Preface To Nine: Up At Four-Thirty

This has been a weird morning. I was awakened by the dogs at around 4:30 am (it's hard to believe it was just an hour ago) because there were folks noisily walking down the street & the dogs needed to report that to me. I got dressed, after being all paranoid about someone trying to break into the house, & went outside to find some of our recycling strewn on the street. (I think I finally got up because I heard a car crushing a can.) I picked it up, then noticed that one of the bins was missing.

A quick word: we pay a commercial company here in Huntington to pick up the recycling. In Austin, it's part of what you get with electricity & trash pick-up. Austin does it weekly. Here, it's biweekly & some folks say (we've not experienced this) that they sometimes forget to come entirely. Also, they don't take glass. Who doesn't recycle glass? Anyway.

I assumed that, since it was a lot of aluminum cans, someone had simply taken the kit & caboodle & drove off. (In Austin, some folks on recycling day would drive up & down the street & take the aluminum out of the bins.) But something compelled me to walk down the street - it's a lovely morning, all of 60 degrees, & an almost-full moon sat in the western sky lighting the area in its gauzy way - & I found the bin on the porch of a house about seven or eight houses down.

This house is a rental & the kids who live there - & they are kids, college kids - I met only once, when our movers were trying to get the semi through our very narrow street - & they were very drunk, asking me questions like, "How old are you? Do you like to drink?" I told them that my wife & I had just moved in & that prompted them to tell me, in their drunken intensity, to NOT SIGN THE PETITION. Apparently the neighbors have been circulating a petition to get them to move - for their loud music & late-night carousing - the boys who live there apparently have a punk rock band, but from what I've heard it sounds more metal - although I of course haven't been living here long enough to see such a thing. I was mainly concerned about the movers getting the trunk out of here. (& interestingly, none of the neighbors I've talked to have seen any petition.)

Anyway, I took the bin back - it was still three-quarters full - I can only assume that it was a stupid drunken impulse on someone's part, or else it could be that the bins are from Austin & say "Austin recycles" on them. Austin is considered a very cool town, of course, in this part of the world. One kid at WMUL even told me, "That's a great city, yeah. Never been there, but I hear it's a great city."

Part of me thinks that I may end up causing a commotion if they come out & find it gone, although they're probably drunk & asleep by now. I'm sober & very, very awake. It's annoying. & I'll probably stay awake until the recycling folks come.

This of course has nothing to do with Self Help Radio, to which you really should be listening & on which I really should be working. The wife is in Pittsburgh, looking at tongues (I couldn't make such things up), so it's just me, the ever-alert pups, & that moon, slowly descending as a very long day begins.

One Day Later, Two Shows For You

Last night, a storm razed Cincinnati - rain poured into the streets of this venerable American city & washed it away as though it were a mound of crud on the filthy shoulder of America. The same storm, its voraciousness comparable only to its intensity, hammered Lexington like a coked-up roofer destroying the very domicile he was building. (Not such a great metaphor, since a storm didn't create Lexington, but I'll stick with it because I once knew a coked-up roofer who was always falling through holes he made in other people's roofs.) Then, Lexington successfully flooded & drowning, the monster storm turned its eyes eastward & saw a tiny hamlet on the Ohio River, unpretentious, unprepossessing, unpopular, & the storm opened its maw & gave out a roar. & one brave disc jockey looked into the blackened western skies & said, "No! I shall make radio tonight! I shall not let this travesty of nature keep me from mine appointed duties!" & into the sprinkly early evening he drove...

Actually, I'm pretty sure Cincinnati & Lexington are okay. & the storm took a right at Ashland. Better bourbon down that way, I hear. It was a little anticlimactic, what with the crazy radar images the neighbors were showing us. So I went & did not only a Self Help Radio (theme this week: flowers) but also the first episode of a pop show called Sugar Substitute. Both were recorded in my usual manner & are available for listening at selfhelpradio.net for those with the inclination. I'll be happy if you enjoy it.

I need to split, I feel more purple prose emerging from me, like mighty Athena clawing her way from great Zeus' head, her first battle a battle to live!

You Know What Day It Is

It's true, it's Tuesday (truesday?) & I've been gathering all the flowers I intend to play on the radio tonight for Self Help Radio's show about - well - flowers. In case I didn't tell you (& I don't read this blog either, so I'm not sure how I'd know), Self Help Radio has been moved up to 6pm due to something I said to the King Of Eight O'Clock. I'm not sure what I said (I'm usually inebriated by then), but he contacted the nice folks at WMUL & they said I had to be done by eight, so they moved Self Help Radio. That's 6 to 8pm tonight, Tuesday, August 4, at 88.1 fm WMUL, live in Huntington & all around the tri-state region. That means you, Chesapeake. I know you're listening. Don't be coy. I'll record the show & archive it as soon as I can.

But wait! The King Of Eight O'Clock is a forgiving sort, so despite his displeasure with me & his tendency to prefer trained seals as television companions for Tuesday night reality shows, he's allowed me to present, from eight to ten, a pop show called "Sugar Substitute." (Yes, I totally ripped the name off from the awesome song by Luxuriator. I hope they don't sue.) I'll archive that, too, just so you can understand later when the King Of Eight O'Clock sets his trained seals on me. [Insert joke here about how details my death will be 'fishy.'] [Wait, don't. The King Of Eight O'Clock hates puns.]

So I'd better prepare. Four hours on the radio! I'll need a shave, a nap, some oxycontin, & a sandwich. In that order.

Eastern Standard Time

So here's something I just don't understand about living more or less close to the East Coast: prime time starting at 8pm. Do the people here stay up late? Or work late? Because they sure as hell don't get up to go to work late.

As you know, I've just recently relocated to lovely West Virginia from lovely Texas. Before this, I didn't know if I'd ever leave Texas. I had a nice job, some phenomenal apron strings which kept me miserably tied to my mother, & absolutely no idea why the hell I'd leave Austin except that the summers there were getting more & more unbearable & the hill country was slowly being desertified. Also, of course, the place was filling up with northerners. Carpetbaggers! Come to steal our women! Anyway.

"Central" & "Mountain" time has prime time start at 7pm, with the nightly news at the most reasonable hour of 10pm. This meant that funny talk shows can come on at 10:30 &, if you're a kid, say, in the 1980s, you can stay up to 11:30 to watch the first half hour of Letterman before you conk out. Imagine! I would never have gotten to see the Late Show if I grew up here, not just because electricity is a recent development here (just kidding Mountain State!) but also because it was on too late! A late Late Show would have sucked for a high school kid who had to be at school at 7:15am or else there'd be no parking spaces.

I remember thinking it was some sort of fictional conceit, like soda machines that say "Soda Machine" in the pre-product-placement days in movies & television, that people on TV would say "News at eleven." "It's not the real world," I would think. "So the news comes on at eleven." But no. It's true! The news comes on at eleven! What's up with that?

I just don't get it. Is it a daylight savings thing? Since television culture began in New York, I suppose it started then. Damn it, I've gotta go do research now. If you know, tell me. If not - I'll look it up.

Whither Flowers?

I know, I know, I know. Most everyone who does some sort of radio show where they get to select the music (as opposed to those who have their music chosen for them by corporate computers who manipulate focus-group tests to favor artists they've poured pots of gold into) does some sort of theme show at least every once in a while. What separates Self Help Radio from the rest (I like to think) is that the show doesn't repeat itself with regularity, it doesn't usually tailor the theme to temporal situations (though there are exceptions), & it goes out of its way to avoid themes of a broad nature (like, I don't know, "love" or "cars") which anyone with an iPod & a couple of friends could do at a moment's notice. This is not to denigrate those sorts of shows, it's just not the way I want to do Self Help Radio. I want to explore themes that require a little bit of time, thought, crate-digging, finagling, desperation, tears.

So, um, why "flowers"? Isn't that one of the easy ones?

Ha ha! You misunderstand my love of arbitrary limitations! For this week on Self Help Radio, not only will the show not be a simply free-for-all about "flowers," but the songs I play will - must - have to simply be either songs called "flowers" or songs about a type of flower pluralized. So there'll be songs called "Roses" or "Daffodils" or "Violets." Them's the rules. There may be a very beautiful song called "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" but unless it's called "The Tulips," it can't be on this week's Self Help Radio.

You see? Saddling myself with preconditions that no one but me cares about - that's the Self Help Radio way.

By the way, my apologies to the nice bakery who wrote hoping I was doing a show about flour. One day, friends. One day.

Preface To Flowers: Really? Flowers? When Did You Become Like Every Other Lame "Theme" Radio Show Out There?

Wow, the title of this blog post is really hostile. It's making me defensive.

Can I answer tomorrow? I'm catching up on "Weeds" & "Nurse Jackie."

Weird. I think whoever titles these blog posts is really disappointed in me.

