By these shackles I wear around my pants, I say to you I SHALL BE FREE!
Sorry, I've been reading a lot of comic books lately. I think I might have also had a dream about Jack Kirby last night. Ah well.
Here are things I'm planning this weekend. I am planning on not getting stabbed. (That's ongoing.) I am planning to finish this week's Self Help Radio by the middle of the day tomorrow, before it gets stabbed. I'll be holding the teleprompter for the freaky Vance Chamberlain for his "The War On Sailing" radio show on KVRX on Sunday morning. I plan to stalk you on Facebook, so really, stop sharing everything. That photo of you with the puke in your hair? It's not cute.
Um. I plan to eat cheese fries with my nephew tonight, then to regret eating those cheese fries because of all the beer & jalapeños I washed the cheese fries down with. I plan to scold my dogs & praise my cats. I plan to read something I'm supposed to read although I probably won't. Somewhere in there, I plan to fall down a flight of stairs just to say I did. Or not, to say I didn't. I also plan at one point to get exasperated & say, "I've only got two hands!" Maybe during a card game? Who knows?
I'm not trying to impress. You got something better? What're you going to do that's so exciting?
Sheesh.
Random thoughts & other unrelated information from the dude who does "Self Help Radio" - a radio show which originated in Austin, Texas & now makes noise in Portland, Oregon. Listen to new & old shows & look at playlists at selfhelpradio.net.
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Friday, February 06, 2009
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Whither Valleys?
Lee Majors hater step off!
My name is Gary & I spend a good deal of bad time every week working on a podcast which I call Self Help Radio. (Yes, you can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net.) Every week something is something that I something something somethinged. The show stays fresh & new by eating weird fruits & watching exercise shows on demand. One day, it must've been in my sophomore year of college, I realized that what I was most of the time was depressed. At that very moment, somewhere far away, Huey Lewis (of Huey Lewis & The News) took a great big shit that looked & sounded eerily like Billy Joel. On my desk at home, a Stephen R. Donaldson book began to decompose at thirty-three times its natural rate.
Which is not to say y'all can't hate Lee Majors. Y'all just better not be doin' it round here.
Two days after my apparent wedding I was visited by two federal agents designed as evangelicals. It was days before Christmas & I was about to go skeet shooting. The past week's Self Help Radio had had an uncommon theme, if I recall correctly & I don't, whereas the theme the previous week had been all commonalities. These communist Christians were completely unable to sense that my worldview sounded funky while their attempt to add the "personal touch" to proselytizing stank. We became fast friends & even faster enemies - when I grabbed my skeet rifle you should've seen them run! Har har har!
But I wasn't destined for the movies or for horseplay. When my resume came back unopened, I wondered - aloud, yes, but quietly, as if I were in a library or a mongoose cafe - why Barack Obama wouldn't want me in his cabinet, or at his table, or living in the storeroom above his garage. There are many reasons in life for a man to feel his masculinity wasn't manly enough, & time is literally the great emasculator, but at that moment I realized that not only was I destined to live alone for at least the times of my life that I was by myself, but also that a political viewpoint is no substitute for an articulated skeleton.
& as for dear, dear Mr Lee Majors. I'm no fool. I know there are major Lee Majors haters. I went through the same thing in my Caldecott-prize nominated children's stinker called "Having T with Mr T: Reforming Television's Hard-Core Bruiser for the Spongepants Generation." Mr. T haters die a suspicious death. Lee Majors haters live in no fear. That's how great is the kindness & sleepiness of the Lee Majors. Bless him.
& bless us all, everyone!
My name is Gary & I spend a good deal of bad time every week working on a podcast which I call Self Help Radio. (Yes, you can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net.) Every week something is something that I something something somethinged. The show stays fresh & new by eating weird fruits & watching exercise shows on demand. One day, it must've been in my sophomore year of college, I realized that what I was most of the time was depressed. At that very moment, somewhere far away, Huey Lewis (of Huey Lewis & The News) took a great big shit that looked & sounded eerily like Billy Joel. On my desk at home, a Stephen R. Donaldson book began to decompose at thirty-three times its natural rate.
Which is not to say y'all can't hate Lee Majors. Y'all just better not be doin' it round here.
Two days after my apparent wedding I was visited by two federal agents designed as evangelicals. It was days before Christmas & I was about to go skeet shooting. The past week's Self Help Radio had had an uncommon theme, if I recall correctly & I don't, whereas the theme the previous week had been all commonalities. These communist Christians were completely unable to sense that my worldview sounded funky while their attempt to add the "personal touch" to proselytizing stank. We became fast friends & even faster enemies - when I grabbed my skeet rifle you should've seen them run! Har har har!
But I wasn't destined for the movies or for horseplay. When my resume came back unopened, I wondered - aloud, yes, but quietly, as if I were in a library or a mongoose cafe - why Barack Obama wouldn't want me in his cabinet, or at his table, or living in the storeroom above his garage. There are many reasons in life for a man to feel his masculinity wasn't manly enough, & time is literally the great emasculator, but at that moment I realized that not only was I destined to live alone for at least the times of my life that I was by myself, but also that a political viewpoint is no substitute for an articulated skeleton.
