Not Pictured

One of my friends recently put together a slide show of pics from our station's last Fund Drive. It's on display at the top of the stairs when you enter the building- we walked past it last night and my friend remarked as to how there wasn't a single picture of me in the batch...during Fund Week I did six hours of live sound, ten hours of broadcast time and a three-hour phone shift and there isn't a single picture of me in the whole presentation...I swear, sometimes I feel as if I'm a ghost that slips in and out of the corporeal realm; that I'm invisible most of the time...I walk among the living, but to them I'm just a chilly draft in an otherwise warm room.

Do you know that vague sense of uneasiness you sometimes feel upon waking after a strange dream? That feeling is me, wishing that I could touch you and knowing that I can't.

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THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, OCT. 28, 2007:

Funkadelic- The Song is Familiar
The waitress hasn't even brought our drinks over and my date has already begun describing herself as 'asexual'. That is one hell of a conversational icebreaker. King of the world! Glub...

Pretty Things- October 26
It's actually October 28 today... listening to Phil May plaintively croon ,"If I wanted to, could I depend on you , my friend?" and having the guitar sadly answer, " no, you are on your own" usually breaks my heart, but this morning that would be akin to using a hand grenade to destroy dust...my heart remains unchanged.

Jimi Hendrix- Little Miss Strange
Maybe she's the devil in disguise...naaah.

Jefferson Airplane- Young Girl Sunday Blues
Step into my life...nope, not that either.

Loreena McKennitt- Kecharitomene
Trying-and failing- to pronounce this song title actually cheers me up. I don't know why.

Blonde Redhead- Hated Because Of Great Qualities
I don't feel hated because of my great qualities. I do feel unappreciated and it makes me wonder if I'm not kidding myself; perhaps I actually suck at everything and I'm just too dense to know it.

Al Stewart- Sirens of Titan
Yeah, I know I already played it the other week, but this is my show and this song cheers me up. Who wants to listen to a depressed DJ? Trust me, it's a lot worse than reading a depressing blog.

Steely Dan- Only a Fool Would Say That
Right.

Television- See No Evil
Deaf, dumb and blind. Braille rocks!

Rickie Lee Jones- Lucky Guy
Friday night I was thinking to myself what a lucky guy I was...I was very optimistic. I shared this feeling with other people.

Tuxedomoon- Jinx
I should learn to keep my hopes to myself.

Marianne Faithfull- Annabelle Lee
Marianne reads Edgar Allan Poe's tragic poem. For me, it doesn't get a whole lot better than that. Sad, eh?

Marianne Faithfull- Witch's Song
Broken English (1979) is one of those rare records that changed everything without ever gaining widespread recognition- remarkable stuff. Happy Halloween!

Ray Manzarek- Wake Up Screaming
I love this song...Ex-Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek opens up with a evil 'M'whahahahh' laugh, then there are sound FX of a screeching cat, a Joe Walsh slide guitar solo and a snippet of Jim Morrison's awful poetry, read by none other than a then-unknown young lady named Patti Smith. A year later,Patti started putting out records of her own...


Alan Parsons- A Dream Within a Dream
The CD re-release of Tales of Mystery and Imagination opens with Orson Welles reading Edgar Allan Poe's Dream within a Dream, a wonderful piece which was omitted from the original vinyl.

Alan Parsons- The Raven
For Lenore. Don't think I'm not tempted.

Robyn Hitchcock- Grooving on an Inner Plane
"I've been through all of this before..." I'm not that tempted.

Jethro Tull- Up To Me
What else is new?

The Kinks- Love Me Till The Sun Shines
A Dave Davies song that captures a certain feeling for me. Wishful thinking, is what.

The Kinks- Wicked Annabella
Oooo...spooky! It's about a witch.

Damien Dempsey- I Believe in Love
I believe in romantic love in the same way that some people believe in God. I have never experienced it, nor can I offer any solid evidence that such a thing truly exists (in my universe, anyway), yet I have faith that someday I will be saved, so to speak.
In other words, I am insane and hopeless.

Black Sabbath- A National Acrobat
Gotta have some Black Sabbath- it's Halloween. Factoid: Black Sabbath were good musicians!

Jefferson Starship- Devil's Den
This song is a cautionary tale about mortal men assuming Divine Right and the inevitable corruption and collapse of those who hold unchecked power...this is Watergate Rock, but the message rings true today.

Marianne Faithfull- Gloomy Sunday
I once had a 'dispute' with an asshat blogger who was convinced that I had a nefarious plan to kill myself 0n-air during my New Year's broadcast. Seriously- he even threatened to call the station's management and warn them of my scheme, which would have been hilarious, since I would have answered the phone, being the only one there and all...

Caller: " I want to warn you that your DJ is a sick man. He is going to kill himself during his show. I saw the symbols on his website, I've saved screenshots of everything he's ever posted on his blog and I have shared them with a team of highly skilled professionals and they all agree- he is dangerous. You can tell from the picture on his blog. It's of a lightbulb! "

Me: "Gosh, that's terrible. Here's what I need for you to do: Call the FBI and tell them exactly what you just told me. Verbatim. When they come to your house, you can explain it all in great detail. Tell them you can read thoughts over the internet- they love that sort of call."

He never called the studio ,but since then I've been tempted to do a two-hour show entirely comprised of versions of Gloomy Sunday, which is one of the world's greatest suicide ballads.

Golden Palominos- Little Suicides
This song isn't about suicide at all.

Flaming Groovies- She's Falling Apart
Where there is life, there is sorrow...sometimes it becomes transcendent; beautiful in a painful, strange and helpless way. This song tells just such a story.

Patti Smith- Dancing Barefoot
Like some heroine. Like some heroin?

Sinead O'Connor- Drink Before the War
I have ups and downs with Sinead, but this song stays fresh to me. Sadly.

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Next: Some good news and some bad news.