Successful Endeavor

This curlicue just arrived from the horn of plenty:

"Success! Last night's Self Help Radio contained very little in the way of offense nor mistaken, with the possibility of cheerleaders. Host did not embarrass self nor company except in usual ways, so let's consider upping dosage. Meanwhile, web-bots used smoke breaks to upload show to selfhelpradio.net - consider beginning smear campaign to encourage ne'er-do-well listeners. Kudos all around. Expect closer scrutiny in near future."

Imagine! Self Help Radio on the air & recorded for posterity. The corporation is happy. You'll be happy. Go listen!

Act Together

There are a couple things you should know (perhaps) about me.

One, at the moment, I am gainfully unemployed. This is not a matter of financial hardship - the wife is taking care of me in a kind of quid pro quo because I kept a roof over her head while she was getting her PhD. So I'm not looking for your sympathy. In fact, I kind of expect your envy - I hang out with my dogs & cats, listen to music, surf the internet & read all day. Occasionally I nap. It's been quite delicious.

Two, despite all that, or maybe because of that, I am woefully disorganized. I'm trying, but the time just gets away from me. Which is strange, because time seems to be moving much more slowly these days than when I had a job & looked forward to getting off work & getting stuff done before bedtime. Maybe there's a psychological explanation or condition to explain why. I dunno.

In any event, the two things I am sharing seem to work against one another, & one of the casualties is this damn blog. I need to just wake up every morning, snort some grapefruit juice, & write something here. But I put it off, I procrastinate, I put it at the bottom of my list of things to do. After nap, usually. & when I wake up, there's more pressing matters. But there aren't! I'm just lame.

I had stuff prepared for yesterday but blew it. Read a book about punk rock. Watched "True Blood." My busy life.

I want to be better. I'll try to be better. Meanwhile, enjoy the danger of Self Help Radio today, if you're in the Tri-State Area, at 8pm on 88.1 fm WMUL. Let's hope I get it recorded all properly. Sigh.

Whither Danger?

Danger is (& I quote) "liability or exposure to harm or injury; risk; peril; an instance or cause of peril; menace."

More than that, danger implies (& I still quote) "harm that one may encounter. Danger is the general word for liability to all kinds of injury or evil consequences, either near at hand & certain, or remote & doubtful: to be in danger of being killed."

Doesn't that sound like a radio show to you? No? What about radio personalities? Haven't you seen Play Misty For Me? No? Then go see it. You'll figure out how dangerous it is being a deejay, all alone, at night, in a radio booth, playing songs. For weirdos. Psychopathic weirdos.

Oh sure, it's more likely to be killed by a drunk driver, or in a mugging, or in a war, or in a terrorist attack, or onstage by a fortuitously thrown tomato, but why not on the radio? It can be dangerous. There's a government agency just waiting for the programmer to fail, man. To levy fines, to battle in court cases. Sure, it's not A-Team dangerous, but it's at least Perry Mason dangerous. & that dude only lost one case. Only one case! That's dangerous, man.

I'm just saying. There's a reason Self Help Radio would want to explore danger. It's a possibility.

Preface To Danger: The Most Dangerous Radio Show Of All

It was in Africa, a long time ago. I was traveling with a group of hypochondriac male prostitutes who had taken a wrong turn at Scarsdale. We had boarded a steamer to hang out with some party animal/Woodstock burnout named Kurtz at the Heart Of Darkness Bar & Grill when a Belgian waffler with a transistor radio & dead flies in his hair tuned into a frequency that is apparently only available on the equator.

I was fortunate - I had a head cold, which I always get when I have a cold head, which is the case when you sleep under an air conditioner & then wake up & go outside & it's muggy & drippy & over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So I didn't get the full dose of this radio show - it came at me muffled, like a radio show wearing mufflers, yet it still knocked me across the deck.

The prostitutes grabbed their ears & fell to the floor, writhing. They had been doing that all morning, but this time their ears were bleeding. I knew something was wrong. Summoning all the strength I could muster I began screaming the lyrics to "Macarthur Park" while simultaneously plunging my fingers deep into my ears (you know, exactly like Richard Harris). I rose with great difficulty, kicked the Belgian's spastic body out of the way, & stomped on the evil radio until it could broadcast no more.

I was safe, & other passengers, not close enough to the broadcast to actually hear it, but still suffering the damages, emerged from below deck to help me remove my fingers from my ears. No one could explain. No one, except the cragged & deaf boatswain who lit his finger to light his pipe & told us the story of the most dangerous radio show of all.

At least I like to think he did. He'd been deaf his whole life & never learned sign language, so he mainly made a lot of noise & laughed a lot. We were all very polite. He seemed to need to tell the story.

I never found out where the show came from, or even what it was called. I hope I never do. But I'm pretty sure the host was Dick Clark. Or someone who admired Dick Clark. Counting down hit records, stuff like that. Oh god. It was awful.

I Just Spent Four Hours Burying The Cat

Four hours burying the cat? Yes, he wouldn't keep still, wriggling about, howling.

Luckily the cats are fine. I just always hear high-pitched Monty Python pepperpots when I realize that I spent the whole day doing stuff & neglected this fine blog. That won't do, not with Self Help Radio back & ready to stumble. Er, rumble.

Speaking of stumbling, the first Self Help Radio on WMUL went tolerably well, although I made a ton of dumb mistakes, not the least of which is screwing up the recording of the show. (Sigh. It's like I am perpetually an awkward thirteen year old.) Since there's no recording of my first show, I put the playlist up & a mix of the music at selfhelpradio.net. I thought of leaving blank spaces so you can imagine my airbreaks - but your imagination is doubtless better than mine, so I'd hate to have to try to follow THAT.

Um, well, er, it's raining in Huntington & I just met a scary fellow named Gary at a dimly-lit Kroger while shopping for corn meal. You'll excuse me if I have nothing else to say at this particular point in time.

& don't worry! The cats are fine!

Go Time!

Wow, so, on a Friday afternoon in early May, 2008, Self Help Radio left the Austin airwaves & moved into a spare bedroom at my place. It had its fun once a week, making fake radio shows that some people called podcasts, & collected disability payments from the government. (It's not quite right in the head.) Both of us hung out, enjoyed the music, waited for my wife to get a job somewhere else, just so we could leave Austin town in search of other radio grounds.

Well. Wife got the job & we found other radio grounds. Tonight, at 8pm West Virginia time, Self Help Radio returns to the air. The space aliens who'll receive the signal in four hundred years need not worry any longer. After fourteen Earth-months, they can be satisfied that my reports from (& thus confirmations of) the dying human civilization will continue. I do it for them, you know.

The theme is "all night long." The radio station is WMUL. The show is almost ready, although it's been throwing up all morning. If you're in town, please tune in - it's 88.1 fm. If you're not, check selfhelpradio.net tomorrow or the day after - it'll be sitting there, looking a little green, but strangely happy, I'm sure, to be Self Help Radio back on the radio.

Wow! Hey!

The Slight Return Of Self Help Radio

Hello. As you may or may not know (& of course didn't care), the wheel of fortune turned & shifted the Self Help Radio family (dysfunctional though it surely is) from the giant state of Texas to the smaller & more pancreas-shaped state of West Virginia. It's an age-old story - career bureaucrat saved from his apparently lifelong career by a more ambitious & undoubtedly smarter spouse's undoubtedly smarter & more ambitious career - & Self Help Radio has been fortunate to crash-land in a town which, unlike a lot of other places in the United States, has a non-commercial radio station which, though attached to a University, allows community volunteers the opportunity to show up, get involved, & shine on the airwaves. Here in Huntington, West Virginia, that station is WMUL - which, strangely enough, doesn't call itself "THE MULE!" - & the kind college staff there are allowing Self Help Radio onto their airwaves on Tuesdays this summer from 8pm to 10pm Eastern Yippee Time.

But wait! I hear you say. I've clicked on that link & the station doesn't appear to stream. Yes, it's true. They only stream their award-winning sports coverage. But you don't have to worry - I'll continue to archive the shows as soon as it occurs to me over at selfhelpradio.net, & although I'll have to juggle the days some, I'll once again continue the daily blogging about that the themes are, incoherently & inchoately, so it won't be like I've been gone for three weeks & you didn't even notice.

Tomorrow, then, 8pm, Eastern time: Self Help Radio isn't really on "all night long," but the songs will suggest it is. Welcome the show back! Listen if you're local, download if you're not. It's a new era of the same old Self Help Radio!

Summer Vacation? Summer Hiatus!

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

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

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

Preface To Lullabies: A Day Without Sleep

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bad Blogger Is Sheepish

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

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

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

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

Whither Taking Turns?

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

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

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

We All Stopped Using Beethoven, Sure Enough

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

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

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

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

You may go now. Further relinquishing is not allowed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

RAINSTORM!

So I'll do it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Whither Escape?

