You don't have to live like a refugee porn star

Big dreams and high beams

Who says the "trending" section of your Facebook profile is full of fake, useless news?

Recently, there was a mention in my trending section about this young man, Antonio Suleiman, a 19-year-old Syrian refugee living in Germany, eager to come to America, who, through his need for work, has become a porn star.

Actually, it's more complicated than that. And then again maybe it's not. You can read all about it here.

First things first: I don't begrudge this guy his life choices. We all have to do some odd things to survive in life (such as my entire career and several past relationships). He's not hurting anyone--although, after witnessing his rapid-fire, jack-hammer love-making style (through the magic of Google, possums), I would just like to state for the record that I might forgo first-hand (or whatever) experience. So I don't have a problem with his porn star career.

In the interview linked to, he makes an interesting observation about showing how Syrian bodies can live, not just die, how they can make love, not only war. In my mind, it somewhat ties into the whole "black bodies" aspect of the Black Lives Matter movement, that the bodies of people of color are often degraded in the public sphere and thus the human beings who inhabit those bodies are ill-regarded, abused, and even killed.

Does a career in porn counter that argument? I don't know. There is a long history of people of color being treated as "exotics" in the media. And guess what? There's a long history of that happening in real life, too. And this history isn't just a 20th-century reality. I would suggest for evidence you read about the life of Saartjie Baartman, if you can stomach it.

But then again, why not a career in porn? I am not sure that Mr. Suleiman is incorrect: We now just think of Syrians either dying in war or as refugees making their way to Europe to "take our jobs." We think of them being held in camps at the border. We think of them drowning. We think of them being picked up lifeless from the shore. We think of them being pulled out from underneath the rubble of bombed cities. We think of them being kicked, cursed, and screamed at. And many of us stand idly by while it happens, including our governments, unsure of what to do or unwilling to take action. Our dithering ends up causing more misery and death, however much we may not want that to happen. Although I suspect there are some, the deplorables among us, who don't care that it happens in the first place.

Mr. Suleiman has aspirations to become an artist, an actor. The prospects of an actor crossing over from porn to "legit" acting are mixed, but then again, so is making it as an actor or an artist, period. Having known a couple of actors in my time (as well as Southern Californians, as well as millennials), I think there is a thin line between the actor's art and just enjoying attention and having pictures taken of you/taking pictures of yourself. A quick perusal of Mr. Suleiman's Twitter feed (NSFW) and Instagram account (also NSFW), it is difficult to say which is more at play here: The consciousness and nobility of a Syrian Lives Matter movement or the Kardashianization of culture.

But, again, I do not want to judge this young man. I haven't lived the same life as he. And, besides, I like porn.

* * *

Where I do think Mr. Suleiman could make a different life choice is in the type of porn he performs. Rather than straight porn, with its focus on the female body (or more specifically and explicitly, the female orifices that serve male needs), a cleverer career move might be for Mr. Suleiman to star in solo porn or, better still, market himself exclusively to a gay or bisexual porn-loving audience.

I am not saying that Mr. Suleiman is gay or bi. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) But that's hardly the point. There's also a long history of men in porn being "gay for pay," playing roles in gay porn movies without actually being gay, mostly (but not exclusively) playing the role of the "top" or the straight guy who decides that, um, a hole is a hole is a hole. So why not tap into this lucrative market?

Here's my case for Mr. Suleiman making the switch to gay porn--

Mr. Suleiman is handsome, sexy, and has a beautiful body (see above). Gay men will appreciate this more than straight men watching porn made for a straight male audience ever will. Admittedly my exposure to straight porn is very limited, most memorably recently via a late-night TV channel in Paris where a spray-tanned blonde woman with her hair in cornrows (the aesthetic horror) manhandled a male member that most closely resembled a sloppy tube sock full of coins. I actually find straight porn quite disgusting because, as mentioned above, the focus is on women's orifices being abused by oversized penises and because of the overall unappealing aesthetics. (Plus I'm gay.) Straight porn gives you guys like rapey-boy-next-door James Deen and '70s 16mm on-continuous-loop-in-a-booth-at-a-truck-stop superstar Ron Jeremy. Blech. Obviously the focus isn't on the beauty or sexiness of the male form. Rather it's on workmanlike performance and woman-as-receptacle.

Not that Mr. Suleiman's performance in the one portion of the movie I watched in order to write this post isn't workmanlike (anything for you, dear readers). He was like a guy with a pile driver tearing through old, pothole-riddled asphalt, which is not a "making love" style I particularly welcome or encourage in a partner. You do see this style in gay porn, probably increasingly so (it's cheaper to make and quicker to, um, digest). But there is gay porn that is erotic, where the sex is mutually pleasurable, less like a job and more like a sexy interlude between, if not friends or even acquaintances, then at least equals.

Nonetheless, with the intense facial expressions Mr. Suleiman makes, with his style of kissing (yes, kissing in porn! who knew?), and with reasonably paced thrusting, this man could be a success--all while being gay for pay without any of the commitment to the politics, lifestyle, or ridiculous cultural trends.

The ohhh's have it

Those facial expressions (see right) and the sounds Mr. Suleiman makes in the act are additional selling points. Again, generally speaking, straight men don't want to see or hear this. Gay men (and straight women) do. I think straight porn could branch out and show more of the male body--it would appeal to the homoerotic in all of us, especially to those straight boys who lust after all those professional wrestlers and gym buddies but can't own up to it. And it would appeal to women, which most straight porn, unless made by women, does not.

As a porn star in gay films, Mr. Suleiman would have an appreciative audience. We would want to admire his beautiful body, not see it hidden behind the shellacked carcass of a female porn star. He could take as many selfies as Twitter and Instagram could store, make as many movies as Catalina Video or Colt Studio could shift. And we, his devotees, would collect and trade his photos, download his movies for our collections, and discuss him rapturously in online forums. We would, in effect, eagerly consume him as a product with the utmost loyalty and pleasure. We might even pay for the privilege.

We would also listen to what Mr. Suleiman has to say. If he wants to talk about the savagery besetting Syria and desperation facing its refugees, we would pay unflinching attention--as long as he delivered the money shot on a regular basis. Telling his story of a down-and-out young man, who, faced with hardship and adversity, performs his way to the top--or as a top--would be an exceptional crowd-pleaser with both the romantic fools and the horndogs among us.

It would be like Showgirls with dicks!

Unlike women who have to fornicate with Ron Jeremy in straight porn, Mr. Suleiman would almost always be assured of having attractive, receptive co-stars. Say what you will about the tyranny of beauty and the body in gay life (and there's plenty that I can say about the topic, believe me), the actors in our porn look fantastic (if uniform) and deserve adulation for their gene pools for which they can claim no responsibility. Mr. Suleiman may not be intrinsically inclined to have sex with a man, but the required job duties will be made all the more easier by the aesthetic appeal of his partners faces and bodies. Mr. Suleiman can match them ripped muscle for ripped muscle, chiseled jaw for chiseled jaw, with the need to offer only a passing explanation that that he's not really gay but is, rather, inspired by looking at the well-developed physiques of other men and appreciative of the generosity of his fellow actors and the adoring attention of his fans.

Contrast the body of the professional gay porn actor with the overblown breasts and weathered, leathery skin of some female porn stars--because let's face it, a guy that can make do with a blow-up doll ain't watching straight porn for the beauty of the women--and once again it's another plus for the artistic aspirations of the Syrian porn actor.

As a result, gay porn would make Mr. Suleiman financially successful. I would wager that male performers are more than likely better paid in gay porn than in straight. And once Mr. Suleiman catches fire with his fanbase, it will offer him expansive career opportunities with sidelines in stage shows, solo videos, personal appearances, web cams, and sex toy endorsements.

