The Last Thing I'll Say All Year

It's true, I won't write in this blog again until it's a new decade. Or will it be? I forget who gets to decide that.

However, you may enjoy this week's Self Help Radio along with this week's Sugar Substitute which contain three hours of indiepop music because they continue my "indiepop a to z" project which is still at letter "e" & will never make it to Sesame Street now. The shows are available at selfhelpradio.net & are waiting patiently for you to play them at your New Year's Eve party. I would rather you invite me. But if you just want my radio show, I totally understand.

Please have a safe & happy New Year & don't be a weirdo & get yourself hurt. That would make me angry. & I look stupid when I'm angry.

Thanks for reading & listening in 2009! See you next year!

Friends In Town A-Visitin'

...so there's no time to write anything in this blog that no one reads. Still, I feel obliged to say:

TOMORROW!
SELF HELP RADIO!
1PM on 88.1 fm WMUL!

followed by
SUGAR SUBSTITUTE!
2:30PM on 88.1 fm WMUL!

both shows CONTINUE the INDIEPOP A TO Z!
(we're in the E's!)

both ARCHIVED LATER
at SELF HELP RADIO DOT NET!

SEE YOU THERE!

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 23?

Yeah, yeah, more indiepop - three hours of it in fact - as Self Help Radio starts & Sugar Substitute continues the countup of indiepop bands/musicians with the letter 'e' starting their names (in the case of musicians, their last names) (I should have been a librarian).

But look! A decade review that I can wrap my head around! Hooray!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/collections/classic-jon-stewart-videos

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 23: The Top Ten Decades Of The Decade!

Even though the Self Help Radio shall for all intents & purposes continue its doomed-to-failure-&-irrelevancy indiepop countup/countdown this week, it also intends to jump onto the end-of-the-decade bandwagon by announcing as many end-of-the-decade lists as it can possibly stuff down everyone's throats without really having to really think about it, much as in every other end-of-the-decade list out there. Here are some of the lists the Self Help Radio shall explore in the coming last few days of the year:

• The Top Ten Whoopsy-Daisies! of the 2000s!
• Ten Trends In Trend Forecasting Of The Last Ten Trendy Years!
• Top Forty Or So Times You Were Fucked Six Ways To Sunday By Your Government &/Or Its Corporate Masters Since 2000!
• Celebrity Zombies - How They Outpaced Celebrity Lycanthropes in the 2000s!
• The Most Shameful Acts Of Ignominy & Chagrin Each Embarrassing Year From The Mortifications Of 2000 To The Indignities Of 2009!
• The Dead Gods Of The 2000s!
• The 21st Century: Ninety More Years Of This Shit?!
• Who Hit What & How (But Never Where Or Why) In The 00s!
• Fifteen Strange Things Tom Selleck Did Or Had Done To Him This Century!
• Tackle A Pope, Throw A Shoe At A Dickwad: A Small Guide To Successfully Assaulting World Leaders From This Decade!
• Was This The Decade Of The Self Help Radio? Of Course Not!
• Cover Me! I'm Going In! To Take Pictures Of Celebrity Corpses & The Women Who Love Them!
• You Gained Weight This Decade! So Did We!
• Hush Hush! The Thirty-Seven Secret Stories Of The 00s Which Were Completely Missed By Conspiracy Theorists Because They Are Actually Plausible!
• They Didn't Die: A Comprehensive List Of People You Thought Died Sometime Between 2000 & Now, With Pictures Of Them Holding Recent Newspapers To Prove It, & Angry Emails From Them To You Because They Find The Whole Thing Rather Insulting!
• Pain Pain Sadness Pain: Ten Years Of Unsettling Memories!
• Can It Get Any Worse? A Special Prognostication!
• & Probably A Lot More Because We Want To Make A Lot Of Annoying Lists!

Do join us as we say goodbye to another decade arbitrarily cut-up & assigned a meaning which we'll have to live with the rest of our days. The nostalgia is just being born!

What Did You Get For Christmas?

I got a rock.

Twas The Night Before The Night Before Christmas...

& I just got an email that had the subject "she tugs the shit out of his cock & he fucking loves it!" Ah, 'tis the season!

Well, you can listen to "A Very Self Help Radio Christmas" & a Christmas episode of Dickenbock Electronics with you & yours (or alone, like I will, with a loaded gun & bottle of Jameson) now on the Self Help Radio website. It's guaranteed to clear the house of family visitors when they're outstaying their welcome.

Please have a safe & happy season & thanks for listening to Self Help Radio. It's the best gift I get all year round.

X-Must

Do you remember the first time you were strangely yelled at for referring to Christmas as "X-Mas"? I do, actually. I was working in a 7-11 on the late shift (11-7, if you must know) during my third year of college (so, twenty years ago) & there was a very tall, very cute, frizzy-haired hippie girl who'd come in to shoot the shit with me (& get free stuff, because she flirted with me), & her name was Monet. For reals! I think I even once asked to see her ID, & it was her real name.

I don't remember working there past Christmas of 1989, but at some point I surely must have been behind the counter when there was something - a plea for donations on a plastic container, a magazine, some sign from the management - that read "X-Mas," & Monet came in, like she did, late at night, quite drunk, wanting some soda from the soda fountain or something, & she saw the "X-Mas" sign & went ballistic. "They're trying to take the Christ out of Christmas!" she yelled at me. "I hate that!" & in that drunken way drunk folks have when they're pretty drunk, Monet expounded on her theory, surprising me because I just didn't know that tall, frizzy-haired, cute hippie girls who came into 7-11s on weekend nights as drunk as priests could be religious as well.

Did I tell her that the X really means Christ as it is based on the Greek spelling of the name? Nah. I didn't know that then. I didn't really care. Even though I was madly in love with the woman I was dating at the time, I appreciated cute chicks spending time with me, even under ridiculous circumstances.

Maybe I'll tell this story & others equally goofy tomorrow at 1pm on WMUL - 88.1 fm in Huntington - & later on of course archived on selfhelpradio.net - for my annual Christmas show, called (of course) a Very Self Help Radio Christmas. Do tune in. You know Monet won't be.

Whither A Very Self Help Radio Christmas 2009?

Indeed. At this point in the festivities it's important to stop & take stock. Ask a few questions. Digest & commiserate.

The young lady with the bulldog in the back wants to know what she will be getting for Christmas. While this is certainly not within the purview of this discussion, the panel might agree that if she is so impatient at this point, the chances are she will not be satisfied with what she does get, even if it's of equal or greater value than her bulldog.

The oblique triangle on the left side of the auditorium asks how one can reconcile the birth of one religion's savior with the ritualistic murder of another religion's children for Satan. If you'll recall the earlier lecture by Professor Gobble about the nature of cognitive dissonance, I'm sure you can draw a valid or possibly relevant conclusion.

The aging blues guitarist in the second row has not apparently asked a question, but suffice it to say that he was born into poverty, & sometime during his hardscrabble life he became infected with a chronic disease which was diagnosed as the blues, some of the symptoms of which are being betrayed by the women he's loved, possessing an unquenchable thirst to ramble, & witnessing depressing imitation by slightly overweight middle-class white men with questionable facial hair arrangements.

Ah, the jolly fellow in red with all the reindeer is reminding us to get home to listen to Christmas music on the radio. Very well. Thank you for attending & please leave your badges with Sheila at the door. Good night.

Preface To A Very Self Help Radio Christmas 2009: The Last Christmas Show Ever?

I'm an old dude, in the middle of my middle age, & I don't have children unless you count dogs & cats which you shouldn't because they think I'm one of their pets. Also important is that I'm not a Christian, & the wife & I don't really exchange presents even on birthdays (sometimes we do, though - I bought her a Wii for her birthday this year & her reaction was "Damn! Now I have to buy you a birthday present!" - so it's a dodgy proposition in any case). I point out all this to underscore something big - I don't really celebrate Christmas. Haven't for a long time - except on Self Help Radio, where I've done a Christmas show since the first year I was on. So why continue to do a Christmas show?

I dunno. I still love Christmas music - I especially love it when it's weird or non-traditional. I also like when artists I like write their own Christmas songs. But I do feel like a hypocrite - I don't want to celebrate the birthday of an imaginary space god's son & I don't want to open presents with nor buy presents for a family I don't have. Is loving the music enough? It doesn't seem like enough... What do you think?

Or are you too busy on the chatty blogs arguing about health care reform? Bastards!

The Novelty Wears On

People tell me I'll get tired of it, but the snow fell for a second time in Huntington (it started falling last night & as of this morning it hasn't stopped), & it's kinda dreamy & lovely. Here, you can see for yourself:



There might even be a white Christmas here this year. I think I may go walk around & fall down in it in a little while.

The Final Death Of The "Best Of" List

Oh don't I wish. It might be a more honest world if people listed their "favorites" but then what would the music snobs do? Besides continue to talk about how much better music sounds on vinyl, I mean.

Hey! This week's show is my favorite indie music, etc., from 2009. You can listen to it at the usual place, which is selfhelpradio.net. Compare it with your own list of favorites, if you make one. When you make one. Will you make one?

On a sad note, this week's Sugar Substitute, which kind of continued my favorites, didn't make it into the recording device I use to save my shows for posterity. I think it was user error, with me being the user. & the error. Sorry about that.

Did you know - did I tell you - you can become a fan of Self Help Radio on Facebook? If you didn't, I'm glad I told you. If you did, I'm embarrassed I said anything. Oh when will this nightmare end?!?

Know What I Hate? Know What I Love?

