Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: National Author's Day

For some reason, Dick Dickenbock has given us a German book about authors to prepare the staff from National Author's Day, which is November 1. I suppose it's better than wire reports.

Remember to tune in to The Dickenbock Report in its new timeslot, Sunday noon to 2pm, for news & reports about all sorts of authors. Which means we'll include poets. Lowly, lowly poets.

That's Sunday November 1 on 91.1+107.1fm in Portland, xray dot fm everywhere.

This Week In Self Help: October 25 + 27

The spooky house above lets the people of Portland know that in honor of its favorite holiday, Halloween, I only did two radio shows this week, & they were both Halloween shows.

A show about graveyards & cemeteries on Visit A Cemetery Day which was October 25. That show was The Dickenbock Report & it was on XRAY FM on Sunday. You can listen to that show here.

Self Help Radio's Halloween theme this year was "spooky." It happened on October 27 on KBOO. You can listen to that show here. & you can download the show here.

Happy Halloween!

Self Help Radio 102726: Halloween 2026 - Spooky!

Here is Self Help Radio's Halloween show for 2026 - hopefully sufficiently spooky.

There's not much else to add - if you wanna listen, go to either the KBOO website or to the Self Help Radio website. Most everything that happened on the show is below.

There are lots of Halloween shows on the website - I might share those links tomorrow. But if not - Happy Halloween!

Self Help Radio Spooky Halloween 2026

"Halloween Spooks" Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross with the Ike Isaacs Trio _High Flying With Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross_

"Spooky" Count Stephen _The House Of Horrors (27 Spooky Tales For Your Halloween Party)_

"Spooksville" The Nu-Trends _These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits For Hallowe'en_

introduction & definitions

"Spooky Movies" Ron Barrett _Bomp In The Night_

"Run Spook Run" Rodd Keith _The American Song-Poem Anthology_

"Spooks In Space" Perrey & Kingsley _The In Sound From Way Out!_

"Spooky, Spooky, Lend Me Your Tomb" Spike Jones _Go Crazy With Spike Jones_

"Spooky Lady On Death Avenue" Barnes & Barnes _Spazchow_

"Spooky" Lydia Lunch _Queen Of Siam_

interview with spooky trolls Bartholomew & Itchy

"It's Spooky" Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston _Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston_

"Sure Is Kinda Spooky" Portion Control _I Staggered Mentally_

"Spooky Room" 9353 _We Are Absolutely Sure There's No God_

"Spook Opera" The Hawaiian Pups _Spook Opera_

"Spooks In Space (Discomix)" Aural Exciters _Mutant Disco Volume II: A Subtle Discolation Of The Norm_

"Ain't Nuthin' Spooky" Rudy Love & The Love Family _Rudy Love & The Love Family_

our resident cinephile Chuck stops by

"Positively Spooked" Band Of Holy Joy _Positively Spooked_

"Spooky Scary Skeletons" Andrew Gold _Andrew Gold's Halloween Howls_

"Spooks Night Out_ The Legendary Invisible Men _Halloween Hootenanny_

"Spooky (Diabolo's Theme)" The Ghastly Ones _Unearthed_

"Spook-O-Rama" Circus Contraption _The Half-Wit's Descent_

"Spooky Hollywood" Jackie B & The Mini Band _Spooky Hollywood_

interview with Josh Simpson, who makes spooky music

"Spooky Song" Lung Leg _Maid To Minx_

"Spooky Girlfriend" Elvis Costello _When I Was Cruel_

"Spooky Rhodes" Laika _Sounds Of The Satellites_

"Spooky Kabuki" Momus _Oskar Tennis Champion_

"Ménage À Trois, Spooky Scat" Dominique Cravic & Les Primitifs Du Futur _Tribal Musette_

conclusion & goodbye

"The Spooky Wheer" Martha Wentworth As The Old Sea Hag _Terror Tales_

Whither Spooky? (Halloween 2026)

Every year on Halloween, I like to explore a different, specific theme. My previous Halloween shows have included ghosts & vampires, zombies & werewolves, witches & wizards, mummies & monsters in general & Frankenstein in particular.  There have been shows about haunted houses, graveyards, ghost towns, even hell.  Other scary things I have explored are black cats or spiders or clowns or scarecrows or all kinds of horrible things attacking. Also things like voodoo & nightmares & death. (Most of those links will take you to a place where you can listen to those shows, too, by the way.)

What this means is I have to get a little creative when it comes to Halloween shows. This year I just decided to focus on a word: spooky. How is spooky used in songs? What things are identified as spooky in a song? That's what tonight's show is about. Some of the spooky songs will be Halloween-ish. Some probably not. But it will be someone's idea of spooky in many cases.

Tonight from midnight to 2am on KBOO - 90.7fm in Portland, kboo dot fm everywhere. & don't be afraid of me. I am not the least bit spooky.

Preface To Halloween 2026 - Spooky! The Tuff Little Ghost

Spooky The Tuff Little Ghost was a character from Harvey Comics who was a cousin to the more famous Caspar. Judging from the panel above - which I took from a scanned copy I have of Tuff Ghosts Starring Spooky, from 1964, he wasn't as friendly as his cousin. I don't recall much about this particular ghost except he talked like a tough Brooklyn kid from a 1940s movie, & he was in love with a girl - who was also a ghost - named Poil. Not Pearl. Everyone called her Poil like Spooky did.

Gosh I read a lot of Harvey Comics when I was a kid.

Let's think of Spooky as the mascot of this show, which will feature songs about spooky things, but which will probably not be all that spooky. Who knows? I haven't finished it yet!