Preface To Swoon: A Short History Of Fainting

This is true: I am a fainter.  I faint.  I am not sure why I faint but I do.

The first time I remember fainting was in sixth grade health class.  We were talking about intravenous drugs.  I passed out.  I had been focusing on putting a needle in my arm & my brain short-circuited.  This happened again in eighth grade.  I apparently collapsed in health class again & caused a stir.  I was taken to the school nurse.

You probably haven't read much Dostoyevsky but one of the things he talks about, since he was epileptic, is the profound peace one feels in an epileptic fit.  I am not epileptic so I can't speak to that, but as someone who had fainted many times, I can tell you that in the strange state of unconsciousness within the faint, it's extraordinarily peaceful.  It's like a dream of calm.  When consciousness comes to bring you back, you go in protest.  Waking up from a faint is a violent thing.

In my first or second semester of college, I fainted in a large psychology class.  The professor was talking about the brain, & - these were pre-computer days - he had a transparency on the overhead projector which simulated the layers of the brain.  As he went deeper, lifting each transparency to reveal things underneath, I felt that my brain was being peeled open, & I fainted.  I woke to a frat boy type slapping my face saying in a whisper - because the professor was lecturing - "Dude, wake up.  Are you okay, dude?"

Your eyes stay open when you faint.  Did you know that?

Cataloging my faints would be tedious.  I fainted just last year because of a drug situation that I won't go into.  I will say that once I learned my particular symptoms of a possible faint, I learned how to waylay it - usually by putting my head between my legs so my brain didn't lose blood or oxygen.

If I could change anything about myself, well, that's a long list, but one of those things would be that I would be able to turn myself off like a machine.  I had a friend who told me of a boy she was dating who would say, "I'm going to sleep now," & then fall asleep.  I was envious of him.  Imagine being able to initiate sleep mode so readily!

Swooning is not, however, merely fainting.  I can't say if I've ever actually swooned.  Let me think about that.  I've fainted, oh how I've fainted.  But swooned?  Hm.  I don't know.

What To Do With News Of News

So... there's some news about Self Help Radio that I'd like to share.  & in a sense, I've already shared.  Y'see, I have to record Self Help Radio to air Monday mornings & it has to be turned in early so someone can "screen" it (or "clear" it) in case I go on some kind of potty mouth rant.  Which, to be fair, is always likely no matter how long I've done radio.

& on the show, which I finished today, I shared the news, so it feels like I've already told you.  But of course you won't hear it until Monday morning - during the last airbreak! - & you probably won't listen to the show at all.  So you won't ever hear the news unless I tell you here.

But something tells me to wait.  Something also tells me to eat whatever's in the refrigerator right now.  I can ignore the latter voice, so I could ignore the former.  But the voice telling me to wait is very different from the voice telling me to be a colossal pig, & in fact I wish the voice telling me to wait to share the news would also tell me to just eat when I'm hungry.  So I'm inclined the trust the more prudent of voices.

Do you mind waiting?  We can talk Monday.  As usual, I'm making a bigger deal about this than it really is.  But I can't wait to tell you!  I'm excited.  But I have to wait.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 7: Town Lake Circle

(Image from Google Maps.)

This place no longer exists.  This is taken from Google images from 2007.  As of January of 2020, it looked like this:

(ditto)

What happened to the apartments?  They were gone by 2008, as far as I can tell, & nothing has been put in their place.

For the life of me I can't recall what they were called - maybe Town Lake Apartments?  The street I looked out onto was Elmont, but officially the address was Town Lake Circle.  I moved in with school friends Paul & Todd in 1986, lived there till the summer of 1987, when I returned to Garland.  I lived in a smaller apartment toward the back with another school friend William in my sophomore year of college, roughly August 1987 to May 1988, & lived again with William & yet another friend, Joe, in a two-bedroom apartment (I lived in the living room) from around August of 1988 till December of 1988, when William & Joe decided to move out, leaving me with a place I couldn't afford.  Luckily, I had been a good tenant, & the landlord let me break the lease.

These apartments were in an area that used to be called "the Riverside student ghetto."  They were far from campus, maybe six miles away.  I used to take a bus to classes - which went onto I-35 past the lake through downtown - & it took around ten to fifteen minutes to get to UT; nowadays I'm sure it takes twice as long, or worse if the traffic is bad.

Down the street was a venue called "The Back Room."  It was apparently mostly a space for metal shows, but I have fond memories of seeing Love & Rockets, the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Sugarcubes, James, & gosh probably other shows there.  Here's an article about the place.  It's apparently now where Emo's, once a downtown club (where I also saw too many shows to count), now exists.

There was also a supermarket within walking distance, & I remember my roommate Paul & I had a brief fling with tennis while we lived there - there was a tennis court down the road.  Alas, Paul got better & better at the game, while I plateaued at "somewhat mediocre," & Paul was very competitive.  & as people who suck at sports know, it's never much fun to play with people who are better than you are if they love to win.  You end up just asking to be humiliated.

One amusing story is that I had a longstanding obsession with a girl who lived in the apartments who had purple hair.  I would refer to her to friends as "the purple-haired girl," inviting comparisons with Charlie Brown & his "little red haired girl."  She lived with a boyfriend, & I would never have had the courage to speak to her, so I would sit on the bus, listening to the Birthday Party on my Walkman, & daydream about getting to know her.  Years later, as fate would have it, we became somewhat acquainted, &, alas, she wasn't a very interesting person.  Her name was Leanne.  I think after we hung out once or twice we realized we didn't really have much in common.

