What I Did Today

Besides driving to Dallas & back & watching the Oscars I mean.

Today was the 16th Annual Mardi Gras Gumbo Party, a benefit for KNON, at which I volunteered.  Seeing as I don't eat any animal products at all, & that the gumbo prepared by I think eight cooks was all pretty meaty, I didn't get to sample any gumbo, but that was fine.  I stood at an entrance, making sure the people who came in that way had wristbands &, if they didn't, I directed them to where they needed to enter.

A fellow on a bike with a big backpack (someone there suggested to me he was homeless) asked me what was going on at the event.  I said it was a Mardi Gras Gumbo Party.  He said, "Can you hook a brother up with some gumbo?"  I told him I couldn't because the cooks hadn't set their stands up yet.  I probably would have, though.  I suggested he come back in an hour but he didn't.

Since it was at a bar, there was drinking; since I had to drive, I didn't drink.  But surprisingly, two women - both smokers, who came to near I was standing to smoke (I was outside) - had in a short period of time consumed a good deal of alcohol, & chatted with me.  I asked them lots of questions & found out lots about their lives.

One of them told me she was a therapist & began to give me therapeutic advice.  She told me she knew why I was volunteering.  75%, she said, was because I believe in the cause of the station; the other quarter percent, she insisted, was because of a sense of obligation.  I told her that first part was probably true, but the other 25% was because I was hoping that, if I put it lots of work for KNON, I might one day get a show.  But I'm probably more selfish than that - it's probably 25-75% the other way around.  She got offended in that drunken way when I joked to a friend that she was psychoanalyzing me.  But at least I got her name!

The other person (who never told me her name) was a chef, a food critic, & one of the judges of the gumbo (it was a competition) (I didn't stay long enough to find out who won).  She complained that she got no protein in her samples, just "rice & beef broth."  She was very nice & very engaging, but when another judge came up to us, she repeated her complaint to him, & was disappointed when he told her he didn't have the same experience.  "One of my bowls," he said, "had an entire crawfish in it.  What're you supposed to do with that?"

The vegan didn't have any response for him.

Self Help Radio 022217: Fate

(Original image here.)

You won't believe it, but this is kind of a neat & special episode of Self Help Radio, if such a thing can be.  Not the music or me - that's the same old stuff.  But I had the notion to come up with an overarching motif that would connect all the funny people who improvise interviews with me on the show for this week.  Since one of my collaborators plays a character, I needed that character to be the lynchpin for the proceedings.  Thus was created (not by me, but by the person who plays Dr. Gently) the Fate's Ahoy Captain Of Your Own Destiny Voyage Of Self Discovery!

Every person you hear on the show came up with their own experience of the cruise, & then Dr. Gently reacts to their experiences, & of course making up some of his own.  I need to repeat: the improvisers had only the name of the cruise & their knowledge of the Dr. Gently character to go on.  I asked some questions, but everything else comes from their own demented minds.

Personally I think it went swimmingly.  We must try to do it again sometime!

As for the show, it's now of course at the Self Help Radio website.  The fateful songs I played on that fateful show have been listed below.  Will Fate bring you to this week's show?  I dunno, I'll leave it up to destiny.

(part one)

"Fate" Gordon Macrae _Kismet_
"Fate" Miaow _When It All Comes Down_
"Fate" Rocket 3 _Burn_

"The Killing Moon" Echo & The Bunnymen _Ocean Rain_
"Cast Your Fate To The Winds" We Five _You Were On My Mind_
"Fate Planned It This Way" Showmen _Crescent City Soul: The Sound Of New Orleans 1947-1974_
"Fate Vs The Impossible!" The National Pep _Citizen Gomez_

"Simple Twist Of Fate" Bob Dylan _Blood On The Tracks_
"I Believe In Fate" Papas Fritas _Buildings & Grounds_
"It's My Fate" The Sweets _Gone 7"_
"Fate To Fatal" Breeders _Fate To Fatal_

"Cheer For Fate" Mt St Helens Vietnam Band _Mt St Helens Vietnam Band_

(part two)

"My Fate Is In Your Hands" Josephine Baker _Exotique_
"It's Fate, Baby It's Fate (with Betty Garrett)" Frank Sinatra _Sinatra In Hollywood: 1940-1964_
"Senior Service" Elvis Costello & The Attractions _Armed Forces_

"Master Of My Fate" American Breed _Pumpkin Powder Scarlet Green_
"Our Fate" The Mourning Reign _Good Things Are Happening_
"Twist Of Fate" Bad Lieutenant _Never Cry Another Tear_
"Orange Light" Latimer House _Hey!_

"Seal My Fate" Belly _King_
"The Fickle Finger Of Fate" Jerry Keller _The Complete Recordings, Vol. 2_
"When Fate Deals Its Mortal Blow" Scientists _Blood Red River 1982-1984_
"Bondage Of Fate" OMD _History Of Modern_

"What Did I Ever Do To Deserve Such A Fate" The Music Explosion _Little Bit O' Soul_
"That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" Mission Of Burma _Vs._
"Fatal Twist Of Fate" Cartridge _Fractures_

Whither Fate?

(image from the Wikipedia page)

Dr. Fate was a comic book hero who dabbled in the mystic arts way before Dr. Strange did.  Created by Gardner Fox & Howard Sherman, Dr. Fate's powers always perturbed me somewhat - he tended to have whatever spell was necessary for solution of the plot - & his origins were vague enough that there have been half a dozen other Dr. Fates (since the powers come from the helmet, which is possessed by a being called Nabu) since then whose abilities & adventures rely upon whomever is writing the story at the time.  I still think he's pretty cool, though.

But Dr. Fate has nothing whatsoever to do with tonight's show.  Tonight's show is based around the fact that next month I'll be going on the Fates Ahoy Captain Of Your Own Destiny Voyage Of Self Discovery hosted by none other than the Reverend Doctor Howard Gently!  Not only will he be on the show to talk about the cruise, but also I'll talk to three people who took the cruise last year!  Plus, you know, tons of songs about fate.

It's on tonight on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington from 9-11pm eastern time.  It's also on Lexington Community Radio dot org at the same time, which happens to be 8-10pm central.  Perhaps it is your fate to listen?

Preface To Fate: Something I Found Online

There's nothing really to say about the fate show (which airs tomorrow) that I won't say tomorrow, but I did find this cool Youtube collection of the most popular songs from 1840 to 2013.  I confess I am mostly unfamiliar with the songs passed 1990, & have never really heard any of them past 2000 (I thought "Hey Ya" would make it whatever year it came out), but I am really fascinated by the early songs.  Have a listen - enjoy the presentation - it's kinda cool.

It Is My Fate To Write Crappy Blogs

Arrgh, there's no time today, I've been working on my dumb show & living my dumb life so, for your edification & probably revulsion, I have found a very old poem - I wrote it almost twenty years ago - in which I happen to mention "fate."  Enjoy?

Game Theory

stare at life, through the lens that's dirty.  i'm thirty, closing in on

older, wishing for the heart to make my mind catch fire.  moments so mired

in emotion wait, do they, to bog me down.  i'll drown, a better fate, than

slowing to statue in a haze of cigarette air.

let me see, as out of practice as out of time.  i go from salt to lime,

washed throat with alcohol swabbing, spider in a dark ditch.  but which is

which, the heart or the balls, hand to hold or body to bang.  something

someone sang resonates, something someone said i disbelieve.

whatever, i'm kept busy by being kept busy, feeding cats & bathing.  i

don't mind aging, though it's not growth.  no i don't see souls together,

just vases filled with dying flowers yards apart.  my broken heart believes

out of spite, even though so fond of the word "never."

so sign me up, eyes need eyes to make sense of chemical need.  always more

to bleed, always more blood though thin, though fading red.  what instead,

newspaper voyeurism, sexual vandalism, embracing the dirt as the blooms

fade.  no, not today, i want to scare the seconds when my time is up.

Shit, It's Sunday Isn't It?

Damn it, I'm supposed to write something in this blog today.  Well, poops.

Were you listening a couple weeks ago when there was an interview with two guys who started the world's first online dating service?  That was a little experiment I wanted to try.  Two of my funny collaborators, David & CJ, were tasked with telling their side of the story - making it up on the spot - improvising, you know - with no idea what the other was saying!

In fact, I'm not sure the two have ever met each other before - I knew one at KVRX & the other at KOOP.

