Self Help Radio 090115: Failure

(Original image here.)

It's only natural a show like Self Help Radio would celebrate failure.  After all, many self-help websites (I know, I read a lot of them this past week) encourage people to learn from their failures, to pick themselves up & dust themselves off, & of course to try, try again.  They consider failure to be a stepping stone - a setback - a speedbump on the road of life.

Only sometimes failure isn't that.  Sometimes - more times than we perhaps know - it's the thing that happens right before the end.  & sometimes - more times than we doubtless know - the end takes a long time.  I'm just saying.  We hear about & applaud those who fail & recover & go on to bigger things.  We hear less about those who fail & never make it out of that failure.

That got depressing fast.  Whew.  Can I just say that today's show, while certainly not a success, wasn't quite the failure I hoped it would be?  I think it helped that there was good music, a sort-of interview with internet sensation Mr. Failure, a report from Marge Most at the Museum Of Failure, & a special "word of encouragement" from the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently.  I tried to keep my head down.

The show can be listened to (unless I failed to upload it properly) at the Self Help Radio website.  If you fail to look at the page, you might not notice there's a username/password combo you'll need to listen to shows.  & what songs you will hear are listed below.

Don't fail to listen!

(part one)

"The Will To Fail" Katie Lee _Songs Of Couch & Consultation_
"Love Will Make You Fail In School" Mickey & Sylvia _Love Is Strange_
"He Hasn't Failed Me Yet" Wendy Rene _You Thrill My Soul: Early Stax Females & Girl Groups_

"I'll Never Fail You" Billie Holiday _The Essential Brunswick Recordings_
"Don't Make Me Fail" The Creary Sisters _Man From Galilee: Tabernacle Studio One_
"There's One Thing That Beats Failing" Bobby Womack _The Very Best Of Bobby Womack 1968-1975_
"Nothing Beats A Failure (But A Try)" The Natural Four _Night Chaser_

"Failures" Joy Division _Heart & Soul_
"Capital (It Fails Us Now)" Gang Of Four _A Brief History Of The 20th Century_
"Rudie Can't Fail" The Clash _London Calling_
"Jeane" The Smiths _This Charming Man_

"Failing In Love" The Waltones _You've Gotta Hand It To 'Em: The Very Best Of The Waltones_
"My Failure's Success" Brighter _Heol_

(part two)

"You Love To Fail" The Magnetic Fields _Distant Plastic Trees_
"Other People's Failure" John Wesley Harding _John Wesley Harding's New Deal_
"I'm So Happy You Failed" Laptop _Opening Credits_

"Failure" My Robot Friend _Soft-Core_
"Failure" A Sunny Day In Glasgow _Ashes Grammar_
"Failure" Kings Of Convenience _Quiet Is The New Loud_
"Failure" Fragile _Popular World_

"Failure" P:ano _The Den_
"Failure" Juliana Hatfield _There's Always Another Girl_
"The King Of Failed" From Bubblegum To Sky _A Soft Kill_
"Holy Failure" Certain General _Invisible New York_

"The Bar Is Too Low To Fail" BOAT _50 Sweaty BOAT Fans Can't Be Wrong_
"Mission Failed" San Cisco _San Cisco_

Whither Failure?

(I found this here.)

Why a Self Help Radio show about failure?  Are you kidding?  Have you ever met a radio show with such low self-esteem?  All right then.  Why are you so surprised?

Personally I don't think of life as a game or a contest you can win, though I am fond of how comedian Marc Maron describes certain people with the phrase "he or she won life."  I don't think I've in any respect "won" life (Maron used the phrase to describe Iggy Pop, I think), but I also hope that I haven't gotten to the point where the determination can be made that I have failed life.  Give me a couple more years, please!

Hey!  The show is on today from 4 to 6 pm (like usual) on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm.  If you fail to listen today, I'll archive it tomorrow.  If you fail to listen after that, I'll adopt my best Donald Trump voice & say, "Oh well!  It doesn't matter.  He/she is a failure!"

But I hope it doesn't come to that!

Preface To Failure: The Failure That Is Me

The show - Self Help Radio - was not yet two years old when I got one of the first "criticisms" of it by a listener.  I don't remember her name, I just recall she called & said she had noticed that the show tended to be more "negative" than positive.  She remembered a show I did called "the broken show" where I played songs & talked about being broken.  She mentioned a show about war, about being lost, about being stupid.  It occurred to me at the time that maybe she had actually heard only four shows.*  But there is no denying it: I am a negative person.

When my sister died a couple of months ago, those in my family who are reflective tried to paint a picture of her that was more complete than the moments we spent with her, especially those last moments.  It became very clear to me, at least, that somewhere along the line both she & I had inherited, if not from our mother's behavior, something genetic which made us the blackest of pessimists.  As my nephew, her son, said, "I didn't realize how strong the Dickerson** was in her."

