Cotolo Chronicles

So goes June, 2005, and we bid a fondling farewell to the month with a great guest on the June 30 program. Leigh Silver has been our guest before but our love for her has grown so much since then that we had to have her on again.

She is called by some, the “Vegetarian Vocalist,” but don’t let that fool you, she is not a one-trick pony. Indeed, Leigh is a model, a songwriter, a musician, a singer and an impressive person. You will totally enjoy her guest spot, as so many did before. Check out some info on Leigh by clicking here.

Also tonight (time permitting) …

Forget about pirating movies, make your own. It is all the rage to become a digital director using your home computer.
Pot causes cancer is a subject no on wants to address, so we will bring it up.
How normal are you? You may be surprised at your common ways or find out you are a bloody basket case.
Then whammo, the two hours are gone and you have hopefully replenished all of your precious bodily fluids. Be with us at 9 p.m. EST live on many of the following stations. And check the list for rebroadcasts and podcast feeds.

COTOLO CHRONICLES
9 p.m. EST Thursdays
http://www.ampcast.com/
http://www.seanradio.com/
http://www.hot-fm.co.uk/
http://extremeradiotampa.com
http://www.extremeradio.co.uk/
http://www.rantradio.com/
http://www.live365.com/stations/quikcliff
http://www.flashradio.cjb.net/
http://york.onsrn.com/weekend/
http://www.krushradio.com
http://jeeperone.tripod.com/
http://www.indiemusicxchange.com/
http://www.newtimeradio.com
http://www.indieartistradio.com
http://www.thewolfradio.com/
http://www.crystalone.net/
http://www.usradiox.com/
http://www.radio306.com
http://www.kjagradio.com
http://www.kubcradio.com
http://www.jiggyjaguar.com
http://www.shoutcast.com/
http://www.podcastalley.com

Listening live? Where? The network feed from Pennsylvania - 9:00 p.m.
Tokyo - 10:00 a.m. : Sydney - 11:00 a.m. : Los Angeles - 6:00 p.m. : Chicago - 8:00 p.m. : New York - 9:00 p.m. : London - 2:00 a.m. : Baghdad - 5:00 a.m.

Some of my thoughts on where we are this time of year as this week of the year begins . . .

Well, Billy Graham retired. I followed Bill every step of the way. Yes, he told me to call him “Bill” when I helped him write some of his inspirational talks in or around 1982. Even though he ignored my suggestion that he leave the term “God” out of his orations, we got along well.

I say St. Louis wins the World Series this year if they are one of the teams playing.

Lots of people come up to me in common public places and they ask, “Frank, what ever happened to Marshall Thompson, the actor?” I tell them he died in the early ‘90s and they usually think I said he was in his early 90s and the whole conversation becomes annoying. We miss you, Marshall.

Of all the people I have ever met, Salvador Dali impressed me the most. Many people knew Sal (his friends called 'em that) as a strange man with a strange presence who painted some strange things. But the Sal I knew was a normal guy who just liked to screw around with art and enjoyed tossing fruit off of roves just to see how they would splat. He was also quite a boxer. He once knocked out Picasso in the first round of a charity match the two held in Lyons, France with a quick left to Pablo's expanding middle. Of course that was during Pablo's "Blue Period," and led immediately to Pablo's "Black and Blue Period."

But I digress. I think it has to do with the current heat wave, which is playing tricks on my mind and making me unable to wear a three-piece suit. Let’s just get this week going with confidence and a tweak of hope, which, by the way, is the name of my new book, available this week at all participating Bookbasher stores. You can get Confidence and a Tweak of Hope by searching for it at Amazon dot com. If the search comes up empty, write to Amazon and say, “Hey, where is this book, guys?”

Thanks to Walter Stewart for his spirited conversation as our guest on the June 23 program. If you did not catch the live show, check the affliates list below to listen to a rebroadcast this weekend. And, podcasters can go get their feed now, it's up.

We offer our thoughts and prayers to the family of Clarence Carson Parks II, songwriter, musician and veteran folksinger. Parks passed away on June 22. You are surely acquainted with his celebrated accomplishment as author of the 1967 hit song, Something Stupid. His brother, the brilliant Van Dyke Parks, will be a special guest on our program some time this summer.

The long, hot summer will be totally cool on Thursday nights. Look for vibrant conversations with guests Leigh Silver, RIPE, Paul Williams, Dr. Popoli, Van Dyke Parks and more in July and August.

