Whither Love Is...?

Love is... this week's theme on Self Help Radio!

Listen!  88.1 fm in Lexington, Kentucky!

Listen! Online at wrfl.fm!

Listen!  Later on (perhaps even on Valentine's Day?) on the Self Help Radio website!

Love is...

How the hell should I know what love is?

Preface To Love Is...: Oh God, It's A WEEK Until Valentine's Day?

If my show were still on Monday mornings, I'd be doing my show on Valentine's Day week.  It seems a little silly to be doing the show a week before Valentine's Day.  No one is thinking about chocolate & flowers on the Friday before the Valentine's Day that's on a Thursday.  Indeed, it might be safe to say that if I did it the day after Valentine's Day this year, which is a Friday, there would still be residual love left for me to pull off a day-after-Valentine's-Day show.

Listen: one of this days, I'm going to do a show about Valentinus, an early Christian who believed in that kooky kind of Kristianity called Gnosticism.  (He probably wouldn't have called it that - he would've called himself a Real Christian not like those soon-to-be-Catholic fuckers.)

Look: here's a graphic (well, it's made up of text) I took from the page about Valentinianism on the Wikipedia:

I can't even begin to explain what this is supposed to mean.  See, the beginning of all things at one thing projected thirty Aeons who are fifteen pairs of heavenly archetypes.  & Jesus comes along at some point.  I am not drunk nor high enough to really understand it (or explain it!) & also I don't think our culture would be as screwed-up sexually if Gnostic Christianity had beaten the "orthodox" Christianity that prevailed (the Gnostics also thought the flesh was icky).  But boy! wouldn't this have been fun to learn instead of Jesus walking on the water?  It's like if Zen had become the dominant form of Buddhism.

This has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, which is not Valentinus' day.  He doesn't get one.  All of his writings are lost, presumed destroyed.  Because the "orthodox" Christians who triumphed are sore winners.

Love Is... (The Comic)

I'm toying with the idea of just reading selections from this comic (you know what I'm talking about) on my show this week.  The one up there.  Could that be a real "Love Is" comic?  It's among other real Love Is... comics on this page but I don't know.  What the hell could it possibly mean?

I think someone's getting pranked here.

Here's another anomaly from the page:

The rest, though, seem as solid as the regular "Love Is..." syrup.

An Artist I'm Always Forgetting I Like: De Chirico

Many paintings here.

That painting up there, which is called "Mystery & Melancholy Of A Street," was in one of my high school English texts.  I remember being enchanted by it, at a time when I didn't really have any opinion of art at all.

I was never able to make what happened in my head come out properly on the page in my art classes in middle school, & I have no idea if my high school had art classes - I certainly would never have thought to take them.  At best I drew lots of comic strips.  But real art?  It seemed very far away.

I love De Chirico's fucked up perspective, but I also love his shadows.  The shadows!  I always find myself wanting to explore the rest of his paintings, like I could climb inside & find out what the hell's happening on the other side of the building.

I need to remember to look at more art now & then.  It's good for the head.

The Naked Show

Disgraceful.  A naked radio show.  In this day & age!  Well!  It's time for some kind of internet rating system.  I am outraged!  & it's my show!  Nude beaches!  Naturism!  Streaking!  What is this show coming to?

It's available for those with prurient interests at self help radio dot net.  If you can't be bothered with searching for it on a website, you can listen to the filthy show in either of its two parts: part one is here & part two is here.  You can see what disgusting songs were played below.

I'll understand if it's just too disgusting to listen to.