In any event, I thought it was fun.  They both have distinctive senses of humor & they took their stories in interesting directions.  I thought to myself, what if I did that with all four of my current contributors?

So this week we will.  This week my show will revolve not only around songs about fate, but about a specific event that the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently is involved with, & I'll "interview" three fellows who attended the event last year.

It's going to be fun, I hope, & funny, no doubt.  I kept telling them, "Let's Rashomon the shit out of this thing!"  That's the background for this - all they know is the character of Dr. Gently & the name of his event.  What they'll experience will be entirely up to them & their demented minds.

Does that sound like fun?

Self Help Radio 021517: Are You Ready?

(Original image here.)

How many of Self Help Radio's themes have been questions?  I count seven, if you include this one, with such probing inquiries as: Are you sure?; At what cost?; Does it matter?; What happened?; What o'clock is it?; & most recently, Who's the boss?

Oh, & I didn't mention yesterday why this theme was explored - I had intended, actually, to simply do a "ready" show.  But early on I titled it "are you ready" & as I started listening to stuff, I thought it might be more fun - & more challenging - to do a show in which I narrowed the idea somewhat to the phrase "are you ready."  (I know most people don't think this show is fun, but I gotta get my kicks somewhere.)  The result, of course, is something you can listen to now!

The show is ready for you at the Self Help Radio website.  Please remember username/password info, available on the page.  Are you ready to listen?  What?  You want to know what songs I played first?  Okay, okay.  They're below.

Now are you ready?

(part one)

"Are You Ready" Henry Wilson _Record Hop_
"Are You Ready" The Dixie Hummingbirds _A Christian Testimonial_
"Are You Ready" Sly & The Family Stone _Dance To The Music_

"Are You Ready" Dave Davies _Hidden Treasures_
"Are You Ready?" Pacific Gas & Electric _Are You Ready?_
"Are You Ready" Bruce Ruffin _Rain_
"Are You Ready" The Chambers Brothers _New Generation_

"Are You Ready" Gruppo Sportivo _Back To 78_
"Are You Ready" Crispy Ambulance _The Plateau Phase_
"Are You Ready" James _Strip-Mine_
"Are You Ready?" Fatty Gets A Stylist _Fatty Gets A Stylist_

"Are You Ready?" Wire _Object 47_

(part two)

"Are You Ready" Mercury Rev _The Light In You_
"Are You Ready For It" Holograms _Night Of 1000 Ex-Boyfriends_
"Your Fucking Sunny Day" Lambchop _Thriller_

"R U Ready (R U Freddy)" Tania + Holy Worm _R U Ready (R U Freddy)_
"Are You Ready For The Sex Girls?" Gleaming Spires _Songs Of The Spires_
"Are You Ready For This" Jackie DeShannon _The Complete Liberty & Imperial Singles, Vol. 2_
"Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Rattlesnakes_

"People Are You Ready" Prince Mohammed _People Are You Ready_
"Are You Ready To Dance?" Dirt Bike Annie _Hit The Rock!_
"Are You Ready To The Party (ft. Nicole Willis)" Mr. Comicstore _SoulShaker Vol. 4_
"Are You Ready For The Country?" Neil Young _Harvest_

"(Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop" Fatback Band _Raising Hell_
"Are You Ready For This" Bill Deal & The Rhondels _The Best Of Bill Deal & The Rhondels_

Whither Are You Ready?

(Image from here.)

Are you ready for a show with the theme "Are You Ready"?  If you answered yes, then, cool!  The show's on tonight!  If you answered no, then, well - might you be ready in around eleven hours?  If you answered yes, then, yay!  The show will be on then!  If you answered no, then, rats!  If you're not ready then, the show will have to go on without you.  I hope that doesn't bother you.  Does it bother you?  If you answered yes, then, hey!  Maybe try to be ready at eight pm central, nine pm eastern!  If you answered no, then, ah, I see, you don't care about the show, & that's all right.  I understand there's much, much better radio out there, & I am certain you at least care about some radio, right?  Do you care about some radio?  If you answered yes, then, I knew it!  It's good to care about something!  If you answered no, then...

What the hell am I doing?  This has become like some kind of "choose your own adventure" of an unwell mind.  I just wanted to let you know about the show tonight, not quiz you constantly about your motivations.  Anyway, the theme is "Are You Ready," it's not a question for you to answer but rather a question for the show to answer.  You see.

The show's on tonight from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central, airing in Lexington on the radio at 93.9 fm & online everywhere at the Lexington Community Radio website.  I hope you can listen.

Also I hope you can handle hearing the question "are you ready?" asked over & over without feeling the need to respond.  I couldn't.  I'll screaming "I'm not ready!" at myself all show long.

Preface To Are You Ready: Mercy Dash

Happy Valentine's Day!  I am done with sharing old Valentine's Day shows.  I am sure you're relieved.

If there has been a criticism of Self Help Radio I've had to hear over the years, it's that the show focuses on the theme being "in the song's title" rather than just what the song's about.  It's a fair criticism, & I have no defense - I generally wanted to make sure that the songs I play follow the show's theme & the easiest way to do so is to have it as obvious as the song's title - though if the song is called the theme but doesn't actually talk about the theme, I usually reject it.

There's just so much music!  In the gathering process I must rely upon a dumb old database & my worse old brain.  So - in my zeal to gather music related to this week's theme "Are You Ready" - I focused more on titles than on content, & I forgot about - until this afternoon - a Shriekback song I totally would have played.

But wait, Gary!  Your show is tomorrow!  Can't you play it then?

Alas, the show is prerecorded, since I no longer live in Kentucky.  I sent it to the station today, as I do every Tuesday.  I was in the shower, singing to myself, when I thought of this song, which constantly asks, "Are you ready?"

In my embarrassment I play it for you hear.  Enjoy.  & hope that one day Self Help Radio can be live again!

Valentine's Day Approaches

(Original image here.)

Here's another bit of the past: a Self Help Radio Valentine's Show from 2007.  It's the second-oldest Valentine's Day show I currently have a copy of that is digitized, although I think I have the earlier shows on cassette (if they survive at all).  There was apparently no Valentine's Day show in 2006, & I have no idea why.  But I resumed in 2007 with a show about crushes.

Some things to note about this show:

1) The show was recorded on a failing cassette player which sped up my voice because it recorded things too slowly.  But the music sounds fine, so maybe my voice was a little higher back then?
2) The show is 90 minutes long.  I think I had moved to Fridays at this point.
3) There's a special appearance by a woman named Lisa who went on the air as "Miss Novak" for reasons I never asked about.  I believe she did the show before mine, which is why she sticks around for an airbreak.  Later on, she came to dislike me because of arguments on the station's Programming Committee, so it's strange to me to hear us so cordial.  I haven't seen nor heard from her since I left KOOP in 2008, barely a year later.  (Looking at the KOOP web site, I don't see her show's name, so perhaps she no longer deejays at the station.)
4) Two features of old Self Help Radio: the "Self Help Radio minute," an attempt to be funny that I never spent too much time on, so I apologize in advance; & haikus.  I used to ask listeners for haikus (& yes, I know the plural of haiku is "haiku" but I still prefer "haikus") & didn't get many submissions, so I wrote them myself.  Eventually I gave them up, though for months afterwards people said they loved the haikus on my show.

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts, so you'll need to go there to get it.  What's in the parts are below!

(& remember, this year's Valentine's Day show (about sweethearts) & last year's Valentine's Day show (about heartbreak) are still available if you wanna listen!)

