What Is Vacation, Anyway?

There are many reasons why I might not like vacations.  One is, simply, that at home I am surrounded by everything I love, not the least of which are my dogs & cats, who (usually) can't come with.  A second might be that I grew up quite poor, & didn't ever take vacations as a child.  It just wasn't something we did.  When my mother would go back to Germany - she took me once, when I was six - it was to visit her family.  When I went again, in 1992, at the age of 24, I was bored out of my mind.  I didn't speak German well, I didn't really know anyone there, & my mother was at home, so when I suggested sightseeing, she understood it to mean I was taking her away from being with her brother & sister & their kids.

When I finally started  going other places when I was in my twenties, I didn't understand a lot of the common things folk did on vacation.  First & foremost, flying seemed out of the questions.  Why fly when you could rent a car? Never mind that that took much, much longer - flying seemed a luxury.  Another thing: hotels.  When I drove to see my friend Dale in Los Angeles, in 1995, I dropped off my girlfriend in Moab, Utah (that's a long story), & made the trek across Utah & Nevada toward the Bay Area.  When it seemed obvious I wouldn't make it in one go, I didn't find a cheap motel outside Reno to hole up in - I slept in the car.

That was half my life ago.  Whether I am better or not about traveling is a matter of debate - my wife likes to boast she is always the last person on the plane, while just contemplating such a situation increases my blood pressure to dangerous levels.  Hotels remain a weird, uncomfortable place for me - & not just because someone else was sleeping here the night before - or bedbugs, or whatever,  but just because they're not places I was ever made familiar with as a kid.  & don't get me started about Air B&B!

Luckily my wife, who was raised in a more affluent family, navigates this world better than I do.  She has to put up with my anxieties (which she mocks me for) & my occasional nervous outburst, but she knows what she's doing & most importantly knows she's in charge.

As for enjoying the vacation - oh good lord, how does one do that?

Self Help Radio 051016: Forgetting

(Original image here.)

Hooray! I remembered to do a radio show!

Probably I've thanked Jenny enough for the suggestion.  There were so many songs that I could've filled four hours if four hours were mine to fill.  Can you believe Self Help Radio was once an hour long?

Here's something I do at the end of each day: I keep something like a diary or journal.  It's not full of deep thoughts - don't really have those - but rather it's a list of things I did that day.  I imagine one day when I read over it, I'll be puzzled (or saddened) by my meaningless waste of days, or my memory will fill in the blanks (which may still leave me puzzled or saddened).  One thing I will do is mention what television shows I may have watched that day.  I always forget them.  I can't even rely on a particular show that's on a particular day because I DVR most shows & watch them later.  Even if I've taken two hours to watch a movie, I will struggle at the end of the day to remember which movie it was.  Such is my brain.

But you know what?  I know the words to lots of Elvis Costello songs.  A fair trade-off?

Before I forget: the show about forgetting is over at Self Help Radio website.  It's in two parts.  What's in each part is below.

That's all I can remember that I wanted to tell you.

(part one)

"Forget" Mission Of Burma _Forget_
"Forget" Witches _Forever_
"Forget" Ed's Redeeming Qualities _It's All Good News_

"Forgive & Forget" Acid House Kings _The Sound Of Young Sweden_
"Forgive & Forget" Making Marks _A Thousand Half-Truths_
"Forgive & Forget" I Was A King _Old Friends_
"Laughter & Forgetting" David Sylvian _Gone To Earth_

"How Can I Forget" The Temptations _Emperors Of Soul_
"Forget About That Mess (Part 1)" The Marvels _Absolute Funk, Vol. 4_
"The Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget" The Raindrops _The Best Of The Girl Groups Vol. 2_
"You Won't Forget Me" Sandie Shaw _Sandie_
"Clean Forgot" The Cannanes & Steward _Communicating At An Unknown Rate_

"I Keep Forgettin'" David Bowie _Tonight_
"True Love Tends To Forget" Bob Dylan _Street Legal_

(part two)

"I Forgot To Remember To Forget" Elvis Presley _The Sun Records Sessions_
"I Can't Forget" Leonard Cohen _I'm Your Man_
"I Don't Mind If You Forget Me" Morrissey _Viva Hate_

"Amnesia" The Mekons _Rock & Roll_
"Teach Me To Forget You" Lyres _Lyres Lyres_
"Everyone Will Forget You" Watoo Watoo _This Is Stereophonic Sunshine_
"Forget" Burnt Palms _Back On My Wall_

"Forget You All The Time" Cloud Nothings _Cloud Nothings_
"You Forget So Easily" ExLovers _You Forget So Easily_
"Have You Forgotten The Bomb?" Barcelona _Zero One Infinity_
"Forget The World" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Ponyoak_

"Should God Forget" The Psychedelic Furs _Book Of Days_

Whither Forgetting?

(I found this image here.)

The reason I'm doing a show about forgetting is simple: Jenny suggested it!

That seems crazy, doesn't it?  You can just email me or call me during the show & I'll do a show based on the theme you thought of?  That's some kind of craziness!  But it isn't.  I will always assume your ideas are better than mine because, you know, I am intimately familiar with my ideas.  They are usually bad ideas.

So: today you can listen how Self Help Radio ruins Jenny's idea for a show!  It's on from 4-6pm today on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington + also too online at wrfl dot fm.  I hope you remember to listen, but, you know, if you don't - fair enough.

