This is the truth: I had hoped to find lots of songs in which the subject of the songs was, explicitly, someone described as "lean." But you know what happened?
Yes, there were far more songs about the verb "to lean." Including, incredibly, over half a dozen songs called "Lean On Me" that were not covers of the Bill Withers tune. What to do, what to do.
What is "a lean show," anyway? Am I supposed to be trimming the fat off the show? But that's me! I am the fat of the show! Without me, the show would be quite lean indeed. How could I do that?
This will take some thinking. Some deliberation. Some puzzling over. I'll have to get back to you.
What, you wanted more than four paragraphs today? So sorry. I will share with you the most famous use of the word lean in the English language. You know this, right?
Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
But, together both
They licked the platter clean.
What was Jack Sprat's wife's name? Dolores. Dolores Keen. She kept her maiden name. Very progressive for a Mother Goose character, I know. In fact, the poem was less famously told this way:
Dolores Keen could eat no lean
Her husband could have no fat
But they shared their every meal
& ate it all, & that is that.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
Swoon
That's a nice word, isn't it? I was thinking if someone asked me what my reaction to Picard was, I'd say, "I swooned."
It seems like a word I'd use a lot, but I actually have only used it twice before on this blog.
The first time was when I found out Leonard Cohen died. It was in a memory about seeing Leonard Cohen live in concert, & how my girlfriend at the time reacted to the women there who were much older than we were obviously lovestruck by LC. I wrote, 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.
That was in 2016. It's hard to believe he's been gone that long. But for me - not to be disrespectful to Leonard Cohen - I am surprised that it took me that long to use the word swoon.
Besides today, the only other time I've used the word "swoon" was when I played a song on a show with the theme the color green by Prefab Sprout from their album entitled Swoon.
Really, Gary? That few "swoons"? I gotta do better than that.
Or maybe I don't swoon as much as I think I do?
It seems like a word I'd use a lot, but I actually have only used it twice before on this blog.
The first time was when I found out Leonard Cohen died. It was in a memory about seeing Leonard Cohen live in concert, & how my girlfriend at the time reacted to the women there who were much older than we were obviously lovestruck by LC. I wrote, 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.
That was in 2016. It's hard to believe he's been gone that long. But for me - not to be disrespectful to Leonard Cohen - I am surprised that it took me that long to use the word swoon.
Besides today, the only other time I've used the word "swoon" was when I played a song on a show with the theme the color green by Prefab Sprout from their album entitled Swoon.
Really, Gary? That few "swoons"? I gotta do better than that.
Or maybe I don't swoon as much as I think I do?
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Missing A Milestone
This past week I was so caught up remembering my sixteenth year I didn't even notice we passed 3300 posts on this blog. Every time this happens, I want to go back & see what I was writing about way back when, but Blogger doesn't number the posts, so it's nearly impossible to see what I was writing about 30, 300, 3000 posts ago. Or am I overthinking it?
This post here purports to be my three thousandth scribble on the blog. It was written in November of 2018, when I couldn't have imagined I'd be living in Portland a year later.
My three hundredth post - which I did not identify as such - was written over a decade earlier. It's called "First Podcast" because I did an episode of Self Help Radio despite KOOP having been shuttered briefly due to arson. It mentions that I was questioned by fire department investigators. That was true. It was a surreal experience.
The thirtieth post was written in 2006, right before a Halloween show. It just goes to show that I've been trying to explain why I explore the themes I do from the very beginning, although there is rarely any good reason.
Anyway, I am terrible at anniversaries & other milestones, so it's only natural that I forgot this one. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go watch Picard now.
This post here purports to be my three thousandth scribble on the blog. It was written in November of 2018, when I couldn't have imagined I'd be living in Portland a year later.
My three hundredth post - which I did not identify as such - was written over a decade earlier. It's called "First Podcast" because I did an episode of Self Help Radio despite KOOP having been shuttered briefly due to arson. It mentions that I was questioned by fire department investigators. That was true. It was a surreal experience.
The thirtieth post was written in 2006, right before a Halloween show. It just goes to show that I've been trying to explain why I explore the themes I do from the very beginning, although there is rarely any good reason.
Anyway, I am terrible at anniversaries & other milestones, so it's only natural that I forgot this one. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go watch Picard now.
Monday, January 20, 2020
Self Help Radio 012020: 1984
(All record covers found on Discogs.)
Wow, it's just after noon & I'm exhausted. Is this what being 52 is like? I did wake up a little early to strategize - how could I fit three hours of music I love from 1984 into two hours of radio? I stole a couple minutes from the deejay before me - DJ Otto - & I kept the airbreaks to a minimum. & there still wasn't enough time.
Do you know, I could do a radio show called "The 1984 Show" & it would takes months to exhaust all the great music that came out that year. It's extraordinary. It seems to me, anyway. Not that I need another radio show right now. But if you want to do that show, I will totally help you.
The 1984 show - it's almost all music, very little me - can be listened to now & whenever at Self Help Radio dot net. Please remember you'll need a username - SHR - & a password - selfhelp - to listen. The songs I played are listed below. The songs I didn't play will one day make it on The 1984 Show. Seriously, so much music.
Also, I won the victory over myself. I loved Big Brother.
Self Help Radio 1984 Show
"Kangaroo" This Mortal Coil _It'll End In Tears_
"Withered & Died" Elvis Costello _Goodbye Cruel World_
"Lions" Tones On Tail _Pop_
"Reel Around The Fountain" The Smiths _The Smiths_
"From Her To Eternity" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _From Her To Eternity_
"The Killing Moon" Echo & The Bunnymen _Ocean Rain_
"Church Not Made With Hands" The Waterboys _A Pagan Place_
"Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)" Eurythmics _1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother)_
"Partyline" Shriekback _Jam Science_
"Uncorrected Personality Traits" Robyn Hitchcock _I Often Dream Of Trains_
"A New England" Kirsty MacColl _A New England_
"Dark Streets Of London" The Pogues _Red Roses For Me_
"Upside Down" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Upside Down_
"2 X 4" The Fall _The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004_
"Love Gets Dangerous" Billy Bragg _Brewing Up With Billy Bragg_
"Bachelor Kisses" The Go-Betweens _Spring Hill Fair_
"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" The Smiths _Hatful Of Hollow_
"The Unforgettable Fire" U2 _The Unforgettable Fire_
"Wonderland" Big Country _Wonderland_
"Nobody Told Me" John Lennon _Milk & Honey_
"The Law" Leonard Cohen _Various Positions_
"What A Day That Was" Talking Heads _Stop Making Sense_
"Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" Cocteau Twins _The Spangle Maker_
"The Caterpillar" The Cure _The Top_
"Perfect Skin" Lloyd Cole & The Commotions _Rattlesnakes_
"Heaven" The Psychedelic Furs _Mirror Moves_
"I Guess I'm Just A Little Too Sensitive" Orange Juice _The Orange Juice (The Third Album)_
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Whither 1984?
(Image from here.)
Wait! No! The show this week isn't about the book (& film) 1984, it's my favorite music from the year 1984. Although... I suppose I could just play Bowie's Diamond Dogs & the Eurythmics album 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother) all the way through... No!
Tomorrow is my birthday & every year on my birthday I explore my favorite music from a year of my life. The first time I did this, I started the year I was born, 1968, & now, yikes! I'm up to 1984.
It's important to know that I wasn't so hip that I was actually listening to all the music you'll hear on this show. It would be a couple of years before I discovered what we now call "post-punk," for example. So it's safe to say that much of what you'll hear tomorrow on the show is much that happens to have been released in 1984 which I discovered sometime later - although much sooner than the music I loved in 1968. During my first year on this planet, I didn't get a chance to go record shopping much.
It's tomorrow! On Freeform Portland, 90.3 + 98.3 fm in the city, freeformportland.org everywhere! You have to listen because it's my birthday!
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Preface To 1984: Cars & Other Things About My Sixteenth Year On Earth
It's very weird thinking about the me I was over thirty years ago, but it's safe to say he wouldn't recognize me at all. That Gary didn't quite know how it would work out, but he imagined he would be some kind of writer, hopefully comics, maybe sci-fi. That Gary certainly loved music but it wasn't the most important thing in his life - he certainly didn't think he'd ever love other artists as much as he loved John Lennon, David Bowie, or Elvis Costello. That Gary still felt some kind of attachment to his family, although he knew they didn't enjoy being around him, & vice versa. That Gary knew less about how the world works than this Gary, & that's saying something.
Perhaps I don't say enough about my family. I lived at the time with my mother & my little brother, who is one year younger than I am. We lived in a two-bedroom, two-floor apartment in a six-apartment complex, just a block away from where my mother worked, a convenience store called The Time Saver. It was owned by my mother's boyfriend, a decidedly unhandsome & gaunt man named Ed, who lived in the same apartment "complex." We lived in number one, he lived in number five.
