no qualms about a bleeding finger the tip of which I've inadvertently sliced off instead of part of a bell pepper.  It doesn't faze me.

Here's another confession: while I won't say I like it, that it tastes good or anything, I do like to taste my own blood at those times.  I'm glad I know how my blood tastes.  I don't know why that is.

This Week's Show Is About Knives

Here's a picture I found on Tumblr with some passing familiarity to the theme:

Would that it were true!

Self Help Radio 083116: Lakes

(Original image here.)

Seriously I am trying to remember the last time I was at a lake.  I know I've driven by a dozen lakes in the past year - you have to cross a lake to get into the Dallas area from the East on I-30.  There's also a super cool lake you drive over somewhere in Tennessee, if I am remembering correctly, between Nashville & Memphis.  I know!  Sometime in the past year, when visiting Dallas, we spent time at White Rock Lake, walking the dogs down there!  It wasn't quite the same lake visit that others have, but it was "time at the lake."

Meanwhile, I tried to bring Texas Lake Culture (tm) (as if that's a thing that's different elsewhere) to Kentucky with the first Self Help Radio on WLXU.  While I remain grateful for the opportunity to do
the show, I am still a bit ambivalent about two things: 1) doing a show so far away on a station in another city that celebrates "local" programming; & b) doing a prerecorded show that's actually airing & not downloadable as a podcast.  I am certain I can get over both these things, but I will understand completely if someone notices that SHR isn't local & wants to do another show at that time.  Completely totally understand.

Meanwhile, if you missed it, or miss the lake, or for any reason really, this week's Self Help Radio is now available at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts, there's a password, yadda yadda yoda.  The songs I played are listed below.  The interviews - there are four of them! - are not.  There!  Some enticement for ya!

(part one)

"Year Of The Lake" The Smittens _Believe Me_
"Lake Como" Celestial _Dream On_
"The Sand That Holds The Lakes In Place (Lake)" His Name Is Alive _Stars On ESP_

"Loch Ness Monster" King Horror _Wavy Gravy_
"Claramount Lake" Tomorrow _Tomorrow_
"The Lake" Laurie Anderson _Homeland_

"Lake Lagoon" Jandek _Graven Image_
"Lake Of Fire" Meat Puppets _Meat Puppets II_
"Back To The Lake" Guided By Voices _Universal Truths & Cycles_
"The Deepest Lake On The Planet" Dengue Fever _The Deepest Lake_

"The Lake Isle Of Innisfree" The Waterboys _An Appointment With Mr. Yeats_

(part two)

"Indian Lake" The Cowsills _Captain Sad & His Ship Of Fools_
"Lake House" Vivian Girls _Share The Joy_
"Chandelier Lake" Tilly & The Wall _O_

"Deep Forbidden Lake" Neil Young _Decade_
"The Bottomless Lake" John Prine _Aimless Love_
"Lake Wasood" Michael Showalter _Sandwiches & Cats_
"Lake Front" Belmondo _Lake Front 7"_

"The Truth About Lake Ronkonkama" My Favorite _Love At Absolute Zero_
"Lakeside View Apartments Suite" The Mountain Goats _Transcendental Youth_
"Great Five Lakes (Cornelius remix)" Buffalo Daughter _CM - Cornelius Remixes_

"Lake Song" The Decemberists _What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World_
"We Live By The Lake" Fanfarlo _Fire Escape_

Whither Lakes?

(This image from a Youtube video about the deepest lakes in the world.)

Why do a radio show about lakes?  Is it because I have recently traveled from a state that has fewer lakes to one than has more?  Or the opposite?  Does Kentucky have more or less lakes than Texas?

Certainly that seems a trick questions.  Texas is over six times larger than Kentucky.  You can drive from Ashland, at Kentucky's northeast tip, to Paducah, at its southwest tip, in under seven hours.  That's around 378 miles.  To get from Texarkana to El Paso (814 miles) takes half a day.  More telling, you can travel from Bowling Green in the south to Covington in the north in only three hours or so (218 miles); to travel from Brownsville, Texas, at the state's southern tip, to Amarillo, Texas, in the Panhandle (777 miles) takes another half a day - & that's not even the northernmost part of the state!

The lesson is clear: it takes a hell of a lot longer to get out of Texas than it does to get out of Kentucky.

What that has to do with lakes is this: Texas could have more lakes than Kentucky just because it's so big.  But I checked this website, which calculates what percentage of the state's area is water, & it's interesting: Kentucky is 2.3% water, while Texas is just 2.7%.  So maybe not much of a difference in lakes, after all.  (The page lets us know that the United States is 7% water.  I feel that should be more.  Don't you?)

In any event, I can safely say that the number of lakes in Texas vs the number of lakes in Kentucky had nothing to do with why the show today is about lakes.  I thought about doing a show about lakes one day while listening to Dengue Fever's last album, which is called "The Deepest Lake."  From tiny acorns of inspiration do such big radio shows grow.

& of course, the show will air tonight!  Oh my golly!  On 93.9 fm WXLU in Lexington, & online at lexingtoncommunityradio.org (please choose the WXLU side)!  That's from 9-11pm Kentucky time & 8-10pm Texas time, & other times depending on where you are & how you got there.  The show will technically air later there than here, which is a trip.

Maybe you'll be listening along with me!

Preface To Lakes: Well? Will It Be On The Radio Or Not?

(This is a lake I live near these days.  I found this image here.)

To answer my own question, yes, I think the show will air tomorrow night on 93.9 fm WLXU Lexington, & online simultaneously at Lexington Community Radio dot org (just choose WXLU).  I put the show together today & delivered it to the powers-that-be in Lexington.  I imagine I could easily have done something wrong, so never discount user error when it comes to me.

It's very strange to have finished a radio show more than a day before it airs.  I much prefer to put the show together in real time.  I miss it, & hope I'll get to do that again soon.  But for now: tomorrow night there's a new Self Help Radio airing in Lexington & all over the internets.  & I'll be around to live stream it on Twitter!

It's been a long day.  I need to sleep now.

Oh What A Mess I Am

It might not seem so, but there's a lot of work that goes into an episode of Self Help Radio.  Not to be whiny about it, but it does take some time, & I have been waylaid by the deadline of the Wednesday show which - I believe - is tomorrow.

Tomorrow!  I am woefully unprepared!

In fact, there's a good chance that I might not be able to premiere (or re-premiere) on WLXU this Wednesday.  If so, I'll put the show up - it's prerecorded no matter what - on Friday.  I hope it doesn't come to that.  I'm going to be working as hard as I can to get it done.

By the way, this is me lowering expectations.  I shouldn't have to - certainly expectations of me are as low as is pretend polite - but I received some nice responses to my announcement yesterday that, even if they were sweetly faked sentiments, it seems to me I should be responsive to them.  & so.

Self Help Radio may or may not be on on WLXU on Wednesday! I will do all in my power to make sure it is! But my power is hardly ever enough! This is my admonishment!

You Can Take The Show Out Of Kentucky... Or Can You?

(Oh, you know about this place!)

Stranger & strangerer is the life of Self Help Radio.

Some things are certain:

1. I no longer live in Kentucky.
2. In fact, I live in Fort Worth, Texas.
3. Self Help Radio has yet to find a radio home here.
4. That doesn't matter, I'll do it anyway, & just post it online.
5. Meanwhile, back in Lexington.
6. The people I knew in radio in Kentucky were the coolest people in the world.
7. WLXU has offered Self Help Radio a spot from far away.
8. So Self Help Radio is returning to the Kentucky airways.

Yeah, I know.  The marvelous folks at WLXU, which is one-half of the Lexington Community Radio stations at which I did Cradle To Grave for about half a year, have said they'll air Self Help Radio (pre-recorded, of course) starting (I hope) next week.  Next Wednesday in fact.  From 9-11pm EST.

(My brain needs to translate: that's 8-10pm CST.)