In addition to our bleak outlook on life - we "expect the worst" - apparently we're a bunch of quitters.  Honestly, I thought it was just me.  I have quit a lot of things in my life - I have found catharsis in quitting - but those who see things through obviously disdain even the best intentions for bailing.  I don't know enough about my brothers to know exactly what that means, unless it's about quitting work - except for my little brother, who goes to church, I don't know about any of my siblings having hobbies outside of televised sports.  I should also ask my nephew what his mother quit that he remembers.

In any event, there is reason to believe I'm something of a failure.  I went to college with the intention of becoming a teacher, but that obviously didn't happen.  The "career"*** I had for twenty years is not something I want to return to.  The thing I've loved most is a thing I will never ever get paid for, which is the radio.  Crazy, right?

Do you know those lists of so-called "famous failures" which is designed to make you realize that many successful people fail a lot before they succeed?  I know, it's all about inspiring people.  But I wish I could find a list of failures that never ever succeeded, never got out of the hole they found themselves in.  I can't - they're unmemorable.  Although I have an idea
for something to talk about on the show...

Where was I?  Oh, I was just thinking of whether I am actually a failure.  I confess I don't even know what I'd do if I could somehow find success.  Which reminds me of the sad Woodentops line from "Last Time": "I found success in the Eden that we made."  Maybe my wonderful life with a wonderful woman & eight infuriatingly wonderful animals makes me a few notches above a failure.

Nah.  The Dickerson is too strong in me.

* Actually, someone called me a few months ago on WRFL & mentioned that he liked my show, but that he had only heard it "about four times."  So perhaps four times is the average saturation point.

** That's my last name, my sister's maiden name.

*** The job I had after college that I stumbled into.

History Section

Sometimes when I'm in a bookstore I stand in the Self-Help section to see if I feel a sense of belonging.  There are Glenn Beck books in the Self-Help section.  That was weird to see.  I guess narcissism is a kind of self-help program, sure.

Today though I was looking for a book about the Middle Ages.  I was at a store whose name suggests that they sell books for half their cover price, although that's not always true.  It's like so-called "dollar stores."  Lots of things there cost much more than a dollar.  But I suppose you could have a store called "Chicken Express" & only sell candles & most people wouldn't bat an eyelid.

As I was saying, something about the Middle Ages.  It's a minor interest of mine.  I am reading a book now about popes.  I wanted some background & most of the articles on Wikipedia about the subject are kind of terrible.  Not really readable.  I wanted something by a person who could actually write.  A writer.  A historian.

Standing therefore was I in the small history section when the fellow who had been standing behind me said to me, "I guess they're all kinda mixed-up, hunh?"

Sensing he wasn't sure how the shelves were organized, I showed him the little flags which indicated the areas about which the books were supposed to be.  Little areas for "England," "Germany," "Eastern Europe," etc.

He said, "I was looking for a book about Scandinavian history."

Suddenly I felt like he thought I was an employee, but I did scan the area where European countries were represented & couldn't find a section about Denmark or Sweden or Finland or Norway.

"Yeah," I said, "there seems to be sections for a lot of countries, like this giant section for Russia, but it seems that the northern European countries got short-shift."

"Got what?" he said.

"Short-shrift," I said.  "Treated poorly, neglected," I added.

"I like that!" he said.

Guess he found something in that section after all.  He's lucky I hadn't yet read about the origin of the phrase.  It was first written down by Shakespeare!  He would've gotten an earful from me.

Spent The Day In Versailles, Kentucky

It's pronounced "ver-sails," not "ver-sigh," like those hipster French people say.

My camera was at the ready, snapping things I thought were interesting.  At one point, a tween or maybe she was a teenager already saw me take a picture of something & she said, "Are you not from here?"  I fibbed a little - I didn't want a lecture from a smarty-pants denizen - & said, "I'm from a town over.  But I like taking pictures."  That seemed to satisfy her.

Pictures!  Eventually ones I like will make their way to my stupid Tumblr site.  But it takes a while for me to sort through them.

There was a bonfire, though.  I hope those pictures come out.

Self Help Radio 082515: Indiepop A To Z # 48

(I got most of the images of album/CD covers from discogs dot com.)

Here it is: episode 48 in the series called "Indiepop A To Z," from King Midas to Kristallin.  Can I tell you?  I am four songs away from finishing the letter K.  Isn't that crazy?  Four damn songs!  It's annoying.  But.  I'll be back at the end of the year to finish the letter K & start the letter L.  This dumb series is not going to go anywhere.

