Preface To Sickness: Are You Okay?

I have been looking over this slideshow of US Health Statistics 2010. The actual report is right here. It's a kind of lurid fun read. Americans seem to get less healthy the more their country falls apart around them. I highly recommend a glance at the "at a glance" pdf. It includes wonderful poetic sentences like "The proportion of American adults 20 years of age & over who were obese rose in the 1980s & 1990s. In 2007–2008, about one-third of adults were obese & about two-thirds were overweight or obese." It also has awesome graphs that will make you hungry to look at like these:



I just ate dinner & I feel like I'm starving. What a good American I am!

Don't Make Fun Of Online Gaming, Not In My Presence, Mister Ma'am

Once upon a time
There was a lonely haiku
Who died of neglect

There's a group of poets out there - they know who they are - who think they can call a poem by a defined term - like haiku, or sonnet, or villanelle - even if they're not following the rules. They think they're awful cool.

If they were really cool, they'd write (or one of them would write, proving that she or he was cooler than the rest of them) a book of poems of all the different kinds of poetry. There's probably more than what's on that list as well. Some really obscure shit. Yeah!

The reason that they don't, of course, is the same reason that they write a poem that looks like this:

Gentle evening rain in air
Washed the weary sun setting clean
Like a washed face over a basin
Getting ready to sleep

& call it a haiku - it's because they're lazy.

Lazy can be revolutionary, though. So perhaps they're cool after all.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Eight

The difference between a bad joke & a good joke is not something I - & I am not a comedian - or even, some would doubtless say, very funny - it's not something I feel qualified or equipped to discuss. I only focus on this A Joke A Day series because they're just so horribly unfunny that the most easily tickled must scratch their heads in befuddlement just trying to grasp these shabby attempts at humor.

But if, let's say, the difference between how good a joke is received is in the telling, the fine lackadaisical editors (let's assume they exist) must appreciate that the success or failure of their A Joke A Day jokes would benefit from their presentation. As I've mentioned before, there is no evidence - none whatsoever - that there is even the most rudimentary attempt at a basic rewrite of submitted jokes. Someone - possibly even an automated computer program, which looks for keywords like racial epithets & profanity - glosses over them, makes sure they look a little like a joke, safely sanitized, & then rubber-stamp them.

Or else how explain Saturday's A Joke A Day? I reprint it exactly as I received it:

Steve lived in Stated Island, NY and worked in Manhattan. He had to take the ferry home every night. One evening, he got sown to the ferry and found there was a wait for the next boat, so Steve decided to stop at a nearby tavern. Before long he was felling no pain. When he got back to the ferry slip, the ferryboat was just eight feet from the dock.

Steve. Afraid of missing this one and being late for dinner, took a running leap and landed right on the deck of the boat. “How did you like that jump, buddy?” said a proud Steve to a deck hand. “It was great,” said the sailor. “But why didn’t you wait? We were just pulling in!”

I'm not sure if the joke is funny or not. I couldn't get past the glaring spelling mistakes & the weird one-word sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph.

Don't the A Joke A Day people know there are recently-graduated English majors out there who would gladly take a shitty job for little pay with their company? That they could easily edit a joke like this?

Astounding.

Confusion Is Not Sexy

You know what's confusing? Doing a radio show about confusion & then returning home to put most everything you own into boxes that very same say & then, even later, watching strong men - men you've paid - put them in a giant truck & take them somewhere else.

Also, waking up the next day in a different place than where you previously woke up, & finding those selfsame boxes you packed before suddenly filled with tapioca pudding & grief. Then the yellowjackets attack!

That's pretty confusing. Self Help Radio this week confused itself, too. You can join in on the perplexity if you're so inclined. The show is available now at self help radio dot net. So as not to confuse you further, I've broken the show into two parts. Though still confusing, the parts do have certain songs played during their duration - I've listed those below. Click here: part one &/or part two. Part three is only available in outer space.