Additionally, most gay porn, at least that made in California, requires the use of condoms, so Mr. Suleiman could stay healthy while simultaneously becoming wealthy, all with just a little more concerted effort on his part to separate his brain from his body and dive in head first into this lucrative career.

I would caution that a life in gay porn won't necessarily lead to a successful Hollywood career in mainstream film and television. I think it's difficult for actors in gay porn to break out of the San Fernando Valley sex industry ghetto. But Mr. Suleiman would be so financially successful, it might not matter. And if you want to foster an appreciation of the Syrian body living and not dying, making love and not war, then gay porn is your better choice of artistic veins.

Just one man's objective opinion. That's just the kind of humanitarian I am, a one-man Syrian refugee resettlement program for the beautiful, passionate, and porno-licious.

To serve clam

And the hard-hitting Canadian news keeps on . . . erm . . . comin' . . . .

I can't decide which is the more unsettling aspect of this article from CBC News--

That there is a "phallic clam" inhabiting the waters off the British Columbia coast. Wasn't enough that feet kept washing ashore--now we have to worry about penises?!

That they served said clam to the Royal couple, Will and Kate (pardon me, William and Katherine), on their recent visit to Western Canada.

That the clam's name is pronounced "gooey-duck."

That the Vancouver Aquarium has an executive chef.

Actually, I think it's the latter that is the more worrisome. No matter how you, uh, slice it, there's just something unseemly about creating recipes from the creatures you're committed to helping survive. It's like that old episode of The Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man."



Watch out Nemo and Dory, it's a cookbook!

Appropriate that a Canadian actor, Lloyd Bochner, is on the menu.

The songs of shortwave, volume 3

The third (and final?) volume of my songs of shortwave homage . . . or nostalgia-fest . . . or persnickety obsession. You decide.

In this edition, I focus on interval signals and signature tunes from France, the Middle East, and Africa. There's also a bonus track, "Merck toch hoe sterck" by the Dutch jazz trumpeter Cees Smal. This harks back to volume 1 of this mixtape series: Back in the day, "Merck toch hoe sterck" was the melody for Radio Nederland's interval signal.

The African stations are of particular interest to me--I used to listen to many of these in the 1970s and 1980s on the "tropical band" (below 5 megahertz) on my shortwave radio. They weren't the easiest to receive or clearest to listen to. In fact, until I discovered several websites that provide recordings of interval signals, I wasn't sure from which stations or countries the broadcasts emanated.

I think my interest in Africa stems from those days. The exoticism of Africa appeals to me, I'm (partially) ashamed to admit. But there's also Africa's history, potential, and culture that interest me. While I've spent a lot of time focusing on South African history and culture (in this blog, in studies, and in my life), I am also interested in West and Central African culture, especially the literature and music.

So in this mix, you'll hear interval signals intermingled with patriotic songs and anthems and pop tunes that I hope convey both the era then and the culture now.

If I do a future shortwave songs mix, I might focus more on Asia (although, due to my listening location on the U.S. southeast coast, I couldn't tune in Asian broadcasters very well)--or I might go off in a different direction: The songs of shortwave, Benelux edition, playing tunes I remember hearing on 208 Radio Luxembourg broadcasts, Radio Nederland's pop chart program, Radio Free Europe's transmissions to Eastern Europe, and other shows and stations from Central and Western Europe.

I certainly have the collection. Now do I have the bravura/shamelessness to share some of my very Euro-cheez taste?

* * *

The playlist

• Radio France Internationale - Interval signal, announcement, national anthem
• Andre Claveau, Mathe Altery, Christian Borel, & Claire Vallin - "Nous n'irons plus au bois"
• Gilbert Sigrist Trio - "Nous n'irons plus au bois"
• Serge Gainsbourg - "Aux armes et caetera"
• TRT Voice of Turkey - Interval signal, broadcast opening, announcement
• Radio Cairo - Announcements, signature tune
• Dissidenten - "Radio Arabia"
• Kol Israel/Voice of Israel - interval signal
• Meshugga Beach Party - "Hatikvah"
• Dori Ben Ze'ev - "And Still You Dance"
• Voice of Palestine - March
• The Very Best featuring Ezra Koenig - "The Warm Heart of Africa"
• Voice of Nigeria - Interval signal, broadcast opening, announcement
• Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBS) - Interval signal, march, signature tune
• Ghana Broadcasting Corporation - interval signal, song
• B. K. Ofori's Guitar Band - "Yen ara asase ni"
• Radiodiffusion-Television Guineenne - Interval signal, announcement, anthem, music
• Bako Dagnon - "Alpha yaya"
• La Voix de la Revolution Congolaise - Interval signal, music, announcement
• National Station, Yaounde, Cameroon - Interval signal and announcement
• Francis Bebey - The Coffee Cola Song
• Radiodiffusion-Television Togolaise - Interval signal
• Radiodiffusion-Television Ivoirienne - Interval signal, march, announcement
• Keke Kassiry - "Abidjan"
• Mamadee & Ky-Mani Marley - "Africa Is Calling" (Road of Life Riddim Mix)
• Amadou & Mariam featuring Knaan - "Africa"

Bonus track

• Cees Smal - "Merck toch hoe sterck"

Missing inaction

Ted Cruz searches for his conscience but fails to find it.

No worries, though. I'm sure he's keeping it in a safe place. One so dark, cold, and airless that upon discovery, it would quickly disintegrate, leaving behind only dust and the smell of sulfur.

His humanity and intelligence are probably there, too.

But I'm making a lot of unfounded assumptions . . . .

Friendster is the most popular social media site in the world!

Yahoo still has half a billion accounts? Who came up with those numbers, the New Accounts staff at Wells Fargo?

Baddabing!

Not today, Satan

Editor's note: Well, wouldn't you know it? As soon as I find a clip from Muvhango to illustrate my point, SABC 2 makes it private. Maybe you belong, but the rest of us have to wait for the return of the video.

Instead, you'll have to make do with this image from the 23 September 2016 episode of the show, in which Khomotjo describes how she feels about Serithi to the scrumptious, p-whipped Siya. "I wish wasps would nest in her armpits." 

Evil and creative. Me like.


* * *



Best. Fight. Ever.

. . . Starts at 14:49, but there are other highlights throughout. For example, starting at 8:40.

My South African soapie obsession continues. Khomotjo and Serithi go at it full force on the 16 September 2016 episode of Muvhango, a show I'm still struggling to follow. But after scenes like this and the poisonous barbs zipping back and forth between the two characters, I'm catching up quickly.

For the record, I'm #TeamKhomotjo all the way.

* * *

For your viewing pleasure: The aforementioned Siya from Muvhango.

Why do I have the sudden craving for a pumpkin spice latte? Yes today, Satan.

Sick daze

As we continue our downward spiral in the 2016 election for the President of the United States, one of the "major" issues that the trash-talking Republican nominee for president, his merry "basket of deplorables," and most of the popular media (both in the U.S. and Canada you should know) are fixated upon is Hillary Clinton's bout with pneumonia.

So she kept it a "secret." More than likely because Hillary Clinton is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. Go public with your diagnosis of pneumonia? Get pilloried in the press and by the right-wingers. Don't go public with your diagnosis? Get pilloried in the press and by the right-wingers.

For the record, pneumonia is not necessarily a life-threatening condition and certainly doesn't disqualify someone for public office, even the highest office in the land. After all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived with polio during his presidency. And yet he completed three terms and almost a fourth and was so damn good at his job that they had to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the 22nd) to prevent anyone from holding the office of president more than two times.

