Self Help Radio 071115: Sense & Nonsense

(original image here)

A show about sense + nonsense doesn't make any sense!  Should it?  Make sense I mean?  Or not?

I dunno.  Here it is though.  Trying to make sense of things.  You know how it is.  Still.  There's some nonsense too.  You have been warned.  Or, should I say, nonsensically, you have been warmed.

The show is where you expect it to be: at Self Help Radio on the web.  In addition to the music played, listed below, there's a conversation with our man in Hollywood, Mark Miller, who's trying to make sense of that industry, & a professor in New Mexico who teaches, & he says this himself, nonsense.  Do pay attention to the username/password stuff there.  It's how you get to listen to the show!

Sense?  Nonsense!
Thanks for listening!

(part one)
"Sense & Nonsense" Adorable _Vendetta 7"_
"It Don't Make Sense" Fiestas _Oh So Fine_
"It Don't Make Sense" The Carpettes _The Early Years_

"Nothing Makes Sense" Jennifer Gentle _Valende_
"Several Thousand Light Years Of Talking Nonsense" The Crimea _Secrets Of The Witching Hour_
"The Sense" Crippled Pilgrims _Down Here (Collected Recordings 1983-1985)_

"You Make No Sense" ESG _Come Away With ESG_
"No Sense" New Model Army _No Rest For The Wicked_
"Make Sense Of It" Split Enz _Time & Tide_
"Makes No Sense At All" Hüsker Dü _Flip Your Wig_

"Common Sense" John Prine _Common Sense_
"Empire Of The Senseless" The Mekons _The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll_

(part two)
"You Stopped Making Sense" The Radio Dept. _Clinging To A Scheme_
"Logic Makes No Sense To Me" The Would Bes _Silly Songs For Cynical People_

"Treasury Of Nonsense" New Christy Minstrels _Tell Tall Tales! Legends & Nonsense_
"No Sense Nonsense" Jeremiah _USA Garage Greats 1965-1967: Hypnotized!_
"Sense Sickness" Del Amitri _Scared To Get Happy: A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"Senseless" The Sullivans _The Sullivans_
"Sense" Terry Hall _Home_

"We Make Sense" Noise Problems _Emma Acs Live At The Festival Of Endless Gratitude_
"Only The Sea Makes Sense" Gorky's Zygotic Mynci _Gorky 5_
"Makes No Sense" Soundpool _Mirrors In Your Eyes_
"No Sense" Bailterspace _Strobosphere_

"Songs Of Fun & Nonsense (with Martyn Green)" Julie Andrews _Once Upon A Time_

Whither Sense & Nonsense?

There are a few things to say about this show, which I will enumerate in Roman numerals because I am reading a book about Romans right now.

I. I have no idea why I thought about doing a show about sense & nonsense.

II. I don't normally do shows about opposites like this.

III. I think I thought I couldn't find enough songs about one or the other.

IV. But it turns out there were many more songs about making sense than songs about nonsense.

V. Which is not to say nonsense songs.

VI. Like, I was going to play the song "O Susannah."  That song delighted me as a child.

VII. I only picked a couple for the show.

VIII. Every time I do a show with two things - if I've ever done a show with two themes…

IX. I can't remember if I ever have.

X. I'm too lazy to go check.

XI. Anyway, I thought I could do a sense song, then a nonsense song, then a sense song, etc.

XII. There weren't enough nonsense songs.

XIII. There were tons of song about "the senses," though.

XIV. I eliminated them.  That's a whole other show!

XV. Not to mention the individual senses!

XVI. Has it rained every day this summer?

XVII. Uh, I've lost my train of thought.

XVIII. You don't expect me to make sense anyway, right?

XIX. Anyway, I'm moving the show to Tuesdays after this next show, you know.

XX. So listen!

That made no sense.  Appropriately.  Self Help Radio's last Saturday morning show, at least for now,
on 7-9 am, wrfl.fm / 88.1 fm.  You know the drill.

Preface To Sense & Nonsense: Homecoming

My wife has been in Spain for the past three weeks.

Ooo, you might say to yourself.  Ooo, Spain.  Well!  What a terrible wife, not to take her lonesome husband to the beautiful & ancient old country, to visit its beautiful beaches, its museums, to partake of its culture, its sangria, its siestas in the hot, dry summer!

It's okay - she's not really a terrible wife - she's actually there to work.  She's spent the past few days holed up in what I can only assume is a refurbished Inquisition-era torture room dissecting animals for her next big scientific paper.  She's an anthropologist, you see.  She's told me things about the animals she's cut up that would've led to divorce papers from a weaker spouse.

I do throw up all the time when she talks about her work, though.