(part one)

"Confusion" Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry _Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry Sing_
"Confused" Paul Gayten _Gettin' Funky: The Birth Of New Orleans R & B_
"Confused" Dean Martin _Memories Are Made Of This_

"My Confusion" The Elite _Fort Worth Teen Scene Vol. 2_
"Confusion" Randy & The Rest _Fuzz, Flaykes, & Shakes, Vol. 6: Come On In To My World_
"A Whole Lot Of Confusion" The Ethics _Trip In Tyme, Volume 2_
"Confusion All Day" The Petards _Electrick Loosers # 3 (The Rheingold Rampage 1964-1970)_
"Confusion" Thee Mighty Caesars _Surely They Were The Sons Of God_
"State Of Confusion" The Kinks _State Of Confusion_

"Confusion" Lee Dorsey _People Sure Act Funny_
"Ball Of Confusion" The Temptations _Emperors Of Soul_
"Confusion" Chocolate Milk _Action Speaks Louder Than Words_

(part two)

"World Of Confusion" Sylvan White _Africans Unite_

"Confusion" New Order _Substance_
"Get Confused" Fischerspooner _Odyssey_
"People, You Can Confuse" Adult. _Anxiety Always_
"Dazed & Confused" Sofia _Search & Destroy_

"Confusion Fog" Meat Puppets _Mirage_
"Confusion" Silver Apples _Contact_
"Confusion" Sparks _Big Beat_
"I'm So Confused" Jonathan Richman _I'm So Confused_

Moved into a new house today

Had a wonderful show this morning.

Will post it tomorrow.

Maybe it will prove me wrong.

Apologies but I got to see most everything I own taken from one place to another.

In boxes.

I do enjoy writing as though I am writing on postcards.

Man am I tired.

Tomorrow then.

Tomorrow.

Whither Confusion?

You know what's confusing? Spending a day packing because after your Monday Morning radio show you're moving into a brand new house!

Well, not brand new. New to you, though!

That's a lot of confusion. You forget to write in your blog & everything!

Also, you use a lot of exclamation points. When you're confused.

You're not too confused to mention that Monday morning at 7:30 sharpish you'll be on the radio doing your Self Help Radio show about confusion, though. That's at 88.1 fm on the dial in Lexington & online at WRFL dot fm.

You hope the day's not so confusing you can't put it online later at self help radio dot net. But you can't make any promises either.

Wait. Who are you? What am I saying? I'm so confused.

Preface To Confusion: Humid Pub Diagram

Humid Pub Diagram is a natural science presentation prepared by the children of P.S. 4 To The 8th Power from downtown You-Know-Where. While we the undersigned understand that children should not be allowed in any drinking establishment, we did make sure they had no fake IDs and shook each other's hands for a job well done.

Most of the children, it should be noted, had no concept of "death" & only a limited concept of "forever." This is why the choice of magic markers is so important to today's "education" crowd. But the children got lost in the sad, milling crowd of laid-off teachers and we feared for their - & our - safety.

There were too many butterflies & not enough nets, which (it turns out) suited the butterflies fine. Most of the children has enough sense not to stick the fluttering insects in their mouths. Oh, but not Charles! Charles was exhibiting the same traits that serial killers do in television shows. Oh that Charles!

The judges were on loan from different organizations - half from the Miss Sarasota Beauty Pageant, half from the National Science Foundation. While they found the children adorable, it is not hyperbole to say that their poster presentations were shabby, amateurish, and often utterly illegible. Two judges quit in protest!

As the survey ceased & the parents were released from lock-up, two patterns quickly emerged. The first suggested that alcoholic children managed to be only slightly more delightful than alcoholic adults. The second showed with some certainty that humid pubs are never desirable, not even in the driest of climates.