Somehow we made it through both the Great Depression and the Second World War led by a man in a wheelchair. But how we'll all survive a woman with a case of pneumonia is a complete mystery!

It's just an old war, not even a Cold War, as Marianne Faithfull once sang ("Broken English"). This time, it's a war against women and the center-left of American politics. But when you don't any real policy to run on, any ideas, just diatribes and insults, all that's left are allegations of wrong-doing over e-mail servers (not good but not a treasonable offense, as far as I can tell, certainly not worthy of hanging) and innuendo about "mental and physical capacity."

I didn't think I could despise any one person in American politics more than I despise Dick Cheney. But Il Douche has broken new ground and plumbed new depths in my disgust and anger.

In case you hadn't figured it out already, I'm with her. I may have had my qualms in the past, but I am now firmly in the Hillary Clinton camp and short of her strangling a puppy on stage at a rally, nothing will change that.

(And even she did harm a puppy, I still wouldn't vote for Spray-Tanned Putin.)

Now where were we?

You might expect a "muse-athon" from me this week--a sudden outpouring of thoughts, dreams, ideas, humor, and, of course, whining, long overdue. How has it come to pass that I haven't published anything since April 2016?!

Well, there are lots of reasons--work, life, love, moving, vacation, head cold, mass murder, an overheated summer, a lack of interest in words, in thinking, and in expressing opinions in this wordy American election season. There are only so many times that even I can rage against the Orange Julius machine that is Donald Trump, issue an eye-roll in the direction of the over-earnestness of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton devotees, or prattle on about my American expat/Canadian misfit adventures.

It should be noted that while I didn't publish anything, I did indeed write, or at least start to write, several blog posts. Some of those will start to show up on the scroll this week, while others will be discarded, no longer seeming relevant or interesting. It's probably a big assumption on my part that the ones that have survived and are to be published are relevant and interesting, but humor me, please.

All is well, more or less. There have been some bumps since the spring, but I think I've survived most of them quite well and might even be thriving in some areas of my existence. I'd like to share more and probably will in time. Right now, giving you a bulleted list that includes items such as "entering my albums into the Discogs site," "watched every episode of 7de Laan," and "Orlando massacre" seems incredibly banal, sad, and inappropriate.

And speaking of banal, I just burned this morning's oatmeal while trying to write this short passage. Perhaps I still can't be trusted with opining and functioning like an adult simultaneously, but that surely hasn't stopped most of the Western world from running for elected office, creating "reality" TV shows, praising Beyonce ad nauseam, and invading countries illegally. Why should I give pause to writing and sharing my low-wattage thoughts, actions, and reactions?

Good, I thought you might agree . . . .

Slow down and dance with me

Yet another summer project that I didn't get around to sharing sooner--my Summer Noir mixtape.

I can't tell you how many versions, revisions, and remixes I made to get this "right"--assuming that now it is indeed right. It is at least done!

This is another case of my going with a certain range of beats per minute-specifically 82 to 95 BPM. You'll hear some of my usual suspects: Some bossa nova, some dance, some pop, some R & B, some world music, and some disco, new and old school, with songs by Poolside, Pet Shop Boys, and Grace Jones, Jessie J, Kelis, Toni Braxton, Zuco 103, Glass Animals, Lisa Stansfield, Marvin Gaye, Skip&Die, Etienne Daho and Astrud Gilberto, the Style Council, the Minogue Sisters, Donna Summer, and more.

Is the mix a success? Well, I like it. I don't know that it has a point of view like my previous Cruel Summer Mix--77 Gaza Strip I posted two years ago. Other than being slow, simmering, danceable, and slightly sinister, which was my aim. But I had fun making it and tried out some tricks, such as overlaying tracks and even making a mashup, that seem to have worked pretty well. I think the world's DJs can rest easy, I'm not likely to steal their jobs anytime soon, but the point of all of this is to make mixes I would enjoy listening and dancing to. And hopefully at some point I'll make some mixes that others enjoy listening to as well.

My stats on MixCloud do not provide much hope in achieving this goal, however. With earlier mixes and podcasts, there have been listens, likes, and even a share or two. But of late, not much reaction. (Although I was all aflutter when someone recently liked my first mashup, "No More Sweet Lujon," which I think is one of my best.)

Admittedly, my topics for mixes can be obscure (The Songs of Shortwave Radio, parts 1, 2, and 3, anyone?), so a limited audience is to be expected. Nonetheless, it is frustrating: My blog gets views but few comments; my mixes may or may not get listens let alone likes; my Twitter posts are regularly unremarked upon; my Wikipedia contributions go mostly unnoticed and unrewarded.

So am I doing all this for me or for others? That's an age-old question for artists, I would imagine. I don't think I've done anything worthy of the artist label yet, but I would hope to. In fact, I'd like to think that when I'm done with doing what I have to do to earn a living, I might have a second career (non-lucrative but perhaps more satisfying) in writing, editing, public "thinking," and other ways to share my interests. This is work I would enjoy doing and work that I hope would find a supportive audience

Coz don't we all want to hear what an almost-55-year-old American expat thinks about history, culture, and current affairs . . . .

I have ten years until retirement, ten years to figure it out and find an audience. I suspect I'll always have a limited audience--my sense of humor and (self-) righteousness seems to go over better among my closer Facebook friends, anyway. But there's no time like the present and the immediate future to get going and make some noise. Consider this mix one more attempt to make something happen.

* * *

The Summer Noir playlist

• Poolside - "Slow Down" 
• Pet Shop Boys - "Vampires" 
• Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - "Je t'aime (moi non plus)" (Dzihan and Kamien Remix) 
• Ahmad Soultan - "Ya Salaam" 
• Robyn - "Big City" 
• Odyssey - "Don't Tell Me, Tell Her" (perhaps my favorite track in the mix) 
• Etienne Daho and Astrud Gilberto - "Les bords de seine" 
• Kelis - "Hooch" 
• The Style Council - "Long Hot Summer" (extended version) 
• Jessie J. - "Price Tag" 
• Donna Summer - "La vie en rose" (remixed version) 
• Grace Jones - "La vie en rose" (album version) 
• Toni Braxton - "He Wasn't Man Enough for Me" (extended version) 
• Lisa Stansfield - "Time to Make You Mine" 
• Carlos Lyra - "Influencia do jazz" 
• Skip&Die - "La cumbia dictadura" 
• Zuco 103 - "Um coco" (possibly my favorite mashup, Skip&Die and Zuco 103) 
• Glass Animals - "Walla Walla" 
• Tom Tom Club - "Time to Bounce" 
• Olive - "This Time" 
• Kylie Minogue - "Automatic Love" 
• Marvin Gaye - "Sexual Healing" 
• Dannii Minogue - "More, More, More" (Winter Chill Mix

The songs of shortwave, volume 2

The third time has to be the charm. Or so I hope.

This is the third version of my original volume 2 mixtape dedicated to the Cold War era of international broadcasting on shortwave. You can find the playlist below, here's a preview: This mixtape features interval signals from the Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, Radio Berlin International, Radio Tirana, Radio Bucharest, Radio Moscow, Radio Peking (not Beijing), among others. In addition, the mixtape offers music by Gene Autry, Paul Jabara, the Drifters, R.E.M., Falco, Esquivel, Georgy Garanian and the Melodiya Jazz Ensemble, and more.

Why the fascination with the Soviet and Communist era? No, I am not a budding, full bloom, or wilted Communist. While I can see the merits of a Socialist approach to economy, government, and society, the Soviet system had significant human, environmental, and economic costs. Let's put it this way: If you have to keep people behind an iron curtain or a Berlin Wall to make sure they benefit from and "enjoy" what you've planned for them, you might have already failed to sell the idea to your followers.

