Saturday, May 22, 2010

Preface To Arguments/Whither Arguments?

It's two blog entries in one!

I must confess, I have had my head somewhere up my ass the past couple of days & I completely forgot about this blog. I have been busy, of course, working hard on Self Help Radio... Oh, I can't lie to you. I have been daydreaming about next week when I get to return to Dallas to celebrate my nephew's wedding & then to Austin see old friends. Then the wife went away on some weird retreat with her women friends, & I just sat, daydreamed & listened to music. Meanwhile the days went by & this blog didn't make a peep. It just sat here, waiting for me, weeping to itself.

So I'm sorry.

I really don't have anything to say about the show.

But I will have some things to say about the show after this one, which will be in June, since I'll be away in Texas for a week.

We're not going to argue about this, are we?

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

& It Happened

What happened? Self Help Radio happened!

Last night, barely noticed & frankly barely noticeable, Self Help Radio peeked through the cracks to ask the question "What happened?" & that's all that happened. Self Help Radio happened.

Don't believe it? You can listen to the evidence right in front of your ears at selfhelpradio.net. It's convincing. & damning.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Fits Night Out

It so happened that Fits had a night out. It also happened that Fits found himself for no good reason having a night out in Huntington, West Virginia. It happened to be the case that Huntington doesn't really have much of what one might call a "night life." Fits even happened to notice that a popular sports bar closed before midnight. How, he thought to himself, did such things happen? He could have guessed the answer: that's how things happened in Huntington!

So he happened to turn on the radio. The dial happened to be tuned to 88.1, which happened to be, in the city of Huntington, WMUL fm. As it happened to be midnight on a Monday, Fits happened to catch the radio show "Self Help Radio," which happened that evening to have the theme "What Happened?" Since Fits did not now what happened, he listened.

As it happened, someone interrupted Fits & he missed some of the program. Yet he happened to hear the host says something about archiving the show later on selfhelpradio.net. It was fortunate he heard it! If that had not happened, he would not have heard the entire show.

& that's how Fits night out happened. Or has it happened yet?

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Whither What Happened?

Do you love the question "whatever happened to?" Like, for example, say you're a fan of some obscure television show or movie, & you start thinking, whatever happened to that dude who played the dude that everyone was all like, "Duuuude" when he came in the room? I know a few actors & actresses leave the industry for a particular reason - if they're young, sometimes it's school - sometimes it's for family - but a lot of times it's because of drugs - & a lot of the time it's because their stars just fell.

Not that there aren't resurrections. Some people get magically saved, like Neil Patrick Harris. But others just - they just disappear. It's the nature of the thing.

Some stay in Hollywood, living (one assumes) on the money they happily saved when they had "hit" television shows or whatever. Some apparently tour with shows, appearing in small towns (like Huntington) with vehicles written for them or adapted from current or classic Broadway plays. Some of these, by the way, are just fucking weird. Like I saw a flyer at the university late last year for this:"Thank You For Asking", a play about the life of Lucille Ball - directed by her daughter.

I am assuming people went. After all, there are a lot of old people in this part of the world. It does have quite the whiff of desperation about it, though, doesn't it? Like there wasn't even enough material to make a Lifetime movie about Lucille Ball.

But if you're like me, you're occasionally fascinated to find out someone who was only in your peripheral vision is still alive & sometimes still working in the biz. You may even be saddened or titillated to discover they've met a tragic end. Also, perhaps, you have a sense of closure - after all, their Hollywood story is over. Maybe.

I do sometimes imagine I was slightly more famous a long time ago - I was the smart-ass fat kid in a Nickelodeon comedy of the early nineties who was always humiliated by the geeky protagonist, & I left the show for a bit part in one of the "Home Alone" films (probably the ninth) which my agent imagined would lead me to better roles. Instead, I couldn't get a job so I went back to school, got involved with college radio, & now, married & forgotten, I do a minor radio show in a small town in obscurity. I'm just waiting for the folks at VH1 to give me a call.