Oh but this may interest you: of the twenty-seven songs featured of this week's show, 8 come from artists in the United States, 7 come from England, 3 come from Germany, Sweden & Norway have two apiece, & there are ones from Scotland, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, & Canada.  That's some globe-trotting right there!  I don't think this is atypical of indiepop, by the way - I just think it's the first time I've tallied it up.

The show can be enjoyed now at the Self Help Radio website.  The playlist is below.  Pay attention to password info on the site!

& as always, thanks for listening.

(part one)

"From The Pipeline" King Midas _From The Pipeline_
"A Picture Of Dorian Gray" The King Of Luxembourg _Royal Bastard_
"I Don't Know What I Can Save You From" Kings Of Convenience _Quiet Is The New Loud_

"The Village Green Preservation Society" The Kinks _The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society_
"Mod Boy" The Kirby Grips _Bored, Lonely, & A Little Pissed Off: A KALX Radio Compilation_
"Nilsson" James Kirk _You Can Make It If You Boogie_
"Total Hangover" Kissamatic Lovebubbles _Picnic Basket (A Shelflife International Pop Compilation)_
"Sad City" Kissing Book _Lines & Color_

"A Day Like This" The Kissing Time _Baby I'm Yours_
"Boy Meets Girl" Kisswhistle _Steady As She Goes_
"How To Break This" Kit _Unshakeable Faith_
"Polaroids" Kitchens Of Distinction _Strange Free World_
"Brittle" Kitten Factor _Popular World_

(part two)

"How Long Can This Go On?" Kitty Craft _Catskills_
"Deep Sea" Kittywinder _Livre Des Monstres_
"I Was A Janitor" Klas _To Sleep & Love_
"Never Underestimate The Ignorance Of The Rich" Klaxon 5 _Bellissimo! Él Singles Part One_
"Why I Write Such Good Songs" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Why I Write Such Good Songs_

"Hot Winter Rain (Demo Version)" Knabenkraut _Seven Fantastic Cats 7"_
"Idiot Wizards" Knight School _Revenger_
"The Joy Of Sex" Chris Knox _Yes!!_
"Frantic Romantic" Kobus Gaat Naar Appelscha _Frantic Romantic_
"B.L.O.S.S.O.M." Komeda _The Powerpuff Girls: Heroes & Villains_

"I Beg Your Pardon (I Never Promised You A Rose Garden)" Kon Kan _Move To Move_
"Was It You?" Kosmonaut _The Matinée Summer Splash!_
"Pocket Calculator" Kraftwerk _Computer World_
"The Legendary Bang" Kristallin _Review III (Marsh-Marigold)_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 48?

Because indiepop is so twee, here's a picture of a cute cat, which I got from here.

Look, I know it's a little weird that every four months the show deviates from the whole "here's an arbitrary theme" format & features songs in alphabetical order about a genre of music that most anyone listening knows almost nothing about.  "Indiepop" as a genre has never really been a force in music, & it has happened that now people use the word "indiepop" to mean "pop music made by independent musicians," which means anyone trying to sound like Katy Cyrus who hasn't made it big yet is an "indiepop" musician.  That's not really true, but indiepop itself isn't really fighting back, so what the hell.  It can mean what you want it to mean.  What it means for me is bands like the website twee dot net feature.  I use that list as a skeleton for my own show, where I add bands that have influenced or have been influenced by indiepop.  My list is a lot longer than theirs, which is probably why I'll never finish the series.

Hey, I'll understand if this is not your thing.  But I might finish the letter K today!  (I won't finish the letter K today.)  It might feel like a milestone to have covered hundreds of bands from the first eleven letters of the alphabet in forty-eight shows!  (But it won't, because I won't finish the letter K today.)

It's on from 4 to 6pm today on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexingtown, & online at wrfl dot fm.  I'll archive it tomorrow on the Self Help Radio website, where, by the way, you can listen to almost all the previous installments, what? Yeah! Maybe you'd find them easier on this table of contents page which indicates that I've been doing this for ten years.  Ten years!  That's insane.

Maybe you'll listen today though?

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 48: What Has Not Yet Been Said

It has been a relaxing week at Self Help Radio HQ, since I've just been listening to songs by bands in alphabetical order that I already know & like, & then deciding which ones to play on the radio.  I do this (never-going-to-be-finished) indiepop a to z project every four months, give or take, & I am required (by me, mostly) to write something about it, & there's very little I haven't said.

Perhaps the saddest thing, to me, is that it's a kind of sound that seems to be on the wane.  Saying that, I am already aware that I might just not be looking for it as diligently as I used to, or that the stuff that my radio station gets (which I try to keep up with) is from bigger labels, so the indiepop that makes it through is the exception, not the rule.  But I confess I don't even know which labels I should be watching these days.  Am I asking for help?  Maybe!

