Pop Star

 

Dear Pop Star,

Yes, the thing is the metaphor, but we don't always agree on what it is that is like the first thing.  It's more than a feeling, and the reason is, my Pop Star, Marianne is a metaphor for your manhood.  See: letting the days go by.  And how does all this loss feel?  See: pretty Pamela Brown.  

And you know, you know I love you, you men of the patriarchy, but it's just such scraps, all scraps that are left.  The thing is, and you know this too, if you have any power your responsibility is not to abuse it.

a few lines

 

Dear Listener,

Pick up the line; follow the lines; get in line.  Or not.

a little trip

 

Folk art passenger ship model, early 20 c.

Dear Journeypersons,

Come with me!  On a voyage of discovery!  Come and sift through the fabulous Smog and Bill Callahan oeuvre.  Be amazed at how you could have missed all this greatness!  Here is a fellow, one of only a few of his gender, that I really wish I could be!  Let Smog be your songs for today!

Russian Winter

I Break Horses

Rock Bottom Riser

Four Hearts in a Can

In the Pines

Teenage Spaceship

Bathysphere

Cow

I Feel Like the Mother of the World

To Be of Use

Cold Discovery

Beautiful Child

Feather by Feather

PS  

Three more things:  One, you know where to get more, and Two; don't you love how they seem to have sprouted up from nothing, from sounds and thoughts just piled up together, these songs? and Three; I can't be totally sure yet, uh, and maybe you can tell me, but I Break Horses might be one of the most lovely songs I have ever heard....

Hill

 

Michelle, Henry Taylor, 2023.

Dear Y'all,

It was time, for a song for today, which was his song, by Hill, Lauryn; and well, you also want his other song, by Flack, Roberta; and you know, if you don't know Lauryn Hill, have this, and this.  It's getting to be a dance party, so let's have this song, too!  And, yes, Love, Monie, too, I think.

two

 

Memory Den

Dear Radio Dodo Fans,

Get up and change the station if you don't want these two great songs:  One, two.  

PS  Another place you can go, while the two songs play.

pure pop for now people

 

confetti pop instructions

a place to buy them readymade

Dear Today,

Listen to these, today, an eight song set of Nick Lowe:

Refrigerator White.

Breakaway.

Without Love.

Ba Doom.

The Rose of England.

Wish You Were Here.

Big Big Love.

(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass.

Old Year's Day.

 

 Selene Santucci.

Dear Time,

What a drag you can be, with your damn thresholds between the day and the night, the month, the year.  I am tired of you, even as I try to mark and honor you.  Well, what have you done for me, eh?  Yes, let's not and say we did, this New Year's.  There's not enough champagne in the world to make it a party anyway.

I think, what I will say, in truth, and with a minimum of resentment, is so long, it's been good to know you.

I learned everything I know about saying The Long Goodbye from singers and songwriters.  You can learn it too, in easy, online lessons.  Here are your course materials for Goodbye 101.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

child/father

vintage family tree, circa 1880

Dear Dads of the World, Past & Present,

Here is a trio of beautiful sentiments for you, today.  May you walk in natural piety always.

Buffalo Springfield   I Am a Child

Brian Wilson   Child is Father of the Man

Wm. Wordsworth   My Heart Leaps Up

Another Dance Party Friday!

 

Dear Feet,

It's been a while, but here is something to inspire your dancing.  Let's inspect The Jerk  (contemporary) a little closer.  You will want a tune, or two.  Or, maybe you want this.  Anyway, take it all, or take none of it; the world is crammed with things you can watch, think, see, and do!

PS  

One more.

writ/read

 

Dear Reader,

To the Bat Cave, Robin, I must write!   Because, you were always on my mind.  Sometimes, I ask myself:  what goes here?  In fact, it might be my most asked question of myself.  What an awkward sentence!  

A week or so ago, I led a little group in a meditative drawing exercise, and I felt so clearly the wave of concentration and, hmm, what is the thing?  Not just concentration, not just intention, not just care, but maybe, maybe it was love.  It was ecstatic like that, so it might have been.  A little field guide would be handy here, wouldn't it?  With a cross-reference of 'feels like' and then a page with what it is you might be experiencing?

On the topic of my writing you, I think you should know that I never use auot correct when I write you here, be cause it would be less true for my hurrying, let alone what denigration partnering with a machine might feel like when you are reading.  This is funny, of course, but also, my true feelings on the matter.  I think we get some out of whatever we put in.  

