Whither 1968 (Again)?

It's the eleventh anniversary of Self Help Radio!  Can you believe someone out there has allowed this show to go on for eleven years?  The quality police have been sleeping on the job,

As I was explaining yesterday, I have taken to using the anniversary of my show as a chance to revisit an old theme.  I have new themes every week; but surely something new has been recorded in the intervening years (or I've discovered something that I previously didn't know existed) that would fit an old theme.  It's a chance to re-do the show, or even undo it.

I decided to re-do my show about my favorite music from 1968, actually, by un-doing it.  That sounds better than what's really happening: I'm just playing music that I didn't play the first time around.  I'm also playing music I totally forgot about the first time around.  I didn't play anything from White Light/White Heat!  What the hell!  But my show was only an hour long then.  I say as if it's an excuse.

So you won't hear the Beatles, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Kinks, Johnny Cash, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, the Zombies, Can, Herbie Hancock, or Peter Brötzmann tonight.  I played them the first time I did a 1968 show.  Luckily there were lots & lots of other great records (& some utterly ridiculous ones) that came out that year.  I'll be playing those!

I would also like to say out loud that reminding myself of what music I really loved from any particular year has been made sooooo easy thanks to the Rate Your Music web site.  I don't agree with probably most of their rankings but it does serve as a handy list of releases from a particular year.  It took hours off my preparation - I would otherwise have been looking at copyright notices & trying to determine from memory when something came out.

It's on tonight!  From 10pm to midnight!  88.1 fm in Lexington!  wrfl.fm online!

Listen!  It'll be a happy anniversary!

Preface To 1968: What?!? 1968 Again?!?

This week is my eleventh anniversary week.  My first official Self Help Radio show was October 9, 2002.  During this week, I revisit an old theme.

Now, eleven years make a lot of themes.  There's a lot I could revisit.  It's a hard decision to make - but I also don't want to repeat myself - some themes I might not be able to improve upon with a second chance.

I had an idea during that first year - it was actually barely four months into the show - I had no idea that I would be doing this show for eleven years! - the idea I had was that, during the week of my birthday, I would play music that I loved most from the year of my birth - & then move forward each year.  So the next year, I'd do 1969 (I was born in 1968), & the year after that, 1969, etc.

It occurred to me that I might want to revisit 1968 again.  But what did I play the first time?


"Julia" The Beatles _The Beatles_
"Weilder Of Words" Tyrannosaurus Rex _Our People Were Fair & Wore Stars In Their Hair_
"Animal Farm" The Kinks _The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society_
"Folsom Prison Blues" Johnny Cash _Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison_

"Dear Doctor" Rolling Stones _Beggars Banquet_
"What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?" Frank Zappa _We're Only In It For The Money_
"The Way Young Lovers Do" Van Morrison _Astral Weeks_
"Maybe After He's Gone" Zombies _Odessey & Oracle_
"Uphill" Can _Delay_

"The Sorceror" Herbie Hancock _Speak Like A Child_
"Machine Gun (take two)" Peter Brötzmann Octet _Machine Gun_

I also played a Leonard Cohen song from his first album, but I have discovered that his first record was released in 1967, so I cheated on that.  Oh my.

The point is, why play it again?  & if so, what should I play?  If I've already played the music that I loved most from 1968, what comes next?  Two hours of second best?  Or what?

I'll try & answer that tomorrow.

Writerly Advice

I was up at the radio station today & one of the student programmers was trying to finish an assignment for a creative writing class.  The assignment was to come up with five or so ideas for a short story.  He seemed put out, & so I suggested he write about some of the ridiculous things that had happened at the radio station.

He said that he always thought writing about his own life was lame.  That seems to be a new thing - back in the day when I wanted to be a writer, the idea was that you wrote about what you knew, & what you knew was of course your own life & experiences.

By the way, yes, I wanted to be a writer.  The writing on this blog should serve as the reason that I didn't.  I figured out before it was too late that I wasn't a very good writer at all.

Anyway, I confessed to the student that I wanted to be a writer & that all I ever really wrote about was myself.  I said, "I kind of always wanted to be like Jack London, you know, going out & having adventures that I could write about."

"Why didn't you?" he said.

"I realized," I said, "that I didn't really care too terribly much about other people & therefore couldn't muster up the interest to write about them."