She comes back tomorrow.  So I've been working on Saturday's show all day today so I could spend maximum time with her tomorrow.  There!  You thought I wasn't a crazy romantic fool.  But you were wrong!

Update: just got a text from her.  It just says "plastered."  It's after midnight in Valladolid.  She's having way more fun than I am, that's for sure.

Whenever It Rains A Lot I Think Of The Novel "One Hundred Years Of Solitude"

It's been raining a lot here.  It reminds me of a story.  A long time ago, maybe even ten years ago now, I was fortunate enough to see The Lucksmiths, the best indiepop band ever, live at Emo's in Austin, Texas.

I don't remember what year it was but the Lucksmiths were supporting an Elephant Six band like Olivia Tremor Control or Ladybug Transistor.  I wasn't there to see that band (whichever one it was, or another I'm forgetting), & I'm not suggesting the bands are interchangeable, as I enjoyed them, but I had discovered the Lucksmiths by reviewing a CD for KVRX in 1999 & never thought this Australian band would make its way to the United States.

(They made it back to Austin one more time, probably around 2007, & I also saw them three times in San Francisco, trips I made specifically to see the band.  I loved them so much.)

Honestly, I had never seen a band win over a group of people who didn't know about them before.  & this was at Emo's, where people were only allowed in if they were sufficiently jaded.  I overheard later on that the band sold an amazing amount of merchandise after their short set, & I also talked to people who wanted to know more about them.

But my favorite comment about the band was this: "Where they come from, it must rain a lot."

I hadn't thought of it before, but they do in fact sing a lot about rain.  To people in Austin, Texas, in the middle of a hot summer, it seemed noteworthy.

Where are they from?  Brisbane, I believe.  Does a rain a lot in Brisbane?  This website (which is metric!) doesn't seem to suggest that it does.  (I translated it.)  25 inches a year?  That's about half what Lexington gets.  Even less than what Austin averages!

But rain is thoughtful, rain is poetic.  Rain sets the mood.  & rain makes me a lonesome boy.  Who's going to go listen to the Lucksmiths right now.

Sugar Substitute # 163

Here's another episode of the one-hour "free-form" radio show I do before my regular show, Self Help Radio, on Saturday mornings.  It turns out this is the next-to-the-last Sugar Substitute for a while, because, as you know, Self Help Radio is moving to Tuesday afternoons next week & I won't have that extra early-morning hour to play around with like I do now.

This week's show features a three-song tribute to the newest member of our household, a ridiculous chihuahua girl we called Yoko, who is, I am happy to say, fitting in tolerably well.  Beagles are notoriously accepting, cats are notoriously aloof, & she is notoriously sweet & cute.  It's working out better than I could have expected.  So she deserves some songs!

You can listen to the show now at this link, & if you don't know the username/password combo, I can only say like I am whispering SHR + selfhelp.  Otherwise you're on your own.

The songs I played are below.  Hope you enjoy!

"Why" Yoko Ono _Plastic Ono Band_
"Oh Yoko!" John Lennon _Imagine_
"Be My Yoko Ono" Barenaked Ladies _Gordon_

"Song Will" Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin _The High Country_
"Aquarium" Robyn Hitchcock _Eye_
"Foolin' Around" Crocodiles _Boys_
"Los Testigos No Descansan En Domingo" Clint _Alegrame El Dia_

"Bad Love" Summer Camp _Bad Love_
"Anywhere" Interpol _El Pintor_
"Young Girls" Pins _Wild Nights_
"Digital" Joy Division _A Factory Sample_
"Powder Keg" Church Girls _Church Girls EP_

"Mark & John (Bring On The Glitter Kids)" The Secret History _Desolation Town_
"Zoo Music Girl" The Birthday Party _Drunk On The Pope's Blood_
"Where's Sweetboy" Purling Hiss _Weirdon_

Self Help Radio 070415: Flags

(Original image here.)

Hooray for Independence Day!  Hooray for flags!  But oh!  I'm exhausted.  All that flag waving this morning - I might have to get my forearm repaired.  But!  If you like flags, here's a show for you!  Flag songs out the wazoo, wherever that is; plus I talk to Mark Miller in Hollywood, & to a descendent of Betsy Ross!  Man, those exclamation points are exhausting me too.  I need a nap.  Wake me with fireworks.

The show is now at the Self Help Radio website, where it'll be all Fourth Of July long.  There's a password + username, pay attention.  The playlist is on the site, but also below.

Enjoy the holiday! Thanks for listening.

