10 Shows To Go!

Ten things to expect from the last ten episodes of Self Help Radio on KOOP:

1) More nudity.
2) Security has increased, so there will be fewer folks wandering into the studio, staring intently at Gary, & then breaking into a rage & just hitting him, hitting him, hitting him.
3) For guests, we've added a new fruit to the fruit basket: kiwi!
4) Gary has recently begun dealing with his crippling halitosis problem, so it should be easier to listen to Self Help Radio close up.
5) That thing where there's some sort of theme, & then there's a lot of music played vaguely, often tenuously, based on the theme? Yeah, that's not going to change. Sorry.
6) An extra laugh will be added to each episode. If you can't find your extra laugh, please talk to your radio provider.
7) It's dissertation season, so (as usual) there are dozens of academic treatises written about Self Help Radio & the damage it does not only to individual psyches, but also to the fabric of the space-time continuum. For the first time, at least half of those dissertations will be written in Chinese!
8) Annoying child character introduced in last season to be written out of the show entirely.
9) Up to 43% more discomfort per half hour.
10) The role of Gary to be played in the last three episodes by Corey Flintoff.

You don't want to miss the final ten episodes on KOOP! Listen online or listen to it live! Today at 4:30pm Austin time!

Zippo Says

It's very weird that a lot of folks are surprised by my outside volunteer work, like my tremendous support for the International Crusade For Holy Relics. They note that I, for example, own three Shrouds Of Turin, enough pieces of the cross they crucified Jesus on to make a full set of three, seventeen nails for nailing up a savior, & a whole photo album of polaroids that Martha & Mary took the day of the event, but the important thing is I don't disrespect these holy relics by selling them on eBay. That's just tacky.

I also enjoy mentoring kids in the natural sciences, where I often help them with their science experiments. You can guess which have been influenced by me - Crystal Meth: Friend Or Foe is of course one of my upcoming themes.

Oh, & of course, I donate a lot of my time to being high school mascots at sporting events. Have a look at where I get most of my costumes. Awesome.

I like to read short stories online, too. & worry about the destruction of the planet.

Of course, I also spend a great deal of time just getting old, & one of things that happens when you get old is that people you love & admire also get old. & they sometimes die before you. & sometimes you wish you could have a radio show every damn day of the week so you could give them a going-away they really deserve. So I say goodbye to Jim Jones, whose guitar work illuminated some of the best so-called "post punk" (even when it was before punk) in the world, with Pere Ubu. I'll find a way to say goodbye, Jim. I promise.

Whither Guessing?

The two doctors met in the room, one a resident at the hospital, the other a specialist called in for this very case. The patient in the room was on the verge of death.

"Can we treat him?" the first doctor asked.

"I guess," the other said.

"You guess?!" the resident said, exasperated. "Aren't you a world renowned expert on communicable diseases?"

"I guess," the expert said.

"There you go, guessing again!" his companion yelled. "There can be no guessing when it comes to a patient's life! You want this patient to survive, don't you?"

"I guess," the expert repeated.

"What the hell?!" This doctor was clearly terribly angry. "You don't feel strongly enough about your own patient to want to fight for his life?! Have you not heard of the Hippocratic Oath?"

"I guess not," the expert said, staring at the patient & apparently not affected by his companion's temper.

"It doesn't sound like you've even been to college!" the doctor thundered. "You are a fraud, sir! A scoundrel! You are a quack & you should not be allowed to practice medicine in this hospital!"

The other doctor seemed unmoved, oblivious to the other doctor's clenched fists, beads of sweat on his brow, & heavy breathing. After a moment, the resident said, "You will let me talk to you in this way?"

The specialist said, "I guess."

The first doctor threw his hands in the air & stormed out of the room, swearing & waving his arms in a frantic way. After a moment, noticing he was alone, the expert pulled up a chair & sat next to the patient, who was looking miserable indeed.

"Ah, there you are, doctor," a man said, entering the room. He held a folder which he offered to the specialist. "Here's the test results," he said. "It was exactly what you thought it was, which is incredible, since we wouldn't normally have run those tests. I have to ask, though: how did you know that he had such a rare condition?"

"I guessed," the doctor said.

Preface To Guessing: I Guess I'm Doing A Show About Guessing

Famous quotes about guessing:

"A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, famously mysterious-acting

"The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion - these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized & is associated somehow with laziness."
- Jerome S. Bruner, famously penalized for being lazy

"Who can ... guess how much industry & providence & affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, famously not good at sports

"I am sure,
Though you can guess what temperance should be,
You know not what it is."
- William Shakespeare, famously drunk

"When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been."
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, famously manly hewer/delver

"The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it - this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience."
- Henry James, famously just guessing at shit

"I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty."
- Sherlock Holmes, famously fictional ( & awesome!)

"Dancing is a wonderful training for girls, it’s the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it."
- Christopher Morley, famously predictable

I guess that's enough. For today.

Off Whitening

I love the titles of spam messages. I don't read them, although I feel a little guilty about that. That's someone's livelihood I am disrespecting! Etc.

Here are some titles from today's treasure trove of unsolicited email:

-- Pull of Huge Jackpot
What does that mean? Are they trying to convince me that their online gambling establishment is exerting some kind of force drawing me to them? I just don't feel it.

-- Watch the lust in her eyes when you whip out your 9 inch monster
It sounds like I am about to unleash a devil puppy on a perversely motivated woman who's into bestiality. I know I am something of a prude, but good lord, why would it be attractive to describe your thingie as a "monster"? Aren't monsters supposed to be scary, or, like the Elephant Man, distorted or horrible examples of humans?

-- Small |nstrumment is not a problem.
Oh, wait. Actually, I think this is an email from my girlfriend trying to make me feel better after last night. Not spam at all. Never mind.

- Buy Must Have medications at Canada based pharmacy.
"Canada based"? & why must I have them? Do Canadian pharmacies sell ecstasy? No? Then I am fine. Canadians! Feh!

- Those locker room stares will be for the right reason...
Oh, back to this. Wouldn't the "wrong reason" depend upon one's sexual orientation? Is the right reason mentioned above envy? Really?

- You can listen to last week's Self Help Radio up now at selfhelpradio.net...
I hate these worst of all. God damn radio show people pimping their second-rate non-commercial garbage. Grrrr. & this show is about "butchers"! Why not do what The Retarded Bob Dylan is doing with his show & pick simple subjects like love, hair, rain, & interns? I can abide most spam but the spam I send to myself I just loathe.

I subbed the jazz show Non-Breaking Space yesterday & should also have that show up soonish. Then I'll spam myself again. Because if I don't, who will? Me. That's who.

11 Shows To Go!

Ah, the good eleven. It never gave me any trouble until after nine.

Before anything is signed or notarized in today's self-serving blog entry, can I ask you: will you ever forgive me for forgetting you on Valentine's Day? I didn't give you hearts or candy or syphillis or even a lousy blog entry. It's not that I don't love you, baby. It's just that I am forgetful. I'm like a child, you know, before they learn spatial recognition or some such - I just don't think you exist if I can't see you. Not all the time, of course. Just when you expect something from me.

And. Now. Eleven more shows on KOOP. What can you expect? I promise you the same quality of programming you have come to expect from the Self Help Radio family of programs. I mean, I don't really imagine it could get much worse, could it? If there is a jump in quality (as if), you may attribute it to my desire to make the last programs I do for you on KOOP the best programs in the universe. But you know as well as I do that'll be a fluke.

Hey! Speaking of flukes! If you want to hear me get all jazzy like I did back in December, you can hear me sitting on the show Non-Breaking Space on Sunday at 5pm. Listen in!

& also listen today at 4:30 pm Central Standard Tamale live on the 91.7 fm frequency & on the interwebs at koop.org. A show about butchers by an ardent vegetarian. What could possibly be better?

Whither Butchers?

It is not well-known how the themes get chosen for the Self Help Radio. Since the Self Help Radio is owned by the same mega-corporation which owns the Council on Foreign Relations Gift Shop, Illuminati-Masonry & Sons, & the Church Of Scientology (Reformed), I can't really tell you or I will have broken my non-disclosure agreement & some goons would come along & beat up my bicycle, but I can tell you that I got the order to - er, I mean, I conceived the idea of a show about butchers back in the carefree days of not long ago, when all the men were slightly surreptitious & all the women were harmonizing.

That is a long & confusing way of saying this: I had no idea that my show would coincide with the sad news of the death of the most famous butcher of my generation, Sam the Butcher from The Brady Bunch, whose occupation may have rattled his senses enough for him to be attracted to the disturbingly mannish maid Alice. The actor - who appeared all over the place on the television of my childhood - was named Allan Melvin & he died last month at the young age of 84.

I'm not sure if he alone would be enough to inspire a show. What did inspire the show? What moved me, a vegetarian for over twenty years, to devote ninety precious minutes to an occupation I find abhorrent? The answer may surprise you.

It was 1947, & I was a dashing young Lieutenant in His Majesty's Iraqi Occupation Army. You were the twinkie in your daddy's lunchbox. I had fallen asleep during the fifth siege of Basra that month & I had forgotten that Charlie was thick in the Bush. (Neil Bush, at that time.) Three or four members of the Greatest Generation were playing punkies off the side of the small wading pool &, with the DVD player not working, we used the discs to absent-mindedly chop tobacco & opium left outside by the Dutch Police who had visited the night before. Distracted, I almost met my end by friendly fire from an unfriendly woman who had neither asked nor told in That Man's Army. What saved me? Why did I not die?

A butcher was hacking away at some mystery meat in the shape of Dick Cheney when, due to the way Dick Cheney makes everyone's stomach churn, the butcher suddenly hurled, & his cleaver flew between me & the soldier, deflecting the bullet & making her (for whatever reason) believe that violence was not the answer. I think she decided that breakfast tacos were the answer. & I thank my lucky stars that, that day, I didn't die & I have a butcher to thank. Do you know when that happened? Or rather, when it will happen? That's right. February 15, 2143.