(part one)

"I Am Naked" Stereo Total _Do The Bambi_
"I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" Ida Maria _Fortress Round My Heart_
"My Birthday Suit" Cattanooga Cats _Cattanooga Cats_

"Naked" Autohaze _Counter Clockwise_
"Naked" The Dentists _Naked 10"_
"Naked" Shoestrings _Wishing On Planes_
"Naked" Sera Cahoone _Deer Creek Canyon_

"Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention _We're Only In It For The Money_
"Theme For A Nude Beach" The B-52's _Nude On The Moon: The B-52's Anthology_
"Totally Nude" Talking Heads _Naked_
"The Girls Are Naked" Creation _Our Music Is Red With Purple Flashes_
"She Was Naked" Supersister _Control OST_

"The Streak" Ray Stevens _Gitarzan_

(part two)

"The Ballad Of The Mad Streaker" Larry Lujack, Superjock _The Ballad Of The Mad Streaker_
"Here Comes The Streaker" High Voltage _Hard To Find Vol. 1_
"Strip Me Naked" Love, Peace & Happiness _Love Is Stronger_

"You Naked" Jamie Lidell _You Naked_
"Naked, Drunk ∓ Horny" Yellow Note Vs Pukka _This Is Tech Pop_
"Butt Naked Man Stresses The Importance Of Proper Schooling" Onion Radio News _Onion Radio News_
"Undressed" Lloyd Cole _Lloyd Cole_
"We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" Class _Double Agent 1980_

"Naked Girl Falling Down The Stairs" The Cramps _Flamejob_
"Naked To The World" Obits _Moody, Standard & Poor_
"Naked In My Car" The Pushtwangers _The Pushtwangers Mini-LP_
"Photographs Of Naked Ladies" Toy Love _Cuts_

"Take Off Your Clothes To Feel The Setting Sun" Wolfgang Druner Quintet _Untouchable Outcaste Beats_
"Naked As The Day You Were Born" The Weather Prophets _Creation Soup Vol 4_

Whither The Naked Show?

Dude, it is EIGHTEEN DEGREES FAHRENHEIT in Lexington, Kentucky, right now.  (That's negative eight degrees Celsius if you must know, or as I like to say, -8.)  Who in their right mind would want to do a show about nakedness in freezing temperatures?

It's rather warm in the WRFL studios, is all I'm saying.  Why is that?  It's because it's boiler room heat!

Listen!  It's a clothing-optional Self Help Radio!  From 4 to 6 pm TODAY!  On 88.1 fm in Lexington!  On wrfl dot fm in warmer & colder climes!  Or listen later in the privacy of your own nudist colony at the Self Help Radio website!

(It may take awhile, though - I might have frozen extremities after two hours naked in this temperature.  Boiler heat or not.)

Preface To The Naked Show: Gymnophobia

Gymnophobia literally means "naked fear" & I hope you don't have it.  Sure, it's a phobia, it's irrational, you know it's irrational, but like being afraid that bugs might be crawling over you, you start to think about it & then you're swatting your pants leg & then they're all over your back & you can feel them in your hair & you're like OH GOD THEY'RE EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE AGGH! AGGGGHHH!

That very thing (in ALL CAPS!) may happen to you if you're afraid of nudity & you listen to Self Help Radio this week.  That would be the very definition of unfortunate.  As unfortunate, you know, as happening to listen to Self Help Radio.

The Wikipedia has a short article about it & has this tidbit, "Child gymnophobia is common due to peer pressure, bullying, & a fear of exposing sexual organs."

This reminds me of a weird experience in the field house - you know, the place where you "dressed out" in gym class in middle school - when I was in sixth grade.  I was not a terribly bright child & most probably hadn't hit puberty yet, & didn't have any information about what might happen when I did, & I remember watching two older boys - eighth graders! - teasing each other in a playful way by roughhousing & snapping each other with towels & that sort of thing so popular (one imagines) in gay pornography.  The freaky moment happened - & I think I was watching this because I found the field house so incredibly frightening & I "dressed out" in-between the wall & the door of my locker - one of the two older kids made the other feel bad by "flashing" him his junk, which, he proudly pointed out, featured public hair.  (I assumed the other boy didn't have any yet.)

Yeah, I had no idea that sort of thing - hair. down there. - was going to happen to me.

Imagine!  I went to gym class every day of sixth grade for at least nine months & that's all I really remember about it.  Trauma!

