Summer Vacation? Summer Hiatus!

It's not quite a vacation Self Help Radio is taking more than a forced relocation. (It never should have gotten married!) But like a vacation, it's being packed into a rented minivan & driven across the country. Unlike a vacation, it'll settle at its destination. Please drive safely & don't shoot bottle rockets at Self Help Radio on the fourth of July. No matter how much you love freedom.

Last week's episode (about lullabies) (it's also the last Self Help Radio in Austin!) is available for your drowsy enjoyment at selfhelpradio.net. Also available are a few Self Help Radio Extras (click to see what they are) & a year's worth of Self Help Radios in the Archive. Listen to them again for the first time if ever. & please don't begrudge me the silence for the next week. Truly, we'll be on the road. Again. Not necessarily making music with my friends, but you never know. Memphis is on the way!

See you (I hope) in a week or so (or so) with new Self Help Radio news (newsy)!

Preface To Lullabies: A Day Without Sleep

It's probably no surprise that a fellow who does a show called Self Help Radio doesn't sleep too well, & it's absolutely true. I am generally in bed late & out of bed early - in late because I am drinking & listening to music at all hours, up early to feed the flock, who all demand to be fed at 9am sharp or they start feasting on my eyes. But today was awful. Here's what I did today:

Up at some ungodly hour around 7am or so (after getting to bed at 3am for no good reason except I was drinking whiskey & watching an awful Vin Diesel movie) because our sick pup made a ruckus while the other two pups were taken out for their walk (not by me - if it were up to me, there would've been no walk & therefore no ruckus). We had an inspector come at 10am - we're selling the house, you know, since we're moving in a week - & although he let me doze drowsily while losing spectacularly at a very old & silly computer game a friend at work gave me I had to go across the street & hide at a neighbor's when the buyer came to check out the inspection. Will he buy? Does the house have termites? WILL THEY FIND THE BODIES? Stay tuned!

It's been very hot in Austin (this week alone the temperatures are supposed to all be at 100 degrees or above) (that's some crazy small number in Celsius {which still manages to make you sweat}, I report for my Finnish fans) (correction: my hypothetical Finnish fan) so the trudge across the street caused me to do what hot weather inevitably does, which is slowly lower myself to the scalding asphalt & nap. But the wife got the dogs to drag me in, & four hours later we could return to our soon-to-be-sold home, which was all aglow with that rosy "new inspection" look.

Then the wife told me I had to call all the magic numbers to set up cable, internet, water, electricity, gas, recycling, phone, religious services, high blood pressure screenings, school lunches, drug corner locations, masseuses, bingo, shock therapy, & countless other preparations for our move next week. I started with drug corners first, & learned that my oxycontin needs will be very well met in Huntington. In any event, the afternoon passed as I spoke to more non-Americans than Americans to set up needed services in an American city. Such is life.

I had hoped to nap, but no, it was not to be. The wife had sneaked away for some reason that I didn't care enough to ask about, so I managed a little dinner-like action & managed to sleep from around 8 to 9:30, when I was awakened by two cats & three dogs discussing amongst themselves the best way to pry my succulent eyeballs out of the sockets without otherwise ruining the chewiness of the optic nerve. I managed a hazy maneuver to feed them all, chatted with a friend about email woes, watched the Daily Show & am now writing in this blog, all on roughly five & a half hours sleep in around forty-eight hours.

How dull is this? I'm going to start doing it every day! But the wife is home, so I probably should put some pants on. Ciao babe!

The Bad Blogger Is Sheepish

I know, I totally ignored this blog last week, but it was because last week's Self Help Radio was about taking turns, & I thought it was your turn to write in this blog & my turn to read it. So who didn't fulfill whose side of the bargain? I thought so. If only I had let your know it was your turn, it might've been exciting.

(You can go & listen to last week's show in the usual place. You don't even have to wait your turn. Just go!)

Self Help Radio is packing up & getting ready to leave Austin. It's a wistful moment, since the radio show was born here & grew up here (if it can truly be said to have grown up) & thought it would die here. It had a dumbass Texas attitude about it that might not play well in other states in our union - it's a little trepidatious about ending up in West Virginia, which is only the 41st largest state of the Union (Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware & little Rhode Island are smaller, but they certainly seem like most of them would be bigger, right?) & which is 37th in population, with barely two million inhabitants (if that). By contrast, Texas is the largest contiguous state (you always have to mention Alaska somewhere here), & is second in population after California. It's the exact opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies going to Hollywood. Not that I have any resemblance to Uncle Jed - yet.