Why do people escape? Perhaps they're incarcerated - or about to be. (I've dabbled in bail bondsmanship & bounty hunting, it's true. I'm a close personal friend of Colt Seaver.) Maybe they're in a difficult situation - abusive spouse, abusive parents, abusive pets - & actually need to escape to save their lives. Some people just want to "get away" - escape to the islands, to the spa, to a romantic spot. But these are physical escapes. Sometimes you need to escape from your life, like with daydreaming, or listening to music in headphones, or by drinking alcohol & taking drugs. (Mmmmm.) (I was mmmming the headphones. What did you think?)

To get more sciencey, you can escape a planet's gravity to get to space (escape velocity!). To get more sciencey & chemicalish, you can be a gas or a virus escaping from a test tube. To get more grammary, something can simply disappear - a word escaping one's memory. To get more computery, you can be a key that one hits to try to navigate away from a page with cute Japanese girls on it when one's supervisor is bearing down.

Oo, oo, I missed one - you can escape something that might have happened if you hadn't been paying attention or you can escape something bad that happened with a minimum of damage - "I escaped the accident!" That one escaped me.

Is Self Help Radio an "escape"? It is for me. I escape there every week. Sometimes I'm actually confined there, so I have to also escape FROM Self Help Radio. Which is why of course I will have produced the hit serial "Escape From Self Help Radio" to be broadcast in the past during the time when there were hit serials (I will have had gotten Republic Serials to produce it, & hopefully I will have cajoled hit serial star Buster Crabbe to have starred in it) once I invent a time machine. The script is aces, though. Or was. Or will be. Damn. I can't get this time travel lingo correct.

In any event, whatever you're trying to escape from, I hope Self Help Radio is your port in a storm this week. In any event, it will have nothing to do with Journey's Escape. Which is fine. I stopped believing a lot time ago.

Preface To Escape: I Am No Steve McQueen

Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. It's so blatantly obvious that I can even bold & italicize the word "that" (which was capitalized for effect) & it doesn't even begin to convey the idiocy of the comparison. Viz. Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. But what makes you such an expert on Steve McQueen? Here are some disturbing facts about Steve McQueen that might make you a little more humble when you're poo-pooing a person jokingly comparing himself to the star of The Great Escape, among other films:

1. He died from mesothelioma. Know what that is? Do you? Well, it's not a cool way to die. He died from exposure to asbestos! Compare that to how David Carradine died. Okay, well, that's just humiliating. Never mind.

2. He was supposed to be at the Polanski home the night Manson's robots killed Sharon Tate & the others there. In fact, it's said he was at the top of Manson's list of celebrities who were supposed to die to bring on Manson's dumbass race war. Okay, that's kinda cool. I mean, to be marked for death by Charles Manson, that's the kind of celebrity that, in this day & age, is reserved for status moments like being shot in the face by the Vice President.

3. As he was dying, he visited the Reagans (just about to be installed as King & Queenly of America) & they apparently got Billy Graham to get him to accept Jesus into his heart. Wow, talk about wiping away a lifetime of cool!

That last one is a cheap shot, because I am really nothing at all in any way like Steve McQueen. Morrissey, for example, would never put a giant poster of me up in his home. I don't even know if there is a giant poster of me available, whereas there are millions of McQueen. Furthermore, the one time in my life I've ridden a motorcycle, all I got was a sunburn & some heat exhaustion. Also, I've never been in the movies & never kissed Ali McGraw. (Both might happen, though. Also: both probably won't.)

Why can't I escape these ridiculous comparisons that I myself invent on my blog between me & famous dead celebrities? It is a problem I suppose I have to live with.

What Is This "Self Help Radio Summer Vacation" Anyway?

I know, you've gone to the Self Help Radio website to download this week's show, which is about knocking, & you were perusing the upcoming themes & you looked down the list & you were like, "What the hell? What's the theme in three weeks? The first week of July? July fourth? What about a show about flags? Or fireworks? Or the Declaration of Independence? That's a show I'd want to hear? What's up?"

Well, what was threatened last year is coming true this one: the Self Help Radio Party Van is leaving Austin for good. We'll be leaving in July & it'll take a few days to get there, set up shop, unpack the CDs & stuff, & get my bearings. I expect the moving to a completely different part of the country will undo or otherwise unloose whatever bearings I may still have, so I am giving myself a month to go through the process of "getting" the "bearings." Maybe it won't take as long. Maybe I will go through Self Help Radio Withdrawal. Maybe there'll be only a week off. But. I've never moved so far away before. I think a month is just right.

Now stop worrying. You'll be fine. Go listen to last week's show. Go. Go!

Oops I'm running late!

Yeah, I'm a weasel. I've been too busy during my last weeks at work to steal time to write in this blog.

Wait. What? Last weeks at work?

Yes, it's true. I am leaving my job in two American weeks (compare them with other country's weeks - you'll see the difference) (spoiler alert: we work more) to leave the city of Austin behind & embark on a strange new journey - which will of course take Self Help Radio - to... where?

It's really quite underwhelming. I'm a little embarrassed about even trying to create some suspense about it. But I will. More information to come. Just rest assured that, for at least the month of June, Self Help Radio will continue to produce a radio show that virtually NO ONE will listen to, out of spite or out of ignorance, & then will take a break while the offices relocate.

This week? Knocking. How can you miss that? It's the one skill you have! The rest, well. You have to lie about them on your resume!

Whither Knocking?

A terrible dilemma is upon me. Oh wait. I might have used that word (dilemma) wrongly. Let me check the Economist's Guide To Common Solecisms:

This is not just any old awkwardness, it is one with horns, being, properly, a form of argument (the horned syllogism) in which you find yourself committed to accept one of two propositions each of which contradicts your original contention. Thus a dilemma offers the choice between two alternatives, each with equally nasty consequences.

Oh. Then it's not really a dilemma. The original contention, one supposes, is that I am doing a show about "knocking." See, I've been listening to all these songs all week about "knocking" &, well, as one might imagine, there are a WHOLE F-ING LOT OF THEM which are simply about the process of banging one's fist on a door, or moving the device on the door that makes a similar (though kinder to your fist) sound, to indicate that one is visiting someone else's home or place of business or building. So I was thinking, hey, maybe I should restrict the content of the show to that particular aspect of knocking & not the various other meanings, like being "knocked up," or the phrase "don't knock it." Neither of those alternative have nasty consequences, because, frankly, how can a bunch of songs on Self Help Radio be nasty?

Until I do a show about nastiness, that is.

I still haven't decided. But I know now it's not a dilemma. Just a sort of self-serving problem that I can wrestle with while drinking a little too much whiskey while listening to songs I've gather. Um. So. Never mind.

Preface To Knocking: There Are No Jokes About Knockers In This Blog Entry

I don't think I'll play any songs about "knockers" (if there are any) this week on the KNOCK show. I confess I haven't heard the term since I was a kid. Funnily enough, watching The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin, a British sit-com from the 70s, last night, I did hear breasts referred to as "knockers." Crazy how these things happen.

The term "knockers" referring to breasts (some people say "women's breasts," but for the purposes of this discussion that seems redundant) is supposed to be fairly old though it became popular with army folk in the 40s. It was a "safe" euphemism for breasts for a while, coming into its own probably around the time of Laugh-In & dying out (more or less) by the beginning of the 80's. But no one really knows where it comes from.

One person on the www.phrases.org.uk message board added this: "A little site called LondonSlang.com asserts that the term orignates in London. It doesn't give any other explanation but it is listed along with the term 'knocking shop' for brothel. I'm not sure whether knocking shop is used here in the US, but it seems like it might be a clue to the phrase's origin." But I'm not at all convinced about that, though English speakers have used the word "knock" to mean "have sex," leading to a pregnant woman being "knocked up."

A "knocker" is properly one of two things: one who knocks, &/or a device on a door used to knock on it. Therefore one might imagine that calling a pair of breasts "knockers" would be related to this. On the same discussion list mentioned above, one shrewd poster pointed out that most doors only have a single knocker, so why would a pair of breasts be like a knocker? Someone suggested the motion of the knocker, but then the knocker isn't so much about its motion as it is about its sound, & most breasts I've had the experience to know are rather quiet. On the plus side, one correspondent pointed out that door knockers tend to be breast level - though I seem to remember them being more chin level - & I'm a fairly tall fellow.

I just don't know, & since the term is considered slang at best & vulgar at worst, most respectable etymologists won't bother with it. & the great Urban Dictionary doesn't care about word origins.

See? Not a single joke about knockers. Just information. That's the Self Help Radio way!

There Was An Accident This Weekend

Actually, several. All on Self Help Radio. Sucked into a musical maelstrom so you could live your weekend accident-free. Do listen. It'll make you safer.

Also, if you book your face on that face-the-book place, you can become a fan of Self Help Radio. I'll try to snazz the place up.

& May's Self Help Radio Extra? Ack, I'll work on it. Maybe have it by tomorrow. Promise!

Accident Waiting To Happen

This means two things:

1) The accident show is waiting to happen, & happen it will, accidentally on purpose tomorrow in the afternoon at selfhelpradio.net!