I don't know if I'm gymnophobic, but I certainly don't like to see people I know in states of undress.  Perhaps it's just prudishness, or perhaps it's some fear that there's something that's supposed to happen to my naked body that hasn't happened yet - & I'll see it on someone else - & that would freak me out as much seeing male pubic hair for the first time.

My show will probably not have anything to do with this story.  I just went where my memories led me.  Nakedness, so popular on the internet, has proved a bit of a weird tangent on this naked blog.

Last Night

First night on a Friday was about last night.  Why do we say "last night" & not "last morning" or "last afternoon"?  If we do say that, what do we mean?  Grammarians are asked!  Answers might even be found (that would be a nice thing)!  If you didn't listen last night, it'll be up for many nights in the future!

Radio show here: website.  Radio show in two parts: direct link to part one, direct link to part two.  List of what songs are in both parts: below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" Lead Belly _Country Blues Outlaws_
"Let's Go Again (Where We Went Last Night)" Hank Ballard _Sexy Ways: The Best Of Hank Ballard_
"Last Night I Dreamed" Max Bygraves _The Decca Years 1957-1962_

"Last Night" Mondo Crescendo _Beikoku-Ongaku Magazine # 11 - 1998 Early Summer_
"Last Night On The Back Porch" The Andrews Sisters _Sing The Dancing 20s_
"Last Night I Fell Asleep On Your Floor" Saturday Looks Good To Me _Saturday Looks Good To Me_
"Last Night I Heard You Crying In Your Sleep" Hank Williams _The Complete Hank Williams_
"After Last Night" The Rev-Lons _One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found_

"Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" The Smiths _Strangeways, Here We Come_
"Had A Dream Last Night" Sandie Shaw _The Greatest Hits Of Sandie Shaw_
"Something I Dreamed Last Night" Julie London _London By Night_
"Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" Indeep _The Disco Years Vol. 2: On The Beat (1978-1982)_

"On Her Doorstep Last Night" Percival Mackey & His Band _Songs The Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us_
"Where Did You Stay Last Night?" Famous Hokum Boys _The Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2: 1930 - 1931_
"You Weren't Ashamed To Kiss Me Last Night" Davis Sisters _The Davis Sisters, 1952-53 Vol. 2_

(part two)

"I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill" Joan Baez _Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival_
"I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night" Billy Bragg _The Internationale_
"Last Night" Laurel Aitken & The Soulmen _Trojan Mod Reggae Box Set_

"I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night (12" Mix)" The Thought _The Thought_
"Something Almost Brilliant Happened Last Night" The Siddeleys _Slum Clearance_
"Late Last Night" The Clean _Anthology_
"I Fell In Love Last Night" Heavenly _Heavenly Vs. Satan_

"Last Night" Me & You _Floating Heavy_
"Late Last Night" Slim Harpo _The Best Of Slim Harpo_
"Last Night I Dreamed You Kissed Me" Lillie Delk Christian _Louis Armstrong & The Blues Singers_
"Why Don't You Eat Where You Slept Last Night?" Zuzu Bollin _Ham Hocks & Cornbread_
"Last Nite" The Strokes _Is This It?_

"I Cried Last Night" The Shondells _The Ikon Records Story_
"Spent A Week With You Last Night" The Records _Smashes, Crashes & Near Misses_
"Late Last Night" The Boomtown Rats _The Fine Art Of Surfacing_

Gird Your Loins

According to these guys, "gird your loins" means "to prepare yourself mentally to do something difficult."  The site helpfully adds, "This phrase comes from the Bible, where girding up your loins meant to tie up long, loose clothes so that they were more practical when you were working or traveling."  & not something disgusting, which is totally what it sounds like.

Hey!  Self Help Radio is gearing up to get back into a regular schedule!  Show on Fridays!  Tomorrow I'll post last week's show!  No more vacation, taking time off, ignoring this blog!

Well, until tomorrow, that is.

Whither Last Night?