Much gratitude to the station & especially station manager Chuck Clenney for this opportunity.  If you enjoyed listening when the show was on WRFL, maybe it'll be as much fun on WLXU.  Folks keep asking me if the show is "syndicated," which is silly - of course not!  It's airing exclusively on WLXU.  For now.  When I find a home here, I'll do it here, although that may not preclude me doing it back there.  Or a different show.  Or something.

So. Ain't that a kick in the head?!?

Self Help Radio 082616: Indiepop A To Z # 51`

(Images of some of the records heard on today's show, taken from discogs.com.)

Ha ha!  A show on time!  I might get the hang of this, eventually (although yes I am still courting radio stations these things take time!).  This week's show continues the Indiepop A To Z series, from within the letter L: Lin to Lou.

One thing that should be said about this process is that it takes a lot of time & I listen to far more records than make it onto the series.  I probably forget a bunch as well, but I shouldn't say that.  Let's forget I said that.

Artists from the UK, the US, Sweden, France, Norway, New Zealand, & more appear on today's show.  As such, it's the equivalent of a small vacation in your head.  I hope you enjoy it.

The show is available now at Self Help Radio website page & the instructions for downloading (you need a password & username) are in the text at the top of the page.  The songs I play - although not what I say about the songs I play - are listed below.

(part one)

"Nerve Pylon" The Lines _Scared To Get Happy: The Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"Supercheri" Lina _Redevenir Modeste_
"Happy New Year" Lasse Lindh _The Sound Of Young Sweden, Vol. 2_

"When I Get To California" Linus Of Hollywood _Your Favorite Record_
"This Scene Is Happening" Liquid Faeries _La-Di-Da...  So Far..._
"Team Player" Liquorice _Listening Cap_
"The English Softhearts" Literature _Chorus_
"Happiest Times" Little Big Adventure _The Hateful Eye EP_

"Ruining Things Like Everything" Little My _Little My's Sixth_
"Nobody Loves You" Little Name _How To Swim & Live_
"Happy" Little Red Schoolhouse _When I Find You_
"In The Morning" Lizard Kisses _In The Morning_
"Something Nice" Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons _Something Nice_

"Busman's Holiday" The Loch Ness Mouse _Busman's Holiday_
"Kicking Sand" The Lodger _Grown-Ups_

(part two)

"Up The Hill & Down The Slope" The Loft _Creation Soup, Vol. 2_
"Press Play & Record" Lois _Press Play & Record_
"Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl" Loney, Dear _Citadel Band_

"Small Talk" Claudine Longet _Love Is Blue_
"Cactus Cat" Look Blue Go Purple _LBGPEP2_
"Mirror Man" The Looking Glass _Dreamworld, 1985-1987_
"Never Understand" Loons _Dim Movies_
"On The Flipside" Looper _The Geometrid_

"Stop What You're Doing" Lorelei _Why Popstars Can't Dance_
"Brooklyn Bound" The Lorimer Sound _Green Streets_
"Why Can't You Be Yourself For A Change?" The Losers _Dalmatian Generation_
"Dock Ellis" Lotion _Full Isaac_
"German Girl" Lotus Eaters _No Sense Of Sin_

"Falling" Lotus Eaters _Falling_
"Inverness" The Loud Family _Plants & Birds & Rocks & Things

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 51?

Ho ho, I bet you didn't think I could finish this week's show on time, but I have n't.  But that's because it's not time!  I have until noon tomorrow!  & I'll be finished with it then!  I hope.

No one's really ever asked me about my fascination with indiepop, & where it began, & why I would want to do a never-ending series about it.  I'm not sure if I could answer satisfactorily if someone did.  Certainly my obsession with alphabetization & with order have something to do with it, but I could easily have done a "postpunk a to z" or a "garage a to z."  Why indiepop?

It probably had something to do with a show on KOOP radio called "Ear Candy."  It began when I was at KVRX under a person named Tina whom I met only once or twice, but when the two Jennifers took over, it was, for many years, the best thing on a station full of great radio shows.  When I became involved at KOOP, I would often sub the show, doing a shabby job no doubt, but generally being nice enough to the women in charge that they let me help out from time-to-time.

But before I knew what "indiepop" was, I did like a lot of twee, naïve music, especially Jonathan Richman.  Friends who knew me for years as a fan of the Smiths, Joy Division, Leonard Cohen, etc., thought I had gone crazy when I fell for Jonathan Richman.  Because every angsty teen appreciates the first Modern Lovers record, but not too many people can stomach the eight-minute-long version of "Ice Cream Man."

Indiepop was a world with beautiful melodies but often rather dark lyrics.  A sprightly song might have some depressing undertones.  One friend of mine, who doesn't care much for lyrics, thinks the music is too happy.  He once asked me, "Is that all you listen to now, upbeat music?"  & trying to explain that to someone who can't hear what I hear is like trying to describe color to the blind.

What strikes me most about this experiment is how good the music is.  I'm sure there are some terrible indiepop bands - I mean, if I reject a band for the series, I must not think they're very good - but the ones that make the cut have an excellence that belies their overtly simple trappings.  I hope tomorrow's show demonstrates that.  I hope all the shows in the series do!

Another entity to give thanks to is Napster.  For the few years (or was it months?) that it existed, it enabled me to sample other people's music libraries, including tunes unavailable - or expensive & rare - in the United States.  Indiepop is an international phenomenon, but its roots are in the UK.  People shared stuff way out of print, & I gobbled it up greedily.  Though ethically dubious, it was a grand time for people like me who otherwise wouldn't have known so much existed.

Well, the two Jennifers knew.  & I took notes when I listened to their show.  & some of those notes, I hope, are what I'm reading off of when I do the Indiepop A To Z show, although one time one of those Jennifers, when I was doing the show with her on Ear Candy, said, "Ugh! This will never end!"

She was right, but, like Edwyn Collins said, just like the Four Tops, I can't help myself.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 51: Who's Counting?

I'm so embarrassed, I didn't remember which number of the Indiepop A To Z series I was on when I mentioned it on the show last week.  I remembered the letter L.  But I said it was like number 53 or something; the last show I did in the series was the eventful number fifty!  I should remember such things.

But unfortunately, I don't.  People who are being politely curious about the show will often ask me, once I've told them it's theme-based, "Oh?  What was your last show about?"  & I can't remember.  Standing there like a fool, I will wrack my brains, I will mentally try to walk back through time, even try to recall where I stood or what I was doing to bring songs to mind, but it's useless.  My brain dumps that information very soon after the show, because it knows there's another show I need to start working in.  It's one of the reasons I need the check if I've covered a theme before - I will never remember if I have.

This is so incredibly self-indulgent.  I'm so deeply uninterested with myself, which makes me feel bad as the son of a narcissist.  Speaking of dear old Mom: she lives less than an hour away now, & I have to adjust my memories of returning to Dallas from Austin.  We visited her Sunday & I was shocked when we got to the I-30/35 interchange (from a different direction, but you know what I mean) & so little driving time had passed.  I had purchased two newish stand-up albums, one each by Emily Heller &  Hari Kondabolu - & both are excellent - but the ride to Dallas was longer than the albums.

There's another reason for this: we need to update our GPS.  The highways around here have changed so much - mainly because there are so many toll roads up here - hooray for the Libertarian spirit of Texas! - that we can be driving along & suddenly our GPS will shout "Route recalculation!"  At times like that, the wife would turn the CD off - or worse, turn it down - usually during a punchline - to figure out where the hell we were supposed to go.

Seriously, though, toll roads.  Beautiful new toll roads.  Named after presidents named Bush, who were against, you know, taxes & shit.  Lots of toll roads.  & if you use them, they'll mail you the bills.  Best to avoid them until I understand exactly what that's all about.  Texans are funny.  They'll accept being taxed to death in dribs & drabs but suggest a state income tax & they go all Yosemite Sam on you.

I have nothing else to say right now.  But those two comedy CDs are aces.  Emily Heller &  Hari Kondabolu.  Awesome stuff.

Fort Worth Stories No. 1

(Image from Google Maps.)

