Tags & Tricks, Episode One

The first episode of my all-new jazz show (the show is all new; the jazz I played isn't) is now available for your listening pleasure (if you wish) at selfhelpradio.net.

I'm pretty excited about it, since I enjoy jazz & wish I played more jazz but really don't know a damn thing about jazz. Maybe this will help me learn. Maybe I should write "things I learned from this week's episode" type summaries at the end of every radio show I do. I learn a lot! But then, maybe you'd think of them as "Cliff's Notes" of the shows & then you wouldn't listen. Because you don't love music. You Philistine!

Interestingly, I've used the epithet "Philistine" against people who don't love art & learning before, but until now, I didn't really know what it meant. I assumed it was Biblical, but here's the explanation, taken from this web site:

"The key turning point toward the modern sense of the word occurred in Germany. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a quarrel between university students & local townspeople in Jena in 1693 resulted in the killing of a student. In a sermon at the student's funeral, a speaker used the German word Philister ('Philistine') as an insult to the townspeople. Soon German university students began widely applying the term to anyone they regarded as an outsider, that is, someone who was not a student, hence a nonstudious, unenlightened, uncultured person."

Now that's something I learned today!

What Is "Tags & Tricks"?

My desire to express as many elements as possible of my music collection can be wearying. It was hard enough, oh those many years ago, to come up with the name "Self Help Radio" for a radio show. (I was originally going to call it "Too Stupid To Die.") (Back in my KVRX days the best name I came up with for my show, which aired on Mondays, was "Thursdays With Gary." So the tagline would be, "Every Monday night, it's Thursdays with Gary!" That book "Tuesdays With Morrie" came out around that time, which made the name seem derivative & stupid.) (Yeah, like "Self Help Radio" is original.) (Anyway.) Now that I have "Self Help Radio," "Sugar Substitute" & "Dickenbock Electronics," I wanted equally snappy names for my new jazz & old-timey country & blues show. But what?

I was reading around about jazz & on this Wikipedia quotes page, I found this "definition" of jazz from an obvious fan in 1927:

"Jazz is not a 'form' but a collection of tags & tricks."
Ernest Newman. The Sunday Times, "The World of Music", 4 September 1927.

That's hilarious, yeah? So why not call the show "Tags & Tricks"? So I shall.

& hey! It premieres tomorrow! Look for it on selfhelpradio.net!

Pretend Moral

A cautionary tale of two men who couldn't play guitar, written by little Dickie Dickenbock.

One man who couldn't play guitar was Dave. He not only couldn't play guitar but was tone-deaf.

The other man who couldn't play guitar was Rick. He loved rock & roll & wanted to be a rock & roller. In fact, he loved the work "rock." He appreciated when bands sang songs about "rock." When his favorite radio show, which had "rock" in the title, went off the air at his local public radio station, he almost didn't renew his membership until he realized there was another show with "rock" in the title replacing it. It was a completely different show, but he felt that it was important that the word "rock" was out there.

Naturally, the two of them formed a band. It was awful. They found a drummer who could keep time, & a bassist who looked mean, but no matter how they tried, Dave & Rick couldn't play guitar. They played for friends at parties, they played a "battle of the bands" night at their favorite bar, they practiced in a space where other bands could hear them, & the verdict was clear: they weren't a very good band.

It also didn't help that Dave was the lead singer.

One night, at a show where they opened for a friend's band, a very nice man named Jeff happened to hear two guys at the bar making fun of the band. The drinking buddies started with band's name - Solid Rock - & quickly found their way to the band's sheer inability to play. Jeff was infuriated by this. In addition to the cruelty of the comments, & the lack of sympathy for anyone having to perform in a live venue, the two fellows - Jeff thought - seemed to think such people couldn't get better. What if this were their first show? Maybe even the Beatles sounded like this when they had just started!

Jeff decided to become the band's manager. He did everything in his power - straining his marriage, missing a promotion at work, investing his own money in the band's future - to help Dave & Rick get lessons, have time to practice, have places to play.

But nothing helped. They never got any better. Their songs were derivative, their on-stage antics embarrassing, their skills barely progressing past their first show. (Some even say the drummer lost the ability to keep time.) When the bassist was arrested for assaulting a man he thought was hitting on his girlfriend, Dave & Rick, exhausted by all the hard work they put in & resentful of the world's disinterest, told Jeff they were quitting. Rick said, "It's okay. Rock & roll will never die."

