Host Armand DiMele presents a program of psychological discussion Tuesday through Thursday at 1pm on WBAI 99.5 fm in New York.
Today's show featured Dr. Michael Bader talking about his book "Male Sexuality: Why Women Don't Understand It--And Men Don't Either ".
This is all about what goes on in the mind, with the emotions, and how these things effect relationship and sexuality.
They talk about such issues as why some men are attracted to large breasts and what is the meaning of certain fantasies. Also the use and possible abuse of pornography and its meaning.
It is stated that men simply can not feel emotionally certain things that women do. Boys and girls are different.
It gets more interesting late in the program when they discuss what happens and the pitfalls that are involved with trying to please the other person, the partner. Is it better to not try to please at all. Why do some men use prostitutes? How is attraction negatively effected by familiarity? By responsibility and duty?
The Positive Mind is a good show. This is an outstanding episode 01-27-2009.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
A Prayer for Owen Meany
I try to be positive, really, I do. I don't like to complain about things I don't find interesting, that don't move me. I usually just ignore them and hope for something more interesting coming next. But this one is such a big long production that I thought I would say something about it.
I listened to the first two parts of the BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and I think I'm just going to have to bail out here after an hour and a half, not take in the other 2hrs. 15mins.
The thing is, if the production can't grab or at least somewhat engage my interest in the first hour and a half I figure all is pretty much lost and the show is not for me. Maybe it is for someone else, it's a nice production and all aside from the voice of the title character, but after all that time I don't care about any of the people in the play and anything they are doing. And that voice! It is a little like the kid named Froggy in the really bad Our Gang Comedies, the ones in the 40s after Hal Roach sold the series to MGM and Spanky was too old. Owen sounds just like that kid, well almost, or at least it is an annoying and poorly imagined voice which could have somehow been much better not that this alone makes or brakes the show. And Toby Jones is a good actor.
So it anyone thinks it gets really great later on and I should listen to it, well, I probably still won't but I would love to hear your opinion anyway
I listened to the first two parts of the BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and I think I'm just going to have to bail out here after an hour and a half, not take in the other 2hrs. 15mins.
The thing is, if the production can't grab or at least somewhat engage my interest in the first hour and a half I figure all is pretty much lost and the show is not for me. Maybe it is for someone else, it's a nice production and all aside from the voice of the title character, but after all that time I don't care about any of the people in the play and anything they are doing. And that voice! It is a little like the kid named Froggy in the really bad Our Gang Comedies, the ones in the 40s after Hal Roach sold the series to MGM and Spanky was too old. Owen sounds just like that kid, well almost, or at least it is an annoying and poorly imagined voice which could have somehow been much better not that this alone makes or brakes the show. And Toby Jones is a good actor.
So it anyone thinks it gets really great later on and I should listen to it, well, I probably still won't but I would love to hear your opinion anyway
Friday, January 23, 2009
Hella Fabulous
And now for something completely different.
There is an internet radio station located in a glass booth in a street level storefront on 1st Ave in Manhattan's East Village. The space is part of a restaurant called Lil' Frankie's.
As a pubic service the restaurant supports the internet radio called East Village Radio.
East Village Radio is a freewheeling affair. The day is broken up into two hour slots that are programmed by the DJ hosts. Of course this means that the programming is delightfully various. It's properly listed under "Eclectic" in the "Radio" section of iTunes.
On Wednesday morning from 8 to 10 New York time East Village Radio features
Hella Fabulous. This show involves mostly conversation between two young women, Hella & Ruth.
It's a little hard to discern the appeal of these two. A lot of time involves talking dirty as one can only do on internet radio. But the thing is it is all mostly about trying to figure out how the language works in these usually forbidden zones. It is often a lexical comedy show. On the most recent show they try to figure out what is a good term to use for female masturbation. There are more male euphuisms or slang terms, but not that many for female. Why is that?
This is the sort of burning issue Hella & Ruth tackle at 8 in the morning. They are also very cheerful, intelligent, and charming. And it is not a dirty show.