Preface To Forgetting: My Stupid Brain Theory

This is a theory of the brain I have, which I am certain is stupid, & which may apply only to me, & which I don't have any evidence to back it up with except my own personal experience, & which I haven't actually gone out & read anything to try to support it, possibly because I am afraid I am wrong.  So it's probably best called the Narcissistic Gary Brain Thought-Thing.  Here it is:

My brain believes that when certain memories I have are put somewhere else - saved in a journal, or a letter, or an email, or anywhere other than my brain - it (the brain) can safely forget them, or store them someplace obscure in the dusty vaults of the mind.

The most recent example of this happened when I was re-reading this short story I wrote over twenty-five years ago.  It's a sad truth that I one time wanted to be a writer - but, as this blog demonstrates, it's obviously not something I was ever good at.  But in the story, I described something that had really happened to me, involving my mother & a relative.  It was a somewhat traumatic experience, & it shook me - I was accused of something I hadn't done, & luckily my protestations of innocence were accepted.  But I hadn't thought about it for years - probably not since I wrote the story.  How could that be?

Because my brain said, Oh, he wrote this down. Put that somewhere way down. Let's make more space for Bob Dylan lyrics!

It gets worse: now that my brain knows that I can access almost any information on the little computer I keep in my back pocket, it stores in difficult-to-access parts of itself things that I really should know.  I couldn't bring immediately to mind the director of It's A Wonderful Life the other day!  Frank Capra!  How hard is that to remember?  Not hard at all!

Honestly, it'll only get worse.  & it could just be old age, or alcohol use, but I suspect we're all experiencing some aspect of this in our lives.  We know we have access to so much information that we used to either have to keep in books or in our brains.  No more.  If I can't remember that guy that was in that film, I can describe the film in a search engine & it's better than any recall I've ever had.

Forgetting, alas, is the future.  Let's just hope we don't forget how to work the external brains that will have more information than we would ever need or want.

Not Another Movie Review!

No, of course not.  But I did see Captain America: Civil War this afternoon, & my only comment here, since this isn't a movie review, is that it was the Marvel movie I have enjoyed most since the first Avengers movie.  (Well, not counting Deadpool, but that didn't feel like it took place in the same universe.)

Instead of a movie review, here's a movie experience review, sort of like I wrote here.  The experience today was nowhere near as unpleasant as that, but I was surrounded by (all male) geeky types whose (mostly happy) comments I could hear as they whispered to each other about different things in the movie.  To my direct right were two young men who, before the movie & during the credits, talked about the comic series from which Civil War was drawn, how exciting certain comic book movies were on cable ("Dude! Fantastic Four is on HBO Go!" "Dude! Is it any good?" "Dude! The first half is!"), & random comments about how the various preceding movies related to one another.

Not to suggest this hindered my enjoyment of the movie - they weren't rude or anything.  I was just bemused by it all, as if I were somehow better.  & then - sigh - during one of the scenes with the Scarlet Witch & the Vision, I leaned over to my wife & said, "In the comics, those two get married."

My wife couldn't have cared less.  But I thought to myself, Oh no! Me too!

Look: I knew it all along.  I was just amazed at how, in middle of my eye-rolling, I so quickly, in that element, reverted to my core geek mode.

Cradle To Grave, Episode Twenty-Two

This is a post-mortem.

Normally I post a recording of the radio show I do on Fridays, Cradle To Grave, on the Self Help Radio website on Saturdays.  I don't expect anyone will listen, but it's part of my ritual.  I put SHR up on Wednesdays, CTG on Saturdays.

But there's no recording of the show on the website right now.  That's because I only did half the show.  If you listened, you'd know why.

When I do my radio shows, I usually bring up CDs.  I have stuff on vinyl, but I usually digitize it before I bring it up.  What that means is that some of the CDs I have are home-burned.  I buy mp3s, I download stuff, etc.  & you know what?  Some CD players don't like home-burned CDs.

During the show, in the last quarter-hour, one CD player started skipping during on song.  I interrupted, I played another song - hey, I have more than enough stuff for the rest of the show, I have birthdays & deathdays I don't get to.  But when I used the CD player again, it skipped again, with a different CD.

Okay.  This CD player - which worked fine for me the last two shows I did - in the same room! - was rejecting now my burned CDs.  I thought about doing a total John Peel & trying to do the show entirely from one player - I'd have to talk while I was changing out CDs.  But then!  The second CD player started skipping.  It was the end of the hour.  I decided not to suffer through an entire hour with the uncertainty of the CD players rejecting my CDs.

At WRFL, I would have had a backup - I bring stuff on a flash drive - but I don't know if I can play songs at LXU from the computer that has the automation on it.  So I just said "uncle."  I apologize for that.

Here's what the second hour would have looked like:

"Piccolo Pete (Parker Gibbs, vocals)" Ted Weems & His Orchestra _Marvellous!_ (ASV)
"Happy Days Are Here Again (vocals by The Rollickers)" Ben Selvin & His Orchestra _Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack For A Century_
"Don't Let The Rhythm Go To Your Head (Let The Rhythm Go To Your Feet) (Chu Berry, vocals)" Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra _Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra_
"Waterworks" Kai Winding Sextet _Early Bones_
"Mountain Greenery" Barney Kessel _Music To Listen To Barney Kessel By_

Death commemorated here were Ted Weems, songwriter Milton Ager, saxophonist Franz Jackson, Kai Winding, & Barney Kessel.

"Lili Marlene" Marlene Dietrich _Marlene Dietrich_ (Habana)
Venus" Dickie Valentine _The Joe Meek Story, Vol. 5: The Early Years_
"I'll Be Home" Flamingos _The Complete Chess Masters_
"Daddy Rollin' Stone" Otis Blackwell _Chicken Shack Boogie, Vol. 3_
"Sweetback" Viola Wills _Sister Funk_

Death commemorated this set were Marlene Dietrich, Dickie Valentine, Paul Wilson of the Flamingos, Otis Blackwell, & Viola Wills.