At some point I'll get to the years 1986 through 1988 in my birthday series so I'll have more to say about this place.  Once I moved away from this part of the world, I never really went back - my home range, such as it was, shifted to the Hyde Park area of Austin after this.  But in 2017, my wife & I visited Austin for what would be the very last time & there was a food truck that we went to there, & the whole area seemed utterly strange to me.  I guess I noticed the apartments were gone.  We did walk the dogs down by Town Lake & I kinda wished that I had had a dog when I lived there - I really wish I had spent more time down by the lake.

Today I was talking to a friend who had lived in Austin in the 90s & we chatted about different areas of the city.  I lived there for more than twenty years & really didn't see a whole lot of the city.  It's a shame, really - it was a big place, expansive, & the time to get to know it was then, when it was still a somewhat sleepy little town.  Now it may be entirely unknowable.

Self Help Radio 101220: Traps

(Original image here.)

You see, I was caught in a trap.  I couldn't walk out.  Because I was doing a radio show, baby.  & here it is!

You're thinking, I never thought of radio as a trap!  You are correct to do so.  Whom would radio want to trap?  Radio is the opposite of a trap - it sets you free.  It sets music free.  It sets voices free.

Does this make a radio show about traps ironic?  Hardly.  Because radio often finds itself sending messages that are contradictory, ironic, moronic, etc.  That's often inadvertent - for example, this radio show can often be so incredibly dumb but also astonishingly un-self-aware.  Why would it broadcast dumb things?  Alas, not knowingly!

Am I done asking questions & answering them as if something actually cares about this nonsense?  I am!

You can listen to this week's Self Help Radio which is presented exactly as it aired Monday morning on Freeform Portland by visiting the Self Help Radio web site.  Please remember: username SHR, password selfhelp.  The show was just me & songs, so all you need to know is the songs that were played, & they are listed below.

Don't worry!  The show is entirely trap & release this week!

Self Help Radio Traps Show

"Trap" The Pop Group _We Are Time_

"Trap" Robert Fripp & The League Of Gentlemen _God Save The King_

"Trap" The Cure _Wild Mood Swings_

introduction & definitions

"Suspicious Minds" Mark James _You Heard It Here First!_

"Trapped In Amber" The Clean _Anthology_

"Siamese Trap" Opal _Happy Nightmare, Baby_

"Set A Little Trap" Phyllis Hyman _Forever With You_

"Keep Your Fly-Trap Closed" Jimmy McLain _Swingin' The Blues: 1931-1939_

another airbreak

"The Trapper & The Furrier" Regina Spektor _Remember Us To Life_

"Trapped By A Thing Called Love" Denise LaSalle _Trapped By A Thing Called Love_

"I Trap You" Kae Tempest _The Book Of Traps & Lessons_

"Trapped Love" The Cramps _Flamejob_

"Black Light Trap" Shriekback _Big Night Music_

yet another airbreak

"Trap Door" Stars _No One Is Lost_

"Bear In A Trap" Her Royal Harness _The Hunting Room_

"Party Trap" Tacocat _NVM_

"Mantrap" Thee Headcoats _Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already)_

"Traps" New Musik _Anywhere_

really? another airbreak?

"Trapped" Chastity Belt _Time To Go Home_

"Trapped In A Love Affair" Brenda Holloway _A Cellarful Of Motown!_

"Trapped" Kenneth Williams & Roderick Cook _Share My Lettuce (A Nixa Original Cast Recording)_

"Trapped In Paradise" Bill Baird _Diamond Eyepatch_

"Trapped" Underworld & Iggy Pop _Teatime Dub Encounters_

conclusion & goodbye

"Love Is The Tender Trap" Frank Sinatra _The Capitol Years_

"The World Was A Trap" The Crooner _Sounds From The Valley Of Love_

"I'm Like A Ship Trapped Inside A Bottle" The Cavalcade _Many Moons_

"Still We Fall (Into The Same Trap)" Eggplant _Anorak Twat_

Whither Traps?

(image from the Wikipedia page about trapping)

Look.  I know you feel trapped.  Everyone does.  Trapped inside because of the pandemic.  Trapped by the fucked-up institutions that are letting a minority control our country & topple it into fascism.  Trapped by the love you feel for family, close friends, lovers, pets.  Everything's a trap.  There's no way to get entirely free.  At some point (to really strain the metaphor) you're going to even gnaw some part of yourself off just to try to get away.

Don't do that!  Why not just kinda accept it & listen to a radio show about traps?  It's easier to deal with being triggered if you pull the trigger yourself.  Hey, look at me, acting all self-helpy & shit.  I have no experience or training in counseling as you well know but I have been doing a show called "Self Help Radio" for eighteen years now.  I think that should count for something!

Enjoy the bait that got you into the trap in the first place.  & listen to Self Help Radio's show about traps, which will air tomorrow (Monday) morning from 8-10am on Freeform Portland.  You can listen in town at 90.3 & 98.3 fm & everywhere at freeformportland.org.  Maybe knowing it's a trap will make you feel a bit smarter when you fall for it?

