A Better Drug Song Than "Heroin"

One of Dreamtime's regular correspondents, who goes by the complimentary title of "Dreamtime Fan" recently asked in the "comments" section:

"Maybe your investigative reporting could dig up the truth behind a song that I've wondered about for a while? In regards to the Classic Rock Show, there is a lot of confusion as to who really wrote Chinese Rocks. ... I would love to know the truth behind it."

I'm not sure I'm going to be telling DF anything more than s/he already knows about Chinese Rocks but here goes. I once had a friend who was connected to the movie biz who always forced me to sit through the closing credits of every movie we went to. This was before the common use of gag reels or the sort of bonus material you get these days in the credits of the theatrical release of movies like Cloverfield or Iron Man. After the second or third time of watching names scroll down a screen until the final copyright warning, I asked her, "Why are we were doing this?"

"I like to see which of my friends are making money," she answered.

A good way of knowing who's getting paid for their creative efforts is to see whether their names are on the credits. Now, that doesn't always hold true: Rum and Coca-Cola is a perfect example. However, if you go to the ASCAP and/or BMI databases, you'll see Chinese Rocks is credited to "Douglas Colvin" and "Richard Meyers," better known onstage as "Dee Dee" Ramone and Richard Hell. Chinese Rocks is the song's "official" name, although it's also known as Chinese Rock - part of the cause of controversy over its authorship, as there are several versions of Chinese Rock, while only one real Chinese Rocks.

While not a resource I normally point to as a font of accuracy, Wikipedia seems to have the facts straight on the song's creation as far as my other research indicates. Richard Hell has acknowledged that Dee Dee Ramone had the original idea, sparked by Hell boasting that he was going to write a better drug song than Lou Reed's Heroin. Wanting to one-up Hell, Dee Dee started writing Chinese Rocks. He had finished the music, one verse, and the chorus when his band, The Ramones, rejected the song. Dee Dee quoted Joey Ramone as saying Chinese Rocks was too obviously drug-related. Apparently I Wanna Be Sedated was okay in Joey's estimation, but I wasn't there to debate the topic with him.

In any case, once the Gabba-Gabba-Hey! boys had bounced Chinese Rocks, Dee went to Hell (no pun intended... much), offering the song for his band The Heartbreakers if he cared to finish it. According to Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, Hell added two more verses and Chinese Rocks was complete.

Things get a bit complicated after that. Stories differ about how Chinese Rocks got into the hands of The Heartbreakers, but it became a standard in their live shows, and the band eventually recorded it for release on their album of 19 and 77, L.A.M.F., better-known known by its acronym because of its unprintable title. The song was also released as a single, selling over 20,000 copies.

The single and the vinyl L.A.M.F. credit the song to all of The Heartbreakers - Johnny Thunders and Heartbreakers' drummer Jerry Nolan - as well as to Dee Dee Ramone and Richard Hell. However, the CD reissues of L.A.M.F. name all three Ramones, Joey and Johnny as well as Dee Dee, as the writers and leave out Richard Hell and the other Heartbreakers altogether. On their vinyl release of End of the Century, The Ramones credit Dee Dee and Richard Hell as the songwriters, but in the CD re-release, the song is again credited to The Ramones as a whole with no Hell in sight.

This is where the missing "S" comes in. Although it's obviously the same song with only slightly changed lyrics, The Ramones call their version on their albums - whether vinyl or CD - Chinese Rock.

Confused yet? Good. The question remains, "Why all the tsuris?" Money is the most obvious candidate, as it always is. With Dee Dee gone, Richard Hell is the only living person with a legitimate claim to royalty payments for Chinese Rocks/Rock, no matter who is claiming authorship on album credits. Whether he is seeing any money with all the machinations over credits and titles, I don't know. As far as the shift from Dee Dee as author to The Ramones as a whole as well as the missing "S", I suspect that both had something to do with the desire to keep the filthy lucre flowing to The Ramones rather than to any one Ramone.

Money or not, it probably also had had something to do with ego, arguments over things no one can remember now, slights - real and imagined - and pissed-off people leaving bands with other pissed-off people staying with the band and people in bands pissed-off at each other.

Johnny Thunders died in `91, with Heartbreakers drummer Jerry Nolan, the man whose lifestyle probably inspired Chinese Rocks, stepping out in 19 and 92. Dee Dee Ramone would make it to another decade, 2002, before overdosing. Thunders and Ramone would argue all the way to their respective graves about who wrote Chinese Rocks. Dee Dee had the final word, calling Thunders and the the other Heartbreakers "low-lifes" in his 2000 memoir, Lobotomy, notably without mention of Richard Hell's role in Chinese Rocks' creation.

Richard Hell, a.k.a. Richard Meyers, lives in New York City, and is the surviving co-author of Chinese Rocks, according to both BMI and ASCAP.

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Pilgrimages

I've been reading Douglas Brinkley's interview of Bob Dylan in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which I hadn't thought much of until Sean over at RightWingBob linked to "out-takes" from the interview that hadn't made it to publication.

Rolling Stone has since removed that additional material, unfortunate, as they helped to clarify what seems to me a very disjointed and superficial interview with Dylan. As just one example, Dylan's remark to Nicolas Sarkozy about "the whole global thing" being over, which reads in the print version as either an off-the-cuff joke or a Dylanesque non sequiter, was actually part of a larger conversation about globalization, which Dylan apparently takes very seriously (he's agi'n it).

In any case, I commend Sean's posts at the link above to your attention, as well as the clip he posted on YouTube of Brinkley being interviewed about the interview. If you sometimes weary of Bob Dylan's complaints that he's held to a different standard than the Average Bear, you might reflect on how many people there are in the world whose interviewer would command their own interview, simply on the strength of having interviewed you.

Brinkley mentions in that clip that Dylan likes pilgrimages and, in fact, encourages his fans to check out his old stomping grounds in Hibbing and Dinkytown. Brinkley's article touches on the various pilgrimages Dylan has taken himself, the famous one to see Carl Sandburg in `64, his recent trip to Neil Young's boyhood home ("I wanted to walk the steps that Neil walked every day"), and the less well-known pilgrimages to the homes or graves of Buddy Holly, Jack Kerouac, and Elvis.

Back in the late `80s, Dylan made a pilgrimage to the farm James Dean grew up on. I did a podcast about that trip way back when I was just starting Dreamtime. It was a story I felt a deep connection with because I had had made my own James Dean pilgrimage about a decade earlier. Here's I Ran at Bakersfield, a 9 1/2 minute audio dream, first broadcast on Dreamtime in September 2006, 51 years after the death of James Dean. It remains one of my favorite episodes.

***

[Intro]



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[James Dean - Drive Safely]

Episode 15 – I ran at Bakersfield

This is the Dreamtime podcast - occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour weekly show.

Sometimes you write the show, and sometimes the show decides to write you. This is one of those shows. This Saturday is September 30th, 2006. Fifty-one years ago, on September 30th, 1955, James Dean died.

I didn't remember that until a few days ago. The date – and the accident – used to be a lot more important to me some 30-odd years back. In the early '70s, I spent the good part of one Fall season driving back and forth between Northern and Southern California, down the Grapevine on Route 5 from Los Angeles, through the San Joaquin Valley and back to the college I was in the long, slow process of leaving.

There was a girl in Los Angeles. There's always a girl somewhere in every story. She was in the long, slow process of leaving me too, but I didn't know that then. So every Thursday I would take the Volkswagen, loaded with whatever passengers I could find who were willing to pony up $10 bucks for a roundtrip to LA and back and leave around 11 or so at night to go stay with my girl over the weekend. On Sundays, I'd make the reverse trip… 350 miles back.

On one trip back – by myself that time – I detoured off 5 after passing Bakersfield and headed west on Highway 46, pulling off at the intersection of 46 and 41. It was a little before six pm on September 30th, 19 and 71.

