So I suppose it’s a good thing, then, that so many of my favorite share blogs can be all but ignored during this time of year. From October right up through December, a fever seems to take hold which requires even the coolest bloggers to post endless feeds full of holiday themed material. From Halloween’s spoken word ghost stories and haunted house sound effects records, to Christmas’s unrelenting pageant of “kitschy” Christmas music , the holiday season renders most share blogs virtually useless for nearly one full quarter of the year.

This isn’t to say I’m totally immune. I suppose I’ll be whipping out the Specter Xmas disc at some point, and I admit to a fondness for Dean Martin’s Christmas album. I even allowed my wife to drag me to Brian Setzer’s holiday extravaganza. His version of Les Brown’s “Nutcracker Suite” arrangement is quite charming, and his new album of classical music covers, “Wolfgang’s Big Night Out” makes a terrific Christmas stocking stuffer. But for the most part, I never had much stomach for music of Yule.

Over at LuxuriaMusic.com, they’ve begun a new tradition in supplement to Christmas. They’ve set aside the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon to honor the Beatles. As a rule, the Fab Four canon is actually forbidden at the station, not so much because of aesthetics as much as the overwhelming been-there-done-that position the Beatles hold in our popular culture. But boy, do we love us some oddball Beatle covers. For my show, “C’mon! Live A Little” (heard on Saturday afternoons), I whipped out my killer Donny and Marie disco version of Wings’ “Bluebird” and Tom Jones’ absurdly upbeat version of “We Can Work It Out.”

It was a fun day and I can pretty much guarantee that everyone had a splendid time. And, we (hopefully) raised a decent amount of scratch to keep the station going. (Yes, the fund-raiser appears to still be in effect, and much like Christmas or the war, it threatens to to continue into perpetuity and consume all within its reach.)

As for Your Favorite Little Podcast, you can see that there’s not a single holiday song in the entire episode:

“Winners & Losers” – Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
“Nikki” – Vincent Bell
“I’ve Got You On My Mind” – White Plains
“Lady Love” – Les Baxter & 101 Strings
“The Girls Of Paramaribo” – Berry Lipman Orchestra
“Funky 75″ – Sunshine Band
“Words And Music” – Hot Wheels
“Voce E Eu (You And I)” – Johnny Keating
“Love Thy Neighbor” – Dean Martin
“Since You Opened Up The Door” – Sonlight Orchestra
“Indiscrete” – Frank Sinatra, Jr.


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For instance, I’ve been recording fundraising spots for LuxuriaMusic.com, where I host a weekly music program. They must be desperate for cash, because as cheesy as they are, the station plays the damn spots at least once an hour. Of course, if they don’t raise the money, I may not have any reason to record any more. Lux only needs paltry few thousand dollars to keep the station running, but hey: this is the internet we’re talking about. Paying customers are few and far between. Of course, if everyone who reads this blog were to head on over and give ‘em even five or ten bucks, it would most likely make a huge difference.

If free content is more your thing, now you can jump over to the WFMU blog, where they’ve graciously commenced hosting individual Love Workshop programs from my collection, complete and unzipped for easy review.

But the loggrolling doesn’t stop there. As of this month, I am now an official contributor to 43 Folders itself! My first effort is already online, and — god help me — it’s already been seen by more people than visit this site in a year. My article is less about productivity than it is about the lack of same, but I think it’s a good start. I’d like think Merlin’s admiration of Bostworld led him to make this offer, but I imagine he’s probably more impressed by the cred from my former life than by the kitschy downloads and paeans to local squalor found here. In fact, I’m sure of it! But who knows: if the collaboration proves to be mutually satisfying, I might try to talk him into coming over here some time and sharing some of his guilty pleasures with us.

Oh yeah, before I forget: here’s some more Bostrom-generated web content that I didn’t get paid for:

“All Of Me” – Guitar Underground
“Lipton On The Move” – Lipton Tea
“I Still Believe In Tomorrow” – John & Anne Ryder
“Phoenix Love Theme (Senza Fine)” – Dick Hyman
“A Smile At Dawn” – Bebu Silvetti
“I Know My Daddy Loves Me” – Magic Of Love
“For A Few Dollars More” – Terranova
“The Not Too Distant Future” – Ivy League
“His Eyes, Her Eyes” – Michel Legrand
“Loving Things” – Today’s People


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A couple of Tuesdays back, I got a new job — a promotion, actually. Nothing too amazing there; getting it was the easy part. The tough part will be filling the position I just vacated. Unfortunately, I can’t hire myself, so I guess I’m kind of screwed. But what’s really odd is the same day I got the job, my old partners in crime got started on their second act as well. Now that they released their “comeback” album, they’re well on the way back into the hearts of guitar rock fans everywhere. Of course, I “declined to participate,” as the reviewers tell me. And it’s true. I can’t imagine giving up sleeping in my own bed every night — and even getting paid for the privilege (with benefits) — to go back on the road and work the same club circuit I played 20 years ago.