Jeff eventually lost his job & he & his wife separated soon after.

The moral of the story is this: you can encourage anyone to follow their dreams, but you probably shouldn't get involved. More often than not, it's not going to end well.

The Day Of The Remains

I've already mentioned that this week's episode of Self Help Radio is available for listening at selfhelpradio.net, didn't I? It's about tunnels. You love tunnels. You should go listen to it.

My wife just left me. Now, wait, that came out wrong. She's going to come back. I hope. She says she will. She's going to Africa to do scientific stuff for an entire month. That's right! Thirty American days! & it's summer, so the days are longer!

Anyway, my wife has temporarily left me so of course I can now concentrate on making great radio for you. Unless you're leaving too. Well, I will assume you're not. & if you are, don't tell me. I'm too fragile at the moment.

I am going to make great radio for you for the month of March. That's wonderful, isn't it? Starting this Saturday, when I premiere my jazz program, "Tags & Tricks." Why is it called that? You're have to listen!

Since I put it on my website, you know, you can listen to it anywhere. Even if you're leaving. Rats! I should have told that to my wife.

Whither Tunnels?

I feel like I've been in a tunnel for a couple of days & have only now emerged. My apologies for not being as disciplined with this blog as I should, but the wife is leaving the country for a while (she's not on the lam, just being a scientist) so I've been spending time with her. Also, I nap a lot. So please, pardon my tunnel vision.

But! The tunnel has a light at the end & that light is this week's Self Help Radio, which went off with the adequate number of hitches (whatever that means) & which you can listen to at your leisure at selfhelpradio.net.

Might I suggest listening to it in a tunnel?

Preface To Tunnels: The Many Tunnels I've Been In

I guess I've been in a lot of tunnels. The longest tunnel - & possibly the scariest - was the tunnel under the English Channel. That tunnel is 31 miles long. Shorter tunnels I go through nearly every day - underneath the railroad tracks that separate Huntington-by-the-river from Huntington-by-the-highway. (I don't know if those are official designations.)

There are some awesome tunnels through mountains at the Virginia/West Virginia border on highway 77 in the Jefferson National Forest. I don't know how long they are but they are fun to drive through. It made me think of the tunnel in The Fugitive, well-lit but with mysterious doors into which Harrison Ford can escape.

A tunnel I've been through multiple times is the tunnel that separates the Oakland/Berkeley area from the eastern suburbs of the Bay Area (where the wife is from). It can be unbearably hot on one side of the tunnel, & then, emerging toward San Francisco, the temperature will have dropped twenty degrees, & it's the perfect temperature for rolling down the window & speeding toward The City.

The wikipedia says that "tunnels in general... are at least twice as long as they are wide." I would also think that tunnels tend to be horizontal - or somewhat horizontal - so a hole in the ground is a tunnel at all. A tunnel can be on an angle, of course. Just not vertical. Although - now that I think about it - though the wikipedia (again) says a tunnel is "an underground passageway," surely you can have tunnels in giant spacecraft, yes? Or giant vehicles of any kind? & those aren't technically underground, are they?

Hurrah! Dickenbock Electronics!

Yes, hooray! The first Saturday episode of Dickenbock Electronics went off without any complaints by the Robot Board Of Trustees. I don't trust those trustees. They're untrustworthy.

It's available where it ought to be at selfhelpradio.net. You can listen to it at your leisure. Or actively, if your circuits require it. Guaranteed to increase your personal processing speed by 0.007%!

Next week will be the premiere of my jazz show. Which is currently untitled. Do you want to name it? You can if you want. Just send me an email. Otherwise I'll be forced to come up with a name myself. Eep.

Dream-Ending Dreams

I just woke up from a nap, & what woke me up was what I call a "dream-ending dream." These dreams are both impossibly familiar, & at the same time so completely absurd, that it shocks your system into consciousness just to assess their near-comic outrageousness.

There's nothing more boring than listening to someone tell you his or her dream (unless it's someone who think they can "interpret" a dream) (or than watching someone tell someone else their dream & having it interpreted) so I won't bore you with details except that this dream seemed to be about a "tradition," which is to say, something I did every year or so (which I never have) & which also referenced past examples of the tradition. The dream, therefore, either referred back to other dreams I've had (which seems terribly unlikely, with this fading memory of mine), or it created those memories & made them feel like memories in the dream.

