Episode XXXVIII: We'll Meet Again

My home is an island that is about forty square miles. I will be leaving home in a few days. There is no word for goodbye in our language here. We just say what translates to "we will meet again." My heart is broken.

I rescheduled my final radio show. It'll go down at midnight the evening of October 2nd/morning of October 3rd, east coast time.

Thank you to everyone who ever went with me to see this man play music. Some of the best evenings of my life.

My last radio show is coming up. East coast time will be midnight (or maybe 11 p.m., I can never keep track of when you all change your clocks) the evening of September 4th or morning of September 5th, however you want to look at it.

Episode XXXVII: I have seen too much (you haven't seen enough)

Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
that savage forest, dense and difficult,
which even in recall renews my fear:
so bitter--death is hardly more severe!
But to retell the good discovered there,
I'll also tell the other things I saw.
-Dante Alighieri, "Inferno"

I just got back from another island where I met up with some good friends. Hadn't seen any of them in over six months. They're all spread out over the islands here, working for the same organization that I am. All of us will be leaving in the next few months, some of us traveling a bit, but all of us eventually going to the States more or less before the year is out. It was hard to say goodbye to them knowing that the next time I see any of them will be in the States. Regardless of the years that pass, when I think of any of them I will always think of us sitting on some beach that will forever go unseen by anyone else any of us know, talking and laughing with no idea what the time, day, or month is.

Below is the set list from my radio show a week ago. It was a shorter program. I just played the songs I needed to hear and didn't worry about filling the entire hour. I have found overwhelming good here, but I have also seen other things and this show was about those other things. Each song stands for a time in my life here or a specific event, and they're in chronological order.
"Gone" U2
"The Moon" Cat Power
"Idioteque" Radiohead
"Out of My Hands" Dave Matthews Band
"Ashes of American Flags (live)" Wilco
"No Way" Pearl Jam
"See You Soon (live)" Coldplay
"Ain't Talkin'" Bob Dylan

Apparently the east coast did their spring ahead thing. So my radio show may be on at 11 p.m. Thursday night. Just turn it on at 11 and if I don't come on until midnight you can listen to island music.

My penultimate radio show here will be (east coast time) midnight the eve of July 3rd/ morning of July 4th. Every show I have done here has had a theme. My last show here will be the memories, the goodbye, the heartbreaker. But this next one is the conclusion. That's where I'm at now, how I feel. All stories need an ending. So the story of the ghost gets its ending in a few days. Email me if you want to listen and need the link.