Honestly I have no idea if anyone who reads this blog cares about where the host of Self Help Radio lives or what he does or anything about his life - hell, even about the show! - but in case someone does, here's the first of some stories about living in the city known as "Cowtown" & also "Dallas' Sullen Younger Brother."

My family is living in a small house in a cool section of town that, I discovered as movers were carrying boxes of our things into the house the evening we arrived, is near a massive railyard.  It is in fact the Union Pacific Davidson Yard, & it's just south of us.  You can see it on the map above, where an inch is about a thousand feet (once you click on the image).  Not only that!  Look!  Someone filmed it for YouTube!



While you can hear a lot of noises in that video - including air on the microphone, train bells, & someone making a farty sound - one thing you can't hear is the one sound I hear all the damn time.  It is the sound of trains braking.  It's a constant sound - I can hear it in the quiet of this house as I am typing this - a constant, eerie noise that would give Brian Eno an erection & would make John Carpenter incorporate it into one of his soundtracks.

Everyone tells me that, living here, one learns to ignore it - it becomes the background to one's life here - but every new train braking - would someone give them some oil or something to maybe make their stoppings smoother? - is like a new slow scratch down the chalkboard of this environment.  It's not in itself unpleasant - it's just a more drawn-out sound than the shorter, more immediate sound of a car screeching to a halt - but it is uncommonly creepy in its unpredictable length, in the volume one whine differs from another.  Were Franz Kafka renting a room around here, he would have written a story that began, "Josef K woke that morning, as usual, to the sound of trains slowing on their tracks with a ghostlike cry.  But today was the day he truly listened to it."

In the right conditions, that uncanny scraping sound could be the background music to an unsettling David Lynch scene.  & oh shit!  It's the sort of thing that sets off the presumed normal Stephen King character!  Eventually no one hears it - but the protagonist.  Does it turn her into a killer, or is it affecting everyone else subconsciously?  I don't know!

We've lived here almost three weeks now & that noise sings slow, monotonous lullabies to me as I fall asleep, & that noise occasionally wakes me in the middle of the night.  Worse, that noise follows me into my dreams - recently I dreamt there was a person learning how to play a weird pipe-like instrument, & the noise coming out was...  Trains squealing to a halt just a few hundred yards away from me.

But don't worry!  I am not tortured by it.  I am just aware of the possibility of being tortured by it.  I am sufficiently convinced that I'm not trapped in a Stephen King story or a David Lynch film.  & we are looking for homes in other neighborhoods than this.

However.  The longer I live here...  Who knows when I will start hearing voices in that ubiquitous disquiet?

Bringing Weather Along

At some point, she thought, the weather was all they had in common.

So, because she loved him, she began bringing it along.  Little cloudy days stuffed into small notebooks, or a rainbow in the sunshine fancily placed in a little box as a surprise present.  That one cold day in September, when it's not supposed to be too cold, saved like a postcard in a memory book, or that strange warm day in the middle of the winter, that would melt snow if there were snow, scribbled like an afterthought on a scrap of note paper.

Eventually she began leaving the weather at his place.  It began absent-mindedly, a small drawing of a crisp autumn dusk forgotten on the coffee table, & an envelope of spring rain that fell behind the sofa when the cat jostled it, walking by.

At some point, she began to wonder where all the weather went.

Her mother, in the weekly phone call, found it impertinent that she couldn't talk about such a simple subject.  Yet she would look around helplessly when asked, "What's the weather like there, dear?."  I was like someone had misplaced her perceptions.

Once she was with him, it was, of course, all they talked about, & their discussions began to take on giant proportions: a night comparing a century of hurricanes that was the closest to passion they'd had in years; an evening drinking hot beverages & slowly trudging through Ice Ages.  His eyes flashed like lightning & she thought he was falling in love with her again.

At home, looking out of her bedroom window, the world looked empty & dull.  She knew, this was not what he was seeing.  When she looked out his window, it was like she was looking at a meteorologist's map, it's lines, arrows, & numbers a magnificent language she felt fluent in.

Surely she had to get the weather back!  But how?

He noticed parts of it missing as soon as she started to steal bits of it away.  Truthfully, she wasn't subtle at all - the first thing she fled home with were those two perfect weeks of spring that anyone would miss.  So he told her to stop taking his weather, or visit him no more.  In his mind, the weather had always been his; he had no idea how much of it she had brought, over the course of the past year, to a home mostly filled with beer commercials & sports on the television.

She tried to explain to him that no-one owned the weather, & then promised sweetly to return all that she had taken some day.  She simply wanted to check some of it out, like library books.  His covetousness, his jealous anger, frightened her.  He roared like thunder at her, & the only thing she managed to leave with, that last day, was a fog she found herself in.

But she was right: no-one owned the weather.  & one morning a stray raindrop found its way into her eye & acted like a kind of prism to break up her weatherless world with desultory storm clouds & a furtive sun peeping behind them.  She began to feel the wind again.  She couldn't believe she had forgotten things as simple as humidity or hail.  She greedily took even the hottest days, the gloomiest nights of rain, until she had filled her house like a hoarder with all types of weather.

& she missed him no more.  But she wondered, was there enough weather for everyone?

Self Help Radio 082016: A Distant Show

(Original image here.)

Oh man.  What an almost-complete disaster this show has been!  Not only was it ill-timed - I was nowhere near ready enough to put a show together after just being a new town for two weeks! - but I promised to have it done at noon Friday & as I write this it is after 2pm Saturday.  During the recording of the airbreaks - which I did after listening to each set of songs, simulating the radio experience - I forgot to save a couple of them, which means I had to re-record them, so the show will probably sound even more out of joint.  & then!  As I was putting the show onto my website, I noticed: I've already done a show about distance.  It's been six years, but I do play a lot of the same songs.  It's a bit embarrassing.

Because I know my memory will fail me more & more as older I grow.  I do.  I created that page, in fact, to help me make sure I don't duplicate themes. But what good is a resource like that if I don't check it now & again?  Good grief.

But hey!  Here's the first Self Help Radio from Fort Worth, Texas.  Available now & anytime at the Self Help Radio web site.  Remember this: username = SHR | password = selfhelp .  & though there's a list of songs below, there's also interviews with a writer named David Fruchter & with my spiritual advisor the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently, & a report on podcast rules in Fort Worth by Marge Most.  & two distinct airbreaks completely out of joint!

Still, I hope you listen.

(part one)

"Distance" The Kit Kats _Distance_
"Distance" Acid Drops _Messthetics # 101_
"Distance" Beach Fossils _Face It + Distance EP_

"Distant Drums" Roy Orbison _The Monument Singles Collection (1960-1964)_
"The Distant Man" All Cats Are Grey _Chance_
"Distant Creatures" The Daysleepers _Drowned In A Sea Of Sound_
"Distant Thunder" Heidi Berry _Heidi Berry_

"Respectable Distance Away" R. Dean Taylor _Motown Unreleased 1963_
"Lurking With A Distance" The Embassy _Tacking_
"Glutton For Distance" The Worriers _Imaginary Life_
"No Distance Left To Run" Blur _13_

"Distant Stations" The Mountain Goats _All Hail West Texas_
"Distant Station" Mixel Pixel _Let's Be Friends_

(part two)

"Distance" Editors _The Back Room_
"Distance" Makthaverskan _II_
"Distance" Glowfriends _A Farewell To Fair-Weather_

"Comfortable Distance" Casino Ashtrays _Just Like Me E.P._
"In A Distant Place" Poprace _Hanggliding At Sea_
"Long Distance" Go Sailor _Go Sailor_
"The Loneliness Of A Middle-Distance Runner" Belle & Sebastian _Jonathan David_
"Longitude & Latitude" Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans _Space Songs_

"Almost In Walking Distance" Shoc Corridor _Holding Treasure_
"Those Distant Lights" The One AM Radio _A Name Writ In Water_
"The Distance Between Us" Arrogants _Nobody's Cool_
"Shimmering Distant Love" Robyn Hitchcock _Eye_

"Long Distance Dedication # 1 (live)" Negativland _These Guys Are From England & Who Gives A Shit

Whither A Distant Show?