Ed deserves a longer description because he was a complex & awful man, & it's worth nothing that he met my mother when she worked at another convenience store, which he frequented to buy pornography. My mother sure could pick 'em! He said some very strange things to me from time-to-time, asking me questions that, when I remembered them to people who specialize in child sexual abuse cases, said that abusers say. I have not asked him, nor would he admit it if it were true, but my little brother despised Ed, which made me wonder if Ed had maybe done something to him. He spent most of his time with my oldest sister & brother-in-law. It meant I tended to have the room I shared with him to myself, which suited me fine. We did not like each other much in those days.
My other siblings were around. Except possibly my oldest brother, Eddie, who had remarried & moved to Washington state. I'm not sure when he moved. He was never close to me, & a couple of years ago, when I was giving him a ride to the airport after he visited my mother in Texas, he mentioned it was natural, since he left the house when I was a child. I pointed out to him that other families stay close even in such circumstances, but he seemed baffled by it. In any event, we were never close, & he either stayed away from family functions or had moved away by then.
My sister Pat had many family gatherings, & invited us all; she felt she needed to keep the family together for some reason. I confess I wasn't fond of her then. She was openly racist, she was a tiring know-it-all, & worst of all, she was married to a short-tempered man named Dan, who clearly loathed me. Both Pat & Dan thought I was a kind of social failure, & any time I was in their orbit they attempted to somehow make me into their idea of a better person, which of course I resisted. Their favorite refrain about me was that I was "book smart" but had no "common sense." Which meant I wasn't interested in cars or sports or whatever it was that they felt was important to success in their hardscrabble working-class world. Which was ironic because so much of their success, as did my mother's, depended on theft.
My mother stole from Ed. In later years, she would cackle about it: "I ripped that so & so off," she would say, laughing. My brother-in-law worked for years for Oak Farms, & was fired at some point for stealing. When later I worked at 7-11 - that's a story you'll have to wait a few years for - I was told to watch the Oak Farms guys, who supplied the store with milk & dairy goods. Why? Because they shorted 7-11 & took the leftovers to independent convenience stores where they sold them for cash. & not just cash: Dan & Pat's refrigerator was full of milk, cheese, whipped cream, & butter.
My other siblings - my brothers Ralph & Steve, my sister Karin - I saw at holidays & whatever gathering Pat might have planned that I couldn't get out of. They had very little interest in me. Steve had three children, Ralph had just gotten married, Karin, too, I suppose. It's hard to remember them so young. I suppose my middle brothers were still heavily into drugs - Ralph was quite the proponent of pot at the time. Karin would've been a very young 22 in 1984. Maybe she hadn't been married yet. In any event, they weren't interested in me, & I had almost nothing in common with them.
Oh, I just remembered something about my brother Eddie - this may have happened earlier - he, like my father, enjoyed responding to earnest questions with smart-ass answers. I read the book 1984 around this time, & was deeply impressed by it; Orwell's essay on language at the end still resounds in me all these years later. I asked my brother Eddie once if he read the book. "No, but I've seen the movie," he said. My eyes widened, "There's a movie?" Then, as now, he was genuinely shocked when someone took something he said seriously.*
When it came time for me to get a car, though, it wasn't my mother or my siblings who helped me out. It was, of all people, Ed. (Probably with some prodding, though, from my mother.) He got a car from someone, he offered it to me, & I would pay for it by working at the Time Saver, his convenience store. It was a 1976 Ford Granada, & it looked like this, but with a maroon top:
The funny thing is, I spent the better part of two years in that car, & I don't think I have a picture of it anywhere. I feel safe saying that a car for a teenager is freedom, even if I didn't really know how to express that freedom. I wasn't brave, I was fearful. I wasn't bold, I was cautious. I lived inside my head, I was incurious about the rest of the world. It would take a little prodding to get me out of that shell, & my car was the beginning of that.
It also facilitated friendships. Yesterday I mentioned a friend named Kurt, whom I met through a comic book amateur press association. When I got my car, I would drive to hang out with him where he lived in Richardson, the city just north of Garland. One night, Kurt invited me up to his church where he was allowed to use their photocopy machine to make the copies of our pages for the next edition of the apa fanzine. He brought along his friend Joe, & during that time we spent together, I found myself liking Joe's sense of humor & his modesty over Kurt's incessant bragging. I thought I might like being friends with Joe better than with Kurt.
Which ended up happening in the next year. Kurt was unreliable & disappeared for a time, although I did see him again in 1986, & he found me on the internet at some point in the 1990s. I don't really remember what he looked like but maybe in a couple of years I'll tell you my favorite Kurt story. If I haven't already.
As I approach my 52nd birthday, I try to recall if my 16th was very special, or what I wanted for Christmas in 1984. I draw a blank. I wonder if I could tell the Gary then about how awful people like his friends, his family, the fellow who sold him comics, the fellow he worked for at the convenience store would turn out to be. Would he listen?
Nope. He would say, "There's no way I turn out to be you!"
* This was before there was an actual film version of 1984, & anyway Eddie would never have gone to see that movie in a theater. Video stores were in their infancy in 1984.
Perhaps I don't say enough about my family. I lived at the time with my mother & my little brother, who is one year younger than I am. We lived in a two-bedroom, two-floor apartment in a six-apartment complex, just a block away from where my mother worked, a convenience store called The Time Saver. It was owned by my mother's boyfriend, a decidedly unhandsome & gaunt man named Ed, who lived in the same apartment "complex." We lived in number one, he lived in number five.
Ed deserves a longer description because he was a complex & awful man, & it's worth nothing that he met my mother when she worked at another convenience store, which he frequented to buy pornography. My mother sure could pick 'em! He said some very strange things to me from time-to-time, asking me questions that, when I remembered them to people who specialize in child sexual abuse cases, said that abusers say. I have not asked him, nor would he admit it if it were true, but my little brother despised Ed, which made me wonder if Ed had maybe done something to him. He spent most of his time with my oldest sister & brother-in-law. It meant I tended to have the room I shared with him to myself, which suited me fine. We did not like each other much in those days.
My other siblings were around. Except possibly my oldest brother, Eddie, who had remarried & moved to Washington state. I'm not sure when he moved. He was never close to me, & a couple of years ago, when I was giving him a ride to the airport after he visited my mother in Texas, he mentioned it was natural, since he left the house when I was a child. I pointed out to him that other families stay close even in such circumstances, but he seemed baffled by it. In any event, we were never close, & he either stayed away from family functions or had moved away by then.
My sister Pat had many family gatherings, & invited us all; she felt she needed to keep the family together for some reason. I confess I wasn't fond of her then. She was openly racist, she was a tiring know-it-all, & worst of all, she was married to a short-tempered man named Dan, who clearly loathed me. Both Pat & Dan thought I was a kind of social failure, & any time I was in their orbit they attempted to somehow make me into their idea of a better person, which of course I resisted. Their favorite refrain about me was that I was "book smart" but had no "common sense." Which meant I wasn't interested in cars or sports or whatever it was that they felt was important to success in their hardscrabble working-class world. Which was ironic because so much of their success, as did my mother's, depended on theft.
My mother stole from Ed. In later years, she would cackle about it: "I ripped that so & so off," she would say, laughing. My brother-in-law worked for years for Oak Farms, & was fired at some point for stealing. When later I worked at 7-11 - that's a story you'll have to wait a few years for - I was told to watch the Oak Farms guys, who supplied the store with milk & dairy goods. Why? Because they shorted 7-11 & took the leftovers to independent convenience stores where they sold them for cash. & not just cash: Dan & Pat's refrigerator was full of milk, cheese, whipped cream, & butter.
My other siblings - my brothers Ralph & Steve, my sister Karin - I saw at holidays & whatever gathering Pat might have planned that I couldn't get out of. They had very little interest in me. Steve had three children, Ralph had just gotten married, Karin, too, I suppose. It's hard to remember them so young. I suppose my middle brothers were still heavily into drugs - Ralph was quite the proponent of pot at the time. Karin would've been a very young 22 in 1984. Maybe she hadn't been married yet. In any event, they weren't interested in me, & I had almost nothing in common with them.