My bad.  I just went to a couple of labels' sites & saw there was tons of stuff I could be looking at/listening to/buying.  Of course I haven't listened to it, I was just looking - what if the stuff on these labels has changed?  These small labels are run by people, not corporations, & sometimes peoples' tastes change.  So why can't a person running a label decide they want to change from indiepop to electronica?  Not such a stretch.

Most tragic to me is when labels had a personality - I'm thinking of some from the 1980s, mainly - & then they got bought up by a corporation & just start releasing stuff to make money.  Some diversify, & that dilutes the sound; others just plain sell out.  I'm not mentioning specific labels here because of two reasons: a) I may be talking out of my ass (see above); & 2) I don't want to start an argument.  Everything on the internet is about taking sides, & I'm a terrible partisan.

What to talk about, when I talk about indiepop now?  I wish I knew!

He's Embarrassed Enough As It is

My wife was talking to our dogs about whether she should wear pants on our nightly dog walk.  She decided that the dogs are embarrassed enough about her & me as it is.  & not just about us - about each other.  She listed a few things the dogs are probably embarrassed about when it comes to walking with each other.

Personally, I just hope we get home in time to watch Fear The Walking Dead.

The show is being taped - or DVRed, as is the case now - but I kinda like watching television shows in real time.  (Especially the show Real Time.)  So I'll see it anyway.  But still.

Oh shit - this is the sort of thing I do that my dogs are embarrassed about!

Occasionally, I Tweet

It's true, Self Help Radio has a Twitter account.  I'm honestly not sure why.  I don't know if any radio show "live tweets" what they play - unless they're a commercial radio station whose playlist is determined by a committee or a programming manager weeks in advance - but that's mainly what I use the account for.  I don't think I'm funny or clever enough to throw out witty observations or one-liners.  & I'm not sixteen, so I'm not going to use it as little confessional snippets of what I'm up to at the moment, where I'm at, pictures of my food.  (Or is that Instagram I'm thinking of?  Anyway, I draw the line at more than four social media sites to keep up with.)

Here's an example of me trying to be funny on the Twitter, from today:

It's not all that funny, I know, but it does reflect a weird obsession I have with the story of the hack.  Yes, there's the great fun with hypocrites being outed, but I'm more fascinated by the fact that people not only feel the need to cheat but that they feel safe cheating in such a way.  I won't let third party apps have access to my Facebook account!

Whatever, I was just going to say, if you're on Twitter, & you like the show, you can "follow" it (I hate that term) (it makes me feel like I'm trying to rally troops) by going to the SHR Twitter page.  It'd be nice to have you.

Self Help Radio 081815: Sand

(Original image here.)

This is true: a fellow called my show yesterday (the one I am presenting today), & said, "Are you doing a show about sand?"  I said, "Yes, yes, I am."  He said, "But why?"  & I had to laugh.  Because there's hardly ever a reason why I do a show on Self Help Radio.  No good reason, really.  I do a Valentine's Day show, a Halloween show, & a Christmas show, but very rarely does the show attach itself to an event, or anniversary, or whatever, related to the day of the show itself.  That would be even harder than to do a show about sand!

Speaking of: I think it's an okay show.  I'm on it, which brings the average down a lot, but there's also very good music (you can see the playlist below), as well as a conversation with my spiritual advisor, the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently, about the spiritual metaphors for which sand is used, & there's an interview with sand artist David M. Fruchter, & inexplicably, motel heiress Magdalena La Quinta stops by.  It was a lot of fun to do at the time, maybe it's a lot of fun to listen to.

The show is now where it ought to be, at the Self Help Radio website.  You will probably be asked for a username (it will be SHR) & a password (it will be selfhelp).  That information is on the page.  Or you can write me like some folks do, & I can tell you that way, too.

Sand! Sand everywhere! Gaah!

(part one)

"Mr. Sandman" The Puppini Sisters _Betcha Bottom Dollar_
"The Sandman" Neo Retros _Listen To Your Leader_
"Sandman's On The Rise Again" Felt _Rain Of Crystal Spires_

"Sand" Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood _Nancy & Lee_
"Sand & Sea" Frank Sinatra _The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings_
"Sand In My Shoes" Bobby Short _Saloon Singer_
"Castles In The Sand" Little Stevie Wonder _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 4: 1964_

"Cowgirl In The Sand" Neil Young _Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: Live At Massey Hall 1971_
"Clothes Of Sand" Nick Drake _Made To Love Magic_
"Sand In My Shoes" Cair Paravel _Some Other Morning_
"Every Grain Of Sand" Bob Dylan _The Bootlegs Series 1961-1991, Vol. 3_