The latter is more probable, & that's why dreams are so awesome. Still, if, when you dream, you retain a modicum of your own sense of self - like, for example, you're scared of heights, & in a dream you're going to bungee jump or parachute - then the dream of something so unlike you - or so unlikely that you would ever do such a thing - so disturbs your sense of self that it becomes a "dream-ending dream." It wakes you up to take stock of your sense of self, &, in the midst of the dream's artificial familiarity & its haphazardly concocted reminiscences, you have to return to consciousness just to make sure it wasn't real.

I don't think most of these "dream-ending dreams" are scary to the point of nightmare, but some of them have been a little on the exciting side - involving chases or other dramatic movie-style sequences - again, referencing something that probably couldn't or wouldn't ever happen to me.

I do wonder if they're the body's way of waking one up when one needs to wake up from, say, an overlong afternoon nap. I know a dude who naps thirty minutes each day in the afternoon. Thirty minutes! It usually takes that long for me to get to sleep!

Hey Choosers!

See, I know you're not beggars. Since beggars can't be choosers. Ergo, through the transitive property of fol de rol, with only a slight detour through the axioms of gibberish & nonsense, Q.E.D. ipso facto, you must be the choosers who cannot be beggars. I defy you to find the logic in my reasoning!

Since you are choosers & since you do in fact have a choice, & since I'm usually the last choice in pretty much anything, I might as well make sure you know you have a choice in radio shows if/when you should want to listen to them. (You can choose not to, I know.) That choice which you can be chosen last if you so choose is Self Help Radio, & this week's episode, which is about beggars (not choosers), is now available at selfhelpradio.net.

Is the show a choice blend of great musics? I wouldn't choose that language. But I think I chose well, among all the songs available about begging.

Please enjoy.

"Mendicancy"

Three more things to say about begging:

1) I have a story about something sort of like begging I did when I was in middle school, but it is really quite embarrassing - one of those things you either have to go all the way with or else risk it being uncovered by an unscrupulous biographer. Not that I'll ever have anyone write a biography about me. But if I did. I'd prefer not to tell.

2) One thing I'm not ashamed of, though it irritates some people I know, is that I generally give change to people who ask me for it on the street. In Austin, walking down Guadalupe in the afternoon, I'd empty my pockets for the bums & street kids who were there. When I was a smoker, I'd also give away cigarettes. It seemed the least I could do. So far I've only been hit up by folks outside a Chinese restaurant here in Huntington, & I've given them change, too. Although the two or three people who've asked me for money have been specific & have wanted at least a dollar. Which suggests to me that, even if there isn't much competition, there are fewer people around here willing to part with their coinage, so your average West Virginian beggar needs to aim higher.

3) But I don't give money to people begging at intersections or near highway off-ramps. I don't know why that bugs me so much. Maybe because I am forced to look at them - which is what they want - & feel a little guilty. I think also that I sometimes worry if I give them money, I'll hold up traffic. Anyway, they don't seem to do that in West Virginia, either. But in Austin, there was usually someone at major roads & off-ramps. At one intersection near where I lived in Austin, there'd be bums begging at almost every corner. You couldn't avoid them.

Remember, there's an entire Self Help Radio show about begging coming tomorrow! It's true! I'll let you know when it happens!

Whither Begging?

Oh, you know, there's a wikipedia article about begging, which contains the hilarious line: "Beggars rarely recorded their techniques, & often used to disguise their own communication." It's sometimes pretty hard to read their signs, it's true. & I guess they would get lost down the ages.

There's also a helpful list of notable beggars. (I checked, I wasn't there.)

The word seems to have an interesting & disputed past. Here's what it says at this online encyclopedia:

Beggar, one who begs, particularly one who gains his [or her] living by asking the charitable contributions of others . The word, with the verbal forrn " to beg," in Middle English beggen, is of obscure history . The words appear first in English in the 13th century, & were early connected with "bag," with reference to the receptacle for alms carried by the beggars . The most probable derivation of the word, & that now generally accepted, is that it is a corruption of the name of the lay communities known as Beguines & Beghards, which, shortly after their establishment, followed the friars in the practice of mendicancy.

It goes on to mention - then discount - another origin, which the Wiktionary definition thinks is probable: "Probably from Old English bedecian." What does bedecian mean? According to the above encyclopedia, bedecian is "a rare Old English word... which is apparently connected with the Gothic bidjan... but between the occurrence of bedecian at the end of the 9th century & the appearance of 'beggar' & 'beg' in the 13th, there is a blank, & no explanation can be given of the great change in form."

