Self Help Radio 112316: Black & White

Hello, it's the day after Thanksgiving.  I decided not to put the show up yesterday because it was a holiday & also I was very busy.  Not doing holiday stuff, at all.  But busy nonetheless.  Hey - life isn't always black & white!

But this week's show was!  In addition to tons of songs about things both black & white, I talked to a famous film director who only makes black & white movies, & to a world-renowned artist who has chosen to only paint in black & white, & we talk to my spiritual mentor about rigid belief systems that see things in only black & white.  Wow!  That almost excited me, & I was there!

The show is of course at the Self Help Radio website.  There's a password you know, it's on the page.  Lots of black & white songs are below, you synesthete you!

(part one)

"Black, Brown & White" Brownie McGhee _Songs For Political Action, Vol. 6: The People's Songs Era 1945-1949_
"Black & White" The Raincoats _The Raincoats_
"Black & White" Crippled Pilgrims _Down Here (Collected Recordings 1983-1985)_

"Black & White" Serge Gainsbourg _Initials B.B._
"Black & White" The Windbreakers _Meet The Windbreakers_
"Black & White" The Nuns _Rumania_
"Black & White" The Upper Room _Other People's Problems_

"Black & White" Generationals _Actor-Caster_
"Black & White" Parquet Courts _Sunbathing Animal_
"In My Black & White" Plasticland _Mink Dress & Other Cats_
"Black & White Unite" Belle & Sebastian _Storytelling_

"Black Or White" Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel _Timeless Flight_

(part two)

"Black & White Thunderbird" The Delicates _Hot Rods & Custom Classics_
"Black & White Incident" Marc Bolan _Love + Death_
"Black & White World" Elvis Costello _Taking Liberties_

"Black Minds, White Lies" Salty Pirates _The Kids At The Club_
"White Face, Black Eyes" Andrew Jackson Jihad _Can't Maintain_
"White Lung/Black Lung" GRMLN _Soon Away_
"Black In A White World" The Watts Prophets _Things Gonna Get Greater: The Watts Prophets 1969-1971_

"Me & The Black & White Dream" The Orchids _Unholy Soul_
"In Black & White" Easy _In Black & White_
"Black & White (& Blue All Over)" Cleaners From Venus _Back From The Cleaners_
"Born & Raised In Black & White" The Highwaymen _The Very Best Of The Highwaymen_

"Black Tie White Noise" David Bowie _Black Tie White Noise_

Whither Black & White?

(This image from here.)

Eek, I don't have a lot of time but I do need to tell you that tonight's show - which has the theme "black & white" - will be on the air in just like three hours oh hell! in Lexington 93.9 fm WLXU!!

Plus I will be on the air tomorrow morning at 7am holy moley! in Dallas on 89.3 fm KNON!!

Seriously, I barely know whether I am going or going or coming or going or coming or coming or going.  Where am I?  What am I?  I which it were all as simple as black & white!

Preface To Black & White: A Week On The Radio

Check this: I am going to have three radio shows on three different radio stations this week, in two different cities!

No, I won't be traveling around like some kind of Phil Collins going from one Live Aid to another*, that would be crazy!  But here's the Gary you'll hear if you care to hear some Gary this late in the year:

1) My regular show, on 93.9 fm WLXU, Self Help Radio, from 8-10 central, 9-11 eastern, a show in black & white, that's the theme, tomorrow night, like always, Lexington Community Radio dot org.

2) My first ever sub show on 89.3 fm KNON in Dallas!  7-9 am central, 8-10am eastern, Thanksgiving morning, covering Dave Chaos' Thursday Morning Blend, KNON dot org.  Very excited about this - my first radio show in the metroplex!

3) Early morning radio on 88.1 fm WRFL, 1-4 am central, 2-5am eastern, taking (in a remote way) some shifts while the kids are away for the holidays.  It'll be my regular late night fare, nothing to wake up for, you've heard it & turned it off, WRFL dot fm.

It's complete insanity!  But I hope I have a lot of fun.  Also, that I don't fuck it up.

* Very dated 1980s reference.

Toward A More Depressing World

Imagine if I were an actual kind of columnist, & had to sit down on a regular basis (for some reason, in my mind's eye, I am thinking of sitting down to a typewriter*) & write a regular column for an actual publication.  Yes, perhaps this is what this blog is about, but here's something you have suspected said out loud by me: I actually have almost nothing to say.