"Men Are Building Sand" Montage _Montage_
"A Pebble In My Sand" The Fallen Angels _Washington, D.C. Garage Band Greats!_

(part two)

"(Remember) Walking In The Sand" The Shangri-La's _The Leader Of The Pack_
"White Bikini Sand" Throwing Muses _Limbo_
"Tiny Craters In The Sand" The Wave Pictures _If You Leave It Alone_

"Sandstorm In Paradise" Cleaners From Venus _In the Golden Autumn_
"Sandstorm" All Over The Place _La-Di-Da... So Far..._
"Sandstorm" Cast _All Change_
"Shifting Sands" Armitage Shanks _Bang Crash Boom!!! A PopClub Compendium_

"Man O'Sand To Girl O'Sea" The Go-Betweens _Bellavista Terrace: The Best Of The Go-Betweens_
"The Sea & The Sand" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Rattlesnakes_
"Kicking Sand" The Lodger _Grown-Ups_
"The Sand That Holds The Lakes In Place" His Name Is Alive _Stars On ESP_

"Sand In My Joints" Wire _Chairs Missing_
"In The Sand (Live)" Wavves _Life Sux EP_
"Sand" The Concretes _Layourbattleaxedown_

Whither Sand?

(A closeup shot of sand from here.)

Guess what?  I can tell you exactly where I got the idea for this week's show!  It's from a song I will play today, a song you already know, that weird & wonderful Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra tune called "Sand."  Like a lot of the songs on today's show, it uses sand as a metaphor.  But I was liking it enough one afternoon that I thought, Hey, I'll do an entire show about sand.

Man, I didn't realize there were so damn many songs about sand!

Here's something you won't hear me play today: a cover of the Hazlewood/Sinatra tune.  I am in the habit of playing covers of more popular tunes, & while the tune wasn't quite what you'd call a hit - it only got to # 107 on the US charts - it's certainly aged well, & it very recognizable.  So much so that there are a few covers from the sixties, & a famous cover by Einsturzende Neubaten, & a nice cover by Howe Gelb & Lisa Germano under the name "OP8" in the 1990s, & a swell version with Holly Golightly & Billy Childish also from around that time.  For whatever reason, none of them affect me the way the original does.  I like to think of it as one of the best Leonard Cohen songs he never wrote.

So much sand!  Today on Self Help Radio from 4 to 6 pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm.  Unlike sand, there's almost no chance the show will get in your shoes, your hair, or any unusual bodily orifices.

Preface To Sand: A Sad Sandbox Story

My childhood - at least before I started school, which is to say, first grade, which was the first grade of school I attended - was fraught with accidents.  I was a clumsy, foolhardy child.  At different times, I would drink alcohol I wasn't supposed to (thinking it was juice), I would run under teens playing basketball & get my ankle stepped on, or I would crack my head on the side of a table so hard & bloodily there's still a scar there (it's actually how I measure my receding hairline).  I don't have many memories of these events, but they were fodder for "Gary is a dumbass" stories of my youth, so the stories themselves have been implanted in my brain.

One memory I do have involves a time - certainly I wasn't more than five - when I was playing in a sandbox in the apartment complex in which we lived.  I was playing with trucks, I have a sense memory of moving a truck through the sandbox while I crawled behind it on my hands & knees - one hand, of course, maneuvering the truck.  At some point, I got a big surprise - a piece of glass, from a broken soda bottle, had been hidden under the sand.  I rammed my knee right into it.

The scar that used to be there disappeared with age, so I'm not sure whether it was my right or left knee.  I do know I screamed bloody murder & there was in fact a great deal of blood.  I was taken to the nearest hospital - probably the emergency room at Parkland Hospital - where I was seen & my knee stitched up.  How many stitches?  I couldn't see through the tears.

It's an indicator at the level of poverty in which I & my family lived that one could find broken glass hidden in a sandbox.  I'm not insinuating that someone put it there deliberately.  Rather, I think that broken glass was a commonplace.  I'm sure if I could visit back there, I'd find our apartments lousy with roaches, I'd find lots of trash & litter all around (these were the days when soda cans had pull-off lids, & they were a hazard kids learned to avoid), not to mention cigarette butts.  People in drunken frolic break glass.  Some of that glass got into a sandbox.  Some of the glass that got into a particular sandbox got into my knee.

It didn't deter me from sandboxes - there was another one at another apartment complex at which we lived that I played in all the time.  But certainly those experiences, after a certain point, made me more careful.  I didn't have any accident like that again in my childhood.

Notes On A Sunday

Sometimes it seems I'll never get used to writing on this blog on the weekend.  I'm sitting here listening to songs about sand.  There are lots of songs about sand.  There's a lot of sand.