Eeek!  Self Help Radio's "last night" is on "this afternoon!"  In like half an hour!

Are you in Lexington?  You can listen to it on the air at 88.1 fm!

Are you anywhere else?  You can listen at the WRFL website!

Are you reading this any other time than now?  You might find the show on the Self Help Radio website!

I gotta go do a show!

Preface To Last Night: This Morning

Well.  I have emerged (I hope) from the other side of a sickness - though as I typed that, I coughed & sniffled, so maybe my body knows something I don't - & I think I am sufficiently ready to premiere Self Help Radio at 4pm on a Friday in Lexington.

Do you remember?  My last gig at KOOP in Austin was Fridays from 4:30 to 6:00  pm.  I don't know if it was at all successful - I had a weird issue with a person who hated my show & felt the need to vent under multiple identities on my old guestbook, so I definitely had people who did not like my show - but I got lots of calls & I had a ton of fun.  Perhaps that will be the same on these Friday afternoons.

I started Self Help Radio on Wednesday afternoons in Austin & ended on Friday afternoons.  I found myself doing it in the evening, afternoon & morning (not all at the same time) in West Virginia for a little under a year (the people of Huntington were distinctly underwhelmed by my show, no matter what time it was on).  When I came to RFL, I did it originally from 4:30 to 6:00 am (!) & then from midnight to 1:30 am before finding myself on Monday mornings for a year.

Is it a different vibe, afternoons?  I shudder to even think.  One thing: the station is very quiet in the mornings - the university isn't open yet, & as the morning wears on, people come in, lights come on, chains come off the door (they really do chain the doors closed at the UK Student Center, it's odd).  On Friday afternoon, the opposite will happen - offices will close, people will be leaving, chains will be put on doors (I've never actually seen that happen, though - perhaps they do that at midnight for creepier effect).

Also, I will have been awake longer than half an hour.  That might not necessarily be a good thing.

It's a new era!  Sort of like an era a while ago!  Probably not much of a difference either way!

1977!

I continue my tradition of, on my birthday week, going back in time & playing my favorite music from a previous year.  When I started the show, I started on the year of my birth, & now, mumble mumble years later, I've found myself in 1977.  Which was a grand year.  For music.  Not so much for me.

I didn't listen to much of this music myself in 1977, but it found me soon enough.  You can listen to lots of amazing stuff from that year now at the Self Help Radio website.  Or, if you'd rather not have to visit that place, you can simply listen to either part one or part two by clicking those links.  Below is listed all them songs I played.

Enjoy, & thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Warszawa" David Bowie _Low_

"Boredom" The Buzzcocks _Spiral Scratch_
"See No Evil" Television _Marquee Moon_
"Showroom Dummies" Kraftwerk _Trans Europe Express_
"Dandy In The Underworld" T.Rex _Dandy In The Underworld_

"Jocko Homo" Devo _Jocko Homo_
"(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)" The Stranglers _Rattus Norvegicus_
"Career Opportunities" The Clash _The Clash_
"In The City" The Jam _In The City_
"God Save The Queen" The Sex Pistols _Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols_

"The Medium Was Tedium" Desperate Bicycles _The Medium Was Tedium_

(part two)

"Blame It On Cain" Elvis Costello _My Aim Is True_
"Ice Cream Man" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Rock 'N' Roll With the Modern Lovers_
"6.4 Equals Make Out" Gary Wilson _You Think You Really Know Me_
"Love Comes In Spurts" Richard Hell & The Voidoids _Blank Generation_

"The Passenger" Iggy Pop _Lust For Life_
"Pulled Up" Talking Heads _Talking Heads: 77_
"Oh Bondage Up Yours!" X-Ray Spex _Oh Bondage Up Yours!_
"(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear" Blondie _Plastic Letters_

"Beauty & The Beast" David Bowie _Heroes_
"Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" The Ramones _Rocket To Russia_
"King's Lead Hat" Brian Eno _Before & After Science_
"Girl" Suicide _Suicide_
"Mannequin" Wire _Pink Flag_

"Memories" Leonard Cohen _Death Of A Ladies' Man_

Restructuring

If you pay any attention to anything I do in relation to Self Help Radio (which you don't - why would you?), you might be aware I have little rules I follow which are at best idiosyncratic or at worst a little stupid.  For example, I don't play songs by bands if their only relation to the week's theme is their name, like I didn't play the Flaming Lips on my "lips" show.  If the Flaming Lips had a song about lips, I would...  But they didn't (or didn't have a good one, I don't recall).