I celebrate that fateful day! Even if I loathe the practice! Now you know! Aren't you a nosy bastard!

Preface To Butchers: Flank Is A Funny Word

Actually, all the butcher-related words are pretty funny. "Meat." It even looks funny. How about "loin"? "Chop"? "Rashers" of "Bacon"? "Rack" of lamb? Just repeat after me: rump, round, brisket, poll, hock, ham, rump, belly & jowl. Har har har! Them's funny motherfucking words!

& everyone - except obese people - think the word "fat" is funny. Not phat, but funny.

Dude, you just ate a rump when you could've had a rack. Har har har!

I also totally love diagrams like this one - especially when they're in weird discotheque colors - which describe the names of the "parts" of the animal (in this case, the cow) that can be eaten. I guess meat-eaters will eat pretty much everything, so diagrams like this are for finicky western eyes only. Bon appetit!

Do you know if someone has done the same thing for humans? Any cannibals out there want to show us something similar? Damn! I wish I had the time to make one. Rats. I spent the day getting yelled at instead of being creative.

Why does a licensed vegetarian like myself want to do a show about butchers? Hey! Ask me tomorrow!

Love Is In The Erred

BOY what a dumbass I am. I conducted what I thought was a sweetly romantic version of KOOP's perennial favorite, the Lounge Show, this past Saturday, but due to user error (meaning ME), I screwed up the recording of it. What a maroon!

However, I have made a CD-length mix of a majority of the songs I played Saturday (no, I didn't recreate my oafish airbreaks) which is available as my Self Help Radio Extra for February. Go! Go young lovers! There is grooviness waiting for your untainted hearts!

But if you're bitter & wounded & frankly hate the whole fucking idea of Valentine's Day, you can listen to my Self Help Radio show about jealousy over at selfhelpradio.net. You can even listen to it without me. Do you think I care?

No, I'm too busy beating myself up about my stupidity.

12 Shows To Go!

What a bummer. Twelve more Self Help Radio shows on KOOP. How should I end my run in three months? I'm plum clean out of idears.

Surely you can tune in today at 4:30 as we start to nibble down the last dozen shows. Mmm, nibble. It's on the air in Austin town on the 91.7 frequency from 4:30 to 6pm, & on the online line at the same time at koop.org. You can listen all the KOOP shows that way, not just mine. Thanks to Thomas Alva Edison.

Speaking of Menlo Park, I'll be subbing the Lounge Show tomorrow morning, too. Self Help Radio will be about jealousy today, but the Lounge Show will be more romantic. It'll be about nibbling. That's not true. It'll be about romance. Because I may have only a broken heart, but I still believe in love. Or eating. Eating crumbly stuff. & love. Mmm, love.

Listen! Listen! Listen!

Laetrile For Fun & Profit

I found out but decided not to mention that I am "subbing" (which is a word we radio types use to describe what happens when a show's regular deejay asks an irregular deejay {c'est moi} to "substitute" deejay while the regular deejay is away) (look, I know you're not a moron, but I am going to add that "subbing" is short for "substituting," & not short for something like "submarine") (I tell you this in case you weren't paying much attention, & also because I just totally got this condescending email from someone I'm working with on a project & he obviously thinks I'm as smart as a half-opened bag of twizzlers & needs to spell out basic English grammar to me) (which isn't, I know, at all fair, since, again, I don't think you're a moron but think you're actually quite bright, if sometimes a little too self-involved to be continually quick on the uptake) (& you know me, I am passive aggressive & I keep this shit to myself - which is a good idea, because if this self-important douche knew what I really fucking thought about his going all special education on me, it would mean more trouble at work) (Jesus, did you really need to make such a big deal about this, because now this is all parenthetical asides to you & not at all information to the general reader of my blog, who is, you know, not nearly as sensitive as you are & is actually quite amused by me in ways you could never be because of the way we have always been competitive about being "clever" & "funny" & "one-upping" each other) (that wasn't intended to be a dig, & what's wrong, anyway, with the sort of friendly competition we have? have you been keeping track? do you imagine that one of us is winning? & if you think that, is the "winner" the one who has a radio show or the one who doesn't?) (oh did I hurt you poor little feelings? you always pull this on Thursdays, when I just want to convey some information on my little radio show blog, you want to make some big production & it's only a little annoying - what? are you just logging ou...








& you came back. what a baby! & me with no parentheses left. Well, let me just say: I am subbing the Lounge Show on Saturday morning. That's the news. That's all. Wanna go get a beer or something?

Whither Jealousy?

Here are what some of the finest minds living today all alone have to say about the subject of this year's Self Help Radio Valentine's Day show, which is "jealousy":

"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love" - François de La Rochefoucauld. Actually, he's one of the finest minds living today who's been dead for hundreds of years.

"To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter." Francoise Sagan. What? He died in 2004? Hunh.

"Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands." Oscar Wilde. Also dead. Apparently none of the finest minds living today are alive anymore.

“Love sees sharply, hatred sees even more sharp, but Jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time.” I don't really know who said this, but whoever the person is, I'm sure he or she is still alive, therefore one of the finest minds living today.

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” Erica Jong. Who is still fucking alive, ha!

“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” Robert A. Heinlein. Famous dead pervert & sci-fi writer. Who I think was actually quite jealous of Arthur C Clarke's success. Heinlein, dude! You just called yourself incompetent & needy!

“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” Fulton J. Sheen. He's a dead Catholic dude, so was never even a finest mind, but it's a weird quote from a priest. So I like it.

As you can see, the topic is very appropriate to Valentine's Day, when we buy things for people we love or people we want to love or people we're supposed to love because we bought a marriage certificate & also made a "vow" before "God." As we look at the gifts - candies, flowers, hot oil, fruit, gift certificates, noodles, candleabras, hastily-scrawled poems - surely we feel jealousy for those who are lucky enough not to be in a relationship. & jealousy for the Hallmark corporation & the National Association of Florists, who make a killing that day.

Jealousy! It makes the day go round! Or something like that.

Preface To Jealousy: You Listen To OTHER Radio Shows?

I can't believe you. I thought we had something. Something real, between us, just us. I thought you were my listener & I was your deejay. I just thought... Now I guess you've proven me wrong. Now I guess I was just... Just...

Don't you turn this around on me! Of course I made radio shows before we met! I was on the radio, how could I not be making other radio shows? But all the listeners before you - they might have said they were listening - I might even have believed them - might have talked to them on the phone, taken a request once in a while - but it was never serious. They didn't listen every week. They were fickle, flip, inconsistent. They hurt me! You know when we met I was damaged!

But you - you told me you really listened. You said - I remember your exact words - you said, "I listen every week!" Do you remember the first time you tuned in? I knew you were listening. I was nervous, I tripped over my words more than I usually do. & then the phone rang & you called - & you won tickets to something! You weren't even expecting it! It's like fate wanted you to be my listener & me to be your deejay.

I wish I knew where it all went wrong. You can't tell me you're able to appreciate my show if you're listening to other radio shows. I bet you're even listening to online radio shows. I knew it! You're downloading podcasts!?! What sort of listener are you, anyway? Is there a loyal bone in your ear? How can you even tell the shows apart? See, that's where you protest too much! You're not a dedicated listener, you're a dilettante! I can't believe I once dedicated a show to you!

What are the other shows you listen to? You have to tell me! How can I know what I'm up against? How can I know what stole your attention away from me? Why won't you tell me? Of course it matters! God, it turns out you've kept secrets from me this entire time & you're still keeping secrets? Tell me now! Tell me everything! I can handle it!

I can't handle it. Just go. Just go. But. Can you listen Friday? It's a show about jealousy. Please? Please?

How The Mighty Have Been Grown!

As a child, I shunned exclamation points - found them too ostentatious, too obvious, too emotive, ultimately too phony. But not anymore! I think the exclamation point, once in its infancy, has finally grown up! Yes, it's the puberty of the exclamation point & be careful not to get any on you!

How do punctuations age? I hear you ask, & when you ask, you ask perhaps the middle-agest of the punctuations, which is the question mark. The question mark? The question mark.

By the way, many think the oldest of the world's punctuation is the period. The period. The period? No, it isn't! & it isn't our friend the comma, the comma, whose rhythm has echoed ours - the comma is in fact the only one of the punctuations that breathes as we do - or seems to.

No, the oldest of the punctuations is the apostrophe. The apostrophe's been around long because not only have humans been needing to ram words together as long as they've been needing to use words - 'tis no argument, don't insult me, you can't know, I won't have this, y'all - but they've also always been covetous & needed desperately to tell others what belongs to them. So the apostrophe's role is older than the stopping of a declaration.

As for the youngest of them all - those deformed freaks, the colon, the semicolon - well, no one believes they'll ever grow up. Leave them in their cribs.

So let's celebrate the terrible teens of the exclamation point! Let's be ridiculous & gay! For soon enough, the world will be quiet, & excitement will wane, & there will be no more shouts & hurrahs, & we will be energetic no more... But not today! Fuck you, future! I got me an exclamation point!

Hey! Here's something exciting! Last week's show about beatboxing is available now for your listening pleasure! You know you want to! It's really loud! Here's where it is! selfhelpradio.net! See you there!

13 Shows To Go!

Ach! Thirteen shows on KOOP radio left! That means it's roughly three months. I am sad. But I know what can cheer me up! Beatboxing!