Guru

Have I talked about Sam Harris before? I think the guy's amazing. Here he is answering questions in the second installment of the series "Ask Sam Harris Anything." I don't know what I'd ask him. Actually I do. But I won't ask it here.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Seven

I confess I didn't read many of the A Joke A Day jokes this week. I may be experiencing a kind of burnout. A couple of them were a little longish, so I just pasted them into a file to access them when I wrote about them, & read maybe the first couple of lines. Half of them were short riddles or one-liners, about as funny as you'd expect. One of them was one of those lists that begins "You know you're a fill-in-the-blank when..." that appears to have been recycled from 1995. But here's one of the long ones I didn't read; enjoy it for the first time with me, will you?

An Accident Report

I am writing in response to your request for “additional information.” In block number 30 of the accident report form, I put “poor planning” as the cause for my accident. You said in your last letter that I should explain more fully. I trust that the following detail will be sufficient.

I am an amateur radio operator. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top section of my new 80-foot antenna tower. When I completed my work, I discovered that I had, over the course of several trips up the tower, brought about 300 lbs. of tools and spare hardware. Rather than carry the now unneeded tools and materials down by hand, I decided to lower the items in a small barrel by using a pulley, which fortunately was attached to the pole at the tip of the tower. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the top of the tower and loaded the tools and materials into the barrel. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 300 lbs. of tools.

You will note in block number 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 155 lbs. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel coming down. This explains my fractured skull and broken clavicle.

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly on the rope in spite of the pain. At about the same time however, the barrel hit the ground. The bottom fell out of the barrel. Devoid of the weight of the tools, the barrel now weighed 20 pounds.
I refer you again to my weight in block number 11. As you might guess, I began a rapid descent down the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles and the lacerations or my legs and lower body.

The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of tools, and fortunately only three vertebras were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the tools in pain, unable to stand, and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me, I again lost my presence of mind.

I let go of the rope…

Is that a joke, or is someone reporting the blow-by-blow of a slapstick scene from a silent movie? How odd.

I felt quite guilty having wasted you time with that strangely detailed attempt at some kind of humor, so I will make matters worse by reprinting yesterday's A Joke A Day, which is shorter, but which I also didn't read. You can go at anytime, you know.

Little Johnny comes downstairs crying.

His mother asked, “What’s the matter now?”

“Dad was hanging pictures, and just hit his thumb with hammer,” said little Johnny through his tears.

“That’s not so serious,” soothed his mother. “I know you are upset, but a big boy like you shouldn’t cry at something like that. Why didn’t you just laugh?

“I did!” sobbed Johnny.

To me, the funniest thing about this joke is not the predictable punchline, but it's this line:

His mother asked, “What’s the matter now?”

I love the implication that Johnny is such a whiny little shit that his mother's first reaction, when he shows up in tears before her, is to ask, "What's the matter NOW?"

At least that's how I read it. That's funny!

Signs Of Following

Self Help Radio today featured the theme "follow me" in which a lowly deejay made a desperate attempt to rally a group of like-minded folks to his cause!

Er. Not really. It was mainly a show about "following," with an expert reading (from a book about leadership) on how to be a good follower, & also a brief discussion of when following goes bad, which is called by law enforcement professionals everywhere by the trademarked name of "stalking."

The show - which has few followers - is available on the following website: self help radio dot net. I split the show in two the better to follow you: part one is here, & part two is here. Following this paragraph & a closing, there are two related lists containing the songs played in each part. I hope you are following this!