That may seem a little self-involved, but it's more or less true - I could have gone out & had some kind of experience but I probably wouldn't have paid a hell of a lot of attention to the people around me & definitely wouldn't have taken the time to try to capture their dialect or the things that interested them.  Because chances are they wouldn't have interested me.  Writers, it seems, should have hungrier minds than I have.

As well, I've never been good at extracting wisdom or insight from experiences I had.  A short story of the experience would be more like a set of declarative sentences stating facts than something that wrung meaning out of a life event.  When I did try to do that, ouch, it felt forced.

Have I ever shared one of my short stories here?  They're not very good.  They all end with the protagonist (usually me) just leaving,  A cafe, a house, a room, a car.  Exiting.  In general, they have no plot, & they don't begin or end.  They just kind of stop continuing to the next page.

I urged him to write about things that happened to him, though.  What the hell.  It could just be one idea of his five.

I don't know if he took my advice.

Self Help Radio 131004: Gangs

Oh shit.  Oh shit.  I'm supposed to say something about this week's show but I haven't prepared anything.  Uh.  I did a radio show.  Um.  You know, like you do.  Like I do.  Friday I think.  What was the theme?  How the fuck should I know?  Top of the page?  Oh.  Gangs.  Yeah, it was about gangs.  It was full of songs.  I might need to change my medication.

Can we just say "it's now at the website?  What?  Tell them, not you?  Tell who?  Fuck, is this live?  What?  Part one?  Part two?  List of songs?  I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.

I only wish someone loved me.

(part one)

"That Old Gang Of Mine" Billy Murray & Ed Smalle _The Denver Nightingale_
"Construction Gang" Butterbeans & Susie _The Complete Joseph "King" Oliver Heritage 1923-1931, Volume 2_
"Heigh-Ho The Gang's All Here" Joan Crawford & Fred Astaire _The History of Pop-Radio 1933-1936_

"I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now" Jimmie Rodgers _The Singing Brakeman_
"Chain Gang Blues" Johnny Temple _Broke, Black & Blue, Vol. 4: Jumpin' At The Club Blue Flame_
"Chain Gang Boun'" Josh White _Songs For Political Action: Folk Music, Topical Songs & The American Left 1935-1954 CD2 Theatre & Cabaret Performers 1936-1941_
"Chain Gang" Bobby Scott _The London American Label - Year By Year - 1956_
"Chain Gang" Otis Redding _The Soul Album_

"Join The Gang" David Bowie _London Boy_
"Gangster Of Love (Pts. 1 & 2)" Jimmy Norman _What It Is! Funky Soul & Rare Grooves (1967-1977)_
"Liquid Gang" T.Rex _Zinc Alloy_
"I'm The Leader Of The Gang (I Am!)" Gary Glitter _Remember Me This Way_

"Gangsters" The Specials _The Specials_
"Plastic Gangsters" The 4-Skins _The Good, The Bad, & The 4-Skins_

(part two)

"Gangster Funk" Crime _Gangster Funk_
"Gangster Of Love" Talking Heads _Sand In The Vaseline_

"Gangsta Gangsta" NWA _Straight Outta Compton_
"Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta" Geto Boys _10th Anniversary: Rap-A-Lot Records Hip Hop_
"Gangsta Bitch" Apache _Apache Ain't Shit_

"Street Gang" A.R.E. Weapons _A.R.E. Weapons_
"First Of The Gang To Die" Morrissey _You Are The Quarry_
"Rumble With The Gang Debs" Tullycraft _Disenchanted Hearts Unite_
"Cape & Stick Gang" Momus _The Ultraconformist_

"Ol' Gang" The Fall _Levitate_
"Sheena's In A Goth Gang" The Cramps _Big Beat From Badsville_

Whither Gangs?

I told someone last week that I've always had that Groucho Marx inclination - "I don't care to belong to any club that would have me as a member" - although in some senses WRFL & the other radio stations I've been involved with are kinds of clubs & I was happy they had me as a member (though of course deejays is generally a solitary activity).  But is WRFL a gang?  We should be getting our jackets any day.

I should've written something about how an average day at WRFL makes Sons Of Anarchy seem tame.