Except of course I do.  For example, here are my last couple of tweets (which you could read as they happen if you follow the show on Twitter):

1) When I first heard,"Good artists make, great artists steal," I thought it meant that good artists compel great artists to commit theft.

That's an awkwardly worded confession about confusing sentence structure crammed into 140 unforgiving characters.  Hardly amusing, but I heard someone say that sentence today & it reminded me how confused I was when I first came across the adage.  "How in the world," I thought to myself, "do merely good artists somehow force actual great artists to steal?  & what kind of stealing?  Shoplifting?  Bank robbery?  Trump-style investment rip-offs?"  Then I saw the comma & went, "Ohhh."'

2) These tweets were a two-fer:

One of my pet peeves is when a movie or TV show uses a dreadful but familiar classic rock song at some dramatic moment.  It's like, I know Hollywood is controlled by baby boomers but for fuck's sake some really great music has been made in the last fifty years.

This was a result of a pretty decent season finale of the wonderful show Better Things having the mother drive her daughters somewhere while a horrendous old song by Alice Cooper called Only Women Bleed.  But it's a song that's been played on the radio pretty much all my life, & Louis CK & Pamela Adlon are just a little older than I am, & they probably haven't listened to any new music since they were in their 20s.

Mainly I felt it was a disservice to make the young female actors learn the words to that overblown attempt at rock & roll social relevance.  "The song is often mistakenly presumed to be about menstruation," Wikipedia says.  No shit?  Why's that?  Idiots.

But ultimately none of this matters, because I don't have a hand in doing anything creative in Hollywood but it pains me, as someone who spends a great deal of time listening to new music - & certainly not the sort of music Louis CK & Pamela Adlon listen to on commercial radio with their kids, music they most definitely roll their eyes at - but really great new music that will never find its way onto television shows (or commercial radio).  & I wish they knew it.

& don't say, "But Gary, that's a great song."  It might be, but I doubt it.  It's a familiar song.  Just like every fucking familiar song in every fucking movie trailer, even the ones for millenials.  It's just depressing how for the most part, no one in any creative sphere seems to think there's been any music worth listening to for the past thirty plus years.

When they do use music, they use disposable commercial pop that will date the movie terribly in the years to come.

That's my opinion anyway.  I wish I had a job picking music for movies.  I'd be all right at it.

But as a columnist cranking out a daily think-piece?  Like with this blog, man, I'd suck at it.

* It's probably because everything I learned about newspapers I learned from the 1950s Superman TV program.

These Moments, Every Second Just Stuffed In

The year almost over, it's a shame the leaves haven't fallen yet.

Except they have, in places unlike this one.

You're too shy, aren't you, to ask the stranger about the lake.

You just wanted to take pictures of the birds there.

The signs say "lost" as if losing time & place was intention.

Appointments are like bills, paid with different currency.

Spend a long time driving now, another meditation.

Apartment blocks along the highway seem built of sorrow.

You imagine music coming out of places where no music lives.

Finally remembering to sing a song into your phone so you don't forget it.

There are faces, there are voices, which can cripple you.

The blink of a lover's eye, better than anything on film.

A cat leaps up, sits close, doesn't need a reason.

She stole a glass for you, she even claimed she thought of it herself.

Wait!  A complaint!  Imagine it in silver or gold.

& remember how to open & close doors just in fucking case.

Self Help Radio 111616: Letting Go

(Original image here.)

It's time to let go.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, But how can I let go?  It's mine, I claim it, I just can't let go.  Yes, you can!  You can let go by embracing letting go!  You can embrace letting go by listening to a radio show about letting go!  Then, once you're done that, let that go!  Until you have nothing!  Because you've let it all go!

After that, of course, you're on your own.  Quite literally.

Does this seem too extreme?  Of course it is!  This is just a dumb radio show!  It's probably of no help to anyone at all!  So it might be better to just listen to it for the music & the occasional absurd interview.  & who knows?  Maybe even Idina Menzel will stop by!  (She won't.)

The show can be listened to now at the Self Help Radio website.  There are password & username issues, pay attention to that.  Two hours of songs in two parts are listed below.

Now I let you go, little radio show!  Fly away!  Fly!