"The Road Is So Long" Carey & Lurrie Bell _Second Nature_
"Can I Get A Witness" The Steampacket _The In Crowd: UK Mod R&B-Beat, 1964-1967_
"Blowin' In The Wind" Stevie Wonder _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966_
"Emma" Hot Chocolate _Super Hits Of The 70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 14_

Deaths commemorated here were Carey Bell, Mickey Waller of the Steampacket, Clarence Paul singing with Stevie Wonder, & Errol Brown of Hot Chocolate.

The last song I was going to play was in remembrance of one of my heroes, Grant McClennan, who died ten years ago, May 6, 2006.  I would've played "Cattle & Cane" by the Go-Betweens.

Next week I'm out of town but I don't know what I'm going to do in two weeks.  I have resisted bringing up a laptop - that has its own problems.  Right now I'm going to concentrate on the next Self Help Radio.  Otherwise I'm get frustrated all over again.

Self Help Radio 050316: Bees

(Original image here.)

Since I've started inviting my funny friends on my show, I've had not-so-much time to occasionally be serious about things that matter to me, & one of those thing is of course the decline of the bee population.  There isn't quite a consensus about the cause - some say climate change, some say pesticides, & there are other theories.  What seems clear is that humans are responsible in a very clear way, & that's sad indeed.

Since I couldn't say this on the show - no time! - I have said it here.  Sometimes dumb radio programs are where people find out important things.  However dumb the show was, though, I hope it was entertaining where it couldn't be thought-provoking.

You can listen now at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to the password stuff, it's on the front page.  I played a bunch of songs, they're listed below, in the section of the show where you can find them.

Here's hoping you enjoy!

(part one)

"Why Does A Bee Buzz?" Marais & Miranda _More Nature Songs_
"Busy Bee Boogie" Hal Serra & Carol Marks _Animal Hootenanny_
"Buzz Buzz Buzz" Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers _Back In Your Life_
"New Bumble Bee" Memphis Minnie _Queen Of The Country Blues: All The Published Sides 1929-1937_

"Flight Of The Bumble Bee" Harry James & His Orchestra _Swingin' The Classics_
"Queen Bee" John Lee Hooker _The Classic Early Years 1948-1951_
"Bee Sting Stings" Tullycraft _City Of Subarus_
"Humble Bee" John Wesley Harding _The Confessions Of St. Ace_

"Happy Yellow Bumblebee" Of Montreal _The Bedside Drama: A Petite Tragedy_
"Honeybee" Girlfriendo _One_
"Like A Honey Bee (Honey Bee)" The Carousel _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_
"A Sleepin' Bee (from House Of Flowers)" Diahann Carroll _American Musical Theatre: Shows, Songs, & Stars, Vol. 3_

"Beehive" Boss Hog _Boss Hog_
"Taster Of The Honey (Not The Keeper Of The Bee)" The Jones Girls _The Music Merchant Story_

(part two)

"Beestung" Kristin Hersh _Hips & Makers_
"The Bees (The Bees)" His Name Is Alive _Stars On ESP_
"Honey Bee" Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon _The Golden Torch Story (A Collection Of 18 Classic Northern Soul Shakers)_

"Honey Bee" Jon & Robin _Elastic Event_
"The L.S. Bumble Bee" Peter Cook & Dudley Moore _We Can Fly, Vol. 1_
"Beeswing" Richard Thompson _Mirror Blue_

"Ohio Town Saved From Killer Bees by Hungry Vampire Bats" Jad Fair & Yo La Tengo _Strange But True_
"I'll Be The Bee" Ruth & Al _Crescent City Soul: The Sound Of New Orleans 1947-1974_
"Tumble Bee" Karl Blau _Shell Collection_
"See Sea, Bee, & Me" Guitar _Sunkissed_

"Muscle Belt" Bearsuit _Muscle Belt_
"Leisure Bees" Tacocat _Lost Time_

Whither Bees?

(This image is from the Wikipedia bee page.)

This is a bit embarrassing - I am not entirely sure why I am doing a show about bees.  Sometimes someone will call the show & suggest a theme, & occasionally someone will email & ask for us to explore a theme, but more often than not, it's just some dumb observation I make that leads to a theme.  Although I am noticing some memory slippage as time goes by, & my drinking probably destroys more brain cells than television, I cannot for the life of me remember why I thought about doing a show about bees.

Don't get me wrong - they're super cool animals.  There are a bunch of songs about "the birds & the bees," the old euphemism parents once used to cover the embarrassment of talking to their children about human sexuality, but I avoided those songs for this show, since they're not really about bees themselves.  What those songs reminded me of was the sixth grade - when our science class covered actual birds & bees.  I remember my twelve-year-old self wondering if this was what was meant by "the birds & the bees."  Or if I should be digging deeper?

Look at that!  I can remember impressions I made when I was a child, but I can't think about what might have happened in the last few weeks that said to me, "Hey! Do a radio show about bees!"

Oh well.  All I know is that there are great songs, I have good, funny interviews, & best of all the show can't sting you!  Listen from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & you can listen online everywhere at the WRFL web site.

How different is this show from a show I did three years ago with the theme "buzz"
?  Oh no, I recognize two songs from that show I may play today!