"Gang" has many meanings & we're not just going to talk about street gangs or biker gangs or gang bangs or bang gangs tonight.  (I don't think we're going to be talking about gang bangs at all, actually.  They're gross.)  The songs will explore all kinds of gangs.  But I do need to start reading up about gang activity in the United States.

The show's on tonight (!) from 10 to midnight (Eastern) on 88.1 fm WRFL.  You can listen at if you so choose.  You don't even have to be part of the WRFL gang!

Preface To Gangs: Unedited Gangsta

I'll talk a little tomorrow about Gangsta Rap & even play a couple of songs, but I can't play their full, unedited versions.  Even with safe harbor, WRFL doesn't allow so many bad words & n-bombs.  Which is a shame.  A couple of these songs are kind of amazing.  Here are their original versions courtesy of Youtube - listen tomorrow to the show for awkward edits:





Interestingly, both unedited versions are longer than their radio-friendly versions.

The Obligatory Post About "Breaking Bad"

I watched Breaking Bad.  I enjoyed the hell out of it.  I am going to miss it.

I mean, I've watched every episode of lots of television shows now, & usually I keep watching them long after I've stopped enjoying them (Weeds, anyone?).  It was nice to have a series stay strong to the very end.

I find myself looking at this picture I posted to Facebook with the line "Breaking Bad's shocking ending spoiler alert!":

I thought it might make me a little sad, but I now find this picture a little creepy.  I mean, the more I think about it, the more I feel like this is not the picture that the actors posed for.  Aaron Paul looks really, really confused & a little uncomfortable.  Bryan Cranston looks the very definition of  bemused.  Why does Anna Gunn seem so pleased?

There's got to be another, more posed photo of the three of them in bed.  There's got to.

I'll go look around for it now.

Also, if you're up at 5am tomorrow morning, I'll be on the radio.  Just putting it out there.

Self Help Radio 092713: Lines

Here's something dumb: every time I think of songs about "lines," the Thompson Twins song "Lies" pops into my head, but I hear the chorus as "Lines, lines, lines, yeah."  I should've played it.  That would have shamed my brain & its diminishing powers!

Instead, here are a bunch of songs about lines.  All different kinds of line.  You can see the list below.  You can listen to the show at the Self Help Radio web site, or you can listen to the show direct-like by clicking here: part I &/or part II.

Thanks for listening between the lines!

(part one)

"On The Picket Line" Manhattan Chorus _Songs For Political Action: Folkmusic, Topical Songs, & The American Left 1926-1953, Vol. 1 - The Leftist Roots Of The Folk Revival
"Rock Island Line" Lead Belly _Lead Belly & Woody Guthrie: Folkways, The Original Vision_
"I Walk The Line" The Everly Brothers _The Price Of Fame_
"Walkin' Down The Line" Bob Dylan _The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1_

"Lines" Noh Mercy _Noh Mercy_
"Walked In Line" Joy Division _Still_
"Parallel Lines (Demo)" Subway Sect _Babylon's Burning: The Rough & Ready Rise Of Punk 1973 - 1978_
"Head Lines" George Carlin _On The Road_

"Life On The Line" Fad Gadget _Under The Flag_
"Laugh Lines" Cocteau Twins _Peppermint Pig_
"All Lined Up" Shriekback _Care_
"88 Lines About 44 Women" The Nails _Mood Swing_

"White Lines (Don't Do It)" Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel _The Best Of Sugar Hill Records_

(part two)

"The Bottom Line" Big Audio Dynamite _This Is Big Audio Dynamite_
"Disco Hotline" National Lampoon _That's Not Funny, That's Sick_
"Telegraph Line" Jaime Aff & Christine Langner _Schoolhouse Rock: Science Rock_
"Breaking Lines" The Pastels _C86_

"Between The Lines" The Sullivans _The Sullivans_
"Circle Line" Rodney Allen _Happysad_
"Sign On The Line" The Fizzbombs _Sign On The Line_
"Waterline" Lloyd Cole _Lloyd Cole_
"High Tension Line" The Fall _Shift-Work_

"I'm The End Of The Family Line" Morrissey _Kill Uncle_
"Going For A Walk With A Line" Momus _Folktronic_
"Punchlines" The Lucksmiths _A Good Kind Of Nervous_
"Wichita Lineman" Optiganally Yours _Spotlight On Optiganally Yours_

"Grey Lines" Arson Welles _Inside The System Is The Spark_
"Crooked Lines" The Go-Betweens _Bright Orange Bright Yellow_
"End Of The Line" Nina Simone _Four Women_

Whither Lines?