Oh, I should point out something.  In case you're expecting something on the sand show on Tuesday: I'm not going to play any songs about quicksand.  But why not?  Quicksand!  The most interesting sand of all!*

It turns out that I did a show two years ago with the theme "quick", & I played a quicksand set.  & I hate to repeat myself.  Even if two years have passed.  & no one cares but me.

Why do I even care?  Because, like that dude says in The Wire,** "A man's got to have a code."  (A woman, too, I presume.)  I grew up with commercial radio, & even one ennui-filled afternoon, sat next to my radio writing down the songs that were being played, & found that a few artists (I wish I still had that notebook) were played pretty much every hour, & a couple of songs were replayed at the same time hour after hour.  There might have been a moment when I said to myself, "If I ever get a radio show, I will never ever never never ever be so damned repetitive."

Even though that's how & why radio works.

But I suppose I was a curious sort.  I remember discovering non-commercial radio & it was amazing, because I wanted radio to help me find new music, not take advantage of how the brain processes repetition to breed familiarity & eventually acceptance.***  Radio shows that play the same thing over & over will always be more popular because, like I said, that's how radio works.

One time, talking with a friend, we were discussing how out-of-touch we are with today's popular music.  I suggested that we look at the Billboard charts & listen to the top three songs or whatever, just to find out.  She said, "No!  Those terrible songs will just get stuck in my head!"

Apologies, then, for not repeating stuff.  But, a deejay's gotta have a code.  Or this deejay does, anyway.

Did I mention there are a lot of songs about sand?

* One would assume.
** I thought it was Omar, but one search engine query later I discovered I was wrong.
*** I need to research this more.  Maybe Oliver Sachs has written about it?

The Ice Maker Isn't Working

In this weather!  Okay.  I'll go get a bag of ice.

Also a soda.  I know sodas are bad for you!  You know how you grew up in a more-or-less regular house where people drank milk, water, juice?  I grew up in a convenience store.  I was always sugar-ified, I was alway caffeinated.  Check out my teeth.  It took years to make them look this borderline acceptable.

Nowadays I drink sugar-free, caffeine-free soda - one guy on Twitter once said that caffeine-free Diet Coke should be called "Coke Science" - & I know it tastes pretty awful, but it has a taste at least.  Water just doesn't.

Used to be I'd go through half a twelve-pack of sodas a day, or more.  I'm done with that.  I make it kind of a schlep to get soda - I usually get one before a radio show - but unless I'm willing to drive to a convenience store to get a fountain drink, I drink water.  Or, you know, beer.  But not beer all the time!

By the way, I grew up in the South, where people say "coke" to mean any carbonated beverage.  I just like saying soda.  It confuses people, that & my lack of accent.  They think I'm from the midwest.  Nope!  Texas born & raised!

At the Speedway, I waited patiently while someone stood in front of the long soft drink dispensing apparatus, apparently finishing up his self-soda-creating experience.  He was taking a long time.  He was standing directly in front of the place where the average cup size I get is (the largest, because I was getting my seventh soda free, thank you very much), & also where the Caffeine Free Diet Coke (sorry, Coke Science) spigot was.  But he wasn't moving.  He was hunched over, fiddling with something in his hands.

Rudely, I moved in to get a cup.  I noticed he was counting large bills - twenties & fifties - which he had pulled from an envelope inside a baggie.  We made eye contact - I realized he was what we now call "mentally challenged."  Maybe he just got a government check, maybe cashed it at a local place.  Maybe he just keeps his money like that.  He was not aware, immediately, that he was in my way.  He was happy to say hello to someone.

A little embarrassed about being impolite, I stepped back & waited for him to finish.  It took a while, & it took a very large woman in too few clothes all but pushing him out of the way to clear space for me.  Luckily he didn't drop anything.  The next time I saw him, he was fumbling with his money at one of the cash registers (do they still call them that?), & to his credit, the cashier was being very patient, although there was a line of us at the time.

The ice bought & grabbed from the machine outside - the perennial questions, why is ice the sort of product that they trust customers to grab themselves? & its opposite, who would want to steal bags of ice? - & I passed him as he - who, you'll recall, was at check-out a few minutes before I was - was leaving.  He said hello to me, his eyes bright, as we walked by one another.

Oddly, when I got to my car, & turned to see where he was heading, he had disappeared.

Self Help Radio 081115: The Kitchen

(Original image here.)

Is the kitchen the most important room in the house?  Can you protect yourself from the dangers of the kitchen?  What will it take to convince you that tables can talk?  Are there really two hours of worth of songs about kitchens?