Yes, yes, finally!  Tomorrow there'll be a new Self Help Radio!  & since I've traveled some distance to get from there (which was in Kentucky) to here (which is in Texas), I thought a show about distance - whether it be miles or personal space - would be appropriate.

We're always some distance away from each other, you & I, when I do these shows, & maybe now we're even further away.  I am in fact only relatively close to my cats at the moment.  They're awful close to me.  I think perhaps I should ask them to keep their distance.  They're annoying!

Anyhow, it behooves me to get to work!  A show must be prepared before noon tomorrow.  That's another distance: time.  Sometimes I wish I could slow down the rate at which I travel that distance.  Especially if it means more sleep.  I could always use more sleep.

Yes, yes, all right.  Tomorrow.  A new Self Help Radio podcast.  This time for real.

Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So

Sigh.  I don't have my shit properly together.  (In fact, most of my CDs are still in boxes.) So I won't have a new Self Help Radio for you by noon tomorrow.  I'm sorry.  I'll definitely have it ready by noon Saturday.  I hope it remains relevant.

But!  I hope to always have new podcasts by Friday noon!  That's my weird promise to me, & by extension, you!  Tonight, though: I unload boxes & boxes of CDs.

Preface To A Distant Show: What's Going On With Your Radio Search, Gary?

(Image from Google Maps.)

First of all, I want to say that I am extremely unprepared for this week's Self Help Radio.  I haven't spent nearly enough time on it & my wife has scheduled me to take the car in for a check-up on Friday at 1pm so if I have the first new podcast up by noon that day (which is my plan) it will be because I scrambled at the last minute to get it done.  Therefore you have been notified of its almost inevitable shabbiness.

Second of all: I've met with nice people at KTCU & KFTW this week.  Here are my brief reports:

KTCU is the most immaculate college radio station I've ever been to.  (Remember, at WRFL, even guests feel obliged to leave their mark on the walls.)  The Station Manager is not a student, but a faculty member, & while I feel like we had a nice meeting, after chatting with me for an hour or so, he asked me if I had any references.  Well, I did!  I sent them to him the next day.  I liked the place & hope there might be a home there for Self Help Radio but if not I hope I can help out some.  College radio is in my blood.

The charming couple who run KFTW met me today at a local coffee jernt where I had a delicious soy latte & thrilled to hear the voice of a deejay from my youth.  The founder of the station is a giant in Metroplex radio, & it was a joy to listen to him talk.  I hope both of them liked me, but, as I suspected, since they feature one-hundred percent local music, it would be difficult to do SHR there - although the suggestion was made to "re-tool" it for the station, so not impossible - but I think I have a lot to offer anyway.  They had lots of cool ideas which we'll be exploring I hope in the weeks to come.

Interestingly, we had already sort of "met" the night before, when we passed in the neighborhood while they were walking their dog & the wife & I were walking our four.  The two girls - Pauline the beagle & Yoko the chihuahua - barked at them, for different reasons: Pauline wants to be friends, Yoko wants to be mean.  That's one of the reasons I feel Fort Worth is a small town masquerading as a big city.

As for KNON - no response yet.  But I've decided to go visit them sometime next week, like I did with KTCU, just drop in, see if there's any volunteering I can do, put an ugly face to my application.  & then, on the way home, get take-out Ethiopian from my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in the Dallas area.

There!  That's what's going on.  Are you glad I'm keeping you in the loop?

These Are Weird Things About House Hunting/House Owning

Here is a weird thing about owning a house: owning trees.  If the lot on which the house you own has trees, you are the de facto owner of the trees.  I have owned three houses now (not simultaneously) & all three have had trees.  I was the owner of trees.  Still am, I guess, since I still own a house in Lexington which is currently on the market.

Not only was am I an owner of trees, I watched a tree die.  In Austin, one of our trees died.  It died.  Trees have lifespans.  A tree I owned died.  In Lexington, a tree we owned was too close to the house, its roots possibly damaging the house's foundation, so we killed it.  Well, we didn't kill it.  We hired someone to do it.  Someone killed our tree for us.

Isn't that strange?  A human being can own a tree.  A human being can watch a tree he or she owns die helplessly.  A human being can murder a tree he or she owns.  Isn't that sad & weird & strange?

We're looking for a house to buy in Fort Worth now, & here's a weird thing about looking for a house: you get to go into houses where people still live & look around.

For example, a house we looked at yesterday had literature by the bedside from Al-Anon.  Here's what that organization does.  That seemed an awfully personal thing to discover about a stranger.  Not only that, but my wife, myself, & our realtor stayed in the house, where they had something cooking in a crock pot, for almost an hour talking about the house, sometimes saying unflattering things.  Imagine!  People coming into your home, noticing extremely intimate things from which they might draw any number of conclusions, & then being critical about it while still in your home.

That seems like a very strange way to do things.

Today we went to a house (which my wife liked very much) & asked the realtor about the previous owners, who we knew had recently died.  She quickly said to us, "They didn't die in the house!"

Neither my wife nor I are superstitious, & of course everyone has to die at some point, but it seemed something of an indignity that a deceased person must suffer (even though, of course, they can't be offended, since they're dead) if they had the bad fortune to not only die, but to die in their own home.

& if they did, the realtor's probably going to lie about anyway.

Not only that, but if the person died & there's stuff in the house, whoever's responsible for the estate - their children, or grandchildren, or bankers, or whoever - they've got to either sell or throw away that stuff.  So you're looking at all the stuff from a person's life that they quite literally couldn't take with them.

Oh, listen, I understand, there's often circumstances that make it impossible to empty a house before it's put on the market - & it's equally weird to go into those houses that are "staged" with cheap furniture & the inevitable tables with glass fruit on them - but even if the owners are still alive, I feel like I'm going into a house after a murder.  I should be carrying scientific equipment with me.

These are weird things about looking to buy a house.  I always feel so ill-prepared for this adulthood I entered decades ago; but even if they had taught this in school, I would've thought they were blowing it out of proportion.  Like gerunds.  A whole section on gerunds?  Really?

Oops I'm Doing It Again

(I took that image from here.)

FIRST.  I need to apologize.  This doesn't matter to you, but it does to me, so let me apologize & you can roll your eyes all you want when my back is turned, but the last post I published, last week, wasn't the - what was it? - 2400th post.  Y'see, if you start a post on Blogger, then you get distracted by, say, a page about a monkey on a horse, then forget you started a post, then start another one, the "draft" (as it is called) counts as a post.  So I just noticed that I had two "drafts" in my collection of posts, which means this is the 2399th post, & so the previous post was 2398.  No big deal for anyone but me, as I've said, but full disclosure is the name of the game.

Or is it?

SECOND.  I am still shopping around for a radio station here, but because I can't help myself, I am going to start doing Self Help Radio as a podcast, & there'll be a new episode this Friday.

That's right!  A new Self Help Radio this Friday!  Hooray!  Huzzah!  At noon Texas time!  Huzzay!  Hoorah!

Now.  I suppose I should start working on it.

Two Four Zero Zero

Holy stockyards, this is the two thousand four hundredth post on this site.  Who knew I had so many uninteresting words in me?  I should be giving advice on Pinterest!

As a public service, here are samples of things you'd find if you were desperate enough for reading material that you looked into past entries on this blog (chosen at random thanks to Random Dot Org).

-----

March 2, 2010:

I'll be here if you need zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

June 17, 2015:

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.'"

March 9, 2007:

Today's show will be some sounds from bands that are coming to Austin next week for a little-known musical festival called "Over By Over-Rated." If you happen to be coming to town, please come visit KOOP. If you happen to be coming to town & you're going to visit KOOP, & it's a Friday afternoon, come visit me. I'll put you on the air & we'll cry about our lost youth.

January 2, 2008:

I am reminded of the great parable of
the footstools in one forgotten religion
(or another) which you may remember
from your religious youth

December 22, 2011:

I promise I won't scream into the microphone like I've been doing lately.

September 10, 2012:

Anyway, I didn't find any songs about expectorating, so it's fine.

