Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June! (Part 2)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still June. So let's call it Self Help Radio Extra June. I am so ashamed.

Have a listen to Self Help Radio Extra & hear new & old tunes featuring the likes of the Chameleons, Vic Godard, the Bodines, the Russian Futurists, Mélanie Pain, & lots more, including my favorite: a newly discovered song by one of my favoritest band in the universe, the Virgin-Whore Complex, who released two records in the late 90's & then disappeared, to my great dismay.

Have a listen. & listen to the new Self Help Radio tomorrow, which is all about escape. You can't escape it!

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June!

Okay, it's not here yet. I know, you've been waiting all month. All last month, any way. Tonight, as I sat around gathering a month's worth of snappy tunes to share with you, suddenly, without any warning, unsuspecting, surprising, unexpected, abrupt, unannounced - well, because I wasn't watching television, listening to music, & all - out of nowhere

RAINSTORM!

So I'll do it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Whither Escape?

Why do people escape? Perhaps they're incarcerated - or about to be. (I've dabbled in bail bondsmanship & bounty hunting, it's true. I'm a close personal friend of Colt Seaver.) Maybe they're in a difficult situation - abusive spouse, abusive parents, abusive pets - & actually need to escape to save their lives. Some people just want to "get away" - escape to the islands, to the spa, to a romantic spot. But these are physical escapes. Sometimes you need to escape from your life, like with daydreaming, or listening to music in headphones, or by drinking alcohol & taking drugs. (Mmmmm.) (I was mmmming the headphones. What did you think?)

To get more sciencey, you can escape a planet's gravity to get to space (escape velocity!). To get more sciencey & chemicalish, you can be a gas or a virus escaping from a test tube. To get more grammary, something can simply disappear - a word escaping one's memory. To get more computery, you can be a key that one hits to try to navigate away from a page with cute Japanese girls on it when one's supervisor is bearing down.

Oo, oo, I missed one - you can escape something that might have happened if you hadn't been paying attention or you can escape something bad that happened with a minimum of damage - "I escaped the accident!" That one escaped me.

Is Self Help Radio an "escape"? It is for me. I escape there every week. Sometimes I'm actually confined there, so I have to also escape FROM Self Help Radio. Which is why of course I will have produced the hit serial "Escape From Self Help Radio" to be broadcast in the past during the time when there were hit serials (I will have had gotten Republic Serials to produce it, & hopefully I will have cajoled hit serial star Buster Crabbe to have starred in it) once I invent a time machine. The script is aces, though. Or was. Or will be. Damn. I can't get this time travel lingo correct.

In any event, whatever you're trying to escape from, I hope Self Help Radio is your port in a storm this week. In any event, it will have nothing to do with Journey's Escape. Which is fine. I stopped believing a lot time ago.

Preface To Escape: I Am No Steve McQueen

Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. It's so blatantly obvious that I can even bold & italicize the word "that" (which was capitalized for effect) & it doesn't even begin to convey the idiocy of the comparison. Viz. Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. But what makes you such an expert on Steve McQueen? Here are some disturbing facts about Steve McQueen that might make you a little more humble when you're poo-pooing a person jokingly comparing himself to the star of The Great Escape, among other films:

1. He died from mesothelioma. Know what that is? Do you? Well, it's not a cool way to die. He died from exposure to asbestos! Compare that to how David Carradine died. Okay, well, that's just humiliating. Never mind.

2. He was supposed to be at the Polanski home the night Manson's robots killed Sharon Tate & the others there. In fact, it's said he was at the top of Manson's list of celebrities who were supposed to die to bring on Manson's dumbass race war. Okay, that's kinda cool. I mean, to be marked for death by Charles Manson, that's the kind of celebrity that, in this day & age, is reserved for status moments like being shot in the face by the Vice President.

3. As he was dying, he visited the Reagans (just about to be installed as King & Queenly of America) & they apparently got Billy Graham to get him to accept Jesus into his heart. Wow, talk about wiping away a lifetime of cool!

That last one is a cheap shot, because I am really nothing at all in any way like Steve McQueen. Morrissey, for example, would never put a giant poster of me up in his home. I don't even know if there is a giant poster of me available, whereas there are millions of McQueen. Furthermore, the one time in my life I've ridden a motorcycle, all I got was a sunburn & some heat exhaustion. Also, I've never been in the movies & never kissed Ali McGraw. (Both might happen, though. Also: both probably won't.)

Why can't I escape these ridiculous comparisons that I myself invent on my blog between me & famous dead celebrities? It is a problem I suppose I have to live with.

What Is This "Self Help Radio Summer Vacation" Anyway?

I know, you've gone to the Self Help Radio website to download this week's show, which is about knocking, & you were perusing the upcoming themes & you looked down the list & you were like, "What the hell? What's the theme in three weeks? The first week of July? July fourth? What about a show about flags? Or fireworks? Or the Declaration of Independence? That's a show I'd want to hear? What's up?"

Well, what was threatened last year is coming true this one: the Self Help Radio Party Van is leaving Austin for good. We'll be leaving in July & it'll take a few days to get there, set up shop, unpack the CDs & stuff, & get my bearings. I expect the moving to a completely different part of the country will undo or otherwise unloose whatever bearings I may still have, so I am giving myself a month to go through the process of "getting" the "bearings." Maybe it won't take as long. Maybe I will go through Self Help Radio Withdrawal. Maybe there'll be only a week off. But. I've never moved so far away before. I think a month is just right.

Now stop worrying. You'll be fine. Go listen to last week's show. Go. Go!