Preface To Traps: Kind Of Apologies

When I left KOOP in 2008, I left without needing to take a break or a sabbatical or really ever relinquishing the many tasks I volunteered for.  I remember proudly saying to someone, "I never burned out."  Which is true.  There are people who needed to recharge after being so involved, & there were people who left & never came back.  Technically, I left & never came back, but I was moving away, so I couldn't come back, not without great expense.

Just the other day, in reference to my current work, someone told me they didn't want me to burn out.  "I don't burn out," I said.

No, I guess I don't.  I just get tired.  There are so many things I could be doing to help out that I have to say no to because I am programming three radio shows a week.  I was doing this earlier in the year, of course, but there is something different about going to a station to do a show.  Even when I am doing a show from home, I'm working on it till the last possible minute.  Frankly I think broadcasting from home brings out my worst procrastinating tendencies.

Which is a kind of long-winded way of saying I opted out of the bells & whistles for this week's Self Help Radio.  I usually put a good deal of work into the show - interviews & what-not - although recording it adds more time - but I just didn't have the energy this week.  The show's in the can, it'll be on the air on Monday morning - you'll understand what I mean when you hear it.

What I could have done was take a week off - although it probably wouldn't have resulted in me catching up in any meaningful way - but instead I just simply made a radio show a bit like Self Help Radio used to be - although without a lot of research.

In sum, I owe you an apology.  Even if you don't listen, I owe you an apology.  Even if you don't think I owe you an apology, I owe you an apology.  I owe myself an apology too.  That's the trouble with setting a standard for one's radio show.  It just feels ugly to not meet it.  & Self Help Radio has such low standards to begin with!

So - sorry.  Sorry for this week's half-assed show.  I am hoping my Thursday morning gig will be done soon, & I'll have more time to spend on other things - including Self Help Radio.

Related question: am I burnt out?  Is being tired all the time burnt out?

Need I Remind You

Soon enough I'll be done subbing so many shows on KBOO (I hope) because they've recently sent out a call for show proposals, but nowabouts is a good time to remind you that even though I don't archive my KBOO shows - subs shows & the Dickenbock Report - on the Self Help Radio website, I do link to where they are archived, which is on the KBOO website.

These shows are done live by remote, which is fraught with all sorts of technical issues, which might make for challenging listening, but should you want to, you can go to the following pages to hear episodes of programs I currently do on KBOO:

The Dickenbock Report

The Sub Show

The Dickenbock Report is a lot like Self Help Radio, the Sub Show is a lot like my freeform shows, except I mainly play new releases.

That's all.  Nothing much to see here.  Move along.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 6: Cranford Drive

(image from Google Maps)

This is the place I lived in for most of the time I was in high school.  I returned to stay here for the summer of 1987, after my first year of college.  & I returned here again after my second year of college, although my mother was soon to be moving out of it.  That's a long story.  It is, for all intents & purposes, the last place I lived in in Garland.  Although that's a little arguable.

It was built I believe in 1982, & we were the first family to occupy apartment # 1.  I had to share a room again with my little brother, but he spent a great deal of time at our oldest sister's place, so often I was by myself.  I had my first kiss in this house, with a girl named Heather on the floor after we watched a movie - I think it might have been St. Elmo's Fire.  I also had long conversations on the phone with friends & strangers in this house, & I embarrassed myself more times than I can remember.  I was deeply into both comics & records in this house - I bought my first stereo, from money I earned at a summer job, when I lived here, & I had a decent record collection by the time I went to college in August 1986.

It was just a block away from the convenience store owned by my mother's boyfriend, who (not coincidentally) moved into apartment # 5, across the little driveway from our front door.  I'm sure he helped my mother pay the deposit & also probably paid a portion of the rent - my mother kind of had him wrapped around her finger.  As I mentioned last week, we had been living with him until his drinking drove my mother away.

We didn't move from that house to this apartment, though.  We spent a few weeks - I'm not sure how many - sleeping on the floor at my sister Pat's house.  I am not entirely sure where it was.  I don't have an address & none of the places I looked at on Google Maps looked familiar - it's been over thirty-five years after all.  I turned 15 in my sister's house, & at the time she was very pregnant - she gave birth to my nephew Josh while we were living there.  Once he was brought home, we had to go.

It's worth noting that we returned to the area where I lived from basically the age of four to the age of nine.  & Little Brook Apartments was also on Cranford, just a couple hundred feet to the west.  So by 1986 I had lived a quarter or so of my life on Cranford Drive.

Since my mother has gone, I have no reason to visit Garland anymore, but when I used to - mainly when I visited from Austin or from Kentucky - I would sometimes drive down Cranford Drive.  It's a little rougher neighborhood than when I lived there - or so I've read.  I have walked, ridden my bike, & driven up & down that street more times than I could count.  & yet I can't feel terribly sentimental about this place.  Maybe I did before, & repeated pilgrimages back have diminished its power somewhat.  Or maybe I am just not as sentimental as I used to be.

There's one story about this place - I don't know if I mentioned it before - I was downstairs one night & heard a crash from upstairs.  I rushed up & went into my mother's bedroom.  Her ceiling fan seemed to be going crazy, & her dog Kalijah was a bit freaked out.  It turns out one of the blades had broken off & flew across the room.  I turned the fan off & made sure she was all right - she had slept through the commotion.  It could have hurt her, maybe even hurt her badly.  It could have gone through her window - that's the one that faced front on the second floor in the picture above.  She barely acknowledged me & went back to sleep, although I'm sure we talked about it the next day - she had to get a new ceiling fan.  Or did she ever get a new ceiling fan?