Preface To Bees: EpiPens

In a couple of the fake interviews for this week's shows - these are parts I might have edited out, because I tend to edit out my own contributions, whittling them down to more or less pertinent questions for my funny friends/guests - I mentioned that I was allergic to bees.  But I have a confession to make: I don't know if I am.  I have never been stung by a bee.

Why would I say, & actually believe, that I am allergic to bees?  Because once my mother told me I was.  That was it!  I'm sure she was telling me that I had a dangerous allergy because she wanted me to be safe, & not to fuck around with bees, creatures that might sting me if I stupidly put my hand into their hive or something.  My mother is pretty much afraid of everything, & that fear was quite easily passed down into all her children.

& you know what, it worked!  It worked so well that I have never been stung by a bee.  I remember watching in awe as a middle-school friend not only got stung by a bee (I was so freaked out I almost cried) but calmly took the stinger out of his skin.  He looked briefly at it as if it were as threatening as a splinter & tossed it away.

As threatening as a splinter!  My mother once told me I absolutely had to get splinters out of my skin as soon as possible because otherwise they'd continue traveling downward, get into the blood vessels, & make their way to your heart, where one tiny splinter could stab & stab & stab you until you fucking died.

If she felt that way about a splinter, imagine what horrors a bee sting could inflict!  Honestly, I don't even know if my mother knew about allergic reactions or going into anaphylactic shock or any of that shit.  She just erred on the side of being terrified of the entire world & made sure to burden us with her suspect wisdom at every opportunity.

The weird thing is how long it took me - well into adulthood - to figure out how bogus it was.  Take, for example, fire ants.  Fire ants would bite you until you died, said my mother, & that's why you should be careful walking around them.  Only, my little brother once stood in a fire ant hill, got bitten all over his legs, was in a lot of pain, was covered in calamine lotion for a night, & didn't die.

It's a testimony to how much a child relies upon the parent that I didn't call my mother out after my brother lived.  Because when I saw those ants crawling all over him, I thought he was going to die.

Anyway, bees.  I'm still afraid of bees, & actually most insects that are larger than a dime.  & who knows?  Maybe I should carry an EpiPen with me.  For all the hell I know, out of the thousands, if not millions of things my mother told me that turned out to be hysterically wrong, she might be right about this.

New Intro Time Again Again Again Again!

With the exception of 2004 - who the hell knows what was going on then - there has been a new Self Help Radio intro each year at some arbitrary time - usually when the station begins a new schedule.  But since the show premiered in October, the first intros probably happened then.  I have no idea when they moved to May.  Probably when KOOP started a new schedule at the beginning of May.  Anyway.

The WRFL Summer Schedule starts - when?  Oh yeah, May 8.  That felt weird to me, having a new intro being the second week of the month.  So I made this year's intro today.  Hope you don't mind!

This Tuesday, around 4pm, you will hear this:

The Self Help Radio 2016-2017 Intro!

Whee!  Hooray!  Huzzah!  Good lord!  Oh no!

& in case you care, here are the intros from shows of self help past:

You can listen to the 2002 intro (my first!) here.

You can listen to the 2003 intro here.

You can listen to the 2005 intro here.

You can listen to the 2006 intro here.

You can listen to the 2007 intro here.

You can listen to the 2008 intro here.

You can listen to the 2009 intro here.

You can listen to the 2010 intro here.

You can listen to the 2011 intro here.

You can listen to the 2012 intro here.

You can listen to the 2013 intro here.

You can listen to the 2014 intro here.

Finally, even if you're sick of it, here's the intro I've been using for the past year.


Strangely, I have no idea if anyone listens to these or enjoys them or pays any attention.  But if you do, I hope this year's intro pleases you.  You're going to be hearing it for fifty-two or so weeks!

Cradle To Grave, Episode Twenty-One

From Duke Ellington to Jerry Seinfeld, from a blues great who died young to a synthesizer freak who lived a long life.  That's this week's Cradle, & that's this week's Grave.

Perhaps I should say something about Mick Ronson.  Of all the folks whom I played this week, he's probably the one I've listened to - really listened to - the longest.  My friend Russell made me a Bowie tape when I was thirteen, & even though I don't think "Moonage Daydream" was on it, there were definitely tracks from four of the five albums Ronson played guitar on for Bowie.  So even though I know Ronson had a solo career, & worked with many others (including Dylan), I can't separate him from the life-altering guitar work he did with Bowie.

Why do I feel the need to explain my choices?  I don't know.  But though I think the flow of this show is a bit clunky, I like the music I played.  I hope you like it too.

The show sits, sighs, & waits for you at the Self Help Radio website.  The births are in the first hour, the deaths in the second hour.  The songs played on the show are below.

(birthdays)

"Tourist Point Of View" Duke Ellington & His Orchestra _Duke Ellington's Far East Suite_
"Do It Again" April Stevens _Ultra Lounge, Vol. 6: Rhapsodesia_
"Autrefois" Pink Martini _Hang On Little Tomato_
"Baby Don'tcha Worry" Tammi Terrell _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol 6: 1966_

"K&H Boogie" Big Jay McNeely _The Hoy Hoy Collection: Rock Before Elvis_
"I Can't Quit You Baby" Otis Rush _The Essential Otis Rush: The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956-1958_
"Lost John" Lonnie Donegan _The Collection_
"A New Way To Cry" Willie Nelson _Willie Nelson 1961_
"Punchy Wunchy Wickey Wackey Woo" Hasil Adkins _The Wild Man_

