Fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?

If you've never tuned into my weekly web-radio show, or if it's been long enough that you've effectively regained your virginity, so to speak (That totally happens! All the men's magazines say so!), then tonight might very well be the evening to start, because I just finished Scotch-taping my playlist together and kludging all the crossfades, and I think this might be one of the best lineups I've ever cobbled together. Sleight of Hand—that's the show—starts at 8 p.m. Eastern time every Wednesday—that's today—and is advertised as "a collection of folk, alternative, and whatever else I can get my hands on," which translates out to "a lot like one of those bloated mix CDs I'm constantly throwing in everyone's direction, with the added thrill of waiting to see if I lose my train of thought or knock over the microphone again." You can tune in over at Party 934 to catch it live, or if you're reading this too late, I'll post a link to the downloadable podcast after the fact.

Oh, and while you're there, take a sec to check out the other shows on the schedule tab. There's some damned good stuff in there.

I've finally started posting playlists of my radio show on my blog page at the Party 934 website, thus raising my lifetime blog post total there since starting nine months ago to the grand total of one. Go, me! Since a few people have asked what sorts of things I tend to play, and because it's for probably my favorite show to date, here's that one (1) playlist, which is for the March 20th broadcast, available for free download on the station's podcast page:

1) “Where The Monkey Meets The Man,” Primitive Radio Gods
[Break: “Digame,” Ui]
2) “Turn It Around,” Lucius
3) “Broke Window,” Gary Jules
4) “Metropolitan Glide,” Tom Waits
5) “Sleep Isabella,” Abney Park
[Break: “Sweat,” Not Drowning, Waving]
6) “Fountain Of Amrita,” The Drovers
7) “She Gets The Feeling,” Jude
8) “Ballad of Old Joe Blind (Alternate Version) ,” Meic Stevens
9) “Pig Dog Daddy,” Boiled In Lead
10) “Coming For You ,” von Grey
[Break: “Noodletown,” Mitchell Froom]
11) “Ain't No Thang,” Katzenjammer
12) “Maybe She Will,” Love Riot
13) “Nine Stone Rig,” Linda Thompson
14) “Like Smoke,” Aaron English
[Break: “Hole in the Coal,” The Pentangle]
15) “I Predict,” Sparks
16) “Notion,” Barbara Kessler
17) “One Tiny Thing,” 8in8
18) “Americano,” The Brian Setzer Orchestra
19) “Tango In Love,” The Nudes
[Break: “Chameleon,” Herbie Hancock]
20) “Find Yourself,” Universal Honey
21) “Auntie Aviator,” John And Beverley Martyn
22) “Blood on my Hands,” The Splinters
23) “I've Been My Own Worst Friend,” The Strawbs
24) “Grounds for Divorce,” Elbow
[Break: “The Horse,” Cliff Nobles & Co.]
25) “Hangman,” Chris Pureka
26) “At The Cut,” The Cave Singers
27) “Stairway to Heaven,” Beatnix
28) “Still Water,” Daniel Lanois
[Break: “Monk's Point,” Thelonious Monk]
29) “No One Takes Your Freedom,” DJ Earworm

So. I may or may not have spent my last two hours of data entry at work today streaming archive episodes of "This American Life" into my earbuds. (We're expressly permitted to listen to stuff on headphones while we work. Relax. And to any current employers reading this: in the event that streaming "This American Life" is not what you meant by "listening to stuff," I did not, in fact, do this, but am presenting it as a purely fictional scenario. Yes, sirree.)

Which brings me to my point: Why did I not know about Chickenman before this?

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Again, this was permitted by office policy, which is a good thing since I nearly convulsed clean off my swivel office chair onto the industrial-grade carpeting knees first, I was laughing so hard.

I'm slowly growing accustomed to the gentle art of self-promotion. In that capacity:

1) Tonight! Sleight of Hand, the weekly radio show, 7 p.m. Eastern, Party 934. Be there, dag nabbit!

2) Tomorrow! Opening for Rebecca Loebe at the Sovereign Nation of Gojirawitziev in Watertown, MA, 8 p.m. Be there as well!

3) August! Opening night set at Pi-Con in Enfield, CT, Friday August 17, 7 p.m. Fail to be there, and my Doleful Ghost will haunt you in this mortal coil someday!

4) Eventually! I'm hoping to do some quick-and-dirty recordings of some of the ostensibly funny numbers in my catalog, including "One By One," for release hopefully before the Pi-Con gig. There will no doubt be information on my website once there is information to be had.

Since I completely dropped the ball in the advertising department last week, let me try again: Radio show tonight! Catch me as the host of Sleight of Hand on http://party934.com from 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern! Maybe I'll even remember to hold the microphone up to my mouth this time!

EDIT: Or not. My Internet has been borking out on and off, so they're putting the show on automation during my shift. If the folks at Fairpoint can get it fixed, I can get on the air; if not, there's always next week. *siiiiiigh*

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd put in a bid for an on-air talent slot on Party 934, an online radio station with a tower-based presence in Hudson Valley, New York, and got short-listed to fill out the long and detailed application that comprised Phase Two of their hiring/casting process. I was on the brink of believing it to be a wash when I got an e-mail asking to schedule a time for a phone interview. Why, yes, I did in fact dance around the room screaming and hyperventilating. Why do you ask?

I've done radio before, eons ago: when I was 22, I put in seven months as an air shifter with WEFT in Champaign, Illinois, a freeform station that does everything except top 40: jazz, reggae, klezmer, children's music, industrial, you name it. (My show, Requiem for Finnegan, was dedicated to Anglo-Celtic folk-rock.) It remains one of the most fun things I've ever done, and I've been secretly hoping to get back on the air one way or another for the nearly two decades since, and knowing that thanks to the combination of my own musical quirks and the vagaries of modern broadcasting it probably wasn't going to happen. The beautiful thing about Party 934, and the reason I even got this far in the proceedings, is that they have the same attitude and the same "anything you can't get anywhere else" programing mandate as WEFT, which means I was able to be myself and identify my genre as "eclectic" while acknowledging that it doesn't really answer the question but it's the closest I can come since I plan to overplay Richard Thompson like whoa and follow up Peter Paul and Mary with Massive Attack and throw in some Bonzo Dog Doodah Band and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Tuvan throat-singing Beatles covers and whatever the hell else wanders through my wheelhouse on show day, and their response was an enthusiastic, "You intrigue us. Tell us more."

Yeah, this is so the right place for me.

The interview is tomorrow right around lunchtime, so if you have a few thoughts to spare and can send them in my direction it would be most appreciated. Also, if I do get the gig, I'm going to be hitting up everyone I know for awesome music, so synchronize your iTunes libraries just in case.

Fans of George Orwell's 1984, bear with me on this one. Much has been made of the similarities between telescreens and today's Internet- and media-driven connectivity, but if we now also note the similarities between doublespeak and LOLspeak, then the truth becomes clear: Big Brother is Ceiling Cat.

Ponder that, won't you?

And whilst you are a-ponderin', you should join me in celebrating the triumphant return of felisdemens and maxymyllyn's Felis and the Chop Radio Show, which airs tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time. I am linking to their Web page above, which I'm ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN will contain a link to the radio show page by the time 8 p.m. rolls around, but there are also rumors of a videocast of the event here. I wait with bated breath! Doubleplusgood! Do wants!