Sixteen years earlier, Dean's Porsche Spyder flew over the road I had just traveled, bearing down like a freight train on the downgrade to a bump-in-the-road town called Cholame. At the intersection of Highways 46 and 41, Dean would collide with a Ford Tudor, driven by a 23-year-old with the unlikely last name of Turnupseed. It was 5:45 in the early evening. The sun was just setting.

Turnupseed would survive the accident and live for another 40 years. He would never speak publicly about what had happened. Dean's one passenger also survived. Dean lived for a few moments after the crash, but was pronounced Dead On Arrival at Paso Robles Hospital.

Rebel without a Cause would premiere about a month later.

We all make pilgrimages. In 1988, Dylan, with an entourage of 15 in tow, visited the farm that Dean grew up on, in Fairmount, Indiana. "It was 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning,” said Marcus Winslow, one of Dean’s cousins. “He'd had a concert in Indianapolis, and he came with a bus to Fairmount. He came out here for a few minutes. ..."

That was probably the morning of July 16th, 19 and 88, the morning after Dylan finished a show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds during what would become the first year of the Never Ending Tour. As an aside, Dylan mentions in the liner notes of World Gone Wrong that the Never Ending Tour actually ended three years later in 1991, to be followed by a succession of others, including The Money Never Runs Out, The Southern Sympathizer and the Why Do You Look at Me So Strangely tours.

No word on what the current one is called, although I’m holding out hope that its name is The Search for Rejection tour in honor of Modern Times.

In 1955, Bob Dylan was 14 years old. Like hundreds of other teenagers he would see Rebel multiple times, and bought Rebel's iconic red jacket… just like James Dean’s.

During the 1963 cover shoot for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Dylan reportedly wanted to create Roy Schatt's 1954 photo of James Dean walking down West 68th in New York City. The Freewheelin' photo that would eventually be the cover uses Jones Street in Greenwich Village, a one-block street connecting West 4th and Bleeker, as its backdrop.

At least one other Don Hunstein photo from the same session has surfaced. Used as the cover art on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan Outtakes bootleg, the picture also features Dylan's girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo, braced on his arm as he strikes an even more Dean-like pose.

We all emulate our heroes.

On the 50th anniversary of Dean's death, the state of California put up a sign at the intersection, naming it the James Dean Memorial Junction. If you travel about a quarter of a mile west, you'll find a memorial put up in 1977 by a Japanese Dean fan. It's engraved with Dean's name, date of birth and death, an infinity symbol, and what was reportedly Dean's favorite quote, "What is essential is invisible to the eye," from The Little Prince.

Back in the early `70s, none of that was there to see at the junctions of 41 and 46, just a lonely, dusty patch of California road. I sat on the hood of my car for awhile, watching the sun go down. And I got back in the VW, pulled onto the road, blinded then by the explosion of the sunset's glare, not able to see a thing.

And a car came out of the sunset light, engine screaming, horn blaring, swerving inches from my left bumper, and then gone.

I think it was a silver Porsche. It looked like a Porsche. But except for a lone, dark patch of rubber from its braking, there was nothing left to see.

I had stalled the VW in my fright. I started it up again and drove on. In a year I'd be in the Army, and on the road that would eventually lead me here, in my kitchen in New Hampshire, looking out the window at golden Fall light, writing this, in the year of our Lord, 2006.

[Rebel without a Cause theme]

This has been Fred Bals with the Dreamtime podcast, occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour weekly show and occasionally commentary on other dreams. I'll be at Podcast Expo in Ontario, California on September 30th. If you're in the neighborhood, come by and say hello.

I'll be the guy wearing the red jacket... just like James Dean.

The opening Gig Young interview with James Dean on automobile safety and the closing Rebel theme were both taken from the beautifully produced Rebel without a Cause 2-disc DVD set. If you haven't seen Rebel - or haven't seen it in awhile, go watch it. The background music - provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at 'music.podshow.com. The artist is nezecus.

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For the New Theme Time Radio Hour Listener

As a fan of Theme Time Radio Hour, I sometimes forget that not everyone is familiar with the show. Many Bob Dylan fans have never heard an episode of TTRH, even if they know of it. With the success of Together Through Life (Now #1 with a bullet on both the U.S. and U.K. charts. Go, Mr. D!), Dreamtime is getting on the average of a half-dozen emails a day from people who picked up the deluxe package, heard the "Friends and Neighbors" show and now want more TTRH .

So here's the scoop, amended from our Theme Time Radio Hour "Frequently Asked Questions" document which you should check out if you have other questions about the show.

Theme Time Radio Hour Promotional CDs

A CD of the complete Baseball show was released in 2006 as part of an in-store promotion for Modern Times. The link above will take you to Amazon where various re-sellers offer the disc for prices currently ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous. The disc can also be found on eBay, but note the following caveat for either Amazon or eBay: if packaging and "original condition" are important to you, you should make sure the disc is not a CD-R copy and is in its original cardboard sleeve (with the TTRH logo on the front and playlist on the back) before purchasing. If you liked "Friends and Neighbors" chances are you'll love "Baseball," which features among other things Your Host Bob Dylan performing Take Me Out to the Ball Game a capella.

Another promotional CD, featuring the "Friends and Neighbors" episode, is part of the "deluxe" Together Through Life package released in April 2009. I noted in another post that "Friends and Neighbors" wouldn't have been my first choice for a TTRH commercial release but after listening to the show again, I've decided I was wrong. The show has everything that makes TTRH special; quirky music, interesting facts and trivia; two emails, wife-swapping and swinging, and Our Host launching into a blistering attack on modern country music. Who could ask for more?

Theme Time Radio Hour Music Compilations

As of May 2009 there were five different commercial CD compilations featuring music only from TTRH. Note that these compilations do not include Dylan's commentary or other features that made the show unique, and that the tracks used on the compilations are not necessarily the ones used on the show. If you're interested in the folk, jazz, swing, rockabilly and country music played on TTRH, you might like these sets. If you're looking for TTRH shows, they're not for you.

There are three "unauthorized" (unauthorized in the sense that they were not produced with the involvement of the TTRH team) sets from the Chrome Dreams/ISIS label: The Best of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Volume 1 and Volume 2 which cover the show's first season and The Best Of The Second Series which compiles music from the show's second season. All three compilations are 2-CD sets. Note that all three links will take you to the Amazon U.K. store, which is where I recommend you purchase the sets. Dreamtime has received emails complaining that the buyer was sent Alan Freed's A Stompin' Good Time instead of the Chrome Dream TTRH compilations when purchasing through the U.S. store.

Radio Radio , a 4-CD box set released in 2008 from Mischief Music - again "unauthorized" - also covers music from TTRH's first season.

The authorized Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan set was compiled by Ace Records U.K. under the supervision of TTRH producer Eddie Gordodetsky and Dylan business manager, Jeff Rosen. Of the five compilations, Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan probably best reflects the breadth of music played on TTRH as it contains both relatively modern music, such as The White Stripes Seven Nation Army and The Clash's Tommy Gun, as well as the type of vintage cuts you'll find on the other sets.

While not marketed as TTRH material, the 2008 Starbucks compilation, Artist's Choice - Bob Dylan: Music That Matters To Him is also highly recommended. The CD set reflects Dylan's musical interests, "right now," as he relates in the liner notes, and the music in the compilation could easily have appeared on a TTRH playlist. The CD also has another connection to TTRH. Its liner notes state that it was produced by "Tim Ziegler," the name used by a fictitious caller during one of the Season 2 episodes who complained that Dylan had misidentified a record label. As with the "Baseball" show, if "original condition" is important to you, you'll want to ensure that you're getting the original disc including its original packaging before purchasing.

Non-commercial

Yes, they're out there. No, I'm not going to tell you how to find them.