"Crimson & Clover" Tommy James & The Shondells _The Complete Singles Collection_
"Dizzy Dizzy" Can _Anthology - 25 Years_
"A Girl In Trouble (Is A Temporary Thing)" Romeo Void _Instincts_
"The King Of Joy" Bill Drummond _Creation Soup Volume Four_
"Men & Women" Jerry Seinfeld _I'm Telling You For The Last Time_

(death anniversaries)

"When The Sun Goes Down" Leroy Carr _When The Sun Goes Down, Vol. 3: That's Chicago's South Side_
"Mississippi Road" J.B. Lenoir _Folk Music In America, Vol. 7: Songs Of Complaint & Protest_
"Choo Choo Ch'boogie" Kenny Roberts _Rockabilly & Hillbilly Hell Raisers_
"Pastures Of Plenty" Cisco Houston _Cisco Houston Sings The Songs Of Woody Guthrie_
"The Home Of The Blues" Sammy Lawhorn _Rockin' Rhythm & Blues From Memphis_

"You Took Advantage Of Me" Miff Mole & His Little Molers _Echoes Of The 20s & 30s_
"Muddy Miss" Jimmy Jones Big Eight _Jimmy Jones 1946-1947_
"The Strut" James Moody _Wail Moody, Wail_
"Yellow Dog Blues" Cat Anderson _Plays W.C Handy_

"Dune Buggy" The Surfaris _Fun City, U.S.A._
"Penny Lane" The Beatles _1967 - 1970_
"Love Heals" Colours _Love Heals_
"Moonage Daydream" David Bowie _The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars_

"Relay Circuit" The Copper Plated Integrated Circuit _Plugged In Pop_

Self Help Radio 042616: Indiepop A To Z # 50

(I got all the album/single cover images from discogs.com.)

Here's a confession about this show, my fiftieth (!) entry in my indiepop a to z series: I fucked up twice.  In my first airbreak, a WRFL member just came sauntering into the deejay room - even though the "on air" light was bright red outside - as if it were the most natural thing in the world - & did whatever she was doing in there.  Then she left.  It totally threw me off my game.  I lost my train of thought, I got irate, & I just went straight to reading a PSA.  That is preserved in the airbreak of the show.  Sigh.

What isn't preserved is the end of the next-to-the-last airbreak wherein I forget which CD was in which player, & accidentally didn't play the Lightning Seeds song that was supposed to be next.  I very clumsily stopped the song I played instead, & stumbled on-air trying to figure out where the errant CD was, & got lucky on the second try.  But you know what?  I edited that out of the show now on the website.  Because I can do that!

Because sounding terribly unprofessional is something I should really only do once a show, especially since I sound awful unprofessional most of the rest of the time.

In any event - here it is, the second episode of indiepop L, now at the Self Help Radio website, in two delicious parts, in for real alphabetical order.  You know about the password, right?  It's on the front page.  You know what songs I played, right?  Well, they're right below this.

Be twee.

(part one)

"Love & Understanding" Legendary Hearts _In A World Like This..._
"Bigfoot" The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group _Sniff_
"Nothing To Be Done" The Legends _Up Against The Legends_

"Maple Leaves (7" Version)" Jens Lekman _Maple Leaves_
"Nemo's Land" Lemon Curd _Nemo's Land EP_
"I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again" The Leopards _I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again_
"Any Day Now" Leslies _Moshi Moshi (Pop International Style)_
"Pop Love" Let's Be Honeys _Popsongs For My Poor Self_

"Three Limbs" Let's Go Naked _Three Limbs_
"All Happy Endings" Let's Whisper _The Shortest Days_
"We Are The Men You'll Grow To Love Soon" Let's Wrestle _In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's_
"Rotten Love" Levy _Rotten Love_
"Kitchen At Parties" Jona Lewie _On The Other Hand There's A Fist_

"Don't React" Liberty Ship _The Matinée Summer Splash!_
"Kind" The Liddles _Welcome To The Wetherbeat Scene 1988 - 1991_

(part two)

"Postcard" Liechtenstein _Survival Strategies In A Modern World_
"Inside Out" Life Studies _Homeward 7"_
"The Leanover" Life Without Buildings _Any Other City_

"Yard Sale" Lifestyle _At The Risk Of Sounding Pretentious_
"Big Shoe Boy" Ligament Blub Brothers _Big Shoe Boy 7"_
"Yuri's Hair Salon" The Legendary Len Liggins _Yuri's Hair Salon_
"Springtime" The Lighthouse Keepers _The Exploding Lighthouse Keepers_
"Everyone I Know" Lightning Love _November Birthday_

"Pure" The Lightning Seeds _Cloudcuckooland_
"He's Not A Boy" The Like _Release Me_
"New York" Like Honey _Leaves_
"Office Rock" The Lil' Hospital _Heavy Metal_
"I Went To The Dance" The Lilac Time _& Love For All_

"My Heart Bleeds" Lilac Trumpets _The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Vol. 6_
"Any Place I've Lived" Lilys _A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 50?

Holy springtime, there will soon be fifty of these?  & we're still in the letter L?  By that calculation, I'll finally be done when...  let me see...  carry the seven...  pie are square...  ah!  When there are no more radios & global warming will have changed us all into happy blob creatures living in nutrient-rich saunas.  So - 2032?

Yes, it's the continuation today of the ridiculous indiepop a to z series.  We started the letter L last time, & will begin with the Scottish band Legendary Hearts.  Where will it end?  You'll have to listen to find out.  Fans of lists, alphabetization, & indiepop may enjoy themselves.

Today, from 4-6pm, on 88.1 fm WRFL, & simultaneously online at wrfl dot fm.  Lots of great music from musicians you may have never heard before.  That's one of the things radio is good for!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 50: Show Math

Here's something I was thinking about when it hit me that I have done almost fifty episodes of this weird "indiepop a to z" series: what percentage of the total shows I have done are these episodes?