May 12, 2010:

So how do you successfully rescue a cat in this day & age? Pay attention to the flyers! Pay attention to strays! Be more like my wife, not like me - don't just say hello to neighborhood cats, but look them in the eye & say, "Didn't I see your picture on a telephone pole?"

-----

So much godawful prose!  & it's all here, for the intrepid explorer!  Did I say intrepid?  I meant...  Oh, never mind.

Here's to 2400 more oh please god no!

Whither No Show At All This Week?

Aaggh!  I would just be driving home from Self Help Radio right now if I were doing the show in Lexington!  But I'm not - I'm somewhere that's 20 degrees warmer than it is there.

What's worse, I'm impatient.  I know I could be doing fun things with another radio station - I don't even need to be on the air, just involved - but they are slow to getting back at me.  I will need to schedule a visit with them to follow-up on my emails & phone calls.  Maybe that will seem pushy or presumptuous - but I feel the need to show them my enthusiasm.

What I'll end up doing is making another episode of Self Help Radio, starting next week, & just sharing them on the website until there's a radio home for them.  I half-expected to do this anyway - look at the dates for upcoming shows on the website.  But there is part of me that thought I could actually be on the radio sooner than later.

So!  The show will return next Friday, the 19th.  I will start working on it now.  It may never make it to the airwaves, but it will exist, a sign of my weird need to make radio shows even when they're not on the radio.  Something's wrong with me, I know.

Preface To Not Having A Show This Week: What The Hell Will I Do With Myself

Actually, all of my music is still in boxes, so it's a good thing there won't be a Self Help Radio this week.

& frankly, I'm going to get impatient with the hoops I'll doubtless have to jump through before I can get back on the air.

(Honestly, I'm not complaining: it's good to learn the rules of a new organization, & bad to suppose they'll be like previous ones.  Each station interprets FCC regulations to fit its own understanding & has its own policies & procedures to be familiar with.)

Having said all that, I miss doing the show, so, barring any magical change of fortune, I intend to start doing Self Help Radio next week.  I'll put shows out at noon on Fridays like I did the last time I podcasted.

If that's okay with you.  Well, even if it's not okay with you.  My radio itch needs to be scratched, even if there's no radio in sight.

Prospects, Part II

(Three logos, taken from their respective websites.)

If Self Help Radio is going to return to the air in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, it has its best chance(s) to do so on one of these three stations.  They are all non-commercial, as I can't really imagine my show anywhere else.

Here's what I think:

KFTW: The Southside Pirate, on the air at 97.5 fm in Fort Worth, is a newish Low Power FM station which, according to its Facebook page, is "dedicated to local musicians in general, in Fort Worth, Texas in particular, & the great Southside community," featuring "100% LOCAL Music & Programming, playing music from DFW in Fort Worth Texas."

What are the chances the show finds a home here?  I can't say.  The only way to communicate with the station - they don't appear to have a storefront - is by messaging them on Facebook, which I did as soon as I got internet in our house yesterday.  Facebook says the message was seen soon after I sent it, but there's been no response as of this writing.

Qualms: I know very little about Fort Worth music, so I doubt a show like Self Help Radio could thrive on KFTW.  However, it depends on what one means by "local programming."  I am a local, I would be programming a show locally.

The chances of Self Help Radio finding a home at KFTW are the unlucky toss of a coin.

KTCU is the student radio station at TCU.  They're on 88.7 fm in Fort Worth, & I've been listening to them for the most part while I've been driving around town the past couple of days.  College radio is when I began, & WRFL is obviously a college radio station, so I am very comfortable in that milieu.  In addition to what I call "freeform" programming, KTCU has a slew of "specialty" or "block" shows, especially on the weekends.  I've been entertained.

What are the chances the show finds a home here?  I am more hopeful about this station.  I called them a month ago to ask if they allowed non-students to deejay, & was told with enthusiasm that they did & that I should come by.  I told the caller than I wasn't moving to Fort Worth until August, & he helpfully gave me names to contact once I was here.  I will call those people tomorrow.

Qualms: Oh, I am so full of self-doubt that I am worried that Self Help Radio won't "fit" on their station.  One thing I notice is that the programmers don't do a lot of airbreaks.  I do.  I'm a chatty dude.  & I worry someone will have a problem with the show's fake interviews.  I worry, is what I am trying to say.  I worry without any reason to worry at this early moment.  There'll be more to report later.  & doubtless more to worry about.

Still, I think the chances of Self Help Radio find a home at KTCU are pretty good.

KNON is Dallas' community radio station, a station I listened to back in high school, a station I think is as good as KOOP down in Austin.  They're on at 89.3 fm in Dallas, & their diversity is incredible.  I can't tune them in from here, but I listen to them when I'm in Dallas, & I can here them all over the suburbs.

What are the chances the show finds a home here?  The station's website asks that you send in a volunteer application/show proposal, which I did yesterday.  They obviously don't program new shows unless an old show ends or is otherwise removed from the schedule.  One clear issue is that they're in Dallas & I'm in Fort Worth.  Even without a lot of traffic, it'd take me almost an hour to get there for each show, not to mention volunteering, which I will want to do.

So, the chances of Self Help Radio finding a home at KNON are probably very small.

& yet - who knows what the future will bring?

Prospects

(Downtown Fort Worth, Texas, found here.)

Hooray!  The family made it safely to Fort Worth!  Very little is unpacked, but we got internet today, so, yay!  No more reading Twitter on my phone!

Since this blog is about a radio show, it behooves me to write (very briefly, to expand upon tomorrow) my radio prospects.  They are (in no particular order):

88.7 fm KTCU Fort Worth
89.3 fm KNON Dallas
95.7 fm KFTW Fort Worth

An application has been sent to KNON.  An email has been sent to KFTW.  A meeting is planned at KTCU.  These sentences are all in the passive voice.  Who has sent an application & an email?  Who has planned a meeting?  Who fucking talks like that?

Tomorrow I'll take some time to talk about the stations & why I think Self Help Radio would be a good fit.  Or maybe not that last part.  Self Help Radio has never really fit anywhere.

Self Help Radio 080216: The Two-Hour-Long Goodbye

(Original image here.)

It is all over now, baby blue.  I did my first sub show (or "fill" as the kids at the station call it) on August 19, 2010.  Nearly six years ago.  I had been living in Huntington, West Virginia, & had been doing a show on WMUL.  But that was a town of barely 50,000 people.  Lexington was maybe six or seven times larger - & WRFL was a station with programmers on the air every hour of every day.  While WMUL valued its sports shows, most of its programming was done with automation software.  Soon enough I discovered that WRFL had a long history & fierce listenership.  It was a fun place to discover & become involved in.

Maybe one day I'll write about all the changes I helped make behind the scenes - about the wonderful, sometimes intense, arguments we had about the direction of the station, & the hard work some of us did to make the place more accessible to UK students & the Lexington community.  What always ends up being important, however, is the programming - RFL's on-air signal is, of course, the face it shows the world.  I did my best, with my obvious limitations, to make sure when I was on the air, it was at least listenable.  If I succeeded sometimes, it probably has more to do with luck than skill.  I mean, I was on the air a lot.  Please don't hold that against anyone at WRFL!

& here is the last show I'll do on this dear, dear radio station.  As I write this, I'm sitting in a house I love so much which, after tomorrow, I won't ever be in again.  My heart, so used to being broken, is still surprised after all this time that it bothers to become attached to people, places, & things.  But it also thrills to new adventures ahead - to new radio stations, a new city to explore & learn about, new friends & old in a sort-of familiar setting.  That's why I'm not too sad - I honestly never expected to be in Kentucky, to have had such an amazing experience with this radio station & its people, with this lovely city, with this part of the world.  I will miss being here, certainly, but mostly I am glad I was here at all.

Self Help Radio will go on, & I hope you find it wherever it ends up.  But if you want to hear it say goodbye, you can do so now on the show's website.  The two parts have lots of goodbye songs, which are listed below.

When next we talk, I'll be back in the state where I was born!