(part one)

"I Gotta Let You Go" Martha Reeves & The Vandellas _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 10: 1970_
"Let Me Go" The Julie Ruin _Hit Reset_
"Jenny Let Him Go" Antoinette _The Girls Scene_

"Let Her Go" The Lodger _Grown-Ups_
"Letting It Go" Bears _Simple Machinery_
"If You Love Him, Let Him Go" The Wilderness Children _If You Love Him, Let Him Go_
"Let It All Go" Elmo Williams & Hezekiah Early _Takes One To Know One_

"Just Let Go" The Seeds _A Web Of Sound_
"Let Go" Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers _L.A.M.F._
"Let Go" The Plugz _Electrify Me_
"Let Me Go" Nouvelle Vague _Bande A Part_

"Letting Go" Karsh Kale _Liberation_

(part two)

"Please Let Me Go" Owen Gray _Island Records' 40th Anniversary, Volume 1: 1959-1964 - Ska's The Limit_
"Let Me Go, Lover!" Hank Snow _Country USA 1954_
"Now, Let It Go" Loney Dear _River Fontana_

"I Let It Go" The Thermals _Now We Can See_
"Let Us Go" The Church _Further Deeper_
"Let It Go" Bangles _Different Light_
"Let It All Go (feat. Preservation Hall Jazz Band)" Beats Antique _Shadowbox_

"Let It Go" The Chesterfields _Crocodile Tears_
"Letting Go" Fat Tulips _Starfish_
"Let Go" Siouxsie & The Banshees _Downside Up_
"Let Go" The Postmarks _The Postmarks_

"Let 'Em Go" TV Smith _Immortal Rich_
"I'm Letting Go" Sam Kogon _Psychic Tears_

Whither Letting Go?

(Image from here.)

Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?  After the week we've had?  We need to let go.  Otherwise we'll all go batshit crazy.

Oh no - could this be one of these times when Self Help Radio actually has some element of self-help in it?  That's a bad sign.  I'm always afraid it'll tip that way & soon enough I'll be in a blazer hosting seminars.  But.  What's done is done.  & what's dun is dun.  & that's as far as I'm going to go with that.

Listen, if you need help letting go, tonight from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central, on 93.9 fm in Lexington & online at lexington community radio dot org.  I'll be glad you did!

Preface To Letting Go: Never Letting Go Of Morrissey

Oh no!

Look, I'd be astonished if I actually got to see Morrissey.  I've bought tickets to see him four times, & have only seen him once - & consider myself quite lucky.  But I really did want to see him tomorrow night.  So I am a bit bummed out.  The hits keep coming, 2016.

Here's the thing: my show airs the same time as the concert, so I wouldn't be able to live tweet it, had I gotten to go to the show.  So, thanks Morrissey?  I get to listen to my show & tweet it.  So much more exciting than seeing one of my idols perform live.

I'll still get to see Todd Barry on Thursday.  That will help with the pain.

Leonard Cohen

(Image from discogs.com.)

When I found out Leonard Cohen had died, Thursday evening, I was listening to a show I like on KTCU, a station here in town (that didn't want me as a deejay even though it does have non-student deejays), called Night Skool.  I had to turn the station off.  I was completely wrecked.  & since I had been posting stuff on Facebook, I wrote a bunch on Facebook.  I started with this:

I first became aware of Leonard Cohen when I saw the video for "First We Take Manhattan" on 120 Minutes on MTV in 1988. That guy who hosted it, Kevin whatever, laughed when he announced the video, like, "What the fuck?" But I was intrigued by the first lines of the song:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within

I went out & bought "I'm Your Man" as soon as I could. I didn't know anything about him. I just felt I needed that album - & boy did I.

I continued:

Later I saw a best of collection at a used record store in Garland, which I snatched up.  I put the record on with my friend Dale probably in 1989 or 1990.  The song "Suzanne" was first.  Both of us looked at each other when the song was over like "This is the shit."

My relationship with Leonard Cohen deepened to utmost importance.  I became obsessed.

I remember walking - walking! - on a damp November day in 1992 across the fields that are now the townhomes & shops that are "The Triangle" in Austin to get to the Sound Warehouse (or whatever chain store it was) on Burnet Road just to buy a copy of "The Future."  It was a cold day by Austin standards but the album had just been released, it was confirmed in stock by a phone call, & I had heard "The Future" on the radio - probably KUT.  I consumed that record.

I consumed all his records. They are sacred to me. I listened to his new one last week & was a little disappointed, although I love the title track. He could disappoint, but he was never disappointing.