Take that!

The Free Dictionary takes a different view. It says the word beggar is from "Middle English, from Old French begart, ultimately from Middle Dutch beggaert, one who rattles off prayers." Since I know that holy folks from England to Delhi have been beggars & lived in poverty for centuries, I kinda dig this origin.

But I am not an etymologist, so I can only look at what everyone is saying, & pretend I have earned an opinion in the matter.

Also, mendicancy? Let's bring that word back into wider usage, shall we?

Preface To Begging: What Shall I Put On My Sign Today?

A while back, the wife & I were driving through rural Ohio & we noticed some mildly creative - mostly groanworthy - church marquee signs. She said, "I think I should take some pictures & start collecting them!" One quick web search later, & we discovered (of course) that there was already such a site.

As I was thinking about beggars & begging - this week's theme - I thought about the crazy signs that people begging for money would have in Austin (not so many beggars in Huntington) & I thought, "I should have taken pictures!"

But of course someone already has. & also someone else. & probably more.

At least there's a place where I can get an idea if ever I am reduced to begging on the street. I like this one:

What's Coming Next

I am saying my goodbyes to WMUL this week, & have done my last show there, but of course Self Help Radio will continue as it has, with or without a radio station, heck! with or without listeners! I will have new shows every Tuesday but I'm loathe to abandon the other shows that I've also been doing, Dickenbock Electronics & Sugar Substitute.

Thus & therefore I'll continue to do them, but will do them now on Saturdays, & I'll add a couple of shows to satisfy my restless musical wanderings; one will be a jazz show, the other will be an old-time scratchy record country & blues show. I haven't come up with names yet. Do you want to help me name them?

The shows will alternate so they're basically monthly. Self Help Radio weekly, the other shows monthly. Self Help Radio on Tuesdays, the other shows on Saturday. More material for me to share. More material for you to ignore!

What's coming next is really not so different from what is, but I thought I should tell you anyway. Y'know?

Told you!

I told you I could do an entire show with songs entitled "Tell Me"! Didn't I tell you? Don't tell me I didn't! I remember telling you I could do an entire show of different songs with a single title. You said, "Tell me the title." I said, "That's it!"

The show is available for your wonder & concern at selfhelpradio.net.

I'm telling you, it's true!

I Shouldn't Twitter

No. No, I shouldn't. No matter what Roger Ebert says.

What I am going to do is do Self Help Radio tonight (the theme is "tell me") on WMUL which is at 88.1 on the fm dial. It starts at 9pm, with a new episode of Sugar Substitute on at 10:30pm. Both shows will be archived later, of course, at selfhelpradio.net.

Stop me before I start to tweet!

Whither Tell Me?

I'm very excited by this show. I believe that, for the very first time ever (for me), every song I play on Self Help Radio will have the same title. Yes, there will be nothing but songs entitled "Tell Me" on this week's show. I think that's frickin' awesome.

Also, in case you've been wanting to hear some of the best music that's come out in the last couple of months, you can listen to June's Self Help Radio Extra, which is available at self help radio dot net slash extra dot html. It has twenty-two songs & last seventy five minutes. & best of all, there's not any of that annoying guy who does Self Help Radio talking anywhere on it. Enjoy!

Preface To Tell Me: You Don't Have To Tell Me After All

I never really did understand iambic pentameter. I think people believe that playwrights in the olden days that used iambic pentameter didn't deliberately set out to use iambic pentameter but instead just thought about the world in iambic pentameter. I myself think that's untrue, although I'm probably wrong. Just because I am lazy & don't think a lot about my "writing style" or even proper grammar, punctuation, & spelling doesn't mean that others don't. It seems a very human thing to ascribe one's own weaknesses onto others, probably as a way to self-justify. Ambition, discipline, skill - when one lacks those things (like I do), one chooses instead to ascribe popularity, fame, success, etc., to something like luck rather than genuine hard work & talent. So forget what I said. People who write in iambic pentameter probably mean to do so, following what to them is a serious poetic tradition, & they don't labor with it like I used to in high school, counting the syllables on my fingers. They have trained themselves to think in that form, to better let the words flow naturally & beautifully.