2) I resigned from my job today. I'll expand more later, not because you care, because I know you don't, but because it will affect Self Help Radio, which may have to take a few weeks off during the summer. More on that later.

Be careful, though - there'll be an accident tomorrow. But specifically on Self Help Radio. If it's not related to Self Help Radio, that accident is NOT MY FAULT!

The Darkness That Is Our 21st Century

There are apparently types of hugs between which teens differentiate. Word is that the youngsters hug all the time. Some people seem a little upset about it, mainly school administrators, who don't have enough to do while keeping an eye on all the teachers they don't let touch their students. Could it have come any sooner that someone would call it the lamest teen moral panic ever?

Remember when the choice was hugs or drugs (supposing, of course, the drug wasn't ecstasy, I guess)? Why are they upset now when it's obvious a lot of teens have made the choice they advocated (assuming, again, that it wasn't ecstasy they chose)? Or were the parents the only people who would get the hugs? Do you know how much better I would've turned out if I got physical affection from even my male friends in high school? My sweet lord.

Whither Accidents?

It's tempting to lie & say that the idea for this show is purely an accident. But it isn't. I've been wanting to collect songs about accidents because two of my favorite songs in the world are (ostensibly) about accidents.

"Accidents Will Happen" by Elvis Costello, & "Accident Waiting To Happen" by Billy Bragg.

Despite how utterly disappointing his career has been since around 1992 or 1993 (whenever Brutal Youth, his last great album, came out), Elvis Costello can still count me a trainspotting EC nerd. I recently put Imperial Bedroom on my iPod & listened to it all the way through on the way to work, probably the first time I've listened to the entire record in over a decade. "Accidents Will Happen" is the first song on Armed Forces, which many people feel is too polished & poppy, especially compared to the raw rocker This Year's Model, but, except for a couple of songs I don't care much for, the album has some of my favorite EC tunes. ("Two Little Hitlers," "Party Girl," "Moods For Moderns," well, okay, virtually everything except probably "Goon Squad" & the overplayed-as-"Alison" "Peace Love & Understanding" song.) But in addition to starting the record off with a song called "Accidents Will Happen," it's certainly no accident that EC began his album with a song that begins, "Oh, I just don't know where to begin..." Exquisite.

That would be enough of a reason to organize a show around something as silly as accidents, except...

Billy Bragg (whose artistic output took a more steep nosedive than EC's after the magnificent & near-perfect Workers' Playtime) (though, I should say, it didn't have as far to fall as EC's did) released the muddled & mostly-unlistenable Don't Try This At Home in 1991, & boy was I knocked out by the first track, which is "Accident Waiting To Happen." The rest of the record, not so much. Maybe it was just the album's title - I know he was just trying to be cute, but should the poster boy for DIY indie really have called his record DON'T Try This At Home? It's like he was deliberately gainsaying the Desperate Bicycles - & his own raison d'etre. But add in the obligatory early-90's REM appearance, add several generally not memorable songs, & it's an album that totally used up all its energy in the first track, & while I am fond of "Sexuality" because it's silly, I couldn't care less about the rest of the record.

I should note that one song that should have resonated with me is his cover of Fred Neil's "Dolphins," & if you read the Allmusic review of the record, it gives Billy Boy credit for the song, though it does correct it on other appearances. Bragg's rendition is fine, but after a tedious song called "God's Footballer," you would think someone whistling to themselves while bathing their cats was a joy.

But boy! is "Accident Waiting To Happen" a great song! & not just because I like the punning line, "You're a dedicated swallower of fascism." & this was in the days before Fox News! It sounds great, it's driving, you want to sing along.

The theme is accidents this week, but it's kind of on purpose. Didn't think I could resist making that joke did you? You don't know me at all.

Preface To Accidents: Addiction Is Deadly

I've become kind of addicted to the Netflix play-movie-in-the-browser function. It's made me watch too many movies (usually while I'm doing other stuff on the computer) that I would probably NEVER watch, even if they came on television. Is it because the movies are in the background in the same way that kids of today watch stuff constantly on their computers while they do homework, twitter, chat, download porn & music & pirate movies? I always thought I was too old for this. & I do do one thing they probably don't - when I am absorbed in an email or something else that's taking my time, I tend to "rewind" the movie to see the stuff I've missed. In any event, I feel dumb because I just watched two movies that I thought were all right but didn't really want to watch & I'm late writing in this blog.

I've probably started this because my new computer has a gorgeous screen & I like to use it. I'm going to start watching my favorite pretty movies on it before too long.

I have mentioned this before (& I mention it on my show when I read something from a column) but I am a big fan of the Word Detective. I just remembered a column he wrote a while back which, unfortunately, doesn't have anything to with Netflix Instant Play (or whatever it's called) addiction. In this column, about the origins of the word "crank," he talks about words like "dial" which we still use even though we don't really use phones with dials any more. He remarks that words like "crank" & "dial" are both in "a range of terms still in common usage even though the technologies that spawned them have profoundly changed, turning words whose logic once would have been obvious into linguistic fossils." But surely there's a better name for them than "linguistic fossils"! Let's come up with one.

I thought of that because I mentioned that I "rewind" the online movies, even though there's no tape involved. Funny, yes?

This Lonely Memorial Day...

...the wife is off in West Virginia looking for a place for us to hang our hats, & I've been tending to the lazy dogs & cats & listening to lots of stuff composing this month's Self Help Radio Extra in my head. As for the outside, what is the fucking weather? I don't know your zip code, but at mine, & I quote, "ITS FUCKING HOT." The site also adds, "I recommend staying away from fat people." Though I'm not sure why. They may have some food & refreshing beverages to share!

Speaking of sharing, you do know that the long weekend didn't pass without a new Self Help Radio, didn't you? Though I couldn't make it to the indiepop gathering in San Francisco this month, I did my part by continuing the never-ending Indiepop A To Zs. It's fun! & it's sponsored by Stinky!

& speaking of fat people, I'm going to go make myself something to eat. I hope the rest of your day goes swimmingly, provided it's not humidity you're swimming through. That would mean you were somewhere near here, where, as you know, it's quite hot. I read it on a website!

Escuse Me, Are Those Mine Pants?

For the fair of warning & the faint of heart I tell you, Self Help Radio is brand new this Memorandum Day weekend & you don't have to drive on America's unsafe highways to bask in its basket. Just click the link above when you think you know better & all will be chilled & served on a white wine platter, if the Americans still make such things, which I doubt.

One warning: the show this week is full of misspellings. I'm sorry about that. The spellcheck wasn't working this past week & I traded it in for a garage door opener that lambastes you like a psychic parrot. I could not refuse. Now if only I had an opener on which to put my garage.

One furtherance in the cause of righteousness: I or someone called Dick Dickenbock who I swear is not just me under an assumed name, but I assume the name under duress, will be hosting KVRX's "Artist Hour," which features smart-ass know-it-all dum-dums spotlighting an artist for an hour then forgetting about him/her/it/them until they drunk-call them on their wedding night & remind them of the sad little snowflakes they've become. But that's of no conceit as I or someone called etc., etc., will be featuring the great Rodd Keith. Tomorrow night from 10 to 11pm CST. Yes, an hour of song-poem brilliance. You can go out afterwards - the lite beer will still be there with the roofie, waiting for you to drink it up yum yum.

KVRX has been relocated due to a complicated fumigation, so I'm not sure if the station is streaming currently (or just streaming currents) but I will probably relocate the show from KVRX's temporary space to the SHR website in the fullest letter of the law in no uncertain terms. Just wash this space, & your face, & if you're an employee, you must wash your face-space after every other meal.

Have a good long weekend!

Two Links That Make Me Happy

What's the fucking weather?

Can I marry gay?

But maybe first you should ask, Must I marry gay?

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 20?

This is hardly the time to think about it, economically-wise, & maybe it's also a little insulting to the unemployed, but how DO you quit your job gracefully? I asked a panel of nine imaginary job-quitters, just to be on the safe side. Here's what they said, almost but not quite in the order in which they said it.

Number one said, "Get out before things get really, really bad!"
When is that, I asked.
"When there's no more coffee!" number one screamed, & quit the panel. (Not very gracefully, I might add.)

Number two said, "Tell the most powerful bot first, then adhere to the hierarchical rules that were programmed into you at construction."
(I should tell you, imaginary panelist number two is a robot who hails from a planet of sentient robots. Just FYI.)

Number three said, "Burn bridges!"
Really, I asked.
"I meant britches!" number three said. "Burn those britches! You'll never get the smell out! Never!"

Number four said, "If there's an exit interview, pretend it's an interview for a role on a reality television show."
I had no comment to that.

Number five said, "Don't write a resignation letter!"
No?
"No!" number five said. "Instead, just try to act resigned all the time."

Number six said, "Tell them you'll call every day. You're not really leaving. You're just visiting your mother in Duluth."
But won't they catch on?
"No," said number six. "Lookit. They were dumb enough to hire you in the first place, yeah?"