Keep checking in here, at this blog, for updates, news, thoughts, rumors and everything connected to our program. Have a great weekend.

On the June 23 show, Walter Stewart is bound to be our guest after two problematic attempts. Walter is a rock-war veteran, having been in the music business since the 1960s. Today, he knows all the “where-are-they-now” acts as well as he knows where many of the skeletons are buried. Not only that, he will tell us, hopefully, why the music industry was burying skeletons.

It is officially summer and that means Thursday nights become more dramatic and dangerous, leaving a voracious appetite for alternative broadcasting options. That’s where we come in. Cotolo Chronicles was here before the blogs, before the onslaught of internet talk radio and before the podcasts. This means, among other things, we have more than just entertainment on our minds. From our tattered beginnings, before we had a network of interested ‘net stations, we miffed everyone by telling the hard-boiled truth about the digitial lifestyle. Now, we seem set adrift in the sea of program vehicles that navigate with abandon and other sinister passengers.

So this summer, make your Thursday nights available for news, information, conversation and insubordination with the program that originates from your computer and echoes on your iPod, Cotolo Chronicles. And keep checking this blog for information on upcoming guests—celebrities that are on no other internet show—and for other things.

COTOLO CHRONICLES
9 p.m. EST Thursdays
http://www.ampcast.com/
http://www.seanradio.com/
http://www.hot-fm.co.uk/
http://extremeradiotampa.com
http://www.extremeradio.co.uk/
http://www.rantradio.com/
http://www.live365.com/stations/quikcliff
http://www.flashradio.cjb.net
http://york.onsrn.com/weekend/
http://www.krushradio.com
http://jeeperone.tripod.com
http://www.podcast.net/
http://www.indiemusicxchange.com/
http://www.newtimeradio.com
http://www.indieartistradio.com
http://www.thewolfradio.com/
http://www.crystalone.net/
http://www.usradiox.com
http://www.radio306.com
http://www.kjagradio.com
http://www.kubcradio.com
http://www.jiggyjaguar.com
http://www.shoutcast.com
http://www.podcastalley.com/

In 2002, Jeff Koon and Andy Powell, two young boys from Georgia wrote a book and built a web site on the same subject—dumb laws. Laws govern these United States of ours. Inspired by Koon and Powell’s efforts (see http://www.dumblaws.com ) here is a list of dumb laws that may incite you to do further investigation about legal behavior in your area. You are probably breaking laws without even knowing it. Reading this may be a misdemeanor for all you know.

In Pennsylvania it is illegal to sing in the bathtub, true, but it is a felony to change the lyrics of any song you sing.
In Georgia, where you can carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket on Sunday, it will mean a hefty fine if anyone tries to lick it there.
In Iowa it is a violation of the law for a man with a moustache to kiss a woman in public. Further, anyone kissing a bearded lady from a circus will be in for a $250,000 fine and have to work free for a week cleaning scissors at a barbershop.
A Maine law states you may not step out of a plane in flight, unless, that is, you have a parachute or the intention to commit suicide.
In South Dakota, though it is illegal to fall asleep in a cheese factory, you will be in much more trouble if you fall to sleep and have a sexual dream involving fondue.
In Idaho a law stating you may not fish on a camel's back was amended to include playing Monopoly on a buzzard’s beak, dancing on a groundhog, having nausea while six feet from a cow giving birth, playing a banjo for an audience of six or more mallards, eating a peach in the presence of a carpenter, dressing like Julie Christie at a party serving liquor and making a paper airplane while sitting on a mule.

I will go research some more and deliver them here, soon.

Ernest Hemingway once said to me, "Frank, if I knew you back when, I'da blown your head off instead of mine." And, of course, I once worked in a circus with The Flying Wambangos and papa Wambango liked me enough to say, "Remember, not all good things you do come back to you. Sometimes you get a disease instead." This never impressed me, but then one day I had an affair with Greta Garbo. But she was so old at the time she hardly noticed.

Each weekend is for pondering the things that have happened, the people who things have happened to. Like one Saturday long ago I was fishing with Robert Redford and he said, "A river runs through here," to which I replied, "Of course, you nut, that's where the hook goes in." But he was never as kind as Ezra Pound, who wrote about me in many books but left my name out. Just like Jack Webb did in that episode of Dragnet where the two guys steal a car and one of them ... Oh wait, that was Friday.

