Preface To Neon: The Periodic Table

This is something I was about to write: "When I was a kid, I was a huge comic nerd."  But really, I'm still a huge comic nerd.  I don't read comics regularly these days, & don't buy new ones, but if someone suggests something to me, or I am reminded of something, I'll grab back issues or digital issues & waste an afternoon re-reading them.  For example, I recently finished the Netflix Punisher series & it's taken all my power not to go back & read Garth Ennis' run on the comic.  Fortunately I have had other things to do or I'd have been in the middle of sixty issues by now.

How do comics relate to the subject of neon?  Just wait!

In tenth grade or so, I went to my first comics convention, & I met some folks there who published a fanzine in nearby Richardson.  This led to me meeting a bunch of people who were as nutty about comics as I was.  (It was also the first time I'd met anyone who was fiercely loyal to a comics company.  I tended to like whatever I liked.  That kind of baffled people who thought the other big one - whether Marvel or DC depending on your choice - was nothing but bad & also evil.)

& in those days, I really wanted to write comics.  I wanted to do that fundamentally because I couldn't draw well, or else I would've wanted to write & draw comics.  The trouble was, I had never really written a comic before.  Or anything, really.  Maybe dumb poems that were trying to be funny.  Some song parodies like Weird Al Yankovic.  But if I started a comic - & I did start dozens of them - I never really finished it & I never really got around to such things as "plot" or "story."

What I loved doing was coming up with a concept.  Most of my concepts were incredibly derivative, a space agent who was a lot like Han Solo, a mystic master who was basically Dr. Strange.  When I met the folks in Richardson who were comics nerds like me - if there were any in my high school, I never met them - & surely they would've known me, I wore comic tee shirts & buttons! - a couple of them claimed to be artists & agreed to collaborate with me on something.

That was exciting!  The trouble was, my ideas were not - shall we say - traditional.  & this is where we come to neon.

For the longest time, there have been characters who have "elemental" powers.  There's Metamorpho, also known as "The Element Man."  There's Element Lad from the Legion Of Super-Heroes.  There's the various robots in the Metal Men.  & that's just from DC Comics!  In the 1960s!

But I was aware there were lots & lots of different elements - I loved poring over the Periodic Table.  Just look at all these damn elements (image from Wikipedia)!

I thought, wouldn't it be weird, fun, & challenging to have a superteam called "The Elements" that had, like, 118 members?  A large number of them (in my estimation) would just be metals who were super-strong.  A few of them would be mainly gases.  Some of them - the radioactive ones last of the table - might only exist for seconds at a time.

What shenanigans would they get up to?  Why would they be fighting crime?  What had happened to make them that way?

Unfortunately, I never got past the concept, because the comics nerd who was an artist who wanted to collaborate with me threw up his hands at having to design 118 different characters.  Also, he thought it was stupid.  & I never really revisited the concept.

For the record, he also hated my other idea: Animal/Vegetable/Mineral-Man.  His powers were - oh, never mind.

It Went Okay

Today's Pledge Drive show, I mean.

It wasn't a success by any means - I am way under my goal*, for example - but seven people called & made pledges & that was nice.  Thanks to them - nice folks who are called Brent, Connie, Eric, John, Kara, Lena, & Natasha - & thanks to my friend Carole, who helped out.  Listen for her - she's going to be programming music on the radio for the first time in over a decade next week, whether there's a Pledge Drive show or not (let's cross our fingers & hope for not).

& really I still have no idea how to do this Pledge Drive thing properly.  What I want is just to do a decent enough radio show that some people might be moved to support the station that gives me the opportunity & freedom to do that.  It's too bad that's not enough.

But today?  Hell, three months ago I did a show & no one called.  This is much better by any metric you want to pick.  So I'm going to breathe easy now, wipe away the worries of today, & get to work on this week's SHR.

*Every show has a goal, the amount of money they're supposed to raise per Pledge Drive, to justify their existence.  I'd be surprised if I managed to take in a third of what I was supposed to.

Growing Up In A Convenience Store

Here's another reason why I might be a terrible salesperson: I grew up in a convenience store.

My mother worked in a convenience store from around 1976 until 1987 or 1988, which doesn't seem like such a long time but that's basically most of my adolescence. From 8 years old to 20.  & I spent a good deal of time working or otherwise helping out - for a time, to give my mother & her boyfriend (who owned the store, although he acted like we owned it) time off, I'd open the store on Sunday mornings & work until 3 or so.  That was when I was in high school!

The thing is, you don't really have to try to sell anything in a convenience store.  People come in to get things they want - soda, smokes, snacks, whatever.  You may try to upsell - you know, ask if they need a lighter if they're buying cigarettes - but you hardly ever have to try to get them to buy something - that's why they're there!  No one goes into a convenience store to browse!

Now, imagine that being your training in the ways of commerce.  Wouldn't you imagine that that would be difficult for begging to people who can listen to your radio station for free?  They're there to consume but not to buy.  & I don't think I ever got any real instruction on how to sell something to someone who's used to getting it without paying.

Of course I'm thinking about this because I have to do it all over again tomorrow for KNON.  If you've listened to the Tuesday Morning Blend & you'd like to help, you could just go make a pledge online & forgive all the on-air pleading.  I don't enjoy it.  I wish people had the habit of coming to the radio expecting to pay a little for it.  All I know is it would be cheaper than the money you spend on soda, snacks, booze, whatever.

Self Help Radio 081018: Cindy's Show

(I found these images courtesy of Google image search.  Virtually none of these Cindys are on the show, though.)

Do you know anyone named Cindy?  I don't think I know anyone named Cindy.  Do you think you can enjoy a show about Cindys if in fact you're not a Cindy?  Of course you can!  Why couldn't you? You enjoy songs with other people's names in them, right?  So stop being weird about a show about Cindys!  Must you always make this so difficult?

Despite the lack of Cindiness in my life, I found that Cindy has been a fertile subject for many excellent songs, & not just that folk song of which there are a thousand versions.  I also manage to talk to three neighbors about their troubles with a fourth neighbor named Cindy, & our resident Kabalarian talks about the power of the name Cindy.  Entertaining & informative.  But especially if your name is Cindy.

Wait!  I didn't mean that!  It's for everyone!  Maybe more for a Cindy than for you, but still!

Listen now or at your leisure at Self Help Radio dot net.  Make sure you know about the username (SHR) & the password (selfhelp).  The songs played are listed below, as are the interviews in-between.

It's true, though: Cindys are hard to charm.

"Cindy's Show"

"Cindy" The Temptations _Wish It Would Rain_
"Cindy" Gary Wilson _You Think You Really Know Me_
"Cindy" Bruce Springsteen _The Ties That Bind: The River Collection_

introductions & definitions

"Cindy (feat. Nick Cave)" Johnny Cash _Unearthed: Redemption Songs_
"Cindy" Ola Podrida _Ola Podrida_
"Cindy" The Weekend _The Weekend (The Pink Album)_
"Cindy" Connections _Private Airplane_

interview with my neighbor David

"Cindy Melody Yeah" Drug Boyfriend & Holy Worm _Cindy Melody Yeah_
"Cindy's Been & Gone" Harvey Williams _California_
"Cindy & The Barbi Dolls" Big In Japan _'The Zoo' Uncaged 1978-1982_
"Cindy Is A Crybaby" Visiting Kids _Visiting Kids_
"Cindy's On Methadone" Screeching Weasel _My Brain Hurts_

interview with my neighbor Jeff

"Cindy Tells Me" Brian Eno _Here Come The Warm Jets_
"Cindy Of A Thousand Lives" Billy Bragg _Don't Try This At Home_
"Taste Of Cindy" Jesus & Mary Chain _Psychocandy_
"Indie Cindy & The Lo-Fi Lullabies" Lemon Demon _Dinosaurchestra_
"Indie Cindy" Pixies _EP1_

interview with my neighbor Mrs Padalevski

"Snow Song, Pt 1" Neutral Milk Hotel _Everything Is_
"The World At Large Alone" Stephen Tin Tin Duffy _The Ups & Downs_
"Pictures (Of Cindy)" Josef K _Young & Stupid_
"Cindy Sherman" The Shermans _Happiness Is Toy-Shaped_
"Cindy+Me" Caged Animals _In The Land Of The Giants_

interview with our resident Kabalarian

"Lou Cindy Lou" Walter Brown _Confessin' The Blues_
"Cindy Lou" The Flairs _She Loves To Rock_
"Cindy Lou" Dick Penner _Your Honey Love_
"(Ah Ha Who?) Cindy Lou!" Keith O'Conner _Teen Town USA Vol. 5_
"Cindy Lou" The Gay _You Know The Rules_

conclusions & goodbyes

"Cindy Gal" Carolina Chocolate Drops _Genuine Negro Jig_
"Lookout For Cindy" The Belmonts _Tell Me Why: The Very Best Of The Belmonts_
"Cindy & Kathy" Mirrors _Another Nail In The Remodeled Coffin_
"Love Song For Cindy" Hard-Ons _Hot For Your Love, Baby_

Whither Cindy's Show?