Mister Announcer, Who Are You?

A tip of the hat to Dreamtime pal Scott Warmuth, he of the ever-intriguing sources of Dylan dispatches, who passed on the following tidbit...

"On one of the shows you'll remember Dylan using the "Mister announcer, who are you?...Tell me the station I'm listening to....How about telling the time to me?... And what's the weather gonna be?..." jingle."

The show Scott is referring to is "Radio" broadcast as the 17th show of Season 1 way back in August of Ought-Six. The full intro call and response between Dylan and a radio chorus is:

Chorus: Mister Announcer, who are you?

Our Host: Howdy everyone, this is Bob Dylan.

Chorus: Tell me the station I'm listening to?

OH: The XM network, satellite radio.

Chorus: How about telling a time to meet?

OH: It's time for Theme Time Radio Hour!

Chorus: And what's the weather going to be?

OH: It's cold and foggy and raining! It's going down to 30 degrees tonight. I don't know what it's it like where you are but that's what it's like here!

Scott goes on to write,

"That one floored me, because I used to play it on my show..." That jingle [comes from] an instructional album called You Be A Disc Jockey... One side of the album features a faux radio show with an announcer. The album is on Cameo, so all of the music is Chubby Checker, Dee Dee Sharp and other Cameo artists. The other side of the album has the same faux radio show, but without the announcer. It comes with a script, so the idea is that you read the script and practice sounding like the guy on Side One."

I can relate to the being floored, as that's the way I felt when TTRH played Frank Sinatra's commercial for Pete Epsteen Pontiac, an obscure cut I had first heard on a Dean Martin bootleg.

You can see the cover above of You Be a Disc Jockey, a title which makes me smile every time I think of it in relation to Theme Time Radio Hour and Our Host. The Philly deejay featured on the album is "Don Bruce," real name Bruce Fentesmacher, aka "Brother Brucie" who had a long and productive career in radio from the late `50s to the early `90s. He''s still with us, retired, and living in Pennsylvania, probably unaware that he has one weird connection with TTRH through an album he recorded in 19 and 62.

You Be a Disc Jockey seems to have been a favorite among teens in the early Sixties interested in a career spinning those licorice pizzas. I found several references on the Web by people who fondly remembered the album, at least one of whom became a jock himself and tracked down Don Bruce to acknowledge his influence.

As Scott mentions, UBADJ was a release from the Cameo label and featured Cameo artists, including Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, Tootie & the Bouquets (I'm not making this up), the Tymes, the Dovells, the Orlons (I'm really not making this up), and The Rays. Home to many weird recordings probably best forgotten these days, Cameo's biggest success was likely Chubby Checker's mega-hit The Twist, a song that had originally been recorded by Hank ("not Jimmy, Tennessee") Ballard back in 19 and 59 and didn't do much at the time. Chubby's cover, in contrast, started one of the biggest dance crazes of all times. "It's like crushing out a cigarette butt," one of my instructors used to tell me as she vainly tried to get the ycleptic 9-year-old Fred to rotate his hips with only indifferent success.

But I digress, as Mr. D. would say.

"If indeed there ever was a door."

Not encouraging news for those hoping for a 4th season of Theme Time Radio Hour.

The current (cover date of May 14 2009) issue of Rolling Stone has a short blurb in their "In the News" section under the questioning lede "Dylan's Radio Show to End?" although the body copy makes it clear that TTRH has indeed ended, at least for the near-term.

After three years and 100 shows Bob Dylan's Sirius XM program may be leaving the airwaves. "I stopped doing those shows a while ago and then XM Radio was combined with another one," Dylan tells ROLLING STONE. "They want to renew. They'd like more shows. But I'm not so sure." On April 15th, Dylan aired the final episode of the third season with the theme of "goodbye" concluding with Woody Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh." Siius XM declined to comment on the show.

Taking the report at face value, we have the interesting information that Mr. D. "stopped doing those shows a while ago," further evidence that the shows of "Season 3" were probably recorded during the same period that produced Season 2 and were split into the two seasons by Sirius XM. Dylan had probably fully wrapped up his part of TTRH in 2008, possibly early 2008, as he mentions the Sirius XM merger happening after the fact.

Given that from Mr. D.'s perspective he last did anything with TTRH over a year ago, it's probably why he sounds dismissive of the subject. Although published separately, it's evident that he was asked about the show during Doug Brinkley's interview published in the same issue. I'm pretty sure I can even pin-point when the question came up, towards the end of the published interview, when Brinkley mentions several "future projects" including "Brazil-inspired paintings"; a TV special; and some sort of orchestral release of Dylan's "timeless standards." If the probable end of TTRH is disappointing, as is no mention of The Hank Williams Project, the most heartening news is that Chronicles Volume 2 is in progress.

I'm of mixed emotions about Theme Time Radio Hour ending, if that door has closed forevermore. I'll miss it, but 100 shows is an accomplishment unto itself, and it's always better to go out with the audience wanting more. One of the things that struck me about the penultimate "Big Clearance Sale" episode was that it was refreshing to hear a show not constrained by a theme, or at least had a theme as loose as "Clarence." Maybe the "theme" theme has run out its string, and it's time to be driftin' along, as someone once said. Or maybe Our Host, mercurial personality that he is, will surprise us all and come up with a new variation of the show.

There's always the possibility that someone else with the chutzpah of Lee Abrams will pique Mr. D.'s interest, and then have the intelligence to stand aside and let him run with his ideas.

But whatever happens, it's been a good run. Thank you, Mr. D.

And Dreamtime? There are still a few TTRH articles left to write, maybe a podcast or two left to do. We're going through the 100 episodes of Theme Time Radio Hour, listening to them in order, finding gems that we missed the first time around. And we have a new project in the works that we hope to be telling you about real soon.

Stay tuned.

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Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour - The Best Of The Second Series

Music from Theme Time Radio Hour is obviously popular. The CD branch of ISIS magazine, Chrome Dreams, has now issued its third compilation, this one focused on music played on TTRH during the show's second season.

"The Best Of The Second Series" contains 50 tracks from Season 2's 25 shows, music ranging from The Carter Family's Hello Stranger to T-Bone Walker's Cold, Cold Feeling. As usual with the commercial releases, the compilation contains no Dylan commentary nor other TTRH features past the music. The blurb notes that Derek Barker (editor of ISIS as well as the author of several very good books) provides extensive liner notes." The blurb over at ISIS also relates the interesting piece of trivia that 369 songs were played over Season 2.

The compilation doesn't look like it's hit the Amazon shelves yet, but it can be found at either ISIS or at the Chrome Dreams sites.

***

On a somewhat related and unhappy note, as you probably know Together Through Life started leaking all over the interwebs late Wednesday. Several well-intentioned but misguided people have sent me links to the stolen album, including even the "Friends and Neighbors" bonus disc, which would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.  I've also had to remove one link from my blogroll because of this. 

Let me make it clear.  I do not want the links.  I do not want the stolen albums.  I do not want to be linking to them not matter how well-meaning your intentions. Personally, I can wait until Tuesday, which is the release date and when I expect Together Through Life to show up in my mailbox.

I've said it before, I'll say it again.  The whole bootleg/illegal download thing is a messy subject, and ultimately it's up to your own conscience as to how you handle it.  I'm not interested in debates, rationalizations, or explanations on the subject. I have my own personal guidelines, which yes, are probably inconsistent upon examination.  But they are mine, as are my opinions.

"One of the Ancients By Now, Who All Moderns Prize"

Dreamtime correspondent Benny Desmond from one of our favorite radio shows dropped us a line after seeing our post on Muddy Waters' Blow Wind Blow, the very first song from the very first Theme Time Radio Hour, "The Weather." Benny passed on his own favored video of Blow Wind, and I can but agree. It's a knockout.

