Countdown To 200!

First a quick note to the kind person who called my show today concerned about the amount of glue I seemed to be sniffing on the air: it's totally okay. I sniffed so much glue when I was in college (it certainly made my "The English Novel In The 19th Century" class much more interesting - I remember Lawrence Sterne tasted like strawberries!) that one of my nostrils no longer can smell. It also is virtually hairless &, when I have a cold, doesn't so much get runny as emit a vapor which could only be described as bits of my soul bubbling away. So, of course, in the interests of being as real as possible with the theme of my show, which today was glue, I was forced by the show's owners (which require I take a more active role in my themes) to actually sniff glue, but I did it through that nostril, which can only now be affected by a drug if I inject it with a large bore hypodermic needle. Which of course I didn't do. My radio station does not allow us to bring drug paraphrenalia in the deejay booth. Only in the bathroom.

The reason I am writing this blog early on a Saturday morning in the back of an Austin Police vehicle (don't ask) is that I just noticed - I am about to write my 200th entry to the Self Help Radio blog! How could I have known, when I began this blog back in September of last year, that I'd have two hundred posts in me? I wrote a lot of bad poetry in my teens & twenties, & found that that well had run quite dry when I accidentally attended a Poetry-A-Thon ten years ago in Salado, Texas, when my car broke down & I was looking for some hookers. (Note: Salado hookers do not hang out with slam poets.) I couldn't bring myself to try to rhyme in front of a bunch of central Texas literates. I couldn't even manage free verse. After croaking out the world's lamest limerick, I left the stage in shame. Then I was mercilessly taunted by three middle school kids who had combined their love for gangsta rap & Star Wars into a Spenserian sonnet & took home the door prize.

Naturally, I thought my days of being creative with "words" was behind me. But not so! This is number 198, & surely I can manage two more before I am forced to sleep this off in the drunk tank! The question is: what should I do to celebrate post number 200? Should I invite the folks? Might I offer you cake & ice cream? Should I sell stock in Self Help Radio? I have no clue, & the friendly police woman is asking me to give back her laptop & blow into what has got to be the world's lamest party favor. So I'll be thinking about it... You think about it, too.

& if the video of me weeping into this nice police officer's bosom ever makes You Tube, remember: I knew they were filming it. The whole time. So it's not embarrassing.