It has an entirely different feel from the typical shock jock commercial Howard Sternish type of product. Where that type of show often feels dirty-little-boy repressed, misogynistic and leering, Hella & Ruth are fun, interesting, and free.
It's not all talking dirty. Sometimes there are phone calls, discussion of issues of the day, sometimes a guest will drop by.
So all this is kind of indiscribable, unique. Give Hella Fabulous a listen. They are quite entertaining.
Oh yeah, I looked at the Youtube video of Steve Around-the-Corner. They were talking about it on the show, he's a caller or something. It's pretty good. Here it is:
There is an internet radio station located in a glass booth in a street level storefront on 1st Ave in Manhattan's East Village. The space is part of a restaurant called Lil' Frankie's.
As a pubic service the restaurant supports the internet radio called East Village Radio.
East Village Radio is a freewheeling affair. The day is broken up into two hour slots that are programmed by the DJ hosts. Of course this means that the programming is delightfully various. It's properly listed under "Eclectic" in the "Radio" section of iTunes.
On Wednesday morning from 8 to 10 New York time East Village Radio features
Hella Fabulous. This show involves mostly conversation between two young women, Hella & Ruth.
It's a little hard to discern the appeal of these two. A lot of time involves talking dirty as one can only do on internet radio. But the thing is it is all mostly about trying to figure out how the language works in these usually forbidden zones. It is often a lexical comedy show. On the most recent show they try to figure out what is a good term to use for female masturbation. There are more male euphuisms or slang terms, but not that many for female. Why is that?
This is the sort of burning issue Hella & Ruth tackle at 8 in the morning. They are also very cheerful, intelligent, and charming. And it is not a dirty show.
It has an entirely different feel from the typical shock jock commercial Howard Sternish type of product. Where that type of show often feels dirty-little-boy repressed, misogynistic and leering, Hella & Ruth are fun, interesting, and free.
It's not all talking dirty. Sometimes there are phone calls, discussion of issues of the day, sometimes a guest will drop by.
So all this is kind of indiscribable, unique. Give Hella Fabulous a listen. They are quite entertaining.
Oh yeah, I looked at the Youtube video of Steve Around-the-Corner. They were talking about it on the show, he's a caller or something. It's pretty good. Here it is:
Friday, January 16, 2009
Excerpt from a Dog's Ear
This is an entertaining and emotionally fulfilling story of a man who finds himself in the past where he encounters himself at age nine.
It's not an altogether original concept. It brings to mind the old Twilight Zone, episode "Walking Distance" which also had it's origins in a Gore Vidal short story "A Moment of Green Laurel".
But none of that matters because the playwright here, Kavyasiddhi takes the whole thing a couple steps further which makes it a very satisfying piece.
This is a fairly stripped down production with it's beach setting and two principle actors. Both Michael Begley as Dan and Aidan Parsons as the boy Danny are effective in their roles.
Some of the scenes are particularly nice. There is a scene where Dan is remembering losing his ball into the waves while it is in fact happening. That scene is most excellent. Then there is Dan describing to Danny an issue with his girlfriend and the window they broke together which cleverly describes the thorny issue the adult is facing while avoiding sullying the child.
The time travel issues are nicely handled too. Danny asks Dan if he is a Time Lord. and is in awe of the mobile phone.
It's a beautiful heartfelt poetic little play that delivers beyond expectation.
It is available on BBC Radio 4 The Afternoon Play page through next Monday January 19, 2009. Click on the Tuesday button.
It's not an altogether original concept. It brings to mind the old Twilight Zone, episode "Walking Distance" which also had it's origins in a Gore Vidal short story "A Moment of Green Laurel".
But none of that matters because the playwright here, Kavyasiddhi takes the whole thing a couple steps further which makes it a very satisfying piece.
This is a fairly stripped down production with it's beach setting and two principle actors. Both Michael Begley as Dan and Aidan Parsons as the boy Danny are effective in their roles.
