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!