I could write a daily blog about the "joke of the day" service I subscribe to. They try so hard to be non-offensive that they have a special word (which I can't remember, but it's a made-up race/nationality/belief system) they insert instead of saying, you know, as they would at UT, "How many Aggies does it take..." My brain keeps telling me it's "archon," but I think that's a race in Star Trek. It makes it doubly adorable when the occasional racist joke oozes through. However, what annoys me is the jokes that involve some kind of pun. Whenever there's a joke like that, they SPELL OUT the pun. For example, if the pun is "Eileen Dover" they'd write "(I leaned over)" next to it. As if their subscribers might just go "Heck, I don't git it!" & angrily unsubscribe.

Here's today's so-called joke: "The olympian skier Picabo Street now works in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital. Unfortunately, the administration told her she can no longer answer the phone, because this is what she said, 'Picabo ICU' (Peek-a-boo, I see you)."

I had never heard of Picabo Street so I probably wouldn't know how to pronounce the name (I might pronounce it pick-AH-bo) but I would probably have guessed from the ICU that it was supposed to be a pun. But they fucked up the punchline! It's more funny if they say something like, "She kept answering the phone..." Bad grammar AND they spell the dumb joke out. Ak! I hate that!

Okay, that's what I hate. What I love is of course doing Self Help Radio, which, I remind you, airs as it normally does tomorrow on 88.1 fm WMUL but at the afternoon hour of 1pm rather than in the morning. There's a reason for it & I might already have explained it, but anyway, it features my favorite indie music of 2009, & Sugar Substitute, after that, features the spillover, so it's basically three hours of awesome 2009 music.

Aren't it Huntington? No problem! It'll be on selfhelpradio.net later in the day. We take care of you. Silly.

Whither Gary's Favorite Indie Music 2009?

I said a mouthful yesterday. It stands. It was a nice year for music - I am happy with crazy nice discoveries, like the Wave Pictures, plus continuing excellence like Bearsuit. Also, what a year for my friends in Luxuriator! An appearance of KVRX's Local Live as well as a debut single. In not too long, they'll be riding around in limousines & throwing burning money at me.

It's Monday evening & I'm still reviewing records from the year - I am a little fearful that I'm leaving something out because I don't have enough things in my miserable life to stress out about. Hey! Last year I missed a Guild League record & a Secret History EP that would easily have made my best of. Think I'm going to let that happen again? Okay, I might, but can I at least let it happen while I'm trying as best I can to keep it from happening? I mean, I know I'm inept, but it's easier to be actively inept than simply lazy. Y'know?

I'm not going to give you any hints about what'll be on the show, no, but I suspect you have a sense of what the show will contain. So be patient. It's less than forty-eight hours away.

What? Less than forty-eight hours? Holy fuck, I've got to go listen to music!

Preface To Gary's Favorite Indie Music Of 2009: What Kind Of Man Reads Year-End Lists?

Oh yes, & it's not just the end of the year. It's the end of the decade, which means a cottage industry in "best of the 2000s" lists, though I'm not going to link to them, because frankly virtually none of the songs & musicians that end up on these lists can be seen or found on my lists. You might think it's because I simply have different tastes than the makers of these lists, who are generally the people who are paid to be critical of music. But that's not true. Listen:

Most of these lists are made by people who are paid to be critical of music. Where do the people who are paid to be critical of music get the music they are paid to be critical of? Record companies, of course. For free. They're not clicking on myspace pages to find "the next big thing." They spend less on music than your average illegal downloader, these people who are paid to be critical of music. So it's only natural that they review & choose from the records they get for free. Do you think small record companies - not to mention bands that don't have labels or maintain their own - can afford to send every person who is paid to be critical of music a free record? & can you imagine how those people who are paid to be critical of music treat the records that come in a plain wrappers as opposed to those which come in lavish, expensive packages?

Ah, but don't these people who are paid to be critical of music also review live bands? Sure. But generally if they go out to see a band somewhere it's usually a band they've been introduced to by a record company, or it's a band there's a "buzz" around or that's been "recommended" by someone (perhaps a record company representative). People who are paid to be critical of music don't really have the time to listen to as much music as possible to make an informed decision. So you can bet that they haven't heard 99% of what's been created & released in any given year.

They also need to pay attention to what the listeners are listening to. This, it turns out, is worse than simply choosing from the best of the pile of the less than 1% of what's been released that year which is given away by record companies to the people who are paid to be critical of music. Because the majority of people who listen to music, for good or ill, listen to music they hear on commercial radio, which is owned by the media giants who also own the record companies, so are geared to selling as much as possible of the artists (the term used loosely) who can make them the most money possible. Many of those artists, of course, are the same artists they've "invested" in, with expensive laser concert shows & videos, & for whom they've spent millions on fancy producers & fancy studios in which to record. It's only natural that, at best, a couple dozen of these rise to the top & make a splash. A few even hang on.

In any event, most "best of" lists are basically popularity contests, & that popularity (like with the Grammys) is often based on units sold. The majority of the "voters" (ie, the listening public) buy the stuff they hear on commercial radio, & the people who are paid to be critical of music review the stuff sent to them by the record companies which are controlled by the same people who own the radio, & each "best of" list is corrupted by hazily-seen forces of laziness, vanity & greed.

I prefer to instead list my favorites, since they're bound not to be your favorites, whether you actively seek out new music in the same way I do or simply listen to the radio waiting for something to interest you (which will happen, as the record companies know, when you've listened to something at least five times & it becomes familiar to your brain) or somewhere in between. You should love the music you love in whatever way you wish to love it. Just please, don't be influenced by these lists, which can't possibly be the best of anything because the majority of the people making the lists - especially the people who are paid to be critical of music - have simply no interest in listening to the spectrum of music out there. The media giants that stroke them keep them happily ignorant of the amazing musical world around them, & they make sure between them they get as close to all of the music-consuming public's money as possible.

A Brief History Of Lactation

Lactation is the secretion of milk (unflavored, & also not soy) from mammary glands. It is a process that occurs in all female mammals whether they like it or not. Usually it happens with the involvement of something that is very naughtily called the "nipple." However among platypuses it was decided at a meeting of the Conservative Platypuses of Australia (CPA) that that simply would not do & now they excrete milk primarily through their abdomen which makes perfect sense in the grand old style. By the way the excommunication of the male Dayak fruit bat for crimes pertaining to male lactation remains in full force. Scientists take note! You wouldn't want any of your precious email leaked now, would you?

Lactation as has been widely noted is a biological process & that's why it makes schoolchildren giggle. Also college students. If you really want to make them laugh, discuss in great detail galactorrhea, which isn't really a big problem but sounds enough like diarrhea to encourage mirth. In recent years however lactation has come under fire by the baby formula industry (now controlled by Halliburton & Montsanto, whose production of petroleum-based, genetically-modified-for-deliciousness infant enhancement juice will replaced mother's milk among most American mutants & zombies, & also the poor, by the year 2020) & has been discredited as an outdated practice mainly used by hippies, pagans, & the grossly uninformed. The grossly uniformed have been unfortunately implicated in this as well, but they are entirely innocent, except of course in regards to fashion crimes. Please learn to spell. Spellcheck isn't always right.

Lactation Liberation being a natural development to ridiculous forces acting in the real world, the shadowy world government under Supreme Leader Sarah Palin has begun replacing real mammalian breasts with artificial ones. To show their support, many women have chosen to support plastic surgery in any nearby mammal, which may explain where your Italian greyhound went, you know. Everyone told you to get her spayed but you were all like "But what if I want to breed her?" & now it's just too fucking bad you were such a selfish asshole & when your canine pal is returned to you she won't be the same & it's all your damn fault. No, don't whine to me. Too fucking bad for you.

What does the future hold for lactation? Only a young child nursing at his mother's teat knows for sure. By the way, is anyone out there as uncomfortable as I am when comedians talk about missing being breast-fed? I know the joke is that they enjoy breasts so much & have from an early age, but aren't they talking about their mothers' breasts? If you extrapolate it out, you know. It's like they are admitting to something incestuous, like they're attracted to their moms, & that kind of grosses me out. People get into fights about that sort of thing, right? "Dude, you're attracted to your mom." "Don't be talking about my mom like that!" Punch, bleed. It just seems like those comedians - they know who they are - are making jokes that they themselves would be horrified by if they really thought about it. Ick.

What Is Favorite If Not The Electronica?

I ask you.

I answer you: despite interesting snafu-lation (at about 6:12am, the power went off at the station for 20 seconds, leaving me a little confused & literally in the dark) & strange noises coming from my belly (what did it want? will I ever know?) there were three hours of 2009-flavored electronica on WMUL today & it was awesome.

Don't believe me? It is surely an easy matter to check for yourself: both this week's episode of Self Help Radio & Dickenbock Electronics is available for your listening to pleasure at selfhelpradio.net, where they should be. Shouldn't you also be?

I thought as much.

Time & Date Dot Com

Anyone who's ever seen me stand up & talk to people & want to plan something but be completely unaware of the date will know that I love timeanddate.com. It makes a calendar for you! It tells you what day the Landing Of The 33 Patriots will be in 2010! (It's a Monday! No school for Uruguayans!) It tells you that next year's Day Of Liberation in Norway falls on a Saturday so you know some fish will be smoked that night! & in Hong Kong (& anywhere else they celebrate it) the Dragon Boat Festival will be on a Wednesday next June, so you totally get a day off in the middle of the week! That's awesome!

