Saturday, August 27, 2011

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 32: Nothing At All About Indiepop

I will be continuing the Indiepop A To Z series this Monday morning - it'll be a special three-hour episode, encompassing both Self Help Radio & Sugar Substitute - but tonight from midnight to three am on WRFL Lexington (that's 88.1 on your fm dial in the city of Lexington & the surrounding horse farms) I'll be playing electronica like I used to do when I did Dickenbock Electronics. I miss that show. Oh well.

Tune in! You can listen everywhere & nowhere at all on the WRFL web site. You can listen to any show on WRFL there. It's pretty awesome.

I must go nap now. It'll be a long night.

Friday, August 26, 2011

I'm Going To Frankfort!

That's right! Tomorrow I will spend what I hope are not very many hours in lovely Frankfort, Kentucky, capital of the Commonwealth. I will be putting up posters in what I hope are friendly shop windows for WRFL's upcoming music festival called Boomslang. I hope I don't get shot!

If your destination is Frankfort, then you should visit the Visit Frankfort web site! For example, did you know that "West Frankfort has more of the family - sit down style restaurants where the whole family can find somet and much more to satisfy any craving."

(Is this strange & wonderful sounding "somet" a Kentucky delicacy? I can't wait to find out!)

What are some of these "sit down style restaurants" on the west side of Frankfort? They have exotic names like "Applebee's" & "Arby's" & "Burger King" & "Chili's" & "Sonic." I'm pretty excited about that!

Oh, the things I do for the radio station I love. Do you want me to send you a picture of me by the capitol rotunda?

(By the way, I've already been to Frankfurt, Germany, where my mother was born. I'm sure Frankfort is just as exciting.)

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Nine

It was the week of the weak A Joke A Day joke. I mean, for a mostly worthless daily dose of unfunny, you seriously can't beat the folks at A Joke A Day. But this week it was like they asked a group of groggy seven-year-olds to come up with the jokes. For example:

A duck walked into a bakery one day & asked for a pork chop.
The baker said, "We aren't a butcher; we don't sell meat here."
So the duck left.
The following day the duck went back & asked again.
This time the Baker said, "No, if you come here again I will nail your feet to the floor."
The following day the duck returned & asked, "Have you any nails?"
The baker replied, "No." & the duck said, "Well, I'll have two pork chops then."


If I honestly thought someone honestly thought it was funny, I might appreciate it. But it's really the sort of joke my friends & I would try to invent when we were in elementary school.

I mean, it's the sort of joke that you have to laugh after you've told it to cue everyone in on the fact that you've just told a joke.

The A Joke A Day people should find a way to incorporate a laugh track.

Bonus unfunny below!

A man goes to an optician asking for help about his shortsightedness.
The optician invites the man to go outside the shop, points to the sun & asks the man what that is. The man somewhat stunned replies obviously: that’s the sun! Thereafter the optician asks: but how far do you want to see?


Thereafter?

Monday, August 22, 2011

Sick Help Radio

Self Help Radio apologizes to anyone who tuned in to today's show, which was about sickness, & got sick. You must have been a first-time listener. Those who have listened to the show before are well aware that it can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, the sweats, itchiness, swelling, cracking, vague unease, stinkiness, changes in eye color, & opprobrium. & that's true with most any Self Help Radio show, not just today's episode about sickness.

The show today is not available in the pharmacy section of your local supermarket (nor your grocer's freezer), but instead is stocked on the shelves of self help radio dot net. It comes as a two-pack: the first half of the show is in this container & the second half is in this container. The contents of each half are listed below.

I don't imagine it would be safe to operate heavy machinery while listening to Self Help Radio but upon further consideration I don't think it would be unsafe, either. The heavy machinery may drown out the show!

(part one)

"Sick" Beatnik Filmstars _Laid Back & English_
"Sick" Boss Hogg _Boss Hogg_

"Dust Pneumonia Blues" Woody Guthrie _Some Folk_
"T.B. Blues" Jimmie Rodgers _The Singing Brakeman_
"High Fever Blues" Bukka White _The Complete Bukka White_
"Sickbed Blues" Skip James _Blues From The Delta_
"Cold Turkey" John Lennon _The Collection_

"Chills & Fever" Ronnie Love _Whip! Wobble & Grind! 1962-1964_
"Rocking Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu" Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns _Having A Good Time With Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns_
"I'm Sick Y'all" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story_

(part two)

"The Flu & Nyquil" Lewis Black _The White Album_
"Sick, Sober & Sorry" Johnny Bond _Johnny Bond's Best_

"Malaria" Shriekback _Oil & Gold_
"Stomach Flu" Todd Barry _Falling Off The Bone_
"Cancer Of Everything" Lisa Germano _Geek The Girl_
"In The Sanitorium" Momus _Tender Pervert_
"Still Ill" Smiths _Hatful Of Hollow_

"Touch Me I'm Sick" Mudhoney _March To Fuzz_
"So Sick" Unrest _Perfect Teeth_
"Robitusson" Chris Rock _Bigger & Blacker_
"The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn" The Pogues _Rum Sodomy & The Lash_
"I'm A Living Sickness" Calico Wall _Trash Box: Wild Psychotic Garage Punk!!!_

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Whither Sickness?

I am not a sickly person, though I am not entirely a healthy person. My family seems about as medicated (if not more) as the average American, which is a damning statement. I take vitamins & iron to make sure my vegan lifestyle doesn't do me harm, & I take medication for what I am told is a genetic predisposition toward high blood pressure. I can't recall the last time I was really sick.

The wife tells me the last time I had a really bad cold was over a year ago, in the winter, in West Virginia. I seem to remember getting colds all the time in the summers in Texas, where I would constantly travel from 68 degrees indoors to 100+ temperatures outdoors, & back, all day long. I also remember having fewer colds when I was a smoker. But my memory is hazy, getting hazier over time. My brain rewrites constantly.

A show about sickness ought not be a celebration of sickness. We are a very sick world. This week's "Louie" had a riff about how American children eat candy-flavored medicine. I wish I had the ability Louis CK had to put things into perspective in that way. I guess I try. I know I don't do so well.

I'm almost afraid to invite you to the show, but, well, here we go: Self Help Radio's show about sickness will air tomorrow morning (Monday the 22nd) from 7:30 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm everywhere there's a world wide web. Later I will hang the finished product out to dry at self help radio dot net.

I did think it'd be funny if I got sick before the show & had to reschedule. But. That didn't happen.