Just the same, I got less congratulations for the promotion than people coming up to me, telling me how excited they were to see my picture in the papers (apparently, some of these newspapers need to update their photo archive). I tried to be as gracious as I could, but I silently thanked my lucky stars that no one’s interested in airing my dirty laundry in public.

But there was another second act that week: Internet radio got a stay of execution. It’s a somewhat dubious one, with ominous strings attached, but it’s the only one we’ve got, so it will have to do. But another group of independent content providers was not so lucky. Without the benefit of the news blitz afford to new media, independent print publications took their lumps in the shadows, losing their campaign to overturn a ruling raising their postal rates by twelve to fifty percent. Many people didn’t even find out about this one until the rates took effect — coincidentally enough, on the same day royalty rates were supposed to kick in for online broadcasters.

Like my wife says: “small world.”

Episode Six Track List:
“Clearway” – Saint Etienne
“Gone With the Wind” – Frankie Randall
“Love Me For a Day” – Davy Jones
“Discontented Disco Children” – Rock City Boys
“Window Shopping” – Magic Disco Machine
“Seaway” – Brian Fahey
“Under the Sea” – Doodletown Pipers
“This Is Love” – Archies
“Faraway Music/The Girl With The Sun
In Her Hair/Crossroads” – Alan Hankshaw
“Ask Me What You Want” – Terry Baxter



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America’s much vaunted Independence Day is still a week away, but we’re dusting off our old Fourth Of July program anyway. This episode holds a special significance for me, and I’m not talking about patriotism. In my brief spoken episode, I offer ambivalent tribute to my state of unemployment at the time. Six years later, my pavement pounding days are hopefully behind me, but the independence afforded by a steady paycheck still strikes me as Kristoffersonesque at best.

But I wasn’t the only one out of a job six years ago. My playmates over at LuxuriaMusic.com had themselves been knocked out from behind their deejay consoles after their parent company was acquired by the ubiquitous Clear Channel. Like me, it took some time, but they eventually got back on their feet. But now, they’re being threatened once again by the very entity whose existence we celebrate on July 4th: the even more ubiquitous United States Government.

Just in case you didn’t know, of have forgotten, the new royalty rate increase for net radio goes into effect on July 15, rates so impossibly high, observers have been forced to speculate that they are designed to drive off all but the most deep-pocketed players.

Today, June 26th, is the day of internet radio’s Day Of Silence protest. If you are a internet radio fan, and you don’t like what you hear today, I urge your to contact your congressional representative and ask them to support the “Internet Radio Equality Act” (IREA) (H.R. 2060 in the House and S. 1353 in the Senate). For more information, visit SaveNetRadio.Org.

Episode Five Track List:
“You’re A Lucky Fellow Mr. Smith” – Frank Sinatra
“Don’t Bite The Hand That’s Feeding You” – Tiny Tim
“Where Have All Our Heroes Gone” – Bill Anderson
“World Of Winners” – Massey Ferguson
“Happy Birthday/Grand Old Flag” – Donny Osmond
“Tupperware Spirit Of ’76″ – Tupperware
“The Fightin’ Side Of Me” – Merle Haggard
“I Am An American” – Edmund O’Brien
“You Never Had It So Good” – Frank Sinatra & Bing Crosby



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Bostworld received this kind of attention about a year ago, when Boing Boing linked to an article of excerpts from an old Uncensored magazine. That time, fueled by the promise of smut and acerbated by the fact that the files were actually served from my shared host account, the onslaught of visitors took the whole site down (as well as its sister blog over at Meat Puppets Dot Com). Tech support wasn’t much help: “Give us more money” they suggested, “or maybe take your business elsewhere.”

Fortunately, I figured out what to do on my own. In the course of returning things to normal, I discovered that my chosen platform (WordPress) is considered a resource hog. I also learned some load-bearing strategies. So I’m happy to report that when the awesome power of Frauenfelder came knocking this time, though things did get a little wobbly, the site held.

Say what you will about file sharing services like Rapidshare, they kept me up and running. Thanks also to Ricardo Galli Granada, whose WP-Cache plug-in may or may not have helped me weather the storm.

