You Need Theme Time Radio Hour In Your Life

Dreamtime pal Doug R. writes an impassioned sermon himself on the benefits of TTRH in your life, which we wholly subscribe to. I'm not quite certain of the mechanics of Facebook - dunno if you need to be a member in order to read Doug's full post - but I'm replicating it here with Doug's permission:

Season Three of Theme Time Radio Hour begins today. Featuring your host, Bob Dylan.

You need Theme Time Radio Hour in your life.

I'm serious. I am an evangelist in the church of Theme Time Radio Hour. In the last couple of years, Bob has thoroughly revitalized my love of music.

Every week, Bob Dylan culls his personal record collection, chooses a theme and spins an hour's worth of records devoted to that theme. Songs about shoes. Songs about trains. Songs about guys named Joe. The genres are all over the map. Blues, country, soul, showtunes, reggae... I come away from every show with a new favorite song.

And Bob is a brilliant DJ. He shares recipes and cleaning tips, tells jokes, and occasionally delivers impassioned sermons on how to live right.

Have I mentioned that you need Theme Time Radio Hour as a regular part of your life?

Bob and his people seem very loose about the show's being bootlegged. Which is good, because I can't afford satellite radio.

This guy, Patrick Crosley - http://croz.fm/pages/ttrh.html - hosts a blog where he posts a lot of music, and usually posts a copy of the newest Theme Time within a day or two of air date.

I'm also going to put in a plug for the Dreamtime podcast.

http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/

Fred Bals does a show wherein he will take an artist or phenomenon offhandedly mentioned by Bob, and weave a whole show around it. Fred's an engaging writer and storyteller, in addition to having an encyclopedic pop culture knowledge that I envy deeply. I've picked up almost as many favorite songs from Fred as I have from Bob. The difference being, Fred's my Facebook friend. Hi, Fred.

The meaningful part of the baseball season may be over. The days may be getting shorter. But I don't care. There's less space on my iPod, and more songs in my heart. It's a new season of Theme Time Radio Hour. And I'm trying to convert you. Give it a listen.

And "Hi, Doug," and thanks for the plug!

I just want to add that I fully sympathize with not being able to afford things like satellite radio. Dreamtime has a lot of student listeners who are on a tight budget too, and without torrents and sites like Croz's they'd be out of luck.

As I noted in my F.A.Q., the liklihood of ever seeing a commercial release of The Compleat Theme Time Radio Hour recedes with each new show, and it certainly deserves some permanency, albeit gray market permanency. Having said that, I do want to add that if you're in a position to support Sirius XM Radio by subscribing, whether to the satellite or internet feed, you should, even if you get the show from other sources or not. According to reports, shares in the merged company have dropped over 65 percent since July, and the current market environment is very probably going to devastate financially weak companies. While TTRH isn't likely to disappear, its home base very well could. And that would be bad news for us all.