Oh, I just remembered something about my brother Eddie - this may have happened earlier - he, like my father, enjoyed responding to earnest questions with smart-ass answers. I read the book 1984 around this time, & was deeply impressed by it; Orwell's essay on language at the end still resounds in me all these years later. I asked my brother Eddie once if he read the book. "No, but I've seen the movie," he said. My eyes widened, "There's a movie?" Then, as now, he was genuinely shocked when someone took something he said seriously.*
When it came time for me to get a car, though, it wasn't my mother or my siblings who helped me out. It was, of all people, Ed. (Probably with some prodding, though, from my mother.) He got a car from someone, he offered it to me, & I would pay for it by working at the Time Saver, his convenience store. It was a 1976 Ford Granada, & it looked like this, but with a maroon top:
(image from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/267542034084219992/">here
The funny thing is, I spent the better part of two years in that car, & I don't think I have a picture of it anywhere. I feel safe saying that a car for a teenager is freedom, even if I didn't really know how to express that freedom. I wasn't brave, I was fearful. I wasn't bold, I was cautious. I lived inside my head, I was incurious about the rest of the world. It would take a little prodding to get me out of that shell, & my car was the beginning of that.
It also facilitated friendships. Yesterday I mentioned a friend named Kurt, whom I met through a comic book amateur press association. When I got my car, I would drive to hang out with him where he lived in Richardson, the city just north of Garland. One night, Kurt invited me up to his church where he was allowed to use their photocopy machine to make the copies of our pages for the next edition of the apa fanzine. He brought along his friend Joe, & during that time we spent together, I found myself liking Joe's sense of humor & his modesty over Kurt's incessant bragging. I thought I might like being friends with Joe better than with Kurt.
Which ended up happening in the next year. Kurt was unreliable & disappeared for a time, although I did see him again in 1986, & he found me on the internet at some point in the 1990s. I don't really remember what he looked like but maybe in a couple of years I'll tell you my favorite Kurt story. If I haven't already.
As I approach my 52nd birthday, I try to recall if my 16th was very special, or what I wanted for Christmas in 1984. I draw a blank. I wonder if I could tell the Gary then about how awful people like his friends, his family, the fellow who sold him comics, the fellow he worked for at the convenience store would turn out to be. Would he listen?
Nope. He would say, "There's no way I turn out to be you!"
* This was before there was an actual film version of 1984, & anyway Eddie would never have gone to see that movie in a theater. Video stores were in their infancy in 1984.
Friday, January 17, 2020
The Summer Of 1984
Every time I hear a discussion about how children should remain in school longer, I get horrified, because I loved summer vacation so much. Sleeping in, watching reruns on television, having mostly nothing to do - this pleased me. In the summer of 1984, I remember having three things happen that would affect my life.
It was always somewhat weird that I never really hung out with school friends, & this was true for me that summer. I met a fellow Gary - last name Anderson - at the comics shop. The owner, Don, knew I hoped one day to write comics. He told me there was another person in the neighborhood who liked comics but was an artist, so he arranged for us to meet. Gary Anderson was a bit taller than I was, he had curly blond hair he wore long - a decade too late - & he loved elves. He loved Elfquest, to be exact. I could tell a lot of stories about Gary, & maybe I already have - yes indeed I have! - but suffice it to say he didn't want to draw my comic ideas because they weren't about elves. We became friends of a sort, because we were both a little lonely, & he encouraged me to revisit a lot of the play-acting I used to do when I was younger. We would spend time in overgrown fields & pretend to be other people in an adventure - well, I would pretend to be people. Gary was always the elf. Sometimes I had to play both the hero & the villain. I was, you'll recall, sixteen years old.
More normally, my friend Kirk would come over occasionally. Kirk Ditterline was a brash fellow, opinionated & foul-mouthed, & his mother was his constant driver. Kirk would get it into his mind to do something, his mother would drive him, & sometimes he'd show up & take me along. I remember being dragged with him to a Chuck E. Cheese's & watch him blow twenty bucks on Dragon's Lair that I didn't get to play because I had no money. (Kirk, sadly, died in a car accident in 1987. He would perhaps be amused to know that nowadays you don't have to play the game to see it solved.)
Another brash friend I had, one whom I didn't see that often in 1984, but with whom I spent most of the summer three years before, was named Gus. (I talked about him here. Gus Papageorge had been a friend of my little brother's & had contacted me back then to ask about comic books - mainly as an investment. I had been drifting away from comics for a while, but Gus drew me back in - in a short amount of time I discovered Frank Miller's Daredevil, Chris Claremont & John Byrne's X-Men, & Marv Wolfman & George Perez's Teen Titans. Gus called me up out of the blue that summer & asked if I wanted to go to a comic convention with him. I said fuck yeah, & went to my first convention. I got to see a panel with Jim Starlin & I got to chat with Mike W. Barr but Gus was there to buy stuff. We didn't get to stay long - again, I had no money, so I couldn't buy anything - I probably spent what little money I did have to get in - but as we were leaving I might a fellow named Hank who introduced me to amateur press associations. This was one devoted to "young heroes" - basically X-Men & Teen Titans fans, although there were some members who didn't do DC & some who didn't do Marvel - yes, it was like that even back then. It was my first attempt to connect with people who shared a love of comics with me. & they were in nearby Richardson.
The idea of being able to contribute to a fanzine about comics - even young heroes - was thrilling for me. I wasted too much time & too much paper trying to make my contribution perfect. I spoke to members on the phone. It was neat.
As I started eleventh grade, things seemed to be more promising. One of the members of the APA (as you called amateur press associations) was named Kurt, & it seemed like he & I were hitting it off. Another friend outside of my high school, sure, but he also dug music, & actually liked Elvis Costello. Alas, Kurt would not be my new bestie, but he would at one point drag along a fellow named Joe who would become my "best friend" & also would betray me worse than anyone I ever loved. He would do that, actually, within six or seven years. But that story I can save till later.
Something else happened in 1984 that was very important - I think it must've happened in the fall - I got my first car!
It was always somewhat weird that I never really hung out with school friends, & this was true for me that summer. I met a fellow Gary - last name Anderson - at the comics shop. The owner, Don, knew I hoped one day to write comics. He told me there was another person in the neighborhood who liked comics but was an artist, so he arranged for us to meet. Gary Anderson was a bit taller than I was, he had curly blond hair he wore long - a decade too late - & he loved elves. He loved Elfquest, to be exact. I could tell a lot of stories about Gary, & maybe I already have - yes indeed I have! - but suffice it to say he didn't want to draw my comic ideas because they weren't about elves. We became friends of a sort, because we were both a little lonely, & he encouraged me to revisit a lot of the play-acting I used to do when I was younger. We would spend time in overgrown fields & pretend to be other people in an adventure - well, I would pretend to be people. Gary was always the elf. Sometimes I had to play both the hero & the villain. I was, you'll recall, sixteen years old.
More normally, my friend Kirk would come over occasionally. Kirk Ditterline was a brash fellow, opinionated & foul-mouthed, & his mother was his constant driver. Kirk would get it into his mind to do something, his mother would drive him, & sometimes he'd show up & take me along. I remember being dragged with him to a Chuck E. Cheese's & watch him blow twenty bucks on Dragon's Lair that I didn't get to play because I had no money. (Kirk, sadly, died in a car accident in 1987. He would perhaps be amused to know that nowadays you don't have to play the game to see it solved.)
Another brash friend I had, one whom I didn't see that often in 1984, but with whom I spent most of the summer three years before, was named Gus. (I talked about him here. Gus Papageorge had been a friend of my little brother's & had contacted me back then to ask about comic books - mainly as an investment. I had been drifting away from comics for a while, but Gus drew me back in - in a short amount of time I discovered Frank Miller's Daredevil, Chris Claremont & John Byrne's X-Men, & Marv Wolfman & George Perez's Teen Titans. Gus called me up out of the blue that summer & asked if I wanted to go to a comic convention with him. I said fuck yeah, & went to my first convention. I got to see a panel with Jim Starlin & I got to chat with Mike W. Barr but Gus was there to buy stuff. We didn't get to stay long - again, I had no money, so I couldn't buy anything - I probably spent what little money I did have to get in - but as we were leaving I might a fellow named Hank who introduced me to amateur press associations. This was one devoted to "young heroes" - basically X-Men & Teen Titans fans, although there were some members who didn't do DC & some who didn't do Marvel - yes, it was like that even back then. It was my first attempt to connect with people who shared a love of comics with me. & they were in nearby Richardson.
The idea of being able to contribute to a fanzine about comics - even young heroes - was thrilling for me. I wasted too much time & too much paper trying to make my contribution perfect. I spoke to members on the phone. It was neat.
As I started eleventh grade, things seemed to be more promising. One of the members of the APA (as you called amateur press associations) was named Kurt, & it seemed like he & I were hitting it off. Another friend outside of my high school, sure, but he also dug music, & actually liked Elvis Costello. Alas, Kurt would not be my new bestie, but he would at one point drag along a fellow named Joe who would become my "best friend" & also would betray me worse than anyone I ever loved. He would do that, actually, within six or seven years. But that story I can save till later.
Something else happened in 1984 that was very important - I think it must've happened in the fall - I got my first car!