Then again, Capitalism continues to be an ugly business, also having enormous human, environmental, and economic costs, so I can fathom some of the appeal of alternative approaches to living and working.

During the 1970s and 1980s, when I did most of my shortwave listening, the Cold War was hot and heavy-handed, and the Soviet Bloc stations were all over the airwaves, as were the Chinese Communists and their satellites and, lest we forget, the U.S. and its entourage (e.g., Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, et al.) So what I heard then--and I heard a lot because I often listened day and night, whenever I could and as often as I could--has stayed with me through the years.

Thus there's some nostalgia afoot here, as well as romance for an era lost. That era was not always wonderful, at least in the American mind, but it wasn't without its merits, its charms, and its aficionados. I'm not alone in this view; think of the movie Goodbye Lenin, for example, or the book Comrade Rockstar, by Reggie Nadelson, about the life and times of American-East German rockstar Dean Reed.

You'll hear a fine example of that loss in the last track in this mixtape, the final broadcast of Radio Berlin International, a broadcast I actually happened to hear by accident back in 1990. It's a transmission that still offers me a slight shiver, a haunting if you will. Because that broadcast feels a bit like me--it's late, we both feel past our prime, on the verge of being made redundant, but wanting to hold on as long as we can to a rapidly disintegrating world.

And we want to tell someone about what it was like and what is disappearing. Anyone who will listen really, even though we're never sure anyone is paying attention.

* * *

The playlist

• Voice of America - Closing and signature tune
• Gene Autry - "Yankee Doodle Dandy"
• Paul Jabara - "Yankee Doodle Dandy"
• Radio Free Europe - TV commercial audio from the early 1970s
• The Drifters - "On Broadway"
• R.E.M. - "Radio Free Europe"
• Swiss Broadcasting Corporation - Interval signal, announcement, and time signal
• Falco - "Vienna Calling"
• ORF External Service - Interval signal and opening
• Esquivel - "Blue Danube"
• Deutsche Welle - Interval signal
• Radio Berlin International - Interval signal
• Das Kapital - Auferstanden aus Ruinen
• Radio Tirana - Interval signal
• Radio Budapest - Interval signal
• Radio Polonia - Interval signal and announcement
• Frederic Chopin - Etude for piano no. 12, op. 10 (Revolutionary Etude)
• Unknown - "Kupredu, leva, zpatky ni krok" ("Forward, Left . . .")
• Radio Sofia - Interval signal and opening
• Radio Bucharest - Interval signal and opening
• Radio Station Peace and Progress - Interval signal, opening, and announcement
• Radio Moscow - Interval signal
• Georgy Garanian and the Melodiya Jazz Ensemble - "Moscow Nights (Evenings in Moscow)"
• The Red Army Choir - "Moscow Nights (Evenings in Moscow)" 
• Radio Peking - Interval signal and announcement
• The East Is Red Choir - "The East Is Red"
• Monkey - "March of the Volunteers"
• Arbeit - "Die Internationale"
• Radio Berlin International - Excerpt from final English-language broadcast, 2 October 1990

Poetic injustice

"Lord, it's just like livin' in a poem/
I like callin' North Carolina home . . . "

Or that's what they used to sing in those '70s- and '80s-era North Carolina tourism commercials.

Now it sounds more like everyone there is livin' in some '50s smutty doggerel.

So at least for a little while, don't mind me if'n I don't feel much like callin' North Carolina home.

I think I've maxxed out on the debates

You know you live in Canada when . . . (Part 35,985,751)

. . . one of the local supermarket chains (Sobey's) is promoting the serving of "game day poutine" for the Superbowl.

Better idea: Skip the football game, keep your regurgitated nachos, and just pass me a steaming plate of French fries, brown gravy, and cheese curds, better known as the snack food of the Gods, also known as poutine.

Which is Quebecois French for "kiss my maple-flavoured buttocks, gringo." At least that's what it says in the citizenship prep test booklet.

The sounds of silenzzzzzzz . . .

Yeah, sorry, I know I should, but I really don't give a tuppence about Bernie Sanders or the 2016 presidential election in the United States.

Oh, I can still vote in the U.S., a fact I seem to have to keep reminding Americans of. I just have a work permit for Canada after all; I didn't have to give up my citizenship to move here.

Nor would I do so, despite recently having begun the process of applying for permanent residency here. I miss the United States. More than I thought I would. It is still home, and I still worry about it. Is it eating alright? Is it getting along with others? Is it happy? Has it killed anyone lately, by accident or on purpose? Or is it just constantly bickering for no discernible reason--despite unemployment having dropped to under 5% for the first time in god knows when, despite enjoying a number of other common indicators of a successful economic climate? Certainly more successful than the economy we have in Canada at the moment.

And yet, watch the news on CNN or MSNBC (but, please, not Fox News) or read it online (but avoid the comments section if you can) and everyone seems angry and miserable. Or at least those talking politics or attending political rallies seem so. It is a self-selecting group, so who can say for sure?

I wouldn't vote for a Republican if all the candidates promised me a non-stop winter weekend in sun-dappled Mexico with my favorite porn star, guilt-free, room service, and all necessary accoutrements on tap. (That would be mid-1990s super Southern stud Sam Crockett, in case anyone wants to know, but I can make other suggestions if he is unavailable.) I think there's a certain segment in the U.S. that's still living with this fantasy of the Rockefeller Republican of long ago--fiscally conservative but socially benign. I'm not sure that manor house baron ever existed, although Dwight Eisenhower is perhaps a better exemplifier than any one of the Rockefellers.

Instead what we seem to have is some time-warped brigade of evangelical Dixiecrat-wannabes, George Wallaces (the white one) without a cause (except the misanthropic, middle-class Caucasian): Race bait, shoot from the lip, and by all means be as mean-spirited as possible when it comes to judging others' behaviors without paying too much attention to your own.

Or you get Donald Trump, whose all of that but without the God. 'Cuz, like, he and God are best friends, and God is amaaaaazing but God's knows he's not nearly as great as Donald Trump . . . .

(Not an actual quote . . . yet.)

Turning to the not-Republicans, aka the Democrats, we have . . . heavy sigh. Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

I know I'm supposed to like Hilary. In fact, I clearly remember my frenemy Spencer for Let chastising me way back in 2007 for being an on-the-fence Barack Obama supporter. Over dinner, he proceeded to brow-beat me and bad-mouth anyone for their positive spins on Obama's candidacy. Clearly, I did not understand--but desperately needed to!--that Hilary was the far superior candidate.

I don't know if that tipped me over the fence into the Obama ballpark, but it happened soon thereafter. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the defining moment--or at the moment that made me consider more closely my choice--as ol' Spence has done a great job over the years of brow-beating my opinions over various and sundry. (I distinctively remember making a passing remark about enjoying the American/Canadian version of Queer as Folk, an opinion I came to later in the series run, which then provoked an extended lesson on why I was morally wrong to like the show. That ol' Spence. He has a way with humanity.)

At this point, in 2016, I'll concede that Hilary's the most experienced candidate and would have less of a learning curve than any of the other players on the field. Way back in 2007, I think she might have had a few more years of a U.S. Senate career under her belt than Obama, but counting her time as First Lady as being equal to bonafide POTUS experience makes only slightly more sense as Sarah Palin claiming she had foreign policy experience because Alaska is located next door to Russia.

But I could deal with a Hilary presidency. She's not my favorite, but I hardly think she's the horrifying shrewish mother/anti-mother figure that Conservatives imagine in their nightmares. Or dreams. Hey, Conservatives are a freaky bunch.

