Self Help Radio's show about my favorite music from 1974 is at selfhelpradio.net for you to listen to. Please do!
Now, it's my birthday so I'm going to go do something goofy, like stick my face in a cake or ride a bike into a wall.
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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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Last Day I Am A Forty-One Year Old
Interestingly, if I were to die before the end of this day, I'd be forty-one forever. That could happen, you know. How? Well. The various space agencies & amateur astronomers out there could have totally missed a meteor or a rogue asteroid coming straight for Huntington - or maybe they noticed it, but forgot that there were people in West Virginia - & I could be almost literally wiped off the face of the earth. Or I could be killed in a car accident or by a mugger/burglar/hoodlum/homicidal maniac/pet I didn't feed at the right time. Or years of not taking good care of myself - or worse yet, something random having to do with genetics - could cause a stroke or heart attack or blood clot or seizure or total systems shut-down - & I'll have been too busy working on my radio show to have noticed it. Boom! I no longer exist.
That's the problem. It wouldn't be so bad being forty-one forever. I just wish I could exist while I was forty-one forever.
Forty-one was an adventurous year! It began with me in a kind of limbo in Austin (not doing the limbo), & a year later Self Help Radio has a new home on WMUL & I have a new home twelve hundred miles from where I started. We adopted a lovely cat named Bronte who is awesome & even more spectacularly we transported five other pets successfully across four state lines without causing any of them permanent psychosis. I got to actually see the season commonly called "fall" & I got to live in a place where it snows & - you might not believe this - it stays on the ground for longer than a few hours! Astonishing.
Yes, tomorrow's my birthday & my birthday show - 1pm here in Huntington on 88.1 fm & archived later on selfhelpradio.net like always. Listen, or you have to buy me a present.
That's the problem. It wouldn't be so bad being forty-one forever. I just wish I could exist while I was forty-one forever.
Forty-one was an adventurous year! It began with me in a kind of limbo in Austin (not doing the limbo), & a year later Self Help Radio has a new home on WMUL & I have a new home twelve hundred miles from where I started. We adopted a lovely cat named Bronte who is awesome & even more spectacularly we transported five other pets successfully across four state lines without causing any of them permanent psychosis. I got to actually see the season commonly called "fall" & I got to live in a place where it snows & - you might not believe this - it stays on the ground for longer than a few hours! Astonishing.
Yes, tomorrow's my birthday & my birthday show - 1pm here in Huntington on 88.1 fm & archived later on selfhelpradio.net like always. Listen, or you have to buy me a present.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Whither 1974?
Doing a birthday show is one the longest-running things I've done, although, since my first January Self Help Radio would have been in 2003, I should be at 1975 by now. (I started playing my favorite songs from the year of my birth, which was 1968, on that show. So, the progression would be: 2003-1968, 2004-1969, 2005-1970, 2006-1971, 2007-1972, 2008-1973, 2009-1974, 2010-1975.) What happened?
Magda (who was then my girlfriend but is now my warden) had a friend in town, & I thought it'd be fun for her to do a radio show. I do that. When the next week happened, it wasn't my birthday any longer, so it felt weird, like doing a Christmas show in January or a Halloween show in November.
We continue, therefore, as if we never skipped a year, with 1974 this year. Ye gods but I write the same thing about this each year! Here are excerpts from previous blog entries about this particular annual show:
Whither 1971? "I wanted to do something to commemorate my birthday, especially since my friends, family, pets & insurance agents hardly ever remember it. Or if they remember it, they never commerorate it. If anything, they disrespect it. They set a box of dog poo on its doorstep & ignite it. Then they run away."
Whither 1972? "Also, it's important to note that the majority of the time I spent in 1972, I was four years old, & didn't really have a very good record collection at that point (I had most of the Beatles records, but didn't everyone by the age of four?) so these are records I hold in high esteem NOW, not that I held in high esteem then. Not necessarily."
Whither 1973? "Whatever else was going on the world in 1973, the five-year-old me paid absolutely no attention to."
Here's a future entry:
Whither 2010? "Before you put me in the computer to share my consciousness with the World Mind, let me remind you drones that at one time, before the Climate Apocalypse, we actually had computers separate from our bodies, & we 'wrote' in things called 'blogs.' Ha ha ha! It's almost as weird as this thing called 'radio' we had. Yes, a seventy-year-old man is amusing, especially when all that's left of me is a brain & the box of cheese that used to be my heart. Over & out sproglings!"
I found that in a black hole that had lodged between my two top front teeth that I had to dislodge with a floss made of string theory.
On my show, though, I'll be telling you how I went to Germany when I was six. You can't miss that.
Magda (who was then my girlfriend but is now my warden) had a friend in town, & I thought it'd be fun for her to do a radio show. I do that. When the next week happened, it wasn't my birthday any longer, so it felt weird, like doing a Christmas show in January or a Halloween show in November.
We continue, therefore, as if we never skipped a year, with 1974 this year. Ye gods but I write the same thing about this each year! Here are excerpts from previous blog entries about this particular annual show:
Whither 1971? "I wanted to do something to commemorate my birthday, especially since my friends, family, pets & insurance agents hardly ever remember it. Or if they remember it, they never commerorate it. If anything, they disrespect it. They set a box of dog poo on its doorstep & ignite it. Then they run away."
Whither 1972? "Also, it's important to note that the majority of the time I spent in 1972, I was four years old, & didn't really have a very good record collection at that point (I had most of the Beatles records, but didn't everyone by the age of four?) so these are records I hold in high esteem NOW, not that I held in high esteem then. Not necessarily."
Whither 1973? "Whatever else was going on the world in 1973, the five-year-old me paid absolutely no attention to."
Here's a future entry:
Whither 2010? "Before you put me in the computer to share my consciousness with the World Mind, let me remind you drones that at one time, before the Climate Apocalypse, we actually had computers separate from our bodies, & we 'wrote' in things called 'blogs.' Ha ha ha! It's almost as weird as this thing called 'radio' we had. Yes, a seventy-year-old man is amusing, especially when all that's left of me is a brain & the box of cheese that used to be my heart. Over & out sproglings!"
I found that in a black hole that had lodged between my two top front teeth that I had to dislodge with a floss made of string theory.
On my show, though, I'll be telling you how I went to Germany when I was six. You can't miss that.