I can no longer walk a straight line.  There are lines all over my aging face.  I can't even see the lines I used to think I could read between.  (Okay, that last one was me ripping off Brian Eno.)  I should do a radio show about lines.

I will!  In an hour, on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington! You can listen online at WRFL dot fm!  Call or come by!  I promise, there won't be a line.

Just lots of songs about lines.

Preface To Lines: What If I Can't Remember My Lines?

I used to think I had a good memory, until I realized how fallible memory is.  But I have been able to memorize lots of things in my life, including pretty much every Elvis Costello song before 1990, & all the Smiths songs too.  & more.

But I've never had to memorize an entire play.  I knew a woman who had acted in a couple of plays with the Shakespeare At Winedale program in the 1990s - something I didn't know about until long after I'd finished school, or else I might have wanted to audition for it, & spend a summer doing.

(It's funny, at the radio station the other day, one of the kids there returned from a job fair & was complained how square everyone there was - how they were mainly hiring accountants.  But she mentioned that someone was there from the State Department & that person said, "If you work for the State Department, you will probably spend your entire career overseas."  I had never heard that before. I never went to a job fair.  I want to work for the State Department at the age of 22!)

I have had to memorize things for class before, & I have gotten extremely nervous doing so.  Here are two stories about that (both involve Shakespeare):

First story.  In 10th grade, we read Julius Caesar, & we had to come after class (I guess to spare us the embarrassment of performing for our classmates?) (or perhaps so the teacher didn't want to waste time it would take to have a class stumble through the lines) & recite three passages.  They were Caesar's "cowards die a thousand times" speech, Antony's funeral oration for Caesar, & Antony's last speech over Brutus' body.  I was able to get through the first two with no problem, but toward the end I began to comprehend the enormity of my situation: I was reciting for a grade words that I might or might not have in my head to a woman sitting very close to me who could fail me if I messed up.  It didn't help that I was looking at her & she kept writing things down that I wasn't able to read.  I naturally became very nervous.

I did my best to keep it together but no one told my leg that.  It began to tremble at the last speech ("This was the noblest Roman of them all") & I struggled through those few lines while trying to keep my body from spazzing out.

The result?  At the end the teacher, Mrs. Phillips, said to me, "I was very impressed how emotional you got at the end of the speech there.  I really felt you understood Antony's words."

Oh good lord.

Second story.  A couple of years later, in Mrs. Kilpatrick's class, I had to memorize the Malcolm & Macduff dialogue (Act 4, Scene 3).  Now I can't remember who I was, but since we had to perform this in front of the class, I wanted to make sure I did a good job, & I memorized the whole damn thing.  The thing was, I was doing it with someone else, a fellow whose name I won't mention but he was a tall, blond, good-looking & well-liked fellow who also may have been the Senior Class President.

(I have no idea whether this is true or not, since I don't really trust my memory, but I do remember looking him up a few years ago & finding a person with his name teaching at a conservative college out west.  He had apparently gone into ROTC after high school.  That did not surprise me.)

I don't recall if I were Malcolm or Macduff & none of that matters.  The other person didn't really learn his lines so I would say mine perfectly & he would need cueing from the teacher.  The point of this story is that, when we were out in the halls practicing, he said something to me that made me realize I wasn't such a mutant after all.  He said, "Dickerson, man, I really gotta take a shit right now."

I had always thought that it was something defective about my G-I tract that nervousness made me need to void my bowels.  If someone as normal & well-adjusted as the Senior Class President had the same reaction, that was a wow moment.  I didn't even mind that he fucked up the scene, which I had spent hours more time on than he did: I felt a little less alone in the world.

Oh, & yeah: people in my high school called me by my last name.  Mainly the boys did, but I didn't really talk to girls, & they most certainly didn't talk to me.  I think it's because of gym class.  We were all called by our last names in gym class.

My Favorite Church Sign

This is one of my favorite church signs (the sign, not the slogan, though I don't like this slogan).  I pass by it every day, & the people who maintain the sign change it every week.  & it's usually a little embarrassing.