(Image from here.)

Now, I suppose at this point you're thinking, "Who is this Cindy person & what is she to Gary that he's doing an entire show about her?"  Also: "When his wife finds out, he's gonna get it!"

Oh, relax.  I did a show a couple of weeks ago about mail carriers & I've never worked for the Post Office.  As I explained yesterday, I don't really have any Cindys in my life.  Doesn't mean I can't do a show about people named Cindy.

But it does mean that doing a show about people named Cindy is kinda weird, if you don't know any Cindys, right?  To which I respond, "Have you heard Self Help Radio before?"  Earlier this summer I did a show about glitter.  Next week the show is about neon.  There's neither really rhyme nor reason when I comes to this show.

In fact, that's a comment that was shared with me early on.  At KOOP, we had peer reviews, & another programmer said, "I just don't know why he explores these arbitrary topics."  I suppose it would have made her more comfortable if my show conformed to events that happened on the date of the show, like holidays or "National Pull Your Own Tooth Day."  But that never seemed much fun to me - when would subjects like glitter or neon come up?  Not to mention Cindy?

Okay, there's a Saint Cynthia (Cinthia), who could probably be called Saint Cindy if you have a hip, young priest who's trying to get in with the cool priests.   & her feast day is February 8.  So that wouldn't be arbitrary & it would please the programmer above as not being inexplicable.  But to her, I would ask, "Have you heard Self Help Radio before?"

As usual, I noticed I was listening to a bunch of songs about someone named Cindy.  I thought it might be a fun show.  After a few weeks I figured I had enough songs.  I thought I might meet a Cindy before the show, but I only came close: a neighbor who walks his dog that we see regularly (I don't know his name, but his sweet hound's name is Blue), he mentioned just yesterday that his girlfriend's name is Cindy.  & as I was driving my wife to the airport I noticed a place in town very close to where I live called Cindy's Hair Design which has apparently been in existence for decades but which has virtually no online presence.  I shoulda took a picture.

If you know a Cindy, tell her there'll be a radio show about her or people with her name tomorrow at noon on Self Help Radio's website.  It may turn out there are more Cindys than even I know about.

Preface To Cindy's Show: Do I Even Know Any Cindys?

Or is it Cindies?

A long time ago, I knew someone named Cynthia.  She didn't like to be called Cindy.  She was very religious, & didn't like me reminding her that she had "Cyn" in her name.

Years after that, but many more years before now, I knew a woman named Cindy who was my landlord, or she & her husband were my landlord.  I forget his name now.  I sort of remember what he looks like, kind of doofy, in a Mike Birbiglia type of shape.  He seemed harmless but he was sitting drunk on the porch one night (I lived in the apartment above their house) & he hit on my girlfriend.  But Cindy, who was a scary redhead, was never anything but pleasant & businesslike with me.

My wife worked with a woman named Cindy who was deeply conservative, but I never met her. I just heard my wife complain about her a lot.

Nope, there is no one named Cindy in my world at the moment.  I definitely don't know any famous people named Cindy.  Holy crap that's a long list!  Where the hell have I been?  I need to make more friends.

One Last Post About How Much I Suck At Pledge Drive (Until The Next One)

Have you ever heard of Grit?  It was this "family newspaper" they advertised in comic books to get kids to sell door-to-door.  You can read about it on Wikipedia.  There used to be comic ads they ran featuring none other than Richie fucking Rich in which his father said they got rich because he sold Grit!

(I knew I didn't dream it.  I found this here.)

You can probably see where this is going.  As a kid whose family didn't pay much attention to him - whose mother was working most of the time - I thought, "Wow, if Richie Rich can do this, so can I!"

At the time I lived in an apartment complex & we were rather poor.  As were our neighbors.  When the first stack of Grit arrived - there were like fifty copies, a giant stack of newspapers, & I seem to remember them being a tabloid format - I made a very half-hearted effort to sell them door-to-door.  I think I got to maybe five doors before the whole process began to seem hopeless.  I tried a few more, getting weird looks from the people who acted at though they never saw me before, & getting no one to buy a copy.  I didn't finish going through the apartments.

Back at home, I read an issue all the way through.  It promoted itself as being positive & even the very young & not at all cynical me seemed to think that was a bit saccharine.  At some point my mother told me to take them to the trash, so I did.  & then next week another stack came.  & another the week after.  & the little envelopes telling me I had to send them money to pay for the stacks of home-town newspapers they were sending me.

What could I do?  I was never going to sell all those copies, never going to be as rich as Richie Rich's dad.  & I didn't have any money.  I was probably in sixth or seventh grade.  Maybe even younger.  Were they going to sue me?  Would they end up writing my mother?

At some point, the newspapers stopped coming.  Then the letters stopped, too.  They were entrusting children with their business, it wasn't like a newspaper boy who reported to an adult.  My guess it happened all the time, & probably more & more as time went on.  A business model from the 1950s was not going to survive into the 1980s.

(Grit still sort-of exists, but as its website shows, it's nothing like the newspaper with 'good news' stories & comics that I failed to sell in my childhood.)

But more than that, I came to realize that I was not designed to be a salesperson.  A different me could easily have tried to try more doors in my apartment complex, to walk up & down the streets in my neighborhood.  I am guessing they gave me fifty issues, it could've been more, but I'll bet if I had just tried a little harder, I could've sold half of them.  I lived next door to a shopping center, I could've tried to hawk them in front of the Minyard's.  But I didn't.  The initial rejections were too much for my fragile self.

The point is, I've been sucking at selling things for a long, long time.  & I'm sorry.

Once More Unto The Breach

Yep, tomorrow is the seventh day of the 2018 KNON Summer Pledge Drive.  It will be the first day of the drive for the show I do there, the Tuesday Morning Blend, & I am none-too-excited about it.  Why?  Because I'm terrible at raising money.

& it's not it's something I can't learn.  I have been reading website about proper pitches.  But I don't have the instinct for it.  You've met salespeople, haven't you?  Could sell coals to Newcastle?  Yeah, that's not me.  Ultimately I feel weird about capitalism, maybe because I grew up poor.

Really, I feel it would be nice if folks just had a sense that they should support a station like KNON as a matter of course, but instead you know how it is: you have to beg, to cajole, to entice with gifts.  I've done it myself, at stations I've been involved with - I look for the good premium before I make a pledge.

So I am gearing up for trying, trying again.  If you want to support me on the radio in Dallas - I know, I wish it were Self Help Radio, but this is the only place I can deejay in town - think about calling tomorrow morning or perhaps making a donation at this place on the web.  Make sure you mention me or the Tuesday Morning Blend to get me some credit.

& think nice thoughts.  I'm so going to suck at this.

Self Help Radio 080318: Everything's Gone Green

This was such a fun show to do!  More than forty people told me their favorite green songs, & I was able to gather around thirty-six plus add a couple of my own picks (as I can't help myself) to make a show.  The show itself was a request by a listener named Anne & I wonder how she'll feel that her show was the result of ideas from over three dozen people?

Some folks are going to be disappointed, though.  Of course some people had the same favorite green song, & in that case, if they asked for more than one song, I picked the one that wasn't requested by another.  Some folks requested instrumentals - alas, I used most of those to talk over, as music beds.  (See below.)  That's going to irk those people.  & lastly, I couldn't accommodate three kind folks.  One requested an entire album that didn't have an obvious green song on it, one requested a cover when the original was more requested, & one asked for a ten-minute-long song which I just didn't have the time to play.  My apologies.

This is something I've never done before, basically letting a bunch of other people program the show (eighteen of which are current or former deejays, naturally).  In at least four cases, they picked songs I never would've played, either because I didn't know about them, or because I generally don't care for the artists.  But you know what?  It didn't matter.  Once I asked, the show stopped being all mine.  & that in itself was super neat!

You can listen now at the Self Help Radio website.  You'll need a username, which is SHR, & a password, which is selfhelp.  The show is about two hours long, & what's on it - including the instrumental beds I spoke over - is listed below.

Thanks to everyone who helped!  I am totally going to do this again!