Not much information with the video, and one could argue that you don't need more than the music. But because I am who I am, I had to go find out more about it, of course. It's likely a November 28, 19 and 70 performance at/on The Beat-Club music show broadcast from Bremen, Germany. Muddy also performed Honey Bee on the same broadcast, and you can find that clip at YouTube too.

A "Weather" Quiz

I've recently been going through the TTRH archives and so have a lot of trivia fresh in my mind. For our Faithful Fans, Theme Timeakeers as we like to think of you all, here's a quiz on the "Weather" show. This isn't our Host's long-promised quiz, but think of it as a start...

1. Mr. D. paraphrases an English poet from the 18th century in his description of Muddy Waters. Provide Bob's quote (that one should be a gimme), name the poet Bob is quoting, and for 2 bonus points, provide the original quote and the work it's taken from.

2. Name the first celebrity who does a voice promo on the "Weather" show.

3. Who are the two Minnesota celebrities Bob names?

4. What singing group does Mr. D. say "he might have seen" on tour, and where would he have seen them?

5. What language does Our Host speak after playing Stevie Wonder?

6. What city does Mr. D. say he's "playing a lot of artists" from, and why is that appropriate?

7. Who wanted to be Dean Martin and what song did both he and Dino cover?

8. Name the lead singer of The Prisonaires and what was he imprisoned for?

9. What two means of musical communication are used by those without access to traditional media?

10. What West Coast winds are "like the winds of the apocolypse"?


YOUR SCORE

1-3 - Stick with the Underground Garage

4-7 - You get a free tour of the Abernathy Building

8-10+ - You may be me

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before...

If you're still trying to get the "Big Orange Head" joke that Our Host told in the "Goodbye" show, don't strain the brain, bubies.

Go take a look at this post over at Gordon Bressack's My Mind and Welcome To It blog, which relates the joke as told by a certain character whose name will not be unfamiliar to the Theme Time Radio Hour regular...

I first heard this joke sitting around a table in an Italian restaurant in Studio City with several people all in the comedy business including Maurice La Marche (impressionist, voice of The Brain among many others), Billy West (voice of Stimpy and numerous others), John DiMaggio (most well known as the voice of Bender on Futurama) and Eddie Gorodetsky (well-known and prodigious comedy/sit com writer). Eddie told the joke and we all fell off our chairs laughing.

Be sure to read the comments, which are as interesting - if you're interested in thinking about how comedy works, that is - as Bresseck's post itself. 

Bresseck made the post just about a month ago, making you wonder when Eddie G. told him the joke.  Recently?  Was it on his mind because of the "Goodbye" show?

As another of the commenters notes, like all jokes, Big Orange Head has a multitude of variations, "no two joke-tellers tell a joke exactly the same way."  Here's a video of the Big Orange Head joke, updated for the digital age.

Thanks to "zinzoe" over at the Expecting Rain forums for the lead.

The NY Daily News on "Goodbye"

The link is over in the TTRH News & Views column to your right, too.  But I wanted to make a couple of comments that I can't do there.

David Hinckley, in today's NY Daily News, does a credible job reporting on Wednesday's "Goodbye" show. Hinckley is the same journalist who reported last year that Season 3 would begin on September 19th 2008, which it didn't. However, unlike last year's article which read as if it been tossed off in a couple of minutes, Hinckley appears to have put some legwork and thought into his speculation that this really is goodbye for Theme Time Radio Hour.

Right now, neither Dylan nor Sirius XM has made any definitive declaration beyond rerunning shows. A note on the XM "Deep Tracks" page last week mentioned "the fall season"; then that disappeared, and the company isn't returning phone calls.

That isn't entirely true.  The "note" he refers to on the Deep Tracks site is back, probably because an "encore" show airs later today.  It reads in full:

Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour | This Week: "Goodbye"
8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Take a trip back to the golden age of radio with music hand-selected by Bob Dylan, from his personal collection. Listen as he weaves his own brand of radio with dreams, schemes and themes. This week Theme Time Radio Hour is 90 minutes and says "Goodbye" until the Fall season. Next week we begin a season of replays from this and past years.

The bolding is mine.

That blurb notwithstanding, Hinckley goes on to list all the solid reasons on we may have heard the last original TTRH.  Lee Abrams gone; the Cadillac sponsorship ended; Sirius XM desperate to cut costs.  And as he says, you can't listen to the "Goodbye" show without feeling that it's really over.

Return To Me - Dean Martin

Audiences of Mr. D.'s current European tour shouldn't feel too bad that - so far - they've missed out on hearing any live performances from Together Through Life. He's been treating different venues to rarities, including the first-ever live performance of Return to Me, a hit for Dean Martin in 19 and 58, and which Dylan covered in December 2000 for use in "The Sopranos."

Not only Elvis wanted to be Dean Martin, to paraphrase Our Host's remark in the "Weather" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour. Dylan's version of the song was eventually released on "The Sopranos" soundtrack album, and you can find the mp3 at Amazon at the link above.

Return to Me was co-written by Carmen Lombardo, younger brother of the better-known Guy. He also wrote Snuggled On Your Shoulder, which Bob Dylan would adapt for his own purposes for "Love and Theft"'s Floater. You can hear Lombardo's original and compare the two on Episode 12 of the Dreamtime podcast, where we explore the roots of that album in Love, Theft, and Emails.

Theme Time Radio Hour Bookends

Muddy Waters' Blow Wind, Blow the first song played on Episode 1, "The Weather" first broadcast on Wednesday May 6, 2006.



Woody Guthrie's So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh (Dusty Old Dust) the last song played on Episode 100 "Goodbye" first broadcast on Wednesday April 15, 2009.



Although it may be making too much out of it, I'll note that Dusty Old Dust was Woody's showcase song on the premiere episode of Back Where I Come From.

That episode's theme? "The Weather." And you can read about it and hear it right here: Episode 45 - Back Where I Come From: The Roots of Theme Time Radio Hour.

He Didn't Say Yes, But He Didn't Say No...

... in answer to our first question. Although Our Host bade us "Goodbye" in just about every way possible during today's 90-minute special, he never came right out and said that this was the end of Theme Time Radio Hour, although it is the close of Season 3. On the other hand, Mr. D. had nothing to say about "seeing us real soon" or even in the Fall for that matter, either.

You can look at the show as a proper wrap-up to TTRH, the 100th episode, lots of great music with Woody Guthrie's Dusty Old Dust (So Long, it's Been Good to Know Yuh) as the appropriate in many ways finale, a surprise appearance by Ellen Barkin midway through, Mr. D. inviting us to the wrap party at Elmo's (if the lights are still on); and a vinyl recording of an old radio promo, complete with crackle, hiss, and needle bump telling us at the very end ...

...look us up again, the records will spin when we come your way...

... and maybe the records will spin again. You can also look at the close as someone very carefully keeping the door open for another season, just in case. On the positive side, we do have those two "missing" shows, and the blurb for TTRH on Deep Tracks reads:

This week Theme Time Radio Hour is 90 minutes and says "Goodbye" until the Fall season...

On the negative si... But what the eff. Who needs to be negative?

"... We are never really satisfied, are we? - we are always craving another bite of food, love, magic, knowledge or power from the various hands that feed us. Guess that's just the good ol', grace-fallen, human condition.

Anyway, if TTRH has actually stopped for good today, I think it's important to acknowledge and be deeply thankful for our opportunity to listen to a hundred plus hours of pure Americana radio magic from the greatest song and dance [man] of them all!"

~CS Nielsen from Picasso's Theme Time Radio Hour forum

On a couple of other TTRH-related notes. When you hear Mr. D. close today's show you'll hear him say, "this past year..." While there's a tendency to start treating everything said or played on TTRH as a clue ("Ellen Barkin's gone! Pierre has a cold! Where's George Jones?") kind of like we were watching Mao floating in the Yangtze River, I think that's more evidence that Seasons 2-3 started out life as one big year-long Season 2. Even the deejay following TTRH alluded to that, mentioning that a "Goodbye" show was appropriate, as they had done a "Hello" show at the start of Season 2.