But I don't think I can deal with another Bill Clinton presidency--and you just know he won't be able to stop himself from inserting into every nookie and granny cranny of Hilary's administration. Everyone seems to remember Bill fondly, at home and abroad, except me. He was a liar and a womanizer back then, I suspect he's the same now (just more discreet), and he'll continue to be so in the afterlife. The thought of him being anywhere near a whore house, let alone the White House, should be cause for alarm.

* * *

And yet I am no fan of Bernie Sanders either, and I'm not sure I really, fully understand why. I mean, policy-wise, we are not in disagreement. I'm all for more affordable education and universal healthcare. (I would ask, "who wouldn't be?" but I'm afraid this would show how far I've fallen from American grace.) I do think Bernie over-imagines his potential effectiveness as POTUS. For pity's sake, people went berserk over Obama's moderate changes. What would they do with an actual, self-professed socialist in the Oval Office?

Then again, Bernie's not black, which has always seemed to me to be the reason that those who have a problem with Obama have a problem with Obama. Maybe the unconventional senator from Vermont can pull it off, but I feel doubtful over both his policies and his background. In 241 years of American history, we've had one moderate Catholic president and one moderate African-American president, and people nearly crapped a cinder block over both. I can only imagine the eruption over a secular Jewish socialist hippie from Vermont talking "revolutionary" politics.

In large part, I think my problem with Sanders is twofold--

The first fold--see above. I really can't see anyone, establishment or hoi polloi, to the right of Eleanor Roosevelt easily digesting a Sanders presidency. Should it even come to pass--and I think that's about as likely as it was for McGovern to have won in 1972.

The second fold (which is manifold--so much so that we're practically on the verge of origami)--I'm exhausted from hearing a certain subset of friends praise Sanders every time he makes up as much as a grocery list. I have a couple of Facebook friends who are relentlessly, slavishly Sanderistas, a-quiver at every statement, pronouncement, or offhand remark made by el Comandante. There is no escaping their zealotry for a guy, who, frankly, I consider passionate and opinionated, but not much else.

I think you have to have more than passion and opinions to be a leader. Otherwise, you're Ron Paul. Or worse, you're Donald Trump.

Some might argue that Obama spawned the same kind of zealotry. I would not, however. Oh, there are people who would blindly follow him to the ends of the earth and the ends of time, no doubt. The difference is that Obama, in my view, is less about the cult and more about being the actual president to everyone, not just those who agree with him.

His handlers and celebrity fans, sure, they're all about the cult. But at the end of the day, I have always thought of Obama as just a decent, incredibly intelligent, and poised man who has tried hard to do the right thing. Not just African Americans. Not just gays. Not just business. Not just liberals. Everyone.

As the saying goes, you can't please everyone. Or sometimes even anyone. And during the Obama age, this has shown itself to be true.

Do I think he's perfect? Have I liked everything he's done? Have I been bothered by things that I didn't think he did well enough. No, no, and yep.

A case in point: I feel that his administration could have done more to address the growing inequality in the U.S. Nonetheless, he's done a lot to be sure, and if he accomplished nothing more for the rest of his life than getting the Affordable Care Act done, then he's a genius and a statesman and deserves our praise and generosity for the ages to come.

I also feel like criticizing him about not doing more to address inequality is a bit unfair. For one, the U.S. Congress, one of our many national shames, actively and unabashedly fought him and undermined him over everything he proposed, large and small. For another, it's not like "let's fix inequality" has been the zeitgeist; rather, most of us were focused on getting back on our own two feet following the Great Recession. We didn't have much time, energy, or interest to think about anyone else's plight. let alone legislating to improve it.

* * *

I've been thinking about Ronald Reagan lately, not something I care to do, honestly. I despised him and I loathe his legacy, but he certainly left us with a mark--a very dark, costly, punishing, simplistic, and selfish one--that continues to color our judgment and cover up our reality. Call it what you will--conservatism, neo-conservatism, the love of "freedom" (especially the free market and laissez-faire economic policy), "making America great again," etc. ad nauseum--it all sounds like bullshit to me. It has left us with a legacy of inequality, one that we can't seem to surmount. And it has left us with a clown's parade of politicos who have had to live up to or live down Reagan's "simple solutions" of low taxes for the rich, no money for social services, trickle down economics, and free reign to markets and evangelicals. Even Bill Clinton continued to follow much of this trajectory, at least when he wasn't schtupping secretaries and lounge singers.

Will Obama leave us with a legacy that is different and fairer than before? I hope so. I don't know if he's been able to make his mark as strongly as Reagan did, but then Reagan had more support, politically and popularly. Advocating selfishness tends to succeed more than advocating respect for humanity.

Obama, on the other hand, has had to deal with the Know-Nothing age of Republican politics and the standard set of weak-willed Democrats. He has succeeded in many ways, despite this, but unfortunately, I don't feel as though he's been able to graft this progressiveness and humanity on the American body politic. Time will tell, and I pray that time will tell me that I'm wrong.

Who would be a likely, worthy successor to Obama? I haven't a clue. Both Hilary and Bernie have their pluses and minuses, and maybe either/or will do a stellar job, should we be so lucky to find ourselves with this option come the fall. Hilary has more baggage than I would prefer. In addition, she seems to have the resolve of a willow tree in a hurricane. By that I mean she is tough and resilient but will bend whichever way the wind blows. For me, she lacks authenticity.

Bernie's got authenticity, but is it an authenticity that we want? His baggage seems to have gotten stuck on a luggage carousel at an airport outside of Woodstock, circa 1969.

A case in point: He recently chose a Simon and Garfunkel song for a campaign ad, which, naturally, the left has gone all verklempt over. All I can say is I hope someone tells him Jerry Garcia's dead before he invites him to serve as Vice President.

Please, for the love of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, let's not have another American presidential election where we battle out the unresolved issues of the 1960s once again. Heck, I'm in my 50s, and even I'm not that nostalgic.

The Dead Rodent Society

From the Weather Network Canada, 29 January 2016.
See the full article here.

Newsflash from the Weather Network Canada: Canadian groundhog, Winnipeg Willow, does a runner days before Groundhog Day.

Sometimes even I don't have the words.

Although when I posted this to Facebook recently, many a friend did have the words.

My favorite was, "So how's that socialized medicine working for you now, rodent?!" from my friend B.I.

Nonetheless, there were other pithy remarks about how at least in Pennsylvania they knew enough to have a "strategic groundhog reserve" of three or more of the buggers in case Punxsutawney Phil decided to make a break for that great pile of chucked wood in the sky at an inopportune moment.

I could draw some unfavorable comparison between Canadian and American understandings of show business, but let's be charitable on this marmotous momentous occasion. After all, Willow found out that the shadow she saw was her shadow of death.

We are all weeping and woeful for Winnipeg Willow.

Woah.

Not Encino, not Portofino, but Ocho Rios

When the weather turns cold in Toronto, we all think about flying down Ocho Rios way . . . .

Thank you to the late, great Paul Jabara for your body of work. We just didn't appreciate you enough when you were here among us. I hope in the afterlife you're making "Heaven is a Disco" a dream come true.

Showing the '70s some love

And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records by Larry Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book far more than I probably should have. While it's not perfectly written, it is very entertaining, especially for me, someone who remembers well the rise and fall of Casablanca Records, the Kiss era, Donna Summer, disco, Parliament/Funkadelic, and everything else that Neil Bogart, Larry Harris, et al., begat and bequeathed.

Not all of it was good, but when it was good, it was great, as much for the music as for the fantasy, glamour, and excess it created.