Thursday, January 16, 2020
1984 Was If I Recall Correctly A Lonely Year
The next Self Help Radio will explore the music that I love that was released in 1984.
On my birthday week in 2003, the first birthday I had while doing Self Help Radio, which began in October of the previous year, I thought it might be fun to play my favorite music from the year I was born, 1968. It occurred to me that that was something I could do every year around the time of my birthday, & so I have, with one exception - I skipped 1969 the next year because I had a guest do the show. Which is why the show is almost eighteen years old, but I'm only sixteen years in. (Remember: the show started in 2002, but my first birthday was in 2003.)
Last year I wrote a couple of posts about 1983 which may inform this year's reminiscence. The too long didn't read portion is this: in eighth grade, I made my first real friend, & at the end of ninth grade he moved away. So my tenth grade year - in which I was mainly around people I'd been to school with my entire life - was a bit of a challenge.
On January 20, 1984, I turned sixteen, but I was not like most sixteen year olds. My younger sister Karin has told me - it was a bizarre thing to say & my wife likes to repeat it - that I wasn't "sexualized" early. The truth is, like a lot of sixteen year olds, I masturbated as often as I could. But I had no female friends, & probably couldn't have spoken to any of them unless it was for some assignment in class. I don't think actually I had any friends at all for the first half of 1984. I went to school, I came home, I guess I occasionally played video games, & I read comics.
This is something I said last year: I loved comics. I still do, of course, but there was something transformative about comics that affected me in a way nothing else did. I was still obsessed with the Beatles, although I had started to branch out; I still read a lot outside of comics, probably beginning my obsession with John Steinbeck around this time; but every week, I went to my comics shop - which was a little bookstore on Shiloh Road in Garland that carried comics - & I spent lots of money I did not have on comics.
How did I pay for the comics? In the many years before 1984, in the convenience stores in which my mother worked, I would often show up, & if the boss weren't there - this is something I suspect I knew but I didn't admit to myself - I was allowed by my mother to grab as many comics as I wanted. I had amassed a large number of comics - a lot of them Archie, Richie Rich, war comics, etc. - which just sat in my closet. I discovered that the owner of the book store - Don was his name - would give me a lump sum for a number of comics. That, in part, paid for my comic habit.
Something else happened in 1984: I began working at the Time Saver. This was the convenience store purchased by my mother's boyfriend Ed, at which she worked as well. My mother didn't want to be up there all the time, so I was asked if I would like to work there. I confess I didn't like Ed. But I needed the money. So I accepted the job, showing up around five pm & working until close, which could've been nine or ten. (The Time Saver didn't stay open all night.)
There is so much more to be said about Ed, I should save that. The reason I know I was working there in 1984 is because of the Presidential Election. I remember two things specifically about that election (in which I could not vote).
In the summer of 1984, Mario Cuomo gave the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention. I always knew Reagan was a lunatic, & I never trusted his nonsense, but I didn't know quite what I believed about politics. Cuomo laid it out so plainly. He truly gave my feelings a voice. At that point I realized I was a liberal, or a progressive, or a Democrat.
One night, in the Time Saver, Ed called me to the television - there was a television, always on, behind the counter - it was playing a Mondale/Ferraro campaign ad. The music was the Crosby, Stills, & Nash song "Teach The Children." I remember Ed saying, "That's your guy." Ed didn't give a fuck, he probably never voted.
& I remember asking the fellow who owned the book store where I bought my comics, Don, about the election. He said this: "If Mondale wins, the economy will tank, & people will come to buy their books here, at a used book store. If Reagan wins, the economy will grow, & people will have money to buy books here. Either way I win."
Ultimately, I came to realize Don was an odious man, but I was puzzled by his logic. I couldn't square it with the language I heard Cuomo use about a just society.
Comics, politics, living mainly in my head. I had no reason to believe, as tenth grade ended, that eleventh grade would be any better. Something happened, though, in the summer of 1984 that would change my life forever.
On my birthday week in 2003, the first birthday I had while doing Self Help Radio, which began in October of the previous year, I thought it might be fun to play my favorite music from the year I was born, 1968. It occurred to me that that was something I could do every year around the time of my birthday, & so I have, with one exception - I skipped 1969 the next year because I had a guest do the show. Which is why the show is almost eighteen years old, but I'm only sixteen years in. (Remember: the show started in 2002, but my first birthday was in 2003.)
Last year I wrote a couple of posts about 1983 which may inform this year's reminiscence. The too long didn't read portion is this: in eighth grade, I made my first real friend, & at the end of ninth grade he moved away. So my tenth grade year - in which I was mainly around people I'd been to school with my entire life - was a bit of a challenge.
On January 20, 1984, I turned sixteen, but I was not like most sixteen year olds. My younger sister Karin has told me - it was a bizarre thing to say & my wife likes to repeat it - that I wasn't "sexualized" early. The truth is, like a lot of sixteen year olds, I masturbated as often as I could. But I had no female friends, & probably couldn't have spoken to any of them unless it was for some assignment in class. I don't think actually I had any friends at all for the first half of 1984. I went to school, I came home, I guess I occasionally played video games, & I read comics.
This is something I said last year: I loved comics. I still do, of course, but there was something transformative about comics that affected me in a way nothing else did. I was still obsessed with the Beatles, although I had started to branch out; I still read a lot outside of comics, probably beginning my obsession with John Steinbeck around this time; but every week, I went to my comics shop - which was a little bookstore on Shiloh Road in Garland that carried comics - & I spent lots of money I did not have on comics.
How did I pay for the comics? In the many years before 1984, in the convenience stores in which my mother worked, I would often show up, & if the boss weren't there - this is something I suspect I knew but I didn't admit to myself - I was allowed by my mother to grab as many comics as I wanted. I had amassed a large number of comics - a lot of them Archie, Richie Rich, war comics, etc. - which just sat in my closet. I discovered that the owner of the book store - Don was his name - would give me a lump sum for a number of comics. That, in part, paid for my comic habit.
Something else happened in 1984: I began working at the Time Saver. This was the convenience store purchased by my mother's boyfriend Ed, at which she worked as well. My mother didn't want to be up there all the time, so I was asked if I would like to work there. I confess I didn't like Ed. But I needed the money. So I accepted the job, showing up around five pm & working until close, which could've been nine or ten. (The Time Saver didn't stay open all night.)
There is so much more to be said about Ed, I should save that. The reason I know I was working there in 1984 is because of the Presidential Election. I remember two things specifically about that election (in which I could not vote).
In the summer of 1984, Mario Cuomo gave the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention. I always knew Reagan was a lunatic, & I never trusted his nonsense, but I didn't know quite what I believed about politics. Cuomo laid it out so plainly. He truly gave my feelings a voice. At that point I realized I was a liberal, or a progressive, or a Democrat.
One night, in the Time Saver, Ed called me to the television - there was a television, always on, behind the counter - it was playing a Mondale/Ferraro campaign ad. The music was the Crosby, Stills, & Nash song "Teach The Children." I remember Ed saying, "That's your guy." Ed didn't give a fuck, he probably never voted.
& I remember asking the fellow who owned the book store where I bought my comics, Don, about the election. He said this: "If Mondale wins, the economy will tank, & people will come to buy their books here, at a used book store. If Reagan wins, the economy will grow, & people will have money to buy books here. Either way I win."
Ultimately, I came to realize Don was an odious man, but I was puzzled by his logic. I couldn't square it with the language I heard Cuomo use about a just society.
Comics, politics, living mainly in my head. I had no reason to believe, as tenth grade ended, that eleventh grade would be any better. Something happened, though, in the summer of 1984 that would change my life forever.
Monday, January 13, 2020
Self Help Radio 011320: Reflections
Something happened on today's show that I'm not proud of, & it happened within the first twenty minutes. To explain how it happened would be extremely defensive, but suffice it to say I listen to a lot of songs before each show, & many songs are covers of a more famous song. The Supremes song "Reflections" is one of those - I must have had five or six covers of that song, from the Four Tops to Swervedriver. I chose to play the original as the second song of the show. Then, after the first airbreak, I played a cover of the song. If you could've been in the deejay booth with me, you would have seen my mortification. I forgot it was a cover. What could I do? I played it then apologized for it in the next airbreak.
Someone called & told me they thought it was brilliant I played the cover - as a reflection of the Supremes song - in the middle of a reflections show! I said, "Damn, I wish I thought of that." The caller could not believe it was what it was: a dumb mistake.
Some shows are like that. Much thanks always to listeners who give dumb deejays the benefit of the doubt. They perhaps see us as a reflection of them - & how could we be bad if we're like them?
The show, the show, the show. What a silly show. It's at the Self Help Radio website where it's holding a mirror up to itself. It doesn't like what it sees. There is a username - SHR - & a password - selfhelp - if you dare to listen. So as not to surprise you, what you will hear is below.