Number seven said, "Be sexy so you can get good reference books."
Reference books?
"Sure," said number seven, "you want your boss to give you good reference books when you leave."
Uh, I think you mean references.
"Are you sure?" asked number seven.
Um, maybe I meant referees?
"That's the spirit!" said number seven.

Number eight said, "Be an asshole about it to your co-workers, who can't quit because of their gambling debts & their chronic alcoholism. Also, act like the old-timers are really old. That'll teach 'em!"
Teach them what?
"That you're an asshole!" cackled number eight.

Number nine said, "Go, my child, into the wide world, knowing full well that those for whom you worked are no longer your masters & you are no longer their slave. Instead, you are no better than a hobo, eating your own filth & earning nothing, while they, they have hired someone almost exactly like you to replace you, & scarcely know you have gone."

Thanks guys!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 20: I Just Bought A New Computer!

Except for the weird, flat, purse-sized keyboard, it's pretty awesome.

I need to go move everything from the old computer to the new one. So I can't be horsing around with you right now. Maybe later?

Argyle In A Minute

Argyle is, of course, a magical place in Scotland where all kinds of colored diamonds are arranged as though on a checkerboard & live in peace & harmony. Not like those druggies in Paisley. Stupid Paisleyites!

I recently had a chance to take drugs with a fellow from Paisley &, in my stupor, I was able to tour imaginary Argyle in the minute it took for the effects to wear off from what I now know wasn't a hallucinogen but was, instead, instant coffee cut with confidence & elan. Still, I think, as I noticed in my hazy dream-like state that the town were all big fans of Self Help Radio, I'll tell you about some of the sites I saw should you, too, find yourself there under no uncertain circumstances.

If you're in the uptown/midtown area, visit Sam's Irish Coffee shop, & ask for tea. He'll have a laugh, accuse you of being Protestant, & throw you out. Sam's Irish Coffee shop is a Scottish institution, being funded by several governments & Shane McGowan, formerly of the Pogues. He's always there, making his teeth say awful things to you.

If you're in the midtown/uptown area near the stables, visit The Bookdrop, an actual library bookdrop which doesn't work properly, so you can simply reach in & browse through a fascinating collection of books people have recently returned. Warning: taking books from The Bookdrop may be stealing.

If you're in the midtown/midtown area, be sure to see the shifting ideas at the nearby Firth. It may not be the first Firth you've even seen (it was more fourth Firth), but it will be funnest. Little indiepop kids with too many scarves on pretend to ride skateboards & write earnest poetry on benches all around. You may even see Stuart Murdoch & still no one will believe you.

If you're uptown with some downtown urges, there are always lovely women waiting for the buses that never come in their minds. They are robust lasses, some with mighty handshakes, others with handy milkshakes, & still others with dentist appointments that you swear to god they'll never keep. You may only be in Argyle for a minute, but a few seconds on grinning wench is never wasted, unless she's grinning because rigor mortis has set in. Then dial 911 & hope William Petersen is working that week. & not, as luck would have it, Flavor Flav.

This wonderful travel tip was brought to you by last week's Self Help Radio, which used Scottish concrete in at least one of the songs it played during the show. Be a sport & have a listen. You'll never be able to snort all that instant coffee in one go anyway!

Getting Back On Your Feed

I had this strange memory last night before I fell asleep - it seemed to come out of nowhere. My family lived in these apartments from the time I was in fifth to probably ninth grade, & the apartments were called "Villa Cordoba." (We pronounced it vil-la of course, not vee-ya, because we were dumb white kids.) It was squarely shaped, with doors opening, on the street at the front of the complex, to the street, & the other three sides to the parking lot that surrounded it like a moat. Little patios with stucco walls looked into the complex's center, which had a few apartments, a laundry room, the manager's office, & a pool that was generally never cleaned so was always full of green, green water. At the center of each of the complex's walls was a breezeway, with studio apartments above them (the rest of the apartments were two-story).

My thought - which wasn't quite a dream, because I wasn't asleep yet - was about the breezeway at the back of the apartments, which looked out over a parking lot, of course, & a white fence which separated the complex from the rest of the world, & then a giant Lutheran church with giant lush lawns where we played football & baseball when we were sure worshippers weren't around (you know, when their parking lot wasn't full of cars).

The front breezeway looked into the space where the manager's office was. The two side breezeways looked into the pool area. But the back breezeway, which always seemed very dark to me (maybe because it faced east & was protected from the sun by the church shadow), just looked at a wall. If you didn't know there was a path on which you could go left or right into the complex, you might think it was a dead end.

Why I thought about this place I don't know. I did a show about breezes last week or so, & talked a little about breezeways, & definitely thought of those breezeways of my youth, but it doesn't explain why this memory would appear & haunt me now. Because it did haunt me - I wanted to go to sleep, but my brain was now on fire, trying to remember details like: there was a door, wasn't there, some sort of custodial or storage door, in the south wall, a door I'm sure I tried to open whenever I walked by. Also, my brain wanted to remember if the breezeway smelled - if it were dirtier than the others, since it was darker - or if it were usually clean or cluttered with leaves, cigarette butts, trash.

It was a strange sensation - an irrelevant, uncalled memory suddenly at the forefront of all my thoughts - & me in a vulnerable place, where I had to make an almost physical effort to remove it from my mind, to think about whatever other dumb stuff - dumb, perhaps, but more relevant - I think about before I fall asleep.

I said it haunted me, & obviously it did. I just spent some moments looking through old short stories I used to write before I realized I wasn't very good at it, to see if I described it better back then, when it was certainly closer in time & not subject to all the intervening years & their onerous memories. But alas, no! I am still haunted.

Did I mentioned a new Self Help Radio tomorrow? Look for it in the afternoon.

Old Joke Found In An Old Email

Busy listening to concrete songs today so I have nothing really of value to say. Actually, I am apparently writing in rhyme but you don't care, I do it all the time. & possibly you think I'm awful square for pointing this out to you right then & there. No no no, don't call a cop, I promise, I promise, I'll stop, I'll stop.

No, man, it doesn't scan. If I had time to write a real letter, I'll bet you that all my rhymes would be better. & though it's really some dude's lame journal, you must now notice some rhymes are internal.

Ack! Alack!

I was looking for an email to reproduce for my whaddayacallit "Email Archive Blah Blah" & found an old joke sent to me on September 26, 1996, which made me laugh a full twelve years later. So I excise it from the entire email & share it with you:

Q: Why shouldn't you piss off a Unitarian?
A: Because they'll burn a question mark in your lawn.

Ha ha!

Whither Concrete?

A fairer question 'twas never ask'd. For this season, therefore do I placate my modest brow with an ode (like the oddest odists do) to that most hardened of versatile materials, viz. concrete, from the Latin concretus, which (every schoolchild ought know) means "hardened" or "hard" or "hardcore."

Consider this thy then, mine "Ode On Concrete." Written in 1821.

Concrete, concrete, have you any wool?
Nay sir, nay sir, I am instead a construction material composed of cement & sometimes other cement-like materials such as fly ash & slag cement, aggregate, gravel, limestone, granite (these three often mixed with sand), water, and chemicals.
But concrete! Why does thou deny me my rhyme?
For ought not odes rhyme, all the ode-ly time?
Nay sir, nay sir, I'm just a plain material one might find on your highway or sidewalk or sometimes around bunkers in freaky movies where a serial killer lines his murder room with concrete because of the creepy way fluorescent light just kind of hangs on concrete walls like egg whites slowly dripping down, down, down, causing immense despair in the poor victim, shackled & dead by the morning she or he cannot see in the hollow timelessness of the concrete prison.
Uh, okay concrete. Whatever. Just wanted to write an ode here, not speculate on what you daydream about when you're being mixed in one of those trucks.

So, no ode. I was all totally odic, too. If that's a word.

Preface To Concrete: Lazy Logic

I subscribed a long time ago to a "joke of the day" email thing to make sure one of my stupid online accounts was getting mail because, in those pre-google days, they'd sometimes close the accounts (if they didn't go out of business anyway - r.i.p. startrekmail & muslimmail!) if you didn't have regular email (& of course I'd forget about it anyway). I did it with the account that accesses this blog - & sometimes it's the only mail I have. So. Sometimes I read really, really bad jokes of the day.

The weirdest thing is the "offensive stereotype" joke - for example, if you're from Texas, the putatively stupidest Texan would be someone who went to Texas A & M, or an "Aggie" - has been apparently cleaned up - politically corrected, one might say - in that the subjects of those jokes are called "Antarctans" by this service. Apparently it's all right to offend the few hundred folks who live in Antarctica, but not people who should be smart enough to know that the school you went to doesn't define you. Unless you let it, I suppose. Anyway.