I was hoping that the deejay might mention something pro or con abut the future of TTRH, but all he had to say was not to worry about getting your show fix, as they had lots of TTRH in their archives, which can either be inferred as a reference to the summer, or forever. Everyone being careful, as I said. And maybe that's the most positive sign of all.

One item for the Season 3 roundup that I wanted to include. "Absolutely Sweet Marie" over at the TTRH forums maintains an invaluable list of artists played on the show, which I use regularly as a reference source. As ASM notes, it's interesting that the undisputed champ of "most played" durings Seasons 1 and 2 - George Jones - had not a single spin for Season 3.

For those interested, Tom Waits and Dinah Washington have tied as "most-played" over the 100 shows, each with 10 appearances on the turntable. Maybe most surprising to me was the resurgence of The Rolling Stones, who for awhile seemed destined to be played on every Season 3 show.They came from way back in the pack to tie with Elvis Costello and Van Morrison for 2nd place.

And finally, my sincere thanks for the many comments, emails, even a few phone calls, and good wishes we've received since we started Dreamtime way back in the summer of 2006. I haven't made up my mind yet where I'll take the site and/or podcast if Theme Time Radio Hour is indeed over, but stayed tuned. You'll be the first to know where we'll go from here.

If this is the end, it's not goodbye. ~ Fred, Jailbait, and the Dreamtime Top cats, April 2009

Theme Time Radio Hour Season 3 Roundup

Although we'd be happy to be proven wrong, we're willing to bet the ranch that this week's "Goodbye" show will be the final show for Season 3 of Theme Time Radio Hour.  As we wind up, here's a few highlights and some sad notes from the season...

"Picasso From Belgium"

Theme Time Radio Hour fan and show cataloger extraordinare, Pierre Ponette, better known on-line as "Picasso from Belgium" passed away in September 2008, a month before the start of Season 3.  Thanks to the prompting of "adamdean" and the agreement of the Expecting Rain forum administrators, the TTRH forum was recently renamed to "Picasso's Theme Time Radio Hour" in his memory.

Dreamtime Gets A Scoop

The Dreamtime blog became the first media outlet to break the news of Season 3's start date of October 8th after receiving an email from an anonymous source at XM Radio in mid-September.

There was no official announcement about the new season from Sirius XM past a one line statement on their XMX program page on October 1st.  With the release of a new edition of Dylan's Bootleg Series, Tell Tale Signs, happening during the same week all Bob Dylan-related promotion appeared to be ceded to the Sony publicity machine.

On October 7, the day before the start of Season 3, the "Legacy Records" division of Sony issued a press release promoting both Tell Tale Signs and Theme Time Radio Hour.  The release noted that Season 3 themes would include "Money," "War," "Presidents," "Cats" and "Famous People."

A brief article in the October 16 edition of Rolling Stone (online and on newsstands a week earlier) reported some additional themes, including "Sugar," "Carnivals," and "Furniture." The article also related that the November 19th show, "War," would be 90 minutes, the first hour-and-a-half show TTRH had ever aired.  The online Rolling Stone article was later updated with audio excerpts from the "Money" and "War" episodes.


Money (That's What I Want)

The first episode of Season 3 aired on Wednesday, October 8, 2008. As reported, the theme was "Money."  Ellen Barkin provided the show's traditional "It's Night in the Big City" opening, and Dylan introduced Season 3 with:

“Welcome to Season 3 of Theme Time Radio Hour, and we’re glad to have you. We’ve had a lot of fun the last couple of years, presenting the greats and near-greats, the fondly remembered and the almost forgotten, performing a wide variety of music on a veritable cornucopia of subjects.

But as we start Season 3 we’re gonna take our cue from a sign Harry S. Truman kept on his desk: The Buck Stops Here. And not just the buck, the yen, the shekel, the nickel and dime, and if you still subscribe to the barter system, maybe a bushel of corn. So break open your piggy banks and cash in your bonds. This week’s episode of Theme Time Radio Hour is most definitely cash and carry.”

The show followed the same general format as Seasons 1 and 2 with music ranging from a 1926 cut by Papa Charlie Jackson, You Put It In, I'll Take It Out to 1997's It's All About The Benjamins by Puff Daddy, interspersed with commentary by Dylan. The "Caller on Line..." segment returned with a twist, with Dylan conducting a conversation in Spanish with a caller who wanted to know the conversion rate between dollars and pesos and closed the conversation with a request for a song by "Amigo Hombre," better known as "Buddy Guy."

At the close of the show, Dylan noted that with so much more music yet to be played, the following week's show would also be on "Money." Announcer "Pierre Mancini" again read the closing credits, which were slightly changed from previous seasons. The "associate producer" of Season 3 is now one "Nina Fitzgerald," replacing "Ben Rollins," who himself had replaced Season 1's "Sonny Webster."  If there's a Season 4, it's likely that the pseudonymous producer's - who is rumored to be Bob Dylan's manager, Jeff Rosen - name will be "Ella Simone," continuing the nod to jazz greats.

Lee Abrams, who had left XM Radio in April 2008, is now credited in the "Special Thanks To..." section, along with regulars Coco Shinomiya and Samson's Diner.  Engineer "Tex" Carbone, who apparently received a promotion midway through Season 2, is now referred to as the "Director of Studio Operations."

It can't go unremarked that the airing of the Theme Time Radio Hour "Money" episodes coincided with the start of a global financial meltdown.

Commerce & Art

Sirius completed its acquisition of/merger with XM Radio in late July 2008, but left programming on both satellite radio stations virtually unchanged until November of that year.

On November 12, the company announced major programming changes, some of which impacted Theme Time Radio Hour.  The show moved its Wednesday air time to an hour later, 11 a.m. ET, and began airing on both Sirius and XM, expanding the show's audience to Sirius subscribers. However, Sirius also discontinued the XM Radio XMX station, which had broadcast TTRH continuously on Wednesdays.

Cadillac's on-air sponsorship of the show also ended at around this same date.

Although Sirius XM doesn't disclose information on audience size for any of its shows, it was obvious that the deletion of XMX and its 24-hour broadcast of TTRH caused a serious decrease in both the show's satellite and internet listeners. Live "listening parties" ended, posts on TTRH noticeably dropped off in on-line forums, and complaints poured into TTRH-related sites, including Dreamtime, that listeners could no longer conveniently hear the show.

Beginning February 8, 2009, The Spectrum (Sirius Channel 18 and XM Channel 45) began airing repeats of the program in a four-hour block each Sunday from 4-8 pm ET. Each block begins and ends with an encore of the most recent TTRH episode from the previous Wednesday, with two older shows aired in between those episodes.  While the additional programming provided welcome expanded listener access to the show, its arguable that the damage was already done, and that TTRH lost a sizable portion of its rumored 2 million+ listeners during Season 3.

The Return of the "Lost" Season 2 Shows

Another troubling outcome of Sirius's acquisition of XM was the reduced oversight of TTRH that was evident throughout the season. The show's home page, never regularly updated, became completely out of date during much of Fall 2008, containing dead links to the canceled XMX channel and a graphic still displaying the original 10 a.m. air time for several weeks after those changes had been made.

Other problems included repeat episodes of TTRH not airing on scheduled date/times, and the show's closing credits - apparently kept separate from the episodes themselves - not being used for several shows.

The "War" episode was the first episode of Season 3 to not include credits during its premiere airing. Repeat broadcasts included the credits, as well as the information that the following week's  theme would be "Fruit," also referred to on TTRH as "Fruit Bowl."