One thing I feel so lucky about is that I got to see him in 1993.  Here is me from Facebook talking about it:

I got to see him live just once, in 1993, at the Backyard, back when it was in the middle of nowhere. He was amazing. He did four sets, two of them all by himself. I went with my friends Lauren & Russell. Lauren remarked about how strange it was that there were all these women her mother's age who were swooning like teenagers over the Beatles. At one point, he came out with just a guitar, & sang a few songs without his band, & he was doing "A Singer Must Die," & you could hear a police car approaching in the distance. He stopped, & he said, "Listen." The audience waited quietly, reverently, as the doppler sirens faded, & he said, "What a sad & beautiful sound," & he started a different song.

At the end of the show, as he was wont to do, the band & he sang a hymn acapella.  As we were leaving - as we were feeling better than any human ever really should feel, as we were all part of whatever beauty & truth & darkness & light he could conjure up with a whisper or impart with a growl or melodic & tunelessly sing, someone behind us was complaining.  He said, "What the hell?  After all that making fun of religion, & he ended with a hymn?"  My friend Russell said to me, "It's weird to think someone could sit through such an experience & that was all that could take away from it."

My conclusion was this:

I've read both his books - The Favourite Game & Beautiful Losers - I prefer the former - & all of his poetry.  I've listened to all of his albums so many times that they're a part of my fucking DNA.  I am weeping over the keyboard as I write this, because there isn't anyone like him, & there never really was anyone like him, & I owe him so much.  That gracious, gracious man, who had only a dim understanding what vitriol was, who could put into a simple words the deepest of feelings, whose voice, as it deepened with every cigarette he smoked, sounded like it was something that came from before humans knew how to speak, observations of a kinder cosmos to people who thought they needed redemption especially when they didn't, that lovely, lovely man, from whom I've taken so much & given so very little.

Or as he would say to me, "Hey, that's no way to say goodbye."

I have nothing else to say.  This is a tremendous loss to me, to the world.  But how fortunate to have lived for a time in a world where Leonard Cohen lived!

In the new year, I'll do a tribute radio show for him.  For now, the wound is too fresh.

I Can't Go On, I Must Go On

Apologies to Samuel Beckett.

Apologies to you, if you're someone who reads this blog.  I won't be able to talk about the election without sounding like the entire time I'm shaping a rope into a noose & looking around for which ceiling beams will hold my weight.  It's just too much.

& then, to lose Leonard Cohen.  Oh for fuck's sake.

So.  Give me a little time.  I'll write something about the latter tomorrow.

The former?  I'm just going to suffer in silence, like I imagine all the dumb, dumb people who voted for the president-elect will have to do when they realize he couldn't give a shit about them.

My country.  Damn.

Self Help Radio 110916: Guitars

(Original image here.)

In my mind's eye, I was approached by an irate, possibly overly literal listener, who accosted me & said, "A show about guitars should have featured great guitarists, not simply songs about guitars!"  As is my way, I am loathe to defend my meager radio offerings, but smiled & agreed, thinking, sure "Great Guitarists" might also be a swell theme in the future, although my first inclination would be to look for songs about great guitarists (like the Richard Thompson song at the end of the show) rather than to celebrate & play them - something I feel like you can find anywhere, in lists by magazines & websites, in opinion pieces by opinionated people, really, anywhere.  Self Help Radio likes to pretend there's something here that you might not find in a lot of places, though it understands the derivative nature of its premise all too well!

When I live-tweeted the show last night, I was struck by how innocent it all felt, even though it was recorded just about thirty-six hours earlier.  I don't want to harp on this - I have a feeling this election means tremendous changes are coming to my country, & while there are many who believe such changes will be great, I have an ominous feeling it will be exactly the opposite.  But.  I am pessimistic to the bone, man.

Here!  Have a radio show about guitars!  It's breezy fun even if you don't know what a chord is (I sure don't)!  At the Self Help Radio website in two parts!  The songs I played are below!  Why so many exclamation marks!  I don't know!  I just don't know!

Hope you enjoy.

-----

(part one)

"You & My Old Guitar" Jimmie Rodgers _Jimmie Rodgers: The Singing Brakeman, Vol. 1_
"I'm A Guitar King" Tommy McClennan _The Bluebird Recordings 1939-1942_
"Talking Guitars Blues" Lonnie Donegan _The Collection_

"Guitar Man" Elvis Presley _Elvis Presley's Greatest Hits_
"Tennessee Flat Top Box" Johnny Cash _The Essential Johnny Cash 1955-1983_
"Best Guitar Picker" George Jones _She Thinks I Still Care: The Complete United Artists Recordings, 1962-1964_
"Guitar" Louis C.K. _Live In Houston_
"New Guitar In Town" The Lurkers _The Collection_
"Guitar" The 2X4's _The 2X4's_