This blog also follows some dumb rules.  Here are a couple of them, but they're not exclusively the rules of this blog - I probably have more than I can conjure up right now.

One: I write in this blog five times a week.

Why?  Who knows?  When I check the one thing that I use to monitor tracking, Google Analytics, it tells me that no more than five people a day ever visit this blog, & usually one of them is me, since I re-read my posts after I've "published" them to double-check for spelling or whatever.

On several days in the last month, not a single person visited my blog, or just one person did - & that would be me!

I just do it because I decided to do it, & I scheduled the blog entries around my show.

Two: this is sort of how a week's worth of posts would go (my rules tell me), assuming that my show happens on day five.

First post: whatever I want to write about
Second post: whatever I want to write about
Third post: "Preface to" the theme - but still whatever I want to write about
Fourth post: "Whither" the theme?  Mostly to let folks know when the show's airing.
Fifth post: Links to website & show plus playlist.

Because my show's been on Mondays, I would write Thursday through Monday, taking Tuesday & Wednesday off.

I have to change that now.

Except.  I am doing a show this Monday - not Self Help Radio - but the season finale of Sugar Substitute.  What to do?

It looks like, with my show moving to Monday, my days will shift to accommodate that - I'll write Tuesdays through Saturdays.  But I can't this week.  Since I will briefly be on the air one last time on Monday.

I don't get two days off this week.  I have to write every damn day.

This is all mostly stuff for my head to think about while I ignore important things, but it is somewhat pressing.  & if I think of moving the days I write down to four - or even three - I imagine that I will have let myself down very much.  I certainly don't want to do that!

Why not?  Who knows!

A Day Without Stains

I had my teeth cleaned yesterday.  I don't want to say where, except that it was in fact at a dentist.  I can't say who cleaned my teeth - I don't remember my hygienist's name - I barely know what she looks like, since she has to wear a mask or she'll catch horrible diseases from me (&/or vice versa).  She tsk tsked a lot.  She didn't believe that I flossed regularly.  Why should she?  My teeth are a mess.

I don't want to tell you where I go because what if - as that gripping documentary Marathon Man suggested - dentists are spiteful & psychotic?  (Also, Nazis!)  It seems to be a profession to which folks with a mild case of sadism might flock.  "I spend my day with my hands in strangers' mouths & I make a ton of money!"  Lots of people go to dental school.  Perhaps there are interesting psychological profiles online.

My mother, who has none of her original teeth, & hasn't for decades, doesn't trust dentists.  She thinks they're a racket - that they deliberately put in bad fillings so you'll have to replace them in a few years.  I'm sure she also believes they plant bacteria in one's mouth so it'll grow & cause problems the next time you visit.  Every six months!  Genius!  Neither of these, by the way, would qualify as "weird" beliefs of hers.  These seem downright sensible compared to some of the way-out nonsense she thinks happens in the world.

It took two hours for my teeth to be cleaned, although somewhere between thirty-five & fifty minutes was the duration of the actual cleaning.  The place just doesn't really appear to give a shit - unless it's for surgical or orthodontic procedures.  They suggested some for me.  Gave me pamphlets.  I got the distinct impression my dentist wanted to call her colleagues & tell them she'd hooked another one!

