With construction going on in my home, a puppy to train, and learning to care for goats, I never made a summer getaway this year. So, these last couple of weeks I decided on a stayworkation that involved me abandoning “work” and wrestling with the wooded portion of the property, which I really have not managed properly before now. The thorny vines, underbrush and fallen trees made it slow and treacherous. I have scratches and a rash (either poison oak or ivy or both,) and I have discovered muscles I didn’t know could get sore. I’ll write more about that in my next column for Martha’s Kitchen Garden. But the work has been exhilarating. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking that I am in the woods and not in my bedroom. I have done much more than I knew I was physically capable of and that is the greatest thing that I have learned this month.
I can be obsessive when I get obsessed… but when my way-back friend DJ Jeannie Hopper, a long-time community radio producer currently working for Laura Flanders, showed up on Wednesday and told me we were going to Asheville on Thursday to visit Davyne Dial, the General Manager of WPVM 103.7, I dropped my loppers and we drove a little further up the mountain range. In Asheville you can listen to local music and news shows and selected national programming from the Pacifica Network. A great reason to actually visit the station is the lobby that serves as a radio museum. Davyne was very generous with her time and her knowledge. I learned quite a bit listening to her talk about becoming a licensed radio station, and what it takes to keep it running. She is an inspiration to me, and a possible mentor, as I work toward establishing the Listen & Be Heard Network here in Greenville.
All has not been quiet at L&BH while I was cutting thorny vines. Cyndi Combs is a former staff member of L&BH Weekly in Vallejo, CA. Since those days she has become the most popular massage therapist there. She has posted her first article here for the column Lighten Up!, something that we should all remind ourselves to do. Welcome back Cyndi!
I am currently kitchenless, so I have been going out to eat a bit, and last night I took in a bit of an erotic poetry slam with my dinner, at the Radio Room. Wits End Poetry is one of the longest running poetry events in the South and they have a faithful and encouraging crowd. I was first on the open mic list, so I gave them a little foreplay and came on home long before the climax of the night.
If you write poetry please submit! Poetry is the backbone of Listen & Be Heard. We will soon start publishing the Poem of the Week, and once we start, we won’t stop!