One thing that would make timeanddate.com better would be if they also broke down individual days so you'd know when something cool was happening. Like, if you went to West Virginia on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, you'd see at 6am "Dickenbock Electronics" airs on 88.1 fm WMUL in Huntington, & then at 7:30am, Self Help Radio airs on the same station. Maybe if it got a little more detailed, it could predict when I played certain songs & when I did airbreaks. Wow! That would make putting the show together a lot easier for me!

But you can't. That's sad. It doesn't mean I don't still love timeanddate.com, but it does mean I don't love them as much as I could. & it's their own fault. Sad frowny face.

Whither Gary's Favorite Electronica 2009?

This is a short puzzle about Wilder, the loneliest robot. It takes place in your immediate future.

Preferably use the commercial (not the non-commercial, home-made) version of Wilder, the loneliest robot. Recommended models include: Heterosexual Wilder, Subway Token Taking Wilder, Wilder With New Bass Guitar Attachment, Senator Wilder Of Circuitsvania. Using a Plain Brown Wilder is acceptable but may not withstand the scorching heat in step seven below.

After several long conversations with your spiritual adviser of choice or, if you have no supernatural beliefs, with your bartender &/or cats, please enclose a self-addressed envelope stamp in a moderately comfortable billowy undergarment. Shake nervously. Sidelong glances, as always, are inappropriate but understandable.

With winter on the way, it's a good idea to check or change your antifreeze, not necessarily in that order.

Some women prefer wine, while some men prefer women. Seventeen revered statisticians (all with the letter 'e' in their names at least seven times) take such tidbits of data & write long, lengthy, several-paged abstracts about concrete ideas. In any given sample, then, someone is bound to use the word "literally" incorrectly, & of that a subset will use it laughably. Not a one, not even in sarcastic places like Buffalo, New York, or Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, will use it ironically.

When someone mentions bonfires, which they will at some point if precautions are not taken, & they are not, then the choices you previously had dwindle to merely several, or perhaps just a few. Stand firm, & tell the story of Timmy, the odiferous ocelot, & his above-ground adventures with the Whisker Gang. These stories get more entertaining as more gasoline is huffed, but that shouldn't be necessary unless someone wants to burn rock & roll records.

Viola! You've made Wilder, the loneliest robot, cry! & that's how electronic music was born!

Preface To Gary's Favorite Electronica 2009: Can You Give Us A Hint What To Expect?

Yes, it was a wonderful year for electronical music. I've been happily doing a biweekly show called "Dickenbock Electronics" on WMUL since late September (you can listen to those shows over at selfhelpradio.net) & it's made me focus a little more on electronica than maybe I normally would have, but I did compile a list last week of my favorite electronic records of the year & it was - shall we say - a bit unweildy. It contained the following artists:

Ametsub, Autoclav1.1, Keef Baker, Bibio, The Boats, Boxcutter, Cheju, Christ, Clark, Cybo, Demdike, The Exaltics, Exile, Falty DL, The Field, Flica, Ghosts On Tape, Jon Hopkins, Infinite Scale, Jega, Kettel, Phil Kieran, King Cannibal, Legowelt, Lullatone, Lusine, Melodium, Monolake, Nosaj Thing, Ochre, Prefuse 73, Rustie, Saycet, Shackleton, Shpongle, Stendeck, 10-20, Luke Vibert, Paul White & Zomby

Of course I still need to whittle it down - a lot of them just won't make the final cut. But wow! Isn't it nice to be able to choose rather than say "oh, golly, I need another song... what didn't suck too much?"

It was a very nice year for electronica, it's true.

Ah, Snow!

I'm inside this chilly morning going over all the wonderful electronic music made this year for this week's show, while outside it looks a little like this:



It's quite lovely.

A Birthday The Whole Year Round

Well, you made it through another birthday. Or did you? Did your nearest & dearest forget? Or worse yet, did they remember, & all you got was some insubstantial gift on Facebook? Do you think you deserve better? Well, Self Help Radio does too!

That's why the scientists & circus clowns at Self Help Radio have developed a Birthday Show (tm) which can be listened to all year around! Since the shows are simply songs about birthdays (even if specific people's birthdays are discussed within) the listener can think to him, her or itself, "Say! Self Help Radio cared enough about me to do an entire radio show about my birthday! Gee!"

In certain states of the United States & at least four different places in Canada, having a birthday mix prepared for you would cost you at the very least a half-pint of blood & a DNA swab quickly shared with authorities, but not this birthday mix! It's available whenever your computer is on & connected to the internet at Self Help Radio Dot Net. This award-desirous website also contains other radio shows (like this week's episode of Sugar Substitute) which may have greater appeal to you & can easily be considered birthday gifts if you aren't completely satisfied &/or think you deserve more gifts.

If you act now, or any time in the next couple of months at least, you can even listen to Last Year's Self Help Radio Birthday Show, which has believe it entirely different songs about birthdays, so you're not getting the same damn tie or pair of electric socks you get every year.

Happy birthday from Self Help Radio! Don't say we never got you anything!

The Classic Birthday Gift

I just typed into Google "the classic birthday gift" in quotes. Here's what I got:

birthdaypresent.org.uk (which seems to be a placeholder) called flowers "the classic birthday gift."

tikisurf.co.uk called socks "the classic birthday gift."

1888orchids.com had a "classic birthday gift basket." What's in it? "Ghirardelli dark & milk chocolate, Godiva creme brulee dessert chocolate with layers of butterscotch caramel & vanilla cream in a milk chocolate shell, Portlock smoked salmon (ugh), assorted Lindt Lindor dark & milk chocolate truffles, sesame breadsticks, Godiva dark chocolate covered pretzels & almonds, Italian hazelnut chocolate, peanut brittle, olives, serving dish, cheese knife & more." & more? Peanut brittle & olives? Doesn't that sound like the title of a Ween album?

suzisshabbydecor.com didn't have a classic birthday gift, but they did have a "classic birthday gift" BAG, for you to put your classic birthday gift into. What does the classic birthday gift bag contain? "One large bag, one small bag, twenty-six inches of grosgrain ribbon, twenty-six more inches of printer grosgrain ribbon, a written description of what grosgrain is, seven embellished 3D stickers, four sheets of tissue paper, two sheets of printed paper, & two decorative tags." Classy!

I personally think the classic birthday gift is a Wii. But that's just me.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, at 6am, a new Sugar Substitute, & at 7:30am, a new Self Help Radio. Live on 88.1 WMUL & archived later in the day at selfhelpradio.net of course.

Whither Magda's Birthday Show 2009?

Sing! Sing, like a totem pole!
Dance! Dance, like an ornery cuss!
Sigh! Sigh, like a dinner roll!
Applaud! Applaud, like a school bus!

For we're celebrating Magda's birthday!
Yes we're agitating for Magda's birthday!
It happens this time every year
& it's she we hold dear
So we're actuating Magda's birthday!

I said
Scream! Scream, like a winter's day!
Twirl! Twirl, like a dog before sleep!
Drink! Drink, like a drunken bouquet!
Wiggle! Wiggle, like in REM sleep!

For we're celebrating Magda's birthday!
Yes we're congratulating Magda for her birthday!
(Though it's not technically her fault)
& it's she we exalt
So we're accelerating towards Magda's birthday!

One more time
Laugh! Laugh, like a hobo in sunlight!
Buzz! Buzz, like electrical fires!
Zip! Zap, like a space-age gunfight!
Smolder! Smolder, like all your desires!

For we're celebrating Magda's birthday!
Yes we're collaborating on Magda's birthday!
She thinks she doesn't deserve it
But we'll still observe it
We're implicating ourselves in Magda's birthday!

Preface To Magda's Birthday 2009: You Can Ask Again - Why Is This Particular Birthday So Damn Special?

I married a girl named Magda. I sort of but not really recommend it. First, if you marry the same girl as I did, she could go to jail as a bigamist, even if she thinks she's being really cool & living the polyandrous life, which is the same thing & just as illegal. Second, Magdalena (which is the long-playing version of Magda) (but not the extended remix, which is so damned long it would fill this entire blog with disco lights & jazz hands) is a name from the Bible, referring to Mary Magdalene, who, according to the Bible Of Wikipedia, was like this:

"Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala is described, both in the canonical New Testament & in the New Testament apocrypha, as one of the most important women in the movement of Jesus. Mary was one of women who accompanied Jesus during his travels, following him to the end. According to all four Gospels in the Christian New Testament, she was the first to witness his resurrection."

That seems cool, doesn't it? But wait! Why wouldn't that be a cool thing for a (Christian) person to want to name his or her offspring? Because Mary Magdalene is widely considered to be a repentant prostitute. That's right. You heard me! My wife's parents named her after a former prostitute. What were they thinking?

I have only met a few Polish folks in my life, & most of them are my wife's family, & I feel like I keep hearing the same names over & over - but like I said, I only know the few that I've met through the wife. Looking at this page of common Polish names, it occurs to me that my wife's parents could just as easily have named her Agnieszka or Brygida or Cecylia or Dorota or Emiliana or Franciszka or Genowefa or Jacinta or Ivona or Justyna or Katarzyna or Lucja or Malgorzata or Olga or Pelagia or Rozalia or Stefania or Czeslawa or Urzula or Waclawa or Zofia rather than have her name be associated with the exact profession (even worse than stripper!) that a parent does not want his or her daughter to adopt - redemption or not!