One of the great things about Self Help Radio today is that NOT ONLY will you get to hear the great old & new beatboxers (DOug E Fresh to Rahzel), & NOT ONLY will you hear some songs that cleverly incorporate beatboxing, but AS AN ADDED BONUS AT NO COST TO YOU you'll get to hear my visit with MC Beat Daddy, where he teaches me the basics of beatboxing AND THAT'S NOT ALL I'll also be giving away beatboxing CD collections. Wow! Hey! Super! Freaky! Mommy!

So while it's sad for me to wind down my time on KOOP, it's glad for me to be able to have as much fun as I am planning to have for the next three months. Don't miss it! Today at 4:30 pm Texas time, live on the 91.7 frequency, & on the web at koop.org!

Eh Speak Up Sonny

Were I the more dynamic of the Self Help Radio sisters, I'd be announcing something new every day on this blog. I already try to follow something like a formula (not a baby formula) which not only helps me think of dumb stuff to write here, but also helps me organize my brain & remind me what day it is. Do you know the formula? Or would you rather play a game where you have to name television theme songs?

The formula, then:

MONDAY: Remind everyone that my show from Friday is available to be downloaded on the Self Help Radio website.
TUESDAY: Write something ridiculous as a "preface" to my next post "explaining" my theme.
WEDNESDAY: "Explain" my theme of the week.
FRIDAY: Countdown the shows left until I leave KOOP.

THURSDAY has no real purpose. I can maybe mention something like adding a new mix to the Self Help Radio Extra page, or link to something, but in general, this is Thursday: me saying not much.

Why can't I be the more dynamic of the Self Help Radio sisters? All the boys like her better, too. & if she did a radio show - well, you'd like it more. & Thursday would be "how to please your man in bed" day. I bet she has more then 52 ways to please her man. I should say "her men." She's a slut!

Instead, all I can say is I met MC Beat Daddy from Plano, Texas, & he taught me to beatbox. Results on the show tomorrow. Also I ate bad hummus last night. Oh, & I got three Enrico Caruso CDs on a whim. It's so fucking Thursday in here.

Whither Beatboxing?

Beatboxing! How ridiculous is that?

Not so ridiculous, my friend. There's a webpage out there which has been, it says, "representing & promoting the worldwide beatbox community since 1998." Beatboxers make records & people who make neat noises with their mouths star in "Police Academy" movies, if they're still being made & WHY AREN'T THEY STILL BEING MADE? Shouldn't someone be monitoring the whereabouts of Michael Winslow? Christ! Do I have to do everything myself?

I know, beatboxing is at best a fringe element of the hiphop community & at worst an annoying novelty, but my fascination with it resurfaced at some point last year - maybe I heard some beatboxing on a cut, or I was simply transported back to a time of childlike wonder at things like a fellow making simultaneous sounds with his mouth. & by the way, I am totally not being sexist here - I have no come across any female beatboxers. There are of course jazz women (like Ella Fitzgerald) who can scat, & scat is an obvious precursor to beatboxing, but I'm not doing a show about scat. I have only ninety minutes! I can't go back that far!

In any event, I decided someone should be paying attention to beatboxing. So I began to delve into the beatboxing world. Someone had to do it, & I have discovered that, because you're so damn lazy, I have to do everything myself.

I am not necessarily going to have only songs with prominent beatboxing, but also some beatboxing-related musics. Initially, I thought I might have to cut corners & play songs like Big Audio Dynamite's "C'mon Every Beatbox," to fill up space (& I love that song), but I have more than enough beatboxing to fill two hours if I had to. You know it.

Beatboxing! How awesome is that?!

Preface To Beatboxing: Hip Hop Dreams

I used to be more quick tongued than I currently am - I am older, obviously - much of my brain has been slowed by time & probably whiskey (mmm, whiskey) - but I remember when I was a teenager, as my little brother became an aficionado of the new "rap" scene (as he called it), I could make fun of MCs with dumb lyrics & even tried basic beatboxing. It was easy enough for me to "rap" stupid for enough time that my friend Russ told me I was a closet MC. That became my fake hiphop moniker: Closet MC.

I couldn't do it now. Tongue-twister lyrics that I sing to myself in the shower are hopelessly garbled. I find myself singing certain songs more slowly so I can wrap my teeth around them. I am a decrepit old bastard.

My little brother actually wanted to be an MC, though. To me, at the time, especially as I was starting to get into postpunk like Joy Division & the Smiths, hiphop seemed alien & dumb. All that bragging, all the overt sexuality, it was so unseemly, especially when Morrissey was being so humbly self-deprecating & the most songs I liked were about begging for a kiss you could never get, not dancing, sweating & having sex. What a naif I was!

I teased my brother about his ambitions, which is the nice way of saying I gave him a lot of shit. It didn't matter - we weren't very close by that point, & didn't want to be. He was out of high school & his posse was a bunch of neighborhood kids barely out of ninth grade. I once found a lyric sheet he had written - boy I wish I could remember his rap alias! - & it was boilerplate self-aggrandizement. I do wish he had recorded something. Maybe he did. But I never heard it.

I did record stuff, although it's mostly lost now, in a "band" which was my friend Russell on guitar (he'd add other instruments alone, later) & whomever we could shanghai into hanging out with us. All the lyrics I yelped were made up on the spot, usually to crack up Russell. He would sometimes suggest titles, & we'd go from there. One suggestion of his was a mocking bluesy tune called "Battering Ram" in which I, of course still a virgin, sang about my carnal prowess. If I remember the chorus right, it went something like:

I'm a battering ram,
I'm a battering ram,
I turn girls into spam,
Cause I'm a battering ram
I'm a battering ram,
I'm a battering ram,
I wonder who the hell I think I am

My favorite part was when, at the end, Russell interjected "His bedroom is an obstacle course," & I sang,

Watch it jump through the hoops
Do loop-de-loops
Battering, battering ram

In addition to a very insulting cover of "Sharp Dressed Man" & a shabby cover of "I Will Follow" (which I somehow made as creepy as possible by adding, "I'll follow you to your house - to your grandmother's house - I'll sneak in the bathroom"), we had songs with lovely titles like "Vandal With Me," "Officer Burrell Has Some Documents For You To Sign" & "Teenage Zombie."

None of this really has anything to do with hiphop of course. But what if I *had* pursued my hiphop dreams? Where were my friends who could beatbox? Alas, not in white Garland Texas in the mid-80s!

The Arsonist Is Caught!

In case you haven't heard, a former KOOP volunteer & programmer has been caught & confessed to starting the fire. I must admit, I am surprised it was that particular person, although his name was tossed around as a suspect.

The penalty for destroying what was the work of dozens of dedicated volunteers - him among them! - may be as little as two years in prison. I suppose I am admitting I am a bad person, but I wish he'd get the maximum - twenty years. He knew what he was doing when he set fire to KOOP - he knew he was spitting in the face of the sweat & toil of people with whom he was friends & colleagues. He knew he was destroying work that *none of them* got paid for. It seems like that should be taken into account when they sentence him.

I also hope he is not a little angry that his work was for naught - KOOP is still here, & a stronger station without him.

Enough of this! There are three things you can do to enjoy Gary's KOOP! All are available as we speak at selfhelpradio.net.

1) Listen to my subbing of Justin's excellent show The House Call. I hope I did it justice.

2) Listen to my subbing of Ear Candy, featuring a special guest appearance by a spaz named Leah.

3) Listen to last week's Self Help Radio, which was all about my anger about the person who started the fire... & look how much that show accomplished!

That's four hours of Gary. Please consult with your physician before listening to more than one show at a time.

14 Shows To Go!

That's right - KOOP is back on the air! & with it, the Self Help Radio countdown continues. Only fourteen more shows! Gasp! I'd better tidy up a bit!

The "fourteen shows" thing is a bit disingenuous, because there may be only fourteen Self Help Radios on KOOP left, but Self Help Radio is like a rash that cannot be treated with anything resembling powders or pharmaceuticals. You can't get rid of it. So it shall continue, either as a podcast or as some radio show somewhere else. May God have mercy on our souls.

As well, there's no law that says I can't sit in on other folks' shows when they are otherwise unavailable. So, today, you'll hear my indie rock it up on Justin's excellent The House Call, & I always hope I do him justice. Justin justice. Then, tomorrow, I'll indie pop it up on Ear Candy. So what should have been just ninety minutes of Gary on the radio has suddenly, inexplicably, unconscionably turned into four long hours. Think I'll crack? Think someone will need an EMT? Then tune the fuck in, yo.

Remember to maintain the rage at asshole arsonists by tuning in today either live on the 91.7 fm frequency or live online at koop.org. KOOP has been through another trial by fire & emerged more powerful. & we do it for our community. That includes you!

KOOP comes back, baby!

That's right, tomorrow - January 25, 2007 - KOOP will return to the air. Oh yes. Just in time for you to hear the last Self Help Radios you'll hear on KOOP. I'm sure that's why they chose Friday!

Here's a nice article about how much KOOP loves KVRX & vice versa. Those kids did a damned good job. I'm so proud of them! Now if they'd just learn to clean up after themselves... Kids today I swear.

So you'll get to hear Self Help Radio - & maybe Gary on other places on the station over the weekend. I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, if you'd prefer to listen to music NOW rather than reading a dumbass blog or waiting for tomorrow, you can visit the Self Help Radio Extra page because my January Extra Mix is up. I do this for you. Please don't make me feel weird about it.

Tomorrow - KOOP - the Return!

Whither Anger?

It's a strange, crippling condition, is anger, & I have probably been angry a lot of my life, borne of the helplessness of basic existence in a complex world.. A friend once told me she saw me as a lone soldier fighting a fight against pretty much everything, & although the image is interesting, surely she must have known that I'd get shot by friendly fire right away - even if I were the only person in the company.