These are indeed questions.  Perhaps they are questions I asked myself before embarking on a radio program about the kitchen.  More likely however is that I tumbled headlong into such a venture without thinking about it at all.  No matter!  I believe those questions, & others sorta similar, are not only asked but answered on this week's Self Help Radio.

The kitchen!  Included with the songs is: a conversation with David Fruchter, host of the television program "The Home"; a poem written & read by poet Dale M. Smith; & an interview with a breakfast table.  The only thing that would have made this show better is pancakes.  Someone should've made pancakes!

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website.  It should be right at the top of the home page.  You'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to listen to the show.  That information is also there.  What I played is there, as well, although I am listing it below too.  Basically, this whole blog thing is a redundancy.  I guess it keeps me busy.

Now do the dishes!

(part one)

"Come On In My Kitchen (Take 1)" Robert Johnson _The Complete Recordings_
"Rats In My Kitchen" Sleepy John Estes _The Sun Records Collection_
"Kitchen" Sam Baker _Mercy_

"There's A Kitchen Up In Heaven" Red Allen _I Was Born To Swing_
"Paw's In The Kitchen" The James Quintet _Over The Top Doo Wops Vol. 2: Don't Pull, Don't Push, Don't Shove_
"Switchen In The Kitchen" Don "Pretty Boy" Covay _I Hate CD's: Norton Records 45 RPM Singles Collection Vol. 1_
"Kissin' In The Kitchen" The Dukays _1961-1965_
"Twistin' In The Kitchen With Dinah" Sam Cooke _Twistin' The Night Away_

"All Around The Kitchen" Mike & Peggy Seeger _American Folksongs For Children_
"Singing In The Kitchen" Bobby Bare _Singin' In The Kitchen_
"My Wife Can't Cook" Lonnie Russ _My Wife Can't Cook_
"Kitchen Blues" Nikki Sudden _Treasure Island_
"Soul Kitchen" X _Los Angeles_

"Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen (The Cooks)" XTC _Rag & Bone Buffet_
"The Secret Dreams Of A Kitchen Porter" Cleaners From Venus _A Dawn Chorus_

(part two)

"You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties" Jona Lewie _The Stiff Records Box Set_
"Kitchen Sink Drama" Soft Cell _The Art Of Falling Apart_
"The Art Of Cooking For Two" The Lucksmiths _Happy Secret_

"Rat In Mi Kitchen" UB40 _Rat In The Kitchen_
"Dream Kitchen (7" Mix)" Frazier Chorus _Typical EP_
"From Across The Kitchen Table" The Pale Fountains _...From Across The Kitchen Table_

"In Her Kitchen" The Wave Pictures _Beer In The Breakers_
"Your Kitchen" Hefner _Catfight_
"Stovetop" Juicy _For The Ladies_
"Bat In The Kitchen" The Icicles _A Hundred Patterns_

"Still In The Kitchen" The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy _Distressed Gentlefolk_

Whither The Kitchen?

(I found this image here.)

Boy do I love kitchens.  Most of the time, that's where the food is!  Since I've learned to cook - something I sort of talked about yesterday - I've come to appreciate a clean kitchen, a kitchen with room to move around, a kitchen that make some kind of sense for the culinary process.  I like a kitchen that can stay cool while you're cooking & has plenty of light.

None of that has anything to do with today's show, which will celebrate kitchens with music & chatter. I'll talk to the host of a popular show about house renovation, & a friend of mine will read a poem he wrote for me about kitchens, & it says here I'll also be interviewing a kitchen table.  That must be a misprint.  But one thing is for sure: there'll be kitchen songs from the 1930s to the present day.  You'll have to do your own dishes, though.

Today!  From 4 to 6pm!  On 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington!  Online at wrfl dot fm!  I hope you "come on in my kitchen" today!

Preface To Kitchens: Kitchens I Have Known

When I was a kid, I loved looking at cookbooks, & not just because I wanted to eat everything in those unreal, hyper-colored glossy photos that illustrated Betty Crocker volumes in the 1960s.  No, I liked the recipes.  They were like instructions for model planes - except you had to go get the ingredients, they (usually) didn't come in a package for you.  When I was in eighth grade, they offered "Home Ec," which was supposed to be for girls.  But I wanted to learn how to cook.  I enjoyed the class.  I thought I did all right.

Sadly, it didn't take.  Probably because it was much easier to make something quickly - I still subsist mainly on sandwiches - than to take the time to make a meal for oneself.  In that way, cooking was a lot like writing letters.  I remember spending so much time writing letters to people back in the day, & then sending them off, & waiting for a response, & the response (if I got one) would be read in a fraction of the time it took me to write mine.  Cooking is the same - I can labor in a kitchen for an hour, but the meal will be over in a quarter that time (the wife & I are fast eaters, & yes, we know it's unhealthy).