(part one)

"Betsy Ross & The Flag" Stan Freberg _The United States Of America_
"Rally 'Round The Flag" The Weavers _The Weavers' Almanac_
"Your Flag Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore (live)" John Prine _The Singing Mailman Delivers_

"You're A Grand Old Flag" James Cagney & The Warner Bros. Chorus & Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra _Yankee Doodle Dandy_
"The Ragged Old Flag" Johnny Cash _The Ragged Old Flag_
"Face The Flag" John Wayne _America, Why I Love Her_

"Pink Flag" Wire _Pink Flag_
"I Am Your Flag" The Beat _Wha'ppen?_
"Flag Night" The Passage _For All & None_
"Under The Flag II" Fad Gadget _Under The Flag_

"From The Flagstones" Cocteau Twins _Sunburst & Snowblind_
"Flag Day" The Housemartins _Live At The BBC_

(part two)

"Empire" Eddie Izzard _Dress To Kill_
"The Red Flag" Billy Bragg _The Internationale_
"Let Your Freak Flag Fly" The Hummingbirds _Va Va Voom_

"Gimme Back My Flag" Julian Cope _Jehovahkill_
"Red Flag New York" The Bartlebees _What Is It All About?_
"Flags Of Freedom" Neil Young _Living With War_

"This Is Not My Flag" The Dentists _Behind The Door I Keep The Universe_
"They'll Hang Flags From Cranes Upon My Wedding Day" Ballboy _Club Anthems_
"Flags" Sons & Daughters _This Gift_
"White Flag" Guided By Voices _The Bears For Lunch_

"Waving Flags" British Sea Power _Sea Of Brass_
"Wave The White Flag" Boat _Pretend To Be Brave_
"A Flag In The Court" Thee Oh Sees _Help_

Whither Flags?

I kinda explained yesterday* why I am doing a show about flags.  I mean, Fourth Of July!  Flags!  Hurrah!

Now, to dispel some rumors my cats have been spreading.  I will not be burning a flag on air during the show.  That would be a fire hazard.  I will not be undressing & wrapping myself in a flag so it touches my naughty parts.  That would also be a fire hazard.  & finally, I will not wipe my ass with the flag.  That would be disgusting & anyway that's what my flag-decorated toiler paper is for.  I don't know why my cats like to promulgate falsehoods about me nor why my dogs enjoy re-tweeting such items but suffice it to say that while I know it's perfectly legal to do any of that, I'm not going to, & even if I did you couldn't see me do it because I'm on the radio!  Good grief.  Use your heads!

Tomorrow morning: flags on the radio from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.  Online at wrfl dot fm.  Archived in time for fireworks at .  I hope you'll wake & listen!

* Why do I link it?  It's right below this entry!

Preface To Flags: I'm Not Used To Being So Topical

Sometime in the last month, or maybe in May, when I realized I was going to be doing a show on Saturdays, I had a look at the calendar.  I looked at the June calendar (that was when I'd start doing the show again).  Then I looked at the July calendar.  Uh oh!

(calendar courtesy of time & date dot com)

Do you see what the first Saturday in July is?  It's the frickin' frackin' Fourth Of July!

I've done a July 4th show before, this one about America.  (I also apparently did a show on July 4th last year about limes, which makes no sense*.)  For some reason, my brain said to me, "Let's do a show about flags."

Flags!  Of course!  People in my neighborhood have some group come by before Memorial Day, Independence Day, & Veteran's Day, & put flags on their lawn.  I never see the flags being erected & they're gone the next day, so I can only assume this weirdly patriotic group works in darkness.

So - yeah, flags.  I guess I was supposed to talk about this tomorrow, but that's the origin of this week's show.  I thought I'd do a show about flags because Self Help Radio happens to fall on Independence Day this week.  Um.  Spoiler alert?

But holy smokes, have you been paying attention to flags in the news?!?  Here's a cartoon by Jonathan Schmock to give you a taste:

That's right!  In the weeks before I was going to do a show about flags, flags are in the news!  Confederate flags disgraced at last!  Gay rights flags flying triumphantly!

Flags are on the tip of everyone's tongues!  I was in a Shell station somewhere in southeastern Kentucky - a Shell station with a Schlotsky's (not unusual) but also an entire, weirdly immaculate supermarket in the back (very unusual) - just buying a soda - & the clerk yelled back to someone in the grocery aisles, "Keep it up, I'll burn every gay pride flag I see!"

It's almost like I'm up to date on current events!

It's freaking me out.

* Here's what I wrote on my blog in regards to my Fourth Of July show about limes:

"Yes, I know it's the Fourth of July & you'll be in bed, but I couldn't be bothered to do an America-themed show.  Anyway, there's a parade & stuff later.  You can go to that.

Limes!  What was I thinking?"