I've been angry the last few weeks because of the stupid fucking person - the selfish or hateful or deluded or fucked-up or spiteful or whatever the hell he/she/they was/were - who burned down my dear community radio station. I don't believe in nonsense like karma & I don't believe in a hell, so I naturally want them to get a taste of justice while we can all be around to enjoy it. I think that, once they're caught, the Austin Fire Department & the Police should leave the person or persons responsible in a room with every KOOP volunteer allowed a few seconds with them. I would emerge with bruised knuckles.

Fuckers! Of course I'm angry! So the show this week will be soul-searching - songs about anger, with me talking about my anger. It'll be one of those occasions where Self Help Radio gets to be Gary Therapy. Maybe it'll help you, too.

Preface To The Angry Show: Is There A Place For Emotion In Music?

Music is, of course, first & foremost a cerebral pursuit, as we have always acknowledged, from the first writings of Professor Elvis Presley to the most recent - &, some say, the most difficult, as he invented a whole new scholastic language to dealing with music criticism - works of Dr. Shawn Carter. But recently, as the fourth deconstruction of popular music resulted in the demise of three record labels & the mass suicide of the Harvard Music School faculty, some people have begun to ask: but what if we made music with our hearts rather than our minds?

It is terribly easy to dismiss this as some kind of science fiction nonsense, but a small group of younger students has begun suggesting that the way a singer sings & perhaps the sound of the music might actually echo & create emotions in the listener. Appearing in smaller journals & also in unofficial publications called "fanzines," these "punks" (as they call themselves) have turned off their minds & started dancing (!) & singing along (!!) to the music. Some have also asked that the music be performed live (!!!) by groups of people who stand in front of them.

It hasn't taken too long for this strange, nearly heretical thinking to find its way to the establishment. Some of the old guard - the songwriters whose music could never be accused of have emotion in it - like Sir Paul McCartney & Brian Wilson - have waved the stories away as fabrication. Others, however, seem intrigued -& have in fact found themselves in places called "clubs" where there are actual "bands" playing music on stages. A few of those have managed to stay through the entire "show" without needing medical assistance.

It may be too early to tell if this is in fact some strange derangement caused by the intense intellectual experience of music - there are those who rue the day music was allowed to be shared with everyone, when it was freed from the academies, churches & halls of power - or if this is truly some revolution in the way human beings interact with & enjoy music. Only time will tell.

Be My Guest

It's a nasty day in Austin - not cold, but rainy & icky. I hope this isn't a premonition about my fortieth year! I can make one prediction - there will be good news soon about KOOP's return to the airwaves. I will tell you as soon as I know something.

Meanwhile, I am sitting in my slightly cold house & daydreaming today that it's now 1997 & I have decided that I want YOU to sign my guestbook. It's a guestbook! Do you remember when everyone had a guestbook! It's over a decade later & now I have one! Oh boy!

Go leave a message about Self Help Radio. Or about something else. Here's the link. I expect your eloquence will knock me out.

Podcast Greens!

Whatever kept me from uploading to my server last night is fixed now, so if you have been wondering what my favorite music from 1972 was, there's over two hours of it at selfhelpradio.net. Download & live in the past.

I titled my last post "Podcast Blues" but "Podcast Greens" doesn't seem the other side of that phrase. I suggests a green light to start going, but I demand a color that is the official opposite of the blues. Even if we have to make one up. If we do make a color up, I don't think we should insist it start with a q, x or z. People will just think we're referring to a new pharmaceutical if we do that.

Please enjoy well-meaning podcast. Please ignore shabby production values. Please wish me happy birthday. Thank you!

Podcast Blues

Hey! I finished the next podcast - but for some reason, I can't log on to the server that hosts them.

This morning I dropped my iPod in the rain & destroyed its screen. Now I have finished a two hour podcast (!) & can't share it.

Happy birthday to me!

I'll keep you updated when/if I get it up & running.

Sigh.

How Naughty Do You Dream I Am?

I am nowhere near naughty as this. The Dutch, I swear.

But I am thinking about this podcast thing in comparison with the radio show in real time thing. I am not at all constrained by time - just by the amount of material. &, it turns out, I like a lot of music that was made in 1972. I have thirty (THIRTY) songs I want to play, which, if I include my regular chatter, would be more than two hours of show. What to do? I certainly want to have it ready for downloading tomorrow. In case you're chomping at the bit, too. Which I know you're not. But it's nice of you to say.

What I'll do is probably have a longer podcast. Why not? Can YOU stop me? You can't even take the time to write me & tell me you love me, & also apologize for that time in ninth grade. You know what I'm talking about. In Drama club. When we were rehearsing The Crucible. I so knew it was you. Then as now, I'm going to do what I want to do. Even if we never speak again.

I am still finding my voice, so perhaps I will make this podcast nearly voiceless. There's just SO MUCH MUSIC. I haven't decided. If I call you at 4am, I'll be wanting your opinion. Don't hang up! I'm not drunk! I'm just stressed!

Brr, it's cold. All right. Bundle up. I'm podcasting tomorrow!

Whither 1972?

I was born in 1968. In January. That's FORTY YEARS AGO. Incredible. Anyway, a few years back, on this radio show I do, I thought, I'll celebrate my birthday by playing music that I like which happened to come out the year I was born. The next year, I moved up to the next year (1969), & so on. I've been doing this for four years now. I'm up to 1972. It's like some kind of regular feature. Unfortunately, it happens once a year, so, er, no one's really paying attention. Except for me.

I am still (meaning at this time) sorting through records from that year - there are a lot - here's a list of all the damn albums released in 1972 - I don't think that the list is very complete. But it gives you an idea of what I have to sift through.

Ah but! There's a lot of shit I don't like & won't play. That doesn't mean it's not any good, just that I don't like it all that much (which means I don't think it's any good - the critics - & you - can & will disagree). Also, it's important to note that the majority of the time I spent in 1972, I was four years old, & didn't really have a very good record collection at that point (I had most of the Beatles records, but didn't everyone by the age of four?) so these are records I hold in high esteem NOW, not that I held in high esteem then. Not necessarily.

It's a pain in the ass to organize, but I think I'll divide them into the following categories, &, since it'll be a podcast, I will allow myself to go long. Nyah.

1) Funnies.
2) Glam.
3) Krautrock.
4) Funkies.
5) Folky.
6) Rockin.

I wish I could include "jazzy," because there are some jazz records that came out that year that I dug, but I will draw the line then.

As for KOOP recovery news - I think there'll be very good news for you soon. Just be patient.

Preface To 1972: They Had Elections Then?

I am diligently working on a podcast-flavored Self Help Radio for your screaming pleasure this Friday. It may take until Saturday, though, as I am turning 40 (forty!) on Sunday. I hear you slow down with age. I can't imagine getting any slower, actually. It's a wonder I move at all.

Here's a British article called 40 Things About Being Forty. I don't really agree with most of it, primarily because I have avoided the ultimate aging process, reproduction, but the penultimate two seem to me really strange & wise:

38 It's hardly ever quiet enough.
39 It can be too quiet.

Isn't that true when you're twenty, though? Right now, as I type this, I am sitting alone in a room that has a lot of computers in it. I had headphones on but took them off to answer the phone, & haven't got back to putting them on again (again, I move slowly) (there's no noise from the headphones because I pause music when I answer the phone - I don't want to miss anything). The hissy rumble of computers may seem like quiet, but it's a sad form of quiet, like the white noise of a busy highway in the distance. Real quiet, like you can experience in the country, is stunning. It's like gasping for air after being underwater for a little too long.

It looks like turning forty is a big enough deal to make it into a doman name. How important is it to me? Well, I'm doing a radio show about it. Sort of

Or at least a podcast.

A New Use For Frogs!

Or maybe not. I do not have any frogs. I can only use them now for looking at & the occasional dissections.

I have no news about KOOP. I know some folks are coming here to look for new news about KOOP. For those of you who came here because you googled "a new use for frogs," KOOP is the radio station where I deejay. Someone (or someones) whose usefulness to the world they have chosen to demonstrate as "neglible" set a fire there on the first weekend of the year. There is an investigation underway & there is more information about that over at the KOOP home page. We're working to return to the air. I hope that the person or persons who attempted to destroy one of the last few democratic & utterly free voices in the world (& not just Austin) finds themselves some place where they are needing help &, instead of encountering a good soul, the sort of soul that I volunteer with at KOOP, they come across someone quite like them, who laughs & laughs at their pain.

I know there's very little justice in the world, but when someone has wounded something like KOOP - oh, & it's only a wound - this is one scrappy radio station, with lots of scars - & god I love that crazy little station, scars & all - when someone has hurt something I care for as much as KOOP, I like to indulge in little revenge fantasies. May they come true with a vengeance.

There are some recordings of old shows (including some Self Help Radio shows) streaming from koop.org, but in case you didn't hear, I did do a show all by my lonesome Friday, as a podcast, it's about teeth, & you can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net.

I shall continue podcasting while the station gets back on its feet. Stay tuned I say! Stay tuned!

First Podcast!

Wow, it's weird to be sitting here at home around the time when I'm usually on the air. I went ahead last night &, using truly subpar equipment & sounding a little uncomfortable, I did a podcast of the show I had been planning on airing this week. If you are missing Self Help Radio, you can listen to it at selfhelpradio dot net.

It's about teeth. Except for my crappy airbreaks, it's awesome. Musical guests include the Mekons, Austin's own The Telephone Company, Frank Zappa, Brak, & Muhammad Ali. Your gums will bleed, the music's so good. I repeat: it's at selfhelpradio.net.

I was questioned today by the Austin Fire Department, although I don't think it's because I am a suspect. I have a key to the studios. It was a weird process. I think they secretly got my fingerprints. I hope they're able to catch the motherfucker who did this. I would like to pelt that person with garbage.

Go listen to my first podcast & tell me what you think. It's easy to get to & download, over at this page I keep linking to. The only reason you might not listen to it is because you are afraid of dentists. But who isn't?