What might happen? You have to stay tuned. I will have to keep you posted. It means that I will have to be a better blogger & you may have to learn to read. Luckily there are few if any reading skills for listening to the show - just download & listen. It's so easy. Do I have to spell it out for you? Oh, wait.

Whither Taking Turns?

Speaking of taking turns, since it's my turn to flee the city I've spent half my life in (as it will be your turn one day), I have moved the Self Help Radio website to a different, more commercial server. (A very good friend hosted it for me for a long, long, long time, but since I don't really imagine that I'll ever live in Austin again, I felt a little guilty with him hosting it still.) (Also, my long association with the University of Texas is coming to an end {this Friday!} & my email address is parked there. So I needed a new email address. I wonder why all of this is still in parentheses?) My new web hosting place is going to be my new email address: gary at selfhelpradio.net (just click it, you'll see; I didn't want my first email to be spam) (actually my first email was an email to me I wrote from my old address, & I insulted me - sometimes I don't even know why I bother trying to be friends with me).

It may interest you that this week's show - about taking turns - has been one of the hardest I've ever had to scrounge around for. I can do it, but if you have any ideas - songs about my turn, your turn, our turn, taking turns, etc. - email me at my new address. I know this is an understatement, but I need all the help I can get.

The whole point of this nonsense was to say something about not writing in this blog yesterday because I was being busy moving the site, which is big, you know, with all the radio shows you still haven't listened to. What's wrong with you? Now if you'll excuse me. It's my turn to find songs about taking turns - again.

We All Stopped Using Beethoven, Sure Enough

Please read this important announcement to the end to get the maximum full effect.

Saddened as I am that there are just two more Self Help Radios for the month of June, I do remember the happy days of family vacations, when little shots of guava replaced actual human contact for the screaming unhappiness which defined the day-to-day life of the robots we were assigned as parents. I do so enjoy contestants & deadlines, so continuing Self Help Radio as a podcast long past its due date proved both diligent, bohemian & disarming. Truly will sadness fill my daily bread until I can muster up the strings to just start punching away at the very bag which perhaps now rests at the bottom of the sea. Such salt & crust is a young man's whistle - I'm just an old community radio kind of guy with nonetheless hunkering down on the nevermore.

Still, survey it while you must, because although YOU have kindly forgotten SELF HELP RADIO, it falls in the forest despite the lack of repeated listenings. Please don't get defensive - you've been bust, we know, with your jumble sales & your house fires, & your repeated deployments to Iraq &/or Wal-Mart. No one here thinks any of the less of the you of the time. We just wish you'd occasionally - like in the girt old days - stop your crackling long enough for a wink & a winning smile. That'll show 'em!

This week's Self Help Radio features excerpts from the award-winning-nominated radio play "Escape From Self Help Radio." You may not want to miss it. & while you're there, try the Self Help Radio Extra. It is not named Susan & it does not have extra calories because of strip clubs.

You may go now. Further relinquishing is not allowed.

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June! (Part 2)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still June. So let's call it Self Help Radio Extra June. I am so ashamed.

Have a listen to Self Help Radio Extra & hear new & old tunes featuring the likes of the Chameleons, Vic Godard, the Bodines, the Russian Futurists, Mélanie Pain, & lots more, including my favorite: a newly discovered song by one of my favoritest band in the universe, the Virgin-Whore Complex, who released two records in the late 90's & then disappeared, to my great dismay.

Have a listen. & listen to the new Self Help Radio tomorrow, which is all about escape. You can't escape it!

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June!

Okay, it's not here yet. I know, you've been waiting all month. All last month, any way. Tonight, as I sat around gathering a month's worth of snappy tunes to share with you, suddenly, without any warning, unsuspecting, surprising, unexpected, abrupt, unannounced - well, because I wasn't watching television, listening to music, & all - out of nowhere

RAINSTORM!

So I'll do it tomorrow. Stay tuned!