The focus in this book is perhaps more on Kiss than on the others. As more of a disco dolly, I would have preferred more about Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder. Nonetheless, Harris does a good job of conveying some of what was going on with them and their music at the time. He also touches upon the rise of gay culture in the disco era, not shying away from it, although again, I was left wanting more.

That's not really a criticism. I'm just greedy.

While not a Kiss fan and knowing only a little about George Clinton and Parliament, I was nonetheless enthralled to read about their personalities, work, and vision, and how Casablanca hustled to unleash them on a receptive, if unsuspecting, public.

I was a teenager during this era, a time in my mind's eye, when America was still on the move, when the angst and anger of the late '60s had somewhat subsided and the conservatism and consumerism of the '80s had not taken over. So there's a special place in my heart for the people, places, and events described within. People often say the '70s were about nothing, but I think they were about a number of things: harmony, unity, diversity, fun, working out our past social kinks and moving on to a better, more liberated culture. An idealized take on the decade? Perhaps, but I'd match it any day to the accomplishments of the '80s.

Having said that, from some of the events described in these pages, I'm not sure I would have survived if I'd been on that '70s scene. In fact, many didn't. Drugs, decadence, and disease took their toll.

Thus it's great to have Harris's stories about Paul Jabara, Marc Paul Simon, Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo, Casablanca FilmWorks, Donna Summer, George Clinton, the four Kiss solo albums, radio promotion, marketing music, and all the rest. It's a terrific chronicle of a lost time and place and a loving but honest look at the genius and the folly that was Neil Bogart.

View all my reviews

Full of sound and vision, but not much else

Because I've got a head cold and I'm in a cranky mood, let me launch the first counter-offensive in the War on Feet of Clay.

With the sudden death of David Bowie, it's going to be a long day on social media, especially for those of us who never quite "got" him--or perhaps got him only too well. Twitter's the worst of it right now with people I follow making comments like, "I never cried this much when my father died." And then there's Facebook where one "friend" took only about five seconds to bring in the passing of his friend and my former boyfriend Cali two years ago into the mix of misplaced grief.

Not meaning to be cold, but everything comes back to Cali for this guy. 

(I should really get back to telling you more about Cali one of these days, shouldn't I? Despite the passing of a couple of years, it's still highly relevant. Even on good days, I often weigh in my mind whether he was cruel to be kind or just plain cruel, a mean-spirited spectre in my life that I still find hanging over me, ready to swoop down on my heart and my mind and pick them to pieces. Just imagine the bad days.)

Please do give me a fudge-ripple break. I will admit to having cried some when a favorite musician died, often because I felt they were under-appreciated or misunderstood during his or her lifetime, or because they were simply gone too soon, in my mind at least. Ditto for when a favorite show has ended or been axed. A world of emotion, comfort, and inspiration is lost. I mean, the tears I spent over Betty's fate at the end of Mad Men was quite ridiculous and embarrassing. In a bad Hitchcock ripoff kind of way, I think she was unjustly punished for not being the ideal that she represented, for figuring out her life and her inner self "too late." Meanwhile, ol' Dirty Dapper Don Draper has panic attacks, a major meltdown, and then gets an epiphany--about how to market Coca Cola.

Pop pop fizz fizz.

But even though I thought Betty got the rawest of deals, I didn't stop on the street and share my special feelings with everyone I met.

Intellectually, I can understand how someone might feel all verklempt about David Bowie and his oeuvre. And this certainly doesn't mean you, dear Reader, shouldn't like David Bowie or fail to recognize his impact on your life, and share that to some degree with those around you. But perspective, please: Let's not go overboard and pay him more due or attach more import to him than to the passing of your father or mother or anyone that you actually know.

I don't happen to feel this pain that the world is experiencing at the moment. I can assure you that I never cried as much over anything or anyone than when my father died, a pain that still can bring me to tears nearly nine years later. I can also think of one pet that died too young that can also make me sad from time to time.

But pardonnez-moi if'n I don't join in the mass rending of garments, the collective wailing of "Why?!" at the tomb of the alleged idol that is Steve Jobs David Bowie.

Whether rightly or wrongly, I lost interest in David Bowie during the "China Girl" era. I heard "Just you shut your mouth" one too many times and then Bowie went and said in Rolling Stone, "I was never really bisexual," or words to that effect. And that, at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, at the onset of the backlash against gay people that has only just subsided in the last few years in the U.S., was when many of us desperately needed to hear someone be encouraging and positive about our sexuality and our difference.

But no. Instead we probably got the truth, not the one that we wanted, but the one that had been out there all along: That DB was not gay nor bisexual. That a decade before Bowie had claimed he was bisexual because . . . he was an agent provocateur and needed to stand out in the Glam era? Wanted to make a cultural fashion statement? He wanted to sell some records in the more open-to-the-dandy climate of merry ol' England?

Let me take you back to 1983 when the M in MTV was in full flower and the bloom was fast coming off the raggedly, jaggedly rose of what seemed to be an honest, edgy, alternative awakening. That brief moment in our lives from, say, 1977 to 1982 or so (or possibly even just 1980 to 1982 if I'm feeling particularly pedantic) was quickly turned into a 30-second commercial, advertising Modern Love and deep pore cleansers, accompanied by a soundtrack of slap bass and a landscape of quiffy hair. And there was Bowie riding the Honda Scooter into Reagan- and Thatcher-era consumerism/conservatism along with everyone else, in that Rolling Stone article talking about the love for his child, what it was like being a father, blah-di-freakin'-blah.

So at that point the Thin White Duke became the Thin White Sell-Out for me. More interested in being on trend and clearing up any lingering confusion for the benefit of selling more records in the American market.

Maybe I'm not remembering the text exactly, although a quick perusal of Wikipedia highlighted for me what I recalled best from the article.

What I do remember clearly and freshly is being massively disappointed. I hadn't been out that long, only three years at that point, and despite my protestations otherwise, it would have helped to have someone so high profile not push away the "taint" of alternative sexuality and be supportive and proud of who he was--if indeed he was that person.

And if he wasn't that person, why claim to be otherwise in the first place? To be an agent provocateur? To stand out more than others in the Glam era? To seem edgy or cool? To sell more records in the dandy-friendly climate of merry ol' England?

Oh dear. I'm running the risk of being as it's-all-about-me as the rest of Facebookdom and the Twitterverse. David Bowie wasn't responsible for my happiness and self-worth. I know this, but still . . . the rejection . . . it burns.

Chameleons are interesting and pretty to look at, but you can't really rely on them to show their true colors. Instead, I prefer having something real to hang onto to, to believe in, to remember, to give thanks to, as I take the time to enjoy and experience the people, places, and things I encounter on Life's Great Road Trip.

* * *

Having said all this, I will go on record to proclaim that I like to adore "Fame," "Fashion," "Sound and Vision," "Heroes" (including Ewan MacGregor singing some verses of it in Moulin Rouge), "Golden Years," "TVC15," "Suffragette City," "Young Americans," and all the stuff before "Let's Dance." Those were some fantastic records. If he'd only made one or two of those, like "Golden Years" and "Changes," he'd be worthy of a very high level of pop cultural praise.

I'll even admit to liking "Let's Dance" and "China Girl" in the first 4,999 or so listens. But then you can rarely go wrong with Nile Rodgers at the control board. I think he deserves as much credit for his sound, minus vision, at that point in time. And Bowie deserves credit for his vision at that time, to pick someone who would become one of the hottest collaborators and producers of that era as well as today.



I also love this, "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth," the bizarre collaboration between Bing Crosby and the Bowie from the late 1970s. Nevertheless, I have to wonder if this should have been our first clue about the chameleon-like (read: sell-out) nature of David Bowie.