Fucking Arsonists!

My pal Erin, who does a show call "Visual Aid" at KOOP, titled a piece on myspace "Fucking Arsonists." She has reason to be very angry. She's one of KOOP's Tech Team, the people who put the station together. Let me emphasize this: they put the station together. They pulled wires, screwed screws, debugged machines, sawed wood, stood on ladders, crawled under floors, all that shit. I can't imagine how she feels - it's like someone destroyed a piece of art she had built.

The most up-to-date of information can always be found at koop.org. I just wish this were an episode of "CSI." For several reasons:

1) It'd be fictional.
2) It'd be solved within an hour.
3) I could be watching everything, all the clues, the interviews, all that, instead of being, like you, on the outside looking in.
4) There'd be a nearly unbeatable team going through the evidence. Have you seen those detectives? They're awesome!
5) In the end, that Gil Grissom guy would get a radio show on KOOP. "Forensic Radio." That'd be rad.

Alas, I, like you, am waiting. Unlike you - or maybe like you - I am preparing a podcast instead of waiting for the radio to come back to do my show. So tomorrow, I'll have an announcement - a Self Help Radio podcast. I hope. Who knows? It may suck.

Remember, if you want to help KOOP, you can donate money. We'll need it. Believe me.

Whither Teeth?

Before I talk about why am doing a show about teeth, two updates about the fire:

1) The fire WAS arson. Austin Fire Department confirmed it.
2) There's a reward of real $$$ if you know something. Visit the KOOP website for details.

Why a show about teeth? I had a dental appointment today & wanted to dedicate the show to my dentist. But I felt weird saying, "It'll just be a podcast." So I didn't tell him. Anyway, he yelled at me for brushing the wrong way, so screw him. Not really. I mean, he did yell at me. But he's awesome. I still dedicate the show to him.

I am nervous about the podcast aspect. I know no one'll listen, but that's not what's making me nervous. It'll just seem weird, doing a radio show in the privacy of my own home. I normally do them in the privacy of my own head. Maybe I'll do it while sipping whiskey. Who knows? In any event, I hope to have it up by Friday at my regular time. We'll see about that!

One last thing: this is my THREE HUNDREDTH post on this blog. Has anyone (you know, beside James Joyce) ever used some many letters of the alphabet to say so little? Why can't academics use my blog to support their careers? It just seems sad.

Preface To Teeth: No, Talk About The Fire!

I've been joking with other KOOPers that we should have slogans like:

KOOP - Highly Flammable Radio!
or KOOP - Incendiary Radio!

but I suppose I am tasteless like a Spencer's Gifts in the darkest corner of the mall.

The management of KOOP want us to not "spread rumors" or even "speculate" about the causes of the fire. Everyone I talk to wants me to tell them something, but I don't really know anything. The local news has started saying that "officials" are reporting it as arson. I can't tell you how satisfied I would be to see some awful person or persons led away in handcuffs at the end of this.

What I can say is that, as a station, our spirit is not broken & our determination is ever stronger. Listen: the boring & utterly bored folks you hear on nearly every other radio station in this city are told what to play, what to say, how to say it. They have corporations which determine what they broadcast at every second, from the fart jokes you hear on the "morning zoo" to the pre-fab pop, rock, "alternative," "new country," whatever the fuck is on commercial fm. Oh, & that especially includes the talk radio crap.

When tragedy happens to those stations - you know, like when they're not turning a sizeable enough profit - they sell them, they fire the people who work there, they change formats. KOOP is not about profit - we'd like enough cash to pay the rent & replace equipment, sure - everyone you hear on the air is NOT getting paid for their programming. Not a cent. Not even, as I used to tell training classes, money for smokes & booze.

We believe in KOOP. It's radio as we dream it could be everywhere. This most recent fire burned strong enough to take us off the air, to destroy things we had, to anger & confuse & sadden us, but it has not silenced us. How could it? Can you really burn away a dream?

Of course not. We're small fries, we broadcast a measly three thousand watts, we raise a fraction of the dough the local classical & NPR stations raise, but we are dedicated to this grand experiment in community radio.

So we're working to come back. & we will be back.

Want to help? Giving money would be an awesome gesture.

Stay tuned. & jesus, thank you KVRX! You kids sound great!

Smoke Inhalation

Maybe you've heard... KOOP had another fire. We're off the air for a while. There's an investigation pending. I am sad beyond description.

Since I've been planning to podcast anyway, I'll be podcasting my show this week. I'll try to have it up by Friday evening. It'll be about teeth.

My last show - perhaps the last show I'll ever do in that studio - is available now at selfhelpradio.net.

More information about the situation will be available at koop.org. I'll pass along anything I learn here, too.

Sigh.

17 Shows To Go!

I am getting down to my last four months of shows on KOOP. How sad is that? Stupid 2008!
Today's show is about ladders. How great is that? 2008 rules!

This is the year I turn FORTY YEARS OLD. How fucked up is that? Stupid fucking 2008!
I didn't make any new year's resolutions. What a relief! I started 2008 right!

This is the year a bunch of liars "run" for president. It makes me tired. Fuck 2008 & fuck Father Time!
This is the last year the current administration is in power. Thank God & His massive package! 2008 will be awesome.

I can go on like this for hours, as I can carry two opposing thoughts in my head indefinitely. (It certainly makes listening to KOOP easier!) But I shall not, as I have a show to prepare for. Won't you come along? It happens today at 4:30 pm Austin time live on the 91.7 frequency on the fm dial or at koop.org. Seriously, it's all about ladders. Why would I make that shit up?

& yeah, it'll be archived soon. But there's nothing like being there when it happens! I mean, for a radio show, not, you know, a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. It sucks to be there when that happens. My radio show has never killed anyone, as no one has ever been killed by mild disappointment.

I'll see you there. Or I won't see you there. I'll be sad if you can't make it, but if you can it'll be LEGENDARY!

Where There's A Curd, There's A Whey

At the beginning of the eighth year of the last century, three probably heterosexual men were sitting on a stoop, daydreaming about the new year, but not necessarily about their current new year (1908) because they were sitting on a stoop in Florence, Arizona, just outside Tucson, & not only wasn't Arizona a state yet, but most residents had decided that telling time, either with watches or with calendars, was something territories didn't do. The three men on the stoop choose to abide by that affectation since none of them owned watches, & the one who owned a calendar had one of those "Hang In There!" kitten calendars for 1898. The new year they were daydreaming about was not named.

One of these men became a Supreme Court Justice. One of them became the most famous songwriter in United States history. One of those men (the was who was least probably heterosexual) invented the mechanism which would make television possible.

Not really. One of them stepped on a nail & died of tetanus before William Howard Taft took the oath of office. The other two died in World War I, one of them in the trenches, the other being shot by a French solider who thought he was a female & was surprised, in the light of a bursting shell, to see a mustachioed American blowing him.

What they were daydreaming about, actually, was pretty dull. They wanted to go to Santa Fe to see a circus. Because they actually didn't know what time it was, they would have been sad to find out that the circus left Santa Fe for Abilene several months back. Since they didn't know that, they thought about it, & laughed when they thought about the clowns.

Truly, then, this cautionary tale is here to tell you: is 2008 really any different than 1908? Or can I simply not find either a humorous meaning nor an adequate way to end this post? I think the answers are the same - & very different.

Whither Ladders?

Ladder, a poem.

As I reflect on the ladder as an element
of the human desire to get from one place
(down) to another place (up) without wings
or leaping (& vice versa)

I am reminded of the great parable of
the footstools in one forgotten religion
(or another) which you may remember
from your religious youth

One footstool said to another footstool
I am but a means to an end
& not an end unto myself which did
cause the other to snort

What the fuck more do you want
you douche you're a sentient footstool!
& they called it in those days perspective
even as from a profane footstool

& truly as I climb the more metaphorical
of ladders I also crave the perspective
& also a footstool that can talk even
if it's a little whiney

For did we not as human species beings
need to climb up not only for things
in high places like cookie jars & fruit
but also to climb out of places

Like holes we dug ourselves into
& our heads out of our asses
wherein perhaps we began reflecting
on things like ladders

In the first place?

That poem written by Daniel Geoffrey Hoplite, some time in the last twenty years. Or minutes.

Preface To Ladders: Happy New Year!

Wow, 2007 is over. I never thought that fucker would leave.

2008 will be a freaky year for Self Help Radio - I'll be leaving KOOP & transitioning (hopefully temporarily) to exclusively podcasting. I hope I can continue doing it - I hope someone out there will want me to continue doing it!

In case you haven't already noticed, my last two radio shows of the year - & the last two indiepop a to z installements of 2007 - are available for your listening pleasure at selfhelpradio.net.

Soon the holidays will be over & I'll get back to the business of writing more nonsense in this blog. Until then - here's my wish that the only help you'll be needing in 2008 is Self Help Radio. Happy new year!

18 Shows To Go!

Jeepers, the time is a-gettin' short. Not only is the year almost over, but I'm gettin' close to bein' done with my time at KOOP.

Today I'll be finishing my one-year commitment to doing the "Indiepop A To Z" every two months. I made a substantial dent in the Cs, but I won't be returning to this on KOOP - unless I get to sub Ear Candy again, which may happen. I am subbing Ear Candy tomorrow & continuing a to z'ing. Look, it's my OCD & I'll alphabetize if I want to.

It starts today at 4:30pm. Live on 91.7 fm in Austin, or at koop.org online. Archived as soon as I get my shit together over at selfhelpradio.net. Ear Candy is tomorrow at 3:30pm. Same bat channel, same bat web site.

Ah, 2007. If I didn't drink so much, I might remember some of your highlights. I do know that I continue to be fortunate to live with a lovely scientist & our six doggy catty children (the newest one, a beaglet called Winston, joined us just a few months ago), & I am pleased as punch to be associated with a wonderful radio station like KOOP, which is (as I always say) an exciting experiment in community radio. I am honestly surprised that this experiment doesn't blow up in the lab as much as your average experiments do!