The title of one of the so-called "lost" episodes from Season 2, announced by XM Radio but never released, "Fruit" would be the first aired during Season 3 of what would turn out to be all the missing episodes, which included "Street Maps," "Something," and "Nothing."

The appearance of the "lost" Season 2 shows led to an interesting theory conjectured in the Expecting Rain TTRH forums: that Season 2 had originally been planned as one 50-episode season scheduled to run over a year's time, similar to Season 1. For reasons unknown, but possibly having to do with the Sirius acquisition, Season 2 was cut off six months into the season at Episode 25, with some, if not all, of the remaining 25 shows becoming Season 3 six months later.

There is some circumstantial evidence from both Seasons 2 and 3 to support this theory, including the fact that Season 2 opened with "Hello," and Season 3 will close with "Goodbye," bracketing themes possibly originally intended as the bookends for one season.

Radio Radio




The ever-expanding list of TTRH compilations grew to include Radio Radio in 2008, a 4-CD box set from "Mischief Music" containing 112 songs, all from from Season 1 of TTRH. As with all other commercial TTRH compilations, Radio Radio does not contain any Dylan commentary or other Theme Time features.

The "Friends & Neighbors" episode from Season 1 will be part of the "deluxe" Together Through Life package, scheduled for release the week of Aprl 27, 2009.  As with the promotional "Baseball" CD, the "Friends & Neighbors" disc is expected to be the complete show and include Dylan's commentary.

"The Theme Time Radio Hour Compendium," a tie-in book originally announced for October 2008, was not released. The publication date on several on-line sites was briefly changed to October 2009, and is now listed as October 2010.  However, the book is no longer cataloged on its publisher's - Simon & Schuster - site, and can be presumed to be delisted.

Derek Barker's massive and fascinating book, "The Songs He Didn't Write," published in 2008, lists songs that Bob Dylan has covered over the course of his career. While only touching on TTRH peripherally, the book makes a strong case that many - if not most - of the music selections played on the show were picked by Dylan himself. Highly recommended reading.

More Commerce Than Art

While considered by fans to include some of the best episodes of Theme Time Radio Hour, the show's Season 3 was somewhat overshadowed by the ongoing economic soap opera that is Sirius XM Radio.  Appropriately on Halloween Day 2008, The Motley Fool web site declared the company "the world's scariest stock."

In February 2009, laden with over $3 billion in debt and its stock trading for less than .12 a share (Sirius XM is currently trading for .35 cents a share at the time of this writing), the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Several reports noted that such a bankruptcy would enable the company to cancel and renegotiate its contracts with its costly independent productions, such as Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, and Theme Time Radio Hour, rumored to be XM Radio's single largest expense before the merger.

Online reaction ranged from the ridiculous - speculation that Ellen Barkin's absence from several of the show's introductions was tied into Sirius's financial problems - to the sanguine - opinions that the show would be unaffected, at least during Season 3.

As it turned out, the latter was accurate. A last-minute cash infusion by Liberty Media rescued Sirius XM from immediate bankruptcy, and Season 3 of TTRH continued on without interruption.  While still not financially healthy by any measurement, Sirius XM continued as a viable business into the first half of 2009.

Several analysts belive that Sirius XM's future depends on a successful transition from a satellite to internet radio subscription model, specifically tied into an iPhone/iTouch application.

The company killed an independent application that would have given Sirius XM subscribers the ability to tune into channels from both stations from their iPhones, uSirius StarPlayr, in early 2009, although a similar application still remains available. Sirius XM is now reportedly at work on their own iPhone/iTouch application, scheduled for release sometime during the summer of 2009.

What's In A Name?

Show titles during Season 3 tended to be fluid, with various episodes referred to by different names at different times by reporters, XM Radio, Pierre Mancini, and even Bob Dylan himself.  "Fruit" was occasionally called "Fruit Bowl," the announced "Streets" show was renamed as "Street Map," "Sugar" was expanded to include "Candy," the "count-up" show was variously referred to as "Eleven On Up," "Eleven And Up," or simply "Eleven-Up," "Family" was also called "Family Circle," and the "Noah's Ark" shows were also known as "Animals: Parts 1 and 2."

The "President's Day" show - first broadcast in Season 2 - became the first repeat episode for Season 3, airing on October 29, 2008, the Wednesday before the U.S. presidential elections. As with Season 2, Season 3 would see two more repeat episodes: "Christmas & New Year's", airing appropriately on Christmas Eve, 2008, and "Number One," airing on New Year's Eve.  The Christmas show would become the first TTRH episode to have been broadcast over all three seasons.

Notable episodes included the "Blood" and "War" shows, where Dylan played cuts from a Jerry Lee Lewis bootleg featuring two songs from the rock musical Catch My Soul and saying with obvious  delight: "You know, if anybody ever asks me why I do this radio show, I could just play them that - Jerry Lee Lewis singing Shakespeare."

The "Money: Part 2" show included one of the best TTRH "Caller on Line.." segments, with the caller insisting The Beatles' song title was Money Can Buy Me Love and calling Dylan, "Mr. Sixties."

A later episode, the "Something" show,would feature a real person as caller, Tennessee Thomas, drummer for the band, The Like, and daughter of Pete Thomas, longtime drummer for Elvis Costello.

Although Tennessee claimed to be on tour in Brooklyn, it's more likely she did the call-in recording for TTRH sometime while she was in New York for her appearance with her father on Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...

Our Host continued his recommendations of various real-world restaurants and watering holes throughout Season 3, including The Rojo in Birmingham, Alabama during the "11 On Up" show, and telling Tennessee to try the pizza at Totonno's in Brooklyn on "Something."

Less heard during Season 3 was "def poetry," with Mr. D. doing few readings and those usually excerpts rather than the full poem.  Email readings were also reduced in favor of the faux phone calls.  However, one notable email was read on the "Family/Family Circle" show.  In reply to a listener's aside that she copied various TTRH episodes to pass on to her family, Dylan stated that he "can't condone that," and concluded the call  with a forceful, "And stop giving my shows away!"

The comment generated exceptional angst among TTRH fans, with a few parsing the remark much more than it deserved while offering varous justifications, rationalizations and explanations for their own copying of the show.  It's doubtful that anyone anywhere stopped doing so or began "illegally downloading" it, as Dylan had wryly recommended in an earlier show, on the strength of his dictum.

The Future?

The future of Theme Time Radio Hour past Season 3 remains, as the Magic 8-Ball would have it, "murky."

The length of Dylan's original contract with XM Radio is unknown, only referred to publicly as "multi-year," and may expire in 2009, or may have been voided upon XM's merger with Sirius. Although Dylan's XM contract probably now pales against that of Sirius star Howard Stern, Sirius management may not be as enthusiastic as the show's original XM Radio champion, Lee Abrams, was to have Bob Dylan in their program line-up.  Dylan himself appears to enjoy hosting the show, but he's given no indication whether he wants to or plans to continue it.

It's unclear what effect the economic downturn might have on TTRH continuing into a Season 4.  On the one hand, if Sirius XM is looking to cut costs, the show may fall to the ax, especially if it no longer fits into the Sirius XM program model, its ratings have dropped, or its costs are no longer subsidized by a Cadillac sponsorship.

On the other hand, the poor economy may actually encourage both Sirius XM and the TTRH team to come to terms on continuing the show, especially if the ratings remain strong and both sides are happy with the contract.  Bob Dylan has something of a "Tiffany" effect with his associations, generating press and publicity, as well as attracting his fan base to side endeavors such as TTRH.

One positive indicator for a Season 4 is reminiscent of Season 2.  Two shows reported in Rolling Stone as scheduled for Season 3, "Carnivals" and "Furniture," have not aired.  Will they, like the "lost" shows of Season 2, eventually be broadcast in a new season of Theme Time Radio Hour?

Maybe we'll find out this Wednesday.

