Preface To Valentine's Day 2010: If I Was Your Girlfriend

I'm pretty astonished how short some people are. Like Prince, who wrote the queer tune I won't be playing on this week's show, which I am quoting above. He is five foot two. Which was (some folks say) how tall Napoleon was. & of course there are a lot of similarities between the two, & yes, I am talking about Prince's continuing aggression against Prussians. He won't be happy till he plows through them toward Russia.

Bowie seems shorter than five foot ten, but that's what his official bio says. But official bios can be faked. & I think Bowie has faked his. I don't think he's taller than five six. He's certainly not taller than Bob Dylan, who's about five eight.

All these people I mention are also famously scrawny. Leonard Cohen (whose bio says he's five nine) claimed that, during the writing of "Beautiful Losers," he took so much speed he got down to 85 pounds. Christian Bale, who's about as tall as I am, got down to 121 pounds for The Machinist, & he looked like he simply couldn't lose any more weight. Could Cohen be five nine & get that emaciated? I doubt it.

By the way, the average height of the American male is five eight. The average weight is 189 pounds.

Yes, there will be no Prince on Self Help Radio this week, nor really any time soon. That's what I was going to say because I had to listen to that nonsense song again in case it was better than I remembered. Does anyone know when or if Prince was going to get his adenoids taken care of?

Index

I wanted to get in the habit of writing in this blog five days a week for the new schedule (Self Help Radio was recently moved to Mondays at midnight), which should look something like this:

FRIDAY: Pants are buttoned slowly, for maximum sensual effect.
SATURDAY: Soft music is played as Barry White's ghost nods approvingly in a creepy but sexy way.
SUNDAY: The lights are dimmed & no one's none the wiser.
MONDAY: Slow motion shot of a train entering a tunnel.
TUESDAY: A disapproving look from the landlady as we order out for pizza looking sweaty & disheveled.

Wait. What? That's like some bizarre porn thing with the days of the week attached to it! That's not a schedule at all! However, I have seen that movie, though I confess I've never acted in it.

All right, here's the blog entry schedule:

FRIDAY: Grow worse.
SATURDAY: Die.
SUNDAY: Get buried.
MONDAY: Get born.
TUESDAY: Get christened.

Hold it, hold it. That's just what happens to Solomon Grundy in that poem, only screwed around to "start" on Friday & missing Wednesday & Thursday.

All right. Let's get this right. Here's the schedule:

FRIDAY: In love.
SATURDAY: Wait.
SUNDAY: Comes too late.
MONDAY: Blue.
TUESDAY: Grey.

Ack! Those are the descriptions of the days in the Cure song "Friday I'm In Love"! Which reminds me, one of these days I'm totally going to do a show that has nothing but songs that go through the days of the week.

But that has absolutely nothing to do with how this blog will be organized. Can we get that right now, please?

FRIDAY: Nonsense?
SATURDAY: Preface to this week's coming nonsense.
SUNDAY: Whither this week's coming nonsense?
MONDAY: Listen live to my nonsense!
TUESDAY: Okay, then, listen to my recorded nonsense!

That's about right.

I've Got A New Hat!

That's not true. I got a hat that someone owned before me! I got a nused hat! Or is it a newsed hat? In any event, it's certified pre-owned!

If only it were a fedora. But it's not. It's not a sombrero, either, which wouldn't make sense in West Virginia, especially at their embarrassing "Mexican" restaurants. My god, has no one here ever heard of a jalapeño?

It's luckily not what they call a "gimme" cap. They also call those types of caps "trucker caps" & "feed caps," the latter of which sounds more interesting than "gimme cap." "Feed cap" also sounds like some kind of diet plan, as in "thirty-seven oreos is your feed cap, fatty."

More interesting than my new hat, though, even with the lice, is that this week's episode of Self Help Radio, the theme of which is "twilight," & which has (do I protest too much?) nothing to do with Mormons or vampires or repressed homosexuality or any combination thereof. Babe.

It's over at selfhelpradio.net for your listening glee. Also, this week's episode of Dickenbock Electronics is there as well. Please enjoy.

No, it's not a top hat. Nor a cowboy hat. Keep guessing! I need to shampoo with special medicine now.

Huzzah! My First Monday Night Show!

In case you've not been paying attention, or you were paying attention but no one said anything, or you were paying attention but couldn't give half a solid shit, Self Help Radio was moved from Wednesday mornings at seven-thirty to Monday nights at midnight.

I am excited about it, but there's a nagging voice to my right (my dog Winston) telling me, "Why be so excited? Isn't it a demotion?"

Must everything be promotion or demotion? Isn't there such a thing as a lateral move? Sure there is! There are even articles on the computer with titles like Making A Lateral Career Move: The Pros & Cons. I may not know what a lateral move is, but I can be certain it's neither a demotion nor a promotion so I don't have to question why Self Help Radio was moved & instead go with the flow.

I mean, what could be bad about being on at midnight? Here are two indisputable sets of facts:

At 7:30am, most people weren't awake. At midnight, most people aren't awake.
At 7:30am, the people who are awake are groggy & need coffee. At midnight, the people who are awake are drunk & need coffee.

I could go on, but now I'm thinking I'll need some coffee tonight or maybe I myself won't be listening.

So huzzah! Self Help Radio live in Huntington on 88.1 fm at midnight, archived tomorrow on the line at selfhelpradio.net!

Whither Twilight?

It's no secret that I am controlled by a shadowy world government slash offshore corporation with ties to organized crime & Jihadist insurgents all over the globe & also in Texas. But what remains a secret is the manner by which the themes which are featured on the Self Help Radio get suggested, vetted, chosen & approved. Did three of those last options mean about the same thing? Never mind. Finally, here, on this blog, will this secret be revealed! Of course, if you read about the secret on this blog, you will probably become the target of adorable ninja assassins who will kill anyone, anything, & any person to keep the secret safe. Wait. Did I say "adorable"? I meant "deadly." Sorry, my delete key is petulant.

First, there is nine days of mourning & funeral masses following the end of the last theme. It is interred generally on the fourth or fifth day. No sooner than 15 days after the previous theme & no later than 20 days after its end, all of the shareholders under the age of eighty convene. Currently the Self Help Radio has two shareholders, only one imaginary.

The shareholders will generally hold two ballots a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, & the ballots are burned. This is important, as it signals what the next theme might be: the burning of the secret ballots creates black smoke when no decision is reached, & the addition of magic chemicals (pop rocks) creates white smoke when one of the themes garners two-thirds of the votes, & is chosen. Modern shareholder meetings generally last no more than a few days, although the process could take longer if & when alcohol is involved.

Now, many people will have noticed that this process resembles in a lot of ways the manner by which a pope is chosen, especially the drinking. If this is what you have read, then the blog has already been censored & the process by which themes are chosen must remain secret. My apologies, but at least cute, fluffy ninjas will not be coming to kill you. Wait. Did I say "cute, fluffy"? I meant "alcoholic father." Sorry, my psychiatrist is messing with my prescription.

Also, can I make it clear this week's show is not about the popular Mormon Vampire Series "Twilight"? It just happens that the show was scheduled before the rise of that popular Mormon Vampire & Gay Werewolf phenomenon. It most certainly was not a way to get teenagers to listen to the Self Help Radio! We're above all that.

Until we're told we're not. But until then. Yes.