Things Change More

I guess I can announce this…

You know there's this excellent radio show on WRFL called Black N Blues.  It describes itself (quite correctly) as "hip shakin' rhythm & heart breakin' blues."  It's almost a damned institution!

Well, the host, Dan Black, is relocating down south - appropriately to Nashville.  & the Program Manager has asked me to move Self Help Radio to that timeslot.

What?  Hunh?  How in the world can I even hope to live up to that?  I play some old blues & some r&b & love pretty much everything Dan played, but - well - I don't know!  It makes me queasy just thinking about it.

But. Boy! the idea of not having to wake up so early in the morning appeals to me.

So I said yes.

It's in a couple of weeks.  July 14th, actually.  Bastille Day.  For Pierre's sake!

I'll still do Self Help Radio this Saturday & the next.  It means that there'll be one week with two Self Help Radio episodes.  I apologize in advance.

I'm also very sorry about all this moving around.  I heard that Dan Black himself commented on the decision: "I'm glad he got it," he is reported to have said, adding, "Bastard."

What do you think?  Can Self Help Radio be an afternoon show?

Private Eulogy

My oldest sister died last week.  She had pancreatic cancer.  It happened very fast.  I was very fortunate, since she lived a thousand miles away, to have visited her about a month ago (before anything was diagnosed) & to have spoken to her a week before she died.  I loved her very much.  I went to her memorial this weekend (which is why I didn't do my show) & stood in the house that was so much hers - her favorite place to be, the place she was happiest - & told my younger sister, "She's still here.  It's so hard to be here because everything is telling me she's still here."

I have dreamt about her pretty much every night since it happened.  I remember when I was told the machines turned off & she was no more.  I said, "I held out hope."

In a hotel room in Memphis last night, I wrote a letter to someone I haven't spoken to in many, many years.  I didn't send it.  Here's what I wrote:

It's a stormy night in Memphis.  I've been here four times in a month this year.  It's halfway between Lexington & Dallas.  I like the city, we stop here, we forage for vegan food here, we rest our weary heads here after eight hours driving from Lexington.  I'm sort of by myself.  Magda is in Spain.

I drove to a pet store around the area near the airport because I am with a chihuahua.  She was named Chica but in our normal tradition, since we're adopting her, we wanted to rename her.  Unlike our normal tradition, Magda named her, & from afar: she wants to call her "Yoko" because, as she says, "she's breaking up the beagles."

Yoko belonged to my sister Pat.  Pat adopted her last year, though she swore she'd never get another dog after her last dog, Sarge, died.  Sarge was a sweetie.  Pat seemed to be struggling with depression of some kind & Yoko/Chica would visit her from another family's house where, according to Pat, there were pit bulls who wouldn't let the poor thing eat.  So Pat fed her, &, as she was Pat, she fed her bad food.  Wet food, human food.  The little girl is fat like a sausage.

Pat died of cancer a few days ago.  Before she did - when she had just found out there was a tumor on her pancreas - she worried about the fate of Chica/Yoko.  She said, "Could you take her?"  I said of course.  What's one more dog in our hoard?  She's a sweet thing.  She just needs better habits.

Anyway, what sort of heel refuses what surely was a dying wish?

Pat's memorial was in Dallas yesterday.  I couldn't not come.  Afterwards, I took Yoko to my hotel room, drove to Memphis today, & I make sure she's always with me.  I hope she'll be better when she's part of a pack, but right now I bet she needs to poop + pee & it's raining like crazy.  Ridiculously warm summer rain, I bet.  Rain like you'd find in a swamp.

Pat was a generous big sister but over the last decade we had become friends.  I loved to listen to her gossip.  Last night, exhausted, I finally got Yoko to calm down in bed, & I asked myself questions for Pat & answered them in my head in her voice.  At the memorial, I saw my brothers, all of whom I haven't seen in four years or so, plus lots of people I might not have seen in decades, old school friends of her son's, friends of the family she kept in touch with that I had all but forgotten.  I wanted to call Pat & listen to her impressions of everything & everyone there.  But I can't.  Not anymore.

She leaves behind a husband & a son, both of whom are acting like they're in control.  I don't for a second think it's true - her son was there when they turned the machines off, for Pat had a DNR - & no one's a fucking Vulcan.  All I could do is say, "Before you compartmentalize this in such a way it explodes all over you, please talk to me, let me listen to you."

My brothers & my other sister are writing about Pat on their Facebook pages but I've never done that.  I will write something on my blog.  I will tell my closest friends personally, or privately.

I'm reminded of a Bob Dylan lyric that I once associated (since that was his intent) with lost love:

I'm going out of my mind

With a pain that stops & starts

Like a corkscrew to my heart

Ever since we've been apart

That sounds like grief to me.  But everything sounds like grief to me right now, as I am grieving.