Episode Four Tracklist:
“1900 Yesterday” – Liz Damon & Orient Express
“Oh Calcutta” – Ferrante & Teicher
“Mama, We’re All Crazee Now / Didn’t Know I Loved You (Til I Saw You Rock and Roll) / Come Along Girl” – Les Humphries Singers
“Desafinado” – Ten Tuff Guitars
“Where Would I Be Without You” – Hardy Boys
“Push” – Chakachakas
“Soul Ballet” – Peter Nero
“Oh John Henry” – John Henry Singers
“Something to Think About” – Bert Convy



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I followed the story on Howard Stern’s web feed, thanks to my co-worker’s Sirius subscription. Usually, I demand that he listen to something else, but the Imus dust-up kept me interested for the whole week. Despite his unwavering stand on free speech, Stern had a more personal axe to grind. All week, Howard alternately hooted with joy at the fall of an old nemesis and gnashed his teeth as he recounted the shitty treatment he received at the hands of Imus and Co. when they both worked for the same station. I was loving it.

Just the same, even though I’m just a white, adult male (who’s been known to run his mouth on occasion), I still feel degraded by racist and sexist language. In fact, I even felt that sting once at the hands of Howard Stern himself. It was back in the 90s, when the Meat Puppets were at the peak of their popularity. Howard took a shine to us, appearing on stage during one of our New York shows, and inviting the band on his show twice. We jammed with him both times. He was very nice to us, both gracious and encouraging; he even broadcast our first visit on his television show.

But the second visit left me with a bad taste in my mouth. That time, our manager appeared with us. I should mention that in addition to loving us enough to stick with us and put up with our bullshit, our manager was also a black female. When Howard turned his attention upon her — insisting that she was sleeping with us, and demanding that she admit she preferred sex with white men — she was merely embarrassed. But I was ashamed at how insensitively Howard treated our friend, and how he tried to get the band to go along with it. After all these years, I still remember how it felt: like a hard slap to the face.

Meanwhile, the backlash picks up steam, as a confused America debates “who can say what” and who’s allowed to “get away with it.” Some quarters are bewailing the loss of a “good man,” felled by agenda-wielding media jackals. Of course, where I work, and probably where you work too, they call it “harassment” and prescribe mandatory preventative “sensitivity training” for all employees. It seems to me, the lesson is very simple: use good judgment, be compassionate and tread gently on other peoples’ feelings. I don’t see what’s so politically correct about that.

Episode Three Tracklist:
“Fashion People” – Pizzicato Five
“My Life” – Nelson Riddle
“Meet the Swinger” – Poloroid Camera
“I Can’t Find The Time” – Groovin’ Strings
“Come On Sign” – Joe E
“Blame It On The Pony Express” – Hugo Strasser
“Yume No Tameni” – Puffy
“El Bimbo” – Ray Conniff
“Traffic Jam” – Tommy Roe
“It Happened On a Sunday Morning” – Jerry Ross Symposium



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It’s not that I’m much of a cause chaser — more like a bitter old poop increasingly disdainful of the view outside his front door. But this internet radio deal has got me more than a little disgruntled. Perhaps it’s because I’m too close to it. I suppose it’s easier to remain indifferent if it’s not actually happening in your own backyard, easier to take the position of “keep it behind locked doors” or “it’s your own fault for getting sick,” or “you should have been more mindful over the circumstances of your birth.” As young outlaw indie rockers, my band mates and I used to call it “floating anarchy.” That is to say, freedom is where ever the police are not. It’s a great concept, as long as you’re extremely mobile and not particularly invested in anything. And as long as your “freedom” doesn’t conflict with corporate interests.

You could make the case that the punitive snuffing out of internet radio is nothing but a trifle when our young fighting men and women remain in harm’s way. To me, consolidation is consolidation, whether is takes place in the marketplace or on the battlefield. I suspect that armed global occupation will remain The American Way at least as long as people keep driving their cars to the protests. The difference between a land mine and a corn syrup sandwich is one of degrees. Both can be deadly. Either way: in the final analysis, we’re all expendable. Voting won’t change that; praying certainly won’t. We don’t even need “new ideas;” the old ones still work. The trick is to remember what they are.

Not that the above has anything to do with this week’s charming podcast, which I promise is full of nothing but sweetness and light!

Episode Two Tracklist:
“Cuckoo Laugh-In World” – Laugh-In Cast
“Dance To The Music” – The Going Thing
“It’s A Beautiful Morning” – Martin Denny
“Where’s The Beef?” – Coyote McCloud & Clara Peller
“Topless Party” – Nomiya Maki
“Kites Are Fun” – Tony Mottola & The Groovies
“Good News” – The Klowns
“The Wonderful World of Color” – Four Freshmen
“In My Hole” – Roy Budd
“Mr. & Mrs.” – Tony Hatch
“The Drifter” – Sandpipers



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