As I was waiting to find out if something in my x-rays raised any alarms, I sat across from a woman who appeared to be as frustrated with the wait as I was.  She was fidgeting & looking around (as if her dentist or hygienist might be wandering the halls purposefully) & clucking at the clock on the wall (which read 9:45 am).  When a masked, gowned woman emerged to call her in, she said, "I'm so sorry, Mrs. [Whatever Her Name Was], we're just running a little behind."

The woman said, very matter-of-factly, "A little early to be running behind, isn't it?"

That almost made the morning worth it.

Change Comes

It's true, if change were a body part, change is afoot with Self Help Radio.  Obviously, one thing that won't change are my dreadful attempts at puns.  So bad, it's punishing.  But I digress.

This Monday there won't be a Self Help Radio.  That's a change, since there's been a Self Help Radio every Monday since early October, & many of the Mondays of the year before then.  Not only won't there be a Self Help Radio this Monday, there won't be any Self Help Radios on Mondays for the foreseeable future.

This Monday, from 8am on, is Democracy Now's coverage of the Inauguration.

I don't know who'll be on Mondays from 6 to 9 am after Self Help Radio goes, but certainly you should take some solace that after Democracy Now on Mondays on WRFL will still be Allen & the Number One Super Hour.  I do!

Self Help Radio is planning to relocate to Fridays from 4 to 6 pm.  I know what you're thinking - wasn't that your last timeslot back in Austin?

What?  You weren't thinking that?  Oh.

But here's the saddest thing, even sadder than the people who might accidentally stumble onto my show during the drive home on Friday afternoon, the saddest thing is, since I'm going down to two hours, I have to let go of the freeform indiepop show I started over two years ago: Sugar Substitute.

Named after a song by my favorite Austin band (& using that song in its intro), the radio show called Sugar Substitute was my attempt to play new releases & older things I'd forgotten, & had escaped its indiepop focus in recent years.

I will miss it - I am toying with the idea of keeping it alive perhaps in podcast form - but the last version to be aired on WRFL will be a two-hour season finale - not a series finale! - on Monday morning.

So: no Self Help Radio this Monday.  Two hour Sugar Substitute, the last of it for a while.  Then, inauguration report on Democracy Now on WRFL from 8am till I think 1pm.

Self Help Radio on Fridays, again?  Really?  Jeez.

George's Show

This was a hard show to do, & it's been harder putting it up on the Self Help Radio website.  I wanted to pay tribute in my own stupid way to a friend whose absence, more than a month after his death, still feels giant & empty inside me.  I maybe thought - & feared - that putting the show up, finishing it, would me I was trying to close a door, to "get past" his death.  Just looking at the picture above proves me to me that it isn't the case.  I am as broken-hearted now as I was the night he left us.

Anyway, here's the show.  It's in two parts, which are listed below.  Part one is here & part two is here.  I mentioned during the show that George would have been terribly bored by sitting & listening to songs about Georges other than himself.  He would've preferred to go on a walk, or have lots of food to eat, or (best of all) sleep on the sofa next to his mother - in-between walks & meals.

He was a remarkable person, was George the beagle, & I can't believe in the end how much I loved him.  I certainly wish I could have made a better tribute to him, & maybe one day I will.

(part one)

"George" Yo La Tengo _They Shoot, We Score_
"Silent George" Lucky Millinder & Myra Johnson _Risque Rhythms_
"Georgie" Pussycat _Mississippi_
"Gorgeous George" Edwyn Collins _Gorgeous George_

"Macho Beagle" Bunnygrunt _Standing Hampton 7"_
"Ole Lonesome George The Bassett" Tom T Hall _Songs Of Fox Hollow_
"George (& The North Woods)" Dave Dudley _George & The North Woods_
"George Says He Has Lost His Way in This World" The Clientele _That Night, A Forest Grew_
"Collie George" Frankie Jones _Jammys From The Roots (1977-1985)_

"Georgy Girl" The Seekers _Come The Day_
"Georgette Plays A Goth" Tullycraft _Every Scene Needs a Center_
"Madame George" Van Morrison _T. B. Sheets_
"George" The Wet Spots _Hello Kinky_