I've had British friends howl with laughter and derision over our fake American Christmas specials, and then there's ol' Davy, right in the holly-and-ivy thick of it, with Mister Wonder Bread Christmas himself, pretending to be a clueless father from down the street who happens to stumble in wanting to use a friend's piano and ends up singing a (brilliant, wonderful, and timeless) duet with the Bingster.

Just add Andy Williams and some fake snow, and this mortal is ready to uncoil and viper attack the next person who starts emoting over the loss of a legend.

Obviously, I can cuddle and play footsie with a grudge for a very long time. Thank you for the music and the creative imagery, David Bowie. You did make some great music and were obviously more influential to some, to many, than I ever realized. Rest in peace and all that jazz.

But if you don't mind, I'm gonna sit out this global interpretive dance of tribute and tribulation in your honor. I don't doubt that for some your death has great meaning, but for me, you'll always be that pop star who followed the zeitgeist and never looked back.

No puede ser

Screen grab from the CBC World News webpage,
10 January 2016.

Damas y Caballeros, I present to you . . . Las Reinas del Sewer.

Thank you! I'm here all week!

Pink Cadillac

I always loved Natalie Cole's version of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac." Having said that, this video is so 1980s it makes my scrunchy hurt.

Rest in peace, Miss Natalie.

This will be

Rest in peace, Miss Natalie Cole.

Snow Day

Wherever you may be, whatever the weather is like, however you celebrate (or do not), season's greetings from me to you.

And the winner is . . .

Steve Harvey at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
By Angela George, 13 May 2013. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported.

How I wish Steve Harvey had announced the winner of the 2000 Bush v. Gore election for the President of the United States.

Just imagine! We would be living in a totally different world right now. I'd like to think we'd be war-free since whenever, that 9/11 never happened, that perhaps Taylor Swift and the Kardashians had never been visited upon us.

Taylor would be teaching pre-school somewhere in Pennsylvania. Kim K. would be an aging stripper down on her luck in Las Vegas.

But I'm a realist at heart.

Bad crap always happens whether you want it to or not. The key is to mitigate it as much as possible--and to not actively add to the crap fiasco you're enduring. Yes, I'm talking to you, the George "Dubya" Bush administration from 2000 to 2008.

Nevertheless, it's lovely to have a dream or two stored away, just in case you ever have the opportunity to vigorously rub a genie's bottle, are granted three wishes, and don't screw up said wishes. Then you can ask for the privilege of traveling back in time to help every Florida man and woman, not to mention the U.S. Supreme Court, make the right call and change history as we know it.

Early bearded hipster trendsetter, Rutherford B. Hayes
Public Domain.

But if that's too far-fetched for you, just ask the genie to let Steve Harvey announce the winner. First, he would say, "Ladies and Generals, I present to you the winner of the 2000 President of the United States pageant, Miss Texas, Georgina Bush!" Then in less time than it takes to look up "emigrating to Canada" on your smartphone, Harvey could say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I meant Miss Tennessee, Albertina Gore!"

* * *

Another plus to giving Steve Harvey that kind of power--Pornstar mustaches would be cool again, not beards that make every guy look like a young, swagger-delic Rutherford B. Hayes.

Steve Harvey for Time-Traveling Emcee in 2016!

The songs of shortwave, volume 1

The Songs of Shortwave Radio, Volume 1: Out in the Wide World by Montagsonfire on Mixcloud

Author's note: I updated this mixtape on 1 January 2016 (Happy New Year!). This is volume 1; volume 2 is forthcoming--hopefully no later than later this month. Enjoy!

* * *

Happy early holidays--at least if receiving a new mixtape/podcast from me is a fun gift in your mind. I hope it is because it's all I've got for you this year. Perhaps, ahem.

My gift to you is all about me, of course! Ha, well, kinda. It's another in a series of my explorations into my childhood, into what made me tick then and continues to make me tick now, decades later.

I was a huge aficionado of international broadcasting on shortwave radio back in the day, and I still think about buying a new radio--the kind of set, a tabletop or a highly sensitive portable, that I couldn't afford when I was younger. After all, I live in a new part of the globe, and there are no power lines in our neighbo(u)rhood. (Everything's buried so as to prevent snapping during extreme cold and icestorms, and I suspect to soothe suburban aesthetic sensitivities as well.) Just imagine what I might hear again or for the first time from our near neighbors--Iceland! Greenland! Saint Pierre et Miquelon!

Or maybe I would hear from some place completely different--Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, Cote D'Ivoire--all those places I wanted to tune in so long ago but could never quite pull in on my static-friendly portable in rural North Carolina.

This is not to say that I was a slouch as a DX-er (aka, long-distance listener). I remember staying up until the early hours to hear the opening of the broadcast day in Togo and Cameroon. I remember going to bed listening to Latin rhythms emanating from stations in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela--and have the QSL cards to prove it. I remember hearing Iceland, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Tahiti, Tashkent, Morocco, and hundreds of others, near and far.

My favorites? In no particular order--the Voice of Turkey (for the music), Radio Australia, Brussels Calling, Radio France International, Radio Sweden, Radio Exterior de España/Spanish Foreign Radio, Radio Austria International, Deutsche Welle, Radio Nederland, Radio RSA: The Voice of South Africa (I know, I know . . .), and, naturally enough, Radio Canada International.

A European bias perhaps, but these were often the best, most consistently received stations where I lived at the time.

Which came first--My interest in the world outside of where I lived or my enthusiasm for shortwave, which led to an interest in the world elsewhere? I would say the former. I mean, how many kids were in the second grade trying to borrow books on Sweden from their small-town public library? Not many, at least not in North Carolina in the 1960s and '70s. Some days I truly feel for my parents. What a bafflement I must have put them through with the constant arrival of letters and packets of information from the Soviet Union, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and Australia.

I still yearn for those days of uncomplicated childhood, when my only "responsibility" was to listen to shortwave, learn about different cultures and perspectives, write some letters to radio stations (or penpals), and receive mail from all over the world.

Those days are mostly gone, I fear. Who writes letters anymore? I can barely send out Christmas cards. I still listen and watch international broadcasting, but it's all internet-based, whether on my computer, my phone, my Kindle, or my Roku.

Now at least I can hear the content without squelch and static, the jamming and knob-twiddling, but the serendipity, the happenstance, the fun, are somewhat lacking. Where's the challenge if all you have to do is go to a URL, an app, or a channel? Tuning in--figuring out the frequency, realizing the time difference, setting the dial just right, and hoping against hope that some other undesired station didn't bleed into the broadcast you wanted to hear--was an adventure.

So this mix and the previous podcast I did are ways for me to hark back to that time but also to celebrate its positive influence on my life. I might never had ventured out of North Carolina and moved to Texas, let alone Canada, without my shortwave radio. I might never have been open to meeting and falling in love with a truly lovely man from Egypt. I might never have learned about music--and international communism!


* * *

Now about these tunes . . .

In most cases, I think they speak for themselves, that is to say, there is a clear connection between the signature tune and the song played. In other cases, not so much. So below you'll find an annotated playlist in which I try to explain myself and where my mind was when I made my choices.

1) "Oranges and Lemons - the Bells of St. Clement's" and 2) the BBC Caribbean relay station version of "Oranges and Lemons."

This is immediately followed by 3) the tonal "B-B-C" interval signal, enchanting and slightly haunting, mixed with 4) the BBC "V" interval signal, mixed with 5) the BBC World Service bells.

Radio RSA QSL card. Author's collection.

6) A version of "Lillibulero" was (and maybe still is) featured at the top of the hour of most BBC World Service broadcasts.

