Playlist Date & Time: 6/12/2010 12:00AM - 3:00AM

Program: Blues in the Night with Jamie Dell'Apa

US 1 England 1

LA 0 British Petroleum 100 million 

Forgive me, I'm a bit stuck on THE SPORT today. Yeah, that sport where the audience share is measured in billions instead of millions.

It's not just the global quadrennial celebration, it's also that the US is playing England today while Louisiana is playing an endless match against British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico. For the latter, the home field is not an advantage.

Oh sure, I joke on my Saturday night show that Louisiana is the Galapagos Island of American cultural development but the English think the US is the Galapagos Island of Anglo culture. (They blame Louisiana's quirkiness on their traditional kicking-dog, the French.)

Tonight, music on the convergence of British Petroleum, Louisiana and soccer.  Oh come on you big baby.  If you listen to public radio then esoterica is practically a nutrient for you.  Don't get too settled. The connections can be surprising including the great Haitian American striker, Gilles Heron, the father of Gil Scott-Heron.

Okay that was written before the show.  It was aspirational but enthusiasm for a topic doesn't provide good music.  In hindsight, what was I thinking, that there would be a huge library of Americana soccer songs?  

I realized the show was going to be dangerous.  Not only the soccer thing but also the Gulf oil leak.  No shortage of overly-amped up emotions with either topic.  At the beginning of the show, I turned off the audio ringer on the evil plastic communicator and sacrificed a cassette mix tape to the radio Gods.   

The show began innocently enough as Katherine Cargo, the striking striker of women's soccer and the Krewe du Vieux's T.O.K.I.N, requested a Gal Holiday song to entertain her poker party friends.  As a member of CRAPS, I took the liberty to substitute a handful of CRAPS songs:

My Life Is A Seven Junior Waters

Crap Shootin' Sinner Lucile Turner

Drunken Gambler  Roosevelt Sykes

Montana Plains Patsy Montana (a suitable Gal Holiday substitute)

A mistake that displeased the radio Gods (and probably Katherine).

A subsequent barrage of phone calls for overly-commercial rock songs forced me to avoid eye contact with the telephone.  Sure I could have put a bag over it but instead I hid under the desk.  It's not easy to operate the equipment from there so the show got even weirder which lead to more phone calls.  I thought turning off the lights would solve the problem.  It didn't. 

It was a tough night.  At 3am I was overjoyed to see my relief, Sam Cammarata's, surfer sandals and puka bead and hemp ankle bracelet.  Damage report Scotty:

Tonight's Box Score 

95 Selections of which 

59 Were songs and

36 interstitials for a musical concentration of almost 

2:1 Music to interstitial but a selection rate of only

1/2 per minute. 

(I've gotta get to one selection per minute to break the never-been-broken radio sound barrier.   Morse Sugar?  No, no.  More interstitials.)  

   4 long-distance e-mails over the week from listeners in Brisbane, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Kentucky (places I assume are beyond my furthest travel to Westwego, LA)  

   1 Number of World Cup games I've missed

138 Number of chips I nervously ate during the US vs. England game (my ex-friend who wasn't paying proper attention to the game counted) 

 19 Tacos eaten by me at Harrison Hall in Greeley, Colorado in 1978

  21 Tacos eaten by Melvin Green at the same table two weeks later 

    4 Prostitutes hanging around my house at 4am

    0 Arrests by French Quarter security guards, Jimmy and Wendell.  

They told me the arrestee I wrote about last week was a Norwegian sailor who believes he was drugged.  

OHHHHHH - You need some award for wading all the way through my bloggy drivel.  Click the Charlie Brooker video toward the end of the song playlist.  One viewing of the magnificent two-minute production and you'll be searching for every Charlie Brooker video on youtube.  

Playlist Tracks