Ticket To Ride (TOTR 526)

 

-originally aired on WTTU 88.5 FM The Nest on Wednesday, August 26, 2026
-listen to the audio archive here:
Stream Ticket To Ride - TOTR 526 by Teacher On The Radio | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

-in this episode, we dive immediately into the Teacher’s theme for the fall 2026 “American Mixtape” class, featuring the 1960s & 1970s, including the darker side of the counterculture, with a specific focus on how the 60s influenced the 1980s & 90s.
-photo by Vernon Merritt iii of the Barker Ranch, a temporary residence of the Manson family
-all views only represent the host, the guests, & the artists played, never the student managers or the Communication department or the university

Aretha Franklin - Jumpin Jack Flash (1986 recording of the 1968 Rolling Stones song)
U2 - Helter Skelter (1988 release of the 1968 Beatles song, recorded live on the Joshua Tree tour in Fall 1987)
Sonic Youth & Lydia Lunch - Death Valley ‘69 (a 1985 meditation on the brutal Manson Family murders of 1969)
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun (1985)
Husker Du - Ticket To Ride (1985 version of a 1965 Beatles song)
R.E.M. - There She Goes Again (1983 version of a 1967 song by the Velvet Underground & Nico)
Bongwater - Just May Be The One (1988 version of a 1967 song by The Monkees)
The Cure - Purple Haze (1993 version of the a 1967 song by Jimi Hendrix)
Echo & the Bunnymen - People Are Strange (1987 version of a 1967 song by The Doors)
Sisters of Mercy - Gimme Shelter (1992 version of a 1967 song by The Rolling Stones)
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Dear Prudence (1983 version of a 1968 song by The Beatles)
The Cult - Brother Wolf; Sister Moon (1985)
Rain Parade - What’s She Done To Your Mind (1983)
The Gun Club - Eskimo Blue Day (1990 version of a 1969 song by Jefferson Airplane)
Jason & the Scorchers - Absolutely Sweet Marie (1983 version of a 1966 song by Bob Dylan)
Camper Van Beethoven - We Saw Jerry’s Daughter (1986)
Indigo Girls - Uncle John’s Band (1991 version of the Grateful Dead song that was released in 1970 on Workingman’s Dead)
10,000 Maniacs - Peace Train (1987 version of the 1971 Yusuf/Cat Stevens song)
Doctor & The Medics - Spirit In The Sky (1986 version of the 1969 song by Norman Greenbaum)
The Soup Dragons & Junior Reid - I’m Free (1990 version of the 1965 song by The Rolling Stones)
U2 - All Along The Watchtower (1988 release of a 1987 version of the 1967 Bob Dylan song)
U2 - Paint It Black (1991 version of 1966 song by The Rolling Stones)
The Lemonheads - Mrs. Robinson (the 1993 version of the 1968 song by Simon & Garfunkel from the soundtrack to the Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate)
The Dream Academy - Life In A Northern Town (1985)

Claire Vaye Watkins books (referenced early in the show)
Battleborn - short stories 2012
Gold Fame Citrus - novel 2015
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness - novel 2021
Yellow Pine - novel 2026

Claire Vaye Watkins was born in Bishop, California in 1984. She is the daughter of Martha Watkins, described by Claire as "this incredible dynamo, a great bullshitter," and Paul Watkins, a former member of the Manson Family and a close collaborator of Charles Manson. Claire Watkins was raised in the Mojave Desert, first in Tecopa, California and then across the state line in Pahrump, Nevada. Photo by Dustin Snipes. 

Dolly Parton (1946-2026) - RIP - Pop-up episode

 

For Dolly & all who grieve her!
Aired on WTTU on Tuesday, August 25th, 2026 from 5-6pm central time.

Guest poetry reading by P.A. Jones of Alabama.

Jolene
Joshua
Just Because I'm A Woman                                                                                                        9 to 5 - with Kelly Clarkson

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues - with Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt

Peace Train - with Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Long As I Can See The Light - with John Fogerty
Softly and Tenderly - with Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt

Rainbowland - with Miley Cyrus
Freebird - with Lynyrd Skynyrd

𝗗𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗗𝗜𝗘𝗗 𝗧𝗢𝗗𝗔𝗬

Dolly Parton died today.

That sentence feels
too small for the occasion.

Too plain.

Like saying
the mountains lost a tree
when the whole damn ridge
has changed shape.

She had been here so long
I had placed her among
the permanent things.

Front porches.

Sunday dinner.

Old women snapping beans
with a radio playing
beside the kitchen sink.

Those Tennessee mountains
rising blue through the morning fog.

Some voices become part
of the country itself.

They settle into the wood.

Get carried through screen doors
and open truck windows.

Follow us down two-lane roads
past little churches,
abandoned filling stations,
and houses where somebody
is still trying to make
one paycheck stretch
all the way to Friday.

Dolly knew those houses.
She came from a cabin
full of children,
hand-me-down clothes,
old hymns,
hard winters,
and the kind of love
that learns how to multiply
when there is never enough
of anything else.

She carried that cabin
everywhere she went.

Carried the smoke from the chimney.

Carried her mother’s singing.

Carried the hills
and the worn-out hands
of people who worked
their whole lives
without seeing their names
written anywhere.

Then she walked beneath
the brightest lights in America
covered in rhinestones
and refused to apologize
for a single inch of herself.

Lord, she was something.

Hair piled halfway to heaven.

A laugh big enough
to fill a room.

A voice that could sound
like Saturday night
and Sunday morning
in the same breath.

People saw the wigs,
the dresses,
the impossible shine.

Dolly saw them looking.

Then she smiled
and went about the business
of owning the whole damn room.