Some of the scenes are particularly nice. There is a scene where Dan is remembering losing his ball into the waves while it is in fact happening. That scene is most excellent. Then there is Dan describing to Danny an issue with his girlfriend and the window they broke together which cleverly describes the thorny issue the adult is facing while avoiding sullying the child.
The time travel issues are nicely handled too. Danny asks Dan if he is a Time Lord. and is in awe of the mobile phone.
It's a beautiful heartfelt poetic little play that delivers beyond expectation.
It is available on BBC Radio 4 The Afternoon Play page through next Monday January 19, 2009. Click on the Tuesday button.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Development
Here is one that I've been wanting to comment on.
It played on BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play some time ago, last year, it might have even been in November. It made quite an impression. I've listened to it about four times.
Development by Doug Lucie offers a scary comedy drama that accurately reflects our lugubrious times. This show is up to the minute. As Lucie says in this interesting interview at Theatre Voice, we have here a play about a "reckoning" that appears to be due, one that Lucie and some of the rest of us have been expecting.
We start out meeting a family in their large McMansion in a development "built" by the company of the man of the house Mike. This could have been recorded on location in such a house. The actors voices sound like they are resonating, reverberating in the large drywall board constructed hollow rooms where the story is set. The hollow sound reflects the empty spirits of the inhabitants. These people are vacuous, vampires, they suck up what is living to sustain themselves in a walking death, in their greedy march to nowhere. But are these cartoon monsters, exaggerated, too broadly drawn to be at all real? No. They are all too familiar figures that can be found in any Development, or any new suburb with it's too large "homes", anywhere in the "West" and in other parts of the world following this model for all I know. They are the inhabitants of the marketplace, they are consumers. They identify themselves through what they consume. They fill their emptiness through consumption. They and disconnected to one another.
Zoe, the mother, has been consuming fad spirituality but has finally returned to the faith of her fathers
There is a gap between the parents and the two children. The boy, Joe, is a slacker, a lay-about consuming marijuana and pornography. His father Mike apparently hasn't even been to his son's room. He has to be told about the hardcore pinups on the walls. They live in the same house and he hasn't been to his son's room. Mike tries to communicate with Joe, but is ridiculed because he doesn't know the latest slang for "cool". Mike is somewhat ashamed at not being with it. Joe doesn't want to use the same words of his father. He wants to be current and youthful, using the secret language of his consumer sub-group to express his individuality. He doesn't want to be associated with his parents generation, with the things they consume. He wants his own. The mass media culture encourages this divide and sell. If all members of a family go for the same products, there is less to be sold, They can share what they have. More products can be sold if they all are in their our niche markets. His father expresses some exasperation at Joe's laziness, and acknowledges that he is partly responsible for making him as he is. Why would Joe be motivated to make something of himself if he has had everything handed to him? How could he find the motivation to strive for the things that are already there? And his purchasing choices are anti-motivational. The marijuana encourages dreaming, the pornography, and eye-balling the help provides sexual fulfillment and release. What else is there to a young dude to strive for?
Mike is the classic self-made man. He is the one who schemed, worked hard, put the deals together, hired the workers, and fought the Green types in his way to build the developments that have made him rich. He has made it up from less into more. He believes in business, privatization, less government regulation and influence. He is the one of these rebels, the rugged individualists, who made hay riding on the dominate economic notions of the last part of the 20 Century. The man of our time.
In the opening moments of the play we hear Zoe berating Tatyana, the help, the housekeeper. Tatyana can't seen to get it through her thick foreign scull that she needs to make the coffee before she does the hoovering. And yes Zoe, we understand your pain. It is so difficult to find competent help these days. We soon find that Tatyana is more than the family saw her to be as her wealthy brother shows up.
We hear the family's attitude shift instantly as the brother Leo shows up in a flashy, expensive automobile. They smell money and the seduction begins. Mike needs it since his once thriving business in now bankrupt, he desperately needs an injection of cash to keep it all afloat. But the credit has all dried up. He befriends his maid's brother after he sees the flashy car and soon looks to him as the only savior of his lifestyle.