Self Help Radio 180803: Everything's Gone Green

"Green" Ken Nordine _Colors: A Sensuous Listening Experience_
"Bein' Green" Kermit The Frog _A Sesame Street Celebration Vol. 2_
"Green" Laura Freeman _Color Wheel Cartwheel_
"Optimistic Voices" The Debutantes, The Rhythmettes, & The MGM Studio Orchestra _The Wizard Of Oz: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack_

(bed music) "Blue In Green" Miles Davis _Kind Of Blue_

"Everything's Gone Green" New Order _Substance_
"O Green World" Gorillaz _Demon Days_
"Pretty Green" Mark Ronson & Santogold _Version_
"Green Gucci Suit" Rick Ross _Green Gucci Suit_

(bed music) "Green Onions" Booker T. & The MG's _The Very Best Of Booker T. & The MG's_

"Green Door" Jim Lowe _Songs They Sing Behind The Green Door_
"Green Green" The New Christy Minstrels _Ramblin'_
"Green Eggs & Ham" Marvin Miller _Fox In Socks/Green Eggs & Ham_
"Green Green Grass Of Home" Tom Jones _The Golden Hits_
"Green Tambourine" The Lemon Pipers _The Best Of Bubblegum_
"Little Green Bag" George Baker Selection _Super Hits Of The '70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 2_

(bed music) "Collard Greens" Freddie McCoy _Lonely Avenue_

"Green Is The Colour" Pink Floyd _More_
"Little Green" Joni Mitchell _Blue_
"I'm So Green" Can _Ege Bamyasi_
"Green Earrings" Steely Dan _The Royal Scam_
"Another Green World" Brian Eno _Another Green World_
"Green Shirt" Elvis Costello & The Attractions _Armed Forces_

(bed music) "Son Of Mr. Green Genes" Frank Zappa _Hot Rats_

"Green Fingernails" Gene Marshall _The American Song-Poem Anthology: Do You Know The Difference Between Big Wood & Brush?_
"Green Children" Kathy & The Lawnmowers _Experiments in Destiny_
"Green" Throwing Muses _Throwing Muses_
"Green Isaac" Prefab Sprout _Swoon_
"Dark Green Energy" Robyn Hitchcock _Greatest Hits_
"Pale Green Things" Mountain Goats _The Sunset Tree_

(bed music) "Greensleeves" Jimmy Smith _Organ Grinder Swing_

"Ladybird (Green Grass)" The Fall _The Infotainment Scan_
"Green Thoughts" The Smithereens _Green Thoughts_
"Green Mind" Dinosaur Jr. _Green Mind_
"Shades of Green" The Mission _Singles A's & B's_

(bed music) "Green Jeans" Grant Green _Matador_

"Green" Drug Boyfriend & Holy Worm _Green_
"Green Grass Of Tunnel" Múm _Finally We Are No One_
"Dye The Water Green" Bibio _The Green EP_

Whither Green?

(An image I get if I type in "Everything's Gone Green" in the google image search, found here.)

You already know why this show is the way it is because I've told you: someone wanted me to explore the theme green.  & I wouldn't have minded exploring the theme green except I started thinking, "Gosh, there are so many songs about the color green, what if I asked for help."  So I did!

Over forty people made suggestions, & I decided, fuck it, I'll try to play them all.  Will I play them all?  All but around four, I reckon, & you'll have to listen to the show to hear why.  The only limit right now is time, & I'm going to forgo the bells & whistles of the show to try to cram as many songs in as possible.  I don't know if they will all fit, so I'm not sure what will be cut.

But it's very exciting - the first Self Help Radio I'm hosting that's mostly not programmed by me.  You must tell me what you think.  Tomorrow at noon, on the website.  Now to work!

Preface To Green: An Interesting Experiment

In case you didn't know, this happened:

1) A listener asked me to do a show with the theme "green."  She specifically mentioned New Order's "Everything's Gone Green" as one of the songs she'd like to hear.

2) I checked.  There were over a trillion songs about the color green for me to listen to.

3) Panic set in.  Would I be able to find time to go through all those songs & make a show?

4) One of those lightbulbs appeared over my head.

5) It actually gave me an idea.

6) (Probably using this word wrong but) I would crowdsource the show!

7) I asked people on the Facebook Self Help Radio page to make requests.

8) Three people did.  Not an inspiring number.

9) What the hell, I thought, ask on my personal Facebook page.

10) So I did.

11) Holy shit, I got like forty requests.  Maybe more.

12) Most of them from deejay friends.  Naturally.

13) Some of my annoying deejay friends made multiple requests.

14) I just took the first one.

15) Seriously there are so fucking many songs about the color green.

16) Some of the requests are not songs I would've picked, & two or three are songs I don't actually like all that much.

17) But you know what?  It stopped being about me when I asked.

18) This will be an interesting show this!

19) Now to put all together!

20) & maybe think about doing it again?

Carol Kaye

This is nice.  I love to discover something I didn't know about music, & this YouTube video taught me about a session musician whose work I have long enjoyed but didn't even know it:



At 83, she's still active.  Visit her website for more.

Golly.  What a life!

Shell

She stood near the front of the school.  Well, it used to be a school.  It still looked like a school, actually still had "high school" carved into the front facade to designate it as a school.  But the windows were all removed & the edifice mostly hollowed out.  The whole campus (could you still call it a campus?) was surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence.  Under the pole where the school sign once store - it was long gone - stood a giant sign which read "Modern Townhomes" & had an artist's rendition of what the place would look like once the renovation was done.

She studied that sign.  She hadn't been a student at this school in her high school years.  She hadn't even known this school existed.  She grew up far away from this place.  She had hitched a ride somewhere on I-30 outside of Little Rock & the driver was going south, so he let her off by the side of the highway.  She climbed over a small fence, wandered past scrubby ground & several "no trespassing" signs, heading toward a shelter she had visited the last time she came through.

It was hot, but it was always hot, except when it was cold.  She had even felt hot in California, which was something no one ever claimed.  The shelter was a few blocks away, not a terribly far distance to walk, but the shell of the school beckoned to her, & she walked around the chain-link fence to look for a way to get in.  She had seen some garbage through one of the openings, & it suggested to her that someone had sneaked in & at the very least rested there.  The fact that there were a few Port-A-Potties around the site made it even more attractive.

At a convenience store outside Arkadelphia, the clerk refused to give her a key.  She got the truck driver to get it for her, & it's true, she looked like she was living rough.  She washed her face.  She was a little surprised the trucker was waiting for her.  Her even bought her a sandwich.  She felt comfortable enough to sleep most of the drive.

She found a section of the fence which she could slip through.  She looked around but there was nobody around.  In fact, it looked like work on the renovation had stopped at some point & hadn't resumed.  But who knows, the temperatures had been in the hundreds for weeks now, probably they had to quit work because of someone experiencing heat stroke.  It had happened once to her brother, she remembered.

The sign on the bank off the interstate said it was 103 degrees.  It might feel better in the cool concrete of the stripped school, away from the sun; she could get to the shelter around dinner time.  Anyway, it wasn't going to be any cooler there.

She wandered into the large empty space through what was probably a back door.  She had walked up a few steps & noticed they had removed parts of the second floor, probably for high ceilings or something.  It wasn't appreciably more pleasant inside but it was good to get out of the sun.  She instinctively said, "Hello?" & she was strangely pleased that there was a small echo.  The place smelled of dust & bricks & urine.  She wondered if maybe people came here to camp at night.

It was then she saw the body under what used to be a flight of stairs.  It was a man, very thin & haggard, wearing too many clothes as many homeless people & transients do.  He was supine, his body straight like he was sleeping on a too-small bed.  His mouth was open but his eyes were closed. She immediately thought that he was dead.

He wasn't, his breathing was shallow, & he twitched a little as he slept.  She knew she didn't want to disturb him.  If he were drunk, or worse, on drugs, it could be dangerous for her.  But she sensed he was in distress.  How old was he?  You couldn't tell.  People automatically thought she was much older than she actually was.  He could be forty, though he looked eighty.

She would ask someone at the shelter.  They could call an ambulance, if they thought it was serious.  She did her best to note his features, his clothing, his belongings, so she could describe him to whoever was in charge.

Sighing, she made her way back into the sun, looking around this area that once had had homes, families, enough people with children to fill a high school.  But really there was no one around, no one on the street, no cars.  She could understand why she might want to stop here, but who was going to want to live here?  She probably didn't understand enough about gentrification, although the thought did cross her mind that, should she find her way back this way again, the shelter might not be in the same place.

It might be condos.  Or a brew pub.  Or really anything but a shelter for people like her.