As always: thanks for listening! !gninetsil rof sknaht :syawla sA
Self Help Radio Reflections Show
"Reflections" New Vaudeville Band _Winchester Cathedral_
"Reflections" Diana Ross & The Supremes _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 7: 1967_
"Reflections" The Chambers Brothers _New Generation_
introduction & definitions
"Reflections" Original Mirrors _Nouvelle Vague Presents: New Wave_
"Reflections" Corniglia _Corniglia_
"Reflections" Lady June _Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy_
"Reflections" Liechtenstein _Survival Strategies In A Modern World_
"Reflections After Jane" The Clientele _Suburban Light_
interview with lawyer & autobiographer Bobcat Sloan
"Lucretia My Reflection" Alkaline Trio _The Suicide Girls (Black Heart Retrospective)_
"Reflecting Pools" Vitesse _Acuarela Songs 2_
"Reflections At Dawn" Phyllis McGinley _Reflections On A Gift Of Watermelon Pickle... & Other Modern Verse_
"Reflect" Frente _Marvin The Album_
"Reflection" Fanclub _All The Same_
interview with millennial experts Alyssa & Jason
"(Further Reflections) In The Room Of Percussion" Kaleidoscope _Dive Into Yesterday_
"Shadows & Reflections" The Action _Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire & Beyond, 1964-1969_
"It's Only A Reflection" The Lollipop Shoppe _Just Colour_
"Reflections Of My Life" The Marmalade _Jackie The Album_
"Follow-Up & Reflection" Space Ghost _Yeah, Whatever_
"Reflection" Section 25 _From The Hip_
demonstration of reflectology by Anton Mulvay
"Reflections In A Flat" Half Man Half Biscuit _Back In The DHSS_
"Reflections On Youth" Sonny & The Sunsets _Hit After Hit_
"Introspective Reflection" Ogden Nash _Pleasure Dome_
"Reflecting The Rain" In Letter Form _Fracture. Repair. Repeat._
"Reflection" Tearwave _Different Shade Of Beauty_
conclusion & goodbye
"Reflect On Rye" Emily _Irony_
"Reflected" Ronderlin _Wave Another Day Goodbye_
"A Reflection" The Thermals _Personal Life_
"You're A Reflection Of Infinite Chaos" Outrageous Cherry _Our Love Will Change The World_
"Reflections Of A Shattered Mind" Yankee Dollar _The Electric Coffee House_
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Whither Reflections?
(Image from here - where there are a lot of images of things reflecting!)
This morning, avoiding my reflection in the mirror, I asked myself, & not my reflection, which I am almost certain is not me but some other being in a separate dimension who vaguely looks like me (I certainly don't look like that!) but who is intent on mimicking & mocking me at every opportunity - where was I? Oh yeah. This morning, not looking at my reflection, I asked myself, "Self, why do a radio show about reflections when I'm not terribly good at reflecting & I don't enjoy looking at my image reflected in a mirror or other reflective surface?"
Then I heard a voice in my head start to answer, & I immediately thought, "Oh shit it's finally happening! I'm hearing voices in my head!" So I rushed into my room, turned music on very very loud, & in-between songs I waited to see if there were still a voice in my head but it was very quiet in there. Maybe too quiet. Had I died?
Turns out I didn't die, but I had fallen asleep, & upon further reflection I realized that this needed no further reflection. This would be a radio show about reflections, & no matter which way I looked, there'd be two images & one would be backward. That was the nature of the radio show. & reflections.
Tomorrow! 6-8am! Freeform Portland (90.3+98.3fm)! freeformportland.org! Objects in your radio may be closer than they appear!
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Preface To Reflections: Reflecting On Mirrors
Not only have I already done a show about mirrors - in October of 2004 - & not only that, I revisited the theme of mirrors in October of 2018. But is a show about reflections necessarily a show about mirrors?
Gosh, that's like saying that once you've interfered, you're terribly involved! It's like a marriage - the only thing is to simply go in & break it up!
Perhaps that doesn't sound right. But when you pretend to love someone you don't love, you create hatred. The person knows you're loving them because you feel it's duty. That's why it's completely absurd to be dishonest with your feelings.
But what if no one delivers the mail? What if there are no garbage collectors?
All the resentment piles up. One day it just blows up. For twenty years, see. Meanwhile everybody's getting more bored & frustrated & suddenly the bombers are over you! A whole life done away with.
We've been lucky. The Swiss have been lucky. The Swedes have been lucky, minding their own business. But all that's over - technologically.
Nobody knows what the answer to it is! But I'm certain that it has nothing to do with mirrors, which as a natural result has very little to do with reflections, while we can be confident to note that reflections might have something to do with mirrors. They all have their place in the scheme of things without knowing they have a place.
The lesser doubts change your nature, the greater doubts change your purpose. Go easy on yourself.
Gosh, that's like saying that once you've interfered, you're terribly involved! It's like a marriage - the only thing is to simply go in & break it up!
Perhaps that doesn't sound right. But when you pretend to love someone you don't love, you create hatred. The person knows you're loving them because you feel it's duty. That's why it's completely absurd to be dishonest with your feelings.
But what if no one delivers the mail? What if there are no garbage collectors?
All the resentment piles up. One day it just blows up. For twenty years, see. Meanwhile everybody's getting more bored & frustrated & suddenly the bombers are over you! A whole life done away with.
We've been lucky. The Swiss have been lucky. The Swedes have been lucky, minding their own business. But all that's over - technologically.
Nobody knows what the answer to it is! But I'm certain that it has nothing to do with mirrors, which as a natural result has very little to do with reflections, while we can be confident to note that reflections might have something to do with mirrors. They all have their place in the scheme of things without knowing they have a place.
The lesser doubts change your nature, the greater doubts change your purpose. Go easy on yourself.
Friday, January 10, 2020
Where I'm Going Tonight
To see this guy:
Interestingly, this is the second Kid In The Hall I've seen since moving to Portland. I did once get to see the Kids In The Hall in Dallas - they never made it down to Austin when they were touring, as far as I know - but I doubt the one-person shows the individuals Kids do would make it very far into the United States, & definitely not to Kentucky or Texas.
Another reason to be grateful we moved here!
Interestingly, this is the second Kid In The Hall I've seen since moving to Portland. I did once get to see the Kids In The Hall in Dallas - they never made it down to Austin when they were touring, as far as I know - but I doubt the one-person shows the individuals Kids do would make it very far into the United States, & definitely not to Kentucky or Texas.
Another reason to be grateful we moved here!
Thursday, January 09, 2020
Library Of Mirrors
This week's show - not the one that happened last Monday but the one that will happen next Monday - which I know is technically next week - but it feels weird saying "next week's show" - all right, technically it is next week's show - what I want to say is - the next Self Help Radio, happening next Monday, is about "reflections."
If you'd like to read that paragraph in German, here is how Google Translate phrased it:
Die Show dieser Woche - nicht die, die letzten Montag stattfand, sondern die, die nächsten Montag stattfinden wird - von der ich weiß, dass sie technisch nächste Woche ist - aber es fühlt sich seltsam an, "die Show der nächsten Woche" zu sagen - in Ordnung, technisch ist es die Show der nächsten Woche - was Ich möchte sagen: Beim nächsten Self Help Radio, das am nächsten Montag stattfindet, geht es um "Reflexionen."
Just FYI.
What I got to thinking today, when one of my regular contributors stood me up, was how many books were called "Reflections." How many could there be?
Good Reads listed 35,332 results for "Reflections." Here are the first twenty from the first page:
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung,
Reflections by Clifton Kenny
Fables & Reflections (The Sandman, #6) by Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, & Stan Woch
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes
Reflections by Hermann Hesse
Trick Mirror: Reflections On Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
Reflections Of A Man by Amari Soul
Illuminations: Essays & Reflections by Walter Benjamin
Reflections by Anita Stansfield
I Remember Nothing: & Other Reflections by Nora Ephron
Reflection (Twisted Tales #4) by Elizabeth Lim
Reflections by T.R. Whittier
This Time Together: Laughter & Reflection by Carol Burnett
Reflection by Diane Chamberlain
Reflections by Iceberg Slim
Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley
Reflections by Charles Le Gai Eaton
Reflections by Idries Shah
Reflections by Marcia Willett
Reflections by Justin South
Have I read any of these? Only the Sandman comic! Do I want to read the rest? Now I do!
Will I have the time to do so? No, I will not.
Is this week's show full of these sorts of reflections? I certainly hope so.
Will I stop asking myself questions & then answering them? Yeah, that seems like a good idea.