(part one)
"Follow Me" Gainors _The Best Of Red Top Records_
"Follow Me" Lyme & Cybelle _Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, Vol. 3_
"(Hey Babe) Follow Me" Grumbleweeds _The Electric Asylum, Vol. 3_

"Follow Me" The Fruit Machine _Circus Days UK Pop-Sike Obscurities 1966-1970_
"Follow Me Home" Crumb _Evenings & Weekends_
"Follow Me Away" Jasmine Minks _Another Age_
"Follow Me Follow" The Idle Race _Back To The Story_
"Follow Me" Jumprope _Just For A Day_
"Follow Me" The Softies _It's Love_

"Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" Bob Dylan _Biograph_
"You're Following Me" Perry Como _The Essential 60's Singles Collection_
"I Will Follow Him" Little Peggy March _The Very Best Of Little Peggy March: The Essential Singles Collection 1962-1968_
"Being Followed" Eugene Mirman _The Absurd Nightclub Comedy Of Eugene Mirman_

(part two)
"I Will Follow" U2 _Boy_
"The Follower" PragVEC _PragVEC_
"Following Her Around" Sprites _Starlings, Spiders, Tigers & Sprites_

"I'm Following You" Jimmie Noone _1929-1930_
"You I'll Be Following" Love _Love_
"Following" The Bangles _Different Light_
"Following You" Chumbawamba _Un_
"Follow Me Into The Hills" Kathryn Calder _Are You My Mother?_

"Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" The Kinks _Greatest Hits_
"My Love Will Follow Me" Vivian Girls _My Love Will Follow Me_
"Follow" Eric's Trip _Love Tara_
"Of All The Lost Followers" Department S _Is Vic There?_

Whither Follow Me?

There are three kinds of people:

The leader leads. The follower follows. The loner is alone.

There are maybe more kinds of people:

The sneak pretends to be one of the above but is really another, though mostly a sneak. The fool thinks he or she is one category he or she finds "superior" or "better" but really, it turns out, is exactly what he or she fears most. The hypocrite is just a hypocrite, of course.

There are even more kinds of people:

The dreamer forgot to wake up to be put into the above category. The junkie was probably one of the above, but is now somewhere enjoying some grade-A Afghani heroin. The blogger is mainly a follower but spends a lot of time writing about different kinds of people in a mad attempt to be relevant.

There are even different kinds of radio shows:

The commercial radio show is created by robots who are fed by dollars & sadness. The non-commercial radio show is made with the actual blood of its programmer, unless it's a non-commercial public radio show, in which case it's the blood of that guy who does Prairie Home Companion mixed with genetically modified blood from Archer Daniels Midland.

Self Help Radio pretends to be a loner but actually is a devout follower of the great WRFL. You can listen to the Self Help Radio show entitled "follow me" tomorrow morning at 7:30 am on that station, which is at 88.1 fm on the dial in Lexington, & is online at wrfl dot fm all over the world. If you miss it, you can listen later at self help radio dot net.

Did you follow all of that?

Preface To Follow Me: Don't Follow Me To Cincinnati

Do you remember trying to learn how to spell stupid English words that didn't sound like they were spelled? If you didn't, ignore this. If you did, well, you can ignore this, too, but you might sympathize with my dumbass recollections.

I remember having to figure out - not with mnemonics, not exactly - simple ways to spell words correctly when I was a kid. For example, "Mississippi" was sung in a kind of sing-song in my head that probably owes something to the Mickey Mouse Club theme. Words like "Wednesday" & "friend" were mis-pronounced in my head so that I could remember how they were spelled - wed-NES- day, or FRY-end. (That "i before e" rule came later, & was mainly helpful for words like "ceiling.") Methods like that meant that I had to remember not to pronounce them the way I said them in my head.

Worse still were the words that I mispronounced continually until some kind soul - usually but not always a teacher, who was expected to do so, but surprisingly often it was something impersonal, like a song or a television program - corrected me. I remember that I pronounced "metropolis" - capitalized, the home of Superman - as "met-ro-pol-is" rather than "me-trop-O-lis" until I saw the first Superman movie. I was also convinced that the Yo-sim-i-tee Sam in the cartoons was different than the Yo-suh-might Sam in the comics - until my sister I think told me I was stupid & I was able to see how "Yosemite" could be pronounced the proper way.

I am thinking about this because, now that I live just about an hour away from Cincinnati, & every damn time I try to spell Cincinnati, the spell-check reminds me that it has two ns & only one t, not the other way around. & as I am going to Cincinnati, & I wanted to write about it, I am being forced to correct that mistake over & over during this post.