She wrote songs
for women standing
on aching feet
while some fool behind a desk
counted their minutes.

Songs for people
lying awake beside somebody
they were already losing.

Songs for those who loved enough
to let go.

Songs for jealous hearts,
lonely beds,
empty pockets,
and anybody who ever stared
toward the mountains
wondering whether there was
another life beyond them.

She knew a song
could sit beside a person
when words from everybody else
had quit working.

She also knew
a child with a book
might discover a road
leading somewhere
nobody in their family
had ever gone.

So she mailed them books.

Millions of them.

Sent them into trailers,
farmhouses,
apartments,
cabins,
and little bedrooms
where a child opened a cover
and found the world
waiting inside.

She made more money
than the girl in that cabin
could have imagined.

Then she spent a lifetime
reaching back toward children
who were still there.

That may be the truest thing
any of us can do
with whatever light
finds its way to us.

Reach back.

Keep the door open.

Remember the road.

Dolly died today.

Tonight her voice
will come through speakers
in kitchens and trucks
and roadside bars
from Tennessee
clear down through Alabama.

Somebody will turn it up.

Somebody will cry.

Some woman working late
will sing along.

Some little girl
will stand before a mirror,
hold a hairbrush like a microphone,
and believe the room
is already hers.

And somewhere
a child will open
a book with Dolly’s name inside
and begin sounding out
the first sentence
of a life she helped make larger.

That is how a person stays.

In the songs we keep singing.

In the doors we leave open.

In the hands reaching backward
from whatever mountain
we have managed to climb.

The rhinestones will keep shining.

The books will keep arriving.

And the rest of us
will have to decide
what we are going to do
with all the light
she left behind.

- Paul A. Jones 

Cookeville’s Annual Backstage Series Begins a New Season with the Bold Love Potions of a Classic Play (local theater review)

 

This time last year, I had the privilege of attending one of the sold-out performances of Agatha Christie’s “Mousetrap” at the Cookeville Performing Arts Center. There’s something soothing about seeing a spooky show that foretells Fall when we are still trapped in the steamy dog days of late summer. This summer’s opening act to another season of the local Backstage Series is called “All Because of Agatha,” but it’s not about (or by) Agatha Christie. This stellar show does, however, bring the needed autumnal and occult ambiance to the sweltering conclusion of summer. 

Prepare to be surprised by the spicy chemistry of the characters and their campy interactions, all set against the surreal backdrop of a haunted house in Salem, Massachusetts. Portraying the real estate agent Mr. Van Buren, Brent Fleshman hides nothing from the young couple prepared to purchase the otherwise wonderfully furnished home, known for its annual hauntings by the martyred witch Agatha Forbes. (As an added thing, some of the attractive set pieces are available for purchase at the end of the run.) 

Caleb Grinder and Stella Land seem innocent enough as the leading couple, the O’Haras, but as the drama proceeds, their relationship gets more than tested by everyone’s anxiety about the upcoming annual haunting. Can Joan O’Hara’s interest in the supernatural sustain her and her marriage to Duff O’Hara through the ensuing craziness? 

For three brief acts, audiences will be awed by the laugh-out-loud chaos of the characters’ chemistry, all colliding joyfully in seemingly random romance, with everyone connected by their anticipation of ghost Agatha’s approach. While the O’Haras might have imagined settling peacefully into their new digs, Jonathan Troy’s script had other ideas, with those ideas involving nonstop comedic interruptions. While Reona Lee as Mrs. Boggs fails to get the couple invested in the Society of Psychic Phenomena, the O’Haras do seek a personal chef and housekeeper in Anna Stites as Ethel Hinkston, who brings so much sparkle and energy to an already energetic cast. 

By the second act, it’s become one big party complete with nibbles, as everyone awaits Agatha, everyone including Matt Kirby as Dr. Randolph and Paije Beaudry as Madame La Solda, the doctor’s mother and an over-the-top supernatural medium. Not to leave any angle untapped, Mrs. O’Hara’s aunt Thelma shows up to add yet more silliness and to impress the understated charm of Dr. Randolph, which Bre Brown does beautifully in that bold role. On party night, Travis Jay Wiggins is there as journalist Flip Cannon, to document the entirely delicious debacle for the local paper and to make eyes for Anna.  

In theater and film, when an actor becomes so strongly identified with a particular character they portray, that is sometimes called typecasting. For big stars like Jon Hamm, that means Don Draper from “Mad Men” has followed him around in every role since. While typecasting might have a negative implication in the film industry, I propose that every instance of it surely began with one director or producer doing an amazing job in casting a particular show. For Cookeville’s “All Because of Agatha,” director Jordyn Strilecky could not have done better than in casting local activist and store owner Montana Chambers as Agatha Forbes. What was already a great production becomes truly transcendent once Agatha enters the chat. Some naturally gifted performers were born for certain roles, and that is certainly the case here. 

Community theater productions carry the added benefit of bringing people together across generations for in-person inspiration in this increasingly online world. It’s always a thrill to see newcomers to the local stage mix it up seasoned veterans with decades in the scene. Cookeville’s new version of the older play “All Because of Agatha” is all laughs and love potions, a magical mystery romp and haunted hee-haw, a fantastic feel-good escape from the August heat.

-Andrew Smith (aka Teacher On The Radio) has been Cookeville’s theater critic for 20 years.
-photo of lead performer Montana Chambers courtesy of the Cookeville Performing Arts Center’s Facebook feed
-All Because of Agatha by Jonathan Troy runs on August 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, and 22 at 7pm, and August 15 and 16 at 2pm. The performances are all held in the heart of Cookeville at 10 East Broad Street. Tickets are available in advance and at the door, if a show is not sold out. You can call the box office at 931-528-1313.