That's okay, though, because names don't determine one's fate, despite what the Kabalarians think. (They say this, about the name Gary: "This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, & success, as well as cause health weaknesses or accidents to the head, worry & mental tension." Uncanny! I do have health weaknesses of the head!) She became who she was by successfully & utterly ignoring the Bible, & so should you.

It's a lovely name. I've changed my mind. But she still can't marry you as long as she's married to me.

Wow, & I Forgot!

Just looking at the blog I realized that I didn't tell you that this week's episode of Self Help Radio, entitled "Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2009," as well as this week's episode of Dickenbock Electronics, are available for listening at selfhelpradio.net.

What a maroon. There's also a new Self Help Radio Extra featuring my favorite hip hop of 2009. See the previous post for that story.

Enjoy a nice photo I made for the Self Help Radio Fan Page on Facebook. You can become a fan, too, you know. I demand it.

Extra At The End Of November

I like to record every one of my shows, even if I don't mean for them to be listened to except when they're happening (if then), & I have a fancy-schmancy digital recorder thing a dude at KOOP recommended I buy, which really doesn't ever fuck up on me. Rather, I fuck up on it. I don't delete the old shows from the memory chip, or I don't make sure the device is connected properly to the board, or, like I did on Thursday, I don't turn it on properly. (Don't turn it on properly? What sort of nimrod am I?)

So I did a sort "Self Help Radio" extra on Thanksgiving in which I played my favorite hip hop from 2009. I was going to share it (unlike the majority of shows I did on WMUL this past week) but of course I - god it's so embarrassing - I forget to press the record button on the device. Which sucks. Five hours of radio (of which the first two are the hip hop) disappeared into the aether, to annoy space people &, eventually, super-evolved crickets on Earth billions of years from now when the signals return, because I like to think space is curved.

But rather than simply feel stupid (which I do all the time, it is a simple thing to do) I put the tracks together in a continuous playlist & made them this month's Self Help Radio Extra. I listen to what some might call "underground" hip hop, so I don't really feature any size of Wayne or anyone who yells at skinny blond country singers or anyone who undervalues themselves by pricing themselves publicly, but I do have tracks from the Wu-Tang Clan, Mos Def, & Q-Tip just to show I am slightly paying attention to the commercial world. But only slightly.

Have a listen, & feel lucky - not only in this instance are you free from my inane banter, but also you don't have to listen to radio edits. You foul mouthed fucker you.

Pressure Dropped

A friend wrote me an email complaining that, even though I'm doing a few shows on WMUL this week, only my regular shows are going to end up on selfhelpradio.net. What up with that? he asks. Aren't you recording them?

Does this friend really want to hear all the shows I'm doing this week, or does he work for nefarious forces attempting to make me pay more for server space? Probably neither, but I think he thinks I said or did something embarrassing on the radio yesterday that's making me not put the show up. What faulty logic! I say & do something embarrassing on every show!

It's really just about oversaturation. He's not going to listen to everything I put up & neither will you. There are dozens of shows at selfhelpradio.net that are dying of loneliness - why subject others to that sad fate? I'm not that cruel.

Here's the important stuff: If you're in Huntington, you know you can hear a new Dickenbock Electronics at 6am, a new Self Help Radio at 7:30am, plus three hours of awesome jazz from 9 till noon tomorrow, on WMUL, 88.1 fm. The electronics show & Self Help Radio will be put up as per the usual at selfhelpradio.net; the jazz show will go into the ether to entertain our coming alien overlords.

Whither Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2009?

I'm farther away from my family than I've ever been... I hope to recapture some of my family's derangement with a few songs this Wednesday about messed-up families. I recommend you listen to it with your own.

That seems a glib blog entry, but I am doing ten more hours of radio this week (I did two hours today) so you'll have to simply enjoy it for what it is. I wanted to start a tradition & now I, in my tiny way, have. Four years straight of songs about dysfunctional families. It's certainly some kind of achievement.

Now I'm embarrassed.

Preface To Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2009: No Turkey Drippings In The Dressing, Please

This is a perhaps moderately amusing story from my young adulthood. I became a vegetarian around the time I went to college, in mid-to-late 1986. My family, mostly used to me being nothing at all like them, probably thought it was a phase, but now, over twenty years later - well, I'm sure some of them still think it's a phase. My mother, though, was alarmed. She honestly thought I needed some form of meat regularly or I would die. Never mind that I still ate dairy products - she became convinced my life would drain from me if someone didn't shove a pork chop down my throat every once in a while.

So, in those days, I came home from college for Thanksgiving, even though it wasn't much fun, since my family generally had a football game to watch or something, so the television was on while we ate. I made do - I could have corn on the cob, & mashed potatoes, stuff like that, but mostly I loved the dressing. Mmm, dressing. I ate it up. I took some back to school with me. Yummy!

A couple years later my sister tells me that our dear mother, fearing for my life, put turkey grease in the dressing. She apparently would do that whenever she made me any meals - find some way to put some animal fat in it. It obviously explained to her why I could be alive & not - gasp! - eat any meat at all. I stopped going home for Thanksgiving around then, & I don't think I've eaten anything my mother's prepared for me in many years. She'd probably still do it. Or else I'll die!

I'm not only thinking about this because it's Thanksgiving week, but also because I was at the supermarket here in Huntington (I make it sound like there's only one, but it's too late to say "Kroger's" now, you know?) (there are more than one supermarket in Huntington, I promise) last night wandering through the frozen stuff aisle - you know, the pre-made, flash-frozen, heat-in-your-microwave crap - & there were a few frozen dressing entrees, but all of them had some form of animal juice in them. My fears were thus confirmed. My mother controls all the frozen food in America.

& unless I make it myself (unlikely) I get no stuffing for Thanksgiving. Boo hoo!

A Glimmer Of Hype

This is of interest mainly to the subset of Huntington, West Virginia, residents who listen to WMUL 88.1 fm with some regularity. Next week (starting, I suppose, Monday) the entire university shuts down for Thanksgiving week. (Which I find astonishing.) (School lasts till Wednesday at the university in Austin.) (My dentist told me it might be because next week is the beginning of hunting season.) (But who knows?) This means several things about my radio work next week. Here they are:

1) Self Help Radio & Dickenbock Electronics will air regularly, during the 6 to 9am time on Wednesday. That's super news! I'm not affected by either hunting season or Thanksgiving!

2) Plus, I'll be doing the three hours after my shows, which means three hours of jazz oh boy! until noon. So that's six hours of me on the radio Wednesday. Pretty soon after, I'm sure, someone will make that illegal.

3) Plus also, I'll be doing a freeform show Monday at 2pm to 4pm. Just because I haven't done freeform for a while. It might be fun!

4) Plus also too, on Tuesday at noon, till 2pm, I'll be playing some hip-hop, & the same on Thursday. Tuesday will be old-skool, while Thursday will be an overview of the hip-hop I liked this year.

I may archive those shows, but probably not all of them. Still, how exciting! Don't you wish you lived in Huntington? Or, alternately, aren't you glad you don't live in Huntington?

Shows Up, Hose Down

Yes yes yes yes yes yes. This week's Self Help Radio (full of impertinent questions like "are you sure?" & "are you certain?") as well as this week's Sugar Substitute (which will satisfy your ear's sweet tooth) are both available for listening at selfhelpradio.net. There are lots of shows there. These are but two. But they are the newest two, &, maybe, the only two you haven't heard yet. Have a listen.

Meanwhile, I am embarrassed that I referenced this ridiculous documentary, which I don't think I ever saw - there was another one that was better-reviewed & -respected - but back in my video store days, people did love to check that movie out.

Self Help Radio is much better for you than a documentary about pimps & hos. Trust me. Of that I am sure.

Years Ends

Rapidly comes to a close the years 2009. What is to follow except perhaps 2010? Does that means to you for the beginning of the next of the decades of this or any other century? No!! We want to feel more like positives in numbers, not so much like they will negative be.

Certainly the trees die in the autumn of seasons where it is in West Virginia. Any leaves are scattered waiting for picking up or perhaps someone will blow. Dogs and tenants alike crunching through the dead dying litter leafs saying to the world "Yes!! Yes!! It is the end of someone's year!!"

Alternatively nothing makes a closing sale celebration or some other excuse to or from partying is Self Help Radio, which authorities submit finds 88.1 fm dial on days like Wednesdays exactly when the crow flies at 7:30 am. We live like so many do in West Virginia but someone doesn't always, & luckily therefore www.selfhelpradio.net often find itself strewn with the previous of shows. Huzzah!! Hurray!!

Naturally one expects listening. Or if so, much grateful!!

Whither Are You Sure?

- Are you sure?
- I'm not sure.
- Are you sure you're not sure?
- I'm sure I'm not sure.
- Then you're sure.
- I'm sure I'm not sure, but I'm definitely not sure.
- I'm not so sure about that.
- No?
- Certainly.
- So you're sure that you're not sure but you're not sure that I'm not sure.
- I'm not sure - can you repeat that?
- Sure.
- Wait. You're sure you can repeat it but are you sure you're really repeating it correctly?
- Surely you don't think I'd be so unsure in my faculties that I'd forget something I just said.
- I'm sure some people do.
- I'm sure most people don't.
- How can you be so certain?
- Scientific studies on the nature of certainty.
- I heard that those results were uncertain.
- You're thinking of the uncertainty principle.
- Assuredly I am not!
- For someone who thinks he's so unsure you're sure sure of yourself.
- I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well.
- Then why do you sound so sure?
- Are you sure I sound sure? I sure don't hear it.
- Sure you do. It's the certainty in your voice.
- I'm not sure it's certainty.
- What is it then?
- I'm not sure.
- But you're sure you're not sure.
- I'm positive!