It's all too real and right out of the headlines. In the end there is an abrupt shift of the social order for the characters in this show. The first one now will later be last, in a global machine whose wheels and cogs keep turning. And we can see the winners at the end falling prey to the very same forces of decay that destroyed the original family. We are given a clue of that early on when the brother with the flashy car explains why his sister was working as a maid. Leo says that she is a lazy girl who needs to learn about work. Well, she does learn about work and learns that she doesn't care for it and will go the same way into pleasure, dominance, and consumption, the rewards of an empty marketplace culture.
It is fun to listen in on all this and sometimes laugh at and look down on these silly and shallow people. Yet there is much of them in many of us other consumers, and if not that, there is the fact that the actions of this sort of person in this sort of culture effects us all unless we have found a way to live off the grid.
How does one get off the grid?
This is a really great production, writing, acting, all. One of the best of last year. It would be good if they run it again on BBC Radio 4 soon. People should hear this one.
More Doug Lucie please. He knows how to tell the truth in an entertaining way.
It played on BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play some time ago, last year, it might have even been in November. It made quite an impression. I've listened to it about four times.
Development by Doug Lucie offers a scary comedy drama that accurately reflects our lugubrious times. This show is up to the minute. As Lucie says in this interesting interview at Theatre Voice, we have here a play about a "reckoning" that appears to be due, one that Lucie and some of the rest of us have been expecting.
We start out meeting a family in their large McMansion in a development "built" by the company of the man of the house Mike. This could have been recorded on location in such a house. The actors voices sound like they are resonating, reverberating in the large drywall board constructed hollow rooms where the story is set. The hollow sound reflects the empty spirits of the inhabitants. These people are vacuous, vampires, they suck up what is living to sustain themselves in a walking death, in their greedy march to nowhere. But are these cartoon monsters, exaggerated, too broadly drawn to be at all real? No. They are all too familiar figures that can be found in any Development, or any new suburb with it's too large "homes", anywhere in the "West" and in other parts of the world following this model for all I know. They are the inhabitants of the marketplace, they are consumers. They identify themselves through what they consume. They fill their emptiness through consumption. They and disconnected to one another.
Zoe, the mother, has been consuming fad spirituality but has finally returned to the faith of her fathers
There is a gap between the parents and the two children. The boy, Joe, is a slacker, a lay-about consuming marijuana and pornography. His father Mike apparently hasn't even been to his son's room. He has to be told about the hardcore pinups on the walls. They live in the same house and he hasn't been to his son's room. Mike tries to communicate with Joe, but is ridiculed because he doesn't know the latest slang for "cool". Mike is somewhat ashamed at not being with it. Joe doesn't want to use the same words of his father. He wants to be current and youthful, using the secret language of his consumer sub-group to express his individuality. He doesn't want to be associated with his parents generation, with the things they consume. He wants his own. The mass media culture encourages this divide and sell. If all members of a family go for the same products, there is less to be sold, They can share what they have. More products can be sold if they all are in their our niche markets. His father expresses some exasperation at Joe's laziness, and acknowledges that he is partly responsible for making him as he is. Why would Joe be motivated to make something of himself if he has had everything handed to him? How could he find the motivation to strive for the things that are already there? And his purchasing choices are anti-motivational. The marijuana encourages dreaming, the pornography, and eye-balling the help provides sexual fulfillment and release. What else is there to a young dude to strive for?
Mike is the classic self-made man. He is the one who schemed, worked hard, put the deals together, hired the workers, and fought the Green types in his way to build the developments that have made him rich. He has made it up from less into more. He believes in business, privatization, less government regulation and influence. He is the one of these rebels, the rugged individualists, who made hay riding on the dominate economic notions of the last part of the 20 Century. The man of our time.
