Planet Waves FM with Eric Francis

Today's edition of Planet Waves FM takes you on a tour of the world, beginning with the question: how often do you freak out? Then we look at eclipses both lunar and solar, considering the implications thereof. Today would also have been Jerry Garcia's 75th birthday, and commemorating that I have a musically rich program.

First, thank you to my listeners and readers for providing the funding we need to tell the world about The Gemstone File in a professionally distributed press release going out soon. We will send a copy to this list once it's ready for distribution. Your contributions make Planet Waves FM and The Gemstone File possible. Today's edition takes us one step closer to the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21. I look at the Sun and Mars in Leo, and consider this past Sunday's first of two Leo New Moons. Music is by Talking Heads.

Tonight's is an unusual edition of Planet Waves FM, mostly covering something called The Gemstone File. This is a soon-to-be-released collection of documents, dating from about 1930 to 2017, related to scientific fraud.

Madness is unfolding by the hour with the Trump campaign/administration's ties to Russia coming out into the open. We now know that campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and the kid whose name I forgot — Jared Kushner — all met with a representative of the Kremlin to talk about dirt on Hillary Clinton. Yet watching this slow-motion train wreck does not help us heal the world. The chaos that's leading to it is coming from somewhere, or something, and in tonight's edition, I try to get at just what that something is.

Today's edition of Planet Waves FM features a rare interview with don Oscar Miro-Quesada Solevo, a Peruvian medicine man. My conversation with Don Oscar covers three topics: the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017; the internet; and the nature and meaning of sex.

In tonight's Planet Waves FM I have an interview with Melanie Reinhart, author of Chiron and the Healing Journey. This is really the latest installment of a conversation that's been going on for about 19 years, by phone, on Skype, at conferences and by email. The interview begins about one hour and 40 minutes into the show, and lasts a little more than an hour.

Tonight, for solstice eve, I have a special edition of Planet Waves FM for you. Sometimes it seems like the most sensitive men, who respect and appreciate women the most, have been the most damaged by feminism. That's the topic I focus in an interview with Kasia Urbaniak, former 17-year dominatrix, nearly-ordained Daoist nun, and currently headmistress of The Academy, a training school for women located in New York City. My musical guest is Alan Parsons, the engineer behind The Beatles and Pink Floyd, who emerged as a first-rate artist in his own right.

Today is a full-strength bangin' Gemini edition, featuring music by performance artist Laurie Anderson and a guest appearance by Weegee Fellig, one of the inventors of photojournalism (view chart below). And, of course, lots of astrology.

It's often been said that when the student is ready, the teacher arrives — and in that spirit, I'm here to introduce you to Kasia Urbaniak. A former dominatrix who was once paid $64,000 for a ten-minute session (her job while putting herself and her sister through university), Kasia now teaches women's empowerment workshops. Tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM is a double-header, wherein two full segments are devoted to a conversation I had with Kasia last night. That segment begins at 1 hour and 40 minutes if you want to skip right to it.

Tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM looks at the interesting inner-planet activity at the moment (summed up in Monday's edition of Planet Waves). This includes Mercury, Venus and Mars all making aspects to outer planets before changing signs and forming a magnificent pattern from about June 4 through June 10.

The word terror means extreme fear, and that's the goal of terrorism. In tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM, I look at the chart for the bombing at Manchester Arena on Monday night, and ask what, exactly, we might learn from these events.

Today's edition of Planet Waves FM is really a glorified version of my old show, the Music Appreciation Hour. Only today you might say that it's Record Producer Appreciation Hour, if that producer is Brian Eno and if his clients are some of the most sublime musical artists of our lifetimes.

Tonight, celebrating the 69th birthday of Brian Eno, Planet Waves FM is a tribute to his music, as well as to art and sex. We'll hear music spanning about 30 years of Brian's career, from his early solo days to the early 21st century, including one movement of Music For Airports, covered by the virtuoso ensemble, Bang on a Can.

Tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM focuses on Beltane, though first I describe the current, highly and deeply unusual Mercury station direct in Aries. That takes place Wednesday. Mercury is stationing direct conjunct the Uranus-Eris conjunction — a kind of historic event, and I'm curious to see what Wednesday's news holds.

Who was Robert M. Pirsig? Tonight's Planet Waves FM offers an interview (republished from NPR more than 43 years ago) with the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, who died Monday in Maine. Before I go there, I explore the current astrology and the Taurus New Moon, including a look at Mars square Nessus and some of its implications; Venus in the last degrees of Pisces; and Mercury stationing direct conjunct Uranus-Eris.