I hear her voice.  I see her face.  It's stupid, strange, horrible that she's gone.

I'll see if the rain has stopped.  Again, apologies if this is inappropriate or an intrusion. I hope all is well with your family & with you.

Never sent.  Just needed to write it, I guess.  You can pretend I wrote it for you.

When my sister joined Facebook, for a long time she left out her profile picture.  I said, "Do you not know how to put a picture up?"  She said, "No, I just don't like any picture of me."  So I sent her this picture, which I said reminded me of her:

It's Medusa, from the Inhumans, as drawn by Jack Kirby.  It's been her profile picture ever since.

It's strange, she still has a Facebook page.  One more thing you can't take with you.

It's sad that I now live in a world without my favorite sibling.  Here's the thing about Pat: I think she was every one of my brothers' & my sister's favorite sibling.  That's how amazing she was.  Kind & generous to a fault.  Stubborn but loving.  & probably the best mother I've ever known.  She was pretty much one-of-a-kind.

Tomorrow, I go back to work on my radio show.  Tonight, I'll watch Yoko learn about her new family & hopefully we'll all get a little rest.  Pat sometimes listened to my radio show, something none of my siblings have ever done.  I think she was doing it to be nice.  But of course I appreciated it.

I hope she understood how appreciated she was.  I owe her so much.  I miss her so much.

Whither Roads?

Actually, I'm on the road.  I might not be on the road from 7-9am tomorrow, but if I'm not, & I'm not asleep, I'll be listening to Maria & Macy as they do a Self Help Radio episode about roads!

You can find it on 88.1 fm on your dial +/or online at wrfl dot fm, which is how I'll be listening!

You are in for a treat!

Grief

I've written about grief before, when I talked about the death of my dog George, & I am still flabbergasted by how powerful grief is.  I know I wrote this already, but the night George died, I drank an extraordinary amount of whiskey - probably enough to put most anyone to blackout sleep - but my mind wouldn't let me get drunk.  It was so absorbed in the pain I was going through that it said "fuck you" to the alcohol in my head.  On Facebook, I wrote: "grief > alcohol," a mathematical equation I haven't tested since then.  Nor do I want to.

To a friend today I wrote this:

"I was walking the dogs yesterday & trying to understand why grief seemed to be the most powerful emotion I've ever felt.  I think it's because it's every emotion you feel for the thing you have lost - not just the love, but the dumb things, the frustration, the anger, the impatience, the worry - everything that goes into a living, breathing relationship with someone - & all the years are dropped on you all at once.  It's crippling.  You lose a little of yourself, & you know it."

It seems strange to me that we survive grief.  It must be that grief transforms us somehow.  Transforms us without making us colder.  If anything, it makes us more sensitive.  That seems counter-intuitive.

Despite the name of my radio show, I don't really read much self-help or even listen to those shows.  I've never seen an episode of "Dr. Phil," just clips on shows like "The Soup."  I am resisting reading what social scientists say about grief because at some level I don't think understanding it will help any.  Not when you're so deep in it.

Like every emotional battering, grief makes it hard to be logical.  But look at me, here, making a stab at it.

Family Matters

There will be a Gary-less (not, as is usual, garrulous) Self Help Radio on Saturday morning.  But there will be a Self Help Radio, which is wonderful.  The two delightful women who brought you the twins show earlier this year will step in for me & do a show about…  Well, I don't know!  They haven't told me.  They are Maria & Macy, of course.

Macy & Maria

(or is it Maria & Macy?)

I have to be out of town on family matters.  It's a sad story that I don't want to talk about just yet but it does require my presence.  For lots of reasons.  I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being coy.

I've been pretty candid about my relationship with my family on this blog, probably because so few people read it, & also because I really love to talk about my family.  I don't know if I really love my family as a unit, but there are members I love dearly.  The truth is, most of them are whatever is slightly less than strangers to me.  Because of that, I have toyed around with starting a blog called "Gary Complains About His Family."  But of course there was always a part of me that thought that would be a little tacky.

Anyway.  I'll discuss things once I'm slightly more clear headed.  I'm very glad that Maria & Macy will be hosting the show, though.  I think they're dynamite.

Sugar Substitute # 162

I'm sorry I'm posting this so late, but I've had a hell of a day.  About which more later this week.

This is the freeform show I do before Self Help Radio, & I play lots of different stuff, as you can see in the playlist below, including something from the delightful, strange & weird new collaboration between Scotland's Franz Ferdinand & the legendary band Sparks.  Again, what I played is below.