Years later I asked her about this, & she had no memory of it.  She may have thought I was making it up.  But nope!

Self Help Radio 100520: Lions Revisited (The 18th Anniversary Show)

(Original image here.)

Eighteen years is a long time.  I should know!  I waited eighteen years before I got a kiss.  & Self Help Radio has waited eighteen years for someone to actually like it!  I suppose if I could wait that long for a kiss, the show can wait a little longer to find a listener.

Still, it was a pleasant anniversary show.  Almost everyone stopped by to wish happy thoughts!  There was even a surprise phone call.  What there wasn't was cold hard cash.  We could've used the cash.  This whiskey does not buy itself.  I suppose I should also say something about lions.  We had plenty of songs about lions.  No lion actually came on the show, however.  They were all "busy."  "Self-quarantining," they explained.  Dudes, the virus doesn't affect lions!  Just say you didn't want to come on the show!  My feelings are always hurt, you don't have to spare them!

Listen to the anniversary festivities at the Self Help Radio website.  Please remember SHR & selfhelp - those are the username & password respectively.  There were exactly two hours' worth of lions, & they went like it says below.

Eighteen years!  The show better register to vote!

Self Help Radio Lions Revisited Show

"Lions" Poptone _Poptone_

"Lions" Tristen _Sneaker Waves_

"Lions" Jamaican Jazz Orchestra _Encounters_

introduction + a blast from the past

"Sign Of The Lion" Tony Joe White _The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings_

"Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir" Nancy Holloway _Portrait 1961-1974_

"Don't Go In The Lion's Cage Tonight" Homer & Jethro _Ooh, That's Corny_

"A Lion's Heart" The Tallest Man On Earth _The Wild Hunt_

"The Lion & The Teacup" Bishop Allen _Grrr..._

interview with ex-lion tamer Birdy Southworth

"Lion Tamer" Clinic _Bubblegum_

"Lion's Den" The Lower 48 _The Lower 48_

"Snarling Mama Lion" Judd _The Fantastic Story Of Mark Wirtz & The Teenage Opera_

"Mr Lion" Marmalade _Reflections Of The Marmalade (The Anthology)_

"It Comes In Like A Lion" Julia Lee & Her Boy Friends _Kansas City Blues 1944-1949_

interview with the Rev Dr Howard Gently

"Joe The Lion" Momus _Turpsycore_

"Last Lion Of Albion" Neko Case _Hell-On_

"The Lion For Real" Allen Ginsberg _The Lion For Real_

"Throw Me To The Lions" The Pernice Brothers _Spread The Feeling_

"Hear The Lions Roar" Half Japanese _Hear The Lions Roar_

an eighteenth anniversary surprise! Alyssa & Jason call

"Don't Wake The Lion" The Itals _Early Recordings 1971-1979_

"The Lion" Duke Mitchell _Gimme Dat Harp Boy! (Roots Of The Captain)_

"The Lion & Albert" Stanley Holloway _The Best Of Stanley Holloway_

"He Roars Like A Lion" Merline Johnson _The Yas Yas Girl 1937-1947_

"Fed To The Lions" The Luyas _Human Voicing_

conclusion & goodbye

"Watch Out For Lions" The Terrible Twos _Jerzy The Giant_

"I Can Tame Lions" Beatnik Filmstars _Boss Disque_

"I'm A Very Friendly Lion Called Parsley" Luke Haines _Adventures In Dementia - A Micro Opera_

"Jungle Lion" Lee Perry & The Upsetters _Funky Kingston (Reggae Dance Floor Grooves 1968-74)_

Whither Lions Revisited?

(Image from here.)

Self Help Radio began, more or less officially, on Wednesday, October 9, 2002, on 91.7 fm KOOP Austin.  I've probably told this story before but I'm too lazy to look it up, so I'll tell it again.  Initially I was given a show at 9am on Friday mornings.  I kinda preferred the time.  It let me get into work a little late but I could also stay late.  I did a few shows on Friday morning - maybe two? - & in fact they did have themes - one of them was weekends, which I later also did as a theme on Self Help Radio - but then one afternoon I got a call from someone at KOOP named Danny who told me his story of woe.

Danny had recently gotten a show on Wednesdays at 2pm.  The thing is, he was taking vacation time from work to do the show, & it would eventually run out.  He only worked half days on Friday (he told me), so Friday mornings would be better for him.  I knew I could easily skip out of work in the middle of the day (I already cleared it with my boss) so it was no big deal, & far be it for me to be selfish about something as silly as a timeslot.  We switched times - though we had to go to a Programming Committee meeting to sell it.  To sweeten the deal, I also volunteered to oversee the show before mine, from 1-2pm, which would be an hour for new deejays to demonstrate what kind of show they wanted to do.  (In the early days, when we were just starting, there would often not be a new deejay, so I would do two hours.  In fact, my first show that Wednesday was a sub show - it was songs which said hello.  I don't count that as Self Help Radio's first episode, however.)

It seems like I was on Wednesdays forever, but I think I had moved to Fridays by 2006, so for less than four years.  I kind of wish I had been moved to Wednesday afternoons instead of Fridays, but I thought I would enjoy an end-of-the-week show.  Eventually Danny moved to Sunday nights.  Both of us left Austin, maybe even around the same time, & I think he's still doing radio where he ended up.  As am I.  I'll bet he wouldn't recognize me if he saw me again, though.  I'm pretty forgettable.

