Saturday, December 12, 2009

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mother's milk among most American mutants & zombies, & also the poor, by the year 2020) & has been discredited as an outdated practice mainly used by hippies, pagans, & the grossly uninformed.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.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

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.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

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.

Monday, December 07, 2009

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!

Sunday, December 06, 2009

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.