(part one)

"Crush" CJ Buchanan _Whom To Love?  Whom Not?_
"I've Got A Crush On You" Petra Haden & Bill Frisell _Petra Haden & Bill Frisell_
"The New Teller" Jonathan Richman _Beserkely Chartbusters_
"1-2 Crush On You" The Clash _Clash On Broadway_

"Crush On You" Little Girls _The Podolor-Cooper Sessions_
"Teenage Girl Crush" Angelica _Teenage Girl Crush_
"Crushed" Girlfrendo _Surprise, Surprise It's Girlfrendo_
"Nerdy Boys" Candypants _Alright, This Time Just The Girls Vol. 2_

"I Don't Really Love You Anymore" Magnetic Fields _i_
"Oops! I Did It Again" Richard Thompson _1000 Years Of Popular Music_
"You Little Fool" Elvis Costello _Imperial Bedroom_
"The Saturday Boy" Billy Bragg _Back To Basics_

"Mix Tape" Michael Shelley _I Blame You_

(part two)

"Denis" Blondie _Plastic Letters_
"Since You Stole My Heart" Saturday Looks Good To Me _Every Night_
"Crush Lasts Nearly An Entire Bus Ride" Onion Radio News _Onion Radio News_
"Grape Crush" Dirt Bike Annie _Hit The Rock_
"Bewitched" Beat Happening _Jamboree_

"Kylie's Got A Crush On Us" BMX Bandits _Life Goes On_
"Josh Has A Crush On A Femme From Reed" New Bad Things _Freewheel!_
"Crush Whatever" Manhattan Love Suicides _The Manhattan Love Suicide_
"Secretest Crush" Casiotone For The Painfully Alone _The First Two Records On One CD_

"Krush" Stars _The Comeback EP_
"Secret Crush On Third Trombone" Fosca _Diary Of An Antibody_
"Crushed" Cocteau Twins _Lonely Is An Eyesore_

Valentine's Day Past

(Original image here.)

Feeling a little guilty about a Valentine's Day show so far in advance of Valentine's Day, I thought to myself, hey!  Maybe I can share an old Valentine's Day show with you!  (Last's year's show, about heartbreak, is still available to listen to as well.)  So I dug up the oldest Self Help Radio VD episode I could find, which, it turns out, was also way too early for Valentine's Day, so I did a show not about love, but about hate.

It may be strange to listen to now; it was for me!  I don't announce the theme at the beginning of the show.  There's no background music for me to rely upon if I need to pause.  It's really just me talking off the top of my head & trying to be funny.  Listening now, I think I sound much more self-confident than I do these days.  But you can be the judge of that, should you listen.

One day I'll re-do a show about hate, but just until Valentine's Day you can listen to what Self Help Radio sounded like a mere twelve years ago, back before either of us was born.  It's available now at the Self Help Radio website or directly linked here.  You'll need to remember username SHR & password selfhelp in either case.  The quality isn't so good - in those days I recorded my shows on cassette & then digitized them.  A hiss is prominent.

Here's what I played, though the last song fades out:

"I Hate You" Monks from _Black Monk Time_
"I Hate You" Damien Youth from _Damien Youth_
"Today I Hate Everyone" Killjoys from _Starry_
"We Hate All The Same Things" Mr T Experience from _...And The Women Who Love Them_

"Hate" Cinerama from _Va Va Voom_
"All You Need Is Hate" Delgados from _Hate_
"Hate Is The New Love" Mekons from _OOOH!_
"Let's Fall In Hate" Michael Shelley from _I Blame You_

"I Hate Myself" Anita Lane from _Sex O'Clock_
"Hate My Way" Throwing Muses from _Throwing Muses_
"I Am Hated For Loving" Morrissey from _Vauxhall & I_
"The Mill Hill Self Hate Club" Edward Ball from _Creation Records: International Guardians Of Rock & Roll_

"Love & Hate" Crabs from _What Were Flames Now Smolder_
"I Hate Milk" Air Miami from _Me, Me, Me_

Maybe another old Valentine's show tomorrow?  What do you think?

Self Help Radio 020817: Valentine's Day 2017 - Sweethearts

(I found this image here.)

First off, I can't apologize enough for this Valentine's Show being almost a week early.  The show is on Wednesday; Valentine's Day is on a Tuesday this year.  It couldn't be helped.  But now the flowers will be wilted & the chocolates all eaten way before the actual day!

Still, if the show helps you find a sweetheart - or makes your current sweetheart appreciate you more - than it will have done its job.  Or if you like the music.  Or if you enjoyed the ridiculous interviews with my spiritual mentor, or the "love guru," or the two guys who started the first online dating site who seem to have had wildly different experiences.  Basically, I'm saying I hope you liked the show.  That's when it will have done its job.

Anyway.  The show will be there for you now till Valentine's Day (& probably a long while after that) at Self Help Radio dot net.  Like most sexy things, it requires a username & a password to access the site, but unlike most sexy things, they're easy to find - they're right there on the web page!  & the songs that I play in each of the hours are listed below.

Happy Valentine's Day!  You sweetheart you.

(part one)

"Let Me Call You Sweetheart" Bing Crosby with Georgie Stoll & His Orchestra _Here Lies Love_
"Sweetheart" Tiger Trap _Sour Grass EP_
"If You & I Could Be Sweethearts" The Varieteers _Night Train To Nashville_

"Sweetheart Darling" Rose Batiste _Ladies Of Detroit Sound, Vol. 1_
"Sweetheart" Suicide _Suicide_
"Say Something Sweet To Your Sweetheart" Jo Stafford & Gordon Macrae _Down Memory Lane_
"My Sweetheart Left Me Behind" The DeCastro Sisters _Teach Me Tonight_

"Sweethearts On Parade" Lillie Delk Christian _Louis Armstrong & The Blues Singers_
"Careless Sweetheart" Cindy Walker _The Swingin' Cowgirl From Texas_
"Sweetheart Waltz" Sally Timms _Cowboy Sally's Twilight Laments For Lost Buckaroos_
"Sweetheart" Kaia _Oregon_
"I'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheart (Than A Young Man's Fool)" Candi Staton _Sweet & Raw Soul Music_

"Sweetheart Like You" Bob Dylan _Infidels_

(part two)

"Childhood Sweetheart" Junior Murvin _Police & Thieves_
"Keep Me In Mind, Sweetheart" Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan _Sunday At Devil Dirt_
"You Are My Sweetheart" The Bobbettes _This Is The Night: The End Records Story_

"Radio Sweetheart" Elvis Costello _Taking Liberties_
"I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart" Rosalie Allen _The Hillbilly Yodel Star Of The 1940s_
"Sweetheart" The Wave Pictures _Susan Rode The Cyclone_
"Sweethearts" Shirley & Lee _Let The Good Times Roll_

"Sweetheart" Lloyd Cole _Lloyd Cole_
"Oh, Sweetheart" Shout Out Louds _Howl Howl Gaff Gaff_
"Secret Little Sweetheart" Standard Fare _The Noyelle Beat_
"Hey Sweetheart" Nightmare Of You _Infomaniac_
"Sweetheart Rose Special" The Corn Dollies _The Corn Dollies_

"Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight" The Spaniels _Hits Of The Spaniels_

Whither Sweethearts?

(I can't remember where I found this picture.)

Every year, around Valentine's Day, Self Help Radio has a show with a Valentine's Day-related theme.  These have included: love, love songs, lovesickness, & what love is; girlfriends & boyfriends; jealousy, hate, & heartbreak.  This year we'll be listening to songs about sweethearts.

If you don't have a sweetheart, will this episode of Self Help Radio help you find one?  No.

If you have a sweetheart, will this episode of Self Help Radio help you keep them?  No.

This show is of no practical value when it comes to love.  It is merely a repository of songs about sweethearts.  Also, interviews with silly people.  But it is something you can share with a sweetheart - or a sweetheart-to-be.

Listen tonight from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central, on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington, or online everywhere, even those places without love, at Lexington community radio online.  Self Help Radio is on the WLXU side.

Come, sweetheart.  There is a Valentine's show just for you.

Preface To Sweethearts, The Valentine's Day 2017 Show: Unqualified

This Valentine's Day, like most of my last fifteen or sixteen Valentine's Days, I have a sweetheart.  But that wasn't always the case.  My first twenty-one years or so, no sweethearts.  & the vast majority of the years in-between.

Since I met the woman who was ridiculous enough to marry me, I have had a de facto Valentine's sweetheart.  But I've never really bought her candy or flowers, & most certainly not on Valentine's Day.  The candy she would hate because she would think it would make her fat.  The flowers she would hate because our cats would eat them & get sick.  If Valentine's Day had a tradition of a loved one giving his sweetheart dried mango & baingan bharta, my wife would be all for it.

When I worked at a gas station, in my senior year of high school, it was a Mobil, I worked in the Mini-Mart, we had a small display at the front, a sort of cylinder really, in which rested, in a small amount of water, a few shabby roses.  I don't think I worked at the Mobil during Valentine's Day, but those overpriced flowers were very popular on weekend nights when some half-assed swain stopped in for cigarettes & gas.  Aha! he'd think. A rose! She'll like that!  I wonder if some clever woman looked at this putz & said, Gas station flowers?  Again?!?