Always a sentimental sort, I started doing these anniversary shows in 2008.  The show was barely four years old!  It seemed a nice way to commemorate the project.  By then I suppose I figured I'd be doing the show for a while, but in the first two years, I wasn't sure I'd be doing Self Help Radio for any great length of time.  It was like a new relationship - who the hell knows how long it'll last?  Two dates?  A year?  But it seems I'm stuck with this show.  Which is fine.  We sometimes don't like each other, but we know each other tolerably well.

For some reason I felt like I had more to say about this anniversary stuff.  I don't, actually.  I am revisiting a theme that I first explored in March of 2005.  As usual, I won't play any of the stuff from the first show - although there'll be covers of songs previously played.  I actually have a recording of the original show, & I listened to some of it, & it didn't make me sad.  Maybe because there's a part of me that doesn't think the show sounds like me.  If that makes any sense.

Tomorrow - Monday morning - 8 to 10am - Freeform Portland - freeformportland.org - listen & celebrate eighteen years of this foolish pastime of mine.  I really never thought it would last as long as it has.

Preface To Lions Revisited: Oops

Even though it has been properly noted on the website that Monday's show will be the eighteenth anniversary show, & even though I've mentioned here & elsewhere that at least seven people voted to determine that the theme I'd revisit would be lions, on the show last week I said the theme would be "traps."  Of course that will be the theme a week from Monday.  I brought Admiral Ackbar on last week & utterly wasted him.  Sorry.

Yes, eighteen years.  It's a wonder it's lasted this long.  I will have some thoughts about that tomorrow.

Long As The Day Is Today

This is a phrase that I don't like people using: "Not gonna lie."

One uses it I suppose to emphasize what follows, but the implication is that you otherwise would lie.  Who wants that to be how they preface anything?

"In any other context, I would be spouting utter bullshit at you, but not this time!"

Chances are I'm missing its cultural origins & am perhaps being insensitive.  I have no idea where it came from, I am only saying what seems to me to be obvious: if you have to tell us in advance that you're not going to lie, I can only assume that not only do you lie regularly but you understand that I & others are completely aware of it.

It's like when someone says "believe me" all the time.  Why do you think we wouldn't believe you?  Is it because we know you're going to say things we won't believe?

Motivational speakers & the like will perhaps say that adding a phrase like "not gonna lie" or "believe me" actually reassures the listener.  The truth is, we don't in general listen well.  & maybe it's because we ourselves hardly ever say anything that's completely factual, that isn't gilded opinion, that we even expect anyone to actually hear.

In any event, I didn't come here to write this.  It's just been pouring out of me, I apologize.  What I wanted to say is this:

Not gonna lie, this day has kicked my ass.  Currents events in the nation have occupied my mind making it impossible for me to focus on much.  My computer might be dying, & I spent most of the morning trying to figure out why.  I am falling behind on various tasks & that means I'll get less sleep than I currently do.

Hearing people say "not gonna lie" does make me want to preface emphatic statements with "not gonna lie."  Some language is just contagious.  No matter how dumb or problematic you might think it is.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 5: Mayfield Avenue

(Image from Google Maps.)

It's so weird looking at a place that you once spent days in but haven't lived in for a very long time.  I lived in this house for roughly six months in 1982.  That was (doing the math in my head) thirty-eight years ago.  How many people have lived in the house since then?  I'm certain it was a rental.  Maybe the people who live in the house own it now?

A couple of years ago I wrote a lot about my time in the house.  I seem to remember being alone in the house a lot.  I first shaved in that house, using my mother's boyfriend's razor, & my face hurt for a week afterwards.  I remember a classmate I'd gone to school with for my entirely public school experience had a locker near mine in high school & told me some time after that, "Dickerson*, those sideburns are not working for you."  The upshot of my weird shaving experiment is that with the peach fuzz gone, I suddenly sported sideburns.  It would be a couple of years before I would have something that looked vaguely like facial hair on the rest of my dumb face.

There was a park down the street to the west, but I don't know if we ever went there.  I remember I had to walk home from school a lot, it was about two & a half miles, & I was usually too tired to do anything after school but read comics or listen to music.  I had a television in my room - probably a little black & white one - & I would try to stay up to watch David Letterman - I still have some cassettes of the show that I would tape so I could listen to them again - audio cassettes, not video cassettes - I taped Elvis Costello's appearance on the show in August 1982 for example - never knowing there would one day be a Youtube where I could watch it all over again.  But unbeknownst to me things were not going well with my mother & her boyfriend & at some point at the end of the year we were whisked away to my oldest sister's house in a move that my siblings must have been familiar with but hadn't really happened to me thus far (well, when I wasn't a baby).

My mom's boyfriend was a drunk, like my dad, & I guess when my mother saw the signs she got us the hell out.  She still worked at his convenience store - the Time Saver - she actually ran it when he went on his benders, which happened usually once a year - but she must have decided that even though he was her meal ticket, she didn't have to live with the guy.  & the truth was, he was very unpleasant.  & inappropriate.  He had all the tell-tale signs of a serious pervert, & I have odd memories of him asking me questions that nowadays would trigger survivors of sexual trauma.  At one meal, for example, he kept asking me if I were "well hung."  I had no idea at the time what that meant.  He found that very funny in a deeply creepy way.