Sources:

Picasso's Theme Time Radio Hour

Theme Time Playlists

TTRH on Wikipedia

Annotated Theme Time Radio Hour

Thanks to all Dreamtime listeners, readers and fans for a great Season 3!

Top photo courtesy "roland" under a Creative Commons license.

Donald, Where's Your Trousers? - John Henry and Savannah

Apropos of nothing, except I can't get the song out of my head after hearing it on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles at the close of the Adam Raised A Cain episode. It's interesting listening to what started life as a comic song becoming dark and portentous simply with a change in music.

I've just got down from the Isle of Skye,
I'm not very big but I'm awfully shy,
The lassies shout as I walk by,
"Donald, where's your trousers?"

Chorus:
Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go.
All the lassies cry, "Hello,
Donald, where's your trousers?"

I went to a fancy ball
It was slippery in the hall
I was afeared that I may fall
Cause I had nae on trousers.

The lassies love me, every one
They must catch me if they can
Ye cannae put the breeks on a Highland man,
saying, "Donald where's your trousers?"

I went down to London town
To have a little fun on the Underground
Ladies turned their heads around
saying, "Donald, where's your trousers?"

Sometimes called the unofficial Celtic national anthem, Donald, Where's Your Trousers? is a much more recent song than it sounds. It was written in 19 and 60 by Andy Stewart and Neil Grant. "Neil Grant" was a pen name taken by Iain Macfadyen, the head of BBC Scotland's delightfully named "light entertainment" division at the time. Macfayden or Stewart probably adapted the music from the traditional Oro Se Do Bheatha Bhaile, a song which may have also inspired the tune for What Shall We Do With The (A) Drunken Sailor?

Stewart, a Scottish musician and entertainer, would popularize Donald, Where's Your Trousers? in 1961, and it would chart a second time in the `80s. You can hear Stewart's version here on YouTube, which includes a spot-on Elvis imitation midway through. The strength of the song brought Stewart a world tour and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. "Breeks," by the way, are the Scottish term for trousers. A highlight of Stewart's live show - which he performed in kilts - was his doing a Highland kick, and changing the lyrics to, "And now you know that Donald has nae trousers."

To give credit where credit is due, the names of the actors portraying "John Henry" and "Savannah," both of whom are doing a great turn on this song, are Garret Dilahunt and Mackenzie Brooke Smith.

Clarence Lee From Tennessee

In response to friend "Dreamtime Fan's" comment on our earlier post, here's Teri Garr reading Shel Silverstein's "Clarence," from Silverstein's seminal book of poetry, A Light in the Attic.

Uncredited in the show, an excerpt of Silverstein himself reading "Clarence" was played in this week's episode #99, "Big Clearance Sale." To paraphrase Otto Penzler, the term "Renaissance man" is usually abused, but if anyone deserved that title, it was probably Shel Silverstein.

Among other works, Silverstein wrote A Boy Named Sue; The Unicorn (a pseudo-Irish ballad, a hit for a pseudo-Irish band, The Irish Rovers, a staple at pseudo-Irish pubs, and a song which I half-expected and feared would show up on one of the "Noah's Ark" episodes); The Cover of The Rolling Stone; Sylvia's Mother; and a cautionary song about V.D., Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most.

Much of Silverstein's music edged into Dr. Demento territory, and in fact, he was a favorite on that show, but you can't deny his versatility and talent.  If you're around my age, you have the words of at least one Shel Silverstein song knocking around in your head, like it or not.  And kids love him, even when he's freaking out their parents. As Chris Zammarelli notes over at Bookslut: "A Light in the Attic has frequently been taken to task for such things as encouraging children to 'be disobedient' and to 'break dishes so they won't have to dry them' and for glorifying 'Satan, suicide and cannibalism.'"

Shel Silverstein: notorious perverter of Youth, once said in an interview...

"I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick up one and experience a personal sense of discovery. That's great. But for them, not for me. I think that if you're creative person, you should just go about your business, do your work and not care about how it's received. I never read reviews because if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad ones too. Not that I don't care about success. I do, but only because it lets me do what I want. I was always prepared for success but that means that I have to be prepared for failure too." ~ Shel Silverstein

A Peek at the Friends & Neighbors Disc

Amazon recently updated the images on their Together Through Life "deluxe edition" page, giving us a glimpse of what the bonus CD of the "Friends & Neighbors" TTRH episode exterior/interior will look like. There's been some speculation that the CD might contain only music from the show, but I think it's safe to say that, like the "Baseball" episode, this will be the full show, with Our Host's commentary included.

"Friends & Neighbors" was the 17th episode of Season 1 of Theme Time Radio Hour, originally airing on August 23, 2006. Its playlist includes:

Howdy Neighbor - Porter Wagoner & The Wagonmasters
Don't Take Everybody To Be Your Friend - Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend - T-Bone Burnett
La Valse d'Amitie - Doc Guidry
Make Friends - Moon Mullican
My Next Door Neighbor - Jerry McCain
Let's Invite Them Over - George Jones & Melba Montgomery
My Friends - Howlin' Wolf
Last Night - Little Walter
You've Got a Friend - Carole King
Bad Neighborhood - Ronnie & The Delinquents
Neighbors - The Rolling Stones
Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals - Hank Williams
Why Can't We Be Friends? - War

While it wouldn't be my first choice as a commercial TTRH release, it's a good representation of what you get when you listen to the show, with music ranging from 1952 to 1995, with a heavy emphasis on cuts from the `50s, probably Mr. D.'s peak radio listening period as a kid in Minnesota. The musical highlight may be George Jones and Melba Montgomery's saga of wife-swapping, Let's Invite Them Over, which inspired one of Mr. D.'s greatest on-air rants...

“Now I love country music, but I say ‘What happened to it?'

"You hear a song like this and it's obvious it's about real people, and real emotions, and real problems, that's all, that's the country music we learned to love. Nowadays they want to sweep all the problems under the rug and pretend they don't exist. Well guess what folks – they do exist! And if you try and sweep 'em under the rug, they're just gonna pop up somewhere else. So we might as well all just face it and listen to the old style country music, the real country music. You know, about drinking and sleeping around. That's my kind of country music, and I hope yours. But I digress."

It was after listening to that outburst that I decided Mr. D. was deeply passionate about what was being played on TTRH, rather than just reading a script and collecting a check. One gets the impression that his friends and neighbors have heard a variation on that theme more than once. And God knows, it's true. If you didn't get the chance to read this Newsweek article, Is This the End of Traditional Country Music? when it was featured in the TTRH News & Views column, go read it now.

Commenters have questioned whether purchasing the "deluxe edition" is really worth the money (currently $15.99 at Amazon vs. $9.99 for the "regular" edition), given the fact that most people who care about TTRH probably already have a copy of the show, and the worth of the other bonus material - a DVD containing the so-called "Lost Interview" with Roy Silver - is problematic. And that's true. But the collector's mind isn't constrained by logic, of course, and many of us will pay the extra $6.00.

Big Clarence Sale Roundup

And that's not a typo, Mr. D., deciding to do a show as much about Clarences as in cleaning off the shelves of that dusty old stock for the big two-hour special this week.  And thus we had music by Clarence Ashley, Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown among other Clarences, and anecdotes about Clarence Darrow, Clarence Clemons, and Clarence Birdseye. Plus music that hadn't made the first cut from the "Work," "Happiness," "Noah's Ark," "Street Map," "Family," "Money," "Fruit," "Somethging," "Nothing," "Sugar," "Eleven on Up," "Sugar and Candy," and "Blood" shows.

Roger Murdock: We have clearance, Clarence.
Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
Tower voice: Tower's radio clearance, over!
Captain Oveur: That's Clarence Oveur. Over.
Tower voice: Over.
Captain Oveur: Roger.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: Roger, over!
Roger Murdock: What?
Captain Oveur: Huh?
Victor Basta: Who?