Like this one: I don't think the people who put the sign up realize that when you put words in quotation marks, you imply that you don't quite mean what you're saying.  As the Wikipedia notes in its article on quotation marks:


Another common use of quotation marks is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words:
He shared his "wisdom" with me.
The lunch lady plopped a glob of "food" onto my tray.

The sign therefore suggests that the things that God (assuming it's the Christian god) does are "impossible" - meaning he does things that aren't really impossible at all.  The truly impossible things - influencing sports contests through prayer, creating storms to punish behavior he doesn't approve of, giving powers to heal to people who seems like charlatans - he really can't do.

I don't think they meant it that way.  Oops!

This week's - I don't have a picture - says, "HAVE A GOD DAY."  Really?  Assuming they mean the Christian god, are we supposed to walk with prostitutes, lepers, & the poor, & try to heal them, & spread the message that we are the son of the one true god up there?  Should we treat our supper as our last?  Should we go to the desert & fast until we hallucinate that we do battle with a demon?

Or do we have to go back & create the universe?  That could take some doing.  "Let there be light!" I would scream - & then my wife would flip a switch & call me a weirdo.

It's easier, I guess, than having a Zeus day, I suppose.  Jesus, how hard must it be to try to rape someone in a swan outfit?  Never mind as a shower of gold!

Self Help Radio 130920: Boom!

Here is my radio show designed to promote this year's Boomslang Festival by not playing any of the bands that appeared but instead concentrating on playing songs in which someone sang "boom" at least once.  I just can't understand why people don't pay me to promote events.

Boom!  The show is here!  Boom boom!  It's in two parts: boom goes one, boom goes two!  Boom boom boom!  The list of booming songs is below.

Hope you went to Boomslang & had a great time!

(part one)

"Boom Pacha Boom" Billy Byrd & His Penguins _Great Googa Mooga_
"Sh-Boom" The Crew Cuts _The Best Of The Crew Cuts: The Mercury Years_
"Chick-A-Boom (That's My Baby)" Flamingos _The Complete Chess Masters_

"Boom Boom" John Lee Hooker _Burnin'_
"Boom Boom Baby" Huelyn Duvall _Is You Is Or Is You Ain't_
"Boob, Deedy Boom" Claudia Baran _Boob, Deedy Boom_
"Boom Oo Yatta Ta Ta" Morecambe & Wise _British Comedy Classics_
"The Boom Boom Man" Freddy Cannon _Freddy Cannon: His Latest & Greatest_

"Sophisticated Boom Boom" The Shangri-Las _The Leader Of The Pack_
"Boom Bang-A-Bang" Lulu _Really!! They Sing It In German! Vol. 1_
"Boom Shacka Laka" Hopeton Lewis & Chosen Few _Gay Jamaican Independence Time_
"Chick-A-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)" Daddy Dewdrop _Super Hits Of The '70s: Have A Nice Day! Vol. 5_
"Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom Boom)" The Staple Singers _Soul Hits Of The 70s: Didn't It Blow Your Mind!, Vol. 4_

"Things That Go Boom In The Night" Bush Tetras _Boom In The Night (1980-83)_
"The Rock-A-Boom" The Revillos _Rev Up_

(part two)

"Boom Boom" Trio _Trio & Error_
"Boing Boom Tschak" Kraftwerk _Electric Cafe_
"Sonic Boom Boy" Westworld _Rockulator_

"The Boomin' System" LL Cool J _Mama Said Knock You Out_
"Boom" Flight Of The Conchords _Flight Of The Conchords_
"Doin' The Boom Boom" Eli 'Paperboy' Reed & The True Loves _Roll With You_
"Chick A Boom" Joe Bataan _Ursula 1000: Ursadelica_

"Bim Boom Bam" The Rip-Off Artist _In Through The Out Door_
"Does Your Heart Go Boom?" Helen Love _Radio Hits 3_
"Boom Boom" Robbert Bobbert & The Bubble Machine _Robbert Bobbert & The Bubble Machine_
"Sonic Boom" Andy Patridge _Fuzzy Warbles_
"Satanic Boom Boom Head" Thee Michelle Gun Elephant _Gear Blues_

"What Goes Boom" Pixies _EP1_
"Boom Boom" The Stranglers _Giants_
"Killed By The Boom" The Veils _Sun Gangs_

Whither Boom?