Which leads me to two things: this digital tool is not a threat to anyone, or any notion of quality or honesty.  If you don't want to use your thumb to scumble out 't h a n k  y o u' on your device, I still believe you meant it.  And if writing is a chore, or even tortuous for you, I give you permission, utterly and completely, to use as much AI as you you like.  I won't even complain that it tastes like canned.  It's all Gide* anyway.

Second thing, is that I have some old blue ink on lined paper writing of mine, and I love to note things like this:  BE cause.  Now, that doesn't look like it is; I used (and still do use, but less) a weird (& expedient) mix of capitals, lower case, and cursive in my penned writing.  If, as a human, it is possible to lift our self loathing even a tiny bit, I would do so, in order to tell myself how sweet and charming a mistake BE cause is.

PS

You 

were 

always 

on 

my 

mind.

*Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Ms. Green.

 

Dear Delia,

I've got your songs, here, for today.  If you don't have time, there in your storied afterlife, to listen to all of them, listen to the last one; it's the best, the true song of you, and all of us.  .

First.

Second.

Third.

Fourth.

Last.

baby, baby

Untitled (Roses), Cy Twombly, acrylic and crayon on wood, 252.5 x 741.9 cm, 2008.

Dear Radio-Dodo Listener,

Check out these two songs for today:  One, and two.  These are from the dusty back room stacks, and I had never heard either of these versions; but I was looking, you know, like I do, for something special for you today, and I found them, just like you do when you are searching.

make stopping sense

 

Dear Sensors,

Here are two fine dance tunes for you which share some words, and sounds:

Girlfriend is Better

Making Sense Stop

They are your songs for today!

trio

 

Dear Radio Dodo Heads,

Three songs that go together great:  primo, secondo, terzo.  Your songs for the day!

Seeing you.

 

Dear One,

I've been one poor correspondent, and too, too hard to find, but, you have been on my mind.  And, when you hear that fourth bar, aren't you running to buy an electric guitar?   To make that nifty surfy sound? Anyway, like I said, I've been looking at the moon, but I've been thinking of you.

right now

 

Dear People,

I thought you might need this song, right now.  Or this one.  I am thinking of you, I am wishing I had longer arms with which to hold you.

inverse

Dear Listeners,

Two songs for you, today.  They are kind of inversions of each other; for certain occasions, you will want to invoke You Won't Fall, and other times, maybe even right now, you will want to use Don't Let Me Down.

Jane.

 

Dear Jane,

Why do they always tell these stories about you?  Why is it always procrastination, break-down, and sorrow?  Songs of failure titled Jane.  Books of self-destruction titled Jane.  Well, Jane I want your story told right, so I will tell it myself.  

Jane stole for you, for you and your addiction.  She wanted nothing more than to make you happy, make you free.  Jane pulled all her punches, and she hid the body for you.  Jane's real story is that she never would settle for what was offered her.  Jane wanted something real, in a world of phoniness, or worse, apathy.  She tended a small garden, illegally, behind the big warehouse.  She gave the food away, and she lived in a little trailer.  She didn't have a car, but when she needed to move, she'd find someone who would do it for a knitted scarf.  

Jane's real story is that she mostly just keeps on, and no one even notices much.  She doesn't break down over death or losing a man, and she doesn't lose a step when a child is lost, because there is always another child that will need to be looked after, there is always another day, and she is not so selfish as you seem to always write her.  And, I'd like to think, that if anyone was listening, you could hear Jane say it.

Sweet

Says

Baby

Lady

Queen

B.

three

 

Dear Today,

I have another trio of songs for you.  My DJ played them in just this order some time ago, and I have been planning to give them to you here.  They constitute a marvelous totality which I know you will enjoy!

Make it Easy

Go Home

Holy Lighter

PS

Maybe you can't get enough, maybe?  Of Go Home?  Here are six more; if you only allow yourself one further, take the last one, and write me and tell me you were not overcome by the beauty of those voices.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Becoming one.

 

Ana Montiel

ECHO: Psychical Continuity Is Not a Given but Something Constructed

Acrylic on canvas, 95 x 99.5 inches, 2021.

Dear Listener,

Today, on Radio Dodo, a trio of songs on the theme of fading: into and away.  I bring these songs to you with great affection, and I imagine you out there, waiting to hear them.  But, maybe I am more like Marta Beckett, in my opera house, painting my audience on the wall.

To fade, away or into, has me recalling those times, which might be the best times, when your skin seems inseparable from the rain and air; or when you look out into the distance, and the landscape dissolves and expands through the space to meet you.

Not Fade Away

Bell Bottom Blues

Fade Into You

Don't you forget now, my love is bigger than a Cadillac.