Every weekend grows dearer to me and should to you, especially if you are over 80. When Vincent Price looked at me that Saturday long ago, he wasn't kidding when he said, "Does my skin look like a sleeping bag to you?" Oh, the memories pour out as the Saturday sun paints the porch (heck, I ain't gonna get on my knees and paint it).

Tim Leary once said to me, "Frank, I feel the universe is only but a microcosmic point on the pin of a needle," and then he spun around four times and sang Lady Be Good. But I remembered that and on this day I tell you all to remember that what you say to people may so impress them that later in their lives they recall it and think of it and say it to someone else. You think the things you say aren't important sometimes but other times they mean nothing.

I leave you with this today, as my mind rambles between the eyes of the faces I have seen and the ears I have pierced: Hey laddy laddy and a cha cha cha. When push comes to shove, you will fall. And really, think of this one last thing: If an asteroid hits the earth and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Now that Michael Jackson is “not guilty,” broke and thinking of going on tour again, you have to ask yourself the question, “Who really cares?” And, as far as Al Franken running for a Senate seat, you have to ask yourself the question, “Who really cares?”

Plus, there is an email going around asking people to sign a petition so that the government can give money to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System, otherwise known as, respectively, NPR and PBS.

Since NPR was so rude to independent broadcasting by denying us access to their “free” news broadcasts (check our archives for a show we did on the subject of “the empty suits at NPR who claim to be liberal but will not condone independent broadcasting”) and yet have joined the podcast fad quicker than a city rat eats through a parking meter, we suggest you write back to whoever sends you such an email as we have:

Dear NPR supporters,

As a working member of the internet broadcasting world, I could not care less if the government gives NPR a penny. NPR would not, after all, support internet radio by allowing us to use their "free" news reports. Seems that their worries were the kind we expect from commercial broadcasters. They not only denied access, they encouraged me to "rat" on anyone who was using their stream on internet radio. Does the "N" in NPR stand for Nazi?

No signatures, no money and, until they recognize the new medium we work in, no verbal support. I have already editorialized on their corporate-like behavior. I could care less now if they tank. From here on in, let them come to us with an olive branch. We who work for nothing, we who campaign for non-commercial corruption and we who pioneer the new frontier of communications.

Frank Cotolo
Cotolo Chronicles

Another Monday is hurled upon us like a medicine ball heading for impact upon our chests. It is always difficult beginning a workweek. However, if you change your perspective and think about how difficult it would be to start a week without work, living on the street in a cardboard box, two hankies and a dog named Stinky, you could feel better. That is, unless your dream of freedom is becoming a sociopath, which, I might add and now do add, we endorse. We also condone pets named Stinky.

We are thinking of gimmicks to draw more listeners to our show. It seems that the heady stuff has a limited appeal; we need to add more action to “radio.” So, keep those suggestions coming in, email me at fcotolo@ampcast.com … We entertain all suggestions.

A continuing adventure in literature on the Internet is available at Indie Journal Daily. A novel, The Complete and Unabridged History of Japan is being presented weekly (three chapters a workweek). Archives help you catch up with what you have missed. Check it all out—free—and do it before this novel is finished and goes to hardbound hard copy.

Podcast Alley is a popular podcasting directory. It maintains a Top 50. Placing on that list is very helpful to our program. The list is determined by voting, and at the start of each new month, they wipe the voting slate clean and start fresh. You can vote once per month, and also leave a comment, if you wish to wax poetic. Your vote (click here) is appreciated to help keep Cotolo Chronicles in view to pick up new audience members. Thanks for your support.

Podcasts of all kinds are also available at Idiotvox dot com … You can get our feed there and check out other programs. No votes are necessary here.

So here comes another weekend and if you are in the summer portions of the globe, it will be a steamy one. Yesterday I drove in a wild thunderstorm that produced gloriously clear streaks of lightning in the sky. I wish to protest, however, how people today mis-spell ‘lightning.’ It is not ‘lightening.’ It is ‘lightning.’

And here it is, only June.

Recommended mainstream reading over the weekend includes a list of quick-to-get-though Western American romance novels. Click here for a list. These books are simple and mushy and don’t provide much incite for thinking, but hey, it is going to be steamy out and even if you have air-conditioning indoors (why would you have it outdoors?) you will be annoyed and slowed by the barometric pressure. Who wants heavy, right?

