wendywelch

Hi, I’m Punk. I’m the newest kid at Chez Cats here, and I have a few observations to make.

I was sick when I got here. Had a cough that wouldn’t go away, sneezing all the time, kinda hard to breathe. The staff here got me a shot. It hurt, but I started feeling better right away. Then I had to take this nasty white stuff for about a week. They hid it in tuna. Which was kinda manipulative, because, hey, tuna. But you know, here I am, healthy and happy, so all’s well that ends well.

I do sniff my tuna with more suspicion these days, and wouldn’tcha know it, we don’t get tuna nearly so often. The other cats here, they keep asking if I could fake some sniffles or something just so we could have it again, but I really didn’t like the white stuff.

Now, speaking of illnesses, according to the other cats here, the staff didn’t used to work 24/7. One of them, the female, was gone quite a lot, and the male was off at least one day a week. But there’s this thing happening in the human world. They keep talking about a pan full of denim? That sounds tragic to me. Pans are for food. Denim is for scratching. Mix the two up and you’re going to have some confused, angry kitties.

So far I haven’t seen this denim platter served up, so, whatever. The meals continue regular, which is more than I saw in my previous two years of life, let me tell you. Mom abandoned us at an early age, and the people in the trailer under which I was squatting, well, they weren’t forthcoming with tuna. A lot of pasta scraps. If I never eat tomato sauce again in my life, I’m good with that.

This pan of denim, though, I guess it’s got a lot of people rattled. Sometimes the staff here get to talking, and you can tell they’re nervous. That’s when I pull out my full range of charming tricks. You think I survived on pasta leftovers alone? I have a street cuteness routine that will knock your socks off.

So when they start talking scary, I do the ol’ mincing along routine. I can strut, baby, believe me. And after they notice me mincing around their legs, I do the feather boa tail floof. You know the one: tail up, slow rub, entwined so your front meets your back. Sometimes, if I need to pull out all the stops, I give my own tail a tiny wee bite, like I don’t know if I’m coming or going. They love that. Makes ’em laugh every time.

Next we do fur therapy. They reach down and rub, and believe you me I spend a LOT of time to make myself this beautiful. They love my silky long fur, and if I regret their fingers tangling up what it’s taken me hours to get just right, well, do I say anything? I do not. I just head to a corner and set it back in place. You should see the amount of product I run through. Good thing we cats make our own gel.

If they’re still not cheered up, for the piece de resistance, I’ll do the chair jump. I have perfected the art of pretzel sleeping: front half one way, back half another. And while a lady never snores, I do have this little musical routine I do, a kind of puff, puff, puff, puff up the scale, and then crescendo down with a small WHEEEEEE. I can hear them killing themselves laughing in the next room. Sometimes I open one eye to check on ’em. That never fails.

All part of the job. Eventually this denim thing will wear out, and pans will once again be full of tuna. Until then, gotcher back, staffers.

Jack hits the mark and gets his guest post in on time – – –

My first stab at presenting a Celtic music show on radio was for the BBC in Glasgow and then I moved to a monthly program for Heartland FM in Pitlochry for a number of years. That live show ended up being recorded on air and sent to WETS FM in Tennessee as part of a reciprocal agreement. Finally, I moved to Big Stone Gap in VA and was fairly quickly invited to present a weekly show for them. That has been going for almost thirteen years and is also now carried by WEHC FM in Emory VA and Alive Radio in Scotland. It’s called Celtic Clanjamphry (ClanJam for short).

Here’s how it gets put together –

Because I can’t concentrate on working the desk and doing the links between music simultaneously I’ve always had a techy handle the former and had many fine people do that for me over the years. To begin with I’d do the hour and a half drive to the station in Johnson City to pre-record three or four shows at a time, carrying a collection of CDs with all the music arranged in order for each program. But that changed greatly when Wendy and I moved to Wytheville (a much longer drive).

Luckily we’d gotten friendly with Dirk Wiley in Wise and he’s just two hours away and has a very good home studio. He quickly tuned in to my way of working and we were able to move to four and eventually five at a time. Instead of carrying CDs to him I upload folders of music to DropBox and he downloads them ahead of my visit.

But Covid 19 has changed things a bit –

Dirk and I now work at a distance and while he still gets the music ahead of time, He checks and lets me know how many minutes of talk time I have. I do all the uploading of music at my workstation in a corner of our spare room which has my PC, an open reel tape recorder, a cassette recorder and a turntable.

Once I know how many minutes I have it’s time to move to the log cabin in the back yard that used to be the county jail in the 1800s to record the links, the mid show station ident and the short promos that are broadcast during the week ahead of each program. The cabin has thick walls and is well away from any traffic noise!

But it’s not the same as sitting across the desk from Dirk in his studio and blethering back and forward. That always adds a lot to the atmosphere of ClanJams. So now that we’ve all learned more about following the Covid 19 guidelines we think we can safely get back to our usual way of working and both Dirk and I will shortly be sitting, suitably distanced, in the same room – his studio (and the squirrels won’t have to stay quiet in the attic of the jail).