Self Help Radio 072718: Seeds

(Original image here.)

Some time last week, I planted a seed.  A seed of a radio program.  It was a funny-looking seed.  Perhaps a bit beaten up.  Maybe it had been rattled one too many times.  Maybe some annoying bird tried to eat it, but gave up, its hull a little to hard on the beak.  Maybe it just simply couldn't find the right place to, as they say, put down roots.

No, I did not get the seed in trade for a cow.  I don't own a cow.  I also don't live with my mother.  I found the seed fair & square.

Anyway, the seed was planted.  There were doubts about it from the beginning.  It won't grow, people said.  It's dead, they said.  What are you watering it with? they asked me.

Music, I said.  Music & silly interviews.

They of course rolled their eyes & went on their condescending ways.

But look here!  The seed has grown into an actual radio show.  About seeds!  All the little seed needed was someone who wanted to make a radio show about seeds & by golly that was Self Help Radio!

Now, the show is a little funny-looking, so be kind, all right?

Listen & wonder at the Self Help Radio Garden.  You'll need a password & username to get past the gate.  That's SHR & selfhelp.  Do not disturb the rabbits who are fucking up the carrot patch.  We like it when rabbits are happy.  Details about this amazing show are below.  Please enjoy.

"Seeds, An Introduction" Marc Vietor _Thor Hanson: The Triumph Of Seeds_
"How Do The Seeds Of Plants Travel?" Marais & Miranda _Nature Songs (From Ballads For The Age Of Science)_
"My Little Seed" Woody Guthrie _Selections From The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection_

introduction & definitions

"Dandelion Seeds" July _July_
"Dandelion Seed" The Primitives _Spin-O-Rama_
"Dandelion Seed" Jens Lekman _Life Will See You Now_
"Sesame Seeds" Mitch Hedberg _Mitch All Together_
"Sesame Seed" Prince Rupert's Drops _Climbing Light_

interview with the urban gardener, Jamie Shettlinbaum

"Sow Good Seeds" Lil McClintock _Atlanta Blues: Big City Blues From The Heartland_
"Sow The Seed Of Love" Wild Honey _There's No Stopping Us Now_
"Sowing Seeds" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Psychocandy_
"Johnny Appleseed" Joan Gerber _The Story Lady_
"Appleseed John" The New Christy Minstrels _Land Of Giants_
"Appleseed Alley" The Magic Whispers _Carousels & Music Boxes_

interview with geneticist Dr David Fruchter

"The Seeds" The Men _New Moon_
"I Need Seed" Thee Oh Sees _Castlemania_
"Three Seeds" Elf Power _Creatures_
"Planting The Seeds Of Insecurity" Sarah Silverman _We Are Miracles_
"The Seed" Damien Youth _Festival Of Death_
"The Seed That Always Died" Jona Lewie _Heart Skips Beat_

a whole mess o'idioms

"Bad Seeds" Beat Happening _Look Around_
"Bad Seed (You're A Bad Seed)" Circus _Gravel, Vol. 1_
"Bad Seed" Chris Clark _The Motown Collection_
"Bad Seed" Glen Campbell _By The Time I Get To Phoenix_
"My Bitter Seed" Jimmy Reed _The Vee-Jay Years (1953-1965)_

conclusion & goodbye

"Seeds Of Life" Harlem River Drive _What It Is! Funky Soul & Rare Grooves 1967-1977_
"Seedpods" Brian Eno & Rick Holland _Drums Between The Bells_
"A Seed" Lisa Germano _In The Maybe World_
"Seed Song" The Mountain Goats _Protein Source Of The Future... Now!_
"Oh Little Seeds" Steve Fisk _448 Deathless Days_

post mortem

Whither Seeds?

(Image from here.)

Why a show about seeds?  Dude, do you know how important seeds are?  As Thor Hanson says in his book The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom & Shaped Human History: "We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff & staff of life, supporting diets, economies, & civilizations around the globe."

In fact, it was "reading" that book (well, listening to someone read it to me) (I still say "books on tape" even though they're on mp3 now) that gave me the idea for this show.  Are there many songs about seeds?  Let's find out!

& you can find out tomorrow on this week's Self Help Radio, which will "drop" (as the kids say) at noon at Self Help Radio dot net.  I assume once the show has been planted, it'll grow up beautiful & strong.  & then you can eat it.  Wow, that metaphor got weird fast.  Holy shit.

Preface To Seeds: Nothing Grows But Trouble

Has anyone ever said that before?  "Nothing grows but trouble."

Very few people, it turns out.  Some dude on Facebook (whose account I can't access) named William Cadmus apparently said this: "I've got a garden full of Dragon's teeth & nothing grows but trouble."

Also there is an article from the Kingsport Times, Jun 22, 1941, which reads that "Errol Flynn as Jeb Stuart finds that nothing grows but trouble..." (the rest is unavailable for some unknown reason).  This is doubtless a reference to the film Santa Fe Trail.  The phrase appears to be part of the promotional material for the show, for the Google finds it referenced in regard to the film.

One last reference is from (this is according to Le Google) something called BladeStorm Fantasy Miniatures Wargame 3.

The quote quoted - inaccessible by the link, which tells me there's a database error - is "Bare, windswept plains & a rocky parched earth dominate the tortured landscape of Marl, where it is said, 'nothing grows but trouble.'"

It is said?  By whom?  By me, of course.  I just said it!  "Nothing grows but trouble."

Copyright, trademark, patent pending, all rights reserved, void where prohibited by law.

& yeah, suck it, Errol Flynn!

I Am Here To Report

A daikon radish is a stinky vegetable.

That is all.

No, it's not.  What does "daikon" mean anyway?

According to the Wikipedia, daikon (which literally means "big root") is "a mild-flavored winter radish (Raphanus sativus variety (cultivar) 'Longipinnatus') usually characterized by fast-growing leaves & a long, white, napiform root. Originally native to Southeast or continental East Asia, daikon is harvested & consumed throughout the region, as well as in South Asia."

Not a word about its stinkiness!  Big daikon strikes again.

The Wikipedia entry note as well that the daikon is "also known by many other names depending on context."  Here are its other names: white radish, winter radish, Oriental radish, long white radish,, Japanese radish, Chinese white radish, lobak or lo pak, chai tow or chai tau, icicle radish (!), white carrot, oilseed radish, forage radish, fodder radish, & tillage radish.

Nowhere in these names is it made clear how smelly daikon is.  I wonder why that is.  I shall investigate more.

No, on second thought, I won't.  I'll just make this frickin' daikon/carrot slaw & hope the oil & tamari mask the smell a bit.  It's really good!

So Hot

It has been brutal in Texas the past couple of weeks.  The wife & I usually wake up early - six o'clock - to walk the dogs, since it would be cruel & stupid to do it at noon when the Fahrenheit says 110 & the heat index says "the inside of your average functioning microwave."  This morning it was 85 degrees.  If you are mostly familiar with Celsius, that translates to "way too fucking hot for six o'clock in the fucking morning."

Over on Facebook I see some old timers are talking about the heat wave of 1980.  There's a tee shirt at that link that I used to see: "I survived the Texas heat wave of 1980," it read.  But it wasn't easy to survive.

We live in apartments then, my family, called Villa Cordoba.  At some point, I remember, in the middle of the summer, the air conditioning went out.  It's funny I remember the a/c was out but not the power.  Anyway.  Almost everyone in the complex would go to the pool at night to cool off.  (I wasn't allowed, though I was 12 at the time, & could technically swim without adults around.  It was just too late at night, way past my bedtime.)

My mother opened all the windows, hoping to admit a stifling breeze or two, but that just invited the giant cockroaches that crawled the apartment walls into our rooms.  I have a vivid memory of seeing them on the walls across the way - our apartment backed into the manager's office.  I always felt those so-called tree roaches were hateful fucks.  They had it in for me.

We would also put fans in the window, plus, & this is the least effective cooling system ever, we would put bowls of ice under the fans to I guess cool the air coming out of them.  We would have had better results putting the ice down our pants.

Thinking back, it's strange that we had power but not a/c.  We woke this past Sunday morning (in 2018) to no power, but it appears that it was just the power company taking advantage of the relatively cooler morning to maintain the grid.

But back to 1980 for a second: I must've snuck out of the apartment to grab a glance at the pool one night, because I have a memory of so many people crammed into a mid-sized apartment pool that it couldn't possibly have cooled anyone off.  & despite the signs, there was drinking - lots of drinking - lots of noise, too.  It seemed like so much fun.  But I know I didn't get in.  I probably slinked back home ruefully.

