Hi. I’ve always been honest with you, except when I’m lying, so I have to say that I recorded this episode and put it on the shelf because I didn’t think it was good enough. “Good enough” being a subjective term, of course. But as it happens, I’m packing to move (again), which means there’s no time to come up with a replacement. So rather than leave a month-long hole in the schedule, I present you with this not-good-enough episode, where I talk about the death of Google Plus, shortwave radio, and rare books. When I emerge from the move and come up for air, I’ll let you know where I am in the world, and I’ll hit you with a top-notch, super-interesting, A-1 professional episode. Or just more of the same, that remains to be seen.
Sound the alarm, now you can get your THIS IS NOT A TEST fix on Pandora.
You can find it by searching for – you guessed it – THIS IS NOT A TEST on the Pandora Android app. I suppose that applies to the iPhone as well, but I don’t have any iAnythings to check for myself. For some reason, you can’t find any podcasts on the Pandora desktop app.
Like Spotify, Pandora isn’t open to just any podcast (yet, anyway), so make my backroom wheeling and dealing efforts worthwhile and listen while you…do whatever it is you do while listening to Pandora.
Soon there will be no escaping THIS IS NOT A TEST. You may as well give up and join us now before your mother starts talking about the show.
This episode starts with a bang and just keeps bangin’ ’till the cows come home. LOL! LOL! We will discuss Jah Himself, hippies, Mahtomedi Minnesota, aliens, beaver, curry, secret handshakes, Toughskins, ski jackets, the birth of the puffy jacket and its early victims, living in your cousin’s basement, the leather store, the perfection of the Schott Perfecto, molesting outerwear, getting the shit kicked out of you, feeling invincible, being invincible, magic, romance, chaos, Sonny Vincent, being twins with your girlfriend, what is cool? osmosis, chaos and upheaval, writing the story that no one else will write.
In this ear-crushing aural assault on the senses, artist and author Carol Es talks to us on the day her debut memoir Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley is published. Okay, it’s not really an “ear-crushing aural assault on the senses,” it’s just an interview, but lend a crushed ear to hear about Carol’s adventures in writing and publishing a book, as well as her take on how Scientology ultimately affected her approach to the book (probably not in the way you might think), how her friends and family have reacted (before even reading the book), about her upcoming book launch/art show at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, and how ultimately the truth will always set you free.
Let’s talk about the earth, humanity, science and yes, maybe also work in 20 book reviews somehow: “Scar Tissue” by Anthony Kiedis, “Hit So Hard” by Patty Schemel, “Gold Dust Woman” by Stephen Davis, “There’s No Bones in Ice Cream” by Sylvain Sylvain, “The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince” by Mayte Garcia, “Complicated Fun: The Birth of Minneapolis Punk and Indie Rock, 1974-1984” by Cyn Collins, “The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Ian Port, “Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet” by Claire Evans, “How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone” by Brian McCullough, “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel,” by Alexander Chee, “Choose Your Own Disaster” by Dana Schwartz, “A Farewell to Walmart” by Carly J. Hallman, “The First Bad Man” by Miranda July, “Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons” by George Pendle, “Life at the Dakota: New York’s Most Unusual Address” by Stephen Birmingham, “World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made” by Irving Howe, “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail” by Ben Montgomery, “On Drinking” by Charles Bukowski, “In Pieces” by Sally Field, and “Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy” by Savannah Knoop. Now take a breath.
Let’s get right to it, shall we? Or rather, let’s not get right to it, let’s start this one with a poem. Then let’s talk about mixtapes, sliders, memories, smells, silence that isn’t really silence, limitations, your mother’s shoes, tweens, soccer moms, Young Adult fiction, the Sundance film festival, veal, Hindu gods, Springsteen on Broadway, the working man, Sons Of Anarchy, U100, snow globes, Dr. Seuss, SWAT teams, and insurrection.
Happy new year, here are some mixed nuts. And, since a balanced diet is important, have a little helping of 9/11, Black Lives Matter, trolling the aisles of CVS, the mathematics of grocery shopping, human history, deadly peanut allergies, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Che, Celiac disease, The New England Journal of Medicine, the most kick-ass 70 year old the world has ever seen, unemployment insurance, working at McDonald’s, Corrine Burns, and lunatics.
You know how sometimes you tweak your neck somehow and the damn thing hurts for days (and days and days) and you’re walking around looking like Lurch or Frankenstein because you’re moving the whole top of your torso from side to side just to avoid moving your head from side to side?
I have that.
I’m old, so I have a lot of things. Like the one shoulder that doesn’t quite work right because of that time you separated it and didn’t go to the doctor for it (because, what’s a doctor going to do for that anyway, right?), and every morning you wake up and that shoulder goes, “HI! I’M STILL HERE!” only it says it with a delightful shooting pain all up and down your arm?
I have that too.
I’ve had a winter cold clogging up my head and making me sleepy for a few weeks (because I wouldn’t just lay in bed for a few days to get rid of it like I usually do), and now, today, on this most holy day of Christmas, mind you, I wake up with a sore throat. I guess to keep the cold company.
This has been some year, and it’s ending with a vengeance. But then I wouldn’t respect it if it didn’t. Now I look at the calendar and think, “Boy”—apparently I call myself ‘boy’ when I’m talking to myself—”you have to start writing a podcast, the first Saturday of the month is coming at you!” And I think, no. No sir, I cannot. Not at this moment. I just can’t.
And then my self says to myself, “You’ve never missed a deadline, idiot, in four years you’ve never missed a deadline!” and my self is saying that to me because the first episode was indeed foisted onto the world on December 27th, 2014, which seems like a really long time ago right now as I consider missing the next deadline.
If I’m being honest—and isn’t it funny when people say that? Like, up until now I’ve been lying my ass off, but now I’m being honest. Maybe. “If” I’m being honest—there are 10 days to get something together and record it. I just don’t know though, at this particular moment, if that’s enough.
So maybe there will be nothing new here on the first Saturday of 2019. I don’t know. Just warning you, there may not be. I know you will be devastated and heartbroken if that happens. Um hmm. But at least you’ve been warned.