The poor schoolchildren trying to remember how to spell this city they live in! I think there is probably a sizable portion of Cincinnati who just can't spell Cincinatti, though Cincinati is the city they've lived in all their lives. Cincinnati, not Sinsinatti.

Building Up A New Home

(The title is a Shriekback reference.)

I am going to be busy today because yesterday the wife & I signed papers to buy a house here in Lexington. As a friend on Facebook said, "I guess you're going to stay." Yes, we are.

We're officially moving in after my show a week after next so there should be no interruption of the shabby, last-minute-feel of Self Help Radio. I just wanted to say hooray!

I'll let you know when we have our first house party.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Six

It was not a loquacious week for the A Joke A Day crowd. The shortest "joke" was only twenty-three words long, while the longest was thrice that at seventy-six words long - the seven "jokes" averaged thirty-six words in total, which meant they were basically either one-liners or smart-ass responses. I am not an accountant, of course, though I do take a little pride in today's America that I know basic math (when so few truly do). I also know that math may have little to do with what's funny, even if what's funny sometimes follows a formula. I merely mention this because it seemed to me that the A Joke A Day crowd were being weirdly economical with their clumsy stabs at humor this week.

Here's their shortest "joke," which was probably stolen from an ex-Saturday Night Live performer's stand-up:

You know you're getting old when your best friend tells you he's having an affair & you want to know if it's catered.

Ho hum. The others just as dull, although probably guaranteed to make the average twelve-year-old giggle.

My favorite amused me because it reminded me... Well, here, here's the joke:

A customer sent an order to a distributor for a large amount of goods totaling a great deal of money.

The distributor noticed that the previous bill hadn't been paid, so he asked his collections manager to leave a voice-mail for them saying, "We can't ship your new order until you pay for the last one."

The next day the collections manager received a collect phone call, "Please cancel the order. We can't wait that long."

I don't really understand the need to add the collections manager to the joke; the distributor could have easily made the phone call & streamlined it somewhat (also, since this is the longest joke of the week, it could really have brought their average down) (since it seemed like brevity was the soul of their awkward stabs at wit this week).

However, I like this joke because it reminds me of a wonderful Marx Brothers routine from Animal Crackers. The script in detail is here:

http://www.marx-brothers.org/whyaduck/info/movies/scenes/ravelli.htm

But in particular it's this exchange, with Chico being Ravelli & of course Groucho being the legendary Captain Spaulding (Mrs. Rittenhouse is Margaret Dumont):

Mrs. Rittenhouse: You are one of the musicians? But you were not due until tomorrow.
Ravelli: Couldn't come tomorrow, that's too quick.
Spaulding: Say, you're lucky they didn't come yesterday!
Ravelli: We were busy yesterday, but we charge just the same.
Spaulding: This is better than exploring! What do you fellows get an hour?
Ravelli: Oh, for playing we getta ten dollars an hour.
Spaulding: I see... What do you get for not playing?
Ravelli: Twelve dollars an hour.
Spaulding: Well, clip me off a piece of that.
Ravelli: Now, for rehearsing we make special rate. Thatsa fifteen dollars an hour.
Spaulding: That's for rehearsing?
Ravelli: Thatsa for rehearsing.
Spaulding: And what do you get for not rehearsing?
Ravelli: You couldn't afford it... Heh... You see, if we don't rehearse, we don't play... And if we don't play... That runs into money.(*)

You can see the resemblance. Chico Marx would cancel an order because he knew he couldn't wait the length of time it would take for him to pay the previous order. But, come to think of it, he'd probably find a way to get them to send him the order even though he hadn't paid. He was pretty smart for a dumb fellow.

(*) If you haven't seen the movie, you should keep reading past this. The punfest that follows is amazing.