& yeah, I survived the 1980 heat wave.  Gimme a tee shirt.

Self Help Radio 072018: The Sudden Show

(Turns out there's a series of Westerns called "Sudden."  I messed with one of the paperback covers.  The original is here.)

Suddenly, there's a new episode of Self Help Radio.  Although of course it's really not all that sudden.  It's happening when it always happens, noon on Friday.  I've been talking about it all week.  In fact, it's the very opposite of sudden.  You know what?  I should've released it at random, like on Flag Day in 2021.  Or on your birthday except I don't know when your birthday is!  Suddenly, you'd have a birthday present you weren't expecting.  Well, poops.  I guess you'll just have to enjoy this entirely pre-planned show about suddenness.

Something I just noticed: I've been talking about this as "a sudden show," but on the website it's listed as "the sudden show."  All of a sudden it was slightly renamed!  That wasn't something I set out to do at all.  I'm sure you find it as delightful as I do.

Despite it not being sudden at all, the show still calls itself that & can be listened to now & whenevermore at the Self Help Radio website.  It's a couple of hours long, it's one file, there are tons of songs (4,320 lbs to be exact) & goofy interviews & at some point I am eaten by a man ray.  That last part isn't true.  I wanted to make the show seem more sudden than it actually.  Anyway, make sure you known your username (it's SHR) & your password (it's selfhelp) to listen.  & have a look at what I played & where the other stuff happens so you can plan your listen.  Or don't - heck, that'll make it all the more sudden!

Suddenly, the whole idea of this show seems quite foolish to me.  Oh well.

"Suddenly Everything Happens" California Snow Story _Close To The Ocean_
"Then Suddenly Love" Frank Sinatra _The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings_
"And Then Suddenly" The Bartlebees _Urban Folk Legends_

introduction & definitions

"And Suddenly" Terry Malts _Lost At The Party_
"Suddenly I Met Your Face" Nits _Work_
"Suddenly There's A Valley" The Drifters _The Drifters' Greatest Hits_
"Suddenly Everything Has Changed" The Flaming Lips _The Soft Bulletin_
"Suddenly Is Sooner Than You Think" Dntel _Life Is Full Of Possibilities_

interview with Police Sgt David Fruchter

"No Sudden Moves" Dengue Fever _The Deepest Lake_
"Suddenly Violently Random" Lowlife _Eternity Road: Reflections Of Lowlife 1985-1995_
"Sudden Death" John Cale _Helen Of Troy_
"Sudden Death" Slobster _A Real Cool Time Revisited: Swedish Punk, Pop, & Garage Rock 1982-1989_
"A Sudden Death" The Organ _Grab That Gun_

"Dramatic Readings Of Classic Rock Songs"

"All Of A Sudden" The Incredibles _Heart & Soul_
"(All OF The Sudden) My Heart Sings" Mel Carter _Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me: The Best Of Mel Carter_
"Sudden Smile" 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong _Baby Trash_
"Suddenly" Tender Trap _Dansette Dansette_
"Suddenly, Last Autumn" The Monochrome Set _Cosmonaut_

interview with improv artist Allen Shariaty

"And Suddenly" The Left Banke _There's Gonna Be A Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966-1969_
"Suddenly You Love Me" Cilla Black _Completely Cilla 1963-1973_
"Suddenly There Is A Tidal Wave" The Magnetic Fields _The Wayward Bus_
"Suddenly" Bishop Allen _March EP_
"Sudden Town" The Soft Boys _Nextdoorland_

conclusion & goodbye

"Sudden Lei" Drug Boyfriend + Holy Worm _Sudden Lei_
"All Of A Sudden" The Farmer's Boys _With These Hands_
"Sudden Fiction" Guided By Voices _August By Cake_
"Suddenly Gone" Shopping _The Official Body_

post mortem

Whither A Sudden Show?

(Image from here.)

Suddenly, I had an idea for a new show.

Inexplicably, the idea was "sudden."

Understandably, everyone around me became concerned.

Soothingly, I explained that this was no different than any other show I had planned.

Maddeningly, they insisted I was ill.

Hurriedly, I fled from their ignorance.

Surreptitiously, I discovered a place to hide while they looked everywhere else.

Happily, I daydreamt about all the songs I would play.

Menacingly, a voice called from deep inside my hiding place.

Fearfully, I answered back.

Suddenly, three arms grasped me!

Ruefully, I cursed myself for the stupid theme & the trouble it caused me.

Amazingly, it was just Three-Armed Phil, the neighborhood freak.

Abashedly, he explained that this was his hiding place, & he didn't want to share.

Cheerfully, I said I understood.

Suddenly, it started storming!

Welcomingly, Three-Armed Phil took me back to his hiding place where we had tea.

Gratefully, I listened to boring stories about his time in Canadian government.

Wistfully, I waited the storm out, eager to do my show.

Magically, Three-Armed Phil read my mind & asked when the show would happen.

Excitedly, I told him: tomorrow, Friday, July 20, at noon, at Self Help Radio dot net!

Frustratingly, he then went back to his own stupid stories.

Suddenly, Three-Armed Phil asked if I wanted to go watch television.

Resignedly, I agreed.

Preface To A Sudden Show: Stupid Facebook

Stupid Facebook won't let me post this video to the Self Help Radio Facebook page.  I have no idea.  It's the song "Suddenly Is Sooner Than You Think" by Dntel.  I had cleverly commented, "The Sudden Show is sooner than you think."  Then I added, "I really need to get to work on it!"

But it just froze there & wouldn't post it.  So I'll post it here I suppose:



Lately I've been sharing on Facebook some of the songs I'll play (or maybe won't play) for the week's show.  I have no idea if anyone likes it.  But that's why I wanted to post this today.  & stupid me, I kept trying, & trying, & trying, until it occurred to me, this late in the day, to put it on the Facebook page.

Here it is.  Lots of ado about basically nothing.  But like my animals, I love my rituals.

Ten Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today...  I never do this sort of thing, but I have been doing this blog for this show long enough that I suppose I can re-present some things I wrote many moons ago.  So let's see what was happening on this blog ten years ago today, in the summer of 2008.

The post is titled "Whither Taxis?"  The show that week was about taxis.  I remember it well.  I asked my friends Camille (who now lives in Memphis & with whom I'm still in contact) & Justin (with whom I haven't spoken in a very long time) to come over because I had written a play about taxis that I wanted them to do parts in.  If I remember correctly, the play takes place during the airbreaks.  Please understand, I haven't listened to this show, probably, ever.  But I remember it fondly.  Certainly it was fun working with friends.

Here's what I said then about the upcoming show:

People tell me I used to be a friendlier person. Now, they say, I seem a little closed-off, & a little sad. What gives, they ask. Who pooped in your mouth & called it salad?

Don't you think I know how I feel about the world? Don't you think I know that my weird little radio show that's not on the radio isn't like some kind of taxi without a passenger? Like a bus without one of those clumsy wheelchair ramps that take forever to deploy? Like an elevator that smells like vinegar & kills the cockroaches that crawl outside it? Like an escalator with dried ice cream caked forever into its ridges, sticking to your shoes & making you self-conscious as you stare at the pretty girl in the food court? Like a broken-down rickshaw mocking you as you walk, beaten & bruised, to the big Laotian city vowing revenge on the gangsters who robbed you, raped you & left you for dead? Like a baby carriage with a fat baby in it who's gotta be at least four & who sings like Rod Stewart? Like a dolly leaning slightly on an empty soda dispensing machine which rattles when the soda dispensing machine repairperson accidentally closes the door too fast & the noises causes him to drop fourteen dollars worth of quarters on the floor, which people inadvertently start kicking all over the place? Don't you think I know myself?

People tell me that self-awareness doesn't appear to be my problem. They say, why are you so defensive? Who stuck their finger in your ass & called it macaroni?

Don't you think I know that I appear defensive around you? Don't you see that one of my coping mechanisms is to continue doing Self Help Radio no matter who listens or where it is or whatever the fuck?

People tell me that they didn't even know I was a deejay. For the record, I tell them, I've ridden in taxis less than ten times in my life. People then tell me that they've got to go. & they go.

That summer Self Help Radio was not on the radio.  It's a long story.  But this summer Self Help Radio is not on the radio.  The more things change...

If you'd like to listen to that show about taxis, I have uploaded it for your pleasure &/or irritation.  The first part is here & the second part is here.  The usual username/password issues apply.  If you do listen, against everyone's better judgment, maybe don't tell me it's not as good as I remember it.

& if you see Justin, tell him I said hey.