At one time I tried to keep a count of the number of Self Help Radio shows I've done.  That was something I was usually too lazy to update, but once I added a "table of contents" (really, a list of the shows) to my website, it became easier for me.  Using a line counting function in BBEdit, I have a rough number: 716 shows.

Please understand, these are not 716 different themes - I have repeated themes, like Christmas & Halloween shows, & I re-visit a theme on the show's anniversary.  But it does mean around 716 different episodes of Self Help Radio.

Is that number correct?  Probably not, but it's a decent ballpark estimate.  In the thirteen & half years I've done Self Help Radio, it makes sense that I would've done around 700 shows.  I imagine I've done around forty-eight shows a year, counting time off.  Some years more, some less.  Sometimes I've had to take breaks because I've changed stations or cities.  That happens.

The math gets easier, then: fifty indiepop a to z shows out of seven hundred shows equals about seven percent of Self Help Radio shows.  Probably less, but it's a nice number.

Should I do more?  Maybe every three months instead of four?  Because, you know, at this rate, I'll never finish.

Heck, tomorrow I won't finish the letter L!

Who Here Knows The Best Way To Get Illegal Drugs In This Town?

Once upon a time, there was a dealer.  The dealer was not only a distributor of illegal drugs, he was also a user of same.  This dealer however just sold marijuana, in a state where the drug was illegal.  He was a nice enough sort, easygoing in the clichéd manner that people imagine potheads are.  In fact, when they thought about it, most of his customers would swear they had never seen him angry.

But a select few of his clientele had seen him angry.  In fact, those few, after witnessing his blow-ups, realized that his constant, uninterrupted use of marijuana probably had an unintended purpose: yes, it was getting & keeping him really high, but it also appeared to keep a magnificent lid on a terrifying anger problem.

Why did the dealer get mad with only these few of his customers?  It was because of one word.

Notice that he was referred to in the first paragraph above as a "distributor of illegal drugs."  He would not refer to himself in that way.  It's because he did not think of marijuana as a drug.

But if marijuana were not a drug, what was it?  He had a ready answer for that: "It's natural," he would say.  "It's found in nature."

If you were to casually refer to him as a "drug dealer," the drug dealer would flip out. "It's not a drug!" he would scream.

Most folks - because they wanted their drug in the form of the marijuana being sold - would simply recoil, unaware they'd made a faux pas, though used to the legendary sensitivity of drug dealers, & say, "Sorry, man, I didn't mean it!"

But one time, a younger man, a new customer, perhaps, one who had actually grown up with an older brother with a bad temper, & the mother he inherited it from, this person didn't react in the same way.  He saw it for what it was: a weird, irrational, defensive freak-out.  After the dealer had screamed his piece, his eyes bulging out, his mouth open, his face an unusual shade of red, this customer calmly took out his phone, punched something into it, & then read out loud, "The marijuana plant contains the mind-altering chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is a drug."

The dealer, unused to being gainsaid or challenged in any way, said, "That - that doesn't make it a drug, a chemical name."

The customer punched some more things into his phone & said, "Drug, noun.  A medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body."

The dealer just stood there, looking quite confused.

The customer turned to go.

"Wh-where are you going?" the dealer said.

"I know what you're going to say," the customer said.  "I grew up with people who fly off the handle.  You're just going to tell me to get the fuck out."

"But," said the dealer somewhat plaintively, "don't you want your pot?"

Cradle To Grave, Episode Twenty

From Kentucky to India.  That's the path this week's Cradle To Grave took.  I don't know if that's good or not.  I was chatting with a very opinionated someone about college radio in general last week, & he told me there were two defining characteristics of that media: the inability to read & the lack of flow.  He said, "Whenever college students have to read something on the radio, they make you wonder how they got into college at all."  He later complained that every college deejay thinks it's funny to, say, play a pretty classical music piece, & then follow it with a black metal song.  "I wish," he said, "it could be put into their brains how many people change the station in disgust."

Naturally, I have begun to worry about this show.  Since I have no control over who was born or who died on a particular day, I have to work with the material fate gives me.  One solution might be for me to do what the late, great John Peel did, & chat briefly in-between every song, but I think I speak for the universe when I say nobody wants that.

How bad could it be?  As an example, in the last set of the show, I played a rock & roll tune from the 1960s & followed it with a folky song.  I don't think it flowed all that well.  But I wanted to play both songs before the end of the show.  & I thought, "Well, they're both women singers, so..."

Please, hypothetical listener, don't change the station in disgust!

The show, which is about April 22, even though it's no longer April 22, is now at Self Help Radio's website.  It's in two parts, birthdays & death anniversaries, & what I played is below, although sometimes the musician being celebrated or commemorated is not the main artist - so you might want to listen to find out who it is!