Most of all, I am happy & grateful so many of you listened, called in, made requests, won shit, & gave money to KOOP in the name of my show. It warms the cockles of my heart. I am glad we got to spend some time in 2007 together. Now. Two shows & on to 2008!

My Millennium Falcon

Mmm, the Millennium Falco. What a delicious space ship.

I am a total Star Trek nerd, but every time I think of the Millennium Falcon, I get a sci-fi boy's brain chubby. How I wanted that ship when I was nine! I even once had a dream that I stowed away onto it. I don't really remember the dream, but I remember how happy I was when I woke up from a dream in which I was on the Millennium Falcon. Yum.

I had a friend in high school who loved drawing the old school Enterprise (I was in high school before Star Trek The Next Generation, so there was no new Enterprise to draw at the time), & both of us expressed admiration for the Cylons' ships (though not really the Battlestars or their lame X-Wing-Fighter-ish ships) in the original Battlestar Galactica, although, just as we puzzled over why the Howells would travel on Gilligan & the Skipper's cheap ass boat rather than using their own yacht or something, we never really understood why it took three Cylons to pilot the ship when they could never win against the Colonial ships.

I am happy to read that the Falcon inspired Joss Whedon's Firefly, which is the easily the best science fiction of the past few years. I don't fall in love with space ships anymore like I did when I was a kid, but there are certain things that push my buttons - like a Proustian taste or smell - whether it's how fucking cool I thought Mr T was, or seeing the crazy trippy art of Steve Ditko (which always feels brand new to me), or seeing the Millennium Falcon. I'd accept George Lucas' facile, tedious, dull Star Wars universe if only someone would let me fly that ship once.

Mmm, Millennium Falcon. Hey, could Chewbacca come along as well. I'd need him. & maybe R2D2, just for safety's sake.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 12 - & # 13?!?!

As the year ends, I get to try to come a little closer to ending something I should've started when I was much younger & there weren't as many indiepop bands are there are now: the indiepop a to z countup. I started doing it with Jennifer on Ear Candy in 2005, & did it every two months on Self Help Radio this year, & will most probably get through the middle of the Cs before I put the project on hold for a little while.

Wait! Why on hold? Well, as I have only four more months on KOOP, I'm going to wait until I switch to podcasts in May 2008 to continue. You can wait, can't you? No? Okay, then you can go listen to those other indiepop a to z countdownups. Yeah, I thought so. Ingrate.

But Lace has asked me to sub Ear Candy this week (it's on Saturdays from 3: 30 to 5pm), so I figured I'd just continue what I started on Friday's Self Help Radio - which means three hours of indiepop c: from Cats On Fire to... what? Will I get to bands/musicians that start with ch? ci? cl? You can cut this tension with a hot butter knife you bet!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm still working on the show. Is Cibo Matto indiepop? Really? Why or why not?

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 12: Merry Christmas!

That's all. Been in Dallas all day. Just got home. Must sleep.

Happy holidays!

Holiday Buffet

Happy holidays to everyone who comes across Self Help Radio & doesn't throw up a little inside their mouths! (Okay, happy holidays to you too. Why do you do that to yourself?)

I have just put up the two & a half hour A Very Self Help Radio Christmas over at selfhelpradio.net for your holiday listening pleasure. It's bound to disturb your family in ways your sexual deviance never could. & that's saying something!

If you prefer just the music, you may want to listen to this month's Self Help Radio Extra, which is a mix of all the Christmas songs from last year without all that radio junk gunking it up.

I may not post tomorrow - I'll be with family myself - but I'll be back Wednesday. Happy holidays to everyone!

19 Shows To Go!

Let's fuck shit up.

Remember, today's Self Help Radio is a Christmas spectacular which includes the hour previous, which is my way of saying I am subbing "The House Call," which means this Self Help Radio Christmas has become a Very Self Help Radio Christmas. There'll be lots of Christmas music which isn't entirely right in the head, as well as giveaways, amusing anecdotes about Santa's perversions, & at the very end of the show, I'll hang a giant mistletoe over Austin & everyone'll have to make out. What fun!

I'll get the show archived in time for Christmas, I promise. Meanwhile, if you want/need/expect a Christmas mix fix, visit the Self Help Radio Extra page for last year's Christmas show as a single mix without any radio accoutrements.

See you at 3:30pm Texas time, on the radio or on the web at koop dot org!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Obligation!

I don't mean the the KOOP Anniversary Party, which got an XL recommendation, whatever that is. (I bet it's not as cool as a doctor's note. I wish I could get a doctor's note for most of my obligations. Oh! & a hall pass! Those are cool.)

That made me think about "Get Out Of Jail" free cards in Monopoly. I guess that, since most of the players end up in jail during the course of the game, it assumes that people who go crazy for real estate are all basically criminals who'll do whatever it takes. I think the game is being honest here. I am surprised.

Anyway, remember, I'm not deejaying tonight, despite what you may have heard. I started that rumor myself & it spread like wild butter. No, it's Irma from Hablando De Salud who'll be spinning the tunes in the spot where my name might once have been tossed about in a potential manner. Go see her! She's wonderful.

I must go prepare for a Christmas show... It's really the only thing I do to celebrate the birth of the little baby girl Jesus. She's pretty!

Whither A Very Self Help Radio Christmas 2007?

There's such good tidings of joy & radio this week, friends & ex-lovers!

First, Self Help Radio will be extended by an hour (as opposed to being removed by court order, as you've been expecting) so you'll get sixty more minutes of Self Help Radio, which promises you, as always, lots of Gary talking mixed with fabulous music. I can't describe it better than that. I just had dental work & my mouth hurts. Also, my co-workers are unkind to me. I think I'll go home early to cry. 'Tis the season.

Second, this month's Self Help Radio Extra is actually all the songs from last year's Self Help Radio Christmas show, only this one has all the talking & announcements taken out. So if you're in the mood for a seventy-two minute mix of Christmas songs you really won't ever hear anywhere else (or at least certainly not in the order in which I have placed them), just hop over to the Self Help Radio Extrapage for downloading & play it at the next Christmas party you attend. You won't be invited back to that house ever again, but you'll enjoy irritating everyone there.

Third, you've doubtless heard about KOOP's 13th Anniversary Party, yes? You should! Austin's best radio station & a brave experiment in community radio is becoming a teenager - & you can come to the party! All the information you need is here. Come celebrate with us!

That's all. You may return to your online shopping/online porn.

Preface To A Very Self Help Radio Christmas: Donning Gay Apparel

I don't know why I like Christmas music so much. I'm not a Christian, I don't really buy anyone gifts, & I don't really enjoy being around my family at this time of year (& the feeling, more & more, appears to be mutual). But I like Christmas music. I just do. I don't know why.

Do I want to know why? I do! But how?

Most people are entirely unaware why they like what they like, says Professor Smartie of Austin's Brainiac Institute. Indeed, he says, most people have either given their taste up to an authority, like television or magazines, or they've chosen to be contrary to the "taste" of the majority of the people in the world. "The truth is," says the doc, "no one really likes anything."

"So when people tell me they like my show?" I asked.

"Oh I've heard it," he said. "It's awful."

"Don't I know!" I said.

"They're obviously trying to make someone angry," he said, "if they say they like your show."

But what about me & Christmas? If I were just being contrary, wouldn't I hate Christmas? Also, wouldn't I shave my head & paint my scrotum blue? Also, wouldn't I visit old people late at night & make hissing noises under their door so they think their radiator's on fire?

"Probably," the doctor said. "But in your case, you're accepted one authority, & only one: Bing Crosby."

"Of course!" I said. "How could I be so stupid?"

"That's a completely different question," he said. "Put another nickel in my bowl, & I'll answer it."

I have since reconsidered the good doctor's diagnosis, but that doesn't mean he's wrong, just that I'm pretty sure he's full of shit. Meanwhile, as I was listening today to the fifteenth version of "Jingle Bells" I've collected for possible play this week, I could only smille to myself & think, "I also really love cheese. I wish someone would give me some cheese for Christmas. I do love it so!"

Full Of Myrrh & Sense

I'm so excited that I get to do a two & one-half hour A Very Self Help Radio Christmas this year. I hope Richard Dawson shows up! He's always there in my dreams!

I must say, I am delighted that weirdos like you enjoy my show, & even though my favorite music of 2007 hardly ever makes anyone's top ten lists besides me own (I only have one artist listed here, although Lucky Soul would have made it if my show were longer, & I played tracks from Japancakes's cover of the entire album Loveless under my airbreaks, even though that record is silly), I am rubber & year-end-top-ten-lists are glue, so their opinions bounce off of me & stick onto people who apparently only listen to music that they're told to. Nyah.

The show itself is current available for your listening or re-listening pleasure over at selfhelpradio.net. The show includes frank & revealing discussions of rich people moving to Mexico, whether or not we believe Ike Turner, & what all those difficult Nobel Prizes really mean. Missing it will be the mistake you always thought you'd make.

Now, back to the annoying Christmas music. It really is like sifting through manure to find pearls. Is that how the cliche goes? Did noblewomen once hide their jewelry in shit? The world is strange.

20 Shows To Go!

I'm down to 20 shows. Holy cow!

Today's show is my favorite indie music from 2007. Is it weird that I feel completely relieved that, of the twenty or so bands I'll get to play today, only one of them made the Onion's top 25 records list?

Justin, who does the House Call before me, is also playing his favorite stuff. So how indie are we? Tune it to find out. Starting at 3:30 pm today, live on the 91.7 frequency in Austin, or at koop.org.