Navigating the whole concept of a relationship was difficult for me most of my life.  I preferred to ask, which, as you know, some women find off-putting.  I'd ask to kiss them, & I'd ask if we were going out, if we were boyfriend/girlfriend, & if they preferred it to be exclusive.  That last question, by the way, was more for them than for me.  I was never the type who had offers pouring in.

Once I was in love with a girl & I remember we met during my workday after dating (or "dating") for a couple of weeks.  We wandered around the outside of the Harry Ransom Center on the University Of Texas campus.  I very uncomfortably asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend.  She wasn't a talker & didn't exactly say no, but she also didn't say yes, which was what her silence meant.  I felt like I had gone out on a limb & it broke & I fell like Wile E. Coyote down down down until all that was left of me was a little puff of smoke.

As was the custom in those days, I made her a mixed tape, which, because she was pretty hip, was full of songs she knew & liked.  Her response to me about the tape was, "I feel like you're ruining for me songs that I have always loved."  I should've known at that point that we didn't have much of a future.

What I'm trying to say is that I am & have always been a terrible sweetheart.  I have disdained the holiday but have also never had much of an occasion to celebrate it, except these shows.  I've done Valentine's Day shows forever on Self Help Radio.  Thirteen in fourteen years, in fact.  You can see the list here.  Some of the themes have been a bit snarky - "jealousy" comes to mind - but "sweethearts" is sweet.  Just be aware the person making this radio show has a terrible track record in this particular field.

Pass On The Left, Motherfucker

These days I'm often driving from Fort Worth to Dallas to volunteer at KNON, & when I do, I take two main highways, Interstate Thirty (known as the "Tom Landry Highway" because of some sports person who wore a hat) & Interstate Seventy-Five (known as "Central Expressway" in Dallas, & also named after a terrible U.S. President).  Most of the time, I-30 is four lanes, but often it's three & in a few places, it's five.  Almost all the drivers refuse to pass on the left.  There are the people driving way too fast, weaving in & out of traffic, whom I hope one day to see in a fiery accident, the only victims of which are them & other speedy drivers who think their lives are more important than anyone else's.  They are too impatient to pass on the left, you see.

Most of the others, however, are people driving too slowly in the left lanes who, because everyone else passes on the right, don't know they're doing it wrong.  I myself drive mainly in the rightmost lane, & will in fact move into the right lane, even if I have to slow down to do so, to make some jerkwad who's driving too fast in the right lane have to pass me on the left.  This will probably get me killed one day, so it can be said I died for an idea.  A dumb, arbitrary one which will disappear once we get driverless cars, but an idea nonetheless.

Anyway, a whole rant was brewing inside of me about what the law was & how there's scientific data to back up the fact that people driving slowly on the left causes traffic jams, but someone else beat me to it (by nine years), & has links to some info.  Read her far more polite rant here.

This reminds me a friend in Kentucky who used to complain about the traffic there.  I miss the traffic in Kentucky.  Although if the average Kentucky driver had to navigate Texas highways, they'd be killed instantly.  Or they'd kill someone instantly.  Of this I am certain.

Communal Things For The Outsider To Enjoy

While I am writing this, the Super Bowl is happening.  My wife is in California.  We spoke on the phone & I mentioned that the dogwalk tonight was peaceful because everyone was at home, or at a party, & she was confused.  She didn't know it was Super Bowl Sunday.

Frankly I only know because Bill Maher mentioned it on Friday, although I'm sure with all the hype around it - mentions on Tumblr, Twitter, & Facebook - I would've sussed it out sooner than later.  It occurred to me that I probably haven't watched a Super Bowl - or even an entire ball game - since I was a kid, & even that last time I probably was too impatient to sit through the entire thing.  Whenever the Cowboys were last at the Super Bowl in the 1970s is around that time, although I have a vague memory of angering my brothers, for whom football is the closest thing they have to a hobby, by leaving to go out & play on a grey winter day.

Please don't get me wrong - I understand why people enjoy such things.  But they hold very little interest for me, be they Super Bowls or college bowls or world cups or world serieses.  I'm just not the sports kind of guy.  It goes a little further than that, of course.  I have very little interest in the halftime show, about which some people on Facebook are tonight celebrating or lambasting.  You can probably understand why I don't care for it: it's mostly people from commercial radio, not the sort of music I like to listen to.  I don't remember halftime shows being a very big deal when I was a kid, so the fact that some people tune in to watch them is a triumph of the sports/entertainment industry.

& the commercials!  Someone on Facebook said he didn't like the sports but he'd watch the commercials on the internet tomorrow.  I can barely watch commercials even if they're clever, so expensive commercials designed for a sports match seem a weird thing to want to look forward to.

By the way, I am doing something I don't really like to do.  There are people who feel they need to inject their opinion into everything.  I for the most part don't feel the need to comment on things I don't like.  Or when a musician/actor/whatever I have either a negative opinion or no opinion about, I don't feel the need to advertise that.  There are many artists who died last year, but if I didn't write about them on the blog, you may assume I didn't feel their loss was something I should note.  Again, that didn't mean they had no affect on music or movies or whatever, just that they had no affect on me.  I don't believe there's an objective good or bad out there when it comes to opinions.

Anyway, sorry about doing something I don't normally do.

But I'm doing it because I was trying to think of "shared experiences" that I do enjoy that are on or near the level of a Super Bowl.  & the only thing I could think of is awards shows.  But not all of them.

The awards shows I watch are the Emmys, the Oscars, & the Golden Globes.  In general, commercial movies tend to have a better chance of having some excellence in them than commercial music.  I don't watch the Grammys, the People's Choice Awards, or the Tonys, the latter because I pay very little attention to Broadway. The Grammys & the other one I don't watch because, like Super Bowl halftime shows, they feature commercial artists which I pay no attention to.  (You can read why I don't watch the Grammys here.)

But that's all I can think of - I watch a fair amount of television, & I see a fair amount of movies, some of which win awards.  I find awards shows nice because I like when people win, & I occasionally find the stuff the hosts/writers do to be funny.  (I don't generally like Jimmy Kimmel, for example, but I did find his Emmys Bill Cosby prank quite funny.)

Oh, & yeah, I know there are a lot more awards shows, I just thought of the ones that are bigger.  I think MTV still gives awards for the music videos they no longer play on MTV, for example, but, again, those awards are full of commercial artists winning because they are successful, not because their videos feature actual innovation of any kind.  Though I guess people who like the commercial artists would differ.  Really, it's fascinating they make music videos at all anymore.

Have I missed something?  Are there shared American experiences not based around sports or awards shows (or television) that I do take part it?  Am I not really much of an outsider after all?

Self Help Radio 020117: Apples

(Original image here.)

"Who would know there were so many apple songs? Wow!" - commentary on the show on Twitter.

It's probably never a good idea to do shows about food.  (This might be why I've always threatened, but never have programmed, a show about cheese fries.)  (Also, there aren't really many songs about cheese fries.)  (Which is a tragedy.)  Doing this show about apples, I craved apples.  So many apple songs, no apples in the house or in my stomach.

Yesterday I went to Costco, & thought, "I'll buy some apples!"  Except, you know, you have to buy very many of things when you're at Costco, which is fine if those things don't spoil, but there was no chance, as much as I really, really wanted apples, that I could eat 24 of them before they went bad.  Instead, I bought - this is true - these:

Packaged, pre-sliced apples.  I haven't felt so American in such a long time.  But it was the only way I could buy eight apples at Costco, although it did cost more than if I had purchased twenty-eight.

But buy them I did, & yes!  I ate an apple while I did the show.  I lied about it on air, but I did eat an apple - one that was pre-sliced for me like I was an invalid in some kind of asylum - but a delicious apple!

Actually, I think they're Fuji.  Or gala?

The show about apples - which I hope will encourage you to eat more fruits! - is now at the Self Help Radio online orchard.  Pay attention the password & username if you want to get in, but once you're in - all the apples you can eat!  The menu is below.