"Trademark On What I Found" Bob Gallion _MGM Hillbilly, Vol. 2_
"Way In The Hee Hi Hoo" Lemon Nash _Papa Lemon: New Orleans Ukulele Maestro & Tent Show Troubadour_
"Wichita Lineman" Glen Campbell _Wichita Lineman_
"Black Diamond Bay" Bob Dylan _Desire_

"Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul" Charles Mingus _Mingus Ah Um_
"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" Mel Carter _The Best Of Mel Carter_
"Sweet Jamaica" Laurel Aitken _You Got Me Rockin' (The Blue Beat Years 1960-1964)_
"Boogie'n With George" George Smith _Now You Can Talk About Me_
"Nosey Joe" Bull Moose Jackson _Badman Jackson That's Me_

"Zulu King" Cannibal & The Headhunters _Land Of 1000 Dances_
"I Can Fly" The Herd _The Complete Herd_
"Tempted" Squeeze _Spot The Difference_
"The SAS & The Glam That Goes With It" Earl Brutus _Tonight You Are The Special One_
"Confusion" New Order _Palatine, Vol. 2: Life's A Beach_

(death anniversaries)

"Hoola Boola Dance" Perry Bradford's Jazz Phools _The Rise & Fall Of Paramount Records, Vol. 1: 1917-1927_
"A Monday Date" Earl Hines _Louis Armstrong & Earl Hines 1928: The Smithsonian Collection_
"Boy! What Love Has Done To Me!" Jane Froman with Al Goodman & His Orchestra_ Those Wonderful Girls Of Stage, Screen & Radio: Original Records Of The 30s_
"Love Can Change The Stars" Victor Marchese & Jane Powell _Reaching For The Moon_
"All I Have To Do Is Dream" The Everly Brothers _Classic Everly Brothers_

"Calling Jesus" Rev. Louis Overstreet _His Guitar, His Four Sons, & The Congregation Of St. Luke Powerhouse Church Of God In Christ_
"Witches Brew" Marilyn Cooper, Leslie Uggams, Barbara Sharma _Hallelujah, Baby! (Original Broadway Cast Recording)_
"Moon Over Rio" Robert Farnon _Betty Page Jungle Girl Exotique Music_
"I Only Have Eyes For You" Jimmy Bee _Los Angeles Soul: Kent-Modern's Black Music Legacy_

"Joycie Girl" Don Pullen feat. Sam Rivers _Capricorn Rising_
"High Flying Bird" Richie Havens _Mixed Bag_
"Is There Anything I Can Do" The Ashes _The Peanut Butter Conspiracy: Spreading From The Ashes_
"The Rebel Girl" Hazel Dickens _Don't Mourn - Organize! Songs Of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill_

"Bhajan In Raga Pilu" Shri Lalgudi Jayaraman _Violin_

Self Help Radio 041916: Everything's Fine

(Original image here.)

No.  No.  Everything is not fine.  How dare a radio show tell me that things are fine when they so obviously are not.  The gall!  The cheek!  The chutzpah!  The impudence!  The insolence!  The effrontery!  How brazen!  How ballsy!  How arrogant!  How impudent!  How presumptuous!

Unless.  Unless I misunderstand the nature of media.  Maybe media is not by definition in opposition to me.  Maybe media is just a viewpoint that exists, as so many do, that doesn't threaten mine at all.  Maybe taking things like radio, television, films personally belies my own insecurity.  Am I so unassured, do I have such a lack of confidence, that something with which I disagree needs to be silenced instead of accepted in a society that values the free exchange of ideas?

But wait!  People on the radio have a different platform than most of us.  I can say "Everything's not okay!" but the only people listening are my cats & someone who might be driving by with the windows down!  A person on the radio can reach more people!  Therefore my opinion doesn't have the exposure theirs does!  Their ego is by definition more successful than my ego!

This is unfair & should be stopped!

Oh hi!  That above is an excerpt from an unfinished one-act play I wrote because I disagreed this one time with something Roger Ebert wrote.  He was only a good writer, you know, when he & I liked the same things.  Otherwise he just made me mad.

Why did I share it with you?  Who knows!  I might have cat scratch fever.  Meanwhile, this week's show, with the theme, "Everything's Fine," is now available for listening at the Self Help Radio website.  The show is not an endorsement of everything, nor is it an actual description of "everything," which, as we all know, is demonstrably not fine.  It is simply another in a long line of exercises in futility which, you may have guessed, is the only real exercise I get.

Still - let's hope everything's fine for as long as you listen.

(part one)

"Everything's Fine" The Saints _Wild About You: The Complete Saints 1976 - 1978_
"Everything's Just Fine" The Waltones _Deepest_
"Everything's Just Fine" Earwig _La-Di-Da...  So Far..._

"Everything's Just Fine" Ronderlin _Wave Another Day Goodbye_
"Everything Is Fine" Numbers _Now You Are This_
"Everything's Fine" Minks _Tides End_
"Everything Is Fine" Teen Suicide _DC Snuff Film_

"All Is Fine" Tall Dwarfs _Fork Songs_
"Fine" James _Pleased To Meet You_
"Fa-Fa-Fa-Fine" Julian Cope _Jehovahkill_
"Feeling Fine" Class _First_

"I Feel Fine" The Beatle Barkers _The Beatle Barkers_
"Feel So Fine (with Patsy Todd)" Derrick Morgan _Moon Hop (Best Of The Early Years 1960-1969)_

(part two)

"Guess I'm Doing Fine" Bob Dylan _The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9)_
"Tonight Will Be Fine" Leonard Cohen _Songs From A Room_
"That's Fine" The Legendary Bang _Big Bluff_

"You Know I'm Fine" The Orchids _Unholy Soul_
"Seems Fine" The Concretes _The Concretes_
"Closer To Fine" The Smittens _Love Record Breaker_
"Fine" Burnt Palms _Back On My Wall_

"It's A Fine Day" Jane _Scared To Get Happy: Story of Indie Pop 1980-1989_
"One Fine Day" David Byrne & Brian Eno _Everything That Happens Will Happen Today_
"One Fine Day" Madness _The Liberty Of Norton Folgate_
"It's Gonna Work Out Fine" Cherokees _It's Gonna Work Out Fine_

"It's The End Of The World As We Know It (& I Feel Fine)" R.E.M. _Document_
"Doin' Fine" Groovie Ghoulies _Short Music For Short People_
"Thursday Feels Fine" Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes _Cabinet Of Curiosities_

Whither Everything's Fine?