Boom show because Boomslang.  Duh.

I am very tired so hilarity &/or embarrassment will probably ensue.  The only difference between that & a regular show, I suppose, might be the hilarity.

Tonight!  10pm to midnight.  88.1 fm in Lexington & the surround booms; wrfl dot fm everywhere.

Unless you're at Boomslang, which is where you should be.

Preface To Boom: Slang

Seriously, WRFL is bringing 42 bands here.  Over three nights.  At lots of venues.  & I'm helping.

Boomslang Number 5, 2013.

You should really come out.  It's going to be great!

What Is This Boomslang I've Heard So Much About?

Is it a music festival?  Is it a "celebration of sound & art"?  Is it a deadly snake?  Is it happening in Lexington this weekend?

Yes.

Find out more: Boomslang Web Central.

Here's a picture of a music festival:

Doesn't that look like fun?

Plain Ol' Chant Show

Eep!  It's Boomslang week at WRFL so as a volunteer I am waist-deep in work for the festival!  I barely got around to editing this!

A show about chant.  Chanting.  Chants.  Get it?  It's now at Self Help Radio web site.  It's in two parts: one part, two part.  Red part, blue part.  List on chantsongs below.

See you at Boomslang!

(part one)

"The Chant (Take 1)" Jelly Roll Morton _The Jelly Roll Morton Centennial: His Complete Victor Recordings_
"Chant In The Night" Sidney Bechet _Ken Burns Jazz: Sidney Bechet_
"Hawaiian War Chant (Ta-Hu-Wa-Hu-Wai)" Spike Jones _The Best Of Spike Jones & His City Slickers_

"Gloria XI" Edmundite Novices _Gregorian Chants_
"Chant Of The Jungle" Sid Bass & His Orchestra _The History Of Space Age Pop, Vol. 2: Mallets In Wonderland_
"Cubano Chant" Martin Denny _Ultra-Lounge Tiki Sampler_
"Fishing Chant" Del Vikings _An Angel Up In Heaven_
"Indian Alphabet Chant (A I Iddy I O O O)" Lucia Pamela _Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela_

"In Praise Of Rama" Deben Bhattacharya _Religious Chants From India_
"Maori Indian Battle Chant" Ella Jenkins _You Sing A Song & I'll Sing A Song_
"Monk Chant" The Monks _Black Monk Time_
"The Chant" Keith Everett _The Chant_
"Hari Om & Deva Chant Interlude" Bobby Callender _The Way (First Book Of Experiences)_

"Three Mantra Chant" Buddhist Monks Of Maitri Vihar Monastery _Tibetan Mantras & Chants_
"Mean Machine Chant" The Last Poets _Change The Beat: The Celluloid Records Story 1979-1987_

(part two)

"Chant To Mother Earth" Blo _Nigeria 70: The Definative Story Of 1970's Funky Lagos_
"Chant Down Babylon" Junior Byles & Rupert Reid _129 Beat Street: Ja-Man Special 1975-1978_
"Chant To Jah" Dr. Alimantado _Born For A Purpose_

"Death Chant (Honor Song)" Leroy Selam _Folk Music In America, Vol. 15: Religious Music - Solo & Performance_
"Let's All Chant" Michael Zager Band _Let's All Chant_
"Chant" Public Image Limited _Metal Box_
"Chant Number Nine" Axemen _Three Virgins, Three Versions, Three Visions_

"Azaan" Fatima _Surahz Muslim Temple Chants_
"Chant" Robyn Hitchcock _I Often Dream Of Trains_
"Happiness Is Just A Chant Away" Chumbawamba _Shhh_
"Chant With Me" Nib The Psychic Fiend _Sonic Damn Nation_

"Traditional Chant" Igbayen _Live From Festival Au Desert, Timbuktu_
"Chant Of The Paladin" Dead Can Dance _The Serpent's Egg_

Whither Chant?

I don't chant - I'm not a member of any religious or spiritual group.  I don't even meditate - though I'd like to.  I suppose I enjoy songs with chanting in them.  & I enjoy chants - if you're saying "songs" in French.  I enjoy songs, & I am sometimes pretentious.

Still, at some point in the past year I noticed that chants were coming at me from different points & at different angles.  I thought to myself, I should do a show about chants.  & now it's going to happen.