(part one)

"Hello & Goodbye" George Carlin _Playing With Your Head_
"Bye Bye" The Clean _Vehicle_
"Bye Bye Baby" Fats Waller _1936_

"Gotta Say Goodbye" The Fun & Games _Elephant Candy_
"Bye Bye" Pipas _Chunnel Autumnal_
"The Long Goodbye" A Girl Called Eddy _A Girl Called Eddy_
"Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" Helen Grayco _After Midnight_

"Adios" Esquivel _Other Worlds Other Sounds_
"Auf Wiederseh'n" Gus Backus _Die Singles 1959-1961_
"Adieu Adieu" Stereo Total _Musique Automatique_
"Goodbye" Psychedelic Furs _Forever Now_

"Rhymes Of Goodbye" Scott Walker _Scott 4_
"Seasons In The Sun" Black Box Recorder _England Made Me_

(part two)

"Goodbye" Elephant Parade _Bedroom Recordings_
"Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" Leonard Cohen _Songs Of Leonard Cohen_
"Hometown Farewell Kiss" The Triffids _Calenture_

"How To Say Goodbye" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs_
"There's No Beautiful Way To Say Goodbye" Television Personalities _My Dark Places_
"One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell" Morrissey _Years Of Refusal_

"Bye Bye Baby" Hattie Burleson _I Can't Be Satisfied: Early American Women Blues Singers - Town & Country, Vol. 2 "Town"_
"Good-Bye" The Four Freshmen _Four Freshmen & Five Trumpets_
"Bye Bye Baby" The Popguns _Alvin Lives (In Leeds): Anti Poll Tax Trax_
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" Bob Dylan _Bringing It All Back Home_

"Goodbye, Goodbye" Billy Bragg _Tooth & Nail_
"What's The Theme, Gary?" Luxuriator _What's The Theme, Gary?_

Whither Goodbye?

(All of my Peanuts books are in boxes, so I had to find this on Pinterest.)

Hopefully it's not coming as a shock to you that today's show is the last Self Help Radio in Lexington.  I know I didn't mention it until a few days ago, but I didn't want a repeat of last year, when I jumped the gun before plans were finalized.  I expect everyone to be skeptical, but it sunk in this weekend, as I packed many of my beloved records & CDs into boxes, that it's real.  Around this time in two days, my family of two humans, four dogs, & four cats will leave this place.  To say I'm not freaking out a little about it is a tiny lie.  I am freaking out a lot.

Today's show, then, is really goodbye.  I chose this theme, which I always imagined I would use on the very last Self Help Radio ever, mainly because I didn't want to do a radio show about Texas, Dallas, or Fort Worth.  (Although my friend Jenny did find an awesome Fort Worth song.)  Goodbye seemed simplest, sweetest, & more appropriate.  & of course my collaborators will be along to make it much more fun than if I were doing it on my own.

As always, you can follow the show on Twitter or like the show on Facebook to keep up with where the show ends up, if the show finds a radio station, if there's a podcast coming out, etc.  Or you can just read this blog.  I blather here five days a week.

In any event - the last Self Help Radio on WRFL airs today from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in town & online at wrfl dot fm everywhere.  I hope you'll listen, & if you think of it, call in & say goodbye, or write goodbye.  I'll miss you!

Preface To Goodbye: U-Haul In The Driveway

Even though I am not very good at it, I love taking pictures.  (You can see the pictures I take on the show's Tumblr page.)  It's not something I've always done, like some people.  It's something I decided I wanted to do maybe just two or three years ago.

But there was a time - in seventh & eighth grade - when I was able to develop my own film & print my own photos.  I took photography class & was on my middle school's yearbook staff.  My pictures were mostly pedestrian, mainly because I didn't really know what I liked enough to take pictures of it.  My teacher - whose name, alas, I don't remember - even once told me I was trying too hard, like someone who had some vague notion of what "art" is but doesn't really know.  I think I once caught her laughing at some dumb picture I took, though she did try to hide it.  I was more embarrassed than offended.

The reason I am mentioning this is not to plug that page, but rather to relate that one regret (of many, I'm sure) is that I never took the time to just park my car in some parts of the city & walk around taking some pictures.  I was reminded of that today at the U-Haul place, which is near some interesting places, with delightful urban decay, anachronistic signage, & other things which I find fascinating, & should have taken the time to take some pictures of.  It was not meant to be.

Of course there will be many more places to go & many more pictures to take, but I do wish I had a lot more memories on digital film of this town.  Everything I do now I am conscious that I am doing for the last time - the last time I went to this town's Costco, the last time I went to my favorite cheap Chinese joint, etc.  It seems very unhealthy to do that, but I just can't stop.

& tomorrow - one last Self Help Radio in Lexington.  Oh jeez.

July 31st

On today's dog walk, I watched children - supervised by their parents - play with sparklers.  Sparklers are a mainstay of the Fourth Of July, of course, & it's - quite literally - twenty-seven days after that.  But if there's one thing I will remember about Kentucky, it's that the residents of this state will take any opportunity to use fireworks.  New Year's Eve?  Boom boom boom!  New Year's Day?  Why the hell not?  President's Day?  First Day Of Spring? Arbor Day? Light up the goddamned sky.

Fireworks are illegal in Texas for many reasons, some of which are obvious: it's drier there than here, so, fire.  Fire!  Fire that burns for days!  That doesn't stop folks from setting fireworks off, although in the two or three neighborhoods I lived in, in Austin, police were called & fines were levied.  This was in addition to the danger of bringing fireworks into  the city - sometimes there were checkpoints.  A decidedly perilous process for potential pyromaniacs.

But not so Kentucky!  My animals have had to react to many nights of pop pop bang.  I think I will miss that.  & not just because I think fireworks are cool.  Dude, I bought fireworks this year at Costco.  They were not the military-grade explode-in-the-lower-atmosphere types you have to spend top dollar for, but hey - they made some of my friends' kids happy, & isn't that the point?

Will they be fireworks in Texas?  & if so, when?  I hope to report on this in the future.  In the meantime - holy shit! I have a lot of packing still to do!

Putting Everything Into Boxes

Why does a house look empty even when it's filled with boxes?

The strangest thing I do - I'm sure some others do, but how the hell would I know? - is take things, like, say, a pile of papers related to a particular time period, & stick them in a drawer.  So when one is, for example, packing things up in anticipation of a move, one finds a few months' worth of strange memorabilia.  A drawer or shelf thus filled, a new pile emerges someplace else.

So I've relived today parts of the six years I've lived in Kentucky in bits & pieces as I pack stuff away.  Here are cards sent to me on every possible occasion by the dear sister that died last years, one of which says something like, I hope you know how much I enjoy our conversations.  They always put a smile on my face.  Over here are forms & stickers relating to some period at WRFL or another.  Still here are items that go back even further, to my time in West Virginia, when I tried to work for a literacy program.  Our minds often don't need to form memories, they know they're stored in the bits & pieces of life we save on scraps of paper, opened letters, saved notes or flyers.

Some friends from Lexington are coming over tonight.  I hope it goes well.  I have much such nice people here, & I know at the end of the night I'll wish I were less introverted & spent more time with them.  Once a loner, I wrote somewhere, probably imitating or ripping off someone, always alone.

Damn, I have a lot of CDs.  I hope I have enough boxes!

Self Help Radio 072616: Fashion

(Original image here.)

The next-to-the-last episode!  What excitement!  Like a fashion show!  Wait a second.  Nothing like a fashion show!  More like a garage sale!  Or standing outside waiting for movers to come!

Still, I'm sure my hard-hitting investigative radio show about fashions shook Los Angeles, New York City, London, Paris, & Tokyo to the core.  That Tim Gunn fellow probably woke up in a cold sweat last night.  Skinny runway models everywhere suddenly got hungry & ate two slices of pizza before their handlers forced them to regurgitate it.  Normal, everyday Americans suddenly felt good about shopping for food in their sweatpants/pajama-top combos.  A victory was struck, even if it were temporary, & I woke up with a simulacrum of the head of Cindy Crawford carved in vegetable fat at the bottom of my bed this morning.  I got the message.  & I will stop - but only because, you know, I have to do a different show with a different theme next week.