Preface To Are You Sure?: In Praise Of The Humboldt Current

Not enough bloggers or their blogs, in these troubled times, choose to take time out of their busy schedules of reading politicians' new ghost-written books or complaining about the price of cheese in Shinola to simply sit back & appreciate the little bits & pieces of Nature that make our world the terrifying & lovely place it has always been & may yet one day be. Take the Humboldt Current. You have to go to South America to do it, but take it. Take what the Wikipedia says for granted:

"The Humboldt Current is a cold, low-salinity ocean current that flows north-westward along the west coast of South America from the southern tip of Chile to northern Peru. It is an eastern boundary current flowing in the direction of the equator, & can extend 1,000 kilometers offshore... [N]amed after the Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, [it] is one of the major upwelling systems of the world, supporting an extraordinary abundance of marine life... It is the most productive marine ecosystem in the world, as well as the largest upwelling system... [&] support the world’s largest fisheries. Approximately 18-20% of the world’s fish catch comes from the Humboldt Current LME. The species are mostly pelagic: sardines, anchovies & jack mackerel... The cold, nutrient-rich water brought to the surface by upwelling drives the system’s extraordinary productivity."

Fuck yeah! You can read the whole article here, & if you do, your friends will call you Jack Mackerel. & you'll say, "Of course! & thank you, Humboldt Current!"

Plumbing The Debts

Here then, for edification & edutainment, is a brief character sketch of Floyd Flapp, eminent hair economist & hermit divorcee:

Dr. Flapp was born with a PhD in Flying Buttress, Illinois, a small community which inaugurated Blood Sports Month in 1925 to take advantage of the successful importation of medieval ideas to the American midwest. Flapp's father, a winsome lass named Jerry who would attempt to use grape jelly as an auto part throughout his four-storied career, disinherited the boy when he noticed the screaming child had not been born, as had all the Flapp men & women, with a handlebar moustache. The mother followed suit, as did the hospital staff, & most of the town, until kindly Mr. Jackanape, the neighborhood interrupter, took the boy in & raised him as one of his own cats.

Flapp was unemployed during his childhood, a fact that did not escape the Internal Revenue Service, which was astonished by the boy's annual income of $40,000 a year, which was an enormous amount at the time &, for a tween, still pretty impressive. Flapp published his first self-help book before he hit puberty, which was titled "Be Rich By Being Like Me!" The book was not successful, as most people wanted to be rich but no one really wanted to be like Floyd. However, the book remains notable as the introduction was written by none other than future President of the United States Laura Ingalls Wilder.

After spending time in a tax shelter in the Maldives, Flapp taught burger flipping & fry-o-lating at several fast food chains before being asked by the faculty of Harvard University to please stop calling in the middle of the night. Flapp's next series of papers, published disrespectfully in Modern Economics & Highlights For Children, established him as virtually alone in his field in believing that the ratio of debt to earnings is proportional to the amount of hair on one's thighs (pre-shaven) minus how much money one thinks one could win on a game show selected from a list. Still, for brief window of opportunism, Flapp's crazy theories were discussed on television morning programs & in editorial pages on slow news days.

But Flapp continued to be excused from mainstream acceptability. His marriage to infamous fashion model/guerilla warrior Scam was scheduled to happen on a late-night talk show but was moved instead to a segment on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour to be shared with a Maya Angelou poetry slam report. When his wife left him shortly thereafter to become a concubine of Melvin Adenoid, the inventor of post-nasal drip, he was inconsolable. He toilet-papered the smallest church he could find in Alabama & fled the jurisdiction with a knapsack full of forty pounds of assorted coins.

Establishing a hermitage in the popular caverns in & around New Miami, Nebraska, Flapp would have been all-but-forgotten except several record albums he recorded in the mid-fifties to explain his theories were sampled by underground hip-hop & classical musicians like Humpa Humpa & the East Garland Half-String Quintet. Inexplicably smelly appearances on college & community radio followed, & a "Flapp For Vice-President" campaign attempted to get him on the ballots of every presidential ticket since 1980, when Ronald Reagan, upon meeting him, thought Flapp had been cast as President instead of him, & almost left the Republican National Convention to audition for a role on "Dallas."

Flapp is incredibly old &, by most accounts, a little weird about it. Yet his cult of personality continues to grow, & he continues to publish increasingly obscene economic treatises that are posted to blogs along with celebrity bikini photos. This may be because the treatises increasingly sound like blurbs for celebrity bikini photos. He has gone mad? Or is he speaking now exclusively in metaphor? Or does he spend a lot of time on the internet looking at paparazzi photos of celebrities in bikinis?

What's clear is that Flapp's influence may yet one day be felt, & this, above all else, is what his fans & admires most dread.

A Radio Show Happened & Nothing Exploded

Whew! There's always the chance something might explode, but nothing did. How lucky is that?

Self Help Radio's continuing coverage of the indiepop scandals (these involving bands who, when arranged alphabetically, appear to all begin with the letter E) is now available for your listening scrutiny at selfhelpradio.net. Please remember, you're not under oath.

Your robot friends might enjoy this week's episode of Dickenbock Electronics, available on the same site but with a different link, as it is a different show. Do not let your robot friends tell you any different.

As always, don't sneak up behind people & say "KA-BOOM!" It makes them think things explode more than they do.

Let's Collate!

Do you like to collate? Alphabetize? Put things into either Dewey Decimal or Library Of Congress format? (Or both?)

Do you like gathering or arranging items in their proper sequence? Do you even know what the proper sequence is? Are you interested in finding out? Can you show others how?

If not, do you mind moving the piles of things out of the way so everyone can sit down? Do you mind if someone just maybe puts at the very least the books in an upright position on the shelf? If you don't want to collate, that is.

How do you find anything, if you don't like things in their order? Some people have their own sense of order, sure, that's understandable, but that's not helpful for anyone else but you, don't you think? Do you feel judged? Don't feel judged. It was just an observation.

Some people like to collate. Let's collate.

No? Yes? Whichever, how about you just sit here & listen to a new episode of Dickenbock Electronics as well as (of course) the new Self Help Radio? They're on right now - if right now is Wednesday morning, November 11, at 6am (SHR on at 7:30am) EST in Huntington on 88.1 fm WMUL. If that's not what right now is - but it's after Wednesday morning, November 11, 9am, then you can listen at selfhelpradio.net. Now THERE'S a show that likes to collate.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 22?

Listen to me please
Radio devotees
As I sing with ease
About the indiepop E's.
As awesome as cheese
(The opposite of fleas)
You pay no fees
To hear the indiepop E's
Did I hear you sneeze
When you looked at those trees?
Did you count one two threes
For the indiepop E's?
No assets they will seize
Get up off your knees
Everyone & everything agrees
With the indiepop E's.
Why not go to Belize
To learn the trapeze
In a stylish chemise
To hear the indiepop E's?
They're not such a tease
They're on records & CDs,
Even new-style mp3s
These indiepop E's!
We scour the seas
Your curiosity to appease
Like a cool spring breeze
The indiepop E's.
You don't need any keys
Though outside you may freeze
Don't associate with sleaze -
Hear the indiepop E's!
So have yourself some teas
It's sort of like a reprise
I give you strong guarantees
You'll love more indiepop E's!

But what rhymes with "this Wednesday at 7:30am on 88.1 WMUL"?

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 22: I Told You To Leave Jane Alone!

I may be the only person who actually looks into his or her spam folder before he or she deletes the contents, but sometimes I am glad I do. Do you recall, when spam first became a massive problem, around the turn of the century, & all the spam had weird titles like phrases spelled from refrigerator word magnets? Nowadays giving spam interesting titles is a lost art (a lot of my spam has the simple subject line "hi") (& the only person who wrote me emails titled "hi" no longer writes me emails) (though she could be my friend on Facebook - I am friends now with a person who always wrote me emails with the subject line "hey") but I did notice I got a spam today entitled "I Told You To Leave Jane Alone!"

That's rad. Did I tell you this? I was getting take-out at a place here in Huntington & when I came out, I was confronted by this very large African-American who took my hand & introduced himself. While holding my hand, he looked down at me & said, in a very soothing voice, "Your grandmother's okay." I told him, "Both of my grandmothers are dead." He said, "Yes, Susan & Elizabeth want you to know that they are all right." I didn't tell him that those weren't the names of my grandmothers, but before I could pull away, he looked at me & said, "I'm very hungry, can you help me?" So I gave him some change.

But as I went to the car, I thought to myself, "Holy spit, I don't really know the names of my grandmothers!" I was pretty sure it wasn't Elizabeth or Susan, but I didn't know. My father's mother died when he was a boy, so I never met her. My mother's mother I met a few times but she lived in Germany so all I knew her as was "Omi," which is an affectionate way of saying "Oma," which is German for grandmother.

In any event, the spam & the encounter with the hungry begging man seemed to work on the same principle: throw a name out there, hope it's common enough to get someone's attention or make you seem psychic. It's kind of bargain-basement-cold-reading type stuff.

By the way, my grandmothers' names (I have since discovered) were Eloise & Anna. Which are awesome names.

My Boring Dreams, Part 745

God I hate listening to people talk about their dreams. I don't believe they're prophetic, or full of hidden symbols, or even that they do much except possibly express painfully obvious anxieties & concerns one has.