I condone all reading. I am not an intellectual slob. I am hardly an intellectual. I am, though, a slob in many ways. But this is not about my slobbery (yes, I made up the word and I am proud of it and feel I have deserved the right to do so), this is about service to the masses, which I try to provide with objectivity, in a subjective sort of way.

And please if you get a chance, go vote for our show at Podcast Alley.

So stay cool and remember you can listen for the first time or again to our June 9 show on any number of internet radio stations or download for a podcast (see list below). In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun!

On the June 9 program we welcome Extreme Radio Tampa to the affiliates’ list (see below). “Tampa,” a Tyler Woodward project, will pick up the show live from the network feed at 9 p.m. EST.

On the Dressing Room Hour—at 8—Dom Cimei will perform a live acoustic set of material, mostly solo. Larry Michelich and I will support him with some tinkering. Cimei is a popular Ampcast member and Michelich is the former A-Man Charlie of C-Chronicles and COO of his own syndicated ‘net show, Cool Noise Radio.

Michelich and Cimei are featured conversationalists on the network show at 9 p.m.

On the following updated affliliate list, we urge you to check each station for their own variety of programs, as well as when C-Chronicles is broadcast. From here to Timbuktu, you can hear our show rebroadcast over the next weekend on many of these stations. And, of course, if you fancy a podcast, we got that too, with some host sites also listed.

COTOLO CHRONICLES
9 p.m. EST Thursdays
http://www.ampcast.com
http://www.hot-fm.co.uk
http://www.seanradio.com
http://extremeradiotampa.com
http://www.extremeradio.co.uk
http://www.rantradio.com
http://www.live365.com/stations/quikcliff
http://www.flashradio.cjb.net
http://york.onsrn.com/weekend
http://www.krushradio.com
http://jeeperone.tripod.com
http://www.indiemusicxchange.com
http://www.newtimeradio.com
http://www.indieartistradio.com
http://www.thewolfradio.com
http://www.crystalone.net
http://www.usradiox.com
http://www.radio306.com
http://www.kjagradio.com
http://www.kubcradio.com
http://www.jiggyjaguar.com
http://www.shoutcast.com
http://www.podcastalley.com

Today, I want to invoke the laws of inspiration. I want to be one of those contemporary kinds who or whom or that makes you feel more energized. So, I refer you to a few links.

First, think about those small moments that ring loudly. Click here.

Next, second at the least, explore your expectations. Click here.

And while I am at it, let me discuss same-sex marriage, even if you don't have a member of the same gender you wish to join with in matrimony. Click here.

There will not be a quiz, so don't take notes. Just wander through your own thoughts as you ponder. Yes, ponder as you wander is exactly what I am urging. And be on the look out for The Wandering Ponderer, or The Pondering Wanderer (I forget the title, now). It is my new book, available this week at Bookbusters, Bookbinders, Bookbakers and Bookbuilders. It features all new material, although I borrowed some words that were also used by James Joyce in one of his books. It couldn't be helped, since we wrote in the same language.

You can write to me at fcotolo@ampcast.com about any of these matters or others. But it is best you tend to all of your responsibilities and chores before you spend any time writing to a stranger. And if I am not a stranger to you, then think through our relationship and ask yourself why it is that you don't buy me more things to secure my loyalty. And if you are a good, good friend, then I doubt if you are reading this at all.

This weekend you can hear the rebroadcast of our most recent show on one more affiliate, this one headquartered in London, England (there are so many Londons that I have to specify the country). Phil Wilson tells us that he loves the show and will broadcast it on HOT-FM.CO.UK every Sunday at 10 p.m. Great Britain time. Parliament will take note, I imagine. Welcome to Phil and my mates.

And here is another weekend, its face reared in the gloomy weather that launches it. Indeed, as the song goes, “June showers bring June flowers.” All right, so I changed the song. How about, "a foggy day in London town/Cotolo Chronicles the chosen sound..." Stiff-upper-lip, Watson.

Next week on the show, Dom Cimei and Larry Michelich join me in some paling around, music and conversation, so don’t miss the June 9 program. If you come into the Ampcast chat room at 8 p.m. EST, you can hear the Dressing Room Hour, where Dom will perform an acoustic set.

All other things being equal, which they are not, I invite you to check in here next week for reminders, remainders, remorse, refills, reverberations, rehashing, retribution, recourse and resounding reasons to exist.