"John, Paul, George, & Ringo" The Bulldogs _Beatlemaniacs!!! The World Of Beatles Novelty Records_
"Janus, Jeanie, & George Harrision" Redd Kross _Neurotica_

(part two)

"George Of The Jungle" Weird Al Yankovic _Dare To Be Stupid_
"George Hamilton's Dead" Golden Dawn _Temple Cloud_
"George Orwell" Georgia _Ten;Ten_
"A Talk With George" Jonathan Coulton _JoCo Looks Back_

"Georgie Porgie" Jo-Ann Jackson & The Dreams _Groovin' At The Go-Go_
"Dance With Me Georgie" The Bobbettes _The Ultimate Collection_
"Shorty George" Lead Belly _Where Did You Sleep Last Night: Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 1_
"Cadillac George" The Travel Agency _The Travel Agency_
"My Friend George" Lou Reed _New Sensations_

"George" Antietam _Burgoo_
"George Had A Hat" Pere Ubu _The Tenement Year_
"Cowboy George" The Fall _Your Future Our Clutter_

"At Midnight I Will Kill George Lucas With A Shovel" Patton Oswalt _Werewolves & Lollipops_
"George Romero" Sprites _Modern Gameplay_

Whither 1977?

It has been a long day.  Possibly longer than all of 1977.

I will cover all the music I love from 1977 in two hours tomorrow from 7 to 9am.  I may also talk about what a horrible nine-year-old I was.  You know how horrible I am now?  I was 1/5 as horrible then - which is pretty godawful.

It's happening from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at the WRFL page.  Maybe later at the Self Help Radio page maybe?  I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't think I was terribly self-aware in 1977, because if I were, damn! the music was great.

Preface To 1977: I Really Thought I'd Have Last Week's Show Up By Now

When I started this blog, I was a mere stripling.  I am not sure what "stripling" mean, but I read that phrase somewhere.  I was actually in my late thirties when I started this blog, & I imagine that doesn't really fit with the definition of "stripling."  But what can I do?  I was home-schooled.

Actually, I was public-educationed, but I was public-educationed in the 70s & 80s, when it was so much better than today, so much so that being a dick about it is kinda mean.  Like, Newt Gingrich mean.  What I'm trying to say is, it's no excuse.  I shouldn't use phrases incorrectly.  I'm not a nineteen-year-old girl who has just discovered there's something called "the dictionary."

Or am I?

I spend too much time making excuses, & although I am famously lazy, I was mostly out of town today (in Louisville, if you must know) (also in the rain) (although it hit 70 degrees Fahrenheit today) (it's not at all wintry here) & when I got home I entertained some friends with vegan burgers & fries & episode of "The Wire."  I barely had time to work on my radio show (which is about the year 1977); I couldn't have gotten around to editing my previous radio show.

Oh, there is guilt felt aplenty.  Never doubt that.  The guilt of thirty-six years ago is as fresh as smelling salts under my nostrils.  It's not related to this blog which, it must be noted, was not even something I could have imagined thirty-six years ago (I hadn't even begun to think about light sabers yet things called "blogs").  But guilt feels like guilt & if anyone knows a great psychologist who works relatively cheap in the Lexington area, I'd love to talk to him/her/it.  Seriously.

In the meantime - comic book movies.  You know what I mean?

1977

My show this week is my birthday show (although my show this week happens six days before my birthday but what the hell am I supposed to do celebrate my birthday after my birthday that's just crazy) & every year since the start of my show on my birthday I've celebrated music from the year of my birth onward & now I've reached 1977.

I turned nine in 1977.  I was in third grade when I did, in Mrs. Carnes' class at Caldwell Elementary in Garland, Texas.  I wasn't much of a person.  I was noisy, obstreperous, prone to flights of fancy, & deeply selfish.  My mother raised her boys to be selfish.  Selfish but tied tight to her apron strings.