If Only I Had It Earlier

(Image from Discogs.)

People often talk about how great older siblings are, how they guide your through life's difficulties & give you a head start when it comes to cool stuff, like music.  But though I have five - five! - older siblings, I got very little guidance from them about life.  & what's more, the music they liked was basically what they heard on the radio, which I too could hear on the radio, & there was very little revelation in their tastes.

But what if they had been cooler?  What if they had been listening to punk, if they had liked bands like the Velvets & the Stooges, if they had gone deeper with psych or funk or prog?  What would it have looked like for one of my brothers - all of whom consider themselves music lovers - to give me a Can record & tell me to listen to it?  It never happened.

Sometimes I daydream about it, though, about one of them caring enough to not receive music passively through the radio.  I imagine one of them noticing something about me, about what I was going through, & telling me, at the age of fifteen, you know what you need?  Check out this record by the Modern Lovers.

It seems to me that I discovered Jonathan Richman by accident.  Sometime in 1992 - when I was twenty-four - I checked out the Rhino best of comp from the Fine Arts Library at UT - & while it focuses mostly on Richman's more positive, often childlike side, it does have three tunes from that first record.  Which intrigued me.

& maybe I sought it out immediately?  I don't remember.  But I do know once I got it, I thought to myself, "Holy fuck, I could've used this when I was fifteen."  I was enamored of the record that on my first radio show, back in 1994, I began every show with the song "Girlfriend."  A girlfriend, yeah, that's something that I could understand.

In many cases, I've approached things way later than anyone else.  I have friends who had cool brothers who shared music with them.  I didn't.  I had to rely on those friends, & on my own excursions to the record store, to discover music that would ultimately mean the world to me.  Even if I got there too late.

Self Help Radio 071318: The Mails

(Original image here.)

Recently someone asked me if I had any episodes of Self Help Radio that were my favorites.  I don't know if I do, but I do know that I enjoy making some more than others.  This week's show, for example, was hella fun to do.  My interview guests were great, I like so much of the music, & what's more, I loved looking for songs about the postal service.  I tried to stay away from "letter" songs - that's probably another theme, & I've already done a show about love letters.  & I discovered that, although I wanted to maybe have a section about postcards, there are so many of those that they'll easily make another show.  I also should send more postcards, but that's neither over here nor over there.

Today's show was probably also propelled by nostalgia - I certainly used to write a lot of letters & I have many if not most of the letters I received stored in a closet somewhere.  I didn't get them out to look at them for this show, but I did daydream about writing letters again.

In any event, I hope it's a funformative (if that's a word, which it isn't) look at one of our country's great institutions.  There were so many songs!  I had to leave stuff out, like the Monty Python bit about opening a new mailbox but you can watch that here.  Michael Palin is amazing in this.

Meanwhile, have a listen to today's show, which (like I said) I enjoyed making.  It's of course at the Self Help Radio website & you will of course need the username & password available on that page to listen.  (It's SHR & selfhelp.)  All the songs & all the interviews on the show are listed below.

Oh!  & I'm sending it postage due!  Sorry.

the show:

"Mail" Morphine _B-Sides & Otherwise_
"The Postman Rides His Bike" Chemistry Set _Chemistry Set_
"Mailman Bring Me No More Blues" Buddy Holly _The Memorial Collection_

introduction & definitions

"Mailman" Roya _Roya_
"A Hymn For The Postal Service" Hefner _Breaking God's Heart_
"Mailman's Sack" Tiny Bradshaw _The Train Kept A Rollin'_
"Mailman Blues" Lloyd Price _Lawdy Miss Clawdy_
"Night Mail" Public Service Broadcasting _Inform - Educate - Entertain_

interview with mail carrier David Fructher

"US Mail" Olympics _Dance Floor Winners Vol. 1_
"Please Mister Postman" The Beatles _With The Beatles_
"Twistin' Postman" The Marvelettes _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 1: 1961_
"The Postman" The American Analog Set _Know By Heart_
"Mailman" The Legendary Pink Dots _Plutonium Blonde_

interview with entrepreneur Lorenzo Schwab

"The Mail Must Go Through" Roosevelt Grier _The Liberty Records Story_
"The Mail Will Go Through" Tom Paxton _Bulletin... We Interrupt This Record_
"Stealing People's Mail" Dead Kennedys _Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables_
"Romance By Mail" Scars _Author! Author!_
"Lost In The Post" The Wombats _Proudly Present A Guide To Love, Loss, & Desperation_

interview with the Rev Dr Howard Gently

"Postman's Knock" Spike Milligan _The Spike Milligan Collection_
"She Was Only The Postmaster's Daughter" Durium Dance Band _Listen To The Banned_
"Waitin For The Evenin' Mail" Sissle & Blake _Ragtime: 1900-1930_
"Mailman" The Primary 5 _Ave Marina: Ten Years Of Marina Records_
"Postal" Piano Magic _Writers Without Homes_

Marge Most interviews the inventor of e-mail

"Postal Blue" The Softies _The Softies_
"Please Mister Postman" Dorotea _Hit Music Only_
"Postman Song" Ratboys _AOID_
"Return To Sender" Elvis Presley & The Jordanaires _Girls! Girls! Girls!_
"Doggin' In The U.S. Mail" Mike Seeger & Alice Gerrard _Mike Seeger & Alice Gerrard_

conclusion

"Mailman Blues" Sleepy John Estes _Working Man's Blues_
"Hey, Mr. Postman" Ella Mae Morse _Barrelhouse, Boogie, & The Blues_
"It's Time For The Postman Rings" Martha Davis _Martha Davis 1946-1951

post mortem

Whither The Mails?

(Not that Postal Service, silly.  From here.)

Someone asked me last week, seeing this theme on my website, what I meant by "the mails."  Being the sort that likes to say shit like "the mails," I just thought it was a formal or probably English way of saying "the postal service" (although my friend thought I meant the US Postal Service plus FedEx plus UPS).  According to Merriam-Webster, it does mean:

the system used for sending letters, packages, etc. : a nation's postal system

However, the definition is preceded by this: chiefly US, law, formal

Not British at all!  Somehow involved with the law!  But very, very formal.  I'll take it!

This week is a celebration of a service that nowadays gets stuff that you ordered on Amazon to you but used to be far more important in people lives.  You can still by books that are the "collected letters" of an author - I doubt anyone's going to want to read "the collected tweets" or "the collected texts" of someone modern.  But don't quote me on that!

Listen tomorrow at noon sharp, it'll be up at the Self Help Radio website, it should be tons of fun & there are lots of good tunes & goofy guests.

Do you need me also to remind you by email?  Damn it!

Preface To The Mails: We Could Send Letters

As I have previously noted, I didn't have many friends in high school, but I did try to correspond with some of them after I went to college.  It's hard to imagine now, when people text each other the most mundane stuff, but long-distance phone calls were prohibitively expensive in those days.  My sister, who lived out of state, often made cassette tapes for my mother, & vice versa, rather than spending lots of money on telephone calls.

In my case, I wrote letters.  I wrote lots of letters.  I sometimes felt I spent way more time & energy on the letters I wrote than I could find in the letters I received, if receive them I did.  I often did not.  It seemed a weird thing to me, that I could take an hour to write something clever & get a response that took only minutes to read.  But that was the only game in town, really.  The two summers I returned to my hometown from college, I tried to write to college friends.  Most of them didn't write back.

It's hazy but I think I had pretty much given up writing people from my past by the time email rolled around.  & that revolutionized everything.  Except the whole time writing vs time reading equation.  In fact, email made correspondents even more lazy.  I would write paragraphs & get single words in response.  At least one person I loved dearly was offended by my characterizing our email exchange in that way that she never wrote to me again.  Never again!  A letter unreturned, at least, had more poignancy.

Yet I retain a fondness for the mails, for letters & postcards, & occasionally think I'll make an effort to write to folks regularly, send them packages of silly things, attempt to share something of the magic of those early days.  People don't mail much anymore.  I haven't stepped into a post office once since I've been back in Texas.  That makes me just a little sad.

P.S. This is the 2900th post on this blog.  I don't know if I meant to make a big deal of it, but I figured I should mention it.  Hooray!

Dull Drums

Self-doubt is a weird thing.  It doesn't take into account, for example, the years one plies one's craft.  It doesn't care about a personal sense of accomplishment, or the kind words of people - sometimes strangers - about what one does, what one creates.  It simply does not give a fuck.

It's a long drive between Fort Worth, where I live, & Dallas, where I do a radio show.  I like to listen to music while I drive but it's funny, the silences that happen between songs, the silences even within songs, the distractions - oh the distractions by the shitty drivers in this metromegaplex - such small spaces of time are the perfect nesting places for self-doubt.