So today's was this sort of "strange but true" "funny thing to think about" series of arbitrary comparisons that might fly in a lame stand-up comic's act (which is probably where it originated), but seems to be monstrously unfunny because of its lazy logic. What's more, it's premise or motif or whatever is "Only in America..." which might also be a little insulting if you're the sort of person who doesn't like this country being dissed.

Here's a couple of just plain bad examples. Remember, they're supposed to be "things to make you stop and think."

- "Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance."

That's not technically true. The only stats I have are from a dumb song where it claims that "22% of the time a pizza arrives faster than an ambulance." That's in Great Britain. But I dunno - lately my pizzas have been coming awful slowly, probably because there are less drivers after gas exploded in price. Anyway, until someone can produce data on this, I call bullshit on it.

- "Only in America are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink."

This is one of the stupidest. Do they imagine all handicapped ("differently-abled") people are wheelchair-bound? What about amputees with prosthetics? Surely they can ice-skate just fine. & in any event, can a person with a handicap not visit an ice rink? Take his or her family there? What a douchebag this "joke writer" is!

These two are somewhat similar:

- "Only in America do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front."
- "Only in America do banks leave both doors open & then chain the pens to the counters."

I think both of these are risk-assessment decisions. The drugs are easier to steal in the drug store than the money in the bank (which is in a safe, with armed guards around for protection). So put the drugs in the back. Leave the bank open (like the drug store does, of course) during business hours. & the pens are chained to make sure not only that people don't walk off with them (because people do, & I'm sure they're not intentionally stealing them) but also so the next customer doesn't have to pick it up off the floor, or dig for it under crap on the counter.

Also, it's not only the sick that visit the pharmacist. We have many reasons to go there, & filling a prescription doesn't necessarily mean we're so gravely ill that a short walk into the bowels of a store would be something like an insult. I should also add that some smokers are pretty sick a lot of the time. Nyah.

- "Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight."

Do we know that for a fact that it's only in America this happens? I imagine it's also probably true in Canada. Anyway, the Straight Dope answered this to my satisfaction a while ago.

Oh, don't click this link for the meaning of Canadian Hot Dog. Don't say I didn't warn you.

- "Only in America do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'."

Of course, that's a dumb etymology, & the word for politics is Dutch is "politiek," in French it's "politique," in German it's "Politik," & in Italian it's "politica," all of which contain "poli" & some word that sounds like "tic."

The word "politics" comes from a Greek root meaning "civic affairs."

I think it's a dumb joke, but I am acting sort of irritated because not only is this purporting to make some sort of point about how crazy America is (even if just for a laugh), but it's now lying to do so.

One last one:

- "Only in America do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering."

Stop & think about this one. While you are mulling this, another person, someone not as thoughtful as you are, someone who believes that the political correctness mafia has simply gone too far with this nonsense & is a beagle's whisker away from an aneurysm, this person just can't believe all the wasteful motherfucking shit that we do to bend over backwards for one segment of society. Braille on a drive-up keypad! What the fuck?

Except you, like me, can see beyond this little taunt. We have a sense of proportion. We think. We know that people with handicaps aren't just wheelchair bound & should be able, in any case, to visit skating rinks even if they can't themselves skate. (I don't skate & I've been skating rinks. You're allowed.) We look at the big picture. We can surmise things, & then, perhaps, if they seem a little odd, we can check them out. We think this way: the corporate scum at Diebold & places like that who make ATMs (ATM machine is of course redundant) don't get an order like this: "We need 400,000 machines for Texas. Oh, & make 7,000 of them Braille-free for drive-up banking." They simply make the machine, & make them all the same, according to federal & state regulations, & some of them get put in drive-up positions. How fucked would they be if they did the opposite? Plenty. They deserve it, but they're covering their asses. & they're also probably saving money by not having to make two different kinds of ATMs - after all, I have no vision defects & I can use the ones with Braille just fine.

Plus, what if you're with a friend who has impaired vision & you're driving around & he wants to stop at a bank machine? You're going to make your friend get out? Why? There's Braille on the drive-through ATM! That's classy!

Livin' Largesse

New Self Help Radio show (about the breeze, of course) at selfhelpradio.net. In case you weren't paying attention.

May we take a moment, apropos nothing, to talk about regurgitation? That link links to the Wikipedia page about vomiting, & notes that "the two terms are often used interchangeably," but that they're two different processes &, what's more, the "causes of vomiting & regurgitation are generally different."

Members of my family have a deep, deep fear & dislike of vomiting & they can't or won't even try to do it when they're sick. They will leave the room when someone else is vomiting, because the very sound of it (sometimes even on television) will make they start to vomit. I used to be like that - I would only vomit if I absolutely had to, & usually even then I'd fight it.

But not anymore. Now I can vomit when I need to, & sometimes I even vomit preemptively, such as when I've had too much to drink & am about to go to bed, or when I feel something close to food poisoning & I assume that upchucking will make me feel better. While members of my family to this very day will suffer though emesis would relieve their discomfort, I could theoretically purge like a supermodel.

What changed? I had my heart mightily broken many moons ago. (Approximately 225 moons, I reckon.) (That's for my Native American time-keeping friends.) During the aftermath, I couldn't keep food down with any regularity. The merest thought of the one who had devastated me would cause me to throw up, literally. Though I of course got better, steeling my heart to let it get broken again & again, the ease at which I could vomit (& the acceptance I had of it, since I couldn't really stop it) stayed with me. No sticking a finger down a throat for me! If I think I need to ralph, I can do it.

Why this is on my mind I don't know. It certainly has nothing to do with this week's Self Help Radio, which will be about concrete.

Whither Breezes?

Whither indeed! The week breezed by. I am all airy & stuff.

But! New Self Help Radio tomorrow! Catch it - on the breeze!

Preface To The Breeze: An Ill Wind Blows

I've been sick for a couple of days, something related to my sinuses, & of course instead of visiting a doctor, which I can theoretically do because I, unlike a substantial number of Americans, have health insurance, I chose instead to diagnose myself on the web, in the same manner I suppose one figures out one's "true age" or the time & date when one will die, but the rest & lack of stress appear to have done me good, so I shan't whine any more about it. (Although I did whine about it on last week's Self Help Radio, which was about nuts, & I am a baby & so must complain about illnesses whenever possible, so please, if you're interested in nuts, or nutty people, or simply want to hear me whinge, go listen!)

As I began to write this, I thought of the phrase, "An ill wind blows nobody any good," & its many variations, which are collected here, which show how old that particular idiom is, & of course the Self Help Radio show this week has absolutely nothing to do with an "ill wind," which a breeze by definition can't really be, or can it?

The definition is "to blow gently & lightly," & one associates breezes with days in which a slight wind would be most refreshing. But the slightness - & perhaps the subtle comfort it gives one - has made it into a verb which means "to proceed quickly & easily," as in: "Gary's Self Help Radio blog is so insubstantial I just breeze through it as though I am reading a twitter message." Because one can breeze through a task - housework, a test, any chore, etc. - the verb returned to the noun realm & made anything easy to do "a breeze."

Will this week's Self Help Radio be a breeze to do? To listen to? Will it help you make your life breezy? That's for me to know & you to find out on Saturday. Now, scoot, before I start to talk about being sick for three days.

Slight Delay Day

Just an FYI: this week's Self Help Radio, which will be dated May 2, 2009, will not appear today. A previous commitment is making me stay away from a helpful computer for most of the day, not counting now, when a helpful computer is helpfully helping me make a lame excuse. Please look for your regularly scheduled Saturday Self Help Radio some time on Sunday, where it is irregularly scheduled. That is all. Wait. No. I'm sure that's it. I'm sorry if it inconveniences you. That wasn't my intention. If anything, I'm inconvenienced. My whole Saturday schedule is ruined. Because of a previous commitment. Which I am not making up. I swear. All right. We're good? You sure? See you tomorrow then at selfhelpradio.net. I hope. No, I promise. I think. Smile & wave, Gary. Smile & wave.

If It's April's End, There Must Be A Self Help Radio Extra!

& so there is. Please enjoy a new mix of indie musics for this month's Self Help Radio Extra. I've been reading about portmanteau words & have been wondering if I can start calling them "Shrextras." What do you think? No? All right then.

New songs by Art Brut, Au Revoir Simone, Official Secrets Act & stuff mixed with older tunes by Twig, Girl Of The World, Orange Juice & stuff. Self Help Radio Extra. It's like I made you a mixed tape or something, & that means you've GOT to listen to it.

Whither Nuts?

Are you allergic to peanuts? For reals? You could die! We could all die! Check the label! Check the motherfucking label!

Yes, over the course of the last few decades, our toxic culture has made us more & more allergic to everything we co-evolved with. Or has it? Sometimes we're wrong, because we're scared. No "No Nuts" shirts for me, please. I'm chewing peanut butter flavored gum.

For reals, I ain't allergic to any damn thing. Well, maybe cats. But look, I don't eat cats, I just snuggle them & pet them & let them get their dander all over me until my eyes run red & I sneeze like a surfer with sinus drain. It's worth it.