How The Other Half A Show Lives

"Half a show is better than none" - proverb uttered by someone who never heard Self Help Radio.

Look, don't go off half-cocked. I have half a mind to tell you what I think, if only I weren't half in the bag. Or a half-hearted half-wit. Look, if you give me half a chance, I will prove to you that getting there is half the fun. Though my better half tells me the show is half-baked.

Both halves of the Self Help Radio "half a show" are now available at self help radio dot net. Half number first is right here while the second half is sitting here. The two halves have been fleshed out below.

Is the show half empty or half full? It depends on your attitude, dude.

(half one)

"Half As Much" Hank Williams _The Complete Hank Williams_
"You Can't Go Halfway (& Get In)" Bailes Brothers _Roots 'N' Blues: The Retrospective, 1925 - 1950_
"Meet Me Half Way" Arbee Stidham _Chicken Shack Boogie Vol. 6_

"Halber Mensch" Einsturzende Neubaten _Halber Mensch_
"England, Half English" Billy Bragg _England, Half English_
"My Pink Half Of The Drainpipe" Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band _Cornology_
"Half A Century High" Phil Ochs _Tape From California_
"I Cut Myself In Half" Kleenex Girl Wonder _Ponyoak_

"Alexander The Swoose (Half Swan Half Goose)" Doris Day _The Complete Doris Day With Les Brown_
"Halfrabbit Halfdog" Deerhoof _Halfbird_
"Half Man Half Mole" Chris Knox _Songs Of You & Me_

(half two)

"Half Breed" Ricky Nelson _The American Dream: The Complete Imperial & Verve 1957-1962_
"Half Angel" Jack Moore _Teen Town USA, Vol. 2_
"Half A Boy & Half A Man" Nick Lowe _Basher: The Best Of Nick Lowe_

"Half A Person" The Smiths _Louder Than Bombs_
"Half A Life" Love Spit Love _Love Spit Love_
"Half Dead" The Mountain Goats _Get Lonely_
"Half My Heart Beats" Smittens _The Coolest Thing About Love_
"The Origin Of Love" John Cameron Mitchell _Hedwig & The Angry Inch_

"Half Dead" Louis CK _Chewed Up_
"Can't Go Halfway" The Harmonettes _Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil-Up_
"Half The Time" Flashing Lights _Where The Change Is_
"Half The Time" Bohemian Vendetta _Enough_

Whither Half A Show?

Important questions asked about tomorrow's show!

1) Will the show only be half as long?
2) Were you ever a halfling when you played Dungeons & Dragons in high school, you geek?
3) Is it six of one, or a half dozen of the other?
4) What is your half-life?
5) When you say "halve" does it sound like "have" or do you pronounce the l & the v & sound particularly pretentious?

The only answers I know!

1) Self Help Radio is on tomorrow morning (August 1st) from 7:30 to 9am Central Time on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington.
2) You can listen with any old radio in the city, but if you're not in Lexington, you can listen online at wrfl dot fm.
3) I will put the show up later in the day of course at self help radio dot net.
4) If you're up early, my pop show Sugar Substitute will be on from 6am to the start of Self Help Radio.
5) All of the above!

Preface To Half A Show: A Story About Drugs & Drool

The boy was going to try salvia for the first time. Specifically, Salvia divinorum, often called "diviner's sage." He had never tried any hallucinogenic drugs before, not human made nor natural, & since salvia was legal (for the time being) in his state, it seemed a good idea to start (if starting is what he was doing) with it.

The boy's girlfriend was a little dyslexic, so when he texted her that he was going to try salvia, she naturally read it as "saliva" & began to worry about him. She thought perhaps he might be developing some kind of fetish, something both her mother & that psychiatrist on television had warned her about. She wondered if there were a fetish in which people liked to be drooled or spat upon.