(I'm sorry, I have no idea where I found this image.)

Irony lovers take note!  This week's show has the theme "everything's fine."  But it turns out that today took a turn toward the awful, & although technically everything is okay now, it could've gone much, much worse.

A little backstory: I put the show together on my computer.  I edit my dumb "comedy" bits, I rip CDs into digital files, I digitize vinyl when I need to, I have some stuff on mp3 or mp4 or whatever.  It's more convenient to have them in a few places than carrying a bunch of records & CDs up to the station every week, like I used to do (like so many deejays, bless their souls, still do).  I am not saying my way is better, but since I am in front of a computer all day long anyway, it's just easier for me to work this way.  & I spend Tuesday mornings listening over everything, making notes in my head how I should organize the show, etc.

This morning, around 10am, the power went out.  The neighbors were milling around outside looking confused, so it was obviously an area-wide event.  One neighbor claimed to see a transformer blow.  Eventually, calls to the power company informed us that like "4,000 families are affected" or something.  Everything was, in fact, not fine.  At all.

Remember: most of my show is on a computer.  I panicked.  I despaired.  I decided that I would scrap the show, & just play music miserably (including miserable music), & I realized it would be the first time I had skipped a theme in favor of a freeform show because of circumstances beyond my control.  I despaired more.  I self-hated.  I was grumpy with the wife on the morning dogwalk.  I was rude to my poor dogs.

At the end of the walk, as we came back around to the house, however, the traffic lights in our neighborhood were back on, & everything was returning to fine.  My blood pressure would take a little longer to level out.

& now, as I write this, I am scrambling to get the show done.  I am ridiculously backing up everything every few minutes.  I am lugging out CDs & vinyl in case I have to take them up to the station.  So - you know - everything is not fine in my head.  I am preparing for something that already happened, assuming it will happen again & again.  I get that from my mom.

Will everything be fine?  Find out today from 4-6pm on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  & blame the weirdos in Lexington who turn their A/C on when it's a paltry 80 degrees outside.  In Texas, we call that "early spring."

Preface To Everything's Fine: Alarming Information About Fines

This is a haiku about fines:

My library fines
Don't make me feel very fine
Unlike fine wine

Here is a haiku about taxes:

Choose: taxes or fines -
One's down, the other rises!
Shh! That's a secret!

Here is a haiku about parking tickets:

I used to daydream
I'd love a fair meter maid -
Dumb parking ticket!

Here is a haiku about haiku:

Too many people
Call what they write a 'haiku'
Without counting syllables

Here is a haiku about the previous haiku:

That's not a haiku!
You did what you pointed out!
Oh, now I get it.

Here is an apology for all the haiku:

Sorry about all the haikus I wrote.

Here is a link which will tell you that the plural of haiku  can be either haiku or haikus.

Here is a final haiku to people who don't like that I add an 's' to the end of haiku to make it plural.

A living language
(Like English is) also lets
Foreign words evolve.

Me & My Backyard

On the show's Twitter account today - which really should be about the show, but since the show doesn't always have a lot to say, & usually only has something to say from four to six pm on Tuesdays, so I will often fill it with my mundane thoughts & embarrassingly obvious observations - I tweeted about my backyard.

Damn do we have a big backyard.  I didn't really want the house we live in, actually.  It's too big for us, even when us is two humans, four dogs, & four cats.  But my wife wanted the house, & she wanted it much more than I didn't want it.  Honestly, I guess I didn't care.  But I wish, when I was thinking about this house,  I had thought about mowing.

Mowing the backyard - this is just the backyard - takes me about ninety minutes.  That's a hell of a time commitment.  Plus, I don't apparently get better at mowing - I don't appear to be able to learn new mowing strategies that can shave minutes off my average mowing time.  If there were some "mowing skills plateau," I reached it pretty quickly.  It takes an hour & a half for me to mow my backyard.

It takes me longer to mow the front, but that's the wife's responsibility, since she also wants to do insane shit like blow excess grass off the sidewalks & edge.

If there's a reason why I'm not good at mowing, it may be because I lived in apartments for the first twenty years of my life.  The only time I mowed was when I was paid for it by my older siblings & it was their yard(s).  & I worked cheap.  Probably did a terrible job too.

When I rented houses or duplexes in Austin, the owners paid to have the yards done "professionally." I had to buy a lawn mower only when we bought our first house, in 2005.

It's been downhill from then.

& yet.  I don't think I would be comfortable with a "riding mower."  You know who uses a riding mower?  The seventy-something-year-old man next door.  He looks so happy on it.  & perhaps that's one of the reasons I resist: who wants to be happy mowing a lawn?

Would I feel better about mowing the backyard if I had grown up being required to take care of our own back yard?  It's hard to say.  My mother never made me & my little brother do chores when we were kids - I doubt she would've made us mow a lawn.  More than likely, she would have done it.  The reasons why are more complicated than I have time to go into.  But infantilizing her sons has made it difficult for them to move away from her, which is why most of them live within a few miles of her to this day.

Okay, I went into it some.

Anyway, that's why I was talking about my backyard today.  I should probably mow it once a week, but I said that last year.  & the year before that.

Through it all, my backyard, mowed or unmowed, wet or dry, green or brown, it mocks me.  All day long.

Let me check.  Yes.  All night long, too.