PS, here are those questions & answers in German:
Habe ich etwas davon gelesen? Nur der Sandman-Comic! Will ich den rest lesen? Jetzt mache ich!
Habe ich die Zeit dazu? Nein, werde ich nicht.
Ist die Show dieser Woche voller solcher Überlegungen? Das hoffe ich sehr.
Werde ich aufhören, mir Fragen zu stellen und sie dann zu beantworten? Ja, das scheint eine gute Idee zu sein.
If you'd like to read that paragraph in German, here is how Google Translate phrased it:
Die Show dieser Woche - nicht die, die letzten Montag stattfand, sondern die, die nächsten Montag stattfinden wird - von der ich weiß, dass sie technisch nächste Woche ist - aber es fühlt sich seltsam an, "die Show der nächsten Woche" zu sagen - in Ordnung, technisch ist es die Show der nächsten Woche - was Ich möchte sagen: Beim nächsten Self Help Radio, das am nächsten Montag stattfindet, geht es um "Reflexionen."
Just FYI.
What I got to thinking today, when one of my regular contributors stood me up, was how many books were called "Reflections." How many could there be?
Good Reads listed 35,332 results for "Reflections." Here are the first twenty from the first page:
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung,
Reflections by Clifton Kenny
Fables & Reflections (The Sandman, #6) by Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, & Stan Woch
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes
Reflections by Hermann Hesse
Trick Mirror: Reflections On Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
Reflections Of A Man by Amari Soul
Illuminations: Essays & Reflections by Walter Benjamin
Reflections by Anita Stansfield
I Remember Nothing: & Other Reflections by Nora Ephron
Reflection (Twisted Tales #4) by Elizabeth Lim
Reflections by T.R. Whittier
This Time Together: Laughter & Reflection by Carol Burnett
Reflection by Diane Chamberlain
Reflections by Iceberg Slim
Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley
Reflections by Charles Le Gai Eaton
Reflections by Idries Shah
Reflections by Marcia Willett
Reflections by Justin South
Have I read any of these? Only the Sandman comic! Do I want to read the rest? Now I do!
Will I have the time to do so? No, I will not.
Is this week's show full of these sorts of reflections? I certainly hope so.
Will I stop asking myself questions & then answering them? Yeah, that seems like a good idea.
PS, here are those questions & answers in German:
Habe ich etwas davon gelesen? Nur der Sandman-Comic! Will ich den rest lesen? Jetzt mache ich!
Habe ich die Zeit dazu? Nein, werde ich nicht.
Ist die Show dieser Woche voller solcher Überlegungen? Das hoffe ich sehr.
Werde ich aufhören, mir Fragen zu stellen und sie dann zu beantworten? Ja, das scheint eine gute Idee zu sein.
Monday, January 06, 2020
Self Help Radio 010620: Iron
(Original image here.)
Sometimes you think you're absurd, & the world is like, ha ha ha no. On today's ridiculous show, I talk to a writer who advocates building a furnace in your own backyard to smelt your own iron. I wasn't really talking to a writer, I was talking to a funny friend, who laughed when I suggested it, & then ad-libbed a funny response. Then I was looking for images of iron smelting & I discovered this web page which - talks about building your own furnace to smelt iron. Everything is absurd.
But yeah, that's the way it goes in Self Help Radioland, & the new year promises more of the same.
More odd themes, more goofy interviews, more attempts by me to be funny that fail more than they succeed. In the meanwhile, please enjoy the first Self Help Radio of 2020, which is a show about iron. The element. The metal. The stuff in our blood.
The show is at Self Help Radio dot net like it normally is. Nothing has changed, you need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to listen. & the stuff that happens in the show is listed below. Happy new year! Be careful with home smelting.
Self Help Radio Iron Show
"Zavod (Iron Foundry) Op. 19" The U.S.S.R. Symphony Orchestra _The Music Of Alexander Mosolov (1900-1973)_
"Ironside" Quincy Jones _Smackwater Jack_
"Iron Man" Four Tet _Everything Comes & Goes: A Tribute To Black Sabbath_
introduction & definitions
"Rags & Old Iron" Nina Simone _Forbidden Fruit_
"Iron & Ore" Ohbijou _Metal Meets_
"Travel Iron" Les Barker _Up The Creek Without A Poodle_
"Clay & Cast Iron" Darlingside _Birds Say_
"Iron Ore Betty" John Prine _Bruised Orange_
"Iron Deficiency" The Courtneys _II_
"Iron Lung" Black Marble _It's Immaterial_
"Anchovy Ironer" Bob & Ray _Classic Bob & Ray, Vol. 3 - Selections From A Career: 1946-1976_
"Paper & Iron (Live At The Lyceum In London)" XTC _Coat Of Many Cupboards_
"Brenda's Iron Sledge (Live)" Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians _Gotta Let This Hen Out!_
interview with author Hieronymous Kalb
"Big Iron" Johnny Cash _American IV: The Man Comes Around_
"Iron Lady" Phil Ochs _I Ain't Marching Anymore_
"The Man In The Iron Mask" Billy Bragg _Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy_
"Any Old Iron" Peter Sellers _The Peter Sellers Collection_
"Any Old Iron (Part 1)" James Kirk _You Can Make It If You Boogie_
interview with chemical heir Little Prince Boy Dow Jr.
"Marble & Iron" Carl Douglas _Marble & Iron_
"(Ride On) Iron Horse" The Marlboro Men _Absolute Funk, Vol. 2_
"Iron Sharpening Iron" Culture _Harder Than The Rest_
"Iron Lemonade" Black Moth Super Rainbow _Eating Us_
"Ride The Iron Horse" BMX Bandits _Theme Park_
conclusion, upcoming Freeform Events, & goodbye
"Strike, While The Iron Is Hot" Hot Lips Page & His Orchestra _1950–1953_
"Cast Iron Arm" Peanuts Wilson _West Texas Bop_
"My Big Iron Skillet" Wanda Jackson _The Ultimate Collection_
"A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock Somewhere" Liliput _Kleenex/Liliput 1977 1983_
"Iron Claw" Nuns _Rumania_
Sunday, January 05, 2020
Whither Iron?
(Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito - Iron is the big purple one. Found this here.)
This week's show is about "iron." Specifically, the character Iron from the Metal Men, a weird superhero team created in 1962 by Robert Kanigher & Ross Andru. There were six of them, they were named after elements, they were advanced robots created by a pipe-smoking genius doctor of the 1960s variety, & Iron was the strong, brave one. & I'm certain there are enough songs about this comic book character to fill an entire show.
What, you don't believe me? You think it might be better to do a show about a superhero named "Iron Man" who's been in three of his own movies plus various others? Preposterous! No one gives a toss about that character! All people really want to do is talk about Iron of the Metal Men! If not Iron, then his teammates: Gold, Lead, Tin, Mercury, & Platinum! You just wait, there'll be dozens of movies about them soon enough, & they'll make you forget about an people who's not a robot made of iron but rather a human being in an iron suit.
Wait - you don't think that all those songs somehow reference the element iron, do you? How could that be? Iron itself seems completely dull, while Iron of the Metal Men is - well, he's also dull, but in a more interesting way. I guess I'll have to relisten to some of these songs - oh crap, it does appear the songs are about the element iron & not Iron of the Metal Men.
Oh well, I guess you'll have to make do with a Self Help Radio about the metal called iron. Maybe I shouldn't bring the Metal Men up at all. We'll see. The show's on Monday morning - that's tomorrow - from 6-8am Portland time on 90.3+98.3fm Freeform Portland, online at freeformportland.org. It might turn out that a radio show about iron is part of your recommended daily allowance for iron, in which case, listening is also good for you!
Saturday, January 04, 2020
Preface To Iron: Television Shows About Places Where You Used To Live
Though I should be working on this week's Self Help Radio, I got sucked into a Louis Theroux documentary the wife was watching. It's about the heroin crisis in Huntington, West Virginia. It's a difficult watch, & I don't enjoy seeing people sticking needles in their veins, so I had to turn away a couple of times, or else I might have fainted. I get very light-headed watching that shiz.
The reason I stuck around to watch it was because it was in Huntington, a town I lived in for about a year & a month, from July 2009 to August 2010. & I confess I saw very little drug use while I was there.
My life was small, though. I volunteered at the Marshall radio station WMUL & did little else. Mainly I hung out with my dogs & cats. We got to be best friends, then. I wasn't home a lot in Austin.
The wife hated it in Huntington so much that pretty much every weekend - unless the weather was bad - we went elsewhere, to Lexington, to Athens (Ohio), to Columbus, to Cincinnati, to Charleston. We spent a great deal of time in a car - most places weren't on a major highway, so they took a while to get to.