This is something I asked my sister Pat before she died, because my little brother despised my mother's boyfriend, & he did not like to be in the house with him around.  So he spent a great deal of time at her house.  I asked her, did she think my mother's boyfriend did something to him?  Maybe tried something?  My sister emphatically said no.  Even if something did happen, my little brother wouldn't admit it  For my part, I didn't get any child-rape vibes from him when I was a teen but how the hell would I know what such things felt like anyway?

The house was the first time I had my own room since - well, ever.  Up until then I shared a room with one or more siblings.  I wouldn't get my own room again until college.  Now that I think about it, I don't have my own room now.  Who would've thought I'd give such a thing up for marriage?  Having one's own room is the bomb!

We didn't live in that house long enough to make any impression.  I know this because someone who lived on that street with whom I remember talking a few times came into the Time Saver & I recognized her, I even think I knew her name.  She seemed very taken aback.  This would have been just two or three years later.  She had no idea who I was.  I can still her saying, in that witheringly polite way some girls learn, "I'm sorry, I don't remember you."  It still smarts.

P.S. A couple weeks ago I tried to remember how many "avenues" I lived on.  I completely forgot about this place.  So it didn't leave much of an impression of me, either, I suppose.

* Because of gym class, many of my male classmates tended to refer to me by my last name.

Self Help Radio 092820: Nancy's Show

(All images except the SHR logo from each respective Nancy's Wikipedia page.)

My goodness.  An entire show of Nancys?  While not perhaps the Nanciest thing one can do, it's certainly Nancier than a show with only a smattering of Nancys.  Indeed, one might argue than one can over-Nancy in many cases.  I suppose the correct amount of Nanciness is something left to a Nancy specialist, or Nancologist.  Alas, there simply wasn't enough time to consult one for this show, but luckily I had actual Nancys to talk to, or there might have been an unpleasant Nancident.

Listen to the show - it's not required that you be a Nancy, or have a Nancy present at the time, but the former is ideal & the latter is recommended - at the Self Help Radio website.  Unlike current Nancy procedures, in which Nancys get everything Nancy-related (or Nancentric) free, anyone can listen (as per a very complicated agreement with the Amalgamated Union Of Nancys) but a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) are required.  What happens on the Nancy show is noted below.

Please spread this information to all Nancys you know.  & perhaps some you don't.  I shiver to think of a Nancy discovering there was a radio show about her somewhere down the line, & being disturbed she wasn't contacted.  Nancys are litigious!

Self Help Radio Nancy's Show

"I Tickled Nancy" Uncle Dave Macon _Keep My Skillet Good & Greasy: The Complete Recordings_

"Nancy Jane" Famous Hokum Boys _Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order, Volume 1 (1930)_

"Nancy (With The Laughing Face)" Frank Sinatra _The Columbia Years (1943-1952)_

introduction

"Nancy Sin" Beat Happening _Look Around_

"Nancy" The Boys' Star Library _If I Was Born A Girl..._

"Oh Nancy" Young Rival _Strange Light_

"Nancy Reagan's Head" Mission Of Burma _The Obliterati_

interview with the Rev Dr. Howard Gently

"Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" Leonard Cohen _Songs From A Room_

"Nancy Sinatra" The Groove Farm _The Best Parts... Volume 1_

"Listening To Nancy" The Cherry Orchard _The Start Of Our Affair_

"Nancy & Lee" The Golden Dregs _Hope Is For The Hopeless_

"Nancy & Me" Lee Hazlewood _Poet, Fool, Or Bum_

first interview with a Nancy

"Nancy Drew" Tuscadero _The Pink Album_

"Nancy Drew" Sløtface _Try Not To Freak Out_

"I Take A Fancy To Nancy" Cleveland Becker & The MSR Singers _I'm Just The Other Woman! MSR Madness Vol. # 4_

"Song Nancy Hates" Ed's Redeeming Qualities _Big Grapefruit Cleanup Job_

"Nancy Jean" Richard Barone _Our Favorite Texan: Bobby Fuller Four-Ever!_

second interview with a Nancy

"Banks Of The Nile" Fotheringay _Fotheringay_

"Shaky Nancy" Richard Thompson _Henry The Human Fly_

"Nancy Whiskey" Ian & Sylvia _Early Morning Rain_

"Nancy's Minuet" The Everly Brothers _Walk Right Back: The Everly Brothers On Warner Bros. 1960 To 1969_

"The Night Miss Nancy Ann's Hotel For Single Girls Burned Down" Tex Williams _A Man Called Tex_

conclusion & goodbye

"Isabel The Modern Nancy" The Duke Of Norfolk _Mint 400 Records Presents In A Mellow Tone_

"Little Nancy" Fionn Regan _The Shadow Of An Empire_

Whither Nancy's Show?

(Image from the Nancy Drew wiki.  Holy moly there's a Nancy Drew wiki!)

Tomorrow morning's show (Monday morning, as usual) will be an episode of Self Help Radio full of songs about Nancy.  Which Nancy?  Often any Nancy.  Sometimes a specific Nancy.  But it's all Nancy.  In fact, I'm going to interview the two Nancy's I know!

Yesterday I mentioned how much I preferred Nancy Drew over the Hardy Boys.  Yes, I'm still talking about Nancy Drew.  & yes, there are some songs about Nancy Drew.  But anyway, another reason I dug Nancy Drew is her boyfriend was named Ned Nickerson.  "Nickerson" was pretty close to my last name & I've always dug brainy girls.  So perhaps I pretending to be her boyfriend the entire time I was reading the series.