So I ain't allergic to any damn thing except cats. I sure as hell ain't allergic to any damn pea motherfucking nut. Although I confess I could give or take almonds. Yes, even in marzipan. I don't know why. I just feel... Not connected to the almond. You know? You understand? You feel me?

I don't think I've eaten a nut today. Oh yes I have! I had pine nuts on my spinach salad for lunch! Or were those sunflower seeds... Well, then, I'm going to get some peanut m&ms. Or maybe a butterfinger. But not an almond joy! Don't you try to trick me with an almond joy! That shit's got both almonds (about which I've already shared my ambivalence) & coconut! That's just cruel, that's schoolkid cruel. Some school bully invented almond joy mos def.

Okay, I'm getting dizzy writing in both a white-guy-pretending-to-talk-in-hip-hop-slang & a-snotty-type. You can't hear the voices in your head, but I can, & it's giving my brain whiplash. It's making me nutty!

Full circle. Hot diggety!

Preface To Nuts: Live Bloggins?

It's true, I'm a live bloggins, while I am sitting in on a KVRX show called "Goosfand," playing Middle Eastern music & the like. It has nothing to do with anything, except I may put the show up at selfhelpradio.net at some point & I'm a little nuts anyway.

It's not really live bloggins, though, is it, if I wait until I'm done to post it. That means I'm not nuts, I'm lame. Oh well. At least we're not friends on Facebook & you can hassle me about it.

Or do you want to be friends on Facebook?

I just read this spot from State Farm which thanks "our armed forces" for making sure we can have a Memorial Day, & I was thinking, while I was reading it, isn't it weird that I am thanking armed forces who are over in one of the parts of the world where the music I'm playing comes from, & their presence has probably resulted in the deaths of countless musicians who might otherwise be making music that could be played on shows like this one? Is that what they call irony?

I'm not blaming them! They're not deliberately killing musicians!

Okay, that's it, no more live bloggins for me. I'll continue to pretape my bloggins.

O Salty Humans, How You Disappoint Me

I have told you, my friends, of the story of the tiger & the 1965 Chrysler 300L Convertible, have I not? Please remember that story as I tell you, then, of my recent problems with the constabulary. You all know Sheriff Stephanie, do you not? A finer specimen of law & order gung-ho hobbiting I've never seen. But after a fortnight - & two fortdays - I had been perhaps weaving if not ducking on the side roads near the tavern sponsored by corporate largesse. It may have been easier had I brought along my trusty two-wheeled unicycle. From out the bushes, then! Sheriff Stephanie & her merry man! Slapped the cuffs on me as though it were no big deal! I could've outrun them, I swear, if not for my sneaky respect for the rule of law.

My Uncle Danko, the shyster, was on speed dial in no time, but I did enjoy a lukewarm Hot Pocket & the lusty stories of chatty felons for several hours before they woke Judge Happenstance from his twice-yearly self-imposed coma & he meted out my penance & perjury. A sorrier excuse for petroleum jelly I have never seen! His forelocks numbered three & he chose not to respect any nor all outbursts in his vicinity. Were it not for the screaming, burning statue of immodest justice coming down upon his bench like a childish definition of irony I would perhaps still be in that courtroom today, wheeling, dealing, wrangling, dangling, high-fiving the neighbor's kids when we were stoked.

No, this is neither the time nor also the place for mannerly self-congratulation, but the lesson I wish to impart has less to do with what I think than what I think you think. Please, before we disappear into the empty expanse of timed outages, let yourself be free of cackling shackles & hollering hierarchies, yes, even if you must indeed inhale the fingerprint dust from the outstretched palm of a cross-eyed bailiff. Because I am saddened by your lack of enthusiasm for even the most torpid boredom, my friends, my friends, despite the hurricanes & the hurricants, you would be well-lubricated to forego whatsoever is required if only to be stand-offish & mischievous.

I know! Go surfing! Listen to a primer here. What's the worst that could happen, besides drowning & shark-bite? & wouldn't that happen to you anyway? Be honest!

Unsafesurfer

I am punning on a Julian Cope song I'll probably play tomorrow on the show. It's a show about surfing, although I am not above playing, for example, a song about couch surfing, which isn't at all dangerous unless you are friends with psychopaths, & snail surfing, which is something I just made up. I have no idea what the Julian Cope song is about, but it sounds comforting - "You don't have to be afraid, love, 'cause I'm a safe surfer, darling." & the song was written before there was much of an online world, too, so it can't be about computer viruses & modem condoms. (Okay, I just made up modem condoms too.)

Storm's a-brewin' in Austin town this afternoon, & I hope I get some wind & rain slapped in my face & (if I'm lucky) a giant magnolia blossom will knock the toupee off our governor's head. I just wanted to remind you that, no matter the weather, no matter how land-locked you are, you'll be surfing with Self Help Radio tomorrow in the afternoon. & all through the night, if you want. I'm easy like that. (& I'm not making that up.)

Whither's Surf's Up?

I knew this dude once who had a typical story, which surfer lore is replete with, & that story is this: some person in some career, be it bagboy or CEO, insurance agent or loan shark, finds his or her way to California or Hawaii for something like a vacation or time off, is cajoled into (or actually is interested in) surfing, & likes it so much, they give up everything to live near the beach so they can surf, surf, surf all the livelong day.

Surfing is a strange culture & it's only because I wanted to read more about it that I decided to do a show about surfing. I confess I am less interested in the twangy Dick Dale style of playing that has become known as "surf rock" (a sub-category of surf music) than in the whole attitude of people writing music about what is basically a leisure activity. There's more adrenaline, of course, which may explain why there's not such a thing as "golf music" (although a Google search turns up an Amazon page of lounge music called "golf music that swings!" implying, I guess, that famous golfers like Bing Crosby meant their music to accompany the game). There's also, of course, physically fit people in swimsuits. Craggy old men in embarrassing hats on a golf course can't compete.

Surf media, though, hasn't really interested me. I never liked the "beach blanket" movies of the 60's. As a big fan of Deadwood, I was willing to give creator David Milch's John From Cincinnati a fair shake, but it wasn't a very interesting show, although I do love me some Garret Dillahunt. It seemed to make the whole prospect of becoming a surfer a lot like becoming a junkie - you give up everything for your "fix" & live in a kind of tattooed squalor. But the songs seem to celebrate a lot more.

I'm of course just thinking out loud & certainly don't want to offend any surfers (or any junkies, for that matter), & this is just the mindset (or mind-un-set as the case may be) as I gather surf songs for Self Help Radio this week. & no, I'll probably never surf, not just because I'm afraid of jellyfishes (they sting!) but because I have a bad back & would hate to love surfing & then hurt myself so I couldn't surf again. It would be like my relationship with peanut butter cups all over again.

Preface To Surf's Up: Screw The Surf, Last Week's Show Is Up

Got it? Get it? Good!

Last week's Self Help Radio, which is about enemies, is available now for your listening pleasure at selfhelpradio.net. Which is the same link as the link for Self Help Radio. Also, it's the same link for the word "link". Can't have too many links, that's what I say. I might even link the Self Help Radio address to a link for Google while I'm at it. Who's going to stop me? The police?

Anyway, go listen. I finally finished it. I hope you didn't become my enemy because it was late.

Last Week's Self Help Radio Is On The Way!

I know, when I had to take a week off (or at least be gone the day my show was on) when Self Help Radio was on the radio, I tended to just skip the week or get someone to sub the show. But since Self Help Radio is a podcast now (but may not remain one in the future - more on that later as developing developments develop) I imagined I could come in from a long weekend, sit up & finish a new show a mere twenty-four hours late. But I couldn't. I didn't. But I will!

Yes, sir, I've been making last week's show in my head all day today & will put it together tomorrow. You heard me! Last Saturday's show will debut this Tuesday! & not only that - there'll be a new show Saturday! What do you think about that, haters? You hate it? Well, you by definition would. It seems like such an awful job title - "hater." What does that pay? Very well, you say? Good for you!

Tomorrow I'll have a Self Help Radio for you. I promise. & I hardly ever keep my promises, but this time, for you, I will. Because I don't want to disappoint the state of West Virginia. It's true.

Whither Enemies?

Yes, this week's show is about enemies. Here's what the Oxford Elephant's Dictionary says about enemies: "They say what they mean & when they say it, they're mean. Enemies are disloyal percent one-hundred thirteen!" Taking that as a cue, & refusing to attend a notoriously homo-conservative "tea-bagging" party this week, the staff & workman's compensation director of The Self Help Radio sat in their den &, over Ovaltine & mah-jongg, decided they didn't have a care in the world, at least not until sundown, when, the electricity turned off & the candles nothing but wicks, they'd have to sit in the dark & smoke their pipes (not in a homo-conservative way, you understand) until the sun came up again.