(part one)

"Apples" Ian Dury _Apples_
"Appleseed Alley" Po! _Little Stones_
"Apple Pickin' Song" Sarah Silverman _Songs Of The Sarah Silverman Program_

"Eat An Apple" Burbuja _Burbuja_
"The Apple Stem" Young Legs _Promise Of Winter_
"Foot Apple" Coyle & Sharpe _On The Loose_
"Little Apples" Momus _Folktronic_
"Apple Scruffs" George Harrison _All Things Must Pass_

"Apple" Jawbreaker Reunion _Haha & Then What ;)_
"Apples & Oranges" Pink Floyd _The Best Of The Pink Floyd_
"Apple Cider" Ken Nordine _Wink_
"Apple Vines" The Autocollants _Why Couldn't Things Just Stay The Same_
"Apple Pie" The Heart Throbs _Vertical Smile_

"In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree" Louis Armstrong & The Mills Brothers _Louis Armstrong & The Mills Brothers_
"Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider" The Four Knights _Jivin' & Smoothin'_

(part two)

"Apple Pie" Jon Isherwood _Circus Days, Vol. 4_
"Apple Suckling Tree" Bob Dylan & The Band _The Basement Tapes_
"The Laughing Apple" Cat Stevens _On The Road To Find Out_

"Little Green Apples" Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell _Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell_
"Blessed Wild Apple Girl" Tyrannosaurus Rex _The Definitive Tyrannosaurus Rex_
"Apple Juice" Hannibal Buress _Animal Furnace_
"Apple Of My Eye" Remember Fun _Souvenirs From Egg Records_
"Underneath The Apple Tree" Grant Hart _The Argument_

"Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)" The Modernaires _Singin' & Swingin'_
"One Bad Apple" The Osmonds _The Fame Studios Story 1961-1973_
"Poison Apple" Popup _A Time & A Place_
"She Fakes Apples" Acid House Kings _Review I (Marsh-Marigold)_

"Apples" Saturnine _Popular World_
"Apple Song" Chicklet _Indian Summer_

Whither Apples?

(This image from here.)

Why a radio show about apples?

Could it be because there have been so few episodes of Self Help Radio about fruit?  (Previously: limes, melons.)

Could it be because February is National Apple Month?  (It's not.  That's October.)

Could it be because apples are the most popular fruit in the United States? (They're not - according to this, bananas are more popular.)

Could it be because apples are the most popular fruit in the world?  (They're not - according to this, mangoes are way more popular.)

Could it because apples are just plain delicious?  (Even if you only eat them in a pie.)

It could be for all these reasons!  (Even though three of them are demonstrably not true.)

Apples are the subject of tonight's Self Help Radio airing in Lexington on 93.9 fm WLXU & streaming everywhere at lexingtoncommunityradio.org!  From 9-11 pm eastern, 8-10 pm central!

Listening to this radio show will give you the same amount of vitamins & minerals as a barrel of apples.  (That's definitely false.)

Preface To Apples: Only In Pies

Confession time: I haven't eaten an apple in ages.  I don't know why that is.  Just no apples in the house - except - uh oh - in apple pies.

& not just any apple pie - giant Costco apple pies!  These pies:

(I found this image here.)

They're pretty good.  & happily for me, vegan!

Yes, I know they sell actual apples at Costco, too - even expensively pre-sliced.  But the wife prefers grapes & pineapples if we do buy fruit.  Not apples.

Spending all day, however, listening to songs about apples, preparing for tomorrow's show, has made me crave apples.  Not enough to go actually buy some - I'll go to Costco tomorrow & decide if I need a convenient pack of seventy-two Granny Smiths - but enough to look at images on the internet & get all drooly.

By the way - the apple pies above do nothing for me right now.  I think I'd pass that sweetness up for a chance at a seventy-two pack of a Fuji or a Red Delicious.  But it might just be because I have been listening to apple songs all day long!

Know Your Apples

The show this week is about apples, so here's something to study before the show:

(I found that here.)

A Day Of Peril In A Time Of Peril

I very much sympathized with this tweet today from Morgan Murphy:

Before I comment, though, I have to wonder out loud - do you have to be of a particular orientation to like a radio show like Self Help Radio?  Does the show seem liberal or conservative?  That would be weird, right?  Except I have heard conversations about some of the shows on stations I've been at that featured country music or the blues & in those conversations it was expected that the hosts of the shows were in fact conservative.  Does that make the show also conservative?  Did the hosts of the show talk about political issues on the show?

Please understand that I think that's perfectly fine - I think deejays should be allowed to say whatever they want, including their political opinions.  (The FCC thinks so, too, as long as the programmers makes it clear that her opinion is not that of the station's.)  & frankly I'm not sure that just playing a certain genre of music is a political statement.

Having said all that, I have talked politics on Self Help Radio, usually around election time.  I haven't done any particularly political themes (though I'm sure a show with the theme "abortion" would be a real hoot) but I am not sure there are many conservatives who enjoy indie music.  I understand I could be proven wrong.

Today, though, with the protests against Trump's ban of Muslims, & the subsequent protests, I feel like I am standing on the sidelines of history, because, like Morgan Murphy above, my skill set does not include many tools for revolution.  (I responded to her tweet with something like, "I think I might be very good at being struck repeatedly by a fascist with a truncheon.")

My heart does swell at my fellow citizens taking action against Trump's unconstitutional orders.  I just feel, as a rule, mostly useless.  A lot helpless.  & of course I'm extremely pessimistic.

There's something else I want to say apropos this issue of a music-based radio show having a political slant.  I was snooping on a conversation a Facebook friend (from Kentucky) was having with another Kentuckian.  The not-friend was complaining about Ashley Judd (who, like me, is a former WRFL deejay) & her speech at last week's march.  I'm not going to remember it word-for-word, but I think you've read similar things.  It said something like, How dare this woman criticize the president she's no longer a daughter of Kentucky she's a traitor etc. etc.

This is a serious question: when did someone disagreeing with you politically make them a traitor?  That seems so weird.  It also feels very un-American.  But even if I'm not feeling judgy, I just wonder where that comes from, the absolute hatred that rises when someone doesn't agree with you on an issue or policy position.  What kind of world do people like that want?

& would they not want to listen to Self Help Radio if they knew I was some kind of liberal commie freak?

(Not that I have to worry about that - nobody listens to Self Help Radio!)

Self Help Radio 012517: Dust

(Original image here.)

What do asbestosis, silicosis, coal pneumoconiosis, beryllium disease, hard metal disease, siderosis, stannosis, & baritosis have in common?  They're all diseases caused by dust!  So are these: farmer's lung, bird fancier's lung (!), bagassosis, mushroom worker's lung, humidifier fever, sewage sludge disease, cheese washers' lung (!!), & animal handlers' lung.  What's the difference between the two sets of diseases?  The first set is caused by inorganic dust, the second by organic dust.  (You can read more here.)

If you're anything thing like me, you're perversely glad to be living in a world that has not only bird fanciers, but bird fanciers' lung!  It serves them right.  & what can we say about cheese washers' lung?  Might it not be better for the cheese to be just a little dirty?

There was so much fun information about dust that I am very sad that I didn't have more time to talk about the subject on the show.  But I did talk to a lover of dust & a lover of dusting; a doctor who studies the fear of dust; & my spiritual mentor, who has probably read dusty tomes & maybe even shares that knowledge with us!

& so many songs about dust.  A cloud of dust songs!

The show is at the same old website, covered in dust from neglect & disuse, Self Help Radio dot net.  The dust-covered songs I played are below.  Maybe wear one of those masks people wear when there's lots of pollution when you listen?  After all, you'd hate to get humidifier fever!  Or would you?!?!

(part one)

"Dust" Bombay Dub Orchestra _Bombay Dub Orchestra_
"Fairy Dust" Mick Harvey _Four (Acts of Love)_
"The Dust Blows Forward 'N The Dust Blows Back" Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band _Trout Mask Replica_

"Dust" 13th Floor Elevators _Easter Everywhere_
"Dusted" Belly _Star_
"Doom Bot Dust" The Firesign Theatre _Boom Dot Bust_
"Dust & Lungs & Wings" The Honest Johns _Meteor_
"Tulare Dust" Merle Haggard _Down Every Road: 1962-1994_

"Star Dust" Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra _1931-1932_
"Lady Stardust" David Bowie _The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars_
"Ziggy Stardust" Bauhaus _Swing The Heartache: The BBC Sessions_
"Dust" Erase Errata _Nightlife_
"Stardust" Irene _Apple Bay_

"Dust" Julian Cope _Interpreter_

(part two)

"Dust 2..." Elvis Costello _When I Was Cruel_
"I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" Robert Johnson _The Complete Recordings_
"Dust" Deptford Goth _Songs_

"Dust Up His Nose" Larry Rand _Dust Up His Nose_
"Dusty Old Dust" Woody Guthrie _Dust Bowl Ballads_
"Dust" Love Is All _Two Thousand & Ten Injuries_
"Dust Devil" Mission Of Burma _Unsound_

"Dust" Silver Apples _Silver Apples_
"Cities In Dust" Siouxsie & The Banshees _Tinderbox_
"In The Gold Dust Rush" Cocteau Twins _Head Over Heels_
"A Brush Through The Dust" Silk Flowers _Ltd. Form_

"Dust Remains" 14 Iced Bears _Let The Breeze Open Our Hearts_
"Just Dust" Quilt _Held In Splendor_

Whither Dust?