That seems a prosaic explanation, which has only the virtue of being as true as it's boring.  Most of my shows come from pretty banal origins.  One day I'll have an insight or epiphany perhaps, & maybe even be struck by an actual muse.  But really, Self Help Radio gets an idea from somewhere, lets it sit in some sort of quiet for reflection (though not chanting), & then emerges, somewhat disheveled, as the uncomfortable radio show it is.

It's on tonight!  On 88.1 fm WRFL!  From ten pm to midnight!  Eastern time zone!  Also online at WRFL dot FM!

I'll probably just chant through the airbreaks.  You have been warned.

Preface To Chants: What Kind Of Chants Should I Take?

That's an awful pun, sorry.

I knew a woman once who was Japanese who worked with me.  She had married an American GI & he had brought her back to the States.  But their marriage fell apart so when I knew her she was single.  Not that I had any interest in dating her.  She was quite sweet & pleasant to work with, though it was often amusingly difficult to communicate with her.

She was usually having financial issues, probably because of her divorce & being separated from her family.  (I got the impression her family frowned upon her marrying an American.)  She would ask all of her co-workers advice about purchasing things, & she would openly daydream about things she really wanted - sometimes clothes, sometimes jewelry, sometimes big-ticket items like property or a car.

One day she was talking about an expensive car she wanted.  She said, "I am going to chant for it."

I said, thinking she was mistranslating a word, "Do you mean, 'pray for it'?"

She said, "Oh no, I don't pray.  I am a Buddhist."

I was a little perplexed by this.  Weren't Buddhists, I wondered aloud, supposed to be detached from the material world, since desire caused suffering?

She laughed at me as if I were naïve.  She explained to me that you could use Buddha energy to make things happen for you.  The Buddha wanted you to be happy!

I of course thought she was full of beans & had discovered some bastardized - or, worse, Americanized - form of Buddhism that completely inverted the teachings of the Buddha.  The conversation I recreate above is a summary of what we talked about, not actual quotes.  I wouldn't remember exact words anyway, but it would have covered more than five minutes to share a few sentences with her - her English wasn't great.

This first-person narrative online explains to me something I never bothered to follow up on: this is apparently a form of Buddhism called "Nichiren Buddhism."  The Wikipedia page establishes this as a venerable strain of Buddhism, older than Protestantism.  However, the blogger's experience suggests that it's exactly the sort of Buddhism my old co-worker was practicing.  "Earthly desires equal enlightenment," a practitioner tells the narrator.  She points out that they were not chanting "for altruistic things."

Hm, do I currently know any practicing Buddhists?  I should ask them about this group.  If you read this & you have something to add or correct, please do so!

I don't remember my co-worker's name - it's been over twenty years since I last saw her - but I thought about her when I decided to do a show about chanting.  I hope she's gotten everything in her life she's chanted for!

I Wish I Had More Things To Say About The State That I Am In

I have the suspicion (said he) that a lot of what you say is wrong.

If that's true (said I), why don't you attempt to disprove these things I say?

I would, I would (said he), but I don't think I know enough.

Ah! (said I) so you don't know that I am wrong but you feel that I am wrong.

I don't think (said he) it's coming entirely from a feeling.  For example, part of what you're saying may contradict something that I know to be true, but just a part, so I can't entirely dismiss what you're saying.  However, that part is crucially important to your argument, & so it tends to make me distrust the entire thing.

Shall I even ask (said I) what part of what I've suggested goes against something you know is true?

Well of course (said he) I can't think about anything in particular you've said right now.

Of course (said I).

Please don't be sarcastic (said he).  Some people don't have a quick mind.  Or good recall.

Then perhaps (said I) when I say something that seems to be untrue or, as you put it, "wrong," you can speak up at the time or while we're talking instead of suggesting, like you have, that two or three incidents have invalidated most of what I say.

You know (said he), you have I guess it's a rhetorical trick or something because you've managed to make it sound like it's just been two or three times instead of most of the time.

Well (said I) you can't even give me one example, which makes it a pretty bold statement since you & I have been having conversations for years.  Or...

What (said he)?

Or perhaps (said I), this is something you've only noticed in the past few months.

No (said he).

Which begs the questions (said I), why bring it up now?

I don't know (said he).  Maybe I've been meaning to & it just came out.  What were we talking about before?