Anyway, please let all the Nancys in your life know there'll be a radio show about & for them tomorrow, Monday, from 8-10am on Freeform Portland, which you can find at 90.3+98.3fm & online at freeformportland.org.  Imagine if you don't let Nancy know!  She may never forgive you!

Preface To Nancy's Show: Famous Nancys

Here's an exhaustive list of famous people named Nancy.

It turns out I currently know two Nancys.  But I thought I knew more famous Nancys.  & yet I ended up just thinking of Pelosi, Reagan, Sinatra, & Spungeon.  & only that last one when I thought of the film Sid & Nancy.

One of the things I did last year for my Frank Show (which incidentally was almost exactly a year ago, I wonder if I unconsciously scheduled another "name" show around this time because of that) was ask strangers to tell me to name three famous Nancys.  Besides the above, I might probably get Kerrigan, & almost certainly I'd get Nancy Drew.

When I was a kid, I was a voracious comic book reader, & to this day I am fond of episodic fare - I like cliffhanger endings & "next issue" blurbs.  So I loved the Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys books.  I loved the way they looked the same, I loved that they were numbered, & I loved that they occasionally mentioned previous adventures.  But.  For some reason, maybe because my brother & I fought like cats & dogs, I didn't like the Hardy Boys that much.  I read them.  But I preferred Nancy Drew.  She had a crew.  I dug that.

That list doesn't include Nancy Drew because she was a fictitious.  Here's a list of fictional Nancys.  Strangely, it leaves out the best Nancy of all.  This one:

It is of course Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy!

The strip has experienced a kind of revival with a new writer/artist (who uses the pseudonym Olivia Jaimes).  A lot of people hate what she's done because she's updated Nancy by having her carry a cell phone, talk about the internet, etc.  I think it's delightful.  Here's one of her recent strips:

You can read 'em all at the Nancy web page.  It's totally worth it!

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 4: Villa Cordoba

(Image from Google Maps.)

When we lived here, it was called Villa Cordoba (never pronounced in the Spanish way), & there was a wall in-between the door & the front lawn of the complex.  Actually, we lived in three apartments in this small square apartment world.  The one above - the one that's green with the awning - was apartment 48 I believe.  I lived there from perhaps seventh to eighth grade.  We left in the summer before my ninth grade year.

They were by all accounts some terrible apartments.  They were cater-corner from the middle school I attended, & a teacher there, upon being told by me that was where I lived, had a look of utter horror.  In fact, we were never without roaches, & at least one time the management dealt with a plumbing problem by simply opening up some valves & letting the tenants' shit run down into the street.  But it was home to me!

It seems like we lived there forever, but it was really just four years, from when I was in fourth to when I was in eighth grade.  I have fond memories of the place, but I was equally unhappy there - I went through puberty there & began to become a person while living there.  My little brother & I were inseparable when we first moved there, & barely spoke or talked to each other at the end.  I made my first real friend while I lived there - it was at school, but every day before class in eighth grade, he'd come over, we'd watch cartoons together, & then run to school.  

Because I write about my life on this blog around the time of my birthday, I've written a lot about this place.  I first spoke about it in this post.  I continued here (with a picture of apartment 18, one of the three units in which we lived).  There is a lot more here (with a similar picture as the one above).  Gosh I've written a lot about this place, here's yet another post.  & there's one last post about the heat wave of 1980.  I guess we moved away in 1983, so I've written about other places we've lived since then.

Here's a bonus photo of me & my little brother in front of Apartment 45, which is where my mother's boyfriend lived.  I'm not sure how old we are - possibly I'm in fifth grade, Chris is in fourth.  I do know I am rocking that Star Trek shirt.

It's dated 1977 (by me, I don't know why).  I would be nine years old, & therefore in fourth grade or so. Crazy.

One Day Till Tomorrow

He didn't print the helium properly so it looked odd on the blog.  Contrariwise his fonts stormed like something out of a primitive hayride.  So it made the most sense when the Cardinal told him to lay off.

"They make cheese that tastes like cheese!" she said worryingly.  "What's next? Sequels to movies spun-off from ice skating quarterfinals?"

I'll admit, he was a plus one on the dance floor.  The craven streetcleaner wouldn't quote me on that, howsoever the firmware nor his hat fit the rearrangement.  He thought he was quite optical when the shades were drawn.

Was there mead for the many or simply fizz for the few?  He broke down & let everyone call him "Rebecca."  He mispronounced mise en scène in the middle of the night, & begged us to forgive him his slurred spectacles.

Everyone says she won't be invited to any pantries in the near future.  "At last I have my hurts," she deviated into the cold.  "No one will mansplain musical theater to me again!"

All out of turns, they left the arcade wobbly.  "You do know," he started to say, "I've no extra space in the glove compartment."

"That's so," she never took the time to reply.  "The most natural odor you'll find repellent merely because society strong-arms stepchildren."

What a shame the random people took reindeer seriously!

Self Help Radio 092120: Avenues

(There's a Self Help Radio Avenue in France!  Not really.  Original image here.)