You can listen now by going to the Self Help Radio website.  Is there a problem with a username & a password?  Did you mean SHR/selfhelp?  I thought so.

Please to enjoy.

"1/2" Barcelona _Simon Basic_
"The Power Couple" FFS _FFS_
"Yuppie Restaurant" Barnabys _Augustus Loop_

"Notches On A Frame" Barna Howard _Quite A Feelin'_
"Riding Lightning" Crushed Out _Teeth_
"Crazy" Winter _Supreme Blue Dream_
"It Could Have Been Cheryl" The Brotherhood Of Lizards _The Wayward Genius Of Martin Newell_
"The Pattern" Ceremony _The L-Shaped Man_

"Oh No! The Unicorns Are Knife Fighting Again" Ladybirds _Regional Community Theater_
"Clap Your Hands!" Clap Your Hands Say Yeah _Clap Your Hands Say Yeah_
"Antwoman" Robyn Hitchcock _Jewels For Sophia_
"Going On Cold" Blind Mr. Jones _Stereo Musicale_

"Paul Newman" The Fontaines _The Fontaines EP_
"Life Is Strange" T.Rex _Tanx_
"Willie Goes To The Seashore" Tullycraft _Old Traditions, New Standards_

Self Help Radio 062015: Drifting

(Original image here.

I have to do this fast or I may drift away!

I did a radio show this morning with the theme "drifting."  Lots of driftful music (there's no such word as 'driftful') was played and very drifteous discussions (seriously, there's no such word as 'drifteous,' either) were had, all captured digitally for your driftaneal enjoyment (please stop making up words with 'drift').  I spoke with an actual drifter, with my spiritual mentor (who confessed he was once a drifter), & with a drifting friend in Hollywood.  As the show was happening, the continents drifted slowly - very slowly - away from one another.

When it was done, the show drifted over to the Self Help Radio website where it is not anchored firmly in place.  You can listen to it there!  You should pay attention to username/password information on the page!  You can peruse the playlist there or below!

Excuse me now, while I drift off to sleep….  (Thanks for listening.)

(part one)

"Drifting Along" The Riverside Ramblers _Black & White Hillbilly Music: Early Harmonica Recordings 1920s-1930s_
"Driftin' Blues" Johnny Moore's Three Blazers _Charles Brown 1944-1945_
"I'm A Drifter" Fred Neil & Vince Martin _Tear Down The Walls_

"Vagrants, Tramps, Hoboes, Drifters, Transients, Bums, & Winos" George Carlin _When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_
"The Drifter" Ray Pollard _Big City Soul, Vol. 1_
"Drifter's Escape" Bob Dylan _John Wesley Harding_
"The Drifter" Heidi Bruhl _The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection_

"Drift Away" Narvel Felts _Drift Away_
"Drifting" Claude Huey _Moaning, Groaning, Crying - A Galaxy Of Soul_
"Drift" Heinz Kiessling _The In-Kraut, Vol. 3_
"The Drifter" Green On Red _Gas Food Lodging_

"Frantic Drift" The Chills _Kaleidoscope World_
"Adrift Again" Bradford _Shouting Quietly_

(part two)

"Drift 13" Jane From Occupied Europe _Coloursound_
"Driftin Blues" His Name Is Alive _King Of Sweet_
"Drifting" The Rockingbirds _Rough Trade Shops: Country, Vol. 1_

"Crowd Of Drifters" The Magnetic Fields _The Charm Of The Highway Strip_
"Drifter In The Dark" Ween _Chocolate & Cheese_
"I'm A Drifter" Johnny Cash _Unearthed_

"You Drift Away" The Postmarks _The Postmarks_
"Drifting" Goodnight Monsters _Summer Challenge_
"Drift" Vermillion Lies _Separated By Birth_
"Drifting" Sugar Plant _After After Hours_

"Garage In Drift" The Hit Parade _Cornish Pop Songs_
"Drifter" Wild Nothing _Gemini_

Whither Drifting?

This is the first image that comes up

when one writes "drifting away" in

Google image search

It's from here.

Haven't we all at one point or another felt like we were drifting?  Hasn't every one of us, when thinking about actually drifting, or when feeling like we're drifting, or when imagining our selves & consciousnesses just drifting away, started looking really, really hard at the word "drift" & came to think, "That's a weird-looking word.  It doesn't look right.  Is that really how you spell 'drift'?"

& hasn't every person who's had this experience suddenly developed a temporary brain injury, where the word "drift" looks so much better spelled "drfit" or "dritf" or even "difrt"?  & then, magical new pronunciations enter the head?  & the desire to revenge on those who have wronged you grows mightily within?

No?  Have I gone too far?