(This image from there.)

When was the last time the Self Help Radio studios were cleaned?  It's filthy in here!  Seriously, there's like an inch of dust all over everything!

Waitasecond!  That gives me an idea!

Could that really be how this radio show came about?  Because of filth?

But, Gary, I can hear you say, you've lived your life in what most people would call squalor.  If existing in what can be most charitably referred to as "grunge" is an inspiration, shouldn't you have explored this particular topic before?

Well, in my defense, I have done a show about dirt.  But that was a long time ago.

Can you please just let me have this explanation?  Please?

The Self Help Radio show about dust airs tonight on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington & all over the world at Lexington Community Radio dot org.  It's on from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central.  It's on at 10am on Thursday morning in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, if you happen to be there.

Listen, but bring a feather duster, or maybe even a Dust Buster.

Preface To Dust: Dust Idioms

There are so many interviews on my show this week that I won't get to do one of my favorite things I do on the show, which is talk about idioms.

Many years ago, I volunteered for an adult literacy program & had one student before we moved away, & that student was only technically an adult - he was 18, a high-school drop-out, with two children already.  He said, I was told, at a third-grade reading level.  He was pretty non-communicative, & was terrible at making our appointments, so I only sat with him twice.  The second time, I had bought a giant GED prep book because his goal was to take the GED.  But he had one amazing blindspot: he didn't understand idioms.

That was interesting to me.  He had never heard "raining cats & dogs."  He didn't quite understand the concept of a "bad penny."  We took a test together & he would just look at me, kind of dead-eyed & confused, as I tried to explain why a phrase meant what it did.

That's one reason I enjoy talking about idioms on the show.  I have been doing it pretty much since the show's beginnings, but having this experience with this young man only made me want to showcase idioms more.

Without further ado, here are some idioms using the word dust that I'd talk about tomorrow if I had the time which I won't.

When something collects dust, it's been sitting there unused for a long time.  Figuratively & literally. (You can also say it gathers dust.  If you want.)

If you leave someone in the dust, as in a competition, you have far surpassed them & are way ahead. I think I've even seen a couple of racing movies where the triumphant one yells, in an unsportsmanlike, taunting fashion, "Eat my dust!"

Speaking of movies, there are westerns in which I've heard someone say, "Kiss the dust!"  Meaning, of course, fall, after being struck or shot.

If you're waiting for the dust to settle, you're being patient until things calm down.  The idea being that great activity makes the dust fly.

I haven't heard this one before: charge it to the dust & let the rain settle it.  You apparently say this when you don't want to pay for something, presumably because the service was poor or the thing was of bad quality.  It appears to be an American idiom.

Dust itself can be used as a euphemism for "kill," so it makes since that when someone bites the dust, they die.

If you need to be dusted off, you must pick yourself up after some setback or defeat & begin to try again.  (It's also a baseball idiom, is dust off, & can be also used to mean "to kill.")  A dust-up however is a fight.

That should be enough.  My airbreak feels too long & this is a blog post!

Strep!

My wife recently had the strep throat.  (Is "strep throat" supposed to have the article before it?  It sounds more rural to put the article before the ailment.)  It's the second time in several months.  The doctor gave her antibiotics & told her she'd be "contagious" for several days.  She feared that she would give it to me, you know, because of all the smooching we do.

But she didn't give it to me.  You know why?  Because I've never had strep throat.  Members of my family have - I think my mother has - possibly one or more of my siblings - but not me.  I've had sore throats before, but the strep throat that was a great excuse for skipping middle school - "Where's Joni Martin?" "Didn't you hear? She has strep throat!" - I never got that kind.  (Which meant of course that there were no rumors about me making out with someone & getting strep throat that way.)

There's a scientific reason for it.  But you know what?  I ain't chancing it.

Sure I might seem way secure - I did say "she didn't give it to me" up there - but tonight my throat felt a little sore so I started sucking cough drops.  When I was a smoker, & got a cold, I'd suck cough drops while I was smoking so it wouldn't aggravate my throat too much.  What a moron I was.  Anyway, this time it's preventative.

Anyway - who wants to stop all that smooching?

Please No More 1981 Stories

But wait, I have one last one.  I remembered this while talking to my wife on the dog walk today.  She was probably not listening, as she is a sensible woman.

My friend Gus, at whose house my little brother & I passed most of our summer days in 1981, was the first person I met whose family owned a microwave oven.  I can't tell you much about it, but if I google "1981 microwave," this is the image that comes up:

(I found the image here.)

Not as gigantic as I might have imagined - I suppose I thought microwaves were like televisions & radios, their early models being enormous - but truly a wonder.  Gus would make us nachos - meaning he melted cheese on tortilla chips - it was something I couldn't have imagined one could do at home.  (& we must've eaten too many of them - at some point he told us sheepishly his mom wouldn't allow him to make nachos any more.)

But here's the memory I wanted to tell: because I was such a comic book nerd, & because in every Marvel comic, the heroes get their powers from radiation, I toyed with the idea of turning the microwave on, opening the door, & bathing myself in the mysterious heat rays within.  I never did it, of course.  For two reasons: one, I was afraid; & two, microwaves, of course, turn off when you open the door.  It's a standard safety feature.

What was I afraid of?  Well, getting burned, of course.  Plus, Marvel comics also had stories about people trying to replicate the ways that superheroes got their powers & being deformed - or worse, turned evil! - by the attempt.

Anyway, that's dumb, funny memory from 1981, my last I hope.  What a dumb kid I was.  Thirteen years old!  & still daydreaming about super powers.

Self Help Radio 011817: 1981

(Original image here.)

People love lists.  People spend all day on the internet looking at lists.  When I was a kid, I read all three copies of "The Book Of Lists."  I have a friend who's intensely interested in lists.  Give me a list of your top ten favorite artists, he has said.  What are your favorite records of this & such year?  Make a list!  Make a list of the best movies you've seen!  List!  List!  List!

Frankly I am leery of such lists.  First of all, it seems like once you've committed to a list, especially a hierarchical one, you're less likely to want to go back to change it.  Secondly, aren't lists conditional? I mean, none of my favorite hip-hop records from 1981 made it onto my show, but that's only because I don't think about hip-hop in the same way as music that affected me when I was younger.  Which is to say that there are times I'd much rather listen to "Apache" by the Sugarhill Gang than "Ceremony" by New Order.  (Both singles were released in 1981.)

The best kind of list I can offer is this sort of show.  On this week's Self Help Radio, I played songs from my favorite releases of 1981.  Two of these were recorded before, but not released until, 1981.  Eight of them came from singles or EPs.  Almost all of them would wait to be discovered by me until late high school/college.

& here's the show, now at the Self Help Radio website. Pay attention to username/password info on the front page.  The songs I played are below.  The fact that it's now thirty-six years since 1981 kinda blows my mind.