After we left in the summer of 2009, I always meant to go back. I felt like I drove around a lot - I would go shopping at Kroger at night, & try to drive home different routes, try to take in the city when it was asleep or at least falling asleep. It simply wasn't that large. I would walk occasionally to Marshall when I volunteered, & would walk by old old houses that were empty & falling apart. I always wished that I had some ability to make a difference in the city, but I just didn't.
For example: WMUL didn't have many student deejays, & operated mostly on automation. At the beginning of the semester, they'd have one meeting, & sign up lots of students, but as the semester wore on, students would simply stop coming to their shows. The core volunteers were mainly interested in sports - the station was a kind of training ground for people who wanted to call sports professionally. I only met a couple of indie kids there.
The Station Manager would listen patiently to my ideas on how to increase participation, & then shoot them down with an anecdote (usually something that happened a while back, which he himself didn't actually take part in) about how it had been done & didn't work. I was usually crestfallen after such conversations. I didn't want to try anything without his backing - & at the end of my short tenure there, I attempted to help out on a live music show, & did a good deal of work, including arranging for the station to partner with another department that videotaped local bands, the Station Manager told me he didn't think it would work out - you know, because something similar had been tried before & failed.
What I wanted to do was try to invite more non-students to deejay, but of course the station used to do that & those people got mad when students were given preferential time slots. I suggested that perhaps you make it clear to the non-students - like me - that that's the case, but no, it was just not a good idea.
Looking back on the blog, I found this post where I announced my leaving WMUL - but I don't think I ever explained there - or anywhere - why I left. I didn't know we would be leaving Huntington when I quit WMUL - it was the middle of June - & my wife was about to spend a month in Madagascar, so I was going to be quite lonely & isolated. I was just tired of beating my head against a wall of indifference. I wanted to help, & I was able to do some things, but the station didn't really have listeners - it didn't stream its music shows online, for example, because it didn't want to pay the licensing fees - & like I said, there weren't a lot of programmers. I already did my shows mostly alone, at night. I would go to the school's Department of Public Safety & get a key, let myself in, turn the automation off & do a show, then turn it back on & leave. It was plenty lonely already.
Anyway, I watched the documentary to see if I could find anything of the Huntington I had lived in, & I really couldn't. I didn't see any familiar places, & I didn't say things like, "Oh yeah! I've been there!" Honestly, though, my world was, as I've said, very small.
One thing I did hope to see what a Chinese restaurant that I ate at too often which is where I first had bean curd home style. I checked Google Maps to find that it's still there, & was surprised it looked like this:
It had more than one story! I didn't recall that. It seems so unassuming.
There was a similar favorite place in Fort Worth that we went to at least once a week. I always wonder if they make any note of our disappearance.
In 2002 I had back surgery & discovered I didn't enjoy vicodin. So I suppose I wouldn't enjoy heroin either. The documentary says 1 in 4 people in Huntington struggle with addiction to opiates. It seems I was either there before the crisis got super ugly or I mainly interacted with the other 75%.
The reason I stuck around to watch it was because it was in Huntington, a town I lived in for about a year & a month, from July 2009 to August 2010. & I confess I saw very little drug use while I was there.
My life was small, though. I volunteered at the Marshall radio station WMUL & did little else. Mainly I hung out with my dogs & cats. We got to be best friends, then. I wasn't home a lot in Austin.
The wife hated it in Huntington so much that pretty much every weekend - unless the weather was bad - we went elsewhere, to Lexington, to Athens (Ohio), to Columbus, to Cincinnati, to Charleston. We spent a great deal of time in a car - most places weren't on a major highway, so they took a while to get to.
After we left in the summer of 2009, I always meant to go back. I felt like I drove around a lot - I would go shopping at Kroger at night, & try to drive home different routes, try to take in the city when it was asleep or at least falling asleep. It simply wasn't that large. I would walk occasionally to Marshall when I volunteered, & would walk by old old houses that were empty & falling apart. I always wished that I had some ability to make a difference in the city, but I just didn't.
For example: WMUL didn't have many student deejays, & operated mostly on automation. At the beginning of the semester, they'd have one meeting, & sign up lots of students, but as the semester wore on, students would simply stop coming to their shows. The core volunteers were mainly interested in sports - the station was a kind of training ground for people who wanted to call sports professionally. I only met a couple of indie kids there.
The Station Manager would listen patiently to my ideas on how to increase participation, & then shoot them down with an anecdote (usually something that happened a while back, which he himself didn't actually take part in) about how it had been done & didn't work. I was usually crestfallen after such conversations. I didn't want to try anything without his backing - & at the end of my short tenure there, I attempted to help out on a live music show, & did a good deal of work, including arranging for the station to partner with another department that videotaped local bands, the Station Manager told me he didn't think it would work out - you know, because something similar had been tried before & failed.
What I wanted to do was try to invite more non-students to deejay, but of course the station used to do that & those people got mad when students were given preferential time slots. I suggested that perhaps you make it clear to the non-students - like me - that that's the case, but no, it was just not a good idea.
Looking back on the blog, I found this post where I announced my leaving WMUL - but I don't think I ever explained there - or anywhere - why I left. I didn't know we would be leaving Huntington when I quit WMUL - it was the middle of June - & my wife was about to spend a month in Madagascar, so I was going to be quite lonely & isolated. I was just tired of beating my head against a wall of indifference. I wanted to help, & I was able to do some things, but the station didn't really have listeners - it didn't stream its music shows online, for example, because it didn't want to pay the licensing fees - & like I said, there weren't a lot of programmers. I already did my shows mostly alone, at night. I would go to the school's Department of Public Safety & get a key, let myself in, turn the automation off & do a show, then turn it back on & leave. It was plenty lonely already.
Anyway, I watched the documentary to see if I could find anything of the Huntington I had lived in, & I really couldn't. I didn't see any familiar places, & I didn't say things like, "Oh yeah! I've been there!" Honestly, though, my world was, as I've said, very small.
One thing I did hope to see what a Chinese restaurant that I ate at too often which is where I first had bean curd home style. I checked Google Maps to find that it's still there, & was surprised it looked like this:
It had more than one story! I didn't recall that. It seems so unassuming.
There was a similar favorite place in Fort Worth that we went to at least once a week. I always wonder if they make any note of our disappearance.
In 2002 I had back surgery & discovered I didn't enjoy vicodin. So I suppose I wouldn't enjoy heroin either. The documentary says 1 in 4 people in Huntington struggle with addiction to opiates. It seems I was either there before the crisis got super ugly or I mainly interacted with the other 75%.
Friday, January 03, 2020
The Trouble With Tribbles
A long time ago, I had a different blog that wasn't really for a radio show. It was instead a place where I tried to write funny things. Later on, I did a radio show that shared the name of the blog, & occasionally posted playlists there, but eventually I went back to write funny things. I should say "funny things." Mostly they weren't very funny. I will pick one at random as proof (this is from almost exactly seven years ago):
Inconvenient Prophecies! New Year's Irresolution!
Banish yes the furthermore thoughts of ill-repute in this divine sector of soul galaxy number one! Sub rosa ab ovo the fiercest of charlatans will converge on chatter-town & blatherskite within mere moments of the veil-lift in upper lower & sideways round! Come ye closer no more to always hear what lies aboveboard resisting both law & urge as scoop reveals what stab cannot!
Brethren? Is that thee? Hasn't harpies made killjoy of arse all? Sit if you can't stand, stand if you must, but one more glowing comet in the sky hand-shackles the dimly-lit mind of human racers! Didst thou not ken it were an competition? Sit or stand as my main man unfolds the map of the plan on the bandstand hand-to-hand & back again! The soundtrack of your laughter!
Were you never called Betsy as a rule? Didn't someone ever break a rose in your face? If wine makes you cry, do you keep bottles filled with winter & dew? When someone takes your pulse, do they hear the roaring twenties? Let us now in effect disregard the efficacious yes/no question as volcanoes ignore somnambulism! Let us give the slip to the on/off switch in print form!
Didst thou they think thirsty & thin thieve & thump in thy youth? Then it turns out there's no money in puzzling the proselytized! You have been given an entirely new year for manhandling, fondling & freakiness, faithful flukes - scratch out in greatest detail what graffiti has been painted in the brains behind your eyes! O indignity shake my left hand heartily! O grateful animals we!
That was strange. & not really funny. But wow. I have no memory of writing that. Anyhoo.
At some point I wrote a blog post about a historical figure who couldn't possibly have had photographs taken of her, since she lived during the Enlightenment, so I titled a post "The Last Nude Photographs Of" her. It turned out that for some reason a porn star adopted her name, & suddenly people were finding my blog because it had "nude" & the porn star's name in its title.
It was a brief moment of popularity. Of course, no one read the blog, they were looking for pictures of someone who made a living naked, naked, & there weren't any. But wow did I get lots of hits!