But the world got a taste of the power of Self Help Radio, & wisely found it lacking.

What else?  Nothing, really.  I hope the show was a lot of fun.  It's now at the Self Help Radio web site.  You know about the passwords & stuff by now.  The show's in two parts, an hour each, & the songs in the parts are listed below.

(part one)

"Fashion" David Bowie _Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps)_
"Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" The Kinks _The Kink Kontroversy_

"Fashion Is Danger" Flight Of The Conchords _I Told You I Was Freaky_
"Fashion Hurts" Xex _Group : Xex_
"Fashion Rules!" Chicks On Speed _99 Cents_
"Old Fashion" Baxendale _The Revenge Has Just Begun: The Story So Far_

"Fashion Concious" The Fresh Windows _Chocolate Soup For Diabetics, Vol. 1_
"Fashion" Otway & Barrett _The Wimp & The Wild_
"Fashion Street" The Get Quick _See You In The Crossfire_
"What Are You Wearing?" Kahimi Karie _K.K.K.K.K._

"Fashion Chant" Noh Mercy _Noh Mercy_
"Crimes Of Fashion" The Frenchmen _Sorry We Ruined Your Party_

(part two)

"The Fashion Plague" The Exits _This Is Mod, Vol. 2: More Rarities 1979-1981_
"It's Fashion" Girls At Our Best! _Pleasure_
"Fashion Show" The Shrubs _Take Me Aside For A Midnight Harangue_

"Fashion Forward" The Telephone Company _Panda Brain_
"Off With His Cardigan!" The Lucksmiths _What Bird Is That?_
"High Street Fashion" The Hepburns _The Last Thing I Saw Before I Said Goodbye_
"Fab Fad Fashions" Proctor & Bergman _Give Us A Break_
"Fashion Parade (ft Noddy Holder)" Misty's Big Adventure _Fashion Parade 7"_

"Fast-Fashion" Supermoon _Playland_
"Fashion Crisis Hits New York" The Frank & Walters _The Best Of The Frank & Walters_
"Fashion Zombies!" The Aquabats _Charge!!_
"Vagaries Of Fashion" Fujiya & Miyagi _Artificial Sweeteners_

"Boys Of Fashion Magazines" Kuruki _TV Scape_
"I Fell In Love With A Fashion Victim" The Rosehips _The Rosehips_

Whither Fashion?

(I found this picture here.)

Look, no one is less equipped than I to do an authoritative show about fashion.  I have never been & surely will never be fashionable.  It was just never meant to be.  Because I wish I could say, "It's not for lack of trying," but - I never tried.

But from the outside looking in, I suppose, I can make some observations, which I will do today.  Not just me!  I'll be talking about L.A. fashion with our man in Hollywood, Mark Miller, & I'll be talking with a real fashion designer, the great CJ Buchanan.  In the interests of fairness, I will talk to one David Fruchter, who crusades against fashion, & in the interests of spirituality, I'll ask my spiritual advisor to weigh in on the spiritual side of fashion.

Come to think of it, with all the music & guests, there'll probably be very little time for me to display my ignorance of fashion.  That's for the best, I'm sure.  Folks will tell you the most excellent Self Help Radio episodes are usually light on the "Gary" content.

Plus, it's the next-to-the-last Self Help Radio on WRFL!  It's on from 4-6 pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & wrfl dot fm in the fashion world.  I certainly hope you're well-dressed enough to listen!

Preface To Fashion: Embarrassment Averted!

(This image from a website called superfashionable dot com.)

Getting older, one supposes, might bring wisdom & shit, but our own experience with old people suggest otherwise: things get messy.

This is especially true with my own brain, which discards information without bothering to ask me whether or not I want to keep it, like my mother throwing away all my papers & drawings one day when I was at school true story!  Oh god I think my brain might be my mother.

Sometimes, though rarely, I plan for just such an occasion.  For example, I made a page on my website listing all the themes I've done.  I'm pretty OCD but I don't actually double-check, when I think of a theme, if I've already covered it before.  I rely upon my memory ha ha ha urgh.

Anyhoo, a few weeks ago, I was all like, "Hey! Let's do a show about suits!" & I went about thinking of songs about suits, collecting them, saying "la la la" as the days passed & my life slowly got shorter.  Then, just last week, actually - after I announced that "suits" would be the theme next week on the show - I was looking for songs, & discovered one that was tagged "Self Help Radio."  Oh no, I thought.  & then I looked.  Oh yes.  I had actually done a show about suits almost exactly three years ago.

One big problem is that I had already recorded a bit with one of my collaborators.  Luckily we didn't talk about suits the entire time (when do they ever talk about the show's theme exclusively?), so I quickly checked to see if I had done a show about fashion - I had not! - & I changed the listing on the web site & thanked my lucky stars I have a kind of system of checks that prevents me from stupidly accidentally revisiting old themes.

But boy, would it have been embarrassing if my penultimate show were a kind of repeat!

The Most Important Question

(This is not me, these are not my CDs; it's a picture from here.)

There is a question folks like me - musicophiles, you could say, sub-category: deejays - must answer quickly once a move is planned: When do I pack up my music?

"My music" is of course primarily understood for folks in my advanced middle age as "vinyl & CDs," although I must include my computer, since I digitize & rip music onto that for each show.  The computer is probably the thing I will pack last, since I do so many things on it - although we'll not have internet access on our last day, having taken the equipment back to the cable company.

Let's see: I have a show on August 2, two days before I leave.  Do I really want to come home from my last show on WRFL to pack up hundreds of CDs?  No.  I need to plan better.

Because I am less than two weeks out, & I have made no plans at all.

A History Of Leaving, Concluded

(This image originally from here.)

It seems I have left WRFL twice before.  I took a semester off in early 2013 (from the station, not from the show, which I continued as a podcast for four months), & I made a big public exit just last year, anticipating a move to Los Angeles that never happened.  Now I am leaving for the last time.

You would be wise to be skeptical.  There are those who weirdly thought my leaving last year was a publicity stunt, & I've tried to ask them what did I get out of it, except losing my sweet Friday morning timeslot?  They think I did it for the satisfaction of fooling folks into thinking I was leaving. Because, you know, all the trolling I do.

This time I waited until it was absolutely certain that I would be gone before saying anything.  This past week I told station management that August 2 would be my last show (the theme had been posted before on the show's website as "the two-hour long goodbye," but I don't think many people pay attention to that).  I told them this because on August 4, my family & I will be leaving Lexington.

My wife got a job elsewhere, back in Texas, & she starts work on August 8.  She has resigned from her job here in town, & our house goes on the market on the day we leave.  We have rented a house in the hopes of exploring our new city & eventually buying a home there.  Already many of our things are in boxes.  It's very, very intense at our place at this moment.

But I'll understand if you're skeptical.  I am much like the boy who cried wolf & don't deserve to have anything I say taken seriously if you feel, like some do, that this too might be some kind of inscrutable prank.  Perhaps this comes across as strangely sudden, but we've known we were leaving for a while - I just didn't feel like making it into a countdown spectacle like I did last time.  You should only get one retirement party from the place you've worked at.  I don't want to double-dip like some kinda cheat.

What's the future of Self Help Radio?  In the short-term, there are two more shows on WRFL, this Tuesday & the next.  Where we're going, in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, has a few nice non-commercial radio opportunities for me, which I am eager to start exploring, even in the one hundred degree plus heat.  (I will miss Lexington's lovely mild springs & autumns, though its winters not so much.)  If I am unable to find a place for the show to continue its ridiculousness, I will certainly continue as a podcast as soon as I can.  I can't not do the show.  It's in my DNA.  Also, I have shows lined up.

You can, as always, keep up with the show by following its Facebook page (it would appreciate your "like") or its Twitter feed.  Or this blog.  All linked handily at Self Help Radio dot net.

& of course in this day & age, if you have a computer & you want to listen to shows, whether streamed from radio stations' websites or from the show's own, you're never more than a couple of mouse clicks away from Self Help Radio.