After the antipsychotics took effect, I was able to appreciate the word "drift" again for its many uses, for the feeling one gets when one's mind drifts, for the eternal desire which I believe all troubled humans share to just one day drift away, hopefully to some happy eden where there's lots & lots of pizza.

That's how this show came about.  & it's happening tomorrow morning from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  If I don't completely drift away after the show - if I don't become a drifter - I'll archive the show on the Self Help Radio website.  But I hope you drift on by to listen.  If you get my drift.

2100

This is the twenty-one hundredth post on this blog.

For a long time, I counted wrong, so you can (but don't) go through this blog & see me writing little celebrations of yay! making it to an arbitrary even number divisible by 100.  Many times I am wrong about that.  There is an awful good chance I am wrong right now.  Here's what I have as a kind of record-keeping that I just did because I don't trust anything I wrote in the past:

Post 1: September 12, 2006
Post 100: March 7, 2007
Post 200: August 13, 2007
Post 300: January 11, 2008
Post 400: May 29, 2008
Post 500: October 19, 2008
Post 600: April 2, 2009
Post 700: October 4, 2009
Post 800: March 2, 2010
Post 900: July 30, 2010
Post 1000: January 4, 2011
Post 1100: May 30, 2011
Post 1200: October 23, 2011
Post 1300: March 11, 2012
Post 1400: July 30, 2012
Post 1500: December 23, 2012
Post 1600: May 23, 2013
Post 1700: November 22, 2013
Post 1800: April 21, 2014
Post 1900: September 12, 2014
Post 2000: January 29, 2015
Post 2100: June 18, 2015

I have been doing this a long, long time.  Gosh, sometimes I even write about my radio show!

Hout There

Sitting at the computer, he wrote the word "hout."  His spellcheck seemed untroubled by it.  Usually, he thought, there would be a little red line - oftentimes dashed - underneath the word, indicating it was misspelled.  Sometimes there might be suggestions, depending on the program: "Did you mean hour?  Might you have meant house?"  But although he was certain that there wasn't an English word called "hout," the computer chose not to consider it an error, and indicate it as such.

A quick search online found that it was a word in Dutch.  It meant "wood."  It was also a word in Finnish, a plural version of the word "hoku," which meant "rhyme."  Hout, in Finnish, therefore, meant "rhymes."

In neither case did he look up pronunciation.  He continued to say the word, in his head (for at no point since the mistake did he say the word out loud), as though it rhymed with "bout" or "scout."

One last thing: the word meant "today" in a language called Vilamovian.  Vilamovian!  Now there was a word that his spellcheck did. not. like.  It seemed to him that the dotted red line under the name of this obscure language pulsed like an angry vein in someone's neck!  It seemed to him that his spellcheck hated this word.

As usually happened in cases like this, he willingly found himself going down the rabbit hole of curiosity, even if he knew - and he knew - that any information he found would not be of any use to him afterwards.  So he discovered this:

Wymysorys, also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic micro-language actively used in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland (Wymysoü in Wymysorys), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, near Bielsko-Biała. It is considered an endangered language. At present, there are probably between 70 and 100 native users of Wymysorys, virtually all bilingual; the majority are elderly.

Micro-language!  Endangered language!  West Germanic language spoken in Poland!  For a few minutes, it occurred to him that he could learn this language and be one of the one hundred people who knew it.  That would be exciting!

Then he noticed that his spellcheck didn't like the word Wymysorys, either.  So he said (again, in his head, not out loud), "Aw screw it.  I don't want to learn a language my spellcheck doesn't recognize."

He did like the way Wymysorys looked, however.  He thought the word might cool good on a shirt.  A conversation started.  He'd get to say to whomever asked, "It's an endangered language!"

All of this brought him back around to why he wrote the word "hout" in the first place.  He thought about it, and he realized he wanted to write "hot out there."  As he got older, as his typing skills got sloppier, he often found he'd inadvertently combine words or add letters intended for one word to the end of the word preceding it.  Since he was just writing an email, and not anything of consequence, it didn't really matter much, but it did waste a tiny bit of time every time he stopped to correct it.  He was glad he read over his emails before he sent them.

Because there was nothing he hated more than wasting time.

Sugar Substitute Episode # 161

As I have explained previously, & will probably explain again, I am playing music for an hour before Self Help Radio this summer.  It's a show without a theme, it's what we in the biz used to call "freeform" radio (who knows what it's called now), & it's hopefully an entertaining mix of stuff, including a tune from a seminal Brian Eno record (pictured above).  Because I would hate for a radio show to be called "Gary's Fucking Around For An Hour On The Radio," I call it instead "Sugar Substitute," which is the name of a freeform radio show I used to do not too long ago.  It makes it feel like it's more of a prepared package, when in fact it's really just me fucking around on the radio for an hour.