& as for dear, dear Mr Lee Majors. I'm no fool. I know there are major Lee Majors haters. I went through the same thing in my Caldecott-prize nominated children's stinker called "Having T with Mr T: Reforming Television's Hard-Core Bruiser for the Spongepants Generation." Mr. T haters die a suspicious death. Lee Majors haters live in no fear. That's how great is the kindness & sleepiness of the Lee Majors. Bless him.
& bless us all, everyone!
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Preface To Valleys: Lee Majors
Here's what a fellow named Ed Stephan wrote (on the IMDb) was the "plot" of the television series "The Big Valley," which aired in the mid- to late-sixties, & starred one of childhood heroes, Lee Majors: "Victoria Barkley heads her adult brood on the Barkley Ranch in California's San Joaquin Valley, near Stockton, in the 1870s. Heath is the illegitimate son of Victoria's husband Tom (who is dead at the time of the series). Bank robbers, horse thieves, revolutionaries & land grabbers keep the Barkleys hopping." Revolutionaries! I need to see this series again.
I love Lee Majors in the same way I love Mr. T & Evel Knievel, simply for his role in "The Six Million Dollar Man," which left an indelible imprint on me as a kid. Add to it that he played "The Fall Guy," a show that I never understood was supposed to be a comedy (that's how awful it was) & then of course he was married to Farrah Fawcett, who was supposed to be pretty so as a kid I thought she was pretty, well, there you are: a cool hero to my pantheon.
Not only that: his characters always had cool names. On "The Big Valley," he was Heath. (Also, he was a bastard, which I maybe didn't know exactly what that meant, but what the hell, it was fun to say.) On "The Six Million Dollar Man" he was "Colonel Steve Austin." Even on "The Fall Guy," he was "Colt Seavers."
Each of his three major television series - one for the 60's, one for the 70's, one for the 80's - lasted at least one hundred episodes. For "The Six Million Dollar Man" he also did three TV movies. Besides William Shatner (who of course became an icon by playing Captain Kirk & also made Star Trek movies, so he's kinda in a class by himself), is there any other cheesy television action show actor who was as long-lived with three television projects? I can't think of one...
Hooray for Lee Majors! Wow, he's about to turn seventy years old! It was fun to see him on "Weeds" this last season. Maybe someone should tell David Kelley to get him on "Boston Legal." I'll go write a letter now.
I love Lee Majors in the same way I love Mr. T & Evel Knievel, simply for his role in "The Six Million Dollar Man," which left an indelible imprint on me as a kid. Add to it that he played "The Fall Guy," a show that I never understood was supposed to be a comedy (that's how awful it was) & then of course he was married to Farrah Fawcett, who was supposed to be pretty so as a kid I thought she was pretty, well, there you are: a cool hero to my pantheon.
Not only that: his characters always had cool names. On "The Big Valley," he was Heath. (Also, he was a bastard, which I maybe didn't know exactly what that meant, but what the hell, it was fun to say.) On "The Six Million Dollar Man" he was "Colonel Steve Austin." Even on "The Fall Guy," he was "Colt Seavers."
Each of his three major television series - one for the 60's, one for the 70's, one for the 80's - lasted at least one hundred episodes. For "The Six Million Dollar Man" he also did three TV movies. Besides William Shatner (who of course became an icon by playing Captain Kirk & also made Star Trek movies, so he's kinda in a class by himself), is there any other cheesy television action show actor who was as long-lived with three television projects? I can't think of one...
Hooray for Lee Majors! Wow, he's about to turn seventy years old! It was fun to see him on "Weeds" this last season. Maybe someone should tell David Kelley to get him on "Boston Legal." I'll go write a letter now.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Like A Ton Of Tricks
This is my not-clever day. Nothing I do today will be clever. I won't write anything clever, nor will I, should you by chance run into me on the street on in the late-night drinking bars, say anything clever. The most clever thing I did today was wake up in time to feed the animals. That's as clever as I got. Not very clever, I know. I mean, Jesus! Look at the title of this post. That's not only not clever, it's a stupid pun that doesn't make any sense.
Do you want to know WHY I'm not clever today. It's easy. I out-clevered myself doing last week's Self Help Radio. It's well-known that I do the show only because of some incriminating evidence my corporate warlords have about my sinful past - & it's also well-known that I am mainly a tax write-off for them, although recently I've been touted as a community service project as well - "See how well the mentally challenged can do radio?" Knowing all that, there's virtually no reason for me to ever be clever for Self Help Radio.
But it sometimes happens. Don't believe me? Go listen to Self Help Radio for last week. Just do it. Then you decide. It's up to you.
This offer not valid with folks who've never found anything I've done to be clever.
Do you want to know WHY I'm not clever today. It's easy. I out-clevered myself doing last week's Self Help Radio. It's well-known that I do the show only because of some incriminating evidence my corporate warlords have about my sinful past - & it's also well-known that I am mainly a tax write-off for them, although recently I've been touted as a community service project as well - "See how well the mentally challenged can do radio?" Knowing all that, there's virtually no reason for me to ever be clever for Self Help Radio.
But it sometimes happens. Don't believe me? Go listen to Self Help Radio for last week. Just do it. Then you decide. It's up to you.
This offer not valid with folks who've never found anything I've done to be clever.