Podcast Greens!

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

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

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

Podcast Blues

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

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

Happy birthday to me!

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

Sigh.

How Naughty Do You Dream I Am?

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

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

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

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

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

Whither 1972?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preface To 1972: They Had Elections Then?

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

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

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

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

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

Or at least a podcast.

A New Use For Frogs!

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

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

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

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

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

First Podcast!

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

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

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

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

Fucking Arsonists!

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

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

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

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

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

Whither Teeth?

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

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

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

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

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

Preface To Teeth: No, Talk About The Fire!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smoke Inhalation

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

17 Shows To Go!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whither Ladders?

Ladder, a poem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the first place?

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

Preface To Ladders: Happy New Year!

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

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

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

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

18 Shows To Go!

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

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

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

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

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

My Millennium Falcon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy holidays!

Holiday Buffet

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

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

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

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