(I knew a dude at KOOP who heard me discussing a dumb dream with someone once & he looked distressed. I don't really remember what I was discussing, but he was grave & troubled & said to me something like, "You know, Gary, it's very serious when you dream about windows {or whatever it was}." Of course, he also believed that quantum mechanics proved human being could levitate, so I didn't take him up on his offer to give me free dream therapy.)

But dreams are on my mind because - well, let me bore you.

My family used to have a convenience store, & I worked there for a while during high school, & occasionally I have dreams about it, because I spent so much time there. My dream last night (technically, this morning, as it was the last dream I had before I woke up) involved me opening the store one morning like I did on Sundays. (By the way, in the dream, I was my current age, & the store was in an advanced state of disrepair & it was filthy. That's kind of true - the people who bought the store back in 1989 tore the building down & put up a kind of mini-mall, but I went in for the first time since the late 80's a few years ago - it must've been when I was a smoker, since I was looking for American Spirits, which they didn't have - & the place was nasty. But in my dream, it was the old store, not the new one.)

I made coffee - you did that, you know, first thing - & there was a person there that I had the sense I was holding over for possibly the police or someone to pick up. Or maybe he was hiding in the store overnight & I noticed him, but somehow expected him at the same time. Anyway, as I was getting the cash drawer ready - & it was filled with weird papers that somehow had to do with my trip to Europe a couple of years ago - he started to escape, but before he did, he attempted to pour some liquid into the glass case next to the cash register, as if to destroy evidence or something. I snatched it from him in time, & when I checked it, it was nail polish remover.

He got away, & the dream ended soon after that, & I confess it was nice to see the old store, which of course I will never see again, but what I woke up wondering about is this: where in my mind was there the knowledge that there's something you can get rid of by pouring nail polish remover on it? What could it be? Is that real? Did I see it in an episode of CSI or Law & Order? That fascinates me. It might be nonsense, but it might also be my brain showing off - look what I remembered that you don't, nyah nyah nyah.

That ends this episode of my boring dreams. Remember, I'll talk about my dreams to anyone who listens - & they're guaranteed to be completely uninteresting to anyone except me & fools who imagine they mean more than they really do. (The more I think about it, maybe that industry rose up as a way for people to at least make money when people tell them their boring dreams... Hmmm...)

Good night!

The Carousel Show Goes Round

It does! Today's dizzy show about carousels & merry-go-rounds is not available for your listening pleasantries at the Self Help Radio website. When you're listening, try to catch the brass ring! It means you win another show about carousels & merry-go-rounds!

Also there is the most recent episode of Sugar Substitute, which is a pop show & which has enjoyable music & information about homosexuality in bedbugs. I can say no more. You just have to listen.

Brrr. It's chilly in Huntington!

Harry & The Online Degree

Once upon a time my friend Harry stole an online degree which he erroneously thought belonged to my father. My father had of course gotten his degree the old-fashioned way: he purchased it with embezzled money. But Harry didn't know that. Harry could barely form three consecutive thoughts in his head - Harry was high all the time, so his thoughts were non-consecutive. Though sometimes contiguous.

Harry didn't know that my father had an online degree in Middle Eastern Fashion Photography, one of three awarded that year by the President & the Secretary Of Waste. The other two haven't been heard from since - it was that prestigious a degree. So Harry literally ran with it. In the West Bohemia marathon, in 1992. Which of course required both a time machine - he stole the degree last Thursday - & the time to organize a marathon in the non-existent country of West Bohemia, which had to be both founded, stabilized, & finally recognized by the International Marathon Cabal.

My father, bless his drunken soul, didn't notice that the degree had been stolen until it was far too late & he had finally convinced the Saudi girlies that it was perfectly fine to be photographed without their veils because he had a license.

None of this is related to the fact that in a few short hours, new episodes of Sugar Substitute & Self Help Radio will air on WMUL, 88.1 on the fm dial here in Huntington. Not in Huntington? I'll put it up on selfhelpradio.net during the day tomorrow.

If you see Harry or my father, please, tell them: all is forgiven.

Whither Carousels?

To be honest, when I was a kid, carousels kind of bored me. I liked, you know, the weird animals in creepy colors (if it wasn't one of those that just had horses) & I thought the whole going-up-&-down thing was all right, but it moved too slowly for me, took too long for a revolution, & there were always those people standing there, watching you. Maybe one of them was a parent or a family member, but I always felt like I had to be performing a little when I went around & around. Though thinking about it now, I totally loved the metal feel. I loved the raised metal cross-hatching on the floors & the barely concealed, greasy engine in the center. I saw a freaky carousel in Belgium - I might even have a picture:



There were other insects & weird half-animal, half-machine contraptions as well. I couldn't ride it, though, as I was an adult at the time. Boo! Hiss! (Other adults were on it, but with their children. All I had was my childish girlfriend.)

No, the reason to think at all about this show is because when I was a kid my single favorite thing on the playground is the now-all-but-extinct merry-go-round. I mean the kind you could push or someone could push for you. This kind:



I have a lot of happy childhood memories but among them one of the dearest is being spun on a merry-go-round that no longer exists in a park that still does in Garland, Texas. The park is called Rick Oden Park, apparently named for a kid who died from a baseball accident there. One time - maybe more than once, & they've become one memory in my head - one of my older brothers, who was probably bored stiff & looking for chicks - he deigned to spin it for us & he did, mightily, in a manly fashion, just turning & turning & turning the merry-go-round until it was going a million miles an hour & me & my little brother (& possibly some other kid or kids) just holding on for dear life - the centrifugal force pushing us away, legs flailing off the edge, lots of screams, possibly even tears - & me loving every damn second of it. My god that was so much fun. & it never seemed to last, it just never seemed to last.

It was so much more fun when someone else spun the merry-go-round for you, like it was much more fun to have someone push you on the swings. I think my brothers - & it had to be either Ralph or Steve, since I don't remember ever going to a park with my oldest brother Eddie - couldn't have understood how much I & the other kids loved it, or they would have done it all the time, every time, until we were sick of it. Because I never got sick of it (even if a couple of times I probably got physically sick), it's obvious they didn't do it enough. & of course for that I never loved them as much as I could have loved them, & they have suffered in their lives for that lack of love.

I would gladly have pushed my nephews & nieces on any merry-go-round they chose, but by the time they came along, the merry-go-rounds were gone. At least the kind I love. I am sure carousels are still available at carnivals & places like that.

Oh heavy sigh.

Preface To Carousels: Or Should It Be Preface To Merry-Go-Rounds?

I'm assuming there's not a lot of difference - I haven't really done my weekly research yet - but I've found about three times more songs about merry-go-rounds than carousels. Not only that, but the carousel songs nearly always mention merry-go-rounds - while the merry-go-round songs almost never mention carousels. But I wanted to do a show about carousels, so, if I could have found ninety minutes worth of songs just about carousels - &, you know, half of them wouldn't be covers of the Jacques Brel song - which for all the hell I know is supposed to be translated "merry-go-round" anyway - I would have eschewed any merry-go-round songs. I couldn't, so I didn't.

I'm sure this preface could have been more interesting, but Dexter's on, so that's all I got.

Leprechaun Light

Happy rainy Huntington Halloween! You might have already celebrated by going to the Pumpkin House (who knows if it's supposed to be open today though) or today you might be going to the Health Expo (where, one notes breathlessly, there will be a "Germ City station" which "will teach good hand-washing techniques" - that's terrifying!) but the one thing you won't be doing - on Halloween - in Huntington - is going out for some old fashioned trick-or-treating. Why is that? Did you check the Tri-State trick or treat times? It was Thursday! You totally missed it!

To be fair, so did I. I didn't know that the city government could, by some sort of fiat, just say, "No children will be out on Halloween because we've deemed two days before more suitable for some inscrutable reason." What's to keep them from saying, "Thanksgiving on a Thursdays interrupts too many lives. We're moving it to Saturday between the hours of 4 & 7 pm. You're welcome, Huntington!" & what about New Year's? What if the crazy people in charge of this decide there should be two Christmases to up their present count?

It seems weird to me because they love themselves some Halloween in Huntington. Houses all decked out - there are Halloween lights everywhere (orange & black, naturally) in the same way people put up Christmas lights. Why then reschedule a portion of the day? Are they SCARED?

Anyway, if you're like me & would prefer Halloween to happen on the very day when the barriers between the world of the living & the world of the dead are at their weakest, have a happy one tonight. You can certainly listen to the award-winning(*) Halloween Self Help Radio shows at selfhelpradio.net if you need some chills. I also believe there'll be Halloween programming on WMUL, but you'll need to be in Huntington to hear in on the 88.1 frequency. What you can't do in Huntington is, you know, go around & ask for candy. All the candy was gone on Thursday.

(*) Self Help Radio has won no awards.

Awoooooooooo!

That's right, lycanthrope fans, the Self Help Radio show about werewolves is now available for listening this scary Halloween at selfhelpradio.net. It's ninety minutes worth of delights & frights for anyone who's cursed to change into a beast every full moon - & those who love them. Wait till the end before you waste any silver bullets!

I wouldn't be an amateur crypt-keeper if I didn't point out that last year's Halloween show - about witches! - is also available for listening during your Halloween rounds. I hope you're not too terribly tricked this season, so I give you two treats.

(In robot-related news, the third episode of Dickenbock Electronics also aired this morning. It's available on the Self Help Radio website, if you need a shiny, metallic place to be safe from the werewolves.)

Have a Happy Halloween!

Do You Have A Favorite Werewolf Movie, Gary?

Thank you for asking. Not really. It depends on the age I was when I saw it.