At some point in 1977, we moved away from the part of the world where I had lived for as long as I can remember.  In Garland, there's a road called Kingsley Avenue that "starts" in the east at the intersection of Centerville & Broadway.  It travels west until, for no apparent reason, it becomes Walnut Hill road somewhere in the first few blocks of Dallas.

Two roads that intersect Kingsley Avenue - Saturn Road & Garland Road - form the barrier of where I had lived up to that time.  My mother, recently separated & then, in 1974, divorced, lived in shabby apartments along Kingsley Avenue after her marriage fell apart.  In 1977, we lived on a road a block parallel from Kingsley, called Cranford Road, in apartments called Little Brook.  There were actually six of us - my mother, my little brother, my sister Karin, & two older brothers.  Oh, & me.  Possibly the least of them all.

After the school year, we moved "across town" - it was at best five miles, probably less - to an apartment complex on Fifth Street called Villa Cordoba.  (Interestingly, it still stands, some thirty-five years later, & it's called Garland Oaks now, which is slightly ironic, because at this point the people who live there are overwhelmingly Hispanic.  Not in 1977!  There were possibly fewer than six black families at the time - the rest were white.)  My mother's fear of the world kept us from riding our bikes to school every day - instead, she made our older brothers - who had either moved to the same complex or were already there - take us to school.  My fourth grade year, I remember, was full of absences, as my brothers were incredibly unreliable.  It didn't affect me much, as I was a good student & could catch up, but it was bad for my little brother, who was never terribly good at school.

One day I should talk about fourth grade.  Mrs. Harris was a horrible teacher.  It wasn't a good year.  But not here.  I wasn't in fourth grade then.

I wish I knew about my mother's financial situation & the really desperate straits we lived in, but of course at nine I had no real idea about anything.  I loved swimming in the apartment's pool, although I needed someone there for me & my siblings would hardly ever do something that nice for their annoying little brothers - my sister (& de facto babysitter) Karin was all of 15 & boy crazy, & my two older brothers were deep into drug culture.

One of the first friends I made at Villa Cordoba was a girl named Christi, with whom I played "dolls," that is, I used my GI Joes & she her Barbies to "play house."  It was quite thrilling for me & I imagine she was the first girl for whom I ever "felt anything," whatever that might mean.  The boys who lived in the apartment complex, my little brother included, were generally very crude to her, though I didn't really understand what any of it meant.  She was a pretty blonde girl - I can't for the life of me remember what she looked like, although I can remember exactly what the front of her apartment looked like - & her mother, who seemed more a grandmother - was very protective.

As anyone who's lived in apartments knows, tenancy there is transient.  She was gone within the year.  We, on the other hand, stayed at the Villa Cordoba until I finished the eighth grade.

None of the music I will play on my show this week is anything I was listening to at age nine.  I liked listening to the radio, to what would later be called "classic rock."  Sometimes I taped it on a random cassette, but it wasn't important to me.  I hadn't discovered the Beatles yet.  I hadn't yet been so alienated from the world that I needed to find far-away voices who sounded like me to speak to me.

But holy shit if I were self-aware there was some awesome music in 1977.  The fact that none of my older siblings noticed or brought it home is a fundamental reason why we were never friends, & don't really communicate with each other in our adult lives.

This Overwhelming Lickspittle Rag

I know, I haven't posted this week's show, my tribute to my lovely dog, George, yet.  There are perhaps many reasons.

1) I'm lazy.

Well, hell, just come right out & say it why don't you jeez.

2) I'm still a little sad from the loss.

Which is true, but it shouldn't keep me from posting a radio show.

3) Aliens drank all my beer!!!!

I'm sorry, I have no idea who I am any more.

4) I have been vaguely busy & haven't found the time.

Yeah, maybe you'll buy that one.

5) I'm waiting for another show because otherwise the website will be lonesome with two shows on it for 2013.

Is that really true or is it...

6) I have to move the front page to a 2012.html file & change all the other pages to reflect that & it's not a lot of work but wah wah wah see # 1 above.

Good grief.