We're so cool. & enjoy me while I last. I'm almost gone! 20 shows! That's like one third of a year!

Friend Of A Friend Of A Frond

Great, now I have a ridiculous title & nothing to write about. Here's what I know about fronds, though:

A frond is a large leaf with many divisions to it, and the term is typically used for the leaves of palms, ferns or cycads.

I don't know anything about friends. Well, I know a little something about Friends, the hit television series which ran on American television from 1975 until the day before the United States went to war in Iraq. If you'll recall, it single-handedly created the paparazzi industry & it also served as replacement therapy for people who've lost the will to click.

Is it wrong that I don't think of the people who may be listening to my show as friends? Well, what if I think of you as acquaintances? Former co-workers? People with whom I served in the armed forces just right before the United States went to war in Iraq?

But if you are friend of a frond, & we're friends, your other friends might think I was a frond, to avoid them being considered the frond with whom you are friends. How do I argue that? I won't. I'll just take my leaf.

Get it? "Take my leaf"? Like take my leave? Oh I kill me.

Whither Gary's Favorite Indie Music 2007?

As has previously been noted, The Self Help Radio has long been a supporter of many generous & onerous causes, including but not limited to musical endeavors. As part of this longstanding belief system, & with all respect due to doctors who operate on all manner of folk, The Self Help Radio has preceded to pretend to poll all of its programmer to determine within a 45% plus or minus accuracy whether said programmer has actually listened to let alone rated his or her (well, his) favorite music which was released in the year many have called 2007.

The results may surprise you. Four out of five of doctors who operate on all manner of folk have agreed to disagree about the nature of the results, which shall be made public in some particular order on the The Self Help Radio show this coming Friday. All press complaints & any personal, swell-scented documents may be delivered with great aplomb to this email address(es) provided in the press packet everyone should have received at the complimentary brunch. Extra silverware may be returned to the Lost &/Or Found Department located on the second shelf.

What should next your move be? Good answer! The listening pleasure of The Self Help Radio was or may one day be discussed in mixed company beneath chandeliers & over mugshots. Don't be forgettable - understand that there are moments in history at which you are attending & those which you were not invited to which. This is open to all those who have stomach, gumption, opportunity, opprobrium & wherewithal. Will you fathom the depths of The Self Help Radio? Might you even look at The Self Help Radio, then at yourself in the mirror, just to see if there's a resemblance? I know you do!

The Self Help Radio thanks you for your supplemental nature. Your name has been put in a hat & one day in the future you will be contacted by someone in the employ of a doctor who operates on all manner of folk. What happens next is entirely up to you.

Preface To Gary's Favorite Indie Music Of 2007: Year End Lists & The Women Who Love Them

"The Year In Music"

JANUARY: An overhyped new record by some old dude. Giant world tour follows. Tickets top four hundred dollars each. Sponsored by Viagra. Old Dude makes lots of money.
FEBRUARY: A new hiphop record by the same dude who's made a lot of hiphop records in the past three years is released the same week as the new hiphop record by the other dude (who'll be dead by year's end) who's made even more hiphop records in the past five years, & there's a lot of news blurbs about the competition in sales. No one actually listens to the records, though some do enjoy the women in bikinis in the videos.
MARCH: Another awards show gives top awards to both an old dude (who was criminally not given this award three decades ago) & a young dude who's sold a lot of records (which no one will listen to three decades from now).
APRIL: A scantily clad, terrifyingly thin pop singer with a child creates a scandal when she endangers her child's life in some way, goes to rehab, leaves the child at rehab, shaves her head, shaves the child's head, & then breaks up some other scantily clad, terrifyingly thin pop singer's relationship. A reality show based on the event follows in the fall.
MAY: A new FCC ruling allows Clear Channel to purchase every radio station in the United States except for ten.
JUNE: Forty year anniversary of some overrated record by overrated old dudes dominates the media for a week, much to the gratitude of the current administration. Only a couple of people are strong-willed enough to look up from the nostalgiac haze to point out that the record hasn't aged well.
JULY: This year's group of "indie" musicians, picked apparently at random in a smoke-filled room by record company executives, get their break by being featured in a commercial or on a summer movie soundtrack. Of course, the ones who "make it" are not the group of musicians who truly deserve it, but the deserving musicians disqualified themselves by not signing to a major label.
AUGUST: Another old dude makes news complaining about the Internet, myspace, filesharing &/or mp3 stores online from his Malibu home as the third set of reissues of his CD catalog (feauring remixes by Moby & Radiohead!) hit the stores.
SEPTEMBER: Someone generally unimportant dies/kills self/is killed & becomes more important than they ever would have if they'd lived. This may or may not be the hiphop artist who released a new record earlier in the year.
OCTOBER: Some old dude rips off some groundbreaking hiphop/electronic/indie/world music trend & is hailed as a genius. He doesn't pay the interns who turned him onto the music (he only listens to his old stuff), but he does let them blow him.
NOVEMBER: A major musical innovator dies, but not only do the obituaries focus on the musician's "hits" & the troubles he/she had while alive, but someone unimportant - a politician, usually - dies soon after, taking the attention away from the true legend.
DECEMBER: Year end lists by famous critics will include only those records sent to the famous critics by major record companies, although, if an intern will fuck them, one of the critics may include the intern's favorite independent record as an afterthought or a "band to watch."

Early September Conjugal Visit

Yes, we have surprises in store for you this weekend only at Self Help Radio, America's favorite organic fast-food shopping emporium & home decor workshop. Using only fair-trade radio parts, Self Help Radio changes the world, one kilobyte of downloadable exacerbation at a time. Listen to what you can see if you'd only had a taste of the sweet-smelling Self Help Radio shaking your hand on the radio every week:

- Collapsible Cheese
- Martin Heidegger
- A Brief Cessation Of Hostilities
- Dimly Lit
- Vegetarian Dim Sum
- Jelly Pipeline
- Mind The Gap
- Popular Novelist On Hold

Want more? Want less? Both are available at no other cost to you than your time &/or interest over at selfhelpradio.net!

Update: On Friday, December 7, 2007, Self Help Radio performed a public service & played ninety minutes of 2007's best electronica (& not, as previously reported, best erotica, sorry). If you didn't hear the show, you will be able to enjoy it as it happened in what is apparently called mp3 format over at selfhelpradio.net. But act soon! It may only be there for a year!

21 Shows To Go!

Eep! Time is running short! Someone needs to get me a banjo & a sentient sports car or else we'll all die!!

Yes, today is (counting down, you know) show number 21. There are only 20 shows after this. If I live that long. You never know what my enemies may be putting in my sag paneer when I'm at an Indian food buffet. All I can say is that I can't eat as much as I used to, & that may be my saving grace. Damn my foes! Can't they wait their turn?

Today's show will be my favorite electronica from the past year. As always, I will neglect to make sure that everyone knows I couldn't possibly have listened to every record put out by every electronical artist (or by every human artist making electronical music) this year. Just most of them.

Actually, I do avoid a lot of stuff. I filter. I don't listen to much that's house-y (although if they made music based on television's House, you can bet I'd listen to that) & I don't listen to a lot of techno ravey dance music. Nor ambient, although it's a fine line sometimes. I mean, what's the real difference between glitch & drill n bass? Or did I make those genres up? I can't tell any more.

Oh, you listen & decide what I like. It'll all be live today on KOOP (& online too) from 4:30 to 6pm Texas time. & then later (probably around Sunday) at selfhelpradio.net. & still later, repeated over & over in your head when you get to hell. Three great chances to hear!

& be sad as show 21 passes by... & my departure from the KOOP airwaves gets ever nearer...

Evel

Last week one of my childhood heroes died. I hadn't really paid any attention to him at all in thirty years, but when I heard he was gone, I felt very, very sad.

His name was Evel but the name wasn't meant to evoke diabolical intent, just coolness. For a little fat kid in Garland, Texas, who loved comic books & science fiction, this guy sure seemed like a super hero. I wish I still had the toys I owned - the action figure on the motor cycle, the action van, the ramps - but the reason I don't is not because I outgrew them. I just played the shit out of them.

He of course wasn't a super hero. Listen to this:

Performing stunts hundreds of times, Mr. Knievel repeatedly shattered bones as well as his bikes. When he was forced to retire in 1980, he told reporters that he was “nothing but scar tissue and surgical steel.”

By his own account, he underwent as many as 15 major operations to relieve severe trauma and repair broken bones — skull, pelvis, ribs, collarbone, shoulders and hips...

He had a titanium hip and aluminum plates in his arms and a great many pins holding other bones and joints together. He was in so many accidents that he occasionally broke some of his metal parts, too.

I'm trying to remember specific moments I watched Evel Knievel jump something - like, did I see the Las Vegas jump, or the Snake River Canyon jump, live on TV? - but I don't think I ever saw anything but "best of" shots. For me, he wasn't someone you tuned into television to watch. He was captured on film doing what came natural to him, like you imagine a stray camera catches Superman flying overhead. He was someone my friends & I talked about, lied about, made up new legends about.

He was such an amazing thing to have as a kid. The New York Times obituary says he retired in 1980, which seems awful late, but by that time I was ass-deep in puberty & not really going to pay attention.

Aw, who am I kidding. Even now, if I had heard he was going to jump the Washington Monument on a Vespa, I'd have wanted to at the very least hear about it. Insert some dumb comment about his motorcycle leaping the river Styx here.

Whither Gary's Favorite Electronica 2007?

Whither not?

I was going to have that be my entire entry but thought, nah. I'm not that cliched. I also thought I'd be explaining it & then have the sentence stop in the

But even that's dumb, & it makes it look like I'm writing poetry or something. Hey! I haven't thought about this in a while.

Do you have a friend
?
Who writes
e - m a i l
like they think
they are
eecummings?