As a child, I loved comic books, & one of the thrills of comic books was crossovers. Yay! Batman is fighting with the Flash! Spider-Man is hanging out with Dr. Strange! The Teen Titans have discovered that the Freedom Fighters need to get back to Earth-X & will help them! The X-Men must team up with the Defenders to battle the Avengers who have been possessed by the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants! Whee!

So you can imagine that, as a child, my favorite werewolf movies were the ones in which the Wolf-Man had to hang out with Frankenstein's monster & Dracula. Oh boy! & when Abbott & Costello got involved, watch out!

As a teen, I remember being totally unimpressed with An American Werewolf In London & also Teen Wolf, which aren't too dissimilar if you think about it. I was, however, scared by The Howling & Wolfen. Those films rocked. They still rock. I stand by that statement even if I haven't seen them in over twenty years(!).

I never saw Jack Nicholson in Wolf - it seemed too, I don't know, made for people who are older, more middle-class than I'll ever be. I should've liked Van Helsing - it was a team-up movie - but the best werewolf film I've seen recently is probably the first Underworld, & not just for Kate whatsername in the tight bodysuit. But there have been a lot of werewolves on the screen recently - in the past three years, I see there's been Blood & Chocolate, The Lycanthrope, Skinwalkers, Benighted, Freeborn, In The Blood, & the ridiculously titled Never Cry Werewolf. I haven't seen any of these. What sort of werewolf fan am I anyway?

One who'll do a show about them tomorrow morning on WMUL - 88.1 on your fm dial! Archived soon after on selfhelpradio.net! That's what sort of werewolf fan I am!

What about you - got a favorite werewolf movie? What is it?

Whither Werewolves?

Each year - as though promised, or, more accurately threatened - it rears its awful, misshapen head - it moves like crippled death, slowly but inexorably making its ghoulish & ghastly way - fueled by Satan's fire or urged on by its own filthy, macabre motivation - dripping sickness & disease, carried along in an ill wind that it seems to generate - moving closer, closer, closer - to your radio! It's the Self Help Radio Halloween show. It's an undead delight, cold, clammy, rising only once a year, then quickly decomposing. Avoid it as if your life depended on it, but miss it at the peril of your immortal soul!

The show has a scabby, uneven history. It chose to appear when Self Help Radio was very young, but was spotty, unfocused, & the next year was haunted by ghosts & spirits of torment. But the year after that, it did not appear - perhaps because the first Tuesday in November would bring horrors unimaginable that the show could simply not measure up to.

But then! It returned in full force! The next year it brought forth vampires, & the year after that monsters! The next year was zombies, & last year, it gathered a fierce coven of witches to its side! This year, it brings werewolves - cursed creatures who must have been living in the cold, wet forests that surround Huntington - or in the backwoods of nearby Kentucky or Virginia or Pennsylvania or Ohio. Evil beasts with a taste for blood!

Sad that Halloween does not fall on a full moon - nor does Self Help Radio. Let the show be a warning, then - of the blood red eyes watching from the darkness, ready to strike when the moon is full & you are at your most vulnerable!

Preface To Werewolves: Shouldn't This Be On A Sunday Instead Of On A Monday?

Hey! Who appointed you lead cop detective of everything this blog-related anyway? Just because the clock turns itself past midnight & then goes Oh look at me I'm a brand new day la de da doesn't mean it stops being that day for people who are unlucky or drunk enough to still be awake past the late twelve o'clock hour. I know, this blog post will say "Monday, October 26" just like my computer does but I am still living in a Sunday, babe, & so you too should be reading this with a Sunday mind. & no, not a religious mind, because religions will take whatever days they can - & have you noticed, they like to take the weekend days? Isn't that convenient? No problems with the bosses that way, right? Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yeah.

As far as I am concerned, no matter how the gremlins in the computers at blogger.com tag this, this post is totally written on a Sunday. & it's the post that prefaces tomorrow's deep discussion about werewolves which will be the subject of this week's Self Help Radio which is of course this year's Special Halloween Show. & seriously, the folks in West Virginia love their Halloween. They were turning their (small by Texas standards) front yards into mock graveyards at the end of September. They also like scarecrows sitting around hay. Like this one (actual photo taken in my neighborhood I shit you not):



Maybe it will finally put Self Help Radio on the map? Or at least the GPS? We'll see.

Tomorrow. Which is Monday. It is!

Can I Sing The Praises

Interesting. That title can be read two ways without punctuation. Most folks would probably read it as a question, since it's arranged like one: Can I sing the praises? But it could also be a boast - a question answered by itself: Can I sing the praises!

I was going to talk a little about a dumbass online game I've been playing which I think is based in Germany (sometimes German pops up in boxes & captions in places that I guess are little-travelled & therefore not regularly updated). But I got shy all of a sudden. Hmm.

It's not a Facebook game - I don't play any of those Facebook games, mainly because they make me nervous. I played one game in which, when I was at the lower levels, I was constantly getting killed when I was offline. That made me sad every time I logged on. So I deleted it & I don't accept those invitations from friends when they want me to play them.

Another game I play still from time-to-time is Adventure Quest, which I did pay for (a one-time fee) to become a "guardian level player," but while the game has its moments, it's generally dull & it takes a long time with repetitive fights with the same creatures to level up. I have been playing it for a while - I even checked in on it when I was in France a couple of years ago. I forget when I started, but it may have been even before we bought our house. So that's many years.

Now with this new game, I've been playing it regularly enough that others are contacting me to join their "teams." (They aren't really teams. If I mentioned what they were, you might be able to guess the game.) Oh, & it's not World Of Witchcraft or whatever. This is a pretty small-time thing, I guess. It's only slightly role-playing-ish.

So can I sing the praises? No. No, I can't. Sorry. I've lost my nervy.

I Always Forget About You!

It's true. After I return home from my weekly radio show, I of course detox with a carrot gel enema & radiation straight to the frontal lobe, then I shower to wash the probable filth off me, & then I edit the show (taking out most of the funny stuff - I don't want it to be too good!) & put it on the Self Help Radio website. Then I go to my Facebook fan page & write an update for those lovely folks, & then I go to the Myspace page & post the playlist & update the themes. But for some reason, it's always at the end of the day when I go, "Oh fuck me like an endangered cockateel, did I forget to mention it on the blog?" I did, & I do. When I shouldn't. Really. I'm much, much more intimate with you.

Which is why, you know, more people pay attention on Facebook & Myspace.

But. This week's show - all about sliding - is now at selfhelpradio.net for you to listen to & make faces at. Also, a new Sugar Substitute. Which is like two nice things that I might have forgotten to tell you about. Luckily, though I always forget you, it's temporary, & I always remember you at last. Kiss kiss.

Can't Wait Till Tomorrow?

Well, neither can I. If I had my way, Self Help Radio would be on every day. Sure, my brain would no longer function except as an apparatus which processed songs related to "themes," & my marriage would have ended sometime after the first month, & I'd probably grow barnacles under my feet for being in front of the microphone all the time, but it would be worth it! Especially the barnacles. That'd be awesome.

As it stands, you'll have to wait till tomorrow for Self Help Radio's show about sliding. If you're really in need of a fix, scour the Self Help Radio archives to see if there's a show you haven't listened to yet. Might be. Who knows? I don't know what you're listening to. I'm delighted you want to listen to MY show. Though I think you might have questionable tastes, since you do. Just saying.

Tomorrow. 7:30am. On 88.1 fm WMUL. Archived later, of course. But wake up anyway! It tastes fresher when it's live.

Whither Sliding?

Did you ever play the game chutes & ladders when you were a kid? Did you know that it was also known as "snakes & ladders"? Does it matter to you in any case that Self Help Radio has done both a show on snakes & also one on ladders? Did you think, once hearing that factoid, that Self Help Radio in some obsessive-compulsive manner, had to therefore at some point do a show about "chutes" - which is to say, slides?

Well, you'd be wrong. It's all a coincidence. I don't possess that level of foresight nor obsession. I do, however, notice some time after the fact when I've done something that might seem like that. & when it's a cool thing to do, I totally take credit for it.

But this isn't too cool. Basing a randomly-airing set of radio shows on a toddler's game is weird enough & the fact that I might do such a thing is probably the reason children throw things at me. But the fact that they aired so far apart - "snakes" over six years ago in early October 2003, "ladders" almost two years ago in early January 2008 - makes it highly unlikely. Besides, if I were such a weirdo, wouldn't I be planning a show about "chutes" instead of "slides"? Aha! Got you! Thought you were so smart, dintcha?

Well, now that I've cleared that up, I need to go take some more medication. There are more arguments in my head I need to have & it requires all the SSRIs I can legally consume in a twelve-hour period.

Preface To Sliding: Lots Of Slides

Here. Here's seventy-four (74) pictures of playground slides: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Playground_slides. You're welcome.

Now, Less Than Ever

People are already starting to review the first decade of the 21st century. That's freaky. It's like the folks in Huntington decorating for Halloween in late September or something.

This may seem like a digression, but it isn't. Nowadays, comic books love to start over or have one-shots with the number one on them - "# 1! First issue! Collector's Item!" - but that wasn't always the case. Back in the golden & silver ages, publishers preferred continuing series (even if they were renamed) because it was not only cheaper (there were postal fees involved) but also they believed it showed comic buyers that the series was successful. As an example, when The Flash was revived in the late 50s, they numbered it from the next number of the cancelled series (# 105), which ended a decade before. Or Tales To Astonish, which became the Hulk with issue 102.