From my perspective "The Big Clearance Sale" ranks right up there as one of the best Theme Time Radio Hours ever... maybe because of the preponderance of stuff from the `30s and `40s, which I'm a sucker for. Maybe 'cause it had some yodelin', courtesy Mr. Rex Griffin, which I'm also a sucker for, much to the chagrin of both Jailbait Jones and the Top Cats.

Maybe because the show just felt looser than it usually does, not being totally constrained by a theme much other than "Clarence." I love the idea of the themes, but sometimes I think we get stuff that is only there because it fits the theme. Maybe because of the absence of email and phone calls, which again I like, but their absence was refreshing. Mr. D. just seemed to be totally into being a deejay with this show.

Maybe because Tex Carbone speaks!

As I've said before, I don't know whether next week's "Goodbye" show is going to be goodbye to TTRH altogether, although it's almost certainly the final show of Season 3. According to Rolling Stone, there are two Season 3 shows still unaired, "Furniture" and "Carnival."  I spoke to the reporter when he was researching his article on Season 3 and can tell you he was meticulous about verifying facts.  Every announced but unaired show from Season 2 eventually appeared in Season 3, so that's a good indication that we may have a Season 4.

But if this one and "Goodbye" is it for the show,it looks like we'll be going out on a high note.

Big Clearance Sale Today! 11:00 am to 1 p.m.

 

According to the Deep Tracks program guide, today's "Big Clearance Sale" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour will be a 2-hour special.  Adjust your illegal downloading accordingly.

"AWA" over at the Expecting Rain TTRH forums has an interesting theory which I'll requote here...

"...Season 2 sounded like it was brought to an end in a patch work way with a brief comment tagged on the end of a show to cut it off at 25, thus it is quite logical to assume that Season 3 was recorded with Season 2, originally meant to be Season 2 as well... which would thus make perfectly logical sense that Bob would start and end what was likely intended to be the full Season 2 with "Hello" and "Goodbye".

The fact that two of the themes mentioned previously, Carnival and Furniture (although, as Fred noted, there is a possibility Furniture might mean Clearance Sale but unless he plays some songs about furniture tomorrow, I'll doubt that very much) likely signal some run off for Season 4 (much like how some themes listed as coming in Season 2 didn't show up until Season 3) for programming reasons."

For those not as obsessively fixiated on TTRH as I am, what AWA is referring to is that Season 2 opened with the "Hello" show and Season 3 is rumored to be closing next week with a "Goodbye" show, at least according to a slip of the tongue of an XM deejay earlier this week.  There's been various indicators that at least some of the shows airing during Season 3 were recorded much earlier.  AWA's theory that Season 2 was originally designed as a 50-episode season, similar to Season 1, has a lot of credibility, not least being the "Hello" and "Goodbye" bookends, if we find that "Goodbye" is indeed next week's show.

If true, is "Goodbye" really going to be "goodbye" or just auf wiedersen? As AWA mentions, one positive note may be the two to-date missing shows, "Furniture" and "Carnival," both reported in Rolling Stone as scheduled for Season 3. If they don't air, perhaps there will be a Season 4... or maybe the two shows will become collector's Holy Grails, out there somewhere, but never found.

Season 3 - Winding Up? Winding Down?

Friday is our Theme Time Radio Hour Roundup Day, but we'll have to take a pass on any detailed commentary on Noah's Ark: Part 2 (a.k.a. "Animals") for a bit longer, as we haven't had the opportunity to listen to the show yet.

Here's the set-list, courtesy of the Expecting Rain TTRH forum and stewART:

I'm Just Wild About Animal Crackers - Irving Aaronson and his Commanders (1926) (Intro - excerpt)
They All Ask'd for You (The Audobon Zoo Song) - The Meters (1975)
There's a Moose on the Loose - Roddy Jackson (1958)
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane (1967)
Carried Water For The Elephant - Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell (1930)
Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear - Randy Newman (1972)
Fox on the Run - The Country Gentlemen (1971)
See Line Woman (AKA Sea Lion Woman) - Nina Simone (1964)
Coyote - Joni Mitchell (1976)
Possum Song - Johnny Mercer with Paul Weston and his Orchestra (1947)
Monkey Man - The Maytals (1969)
Bert the Turtle (The Duck and Cover Song) - Dick 'Two Ton' Baker (1953)
Calling All Cows - Lazy Bill Lucas & the Blues Rockers (1955)
Black Rat Swing - Memphis Minnie and Little Son Joe (1941)
On the Wings of a Snow White Dove - Ferlin Husky (1960)

***

Where else but Theme Time would you find Memphis Minnie and The Maytals on the same playlist?

Next week's theme is "Clearance Sale," a frightening subject, with its implications that "everything must go," including, we might fear, TTRH.

According to my records, TTRH aired 50 original shows during Season 1 and 25 original shows during Season 2. I count 23 original episodes aired so far in Season 3 (there have been three repeat shows). If we go by Season 2, there should be two more original shows, making a total of 100 altogether for the three seasons.

They've aired all the shows mentioned in the Season 3 press release (as well as all the missing shows announced for Season 2 for that matter). The Rolling Stone article on Season 3 reported two shows we haven't heard yet, "Carnivals" and "Furniture." I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that "Furniture" may be the "Clearance Sale" show of next week, furniture stores notable for their clearance sales, and we might get something like the "President's Day" show, a special that does a few furniture-related songs, and then songs on older themes.

There's no evidence of TTRH ending altogether with Season 3.  On the other hand, there's no evidence for it continuing into a Season 4, for that matter. We'll have to wait and see. I kind of like the idea of winding up the season - and if necessary, the series - on a "Carnival" theme.

But as I said before it's all a guess, and I'm often wrong.

***

On a "From Your Station Manager" note, I've had to enable comment moderation, meaning that I'll need to approve future comments before they'll appear for the time being.  Probably reflecting the Tough Economic Times, Dreamtime has been unusually inundated with comment spam over the past few days.  I had to delete 53 spam comments this morning.  It's unfortunate, and I'm hoping I don't have to disable comments altogether. I enjoy getting comments, and have ended up clarifying/correcting several posts thanks to them.  But you can always reach me through dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com if you don't want to jump through the new hoops.

(Near) Aultmore House‎ Nethy Bridge, Scotland, UK

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UPDATE: Reader "Fossil" notes in the comments that the Google marker is not pinned on Aultmore House but on a building that he himself restored and lived in and which is at the same general address as The Aultmore. Fossil points to another residence that can (fuzzily) be seen in the clearing about 800 meters NxNW from the marker as the actual Aultmore House. Thanks for the correction, Fossil!

Rumor has it that you and your sweetie may be able to rent Mr. D.'s "Edwardian hideaway" that he bought back in 2007 for around £2,000 per day - around $3k for us Yanks at the current exchange rate. For that you get access to a 10 bedroom mansion, although again rumor has it that only two people at a time are allowed to stay overnight in the main building due to "fire and health regulations." However, outlying cottages are reportedly also available for rental at the less budget-busting price of £350 to £450.

The first floor of the main building has a reception hall with marble fireplace, drawing room with black marble fireplace, sitting room with fireplace, and steps to a garden room with marble mosaic floor and double doors to the garden, dining room with mahogany fireplace, and a billiard room.

The staff of the house politically will neither "confirm nor deny" the story. However, it may be indicative that you can again see Aultmore House in Google Maps. Back in 2007, shortly after its purchase, the image of the house itself had been fuzzed out. And while I suspect it's a ghost site from the time The Aultmore was a B&B, you can see some additional pictures of its exterior here.

As we mentioned back in our "Golf"-themed podcast, "A Good Walk Spoiled," The Aultmore is close by a nine-hole course at the delightfully-named Abernethy Golf Club.

See it can take awhile, but we always work the Theme Time Radio Hour connection in there somewhere.