"Electric Guitar" Talking Heads _Fear Of Music_
"Fender Stratocaster" Jonathan Richman _Jonathan Richman_
"The Guitar" They Might Be Giants _Apollo 18_
"Cool Guitar Boy" Heavenly _Heavenly Vs Satan_

"This Old Guitar" Neil Young _Praire Wind_

(part two)

"Acoustic Guitar" The Magnetic Fields _69 Love Songs_
"My Guitar" Dear Nora _Dreaming Out Loud EP 7"_
"Five Guitars" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Ponyoak_

"Sucker For A Cheap Guitar" Marc Bristol _Rockabilly Hall Of Fame, Vol. 1_
"You Stepped On My Guitar" Bikeride _Summer Winners, Summer Losers_
"The Jokes With Guitar" Demetri Martin _These Are Jokes_
"Guitar Man" David J _Guitar Man_

"This Old Guitar" Lucinda Williams _The Music Is You: A Tribute To John Denver_
"Working Girl's Guitar" Rosie Flores _Working Girl's Guitar_
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" The Drowners _Muted To A Whisper_
"My Guitar" The Submissives _Do You Really Love Me_

"Guitar Heroes" Richard Thompson _Still_
"Drunken Guitar" The Lushes _Las Vegas Grind, Vol. 2_

Whither Guitars?

(That picture from here.)

Well.  I'm sure you appreciate how difficult it would be to do a radio show in the current climate.  I mean, though Self Help Radio is pretty ridiculous, it certainly supports love over hate, it plays music by people of color all around the world, by women, by musicians of every sexual stripe.  It abhors hate, it abhors exclusion.  Where you can hear Self Help Radio has always been on college &/or community radio stations where diversity is celebrated, appreciated, desired, treasured.  Sexual predators, bigots, homophobes - I suppose I've lived in a bubble, but they did not find their way to the noncommercial radio stations where Self Help Radio has called home.

The truth is, I probably wouldn't do a show tonight if I had my druthers - my heart's not in it today.  But.  Self Help Radio is prerecorded.  I live in Fort Worth, it airs in Lexington & streams all over the world.  I put the show together earlier yesterday, a million years ago it seems now.  You'll hear me explaining that I just don't know who would be president.  But I had hoped it wouldn't have turned out this way.

& I do think it's a fun show.  Lots of songs about guitars, plus the funniest friends I have pretend to be ridiculous guests & hopefully will make you laugh as much as they do me.  I interview my old guitar teacher, a legendary guitar god, a maker of artisan guitars, & a friend in Hollywood who talks about actors who are musicians.  Maybe it will take your mind off how ugly the world is today for some of us.

The show is on tonight from 9-11pm Eastern, 8-10pm Central, on 89.3 fm WLXU in Lexington, & online at lexingtoncommunityradio dot org.  I'll live tweet the show from my sad computer, so follow me on Twitter & join in on the "fun."

& love each other, & prepare yourself.  It's going to get really quite awful.

Preface To Guitars: You Can't Seriously

Ask me to talk about a stupid radio show when the fate of the republic is at stake, can you?

No.  No.

The Election Day Dilemma

Here's the weirdest thing about this week's show (which is about guitars): I will have finished the show, which airs on Wednesdays, before I'll know who's won the presidency.

What do you mean, Gary?  You mean, you don't know?  Self Help Radio is prerecorded.  I turn the show in Tuesday afternoons.  But you know what else is happening Tuesday?  Right: either the historic election of the first woman President Of The United States, or the last election for an American President, as Emperor Trump takes the tacky gold-plated throne.  & there's absolutely no way for me to know which (I mean, polls favor Clinton, but I am pessimist & know there are going to be stories about white supremacists beating people of color up tomorrow).  & certainly that would affect how I would act on the show - elation & relief if Clinton won, fear & exasperation if Trump won.

None of that will be on display on this week's show.  Because I won't know.  It will be as if the show took a twenty-four hour nap & woke up & gabbed about shit for two hours like nothing monumental has happened.

It's driving me nuts!  I almost thought about skipping the show this week.  But my "guests" have contributed, & I have all these damn songs about guitars, so...

Fallen Colonels

Because, I guess, I am a morbid fuck, I spent some time yesterday looking at this web site (from which the weirdly pro-Confederate picture above comes from*): Fallen Colonels.  There's also a Facebook page with photos, though it's hard to get through, as there are no names attached to the photos until you click on them.

