Halloween, A Week Early

It has been a long week, I'll grant you. You may be suffering from Election Fatigue. You may have worked on a podcast, a radio show, & a mix for your friends. You may have taken a test after a bomb scare. You may have drank a little too much just so you you could enjoy Smallville like the people it's written for. You may have been beaten up by transients at a bus stop because you made snide comments about their terrible impersonation of Keith Olbermann. You may have accidentally woken up in the middle of the night with a knife to your girlfriend's throat screaming something about James Spader & post-operative trans-sexual pirates. You may have done all these things, you may have done none of these things. It's been a really goddamn long week, that's all I'm saying.

Today I was listening to songs about witches & getting all spooky on the bus ride. People were mad - the cauldron was still hot - but I sat it on top of a wheelchair, & bus drivers absolutely love operating that wheelchair lifter-upper thingie, so I was allowed aboard. I did have to pay fare for the cauldron, though. That was weird. Luckily I had just added the "eye of toad of newt of bat" so the whole bus soon smelled like ass. I made some friends today, my friends. I made some friends today.

The upshot of this downward spiral is that tomorrow, parked near this very space where you read, will be this year's awesome Self Help Radio Halloween Show, which is all about witches. Which witches? Sandwiches? No! Witches that cast spells & cackle & cruelly use their potent femininity to emasculate the men who foolishly disregard their true power. Kind of like a fourth grade teacher, now that I think about. Or at least like my fourth grade teacher. Mrs. Harris, I wonder if our suspicions that you drank the blood of migrant workers was true?

Do visit selfhelpradio.net & enjoy a Halloween treat. & make sure you listen to last year's zombie show while you're there - I'll keep it up only one more week!

Have a good weekend. Stop dreaming about James Spader! He's so not worth it.

Yes he is. No he isn't.

Agh!

October Surprise!

Okay, it's not really a surprise, but I did get the month right, & it's the right time of the month for this month's Self Help Radio Extra! But, you say, what is there "extra" about this Self Help Radio Extra? Is there extra cheese? Do I get extra bonus points (apart from the regular points I get with regular Self Help Radio)? Is Self Help Radio Extra extra filling without all those extra calories? Is Self Help Radio Extra like a super-sized version of the show?

No. What it is is a mix of songs I've been listening to approximately the length of one CD (I know, no one uses CDs any more, but I need some sort of framework or else I'll just play four hundred songs in a row) mixed especially by me for your listening pleasure. Unlike the regular Self Help Radio, Self Help Radio Extra has no Gary-voice, no Gary-commentary, & only a slightly Gary-ish touch usually around the beginning. The rest is Gary behind the scenes, playing songs I hope you like. A mix of new & old indie. Stuff like that.

Self Help Radio Extra. For you. Get some.

Whither Witches?

I know it's considered pejorative to use the word "witch" these days when referring to a deeply misunderstood & roundly persecuted group of people (most of whom, of course, were never witches, just people - predominantly women - scapegoated because they were on the fringes of society). I am not a religious person, nor do I believe anything supernatural, so I not only can't feel that even if someone were called a "witch" that they either had super powers or they were somehow offensive to a belief system that called her or him a "heretic." In the same way that I did a Halloween show about zombies last year & was in no way casting aspersions on the bloodthirsty dead, so too this year I am playing with a fictional idea, like the spell-caster who cackles with her sisters about Macbeth's fate or who pals around with a friendly dead kid.

I mean, come on! Human beings have killed & continue to kill thousands of folks because they imagine they are witches! How could I celebrate that? Shame on you for even thinking that!

Having secured myself from all possible criticism from my large Wiccan fan base (hi Mom!), I just want to have fun in a secular, ridiculous Halloween-y manner. One year I did vampires, the next I did zombies, this year it's witches. Next year, when people have written enough songs about Sarah Palin, I can do a really, really scary Halloween show. But for this year, it's witches.

But I'll definitely talk about witch hunts & witch trials & the butt-ugly ignorance that causes people to burn people alive, especially when they know they're not guilty, as surely some of the Inquisitioners & sober townsfolk who passed ridiculous judgments in those days did. & I'll also tell you some easy-to-follow, approved-by-Martha-Stewart spells you can cast to get you through these troubling economic times. They won't work, of course, but they're cheaper & more healthy than my current solution, which is to drink myself blind while reading as many articles as possible about it online. My liver hurts. Also, my brain.

Halloween comes on Saturday this year! On Self Help Radio! & it's all about witches!

Preface To Halloween 2008: Scary!

There's nothing to write about because I'm not afraid of nothing. Well, maybe bugs & maybe public restrooms & maybe the next presidential election. But other than that, nothing!

What's the point, anyway? Why do you wanna scare me? Why do you wanna be scared? Why not ride a roller coaster, then? Or rent a movie where a slasher picks off cute teenage chicks one by one. Why does a radio show have to scare you?

Because it's a fearless radio show, is Self Help Radio! Scared of no one & nothing. Except maybe mean people writing in the guestbook. & the RIAA. But certainly not scared of being completely ignored! I've proved that!

Fine, we'll have a scary Halloween show. We'll have it about witches or something. Witches are scary! I mean, they're also history's saddest scapegoats, & of course they were murdered for centuries by ignorant folk scared of outside ideas & women in general. Scary!

It's the best I can do, man. Because nothing scares me, I got no idea what'll scare you.

& a Halloween show about public restrooms is way too fucking scary for me.

Notions Of Right & Wrong & Good & Evil

Oh boy! I'm watching another video by Sam Harris! He's not a musician, but, to me, he's a rock star. So I'll be watching him talk about the brain & morality, but you don't have to.

Instead, go listen to the Self Help Radio sixth anniversary special. If you haven't already. If you have, you can listen to again, but listen to it underneath a lecture by Sam Harris. It's about .3 times the celebration.

I never get to go to conferences like that one, by the way. My most recent conference, actually, was sponsored by the Tidy Office Workers' Association, where the most gripping talk was Advanced Floor Wax: Questions About Application & Longevity. But it was better than the Lint Fair. I was sent there not only because I am the department's greatest source of lint, but also because I was being punished for being less fabulous than the rest of the people invited to the Lint Fair. That hurt.

Sam Harris is talking now. Ssshhh.

Down With The Site!

Yes, selfhelpradio.net was down for a little while. My host was doing some server mojo. It's back now. You can listen to the anniversary show on this lovely Sunday afternoon in peace now.

Thank you to those who noticed & wrote to me!