7) "London Calling" by the Clash: Again, another popular song that seems inspired by the world of international broadcasting. I first heard the Clash on the BBC World Service Top 20 or A Jolly Good Show, can't remember which now.

8) Radio RSA: The Voice of South Africa - interval signal and announcement: My favorite signature tune and possibly the most beautiful one ever created. For a moment put aside the racist Apartheid regime that created the tune to lure you in. It is still a gorgeous melody played simply and lushly. It's probably single-handedly responsible for my life-long fascination with Afrikaans and Afrikaner South Africa. (Other connections: Dutch colonial expansion led directly to the unique culture and grinding problems of contemporary South Africa.)

9) Toni & Jan: A modern interpretation of the folk tune, "Ver in die Wereld, Kittie," upon which the signature tune is based. It doesn't compare all that favorably to the original in my mind. Thus I'd love to hear remake played as slowly and sparingly as the original interval signal.

10) and 11): Two versions of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ("God Bless Africa"), the new, post-Apartheid national anthem of South Africa. 10) is by the Mahotella Queens and 11) by Beston Barnett.

12) Radio-Télévision Guinéenne interval signal and opening: If I'm going to celebrate Afrikaner culture, I'm going to have to balance things out by celebrating post-colonial African culture as well. Guinea--home at one point to Pan-Africanist revolutionary Stokely Carmichael and performer, activist, and South African ex-pat, Miriam Makeba.

13) "Alpha Yaya" by Bako Dagnon: I don't know the history of this song, other than it's considered a "heroic" song and may or may not be sort of a Guinean, post-colonial African anthem. It seems like a good balance to anything inspired by Radio RSA.

14) Interval signal and announcement for the general overseas service of All India Radio. A broadcaster I was only able to listen to sporadically over the years, but one with a mystical, unmistakable interval signal.

15) Dissidenten - "All India Radio": Not a song from that era--I don't even remember how I first heard about Dissidenten--but part of my interest in exploring (the world, world music) I suspect. The title makes it seem as though I wasn't alone in being fascinated by foreign radio broadcasts.

Radio Japan QSL card. Author's collection.

16) Interval signal for Radio Japan, 17) "Kazoe Uta," and 18) "Sakura, Sakura": Apparently, Radio Japan used "Kazoe Uta," described as a Japanese children's counting song, as the interval signal for its international broadcasts, but it also used "Sakura, Sakura" ("Cherry Blossoms") for others. I have no idea which this is, and I have no clear sense of whether the "Kazoe Uta" and "Sakura, Sakura" selected are matches to the signature tune. Nevertheless, it's an attempt to pay homage to the beauty and significance of Japanese culture. I never listened much to the Radio Beijing or Radio China International, so I have nothing to offer from there in this mix. Maybe in volume 2 . . . .

19) Radio Australia interval signal and the laughing kookaburra, along with 20) "Waltzing Matilda" by the Seekers: Again, here's another case where I find the interval signal more enjoyable than the folk tune upon which it is based. Oh well.

21) The interval signal for l'Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) in Tahiti, unforgettable with its South Pacific rapid-fire drumming, one I often heard in the evening in North America.

22) The bird-chirping interval signal and opening anthem of Radio New Zealand.

Moving on to the Nordic world, I offer in rapid succession the following: The haunting interval signal for 23) Radio Norway, followed by the one for 24) YLE Radio Finland. That is followed by the interval signal for 25) Rikisutvarpid, the national broadcaster of Iceland, with 26) Radio Denmark up next. And that is followed by 27) Radio Greenland, a station that I think I heard once or twice way back in the day but one that I was never able to clearly identify.

28) Radio Sweden interval signal and opening: The "classic" broadcast opening featuring notes from the song, "Storm och böljar tystna ren . . . ," and Hugo Alfvén's "Swedish Rhapsody."

Radio Sweden QSL card. Author's collection.

29) A longer, instrumental version of "Storm och böljar" performed by Tomas Blank and the Göteborgs Symfonietta, followed by 30) Ralph Lundsten's "Out in the Wide World," the song that eventually replaced the classic Radio Sweden interval signal and broadcast opening. I like it, quite a lot actually, but I still prefer the 1970s version.

Is Canada a Nordic station? Some would say yes, but then we might have to examine what is meant by the term "Nordic." For the purposes of this mixtape, I'm lumping 31) Radio Canada International's interval signal, the first four notes of "O, Canada," with the other Nordic national and international broadcasters.  This is where my intense like affair with Canada didn't so much begin but was greatly encouraged and strengthened. (My stamp collection and the GAF Viewmaster slides of Canada I received as a birthday gift are also to blame for my Canada crush.)

32) "Vive la Canadienne" and 33) "Les Montréalais": Two songs that were featured in Radio Canada International's broadcasts in the 1970s. This exact recording of "Vive la Canadienne" was used to open the broadcast, while this exact recording of "Les Montréalais" was used as part of the closing. Where my love affair with Montréal all began.

Next we transition to the Benelux countries (minus the 'Lux): 34), 35), 36), and 37) are various interval signals from various versions of Radiodiffusion-Télévision Belge (RTB) and Belgische Radio en Televisie (BRT), the French and Dutch broadcasters, respectively, of bilingual Belgium.

BRT often used versions of the Dutch folk song, 38) "Kwezelken" for it's interval signals. You can clearly hear this in 37) but also in 35) if you pay close attention. Meanwhile, RTB used versions of the song 39) "Où peut-on être mieux . . . ?" for its interval signal. Why can't we all just get along?

40) Radio Netherlands - interval signal and opening: One of the first international broadcasters I ever listened to. The interval signal and opening are far more stilted than the broadcasts that used to and still emanate from Hilversum.

41) Ben van Bergen and the Voices Inside My Head: A modern interpretation of "Merck Toch Hoe Sterck," the Radio Netherlands signature tune. 

42) Voice of Spain interval signal and opening: I always think of this as Radio Exterior de España or the awkwardly named Spanish Foreign Radio. "Radio Spain International" never seemed to be a workable option.

REE pennant. Author's collection.

43) The Spotnicks - "Spanish Gypsy Dance": A popular version of "España cañi" or "Gypsy Spain," a paso doble composed by Pascual Marquina Narro, a piece of music that always makes one think of Spain. (I might also suggest anything by Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain LP.)

44) Interval signal for RAE, Radiodifusión Argentina al Exterior: An incredibly long opening. Apparently the interval signal features the first few notes of "Mi Buenos Aires querido," although I struggle a bit to hear it.

Next up, two versions of "Mi Buenos Aires querido," 45) by Daniel Barenboim, Rodolfo Mederos, and Héctor Console and 46) a piece of chill wallpaper by La Fonda Tango Club. The original is by famed Argentine tango composer, Carlos Gardel. My Gardel CDs are still locked in a storage bin in Pittsburgh (no, really), so we'll have to "make do" with these contemporary versions.

And to round everything out (with a hint of what's to come in volume 2), I conclude the mixtape with 47) Radio Havana Cuba's interval signal and opening, plus 48) the Red Army Choir performing "La marcha del 26 de julio." Radio Havana's interval signal features the opening notes of this march. 

Comrades, let the Revolution begin! Forward left to volume 2, coming soon to a MixCloud near you.

¡Ølé!

It's just the holidays as usual in our casita in the Toronto suburbs.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, all--and just try not to think about what an unrepentant quisling Sonja Henie apparently was. Why spoil all our good cheer with the blunt-force trauma of that reality?

¡Olé!

I'm sure he meant to say this

So I fixed it for him.

Thanks to today's New York Times for recording all the news that's fit to print--but even the NYT has to make the occasional correction.