How I found about the site, of course, was when my sister Pat died last year, & she & I - actually, all of my siblings - went to South Garland High School.  (Only four of us graduated from the school, though.  Three of my siblings dropped out, which was apparently the cool thing to do in the 1970s.)  My brother Steve informed whoever's in charge & her name's there, & her picture is on the Facebook page.  For some reason, a year & a half later, I found myself back at the site.

What fascinated me yesterday was the people in my high school class (we graduated in 1986) who have since left this mortal coil.  The site lists 21, out of a class of 430, although one of them, Marla Jones, died when she was a freshman (she committed suicide**), & another, Christy Ann Holland, apparently also attended only as a freshman, so that adds two to the number.  However, if we do the math, that's a little under 5% of the class - which means a little less than 1 in 20 people I graduated high school with are no longer with us.

& look at how they went!  Five died in car accidents, five by heart attack.  Four have causes that are unknown, while two were taken by cancer.  There was one murder, one suicide, & two congenital diseases.  Finally, Miss Holland, mentioned above, died of "unspecified health issues."

Interestingly, it more or less jibes with the stats by the CDC.  Heart disease is the number one cause of death in this country, followed by cancer.  Accidents are fourth.  More than half of my classmates died of these three causes.

Here's the thing: except for Marla Jones, whom I never really knew, & two others I'll discuss below, I have no idea who any these people are.  I don't have any memory of them whatsoever.  That may seem callous, & I certainly feel uncomfortable about it, but it's pretty obvious that I couldn't have known all 430 members of my graduating class.  But what of the two I think I knew?

While scrolling through the Facebook page, I came across Mark Taylor.  I don't recall the name, but the face - from the yearbook - definitely was familiar.  I may have sat next to him in one class or two, & remember him being friendly with me.  Perhaps he sat in front of me in English class in the 10th grade.  I was a pretty chatty fellow, & if that were Mark, he was easy to talk to, & easy to crack up, something I required.  If it wasn't him - well I have no idea either way.

The other was a girl named Jackie Bodiford.  I remember the name - it's actually quite fun to say - & I recall her face, even without seeing her yearbook picture.  We must have had some interactions, as I have a fleeting memory of making her laugh.  But that's all.  She makes me saddest of the group - she died very young, at the age of 22, when I was finishing college, & the site doesn't tell us how she died.

Mostly I confess I feel strangely fortunate to still be around thirty years after graduation.  I wasn't popular, I didn't have a lot of friends, & I'm not in contact with anyone I knew from school in 1986.  But sometimes we need to stand face-to-face with our mortality, & let it fuck up our minds a bit.  So I took some time to do that today.

* As I've talked about before, like here, my high school's mascot was "the Colonel," which was a diminutive military type dressed in Confederate garb.  My school's motto was "The South Shall Rise Again."

** I have very strong memories of first-period algebra the Monday after Marla Jones committed suicide.  She locked herself in a garage on a weekend night & turned the car on.  I was fascinated by seeing all of these girls - Marla's friends - just crying in the class, & my feelings about her death were mixed - she & those other girls had enjoyed making fun of me most of the semester.  I'm not sure we were ever told why she took her own life.

Self Help Radio 110216: Tenderness

(Original image here.)

Man, this show was tender!  Like a bruise!  Like the first shoots of spring!  Like someone who tends to things!  I mean, really, really tender!  It has made me feel rather vulnerable.

But that's fine.  I have been told I am a scab-picker.  On this day, included along with the tenderest music this side of a baby's crib, I speak with that huggable sensation The Tenderizer, & I talk tenderness with my spiritual advisor, the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently.  Also, I take a call from a listener who is not tender-hearted at all, but has an issue with the theme!  It's all done as tenderly as possible. It just has to be.

If you would like to, you can listen at the Self Help Radio web page - surely the tenderest spot on the internet!  Pay attention to passwords!  The songs so tenderly played are below.

I'm so glad this show wasn't about getting the shit kicked out of you.