Of course there was! So she told him she'd leave him if he tried saliva. He tried to explain to her that he was talking about a psychoactive plant, but all she could imagine, from reading up on spitting on the internet, is either him getting her (or, worse yet, another girl!) to spit on him, to suck all the saliva out of his mouth, or (she shuddered) him wanting to spit or drool on her!

They broke up; she had begun to find him quite horrible to think about. Then the salvia he purchased from a friend turned out to be the wrong kind, so he didn't get to have a first great drug experience after all.

Bill Finger's Last Days

If you're at all a fan of The Batman, you should probably know who Bill Finger is. He basically co-created the character & many of the caped crusader's villains & supporting cast, & wrote many of his early adventures, & is now virtually unknown outside the comics community.

Within the comics community, he is honored as a hero. There's even an award created in his name to honor people who have contributed great things to the comics world but were not sufficiently honored in their day. (The 2011 winners are discussed here.)

There are a few biographies of him online, & all note that he died, quite young, at the age of 59. He was fired, one suggests, from DC Comics because he asked for health benefits. Another one notes, "He died poor & without any official heirs to continue his fight for credit. Since then, in the comic book industry, being 'Fingered' has become slang for being denied credit for one's contributions to a story or character."

I assume he was in poor health, in addition to being poor (he wrote a couple of movies & also for television, so he seemed to have lots of work), but I haven't read anything about his final years. Fifty-nine seems very young. Especially in a field where some of the worst-treated creators lived into their eighties.

Anyone know how Bill Finger lived his final years? Any information out there?

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Five

I could talk, & have talked, & will talk a lot about the A Joke A Day jokes which are so monstrously unfunny that you're genuinely surprised when there's an A Joke A Day joke which actually makes you chuckle. But I think it's mainly in the telling - some of these "jokes" actually have a joke in them - they're just so shabbily constructed, it's like listening to a child try to tell a sophisticated story. They miss nuance, they have no sense of timing. It's a rambling mess.

I suspect the reason for this is that the jokes that the A Joke A Day team gets are submitted, vaguely approved (if that), & not in the least edited before the daily submission is shot out to the subscribers. It's amazing to me that there's not one person on the A Joke A Day staff who has enough of a sense of humor - & basic copy editing skills - to spend a thoughtful five minutes cleaning up a joke. As it stands, most of the A Joke A Day jokes come across as the slurring funnies a moderately inebriated person will tell to a crowd of strangers on a dare during an open mic night.

Some of the A Joke A Day jokes are jokes that have been told before (usually better), but this joke, from Sunday, sounds a little familiar, don't you think?

Joe, a college student, was taking a course in ornithology, the study of birds. The night before the biggest test of the semester, Joe spent all night studying. He had the textbook nearly memorized. He knew his class notes backward and forward. Joe was ready.

The morning of the test, Joe entered the auditorium and took a seat in the front row. On the table in the front was a row of ten stuffed birds. Each bird had a sack covering its body, and only the legs were showing. When class started, the professor announced that the students were to identify each bird by looking at its legs and give its common name, species, habitat, mating habits, etc.

Joe looked at each of the birds' legs. They all looked the same to him. He started to get angry. He had stayed up all night studying for this test and now he had to identify birds by their LEGS? The more he thought about the situation, the angrier he got.

Finally he reached his boiling point. He stood up, marched up to the professor's desk, crumpled up his exam paper and threw it on the desk. "What a ridiculous test!" he told the prof. "How could anyone tell the difference between these birds by looking at their legs? This exam is the biggest rip-off I've ever seen!"

With that, Joe turned and stormed toward the exit. The professor was a bit shocked, and it took him a moment to regain his composure. Then, just as Joe was about to walk out the door, the prof shouted out, "Wait a minute, young man, what's your name?"

Joe turned around, pulled up his pant legs and hollered, "You tell me, prof! You tell me!"

If it sounds a little familiar, it's because it's something of a riff on the famous "Do You Know Who I Am?" urban legend. (You can read about it here.) In it, a student outsmarts a professor who doesn't know who he is by sticking his blue book in a stack of them & leaving.