But finding oneself vegan in towns like Huntington & Lexington, one realizes that one ought to perhaps find a way to prepare one's own meals, since these cities are full of folks who've never heard the word "vegan" before, & who think of vegetarians as a kind of queer aberration.  So one starts to prepare one's own meals.

At some point in the fall of 2009, we were living in Huntington, & I was very concerned about my wife.  She didn't like her job, she didn't like the city, & she had the added responsibility of making food for her & me every night.  In Austin, which we had just left, there were so many places we could go on those evenings where we were both too exhausted to try to cook.  Not so hereabouts.

People are surprised when I tell them there's not a single vegetarian restaurant in Lexington.  It's a college town, for fuck's sake!  But there isn't one.  There are places with vegetarian options, & even a couple that might make one or two dishes for vegans.  The nice thing about your standard vegetarian place is that they usually can make most of their dishes vegan - but in restaurants that mainly serve dead animals, that's not an option they've even considered.

& while I appreciate that some places (not many but a handful) around here have a vegan option or two, there are a couple of reasons that I generally don't support the places that have the one vegan thing on the menu for people like me:

1) I don't know if I want to give my money to places that mainly, overwhelmingly, make their money selling dead animals.  It just doesn't seem like patronizing these places ever makes them think about adding other vegan stuff to their repertoire.

2) I can cook better than pretty much all these places.

That has turned out to be a bad thing, me becoming a somewhat competent cook.  My wife will tell me that she likes my food better than most of the stuff we can buy around town.  But sometimes I would like a night off!

My kitchen is pretty simple, though.  I try to keep it clean.  I tend to rinse dishes off & put them in the dishwasher while I'm cooking, to avoid them piling up in the sink.  & because the wife keeps the house pretty clean, the place usually doesn't smell like some houses do, like their kitchens, especially if the kitchen is mainly used to fry things.  An aroma will fill the house after the meal, but the next day, it's just a memory.

This started with me thinking about cookbooks, & cookbooks are how I cook.  It was only after a couple of years of following recipes that I made minor adjustments to them - & usually that was to add more vegetables.  Recipes are my friends.  I follow them slavishly.  So the meals will always be as good as they were the first time.  That's the trick, I think, to being a competent cook.

Although having a nice kitchen really does help.

You Might Not Hear Much From Me Today

Because.

My friends Maria & Macy asked me to sub their radio show, which I will shortly do.

I did something else yesterday that took up too much of my time which I now regret but luckily I can with experience say that sometimes you do stuff for people who you suppose are friends but of course they don't really care or respect you so they do whatever the hell they want & more than likely use your contribution in a way you wouldn't have approved if they had asked you but guess what they were never going to ask you or really take your thoughts into consideration but the good news is it's a learning experience so you know you'll never ever make that mistake again.

Also, I got very little sleep last night.  I will not be able to make up that sleep tonight.

But I will watch the True Detective finale, then I will stay up (a little whiskeyfied) & read how disappointed everyone is in it.

State Songs 080715: Idaho

(Original images here & here.)

I subbed a fun show on WRFL called "State Songs," it's on Friday mornings from 8 to 9am, & host Ben explores a different state every week.  He couldn't do the show yesterday, & he knows how fond I am of potatoes, so he asked me if I could do a show about Idaho.  Idaho!  I found lots of songs about Idaho.  There might be more songs about Idaho than there are people in Idaho.  Maybe.

The show is available in Idaho as well as everywhere else now at the Self Help Radio website.  You know about the dumb password protection stuff, right?  The passwords are on the front page.  You can find them.  The Idaho songs are listed below.

Esto perpetua!

"The 50 States Song" Sufjan Stevens _The 50 States_
"Here We Have Idaho" Rick Pickren _The State Songs, Vol. 3_
"Idaho" Alvino Rey & His Orchestra _Dance With Me_
"Beautiful Coeur D'Alene" Arkie Shibley & The Mountain Dew Boys _Hot Rod Race_

"Idaho State Fair" Vaughn Monroe _Lady Love_
"Way Out In Idaho" Rosalie Sorrels _Classic Railroad Songs_
"Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day" Iris DeMent _My Life_
"Moscow Idaho" Rod Picott _Summerbirds_

"Idaho" Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons _The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette_
"Private Idaho" The B-52s _Wild Planet_
"Idaho" The Divine Comedy _Absent Friends_
"Miss Idaho" Ox _Intercontinental Pop Exchange No. 6_

"Chain Gang" Boise Cover Band _Unoriginal Artists_
"Idaho" The BoDeans _KGSR Broadcasts, Vol. 5_