& so let's try it again. Will people looking for Trekker commentary about "The Trouble With Tribbles" find this blog? Who knows! It's Friday night! I'm a little drunk! Oh the thinks I think I can think about some of the time!
Inconvenient Prophecies! New Year's Irresolution!
Banish yes the furthermore thoughts of ill-repute in this divine sector of soul galaxy number one! Sub rosa ab ovo the fiercest of charlatans will converge on chatter-town & blatherskite within mere moments of the veil-lift in upper lower & sideways round! Come ye closer no more to always hear what lies aboveboard resisting both law & urge as scoop reveals what stab cannot!
Brethren? Is that thee? Hasn't harpies made killjoy of arse all? Sit if you can't stand, stand if you must, but one more glowing comet in the sky hand-shackles the dimly-lit mind of human racers! Didst thou not ken it were an competition? Sit or stand as my main man unfolds the map of the plan on the bandstand hand-to-hand & back again! The soundtrack of your laughter!
Were you never called Betsy as a rule? Didn't someone ever break a rose in your face? If wine makes you cry, do you keep bottles filled with winter & dew? When someone takes your pulse, do they hear the roaring twenties? Let us now in effect disregard the efficacious yes/no question as volcanoes ignore somnambulism! Let us give the slip to the on/off switch in print form!
Didst thou they think thirsty & thin thieve & thump in thy youth? Then it turns out there's no money in puzzling the proselytized! You have been given an entirely new year for manhandling, fondling & freakiness, faithful flukes - scratch out in greatest detail what graffiti has been painted in the brains behind your eyes! O indignity shake my left hand heartily! O grateful animals we!
That was strange. & not really funny. But wow. I have no memory of writing that. Anyhoo.
At some point I wrote a blog post about a historical figure who couldn't possibly have had photographs taken of her, since she lived during the Enlightenment, so I titled a post "The Last Nude Photographs Of" her. It turned out that for some reason a porn star adopted her name, & suddenly people were finding my blog because it had "nude" & the porn star's name in its title.
It was a brief moment of popularity. Of course, no one read the blog, they were looking for pictures of someone who made a living naked, naked, & there weren't any. But wow did I get lots of hits!
& so let's try it again. Will people looking for Trekker commentary about "The Trouble With Tribbles" find this blog? Who knows! It's Friday night! I'm a little drunk! Oh the thinks I think I can think about some of the time!
Thursday, January 02, 2020
But Who Counted?
Before I marvel at the final tally of my radio shows (& non-radio shows, as the case my be), I want to remind you that you can listen to episodes of my show Sugar Substitute at the Sugar Substitute page at the XRAY web site. Since it's already there, I don't host it over at Self Help Radio dot net.
The Dickenbock Report has yet to be given its own page over at the KBOO web site, but if you want to listen to last night's episode, it's going to be on this page here. Maybe forever? I dunno. It's a silly show.
Now: the count. Here's what I got:
45 episodes of Self Help Radio (27 "podcasts," 18 on Freeform)
14 episodes of Sugar Substitute on XRAY
13 episodes of the Tuesday Morning Blend on KNON
01 episode of The Dickenbock Report on KBOO
27 subbed shows (14 on Freeform, 7 on KBOO, 6 on XRAY)
Grand total: 100 radio shows in 2019!
But wait! Twenty-seven episodes of Self Help Radio were never on the air, so it's really more like 73 radio shows in 2019. Impressive, but not as cool as one hundred.
If I take no weeks off in 2019, & if I have the same schedule, there will be at the very least this total:
52 Self Help Radios
52 Sugar Substitutes
27 Dickenbock Reports
That's 131 radio shows. It doesn't count subs or fills, which I will continue to do.
This is madness. Is it sustainable? It can't possibly be sustainable.
The Dickenbock Report has yet to be given its own page over at the KBOO web site, but if you want to listen to last night's episode, it's going to be on this page here. Maybe forever? I dunno. It's a silly show.
Now: the count. Here's what I got:
45 episodes of Self Help Radio (27 "podcasts," 18 on Freeform)
14 episodes of Sugar Substitute on XRAY
13 episodes of the Tuesday Morning Blend on KNON
01 episode of The Dickenbock Report on KBOO
27 subbed shows (14 on Freeform, 7 on KBOO, 6 on XRAY)
Grand total: 100 radio shows in 2019!
But wait! Twenty-seven episodes of Self Help Radio were never on the air, so it's really more like 73 radio shows in 2019. Impressive, but not as cool as one hundred.
If I take no weeks off in 2019, & if I have the same schedule, there will be at the very least this total:
52 Self Help Radios
52 Sugar Substitutes
27 Dickenbock Reports
That's 131 radio shows. It doesn't count subs or fills, which I will continue to do.
This is madness. Is it sustainable? It can't possibly be sustainable.
Monday, December 30, 2019
Self Help Radio 123019: Indiepop A To Z # 61
(Almost all images found on Discogs.)
The last Self Help Radio of 2019 almost undone by disaster!
It's true. The online stream went down about two-thirds through the show, & that's how I record the show. So basically my last two airbreaks are lost to the ether. I was able to re-create the music for the show, & I recorded a couple of "fill-in" airbreaks this afternoon, but what amusing anecdotes & delightful bon mots I might have said in those last two airbreaks are forever gone. Weep not, I say shit on the radio all the time, it's not big deal.
Except: it's funny how I was just talking about how grateful I am to be doing Self Help Radio live after doing it prerecorded from 2016 to 2019 - & I end the year having to record some airbreaks. Funny, I tell you! It's hilarious!
The show is where it should be, at the Self Help Radio website, & you should know by now: username is SHR, password is selfhelp. There's just me on the show, & lots of songs with band/musician names in alphabetical order. What happened on the show is below.
Happy new year!
Self Help Radio Indiepop A To Z # 61
"Simon Says" 1910 Fruitgum Co. _Best Of The Bubblegum Years_
"Yesterdays Forever" Ninjas _What You've Missed So Far: The First Hundred Releases Of Blackbean & Placenta_
"I've Got Wings" Ninotchka _Do Not Fear The Future_
"J.O.S. Days" The Nits _In The Dutch Mountains_
"Yesterday" The Nivens _From A Northumbrian Mining Village Comes The Sound Of Summer_
"Still In Love Tomorrow" Nixon _Only Ugly People Smoke_
"Parasol" Niza _Canciones De Temporada_
"Rubble" No Flags Etc. _The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Vol. 5_
"Meet The Folks Part 1" No Middle Name _Meet The Folks_
"Changes" No Vacation _Phasing_
"Always Make Your Bed" Nodzzz _Innings_
"Back In Your Life" Noise Addict _10,000 Kids With Guitars_
"Best Man" Nomad Pop _Best Man_
"Ice Cube Says" The Nomber 5s _If We Get It On Tape_
"Your Hand For An Hour" The Non Stop Kazoo Organization _Something Strange E.P._
"Fear Of Dating" The Nonpareils _Little Darla Has A Treat For You, Volume 4 Summer 1996_
"Pack It Up" Mark Norkowicz _Captain Circus! Chocolat Art Returns Compilation Vol. 1_
"Television (Saved My Life)" Norman Bates _Airpop Terminal 2_
"Billy Liar" North Of Cornwallis _The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Vol. 1_
"Never Take The Beauty" Northern Fields _EardrumsPop 100_
"Paris" Northern Picture Library _Still Life_
"Crazy" Northern Portrait _Criminal Art Lovers_
"Nadadora" Nosoträsh _Momentos Perdidos_
"Bite" Nothing _Bite_
"Sorely Tempted" Nothing Painted Blue _The Future Of Communications_
"Sur Ton Répondeur" Notre-Dame _Casablanca: La Colección de Cludades - Módulo 2_
"Making Plans For Nigel" Nouvelle Vague _Nouvelle Vague_
"I've Realized" The Occasional Keepers _True North_
"Drifting, Falling" The Ocean Blue _The Ocean Blue_
"Chimes" The Odolites _Chimes_
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Whither Indiepop A To Z # 61
(Image from here.)
Yes, it's that time again: I continue my probably never-to-be-finished Indiepop A To Z series. We're at the end of letter N, although I doubt we'll finish it this time around. I keep doing this because, by my nature, I'm a character in some Samuel Beckett work. Probably named Krapp.
Yes, I'm a little worried that it won't make any sense, since Portland hasn't heard the first sixty installments, although that didn't bother me in Lexington. It just seems like no one would tune in to part sixty-one of something. Not even on Netflix!
Nevertheless, Self Help Radio presents the Indiepop A To Z # 61 tomorrow from 6-8am on 90.3/98.8 fm Freeform Portland, freeformportland.org. Lots of indiepop goodness from all over the globe. Guaranteed.