"There's nothing that I'd rather do/Than stroll along the avenue/With you."
- Sir Archibald Von Poesy (but maybe not originally)

Ah avenues!  Where people take their constitutionals.  Where lovers perambulate.  Where lazy cars drive by lazily, as if to say, "we know, we know, it's a beautiful afternoon!"  Where you pause & a jolly fellow says to you, as if he's the funniest person you'll ever meet, "You know what they say!  Ave-a-nue is better than none!"

Seriously, we need to get a boulevard in here where people mind their own damn business.

Self Help Radio this week was a celebration of avenues.  From avenues which became more than themselves (such as Madison Avenue) to the metaphorical avenues of song (such as Electric Avenue).  Maybe there's an avenue you've been meaning to wander, or one you've meant to wander in your dreams.  Don't let us stop you.  But maybe listen to this show while you do so!  Just not too loud or you won't hear the traffic.  Also look both ways before you cross!

The show's only avenue available to it now is at the Self Help Radio website.  Please do not let it know it's kind of a dead end.  Remember, you'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to listen.  What happens on the avenue stays on the avenue, of course - but what happens on the show about the avenue is below.

Self Help Radio Avenue Show
"Along The Avenue" The Relict _Tommorow Is Again_ (Vegas Mom, 2003)
"Avenue" The Monochrome Set _Spaces Everywhere_ (Tapete Records, 2015)
"Jackson Avenue" Stephanie McKay _Tell It Like It Is_ (Muthas Of Invention, 2008)

introduction & a step outside to Albina Avenue

"Electric Avenue" Salem 66 _Natural Disasters, National Treasures_ (Homestead, 1988)
"Summer Avenues" California Snow Story _One Good Summer EP_ (Shelflife, 2002)
"Abe Lincoln Vs. Madison Avenue" Bob Newhart _"Something Like This ...": The Bob Newhart Anthology_ (Rhino, 2001)
"442 Glenwood Avenue" The Pixies Three _Growin' Up Too Fast: The Girl Group Anthology_ (Mercury, 1966)
"Bring It Up (Hipster's Avenue)" James Brown _Star Time_ (Polydor, 1991)

interview with city planner Norman Hulk

"Electric Avenue" Eddy Grant _The Best Of Eddy Grant_ (EMI Gold, 1996)
"Lonely Avenue" Ray Charles _Genius & Soul - The 50th Anniversary Collection_ (Rhino, 1997)
"I Was Born To Hustle Roses Down The Avenues Of The Dead" Charles Bukowski _90 Minutes In Hell_ (Earth Records, 1977)
"Avenue A, Shanghai, Hollywood" Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts _Manhattan_ (Rough Trade, 2015)
"Shaftesbury Avenue" Momus _Don't Stop The Night_ (Creation, 1989)

a Self Help Radio panel: defining avenues

"Mass. Ave" Willie "Loco" Alexander _DIY: Mass. Ave. - The Boston Scene (1975-83)_ (Rhino, 1993)
"626 Bedford Avenue" The Drums _Brutalism_ (Anti-, 2019)
"Teardrop Avenue" Bertha Colbert _Soultime Volume 2_ (Goldmine Soul Supply, 1998)
"Teardrop Avenue" Jackie Wilson _The Titan Of Soul_ (Edsel, 1998)
"Avenue" Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan _Mustt Mustt_ (Real World, 1990)

a visit with my youngest friends, Alyssa & Jason

"Eighth Avenue" Hospitality _Hospitality_ (Merge, 2012)
"Heartache Avenue" The Maisonettes _Maisonettes For Sale_ (Richmond Records, 1993)
"(All The) Avenue Girls" Comet Gain _Paperback Ghosts_ (Fortuna Pop, 2014)
"Academy Avenue" Ducktails _The Flower Lane_ (Domino, 2013)
"Hope Avenue" Stars _There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light_ (Last Gang, 2017)

conclusion & goodbye

"Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" Bruce Springsteen _Born To Run_ (Columbia, 2003)
"1432 Dexter Avenue" Three Finger Cowboy _Kissed_ (Daemon Records, 1998)
"Fashion Avenue" Grape Room _Heart Of Gum_ (Nicey Music, 2016)
"Blue Murder On Union Avenue (demo)" Elvis Costello _Goodbye Cruel World_ (Rhino, 2004)

Whither Avenues?

(This is Park Avenue.  Image from here.)

Here's a good one.  What did one street say to the other street?  "What's avenue?"  What did the other street say back to the first street?  "I dunno.  What's ave-new with you?"

That's an example of some of the sophisticated humor prepared & ultimately thrown away for this week's Self Help Radio.  It's a show about avenues so we're "taking it on the road."  Which is of course not a thing a radio show can do, especially one made at home because no one's allowed in the studios thanks to a pandemic which, if we're being honest, is another reason why it would be a terrible idea to travel as well.

Does the show miss wandering up & down avenues without a mask?  Perhaps.  Maybe a show about avenues was conceived to recapture a normal that now seems farther away than ever.  Or maybe it was arbitrary, & looking for a reason for this or any other theme is to give too much credit to anyone responsible for Self Help Radio.  Which is Gary, of course.  It's all his fault.

Listen therefore from the comfort of your own car or home or car-home from 8-10am Monday morning on 90.3&98.3fm Freeform Portland, online at freeformportland.org.  It will be like taking a lazy drive down a tree-lined avenue in car with the top down & the wind blowing through your hair.  Or.  Or wait.  No, no, it will actually more probably be the opposite of that.  So sorry.