[Kzyxtalk] Eleventy kinds of broken.

[Marco McClean]

Subject: Eleventy kinds of broken.

      /“That all Plays, Bear Baitings, Games, singing of Ballads, 
Buckler play, or such like Causes of Assemblies of People, be utterly 
prohibited, and the Parties offending severely punished by every 
Alderman in his Ward.” -Daniel Defoe/

      /“Introverts are rejoicing. My lifelong aversion to being touched 
and love of solitude are finally going to pay off! Suck it, touchies!” -Hal/

The recording of last night's (2020-03-27) Memo of the Air: Good Night 
Radio show on KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KMEC-LP Ukiah is right here:
https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0378

A rare glitch in the automation, so KNYO wasn’t joined by KMEC until 
9:30 when I discovered this and put it right; other than that, clear 
sailing. Alex Bosworth called from Arizona and is having an especially 
hard time, though, and I’m not very sensitive about other people’s real 
unhappiness even in the best of times, and when he hung up it sounded 
final, like the part in the movie where they hang up or stomp away from 
the park bench sounding pissed off and you don’t see them for five years 
and then when you do they say, why did you hang up on /them/?

Matt McGranaghan wrote:

 >Marco, Alex’s call last night was a particularly moving Memo of the 
Air moment. I hope you and he are both OK, individually or better 
collectively. He seemed resolute but maybe he was seeking help. Hard to 
tell. To your credit, you handled it as well as anyone could.

 >I had been meaning to write to say that I could not explain why I 
find/found your conversations with him so darned compelling. Almost 
naughty, like listening in on a party line, or to a therapy session in a 
room with too-thin walls. Maybe it was the open expression of opinions, 
some small bit of good-natured jousting. Maybe the hearing takes and 
experiences that are a bit wide of my own. Still don’t know. May never 
figure it out.

 >It might make your program planning easier but I did look forward to 
that segment, and could tell that you did too. I guess.

 >Hang-in. Lay low. Wash your hands. –Matt

I wrote back:

 >Matt, I don’t know. If it’s a new person, or like a former specialty 
prostitute who wrote four books about putting herself through grad 
school on the equipment God gave her, I’m gonna want to hear whatever 
they have going on even twice or three times through but that’s enough, 
please. But if it’s somebody who calls all the time to push an 
hour-and-a-half of my reading material off the table into the trash, and 
/they know that’s what they’re doing/, I’m sorry, but I want them to 
read their story and say Wash your hands (you’re right, that’s a funny 
polite exit now) and hang up. Even if or rather especially if I like 
them, and even if they have, as Alex does, a shit-ton of health problems 
and are deserving of extra love and care.

 >There are things going on in the background for everyone all the time. 
I expected other callers for last night and they both flaked, including 
the one that said she’d call what turned out to be when Alex called, and 
I thought maybe if Alex and I only talked for five or ten minutes the 
other person would try again if it was busy. That was why I said at 
start that I’d like to keep it to ten minutes. Alex thrives on company 
and is miserable in private, and I’m the other way around. My experience 
with conversation in real life is, unconstrained I talk until I say 
something cryptic or weird that nobody but Juanita would understand, try 
to pull up (“Pull up, Rogue Six, pull up!”) and just make it worse, and 
then internally agonize about it for the rest of my life; so I should 
quit while I’m ahead, but I always hope the other person will say, “Oh, 
my, look at the time,” and they take responsibility for leaving each 
other wanting more, to look forward to next time. /They/ do that; that’s 
what I want.

 >Meanwhile the world’s in the same worse sucky hole than ever anyway in 
this bad science-fiction timeline, billionaires’ world wars ruining 
everything for everybody so they can stay billionaires, and cynical fake 
democracy, and plague, and devastation; disasters should take turns and 
not be comically wedged in the door together like this all at the same 
time. I’m gonna heat my tea back up and work on my web thing. Thanks for 
writing. Wash your hands. –Marco

IN OTHER NEWS: confidential to the small but significant number of 
people who’ve been writing me privately for years and telling me in the 
grocery store (or even in the radio station when the mic is off but they 
won’t sit at a mic and do it for real) to cut off Alex (or anyone) for 
whatever reason of theirs, every one of whom has also told me never to 
say their name on the radio, because they want to kvetch in paranoid 
privacy, which I hate, um, I hate that, as well as the smug whispering 
campaigns against writers they have a personal history and issues with 
or who they just don’t understand so it makes them feel like they’re 
being made fun of so they’re pissy about it, and so on: If you want to 
participate, participate. If you want to snipe, snipe in public from now 
on with your name on it; be a man, or a woman, whichever is better. If 
you want to sabotage other people’s projects, go ahead, but stand up 
where everyone can get a clear throw at you with /their/ cream pie while 
you’re doing it. Okay, now that I have this all straight in my mind I 
know what to say next time, but it’ll probably come out a lot simpler, 
more like /Fuck you, clown!/ (Look that up.) You know all those old 
grumpy people who ever just appeared, swore bitterly at you, and you 
were like, What was /that/ about? It’s all beginning to make sense. It's 
about shorthand, minimalism, zen.

Furthermore,  at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh 
batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless 
worthwhile educational items I set aside for you while gathering the 
show together. Such as:

I love this. It's not Xmastime, but I don't care.
https://tinyurl.com/TheXmasWishSketch

Something sphinx around here. It looks like it’s crocheted of bubblegum 
rolled into snakes. Here’s the neat thing about all cats: they’re 100 
degrees Fahrenheit inside their fur coat, and a sphinx cat doesn’t have 
that coat. So it’s hot to the touch. And it smells like a cinnamon bun.
https://laughingsquid.com/wrinkled-sphinx-cat/

And sono il sindaco e sono stupito dall’ignoranza di voi gente.
https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2020/03/tweet-of-day_23.html

-- 
Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org,
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com