This is my song for Ruth Seymour, my former boss at KCRW.
Wait for night and roll a big fattie for this one, and I mean that. Don't be a humorless old bat, Ruth, and consider it a compliment that I'm bothering, after you blew me off so completely.
Everyone knows only half of KCRW's dream team is leaving. God help the hiring panel who will oversee the decision, if they don't see how truly brilliant a programmer Will Lewis has been all along from day one, and how little of the credit he's taken publicly (didn't you tell me he was the one who found Chris Douridas' tape in a stack of discarded cassettes and insisted he be hired?). That's not even mentioning people like Sarah Spitz who have made KCRW their full-time passion, who've kept it smart. There's one person in management who's gotten ahead more by targeting other employees for destruction, than by creating programming. Everyone knows who that person is. And inside that adversarial atmosphere, there are so many others who have dodged the arrows all along and carried so much of the load, with exasperated affection and, you know it's true, absolute fucking fits of lunatic screaming frustration. Sorry, I just want to say that word when I think of you.
Fuck is a useful word. It sounded pretty funny coming out of your own mouth on that rare occasion. And it's a strong word. Not for pussies terrified of authority to the point where they're freaking out over the feds busting down the door of poor little old KCRW, what acid-house nightmare was that you put us through? The thing is, Ruth, would it kill you to be just a little nicer to the people who share your creative and intellectual passions and want to make good radio? Is that really too much to ask?
Anyway, so, Fuck has more meaning than it already did, thanks to you. It's got a warm and fuzzy history that we in So Cal will cherish as part of our unique culture, long after the more boring stuff goes its way. I know you're big on culture.
Oh, and that Joe Frank program, Fire, I think it's called? The one he dedicated to you after you fired him while he was in the hospital...Heh...You probably thought that show was a hate missile. You and he can decide between the two of you what it was, but it sounded like a love letter to me. The hairs "raising on his arms to greet you like a swaying forest of black rubber penises(not verbatim, but close)"...How can you not see that for the grand tribute that it is? Of all the sappy goodbye gestures in the world, that one does have to beat the band...it's actually kind of sweet, if you think about it. You deserve no less distinctive a farewell.
So.. Shine on.
November 20, 2009
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ARTIST: Pink Floyd
TITLE: Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Lyrics and Chords
[ Edim7 = ; Capo 3 ]
Remember when you were young
You shone like the sun
Shine on, you crazy diamond
Now there's a look in your eyes
Like black holes in the sky
Shine on, you crazy diamond
/ Em - - - / Eb - G - / C C/B Am Am7 D - - - / :
You were caught in the crossfire
Of childhood and stardom
Blown on the steel breeze
Come on you target for faraway laughter
Come on you stranger
You legend, you martyr, and shine
/ Em - / Em/maj7 - / Em7 - A7 - / C - Edim7 - / G - / Bm B7 Em - /
You reached for the secret too soon
You cried for the moon / Shine on...
Threatened by shadows at night
And exposed in the light / Shine on...
Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision
Rode on the steel breeze
Come on you raver, you seer of visions
Come on you painter
You piper, you prisoner, and shine
Nobody knows where you are
How near or how far / Shine on...
Pile on many more layers
And I'll be joining you there / Shine on...
And we'll bask in the shadow
Of yesterday's triumph
Sail on the steel breeze
Come on you boy child, you winner and loser
Come on you miner
For truth and delusion and shine
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"All spirituality--but especially the spirituality of imperfection--involves the perceiving, embracing, and living out of paradox. A "paradox" is an apparent contradiction: Two things seem to exclude each other, but in truth need not do so. ...Openness to paradox allows the understanding and the acceptance of our human condition as both/and (both a saint and a sinner) rather than "either-or" (either a saint or a sinner). ..With the long story of spirituality in the Western Christian world, failure to understand that to-be-human is to be both/and rather than either-or led to much confusion. The significance of Saint Augustine, for example, is not that he emphasized "sin," but that he sought to promote wholeness and balance by calling attention to "the other side."
Faced with the destruction of the Roman Empire, Augustine sought to teach that both within each person and within the community as a whole, both good and evil, strength and weakness, co-existed.
-Ernest Kurtz
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