Whither Mistakes?

Har har, someone over at the KOOP home page has written, in regards to my show this week: "Mistakes is the theme of this week's Self-Help Radio, hosted by a true expert on the subject, DJ Gary, Friday, 2/2, 4:30-6:00." Someone shall suffer for their impudence!

Or am I possibly doing a show about mistakes because I am the sort of person who is an expert on the subject? Or did I simply stumble on the idear of doing a show about mistakes by mistake? Make no mistake, there's a reason for a show about mistakes, & I'll get to the bottom of it. & I won't be mistaking some lame-ass "I don't know how I came up with it" commentary for a real explanation, no. This will be solid & satisfying, like a cold Snickers bar or like taking a dump in a hotel room in London.

But first: I pondered yesterday about the scale of what we might call "accidents" or "errors" or "getting something wrong," & said that I thought that mistakes were somewhere low on the list. But what is that list? Would it look something like this (from the most egregious to the least)?

Extinction
Genocide
War
Tragedy
Horrible Crime
Serious fuck up
Stupid motherfucking thing to do
Self-absorbed action
Mistake
Faux pas
Boo boo

I tried to make it so that the categories were more or less "things that can happen by human choice" rather than accidents, & I am know thinking, lots of times things get worse after someone makes a mistake. As an example: it was a mistake to vote for Hitler in 1933, & because lots of people in Germany made that mistake (which might well be classified as a stupid motherfucking thing to do), there was a genocide. So maybe mistakes are part of a continuum of action that, if left unchecked, can continue to snowball up the ladder of bad decisions until the worst possible thing can happen. I've even thought of an example:

Let's say you're a sad & lonely boy who's just discovered masturbation. You like it so much you're doing it until you're hurting yourself. That's a boo boo. However, you live in a culture that doesn't appreciate sexual exploration & definitely doesn't talk about it, so when you attempt to talk about it to your parents, they are horrified - what a faux pas! You're not without resources, though, &, as you've kept tickling your ivory, you find that your johnson's hurting more & even changing color. You know a friend who's more enlightened, whose dad is a doctor, & you know you can ask him. But you choose not to. A mistake!

All of this is culminating in a self-absorbed barrage of guilt & shame which, as you continue to watch the infection consume your man-parts, goes from stupid motherfucking thing to do up the ladder to serious fuck-up. You've so successfully kept it hidden from everyone, including your family, that when you start punishing women for your stupidity, you are able to do it without any suspicion being drawn your way (& rape & other forms of sexual abuse are horrible crimes). In fact, as you finish law school & start a career in public office, you find that power shields you from most forms of punishment, & by the time you're a rotted-dicked congressman in the House Of Representatives, you have zero qualms authorizing a president (who went from mistake to war in no time flat) to occupy another country as the cost of your own.

Of course, this is entirely fictitious, &, as far as I know, there are no Congressmen with completely dessicated penises. I was being hypothetical & I'm sorry if I offended anyone in the Senate or the House.

I do know why I am doing this show, however. It's because Magda & I listened to the Baxendale's You Will Have Your Revenge on the way to Dallas before we went to Europe & the song "(I've Blown It) Big Time" made me think, "I should do a show about dumb mistakes." It's as simple as that. I'm just glad I don't have to do a show about dumb motherfucking things to do. That could take a while.

Ah, the Song Of The Day!

This is a sweet & shambly soul number by a quartet called Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr from a neat collection of obscure soul singles from the early 1970s called Eccentric Soul, Volume 1: The Capsoul Label. I love music that sounds like it's held together almost entirely by the faith & will of the musicians & singers involved. The song is called "You Can't Blame Me", & clicking on the name will let you hear it. I will remove this mp3 on February 14, 2007, & you can't blame me if you've missed it by then.

Tomorrow: answering letters? Might that be a mistake?