As always, I thank you for any time you might have spent listening to this ridiculous show I'm involved with.  It's with a heavy heart that I leave WRFL for the very last time.

Self Help Radio 071916: Hold On

(Original image found here.)

One thing I wanted to say about this show, which I am posting a day late: I wanted to hold on to this show as long as I could before sharing it with you.  That's not true, of course.  I was very busy yesterday.  I drove to Cincinnati & back.  I just didn't have time to put it on the website.

A second thing I wanted to say about this show, is that Jenny, who picked all the music for last week's show, told me she suggested this theme to me last year.  I have done a half-assed search of my email to see when exactly, & can't find it, but it's always a fair bet that any good ideas I think I have are probably someone else's, so if you liked this show, it's doubtless because Jenny knew it'd be a fine theme.

There's not a third thing that I wanted to say, but please be aware I am still a little OCD-happy that the entire show features nothing but songs called "Hold On."  I know, it's as meaningful as getting a "perfect attendance" ribbon or something, but the part of me that likes to see a playlist with the songs spaced so perfectly one atop another (like below), find its that order a dumb satisfaction.

Meanwhile! The show! It's at the Self Help Radio website.  Hold on, you'll need a username & password to access it, but that's on the site, it's all right, don't fret.  The show has been divided into two parts, reflecting the two hours of the program, & of course the songs I played are listed below.

(part one)

"Hold On" Half Japanese _Perfect_
"Hold On" Bob Mould _Patch The Sky_
"Hold On" Twin Peaks _Wild Onion_

"Hold On" The Bandana Splits _The Bandana Splits_
"Hold On" Yellow Ostrich _The Mistress_
"Hold On" The Postelles _The Postelles_
"Hold On" Former Ghosts _Fleurs_

"Hold On" The Shining Hour _Long Lost_
"Hold On" Darren Hanlon _Fingertips & Mountaintops_
"Hold On" The Junior League Band _Jelly Roll_
"Hold On" Tom Waits _Mule Variations_

"Hold On" Holly Golightly _The Good Things_
"Hold On" Nightblooms _I Lick You Because I Love You_

(part two)

"Hold On" The Train Set _Never California_
"Hold On" The Orchids _Lyceum_
"Hold On" Lou Reed _New York_

"Hold On" Sam Cooke _The Man Who Invented Soul_
"Hold On" The O'Jays _Big City Soul, Vol. 1_
"Hold On" Bernie Worrell _All The Woo In The World_

"Hold On" The Smooty Filth _Greenstuff_
"Hold On" Sharon Tandy & Les Fleur De Lys _Reflections_
"Hold On" The Mirage _We Can Fly, Vol. 2_
"Hold On!" Herman's Hermits _The Best Of Herman's Hermits_
"Hold On" John Lennon _Plastic Ono Band_

"Hold On!" The Redskins _Neither Washington Nor Moscow_
"Hold On" Age Of Chance _One Thousand Years Of Trouble_

Whither Hold On?

(I know it doesn't say "Hold On" but that's what the little thing is doing!  Image from here.)

That's right.  The theme today is "hold on."  Like I said yesterday, every damn song I play today will be called "Hold On."  Not "Baby Hold On" or "I'll Keep Holding On" or "Hold On I'm Coming" - just "Hold On."  Why?  Because I can.  Because I think of it as some kind of achievement.  Because it's part of my obsessive-compulsive disorder to organize radio shows, when possible, in this manner.  & guess what?  I have way more than two hours' worth!  So there.

There's nothing really to recommend this show otherwise, I realize.  But what else would you expect?  That's what this damn radio show is like!

It's on from 4-6pm today on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.  You can also listen online at wrfl dot fm.  You can also call me at 257 WRFL.  & if you do, you can bet I'll say, "Hold on!"  Because I'm stupid like that.

Preface To Hold On: Some May Call It Obsession!

That's a Stan Lee title if I ever saw one!  I only need to add:

(I found that here.)

So - this has happened on Self Help Radio three times - I believe - with a fourth attempt that failed - & what is it we're talking about?  & furthermore why would you care?  This is the worst form of radio navel-gazing, an arguable "achievement" that has absolutely no bearing on the quality of the show.  It's the radio version of a kind of self-milestone of which no one is proud but the one who attempts it, unasked, unprompted, to mostly apathy if not downright derision.

It's this: doing an entire radio show with every song that's played having the same title.

Like I said, it's happened three times, with the following themes: Tell Me, Heaven (on my second attempt), & Everybody Knows (just last year).  My failure - I got through 3/4 of the show but couldn't sustain - was the Wonderful show.

Why would I mention this?  Because I believe I will try for a number four tomorrow: an entire show with every song having the same title.  That title?  "Hold On."

Will Self Help Radio succeed in this competition that means nothing to anyone but itself?  You'll have to listen to find out!

...But hey, I understand that you probably don't care, in which case, it's totally cool if you don't listen. That's what happens most of the time anyway, dumb self-challenge or not.  Everyone understands!

Chapter XII: Right Before The Scene Of The Crime

The Contessa entered the parlor, oblivious to the gentlemen sitting in her family's antique chairs.  She was preoccupied about family business.

"Whom are you?" she said, grammatically incorrectly, to the strangers.

"We're police detectives, ma'am," said the one who looked & smelled like sausage.

"The constabulary?" she said, aghast.  "Why would you have been called?"

"It appears," said the mousey one, looking at a notebook, "there was a complaint last night, about," he flipped a few pages, "screams of agony & shrieks as if from hell itself."

"Well," the Contessa said, "we did have some friends over."

"Ah," said Sausage-Man, "& where are your friends now?"

"They have retired to their quarters," sniffed the Contessa.  "But of course the shrieks were from the murdered people."

"Murdered?" the two detectives asked, almost simultaneously.

"Yes, murdered," the Contessa said, "naturally.  They were killed in the ceremony, & consumed afterwards."

"Consumed?" said the Mouse.  "You mean, eaten?"

"Oh," the Contessa said, with a weary gesture, "it was the same old ritual.  Kill the strangers, feast on their flesh."  She gave them both a knowing look.  "It was a Thursday, for Pete's sake!"

"Ma'am," Sausage said, "are you admitting to a crime?"

The Contessa looked at him blankly.

"I mean to say," Sausage corrected himself, tugging uncomfortably at his collar, "are you saying you killed someone here?"

"Oh! Heavens no!" she said, to the relief of the two obviously distraught policemen.  "No, we have the help do that.  Oh Jenkins!"

A stiff butler type appeared, almost magically, from behind an unseen door.  His chin high, he seemed incapable of holding his head any other way.  "Ma'am?" he said.

"Please tell these awful man about the people you killed," she told him.

"Indeed," he said.  He turned to the baffled lawmen.  "During the ceremony I murdered an alcoholic drifter, as well as the rebellious teenage daughter of one of Madame's chambermaids."

Sausage turned to Mouse.  They shrugged their shoulders in turn.

"Ah," said Mouse.  "How - how did you murder them?"

"Poison," said the butler.  "In their food."  He paused, thoughtfully, & turned to his mistress.  "It would not have stayed in the portions of them that you would consume, Madame," he said.

"Good, good," said the Contessa.

"What the fuck?" said the Sausage.

"Yes, yes," said the Contessa, "take him away, hang him, he's a menace to our community, all that, now, please, do not tarry in my family's antique chairs any longer!"  & she fanned herself as she made her way to the front room.

"I plead guilty to all charges," said the butler, half-heartedly holding his hands out to be cuffed.

"Um," the Mouse said to the Sausage.  "Can we - uh - can we see the bodies?"

"Or what's left of them?" said the Sausage to the butler.

"Certainly, sir," said the butler, "right this way."  He paused, appearing to think something over, "other remains might appear in some of our guests' leavings."

The Mouse threw up on a family heirloom.

"C'mon," said the Sausage.  "Get yourself together."

"Rich people," the Mouse choked.

"Rich people," the Sausage agreed.  "Am I right?"