As it says in the Bibble, "Lo, & on the eighteenth day of April did a massive homo-conservative horde with teabagging yet to come descend in the dreams of every third unhappy male frog of indiscriminate gender. & the staff did cry out, O why? O why? For is there not something else on the television nor a snappy indie tune we can play in the car until the battery gasps low? & the staff did wail, & someone named Nash took out his teeth, & splendid were the controversial tire rims, which rotateth not the direction in which the car did move. & the staff shall sing out, I shall maketh a radio show against mine enemies, & it shall possibly rock."

I'm not a big fan of Bibble-prophecy, as my friends in my Bibble-study class know, but I do believe that the ancient sages & bookies who wrote the Bibble (you know the story - filled with the spirit of the Holy Odd, scribbling away on napkins while dribbling away down their shirts) knew something I didn't know, & while that almost certainly was about prostitutes & not prophecy (& anyway, we covered that a couple of weeks ago), I do know the idea of a radio show about enemies is a fine one, since frankly a person without enemies is like a Bibble-study class without porn.

Which reminds me: this week's show may be a little late, as I will be out of town from tomorrow to Sunday night. Please forgive. I'll make the show extra homo-conservative just for you. & this blog will also be silent, which is fine, because even if you are in fact reading it right now (which you aren't), it's not really here. Just you, & Bibble-porn.

Preface To Enemies: A List Of Enemies

In preparation for a show about enemies, a look over embattled protagonists throughout history is both edifying & necessary, & truly who was most embattled (not least in his own mind) than the American president who, until the last eight years, seemed like the worst possible occupant of the Oval Office, & that's Richard Nixon. Did you know he kept a list of his enemies? & don't you know if you keep a list of your enemies, it's bound to leak?

Well, I'm not worried, as I am publishing my enemies list right here, right now. No leaks necessary! Like always, I leak myself. Wait.

This is, however, a partial list, as I don't have my original list with me currently. I sent it to Kinko's to be laminated. I kept spilling soda all over it. It got a little soggy. Don't worry about the incomplete quality of this list - the rest is mainly the attendance lists of all my classes in school from first grade to twelfth. It's a big list.

These are the top eleven enemies of ME.

11. Jeff "Stickbug" Handleman. For questioning my honor in an online forum - repeatedly - when really all I wanted to find out was when the new season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent was starting.

10. Marjorie Johnson-Jones. For breaking my heart, then, because you're a perfectionist, coming back to break it again more properly. Ow. Ow.

09. Hornsby Police Chief Herman Dorsey. I'll just say this: that was my favorite thumb. You fascist!

08. Holden Caufield. Look, I know he's a fictional character. But he is my enemy all the same.

07. Camelia Morris. I didn't want to be in your stupid book club anyway. I hate you!

06. Some of my brothers, both of my sisters. If I must explain, let's talk a little about my fourth birthday, & slowly work our way up to the present, shall we?

05. Some of my mother, most of my father. You don't think I know how you've held me back? The genetic material you bequeathed me was only the start!

04. Rust. It seems like rust is always there, around the corner, on the corner, on the metal post at the corner. But I will have my revenge when I remove its precious oxygen!

03. That dog who shall not be named. You know who you are. & I know you read this blog. Or at least your owner does. Because you've got him fooled too! But not me!

02 Tim Robbins. Oh he knows why. He's just lucky he's smarter than David Schwimmer, because Schwimmer pissed me off & look what I did with his career. Hah!

01 My greatest enemy is imaginary. It might even be imagination itself. Mocking me. Taunting me. & it hates you, too.

If you want to be on my enemies list, drop me a line. It's certainly more fun than being on my friends list!

Glenrothes One-Way

It's another Monday, so there's another Self Help Radio which happened over the weekend. Did you miss it? Why or what not?

A few years ago, when I was coffee-maker & lookout for a rogue pizza parlor in Garland, Texas, I knew this dude who never bathed, never brushed his teeth, never washed his clothes - he was kind of like a college boy who's gone Rastafari - he's tell me, "I am the incarnation of death, pleasure & pain." He boasted that he went "on the hunt" in red light districts - but frankly, though Garland, Texas, at the time had a thriving rogue pizza industry, we didn't have any red light districts. The Baptists wouldn't let us.

So he meets this girlie he calls "Doll." She says, "The media image of beauty has left many men & women broken. Some become anorexic or bulimic, while others turn to plastic surgery in search of the perfect look." Doll therefore complimented her creepy beau by claiming to be "the incarnation of those whom suffer from cosmetic surgery addiction & have died as a result of it." She stapled skin to her skin so it would look like her skin was falling off. I don't really know whose skin she stapled to her own skin. I didn't get close enough to find out.

They're both my friends on Facebook now. I have nothing to say to them. So I recommended this week's Self Help Radio.

Synonyms for Nonsense

Babble. Blather. Blatherskite. Gabble. Gibberish. Jabber. Jabberwocky. Twaddle. Balderdash. Bunkum. Claptrap. Drivel. Piffle. Poppycock. Rigmarole. Tommyrot. Applesauce. Baloney. Horse feathers. Bilge. Hooey. Malarkey. Bull. Bunk. Folly. Foolishness. Hogwash. Hot air. Jive. Mumbo jumbo. Rubbish. Trash. Tripe. Blarney. Moonshine. Bosh. Guff. Codswallop. Flapdoodle. Hokum. Gobbledygook. Monkey business. Shenanigans. Hanky-panky. Eyewash. Phooey.

Nonsense!

Whither Upstairs/Downstairs?

The surface area of Lake Michigan is 22,400 square miles. The surface area of Lake Victoria is 26,600 square miles. The surface area of Lake Ray Hubbard is 35.5 square miles, which is pretty big if you live in Rockwall County, Texas, & your idea of really big is a super-sized burger & fries. But you know what these lakes don't have that many houses do? An upstairs. A downstairs.

Downstairs can be the first floor, but it's more ominous if it's the cellar. Or worse, the dungeon. Same with upstairs. From a cellar, upstairs is the first floor. But the coolest upstairs is an attic. Some might say, "What about a penthouse?" No! An attic! Hopefully an attic in Paris. Where a young poet can starve to death! The only person who starves to death in a penthouse is an Oliver Douglas type, & it's really only his soul that's starving to death. Lisa makes sure he has a sandwich every once in a while.

So like most directions, upstairs/downstairs is relative. It's not a very good idea to keep a relative in your attic or basement. This includes animals, although I've met some cats who'd probably enjoy a dingy attic &/or basement, especially if there's cable. Animals love stairs, by the way. If even to just hang out upon them. They understand upstairs & downstairs.

My brain, now that I think about it, is divided into upstairs & downstairs, although that's a little personal, so I'll stop here.

Preface To Upstairs Downstairs: I've Actually Never Seen The British Miniseries "Upstairs Downstairs"

The British television series Upstairs Downstairs was shown in the early 70's & has become a beloved program for those who keep track of such things. According to the Internet Movie Database:

The series follows the lives of both the family & the servants in the London townhouse at 165 Eaton Place. Richard Bellamy, the head of the household, is a member of Parliament, & his wife a member of the titled aristocracy. Belowstairs, Hudson, the Scottish butler directs & guides the other servants about their tasks & (sometimes) their proper place. Real-life events from 1903-1930 are incorporated into the stories of the Bellamy household.

Sounds delightful. I've never seen it.

But wait! Isn't the theme this week "upstairs downstairs"? It is, but it's not "Upstairs Downstairs" the television series I've never seen. It's mainly a chance to play songs about stairs, different floors (like, you know, the second floor, etc.) & the distinction between. A few songs make use of a pun on the word "story" to mean a "tale" or a "level of a house." In any event, it has nothing to do with England (except I'll play some English bands I suppose) or the aristocracy (although I do drink nasty sherry whilst I do the show) or the help in the cellar (although I am descended from peasant stock). It's just about the different floors of a house. Upstairs. Downstairs.

Yeah, yeah, I'll watch it one day. It just doesn't really have anything to do with this week's Self Help Radio.

Inverness Straightaway

This is a perfunctory persimmon to let everyone know including you that Self Help Radio had a new episode in spite of your misgivings this past weekend, & it's available where your "Self Help Radio" products are normally sold. That's right. Your grocer's freezer.

It has come to my lack of attention that certain "online help wanted boards" (for want of a better board) have been advertising under my very name for "interns" for "Slef Help Radio." (Yes, they spell it that way.) (Should I have written "Slef Help Radio" [sic]? It does make me feel a little [sic]. I am of course a non-profit or rather a no-profit, & even if my show last week was about fortune telling, I am also a non-prophet, & can tell you we won't be hiring in the future, although the job of me may be available if I don't start exercising and eating right.

Also, please accept a humble apology olive branch loaf to all Emile Zola fans whose parentage I may have disrespected in a recent screed on a serious online French novel message board. I had been harboring some negative feelings about Nana for some time, & I didn't know how strongly I felt until I started writing.

That is all.