I am always slightly sad that I'll never have the same kind of success (due to my own lack of ambition, discipline & most of all skill) as others, but two things about my fate give me a little comfort. One is that luck can & does play a big part. I know, some people make their own luck, but sometimes that can backfire. The other is that more & more people are successful in smaller & smaller circles. Our society is becoming larger but more compartmentalized, with tiny subsubcultures now freely able to communicate & gather, ignoring or otherwise unaware of the attempts by the corporate world to create & sustain a monoculture with their own stars, musicians, & authorities. Therefore your average "success," though he, she or they can become wealthy, will not likely attain the level of success of a "star" even a decade ago. Everything is more diffuse.

In a way, it's becoming more like it used to be. Before film & music recording, & although word did reach smaller communities about famous actors & musicians, the "stars" of one's life were more than likely the talented people in one's vicinity.

Or maybe not. I'm just thinking out loud on a Sunday morning.

A Punishment Of Lindas

Surely, thought Carl with alarm, they don't expect me to memorize all this! There had to be at least five pages of rules & regulations. Or, with more annoying alliteration, "policies & procedures," as the fat man with the missing bottom teeth had told him in the tiny HR room where he filled out his paperwork. Jesus God, Carl almost muttered to himself, what you have to do to get a job these days.

"See Linda in room 12," the fat man had said, with a slight whistle, as his tongue pushed unopposed air through the gap in his teeth.

He glanced over the pages of company policy while he waited. Linda, of course, made Carl wait. Lindas were always making Carl wait.

Linda Meyer had been his high school guidance counselor, who had told him sadly that he wasn't "college material." He remembered sitting outside her office, missing lunch, just to have her glance over his grades, his SAT scores, his college applications, & then give him dire predictions about his future.

& Linda Smith, the first girl to kiss him, who made him wait for weeks before he could discover her badly padded bra.

& Linda West - who became Linda Strunk after a short-lived marriage - had been the minor Southwestern poet who had been his graduate advisor while he worked on his abortive master's degree. All those hours, waiting for her to finish some phone call with her fiancee, then later her ex-husband or her lawyer, they had worn him out. He had loved Robinson Jeffers so much, now he could barely read his name on a book's spine.

How many Lindas had he waited for his entire life? Linda Murphy, the other Linda Smith, the Linda who ran the dance studio where the Linda he was once married to took her daughter from a previous marriage, the Linda who had the bar who was born in Yorba Linda which is why she was called Linda ("I'm sure glad I wasn't named Yorba!") - his whole life a punishment of Lindas.

Linda Bingham was this Linda's name & she was friendly but curt. With professional perfunctoriness she highlighted the sections of the manual on which he would be tested after his training period. Everything, she said, is in this document, & she directed him to sign several forms.

She stood, asked him to wait, & left the office to get something approved. Linda's office, Carl thought, was tidy & tiny. There were no pictures on her desk, but she did have a corkboard the size of a dinner platter in the far left corner of the room, next to a Ziggy calendar. He didn't want to get up & be caught snooping so he leaned as close as he could from his chair to scan it. The usual cartoons were there - the obligatory Dilbert, of course, plus yellowing Far Side squares - as well as a couple of cards for birthdays or anniversaries. A small rectangle of paper the size of a fortune cookie fortune was the only thing he couldn't read, so he quickly got out of his chair to sneak a look.

It read, simply, "In the Zulu language, the word 'linda' means 'to wait.'"

Carl snapped back to his seat as if drawn by a powerful magnet. He felt like he should have know that fortune cookie fortune fact a long time ago.

& Linda Bingham made him wait twenty-two more minutes until she returned & welcomed him to the company.

The High Cost Of Afternoon Napping

I'm up now! Why do you have to be so loud?

YES I did my radio shows last night. Self Help Radio at 9pm, Dickenbock Electronics at 10:30pm. & I put them up this morning at selfhelpradio.net like I said I would. Then I went back to bed.

Why? Because I was up late & it's a warm & rainy day today. If I had a job, I'd go to work. As it is, it's a nice day for napping.

I'm going back to sleep. Go, go listen to my radio shows. Just, you know, keep it down.

Fifteen Days Later

Self Help Radio returns! A new night! A new time! Same old radio show, though.

Starting tonight at 9pm on WMUL (that's 88.1 on your fm dial), Self Help Radio sits in its summer home for the three hottest months of the year. But if you're not in Huntington, don't worry, the show will be archived by robot pixies tomorrow at selfhelpradio.net. This blog will let you know exactly when it's ready for you.

Excited? Look, at least the show's not going to compete with "Lost." That would've sucked.