& you know self-doubt festers.  Holy crap, it needs so very little nutrients to grow & thrive.  What does it need?  Perhaps some smidgen of a lifetime of disappointment.  What about some random feelings of neglect?  Oh I'm sure there's space for pettiness & jealousy.  When I close my eyes right now I see a section of the highway which is always clogged because it's a short path between two major highways, & I see myself sighing, trying to pay attention, as people who could not give less of a shit about anyone else jockey to be first to an exit, & that's one of the moments where one is too vulnerable, where one is too tired, where one is too distracted to not notice self-doubt barge in like the hero at the end of the movie.

Long drives, the sun beating down - summers in this part of the world are a challenge.  I have a friend who spends summers at pools, lakes, beaches if he can get to them.  I have spent the past couple of summers remembering that season in places that have other seasons.  Texas has summer & not-summer.  That's not right.  & you know what?  That's not right is also where self-doubt lives.

It's a wonder anyone gets anything done around here.  Ah, but I forget: the same environments also foster self-delusion.

Bad Wordy

The other day or night, I was listening to some new singles on the computer, on the Bandcamp, & I came across one of them, in Spanish, that I was digging, & I used the Google Translate to Google translate the words (because I don't know Spanish) & holy smokes it was filled with bad words!  Not only that, a translation of the performer's name - you know, he called himself something other than his given name - that was indecent, too!

It seems that most if not all languages have profanity but it surprises me that some of them have analogs in English.  & not just one!  Sometimes the profanity has to do with context.

For example, back in my KOOP days in Austin, I for a time did Self Help Radio after a program called "The Pilot Show."  It was a show where new folks who came to the station had the chance to show the listening audience what kind of show they would do if they were to get a regular slot.  Sometimes the show would be Spanish-language, as we had several Spanish-language programs.

One day there was a group of young men who were doing something I guessed was political.  They were constantly referring to each other as cabron.  Google The Translate actually translate that as "dumbass" but I was told by the older gentlemen there (who could speak Spanish) that the word meant "goat."

Fast forward years later, I was watching a movie - darn, I had thought it was a John Sayles movie but I guess it wasn't - about new immigrants living in Los Angeles, & much of the dialogue was in Spanish, but helpfully translated for lazy viewers like me.  Every time - every time - someone used the word cabron, it was translated on the screen as "motherfucker."  From goat to dumbass to motherfucker - that's a hell of a journey.

The upshot is, I can't say this performer's name on the air, though I am going to play one of his songs on the Tuesday Morning Blend tomorrow.  What performer?  You'll have to listen to find out, you silly goat you.

Self Help Radio 070618: Sorrow

(Suloni Robertson designed the SHR logo; the cartoon tear I added is clip art.)

Things are bad.  Things may get worse.  & then there's sorrow.  I mean, there's already sorrow.  But sorrow can increase.  Sorrow can overwhelm.  Sorrow can bury.

But what can we do?  I dunno, maybe a radio show about sorrow?  I know that seems glib.  But frankly it's about all I can do.  Not the least I can do.  The most I can do.  Another radio show.  This time one about sorrow.

& maybe a radio show can help heal.  Or maybe it'll exacerbate things.  I can't say.  I'm like an alternative medicine guy when it comes to the healing powers of radio: you try to fix everything with the same thing.  In this case, it's sorrow.  But maybe a radio show about bunions can help with one's bunions.  It's not like I have faith in any of this.

So let's heal all our sorrow with a radio show about sorrow.  Or maybe just listen to it for the music & the goofy interviews & other funnies.  Don't ask me.  I'm not a psychologist.  I just started writing stuff & now I'm in way over my head.

Listen to this week's Self Help Radio over at the Self Help Radio website.  You'll be asked for a username & a password.  Those are SHR & selfhelp.  Caps sensitive.  It's a little over two sorrowful hours long.  The songs played as well as the interviews are listed below.

"Sorrow" David Bowie _Pin Ups_
"Sorrow" Nits _dA dA dA_
"Sorrow" Broder Daniel _Broder Daniel_

introductions & definitions

"Sorrow" The National _High Violet_
"Sorrow" Frankie Rose _Herein Wild_
"Sorrow" Life Without Buildings _Any Other City_
"Don't Interrupt The Sorrow" Joni Mitchell _The Hissing Of Summer Lawns_

interview with filmmaker David Fruchter

"In My Time Of Sorrow" Marianne Faithfull _Marianne Faithfull's Greatest Hits_
"Surround Yourself With Sorrow" Cilla Black _The Best Of Cilla Black_
"Don't See The Sorrow" Au Revoir Simone _The Bird Of Music_
"Sorrowful Blues" Little Brother Montgomery _Complete Recorded Works (1930-1936)_
"Heart In Sorrow" Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee _Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry Sing_

interview with psychologist Dr. Chuck Charles

"Bruised Orange (Chain Of Sorrow)" Justin Vernon _Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows (Songs Of John Prine)_
"Sorrow's Child" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _The Good Son_
"Sorrow Is The Way To Love" Carousel _I Forgot To Remember To Forget_
"Sorrows Arms" Honey Child _Honey Child_
"Fucking In Rhythm & Sorrow" Sugarcubes _Life's Too Good_

a discussion of literary conceptions of sorrow (interrupted)

"You Brought Sorrow To My Heart" Johnny Bond & His Red River Valley Boys _Country & Western: Johnny Bond Standard Transcriptions_
"Man Of Constant Sorrow" Bob Dylan _Bob Dylan_
"Pilgrim Of Sorrow" The Wright Specials _The Complete Motown Singles: 1962_
"Little Miss Sorrow, Child Of Tomorrow" Herman's Hermits _There's A Kind Of Hush (All Over The World)_
"Dawn Of Sorrow" The New Society _The Barock Sound Of The New Society_

closing & goodbye

"Mr. Sorrowful" Hurrah! _Tell God I'm Here_
"Sorrow Floats" Voice Of The Beehive _Let It Bee_
"Daughters Of Sorrow" The New Pornographers _Together_

post mortem

Whither Sorrow?

(Yow! I found this picture here!)

Are you sad?  I mean, really, really sad?  What you might be experiencing is sorrow.  Yeah, I bolded that word.  & if you're experiencing sorrow (still bold), then you might need a radio show about it.

But, you may ask, will this radio show help me with my sorrow?  Probably not.  The radio show is done, as usual, by a silly man with his goofy friends, & features mainly songs about the show's theme, which, this week, is sorrow.  It's not a show run by trained professionals who work with people who suffer from depression or otherwise need help with sadness, unhappiness, or sorrow.  Really, I suggest you look for help someplace else.

However, if you want to wallow, if you really want to listen to lots of songs about sorrow, & people (mainly me) talking about sorrow, & silly skits & funny interviews (ha ha!) about sorrow, then this week's Self Help Radio might be for you!

You may have noticed in the last paragraph the word "sorrow" was no longer presented in bold type.  That's because we ran out of bold.  This show is being run on a shoestring budget.  It's embarrassing.

Sorrow tomorrow on Self Help Radio at noon.  Find your way to the very depressing Self Help Radio website (or the Facebook page or the Twitter page or even here which will lead you to the Self Help Radio website) & listen to two hours of talk & songs about sorrow.  You may find a way to bold that word again.

Preface To Sorrow: Happy Birthday America!

(I found this on Tumblr somewhere.)

Over on Facebook, where they let you relive your "on this day" memories, I noticed a pattern: for a few years there, I would say, on the Fourth Of July, "Happy Birthday, America.  You're old."  Or some semblance of that.

As this country continues to look & act less & less like I always thought it would, I feel like I should continue that tradition as long as we have a country, which may for all I know not be long.  So:

Happy birthday, America!  Wow you're old.

Low In High School

On Facebook last week I succumbed to one of those "do this & tag your friends to do it too" things that were way more popular in the early days of Facebook then they are now.  I was waiting for my wife to return from Jazzercise & didn't want to start doing something (listening to a record, picking up a book) that could be interrupted if I were really into it.

The task: "Tell us about your final year of high school."  So I did.

Year: 1985-1986

1. Did you know your spouse?
Nope. She was in California, in elementary school.

2. Did you skip school?
Probably. My mother worked so if my little brother & I didn't want to, we'd make an excuse about being sick & she couldn't check on us.