This joke attempts to recreate that urban legend but fails, as the student will. Why? Because the professor can either identify the student by his crumpled-up exam he threw on the desk, or he can simply fail everyone who didn't take the test. The student made the grand gesture for nothing. He would have been better off trying to take the test. Especially if the other students were as confused as he was & he was graded on a curve.

(& by the way, if you'll allow me to overthink a dumb joke, you might have some idea of a bird's species by its size. Also, what a gruesome idea for a test. All those dead birds!)

There was one joke I thought was actually funny this week, so, credit where it's due, I present it here, unedited, as it appeared in my inbox on Tuesday:

There were two guys working for the city. One would dig a hole - he would dig, dig, dig.

The other would come behind him and fill the hole - fill, fill, fill.

These two men worked furiously; one digging a hole, the other filling it up again.

A man was watching from the sidewalk and couldn't believe how hard these men were working, but couldn't understand what they were doing. Finally he had to ask them.

He said to the hole digger, "I appreciate how hard you work, but what are you doing? You dig a hole and your partner comes behind you and fills it up again!"

The hole digger replied, "Oh yeah, must look funny, but the guy who plants the trees is sick today."

You May Already Have Won!

Or, you may already be winning! What have you won, you ask. What are you winning? This week's Self Help Radio! A show entirely about winning!

It's such a winning show that it can be hosted by a loser like me. How's that for "winning the day"? No? Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

The show is above "place" & "show" at selfhelpradio.net. I have lovingly divided it into two exciting halves, the first half of which is here while the second half is looking at itself in a trophy over here. The songs in each half are below.

Congratulations on being a winner! I wonder what that feels like.

(part one)
"The Winner" Gregory Isaacs _The Winner: The Roots Of Gregory Isaacs 1968-1978_
"We're A Winner" The Impressions _The Very Best Of The Impressions_
"Let's Win!" Alex Ebert _Alexander_

"I'm A Winner" Diana Ross _I'm Still Waiting_
"All Right OK You Win" Mikki Wilcox _Memphis Belles: The Women Of Sun Records_
"A Winner Never Quits" The Elgins _The Golden Era Of Doo-Wops: Lummtone Records_
"Can't Win" Richard Thompson _Amnesia_
"Win Your Love (For Me)" Sam Cooke _The Man & His Music_

"Charlie Sheen Winning (Awesome Vatican Assassin)" Ithinkimessedmyself _Charlie Sheen Winning (Awesome Vatican Assassin)_
"Gonna Keep On Tryin' Till I Win Your Love" Marvin Gaye _That's The Way Love Is_
"Give In, You Just Can't Win" Tammi Terrell _Come On & See Me: The Complete Solo Collection_

(part two)
"Can't Win" The Invincibles _The Best Of Loma Records: The Rise & Fall Of A 1960's Soul Label_
"You're A Winner" Harold Andrews _Moaning, Groaning, Crying: A Galaxy Of Soul_

"Win" David Bowie _Young Americans_
"You Have Yet To Win" Holly Golightly _Truly She Is None Other_
"A La Fin Tu Gagneras (You'll Win In The End)" Jocelyne _C'est Chic! French Girl Singers Of The 1960s_
"I Won" The Sundays _Reading, Writing & Arithmetic_
"The Boy Who Can't Win" Three Finger Cowboy _Hooray For Love_

"You Win Again" Hank Williams _The Complete Hank Williams_
"You... Win!" Beardyman _I Done A Album_
"The Winning Team" Patton Oswalt _Feelin' Kinda Patton_
"You Just Can't Win" Them _The Story Of Them Featuring Van Morrison_
"A Quitter Never Wins" Larry Williams & Johnny Guitar Watson _Right Track: The Best Of Okeh Northern Soul_
"Everybody Loves A Winner" Dandy _The History Of Trojan Records Vol. 1_