The reason to bring this up is I kinda wish it were the same with calendars. I don't like that this is just the twenty-first century after we starting counting again with Jesus' birth. It's arbitrary & dumb. So I wondered - what is the oldest calendar ever?

It might have been the Egyptian calendar. The Hindu calendar may be the oldest one still in use, but it's a lunar calendar (boo!) & it's therefore not terribly correct. It might mean the years get screwed up when counted, & I need accuracy.

The Egyptian calendar was a solar calendar, & according to the Wikipedia article, some scholars believe it started in 4242 BCE.

Just some scholars? Oh well. That's good enough for me! If the first year was 4242 BCE, then that makes this the year 6251. The second year of the fifth decade of the 63rd century. I'm not reading any "decade reviews" until eight years from now.

The 63rd century! That's fucking cool!

Happy Anniversary To Self Help Radio!

Yes, Self Help Radio turned seven years old this month, & the show today celebrated that with a theme revisited ("Around The World," first explored in November of 2002), stories about the show's creation & placement told (possibly made up?), & festival lighting in the deejay booth by gorgeous scented candles which kept nostalgia wafting gracefully in the air (though you can't hear that, you know, on the radio).

Did you miss it? No worries! It's available for your listening pleasure at selfhelpradio.net! & as an added bonus, there's a second episode of Dickenbock Electronics! It's the best seventh anniversary Self Help Radio ever had!

Dame Gay

That's a spoonerism. Though spoons are so last week. This week? Anniversary! Party! Cake! Unnecessary medical procedures!

Can you wake up early & celebrate? Self Help Radio officially turned 7 years old (old enough to drive in some Polynesian lands!) (that's probably not true) on October 9 - last Friday - but the show wasn't on the air on Friday, & there are some cultures in which people who celebrate anniversaries before their actual day are hunted down & killed by ad hoc death squads organized around the most offended elders & substitute teachers (none of that is true), so Self Help Radio's anniversary will be held as close to the day itself. At least it's a Wednesday. Self Help Radio began on a Wednesday. It may even be a sidereal anniversary. (Can someone look up sidereal? It may have been used incorrectly.)

So! Tomorrow morning at 7:30am on WMUL - 88.1 fm - & then of course on the Self Help Radio website later. But what if all the cake is gone by then? What will you do?

Also, Dickenbock Electronics is airing electronica from 6 to 7:30 am. But that's not nearly as exciting as an anniversary. An anniversary! Wow!

Whither An Around The World Seventh Anniversary Show?

Wow, seven years doing Self Help Radio. A stronger man might be able to pry himself away from such a tar pit. But not me!

Here's a funny story. I never really intended to do a show like Self Help Radio, by which I mean a weekly show organized around a particular theme. I would have preferred to simply do a freeform show like the one I did at KVRX in the 1990s, which was mainly music organized around me letting my id completely free to say things disturbing & arguably humorous. But KOOP radio at the time was a very dark, shell-shocked place, on account of the struggles for power in the late 1990s. (You can read about that from the losing side here.) This is not the place to talk about the later struggle to revitalize KOOP, something with which I was involved, but to just point out that at the time, the so-called Programming Committee, which met about three times a year, & which was chosen by the Board of Directors, had (possibly as a result of the crises) virtually no power nor authority to remove, reschedule or replace KOOP shows (the Board did that, or someone on the Board did it, & then reported to the Board at the next meeting).

I have (you might have noticed) a varied interest in music, which some call "freeform," but the people to whom I spoke at the station, some on the Programming Committee, would discount such a show added to KOOP's line-up. "We already have a free-form show," they'd say, which was true - I guess they thought they only needed one? They also had a punk rock show, an indie music show, a blues show, three country shows (grandfathered in from the old days, these programmers had always raised lots of money for the station & never been a threat), a reggae show, an experimental music show, a world music show, & two jazz shows (old & new, of course). The only thing I could have offered, if I had to, was an electronic music show, but I felt a little like a phony even proposing it - although I'm doing one now, at the time I didn't know as much about the genre & it would have become repetitive (in a bad way) fast.

What did I do? How did I fill my time those two years I waited for a show? Well, I subbed other shows, & I kept volunteering until, as the Programming Committee still had no power, the President of the Board of Directors was forced to fire a programmer who was advertising her place of business on the air, & space opened up so the Board gave me a show. It's amazing to think about it... But that's really how it happened. & I was noticed not because of my exciting show idea, but because I was a good volunteer.

Why did I stay with the Self Help Radio idea? Didn't I think that, now that I had a slot, I couldn't possibly lose it unless I ran afoul of the people in charge or broke FCC rules? I would never do the latter, but I was afraid of the former (which happened two years later - but that's another story), & another show was added the same time as mine which, though technically a jazz show, was sufficiently nestled in a sub-genre that wasn't at the time represented on the station, & was far more defensible than just "here's a freeform show dum de dum."

The Station Manager at the time loved the name - she was of a perverse bent anyway, & appreciated the irony, although some people to this day (those who can't, you know, just look the show up on Google or whatever) still send me life-transforming class information & the like.

The postscript is that I really, really like organizing shows around themes. I like that it helps me corral my out-of-control music collection. In the old days, I came up with my theme, like, the night before. Now I work on them for months sometimes. Though, really, the theme I'm going to revisit on Wednesday was one of my cleverest.

Preface To The Around The World Anniversary Show: Like I Promised, Extra Self Help Radio

The very first Self Help Radio went on the air in Austin completely & utterly unnoticed on October 9, 2002. I don't remember that day at all. When you think about it, we weren't even at war with Iraq yet at the time. Madness!

I probably have a tape of the show, but will not (probably) get it out & play it on this week's show. Too much of a hassle. Carrying a heavy cassette tape up to the WMUL studios & then cueing it & hoping that I didn't say anything stupid (which of course I probably did) that might offend the lovely people of Huntington, West Virginia... No, it isn't, as the Amish say, worth it.

It's pretty amazing I've been doing this for seven whole years & no one has stopped me. It does seem to suggest that our world is doomed. But I like to celebrate anniversaries because they are milestones, & as someone who couldn't walk a mile even with a rock of crystal meth in my shoe, I am happy to note that it's nice to have stones that people aren't throwing at you. (How many metaphors were mixed in that last sentence? Find out in next month's Highlights For Children!)

Speaking of treats, which we weren't, here's one: this month's Self Help Radio Extra! Huzzah! Hoorum! Guten Tag! Wie geht's? It features a clumsy but sincere mix of music by the likes of Billy Childish, Cat's Miaow, Chappaquiddick Skyline covering New Order, the Pooh Sticks namechecking everyone they love, & much, much more. It's at this link: this link here.

It's not a milestone (nor a millstone for your neck) but it will fit on one CD & you will dig it. I swear.

Something Something Columbus Ohio Something

Hey! I was totally working on a new Self Help Radio Extra today (don't click on that link! I haven't made one since July or something!) but then the wife & me went to Columbus for no apparent reason. I didn't get to see much of the town as it was shrouded in a dense green fog (that's not true) but we did manage to go to an awesome vegetarian restaurant run (apparently) by scrawny vegan women. It was so much better than pretty much any place to eat in Huntington that it was worth the tangle of highway & the dense green fog (there was no dense green fog!). For its reputation as the 16th largest city in the United States (just behind Austin), the place reminded me a little of Dallas. Not in anything except the sprawl. Obviously, the trees & the weather are nowhere near as pretty in Texas as in Columbus. Fun Columbus fact: "Columbus is located within 550 miles of half of the population of the United States." Austin can't say that.

The restaurant, by the way, is the Whole World Natural Bakery & Restaurant. I highly recommend it. I'm not sure what an unnatural bakery would be like - maybe like the canteen at Monsanto? I think a supernatural bakery would be cool - all those magical things flying around, right into your stomach. Mmmm.

I also saw a real live pumpkin patch. My first ever. Here's me & the wife being ridiculous & the pumpkin patch behind:



Tomorrow! A new Self Help Radio Extra! I promise.

The View From Glastonbury Tor

I hear it's phenomenal. Here's a picture of it. I wonder if I'll ever get to see it in-person-like.

What I can do in-person-like is a radio show (although it's not all that in-person-like, as listeners & I are connected only by sounds traveling on the airwaves) which I did do this morning which is now available at selfhelpradio.net. There are actually two shows, though I did them back-to-back without even a break for cake & tea, but they have been separated for fear of cross-contamination. Details are:

1) This week's Self Help Radio, which is about spoons; &
2) This week's Sugar Substitute, which is about pop!

Please download, listen, enjoy & then repeat.

Your Weekly Reminder, Forgetful

Beep beep beep beep! Turn on your radio at 6am tomorrow (that's October 7th) (also, that's in Huntington, West Virginia) & don't go back to sleep but tune it in to 88.1 fm which is WMUL which features two great shows starting at 6am - well, one great show starts at 6am, then there's another one at 7:30am - you understand, why be such a pest about it? - Sugar Substitute is on at 6am with Self Help Radio following at 7:30am. Wowy zowy! Don't go back to bed! Get some coffee & listen very carefully. You will grow as a person.

Beep beep beep beep! Did you go back to bed? What? You're not even IN West Virginia? Not Kentucky nor Ohio? Oops. Go back to sleep. Just WATCH THIS SPACE for announcements about when these shows will be put up on selfhelpradio.net - because they will be. Soon after they've happened. Bet on it.

Beep beep beep beep! Oh for the love of God can you turn that damn alarm off. Jeez.