-----

(part one)

"Softly & Tenderly" The Prisonaires _Just Walkin' In The Rain_
"(Love Is) The Tender Trap" Frank Sinatra _The Capitol Years_
"Love Me Tender" Elvis Presley _Elvis' Golden Records_

"Try A Little Tenderness" Otis Redding _The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968_
"In These Very Tender Moments" Dee Clark _Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures, Vol. 3_
"T.L.C. (Tender Loving Care)" P.J. _The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 11B: 1971_
"She Weaves A Tender Trap" The Chocolate Watchband _No Way Out_

"Love For Tender" Elvis Costello & The Attactions _Get Happy!!_
"Tender Object" Orange Juice _You Can't Hide Your Love Forever_
"Tenderness" General Public _...All The Rage_
"Tenderness Is A Weakness" Marc Almond _Vermine In Ermine_

"Sweetness & Tenderness" The Rentals _Return Of The Rentals_
"Tender Are The Ashes" Honeybus _She Flies Like A Bird: The Anthology_

(part two)

"Tender Is The Night (The Long Fidelity)" The Triffids _Born Sandy Devotional_
"Tender Love" Poison Girls _Statement: The Complete Recordings_
"Sweet & Tender Hooligan" The Smiths _Louder Than Bombs_

"Tender Comrade" Billy Bragg _Workers Playtime_
"Tender Young Believer" Reserve _Two Hearts Beat In A Hole 12"_
"Tender Circles" Let's Whisper _Make Me Smile_
"Heart Out To Tender" Robert Forster _Danger In The Past_

"Tender" Monaco _Music For Pleasure_
"My Tender-Hearted You" The Steamkings _Boom!_
"Tender People" Japanther _Skuffed Up My Huffy_
"Tender" Lisa Hannigan _At Swim_

"Tender" Blur _13_

Whither Tenderness?

(This photo, which is called "Tenderness," comes from here.)

The reason this week's Self Help Radio is a tender show, a radio show about tenderness, is quite simple: last week's show was about death!  It's hard to come back from a show about death, you know?  Nearly any other theme  you could think of would somehow seem tacky or downright offensive after a show about death!  I needed something to counteract that toxic theme - or, better yet, give a reason for us to exist together on this planet despite the fact that death will get us all in the end.  Therefore, I thought I'd try a little tenderness.

Self Help Radio's tenderest episode yet airs tonight from 9-11pm eastern (8-10pm central) on 93.9 fm WLXU in Lexington & online at the Lexington Community Radio web page.  If you feel a lack of tenderness in your life, hey!  Self Help Radio is here for you, friend.  Listen in!

Preface To A Tender Show: Tender-Hearted Me

It's true!  I am tender-hearted.  Listen to this, which appeared in this month's Harper's, in the Findings section:

"Slugs are eating baby birds, but no defense mechanism has yet been exhibited by adult birds, one of whom was observed incubating a slug that was eating the bird’s chicks."

That makes me so sad.  It was really, really hard to copy that from the magazine.  But I can't stop thinking about it.

& I cry at movies, & at television shows, & all sorts of things.  I was very moved by the movie Ulee's Gold, for example, which I saw with my friend Molly.  I wept at the very end, & she was a bit astonished; she told me, "You're like a hard candy with a soft center!"

Maybe this is all evident to you - I was told by someone who had first heard me on the radio that he pictured me as a rather frail, fey boy, since I played so much twee music.  Alas, that is not the case.  At least on the outside.  But boy am I tender-hearted!

A Week Of Halloween: Nightmares!

(Original art by Steve Ditko!)

It's finally here!  It's Halloween!  Let me share with you one more spooky Self Help Radio episode, this one from 2012 - a show about NIGHTMARES!  I've been told that listening to me on the radio would give anyone nightmares - well, now it's seasonally appropriate!

Revisit these awful dreams by clicking here for part one & here for part two.  You'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to listen.  I hope you know what they are.

The songs from this show are below.  & you can listen to more halloween shows, too: graveyards, haunted houses, & even zombies!  If you dare!

Happy halloween!

-----

(part one)

"Nightmare" Boris Karloff _Tales Of The Frightened, Vol. 2_
"The Nightmare" Cab Calloway _1930-1931_
"Nightmare" The Sinners _Bomp In The Night_

"Nightmare" Scottie Stuart _Monster Bop_ there i was in a strange & distant land
"Psycho Nightmare" Daniel Johnston _Fun_
"Nightmare On My Street" DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper_
"Lullaby To Nightmares" They Might Be Giants _Long Tall Weekend_
"Like A Nightmare" The Andantes _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 4: 1964_

"Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song" Todd Rundgren _Todd_
"Nightmare Mash" Billy Lee Riley _These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits For Halloween_
"Another Velvet Nightmare" Frank Black _Honeycomb_
"Nightmare" The Rebel Set _Garage Monsters - The Best Of The GaragePunk Hideout, Vol. 9_
"Nightmares In Red" The Brain _Rubble Vol. 2_