(part one)

"Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" The Modern Lovers _The Original Modern Lovers_
"Nothing's Going To Happen" Tall Dwarfs _Three Songs_
"Fast Boyfriends" Girls At Our Best! _Pleasure_

"Exercise One" Joy Division _Still_
"Ceremony" New Order _Ceremony_
"The Passion Of Lovers" Bauhaus _Mask_
"Spellbound" Siouxsie & The Banshees _Juju_

"Charlotte Sometimes" The Cure _Charlotte Sometimes_
"Into You Like A Train" The Psychedelic Furs _Talk Talk Talk_
"Zoo-Music Girl" The Birthday Party _Prayers On Fire_
"Don't Shake Me Lucifer" Roky Erickson & The Aliens _The Evil One_

"Leave The Capitol" The Fall _Slates_
"Jerkin' Back & Forth" Devo _New Traditionalists_

(part two)

"This Angry Silence" Television Personalities _...And Don't The Kids Just Love It_
"Join The Book Club" George Carlin _A Place For My Stuff!_
"Help Me Somebody" Brian Eno & David Byrne _My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts_

"This Is Radio Clash" The Clash _This Is Radio Clash_
"That's Entertainment" The Jam _That's Entertainment_
"The KKK Took My Baby Away" The Ramones _Pleasant Dreams_
"That's When I Reach For My Revolver" Mission Of Burma _Signals, Calls, & Marches_

"New Lace Sleeves" Elvis Costello & The Attractions _Trust_
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" The Police _Ghost In The Machine_
"Since You're Gone" The Cars _Shake It Up_
"Belinda" Eurythmics _In The Garden_

"Poor Old Soul" Orange Juice _Poor Old Soul_
"Sorry For Laughing" Josef K _The Only Fun In Town_

Whither 1981?

(Image from here.)

When Self Help Radio began, I thought of each show being a unique theme, nothing revisited, nothing repeated.  But within two months of doing the show, I realized I would probably do a Christmas show every year.  & then my birthday came around.

My birthday is January 20 - yes, inauguration day.  On my first birthday, Nixon became the President of the United States.  On my thirteenth, it was Reagan.  On & on.  More awful presidents have taken over the job on my birthday than good ones.  & this year will probably be the awfulest.

In 2003, I came up with the idea of, on my birthday, revisiting my favorite music from the year of my birth.  It was a cool idea & I kept with it, starting then at 1968 & arriving this year at (you guessed it) 1981.  The earlier shows, of course, didn't feature music I liked at that age - I barely remember any music I listened to in 1969, for instance, but rather featured music I have come to love from that year.  But we're getting closer.  At least two of the songs on the show tonight that I might play were songs I loved from the radio in 1981.  But most of them were still things I discovered later.

Personally I think it was an amazing year for music.  But you might not like the same things I like, so we'll just have to see.  Or hear.  The show's on tonight from 8-10 pm central, 9-11 pm eastern on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington, online at lexingtoncommunityradio.org everywhere.

Hope you'll come back to the past with me tonight!

Preface To 1981: Middle School Life Crisis

This week's show features music from 1981.  If you don't already know why, I'll tell you tomorrow.

In 1981, I was 13.  It was in seventh grade that I met my friend Russell, who's my friend to this day.  He plays (or inhabits) the Reverend Dr. Howard Gently on the show.  Here's something interesting: being two shy kids, who spent way too much time in their rooms, we actually pretended on the phone to be a radio show - I was Gary Franklin (no idea why that name happened), he was all the callers.  I have tapes of us doing that that one day I may share.

Because Russell lived a fair distance away & because we were both introverted, we were friends mainly on the phone.  I still had a few friends in my apartment complex where me, my mother, & my little brother lived, but, usually because poor families don't stay in one place for long, & those friends would come & go, mostly I spent time alone.

My memory is fuzzy about the difference between the summers that happened between the grades.  I suspect that the summer after seventh but before eighth grade is when I became friends with a fellow named Gus, who had been a classmate of my little brother's, who contacted me out of the blue to ask about comic book collecting.  The truth is, at the time, I suspected I might be outgrowing comics.  I couldn't really afford new ones, & the convenience store at which my mother worked had been sold - she would let me show up, grab some off the rack, & make off with them - & instead she was working at a drug store which was, shall we say, less easy to pilfer from.  But I also had read the ones I had too many times & found the style a little tiring, especially when compared with books I was reading.  But Gus told me about comics by people with names like John Byrne & Frank Miller who were apparently revolutionizing the industry.

Gus was just interested in making money through selling comics, but I had always loved them & would eventually spend the better part of my teens collecting them.  That summer, though, my little brother & I would walk nearly every weekday from the apartments to Gus' house to hang out with him.  (Google maps says it is 1.2 miles away - I imagine we did it even when it was quite warm out, but luckily the route was shaded by big old trees.)  It must have been the summer of 1981 because "Bette Davis Eyes" was always on the radio when we listened.

What we spent our summer hours doing I haven't the foggiest.  I remember two things.  One, I shot my little brother point blank with a b.b. gun.  I didn't know it was loaded.  It luckily didn't break the skin.  To this day he believes I did it on purpose - he brought it up a year & a half ago at my sister's memorial!

The second was that we were walking around in the attic area & I stepped off one of the wooden bars & went right through the ceiling landing on Gus' bed.  It was terrifying & I was lucky I didn't break anything - it could've been, for example, above the bathtub or the kitchen.  I don't remember if I got in any trouble.  For either of these incidents.  We would come back to Gus' house & there'd be a hole in his bedroom ceiling.

On days we didn't go to visit Gus I probably talked on the phone with Russell.

One thing I think happened at that time is that my sister Karin moved back in with us briefly.  She had moved out after she "ran away" the year or two before, & would eventually move in with the man who would become her husband, but for a time she slept in a bed in my room (I assume my little brother slept downstairs) & she'd wake me when she came in during the nights.  It often unnerved me, like someone was breaking into my room.

As for eighth grade, well.  I think I liked it better than seventh grade, but things were still confusing.  I didn't really have an idea of what I thought "attractive" was & puzzled over the tastes of my classmates.  Simply put, I didn't think any of the "popular" girls were all that pretty, but it had little to do with how they actually looked.  I could tell they were snobbish, & they were vary fashion-conscious - this was around the time the "preppy" look became the suburban style.  I still mostly wore hand-me-downs & whatever my mother bought me.  (Still!  I dress the same.  In fact, one KOOPer once told me I dress like a thirteen-year-old boy.)  But I paid attention, & tried to see girls through the (stupid, young, gross) eyes of my classmates.  & of course I had no idea about anything like kissing or sex.  That was so outside of any experience I could imagine having that it went beyond science fiction.

That's not entirely true.  I did have a crush on someone.  But it wasn't much more than a kind of far away admiration.  It became harder & harder to talk to her as time went on.

One teacher I was very fond of was my American History teacher, Mrs. Lane.  She was very kind to me.  Another was my English teacher, Mrs. Bishop, whom everyone hated but who was unusually rigorous about understanding literature for a middle school teacher.  It just occurred to me they're both probably dead now.  It's strange that's not easy to find out online.

My classmates were the same classmates I had had for my entire run of middle school, so it was a more comfortable grade I entered, even if I was still mostly thought of as an outsider, or a nerd, or a weirdo.  Man, thinking about eighth grade has made all kinds of memories flood back.  I can tell three stories & then I have to stop.

The first one is in health class.  I have always been squeamish about intravenous drugs &, just like in sixth grade, I passed out while watching a film strip about heroin.  Spent the day in the nurse's office. Was asked about it all the next day.  Experience the odd thrill of minor celebrity.

At some point - I'm not sure how this came up - I think this was with the Yearbook staff - we were in the school after hours - I dared another student - I can't remember who it was - to go write some bad words in the boy's room.  No, it was someone I worked with in the library.  Library staff got to travel freely in the halls during school.  The other person was in the seventh grade, & I was in the eighth.  I dared him to write something awful in the boy's room in his hall & I would do the same in mine.  I wrote something that today would be completely innocuous - something I'm not entirely sure I knew what it meant - but it was something like "Cheerleaders are easy."  I was shocked to find out some time later than this so affected the cheerleaders that one of them got in trouble for going into the boys' room to scrub it off the walls.  I felt just awful about it.

Finally - & this may have happened in 1982, because it feels like something that would have happened at the end of the year - I was in Beta Club - it's where I met Russell, I was very amused by his heckling at the dire meetings we had - & occasionally we were told we had to sell stuff for whatever club budget shit.  In this case it was M&Ms.  I lived in an apartment complex with lots of poor people, who knew a fifty cent box of M&Ms was no deal at all when you could walk to the Minyard's & get them for twenty cents, so I didn't sell many.  I actually barely tried.  I hated selling things.  I had tried before, tried to solicit newspaper subscriptions & just hated it.  Hated knocking on doors & hated pushing products.  I helped my mother at a convenience store, I would wait while people picked out what they wanted to buy & then came to me.