In the opening moments of the play we hear Zoe berating Tatyana, the help, the housekeeper. Tatyana can't seen to get it through her thick foreign scull that she needs to make the coffee before she does the hoovering. And yes Zoe, we understand your pain. It is so difficult to find competent help these days. We soon find that Tatyana is more than the family saw her to be as her wealthy brother shows up.
We hear the family's attitude shift instantly as the brother Leo shows up in a flashy, expensive automobile. They smell money and the seduction begins. Mike needs it since his once thriving business in now bankrupt, he desperately needs an injection of cash to keep it all afloat. But the credit has all dried up. He befriends his maid's brother after he sees the flashy car and soon looks to him as the only savior of his lifestyle.
It's all too real and right out of the headlines. In the end there is an abrupt shift of the social order for the characters in this show. The first one now will later be last, in a global machine whose wheels and cogs keep turning. And we can see the winners at the end falling prey to the very same forces of decay that destroyed the original family. We are given a clue of that early on when the brother with the flashy car explains why his sister was working as a maid. Leo says that she is a lazy girl who needs to learn about work. Well, she does learn about work and learns that she doesn't care for it and will go the same way into pleasure, dominance, and consumption, the rewards of an empty marketplace culture.
It is fun to listen in on all this and sometimes laugh at and look down on these silly and shallow people. Yet there is much of them in many of us other consumers, and if not that, there is the fact that the actions of this sort of person in this sort of culture effects us all unless we have found a way to live off the grid.
How does one get off the grid?
This is a really great production, writing, acting, all. One of the best of last year. It would be good if they run it again on BBC Radio 4 soon. People should hear this one.
More Doug Lucie please. He knows how to tell the truth in an entertaining way.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
WNYC is brought to you by. . .
There is a woman, well, I assume it is a woman, it also could be talking software, a machine that speaks what is typed into it. This female gender sounding voice can be heard repeated throughout the day on WNYC, the big public radio station here in NYC. If she is an actual person she must come in one day and spend the whole day reading endorsements announcements, public radio commercials that come before what appears to be each and every program. they even play them during the breaks at 20 and 40 each hour. If this is an actual woman, it's a good gig there are a lot of these, and it probably pays well, a nice union gig. If she is software, she is already paid for, is a slave and works for nothing. Maybe an intern has the job of typing in, entering, what she needs to say.
The thing is she sounds like she always has a cold, like she is suffering from nasal congestion, is all stuffed up. I want to give her a tissue, or a good shot of 12 Hour Nasal Spray so I can relax and stop worrying if this poor woman will continue to get enough air to sustain life. This leads me to believe that she must be software and maybe that the person who played the voice of the software and recorded the actual vowel sounds that make up the synthetic words, had an awful cold on the day she did the recordings. It is also possible that she is in fact a real woman and that she hates what she has to do so much, reading commercials on Public Radio, that she thinks it stinks and is commenting on that by always holding her nose while speaking the lines and therefore producing the stuffed up sound. Her voice also sounds kind of wet, moist. I guess it is the sound that WNYC and it's sponsors love for she is ubiquitous. If you listen to WNYC you know her well.
What do you think? Help me out here. I need to know. Person or machine?
The thing is she sounds like she always has a cold, like she is suffering from nasal congestion, is all stuffed up. I want to give her a tissue, or a good shot of 12 Hour Nasal Spray so I can relax and stop worrying if this poor woman will continue to get enough air to sustain life. This leads me to believe that she must be software and maybe that the person who played the voice of the software and recorded the actual vowel sounds that make up the synthetic words, had an awful cold on the day she did the recordings. It is also possible that she is in fact a real woman and that she hates what she has to do so much, reading commercials on Public Radio, that she thinks it stinks and is commenting on that by always holding her nose while speaking the lines and therefore producing the stuffed up sound. Her voice also sounds kind of wet, moist. I guess it is the sound that WNYC and it's sponsors love for she is ubiquitous. If you listen to WNYC you know her well.
What do you think? Help me out here. I need to know. Person or machine?
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