"Happy Nightmare Baby" Opal _Happy Nightmare Baby_

(part two)

"Nightmare" Chuck Armstrong _Shackin' Up_ i woke up this morning from a deep sleep
"Lulu's Nightmare" The Jazz Butcher _Illuminate_
"Let It Be A Nightmare" The Bran Flakes _I Remember When I Break Down_
"Nightmares" Jay Reatard _Blood Visions_

"Nightmare" Moving Parts _Wrong Conclusion_
"I Got Nightmares" Q65 _Revolution_
"Nightmare" The*Rock*A*Teens _Cry_
"Nightmares" Creation _Our Music Is Red With Purple Flashes_
"Nightmare" Jack Turner _Haunted Halloween, Vol. 1_
"Nightmare" Kimberley Rew _The Bible Of Bop_

"Wet Nightmare" The Cramps _Big Beat From Badsville_
"Nightmares" Violent Femmes _3_
"Johnny Nightmare" The Secret History _The World That Never Was_
"The Nightmare Goes On" Piano Magic _Ovations_

A Week Of Halloween: Hell!

Self Help Radio's Week Of Halloween continues!  Here is a show that aired on WRFL in October 2013 with the horrifying subject of HELL!  At that time, the devil himself, Lucifer Morningstar, wrote in the blog to present the show to you, so I am glad to repeat here his message to the listener:

Hello - no pun intended! - my name is Lucifer.  You may know me as Satan, or the Prince of Darkness, or the Dandy of the Underworld - but you do know me.  I have been asked by the not-terribly-saintly Gary to introduce this radio show he's done about my "hood" - Hell.  So, here's his radio show.

Can I say how incorrectly he described where I live?  It's not a vast fiery wasteland filled with tormented souls!  It's more like a planned community, with gates, & lots of McMansions, the mortgages of which you'll never pay off.  You know what John Milton (the realtor in Pasadena) said: "It's better to rent in heaven than to own in hell!"  Pools of eternal flame are one of the perks.

Anyway, you'll be here soon enough so I won't keep you.  Just be aware you can listen to this show at the hellishly dull Self Help Radio website, or, much like you can choose to end your life to come to me much faster than dying of old age (when you'll still come to me), you can listen to the show directly by choosing either part one or part two*.  He puts a list of songs below for you to look at.  I wouldn't!  I'd put it in a room full of vipers.  But I have a sense of style that Gary lacks.

Oh yes, I'll see you in hell!

kisses, Lucifer

*Remember, you'll need a username (which is SHR) & a password (which is selfhelp)!

It was so nice of him to write that!  He's as nice as he's terrifying!

Happy Halloween!

------

(part one)

"This Is Hell" Elvis Costello _Brutal Youth_
"This Could Be Hell" Funhouse _Out Of Control 7"_
"Go To Hell" Nina Simone _Nina Simone_

"Ain't It Hell Up In Harlem" Edwin Starr _Hell Up In Harlem_
"Hell" James Brown _Hell_
"(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go" Curtis Mayfield _Curtis_

"Special Dispensation - Heaven, Hell, Purgatory & Limbo" George Carlin _Class Clown_
"There's A Place In Hell For Me & My Friends" Morrissey _Kill Uncle_
"Hellbound" The Breeders _Pod_
"Highway To Hell" Ed Kuepper _The Wheelie Bin Affair_
"Aloha From Hell" The Cramps _A Date With Elvis_

(part two)

"Straight To Hell" Betse Ellis _High Moon Order_
"Everything Goes To Hell" Tom Waits _Blood Money_
"A Season In Hell" The Would-Be-Goods _Brief Lives_

"Heaven & Hell" The Who _Live At The BBC_
"Private Hell" The Jam _Setting Sons_
"Solid Gold Hell" The Scientists _Absolute_
"All Hell Breaks Loose" The Misfits _Walk Among Us_

"Hell" Streetlight Manifesto _99 Songs Of Revolution Volume One_
"New Maps Of Hell" Ron House _New Wave As The Next Guy: The Moses Carry Out & Twisted Shouts Years, 1978-1981_
"Gidget Goes To Hell" Suburban Lawns _Gidget Goes To Hell_
"A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Hell (I Got Saved, Saved, Saved)" Sammy Hall _A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Hell (I Got Saved, Saved, Saved)_

"New Face In Hell" The Fall _The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004_
"Season In Hell" Dum Dum Girls _End Of Daze_