In any event - should you desire listening to such a thing - you can do so now & whenever at the Self Help Radio website.  Like Self Help Radio episodes, there's a username/password combination it's easy to find, & like my blogger posts about Self Help Radio, I'll tell you what songs I played (besides Brian Eno) below.

I hope you enjoy!

"Black Cloud" Morrissey _Years Of Refusal_
"All I Can Do" Eggplant _Anorak Twat_
"No Ladder" Coves _Soft Friday_

"The Great Pretender" Brian Eno _Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)_
"Camouflage" Ed's Redeeming Qualities _More Bad Times_
"North Marine Drive" Ben Watt _North Marine Drive_
"Last Man Alive" The Grifters _Ain't My Lookout_
"Needle & A Knife" Tennis _Ritual In Repeat_

"Days Of Grace" Tanya Donelly _Sleepwalk EP_
"I Started A Blog Nobody Read" Sprites _Modern Gameplay_
"Slit Skirts" Pete Townshend _All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes_
"No Smoke Without Fire" James Hunter _People Gonna Talk_

"Sugar Factory" So Cow _The Long Con_
"Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends" Phil Ochs _Live In Lansing 1973_
"Be Fast Be Clean Be Cheap" Age Of Chance _Crush Collision_

Self Help Radio 061315: Fight! Fight! Fight!

I've never actually been in a fight, I don't think.  (I don't really count all the times I fought with my little brother when we were kids.)  I'm sure I could've been in one if I wanted.  I was pretty scared of being beaten up, though, so if someone wanted to start a fight, I probably walked away.  Self-respect be damned!  Later on, when I grew a bit & was a little more threatening, I occasionally put myself in the way of someone, threatening a fight, & whoever it was backed down.  I am pretty sure they could've taken me - I was totally bluffing.

Non-physical fights I've had a lot of.  I don't keep count but I bet I've lost more than I've won.  Jeez, sometimes I think waking up in the morning is a fight I've lost.  But that's not what this show was about.  It was about real fight!  Fights I'll never have.  Fisticuffs! Combat! Rivalry!  & maybe a little about the non-physical fights.

You can listen to me chat with Hollywood guru Mark Miller!  Also with street-fighting promoter David Fruchter!  Plus, another entry in my snobby series, Dramatic Readings Of Classic Rock Songs!  Richard Edward Oliver Speedwagon does not know what's coming to him!

The show is available now for your bellicose listening pleasure at the Self Help Radio Fight Club Web Site.  Play attention to password info on the page.  The belligerent songs I played are listed below.

Thanks for listening - or are you just cruisin' for a bruisin'?

(part one)

"Looking For A Fight" Bleached _Ride Your Heart_
"Learning How To Fight" The Cribs _The Cribs_
"Fight" Tanya Tagaq _Animism_

"This Is Worth Fighting For" Richard Dawson _Hogan's Heroes Sing The Best Of World War II_
"Stand Up & Fight" Bush Tetras _Boom In The Night (1980-1983)_
"This Is Why We Fight" The Decemberists _The King Is Dead_
"Fight Scene" The Kamalas _The Kamalas_

"Lovers Town Revisited" Billy Bragg _Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy_
"Fight" Art Brut _Bang Bang Rock & Roll_
"Fight Music For The Fight" Bromheads Jacket _Dits From The Commuter Belt_
"Street Fighting Man" Lake Trout _Not Them, You_
"I'm A Lover Not A Fighter" Lazy Lester _Authentic Excello R & B_

"Fight Fiercely, Harvard (Live)" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_
"Fight Song" The Electric Company _The Electric Company_

(part two)

"Academy Fight Song" Mission Of Burma _Signals, Calls, & Marches_
"A Boy Named Sue" Johnny Cash _Johnny Cash At San Quentin_
"Lovers Not Fighters" Milky Wimpshake _Lovers Not Fighters_

"Kung Fu Fighting" Robyn Hitchcock _Uncarved Pumpkins: Live Rarities 1987-1994_
"You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party" Hot Rats _Turn Ons_
"Dog Fight" The Twistaroos _Twisted!_
"Pillow Fight" The Sixths _Wasps' Nests_

"Fight Fire" The Fantastic Dee-Jays _The Fantastic Dee-Jays_
"Fight Fire With Fire" Frances Nero _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966_
"Fight Fire With Fire" Shay Holiday _It's Not How Long You Make It_
"Fight Fire With Fire" The 2X4's _The 2X4's_

"Fight" The Cure _Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me_
"Rabbit Fighter" T. Rex _The Slider_