The new Star Trek movie (said I).

Oh yeah (said he).

In which case (said I) I don't know if anything I said at that time might be construed as wrong, as I was just giving you my opinion of the film.  You might disagree with my opinion, but I don't think you can say an opinion is "wrong."

You can't (said he)?

I don't think so (said I).  At best an opinion can be informed.

What do you mean (said he)?

I mean (said I), I can make a comment about a jazz record like "I don't like this record," but since I'm not a huge fan of jazz or since I don't know much about it, my opinion would mean less to someone who knows way more about jazz than I do.

Oh (said he).  Maybe I wasn't talking about opinions then.

You don't remember what you were talking about! (said I).

You always have to be right (said he).

Tennessee

I got a smoldering call during my Tennessee show (not on the air) in which a curt fellow, sounding as if he was talking with his mouth pressed up against the phone's microphone, asked me, without saying hello, "Well, what part of Tennessee are you from?"  I told him I was actually from Texas.  It seemed to flummox him that someone would ever want to do a radio show with songs about Tennessee unless they felt some sort of birth-related connection to the state.  When I pressed him about why this concerned him, he said, "I just don't like Tennessee."  Fair enough!

Someone from Tennessee was listening in, however, & he said the show made him feel less homesick.

Even if you're not from Tennessee, you can feel less homesick by listening to the show now at the Self Help Radio web presence.  Or you can just click to hear one of the two parts: part I | part II.  The list of Volunteer State Songs are below!

Thanks for listening, Kentucky (& the rest of you)!

(part one)

"On The Banks Of The Old Tennessee" Mr. & Mrs. J.W. Baker _Flowers In The Wildwood: Women In Early Country Music_
"Wreck Of The Tennessee Gravy Train" Uncle Dave Macon _Hard Times In The Country_
"In The Hills Of Tennessee" Jimmie Rodgers _The Singing Brakeman_

"Tennessee Dog" Jimmie Strothers _Folk Music In America, Vol. 11: Songs Of Humor & Hilarity_
"Easin' Back To Tennessee" Sleepy John Estes _Jailhouse Blues_
"Tennessee Border" Tennessee Ernie Ford _16 Tons Of Boogie: The Best Of Tennessee Ernie Ford_
"Tennessee Saturday Night" Ella May Morse _The Very Best Of Ella Mae Morse_
"In Sunny Tennessee (with Hal Lone Pine)" Betty Cody _The Successful Hillbilly Era Of Betty Cody_
"Tennessee Wig Walk" Bonnie Lou _Doin' The Tennessee Wig Walk_

"The Ballad Of Davy Crockett" Bill Hayes _Hello Children Everywhere_
"My Little Home In Tennessee" Mac Wiseman _The London American Story_
"Tennessee Toddy" Marty Robbins _Marty Robbins Rocks!_
"Tennessee" Carl Perkins _Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From The Golden Age_
"Tennessee Zip" Kenny Parchman _The Essential Sun Rockabillies_

"Tennessee" Jan & Dean _All The Hits, From Surf City To Drag City_
"Tennessee Waltz" Anna King _Back To Soul_

(part two)

"Tennessee" Jimmy Martin _Tennessee_
"Rocky Top" The Osborne Brothers _From The Vaults: Decca Country Classics 1934-1973_
"Worried Now In A Tennessee Town" Mississippi Joe Callicott _The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions_

"Down In Tennessee" Ohio Express _Chewy, Chewy_
"Tennessee Bird Walk" Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan _Classic Country: 1969-1975_
"My Tennessee Mountain Home" Dolly Parton _My Tennessee Mountain Home_
"Tennessee Whiskey" George Jones _The Essential George Jones: The Spirit Of Country_
"Tennessee Stud" Johnny Cash _American Recordings_

"Tennessee" Arrested Development _3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of..._
"Tennessee" Silver Jews _Bright Flight_
"Tennessee" The Galactic Heroes _How About San Francisco?_
"Tennessee Blues" The Howling Brothers _Howl_

"When It's Iris Time In Tennessee" Rick Pickren _The State Songs, Vol. 3_
"Suddenly Tennessee" Lee Hazlewood _For Every Solution There's A Problem_
"Tennessee Houn' Dog Yodel" Marvin Rainwater _M-G-M Hillbilly Vol. 1_