3. What kind of car did you have?
A 1976 Ford Granada. Already on its last legs, er, wheels.

4. It's FRIDAY night where are you?
Probably driving around with my pal Joe listening to music & talking about life.

5. What kind of job did you have?
I worked at a Mobil gas station for half the year, & sometimes at my family's convenience store.

6. Were you a party animal?
Ha ha ha no.

7. Were you considered a jock?
Ha ha ha no.

8. Were you in choir, band or orchestra?
Ha ha ha no.

9. Were you a nerd?
I spent all my money on records & comic books. What do you think?

10. Did you get suspended?
Nope, I was a good boy.

11. Can you sing the fight/school song?
Yes. Off key.*

12. Where did you eat?
I wasn't a vegetarian yet, so probably fast food crap.**

13. Where was your high school?
Garland, Texas. It's still there as far as I can tell.

14. What was your school mascot?
A racist Civil War Colonel.***

15. If you could go back and do it over again, would you?
God, no.

16. Do you still talk to the person you went to prom with?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha I didn't go to prom.

17.Are you planning on going to the next high school reunion?
I haven't been to any of them, & don't really talk to anyone from my high school.

18. Are you still in contact with people from high school?
Not really. A couple, one who left in ninth grade, another who was in the grade before mine. I am surprised when I look back how few people I knew back then, but I know so few people now so I guess it's not that much of a surprise.

19. What happened to question 19? Am I supposed to make something up? Okay, how about this: do you know if anyone you went to high school is dead now? ****
Yes! There's an entire web site for my school (not just my class) called "Fallen Colonels" & I occasionally check there to see if anyone I know has died. But of course I didn't really know anyone, so if I recognize anyone, it's just a name. I think we've lost ten out of 435 but I haven't checked recently.*****

20. Do you know where your high school sweetheart is?
Ha ha ha ha ha I didn't have a high school sweetheart.******

21. What was your favorite subject?
I used to hang out in the library with a couple of friends during lunch, that seemed to be the most fun I had.*******

22. Do you still have your class ring?
I would never have even thought about buying a class ring.********

23. Do you still have your yearbook?
Yeah, in a box in a closet.

Interesting?  No?  Notes on my answers below.

* It's pretty simple: "All hail to thee, to our alma mater sing, long may your power & glory ring, forever true, our hearts will be, our school South Garland High, all hail to thee."  The last "all hail to thee" was shouted with forceful pointing of the outstretched hand.  You can see it here.
** I'm embarrassed to say I spent some of my disposable income on junk food, especially Jack-In-The-Box.  If you told my seventeen year old self that in a year he'd be a vegetarian, he would've laughed.

*** I went into this more a few years back on the blog.

**** The original Facebook thing didn't have a question 19.  I don't know if the previous person omitted it or if there never was one.

***** The site is

****** My first kiss happened at the tail-end of high school, but I'm friends with her on Facebook & I think she might be a little offended if I called her my high-school sweetheart.  So she probably wasn't.

******* I was fond of English & history, though.  I went on to major in English in college.

******** My mother got a class ring thing in the mail & seemed to want to buy me one.  I told her I would never wear it & she should save the money.  I think I hurt her feelings.  I don't know if any of my siblings (four of whom graduated from the same school) ever got class rings.

A Burgh Of Pitts

That's where I was most of last week: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Why, you may ask?  The wife had business there.  I came along because it's nice to go to places you've never been to, isn't it?

Here's a picture of the town from the Wikipedia entry about Pittsburgh:

Yeah, I took a bunch of pictures of the town, but when I get around to looking at them, they'll probably be on the the Self Help Radio Tumblr page in a few months.  The pics I like.  They probably won't be too touristy.

One thing I realized is that - I should've realized this before - I am very lucky I married someone who's as much of a foodie as I am.  We ate at these places: B52 Cafe, Onion Maiden, & Apteka, to mention the three great vegan places we went to.  We found vegan options in other places, all delicious.

Mainly we haunted the museums but did manage some walks through some neighborhoods.  It reminded me a very little of Huntington (although I must stress except for mainly the hills & trees, nothing about the place felt Appalachian), a very lot of Cincinnati, with maybe some of the industrial spirit of Chicago.  I like that it's close to Columbus.  There's a part of me that wishes I had discovered the city a long time before now.

One sad thing is that I used to have a friend who lived in Pittsburgh but I lost touch with her, & very surprisingly, especially since we met online, she has almost no online presence.  But also, my last email exchange with her was like fourteen years ago.  I almost went to the address she used to live at but thought better of it.  Anyway.  It's strange to be in a place where you know (or you think you know) someone you've been friends with lives but because of stupid time & other things you've lost touch & you can't find them.  But I suppose it must've been worse in the past.

It's crazy, I'd love to go back but also there are so many places I've just never been so shouldn't I go there first?  I think so.  But thank you, Pittsburgh.  I'm sorry I never paid much attention to you.  It makes me wonder what other places I should be paying attention to.

Self Help Radio 062918: There Is No Self Help Radio 062918

Get it?

Oh crap I ruined it.

Damn it all.

Whither - Oh There's No Show This Week, Sorry

It's true, I'm not anywhere I can put a show together but I'm elsewhere at the moment.  Well, I'm here, because where else would I be but it's not the here that I'm usually at.  "Where you are is where you're at," right?  Or something like that?  I'm not really where I generally am, is the point I'm trying to make.  So, no show.

Also, no "whither" entry for the blog.  Except this is...  I mean, this would be...  Well, poops.

There are some things I'd like to get off my chest while you're here.  Like, air travel.  What a mess.  Wait!  Where are you going?  I have some solutions!  Wait!  Wait!

Poops!

Stop, Plug A Minute

In a few minutes, I'll going somewhere else for a couple of days (it's why there's no show this week) so I thought that I'd spend a second with a short list of links that you may use to occupy your time if you regularly expect a Self Help Radio once a week.  I know no one like that exists but if it's all right with you, I'll just pretend.

You can listen to the radio station where I deejay in Dallas, KNON.  It's a great community radio station with a lot of different shows, which you can see on the schedule.

If something there strikes your fancy, you can sample any show at Radio Free America.  (That's also where you can sample the last two weeks of the show I do.)

You may also enjoy the two stations that aired Self Help Radio in Kentucky, the student-run WRFL & the community-based WLXU.  It seems like it was only yesterday there'd be a new Self Help Radio on Wednesday nights in Lexington - but it's been like two months.

Of course, there are well over fifty old episodes of Self Help Radio (all of the shows from the past year, for instance) on the Self Help Radio website.  Remember the username SHR & the password selfhelp to listen.  Most of the shows are from the WLXU days but some shows go back way into the WRFL & even KOOP past.

It would be swell if you'd follow the show on Twitter & like the show on Facebook, & look at dumb pictures I took on Tumblr.  I imagine there would be some diverting moments there.  Or not?

That's all.  I'll miss you this week.  But I'll be back next week with a show about sorrow.  Because I feel the need to be cheery in your presence.

But Maybe Listen To More Self Help Radio?

(Image, of course, from Toothpaste For Dinner.)

Emails I Delete & Never Open

Just now - I suppose it happens every Monday about this time - I got an email from Tumblr that spotlights like five different Tumblr blogs.  It says something like "The Five Blogs Of Your Future," or "Your Blog Cravings, Satisfied."  I never read it, I just delete it.  I mean, maybe I can unsubscribe from it if I open & read it?  But naw.  I just delete it.

My brain just asked me, what if your blog were on that list?  The chances that the Self Help Radio Tumblr Blog would end up on a list like that are vanishingly small, what with its 29 followers who never like any of my photos.  Maybe a Tumblr blog for a radio show shouldn't be putting up photos like it's a fucking Instagram account but anyway.

Or wait, what if it had been on that list previously, & anyone who saw it was like, "Oh shit, worst Tumblr blog ever"?  That would be an appropriate response, but again, it's so very unlikely.

It's not just Tumblr notifications I delete.  I delete stuff from Paypal, from charities I've given to (or the ones that I took surveys for that were designed to just get on their mailing lists), from newspapers I've created accounts for.  I'm certain all those have unsubscribe buttons, & occasionally I do unsubscribe, but mostly I just delete without reading.

It's funny, I don't pay attention to those emails but I do like to read the emails from my spam mailbox.  There's one spam I get regularly which says "subscribe from all our lists here."  Maybe that's why I think it doesn't matter if I unsubscribe from any lists - it's all a scam.

But confidentially, I suspect the reason that I don't mind getting the emails is that I don't really get any emails anymore.  It's nice to know my inbox is getting some action.  It makes me feel bad for all those folks I never bothered to write back to twenty years ago or more.  I thought I'd always have correspondents!  What hubris!