That used to annoy me more than it does now. It was far more annoying in the days when people wrote real letters. You'd get a gigantic letter from someone you liked & there'd be like six words per page. If I hadn't been so damned lonely I wouldn't have written back. Where was texting when I really needed it?

An aside: Back in those days, I used to steal a lot of ideas for letters from comic books. None of my friends ever read comic books - to this day, most people still think they're for kids or something - morons - so I could write letters with weird formatting & strange ideas & nobody I knew would ever know. They'd think I was creative!

That's harder with blogs. Someone could be googling a comic book, get my blog, & the next thing you know, Warren Ellis is coming up to KOOP to kick my ass. Not that that wouldn't be cool.

Speaking of cool - when will electronic music ever get really cool? Every time it seems about to break through, some douche like Moby or those French Daft Fucks come along - or even worse, Radiohead listens to an Aphex Twin record & thinks "Duh we could do this!" - & the commercial result is icky, half-assed, lowest common denominator commercial cookie-cutter shit. Ah well. Some great folks continue to make music regardless.

& that's
whither
my favorite electronica 2007.

Preface To Gary's Favorite Electronica 2007: My Circuit Bored

I want to publicly give thanks to electronics for enhancing my previously only chemically-enhanced lifestyle. In particular I'd like to thank electronics for high-definition school lunches. & satellite channel-changers. & my Tony Stark-flavored CPU. & instruments, like keyboards & kazoos, that can be made electric. Thanks electronics! Have some cheese on me.

I am writing this on what the gurus like to call a "computer." The electrons bouncing off its monitor into my eyes mock me, but I am used to the constant humiliation of "online gaming," so nothing burns me any more. Except the virtual fire of my hate. But that's not important right now. What's important is that eventually, when everything we predicted in romantic comedies comes true, it'll be we who are the machines, & not the machines. Nor vice versa.

For example, it was common in the 80s & before & after to forgo the risk & nuisance of having an actual drummer to use a "beat generator" or "drum machine." Famous bands like the Decaffienated Jellies & the Jean Lenin Sisters preferred the tinny, vaguely programmed sound to actual programmed tin drummers. The result? Legend! Why? Electronics! Hunh? I said Electronics! Turn up your hearing aid!

However, in recent years, the analog has made a slight comeback, also known as, it never really left but we've just noticed it again. "Analog is the new non-digital recording" has appeared on at least one bumper sticker, if that. Dance floors everywhere are a-titter, or possible a-quiver, especially when everyone pays a-ttention. When instead they dance, well, that's where electronics, & electronically-apathetic dance music heroes, shine. Literally. They shine. They have crystals & LEDs & even lightbulbs, although hopefully with a small ecological footprint or a small ecological booty so they don't track mud all over the place.

Let's hear it for electronics! Notice I didn' say "Let's see it for electronics!" That's because I do a radio show, which few people see (don't ask me how many people feel my show). I thank electronics for not only my livelihood but also for helping me make a living. Three cheers for electronics! Please push the "cheer" button three times. Then watch the screen.

Buy Lo! Sell Hi!

The robots this morning were unforgiving, or was it the cats? If I had my trusty pocket calculator, I'd be able to enumerate the humiliations & daily offenses I endure to exist to make this blog that I make to help me make my radio show. I don't do it out of "music love" or "computer love," that's for sure! I'd sooner spend time in a shop window with the other showroom dummies. But I'm no model - I don't want to spend all my time in some electric cafe being exposed to unhealthy radioactivity. It's more fun to do radio than to compute!

Anyway, leaving the man/machine behind, I do want to point out that not one but TWO of the most recent Self Help Radios are available for your listening pleasure over there at selfhelpradio.net. The last two shows I did in November are there, in fact. Please go listen to them & compare them to every Kraftwerk song you know.

Or did your antenna fall off when the spacelab fell on the Trans-Europe Express?

You have no excuse!

22 Shows To Go!

Vacation is over (but I'm taking the day off work anyway, because I am still a little jet lagged - all those damn time zones between here & New York!), so I'm sitting here listening to Christmas music in preparation for my World Famous Christmas Show, which I'll be doing in about a month. A month! It didn't even take Jesus a month to die on the cross!

Just got finished feeding my brood & have been going over the piles of nonsense I have for today's show about birthdays. A moderately exciting thing is happening today, besides it being Girlfriend's Birthday Eve & the general happy excitement of doing a radio show for the nice people: today I get a new apprentice!

Remember, KOOP welcomes newcomers into the station to train to be programmers twice a year, & part of the training process is to be paired with "seasoned" (that means recovering from some addiction) programmers to learn the ropes. I don't know anything about ropes, but I can tie my shoes, so I am assigned an apprentice. You may remember my apprentices from the previous season:

Gary: the rugged, no-holds-barred Midwesterner who has given me more stitches than anyone since the schoolyard bully in elementary school; &
Stephanie: the rugged, no-holds-barred chick from Houston whose inability to stop kicking me in the teeth made for hours of hilariously bloody radio.

Gary may still be around. His day job (he's the state executioner for some Middle Eastern potentate) keeps him busy, though. Stephanie, alas, had to go back to Houston because the city missed her too much. It was getting all weepy & talking with its mouth full of chocolate. What could she do?

It's bittersweet - my apprentice this week & the other one (I don't know why I always get two) next week will be the last apprentices I'll have at KOOP. But they're new! So with only 22 shows to go - wow! New voices on Self Help Radio!

Bad To Verse

"This is the first vacation you didn't finish a book," says my girlfriend Magda. It's true. There was too much to do!

I didn't relax enough, but then, what else are subways for? It's my own fault. I was listening to the lovely subway song that begins, "Stand clear of the closing doors please!"

Much as I constantly confuse the names of the colors (but not the colors) orange & green, or the names of the times of day (but not the times of day) midnight & noon, I have always confused "verse" & "prose." "Prose" has never seemed prosaic to me. & "verse" sounds like an insult. So while what I am writing now is more definitely not verse, I don't really think it's prose, either. In my mind, prose rhymes. With "rose." & "nose." & "those hose."

None of which explains why I should have or could have but did not finish a book over the last five days. I also didn't finish a crossword puzzle, but that doesn't bother me, seeing the half-assed attempts to solve crushingly easy sudoko puzzles in the in-flight magazine. What a wiener was sitting in my seat before me!

Oh oh, another weird thing is religious freaks in the subway. Who lets them in there? & above the Mason-Dixon line? They were handing out Chick Tracts!

What else? A radio show tomorrow! Aha!

Whither Birthdays?

No one really cares WHY I do the shows I do, so I've sort of stopped explaining. (But my love for the word "whither" lives on.)

There are some folks at KOOP who don't understand why I pick the themes I pick, but that keeps them from listening to my show, so saying why on my obscure little blog wouldn't help.

If I must explain: Suffice it to say, it's my wonderful girlfriend Magda's birthday this week, & there are tons of songs about birthdays (literally fourteen thousand pounds of them), & I figured I'd make it a regular thing.

Here's the tagline as if I advertised the show on television:

Is it your birthday? Have you recently had a birthday? Will you have a birthday this year or have you had one already this year? Then this show is for you!

I am still in New York, waiting for my previously mentioned wonderful girlfriend to wake up so we can begin our day. While most folks might finish their nights in gotham at a bar or in jail, we found ourselves last night at a vegan cupcake shop called Babycakes. The staff there were awesome & one of them had an iPod mix better than any jukebox I've heard in the city. The only scary thing: a picture of the owner with Martha Stewart. It almost made me regurgitate my spelt.

I've also seen old friends, new friends, near-relatives, men in business suits throwing up in the subway (okay, just one of those), Rockettes, bartenders eating apples & peanut butter, academics eating raw meat, the Park Slope food co-op, and lots, lots more.

Luckily when I see, I am also there to experience.

Preface To The Birthday Show: Another Year, Another Birthday

Does New York City have a birthday? How hard can it be to find out a day when a city was born? Pretty hard, actually - online encyclopedias give years, but not specific days. This must be a sneaky way to make sure a city has a birthday all year around!

I tried to find out when my home town of Garland, Texas, was born (answer: some time in 1891), but couldn't find a specific date. I did, however, find out that Garland has a Star Trek Lane. I knew there was a reason that I came from that city!

I shall visit it when I am there in Christmastime. For I am a major Star Trek nerd.

By the by, reading about artistical forms invented in New York in the wikipedia, I am surprised that the writer does not mention comic books. I am such a comic book geek that I really do expect to see super heroes in the skies above this city. At the very least, I am waiting for someone to tell me where the Baxter Building is.

What was I talking about? Ah yes, something about birthdays. Are days of creation the same as birthdays? Do my radio shows get born every Friday, or was the show born when I did my first show? (I know that to be October 9. My show expects presents.)

I dunno. My feet are sore because my girlfriend makes me walk everywhere. I am assuming they will fall off at some point, I'll miss my plane, & people will throw coins into my foot sockets as I make my living on the subways of New York. But that hasn't happened yet. I'll keep you posted.

NYC 11-07

Yes, yes, I'm in New York. It's chilly but I am getting to see both the trees in Central Park change color as well as steam pour from the manholes so it doesn't bother me. It's my girlfriend's birthday so this trip is for her, & we're going places & doing things she wants.

This affects you vis-a-vis my radio show in two ways. One, I have not updated the web page or my playlists on both the KOOP page & the myspace page, & b, I have not put up an mp3 of last week's show. I know, you'll not be able to sit at work & pretend it's Friday again today, & for that I am sorry. Not terribly sorry, though. I'm in New York!

Since it's officially Magda's Birthday Week, when I get back to do Self Help Radio on Friday, the show will be about birthdays. Not just hers. If you or anyone you know have a birthday, the show will be for you.

I'll try to continue writing from NYC. I'll also try to figure out what's making those manhole covers steam...