When the time came to collect, I returned a nearly-full box to the Beta Club sponsors.  One of them - the same woman, I believe, who was my Yearbook Club sponsor - was furious with me.  She accused me of not trying, of being lazy, of being indolent.  I told her, because I couldn't really see the point, that I didn't enjoy & wasn't very good at selling things, & if it was a condition of my membership that I sell a certain amount of M&Ms to be in the Beta Club, I guess I wouldn't be in the club.  She just stared at me, then gave a cry of exasperation, & left.

You see, I didn't really understand about things like service groups & college applications back then - how could I?  None of my siblings had gone or would go to college, & my mother was a working-class woman raised in Germany, where none of her family would have even dreamed nor had the opportunity for higher education.  I didn't really know what Beta Club was for.  I didn't like the meetings, I didn't like the parties - although my friend Russell tells me that it was one of the parties where we sat in someone bedroom & talked about the Beatles.  I vaguely recall that.  That's how a friendship was born.

Russell was watching, too, when I gave back the M&Ms & explained myself.  I looked at him & saw him wide-eyed.  It may be why I remember the story.

When I Was Thirteen

On January 20, 1981, I turned thirteen (13) years old.  That seems like such a terrifying thing, but I don't know that I perceived it as such.  I was vaguely aware that something called "puberty" was assaulting me, & my skin was already not so great, though my voice would take its time changing & I wouldn't reach my full height until some time in high school.  Honestly, what might have been most noticeable to me at thirteen was how different I was not just from everyone else, but mainly from my own family.

Honestly, thirteen found me in one of my worst years of my life - I spoke a little about it last year when I talked about 1980 - but I didn't mention one class I had, my "Reading" class (a real middle school class), in which the teacher actively hated me.  She was a severe woman with a thick Southern accent who did everything she could to - well, not humiliate, but she did enjoy flustering me.  I remember one day we were doing crafts - so weird, in a reading class - & I clumsily spilled paper & glitter on the floor.  She made me stay after class - so I'd be late to my next class - & basically called me a dolt the entire time I tried to fix my mess.  It was a weird experience because, in general, teachers either liked me or they tolerated me.  For a teacher to be openly hostile to me frightened & confused me.

By the way, I remember her name: Mrs. Reeves.

But it is true that at thirteen I was about to make my first friend who'd stay my friend into adult life who wasn't also my little brother's friend.  A month or so ago, when I was talking to my wife about something, she mentioned that it was hard for her to understand that I once was close to my little brother, to whom I barely speak & haven't really talked to for years (we shared some conversation & memories at my sister's memorial in 2015, but haven't spoken at all really since I moved back to Texas).  But he & I spent the first ten or so years of our life together, doing things together, fighting, talking, playing.  It was obvious by the time I was thirteen that we weren't very much alike, but separating - having a life without the other - was something we gave up reluctantly.  Luckily, my mother had installed a mechanism which would make it easier.

Often people will be surprised that I have six siblings but am close to none.  My sister Pat, who died almost two years ago, was the sibling I was closest to, but that closeness came much later, in adulthood.  My sister Karin is much harder to get close to than Pat, & I am not sure why that is.  My four brothers, however, I have found impossible to have a relationship with.  & I think I know why.

My mother likes her boys - not so much her girls - tied to her apron strings.  One of the way she has done that - subconsciously or no - is to basically instill into each of her sons the idea that they are the most important person in the world - that they are phenomenal, without peer, exceptional, including in the looks department.  What happens when you do that with five boys?  Well, I believe that they begin to see the other brothers as something like rivals for the mother's attention & affection.  She obviously thinks the one the best; but she also has to spend time with the others.  You are competing for the most attention - & surely you can't be friends with your rivals, can you?

It has baffled me when I see siblings who are so close, so supportive, so kind to one another.  That doesn't happen in my family.  It's not just at my generation - my sister Pat once told me that my father barely kept in touch with his siblings (I have no way to know if that were true), & my mother recently told me she hasn't communicated with her deceased sister's son in almost two years.  & look at me - I have barely had a friendly exchange of words with any of my brothers in years.  I am certainly taking part in the role I've been given.

Of course I wasn't cognizant of any of this at thirteen, but I do know I was aware I was different.  My love of comic books & science fiction, as well as my growing interest in music, which was much more obsessive than my siblings', who were happy to like whatever was on the radio, was starting to set me apart.  I was, as they may have noted, a fat little weird nerd.  Possibly beyond saving.

There are more details about this year of my life tomorrow.  So sorry about that.

Writing In My Sleep

I had a dream last night in which, when you received a letter from someone, you wrote back to them starting on the empty space at the end of their last letter, & then sent them back your letter with theirs. People who corresponded for a long time sent back & forth to one another giant tomes of their writings. Getting a letter in the mail was a thrilling, if daunting, event.

Self Help Radio 011117: A Tribute To Leonard Cohen

(Original image here.)

There's a famous story I'm going to screw up.  Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen are sharing a cab or a limo or something, & are being complimentary to one another.  Cohen mentions a song of Dylan's - in my brain it's something off of Infidels, but I can't recall what it is - & asks Dylan how long it took him to write it.  (I assume this is the sort of thing about which songwriters compare notes.)  Dylan says he wrote it in a cab on the way to a show.  He then compliments Cohen on the song "Hallelujah," & asks how long it took him to write that song.  Cohen replies that he worked on it off & on for a decade.

This story may explain why Cohen, in a career just a little shorter than The Bob's, only released fourteen studio records, while The Nobel Bob has released four thousand.  & by the way, there's a part of me that things both men are being somewhat hyperbolic - Dylan to show off, Cohen to be humble.  Which also says something about the two men.

There are times when you gotta be Dylan, & there are times when you gotta be Cohen.  As I stumble through my meaningless life, a life defined at times by gloom & at times by painful beauty, at times by bleakness so vast my eyes & ears fail, & at times by love so true & surprising that I am grateful for my senses - as the road ahead gets shorter than the one behind, as what the heart remembers starts to overshadow what it has yet to feel - I find in myself less & less Dylan & more & more Cohen.

Truly I could talk about him & his music (which is also him) all day & night long.  Maybe one day you & I will do that, with a bottle of wine in front of us.  Until then, here's my feeble attempt to pay tribute to someone I have loved & needed for almost my entire adult life.  Oh, Leonard Cohen.  I will listen for you everyday as you sing to us sweetly from the Tower Of Song.

The show, such as it is, is at the Self Help Radio website.  The songs I played are below.  I hope you like it, if you listen.  But the truth is, as piss-poor a tribute as it is, I needed to do it, for me.  To say thanks.

(part one)

"Suzanne" Nina Simone _To Love Somebody_
"Memories" The Extra Glenns _Martial Arts Weekend_
"Why Don't You Try" Colleen Rennison _See The Sky About To Rain_

"There Is A War" Great Plains _Slaves To Rock & Roll_
"Story Of Isaac" Green Pajamas _Indian Winter_
"Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" Claudine Longet _Let's Spend The Night Together_
"Lover Lover Lover" Ian McCulloch _Mysterio_
"I'm Your Man" Mystery Twins _Arrow_

"Dress Rehearsal Rag" Goodbye Mr Mackenzie _Jezebel_
"Tonight Will Be Fine" Herman Düne & Clemence Freschard _Kreuzberg Cafe_
"The Law" Tanya Donelly _Swan Song Series, Vol. 2_
"If It Be Your Will" Human Drama _Pinups_
"Sisters Of Mercy" Area _The Perfect Dream_

(part two)

"Avalanche" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _From Her To Eternity_
"So Long Marianne" Bill Callahan _The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered_
"Dance Me To The End Of Love" The Civil Wars _Barton Hollow_
"Bird On A Wire (feat. Marc Ribot)" My Brightest Diamond _I Have Never Loved Someone_

"Hallelujah" John Cale _I'm Your Fan_
"Who By Fire" Coil _Horse Rotorvator_
"You Got Me Singing" Jenny Adkins _You Got Me Singing_
"Joan Of Arc" John Wesley Hardings Love Hall Tryst _Songs Of Misfortune_
"Paper Thin Hotel" Close Lobsters _Nature Thing_
"Diamonds In The Mine" Broken Family Band _Balls_

"Passing Through" Dick Blakeslee _Songs For Political Action, Vol. 6: The People's Songs Era 1945-1949_
"Chelsea Hotel # 2" Lambchop _Rainer On My Parade_
"Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" Palaxy Tracks _Twelve Rooms_