Self Help Radio 112814: Magda's Birthday Show 2014

(Original image here.

Every year I do a birthday show for my lovely wife.  (You can look at the playlist for all eleven shows I've done linked in this section of my "themes index.")  I try not to repeat myself.  There are far more awful birthday songs than good ones, but I think I've found another set of good ones.

The show can be listened to now & whenever you have a birthday at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to password/login info.  The songs I played are listed below.  Thanks for listening, & please enjoy Buy Nothing Day!

(part one)

"Cicero Pig (December)" Mel Blanc with the Sandpiper Chorus & Orchestra _Bugs Bunny Songfest_
"Everyone Likes Ice Cream" Sesame Street _Happy Birthday From Sesame Street_
"Birthday Polka" Pete Seeger _Song & Play Time_
"Birthday Song" Marcia Berman _Activity Songs For Kids_

"You Can Find Me In Da Birthday" The Zvonimir Boband _I Don't Think You Understand Just How Long Eighty-Four Minutes Actually Is_
"Birthday Song" Frankie Cosmos _Zentropy_
"On Your Birthday" Jim Boggia _Misadventures In Stereo_
"Birthday" The Mars Volta _The Bedlam In Goliath_

"The Unbirthday Song" Jerry Colonna, Ed Wynn, & Kathryn Beaumont _Disney's Alice In Wonderland_
"Birthday Present" Mirah _The Old Days Feeling_
"Girlfriend's Birthday" Paul Gilbert _King Of Clubs_
"Bobby's Birthday" Kensington Market _Bobby's Birthday_
"Birthday" The Fall _Sinister Waltz_

"Seymour Gutkin's Birthday Party" Woody Allen _The Night Club Years 1964-1968_
"Planet Birthday" Beverly _Careers_

(part two)

"Birthdays" Jim Gaffigan _Economics II_
"16 Candles" The Pixies Three _The Pixies Three: Our History_
"Birthday" The Stereo Bus _Brand New_
"Birthday" Stephen Wright _I Have A Pony_
"Happy Birthday, Dear Dad, Wife, Daughter" Rosemary Clooney _Memories Of You_

"Birthday" Paul Weller _Birthday_
"Billy's Birthday" Romeo Void _Instincts_
"To Die A Virgin" The Divine Comedy _Victory For The Comic Muse_
"Birthday Movie" Rank Strangers _I Only Fear That We Are Modern_

"Birthday" Ben & Amy _Science_
"Broken Hearted Birthday" Barbara Chandler _Girl Talk_
"Birthday" Easter _We Have Such Straight Teeth_
"Next Sunday Darling Is My Birthday" Gene O'Quin with Boots & His Buddies _The Guys Of The Big "D" Jamboree_
"Happy Birthday" Technohead _Happy Hardcore_

"Uncle Josh's Birthday" Cal Stewart & Ada Jones _Uncle Josh's Birthday_
"Feliz Cumpleanos, Dulce Dieciseis" Neil Sedaka _Boppin' Sedaka - Hits & Rarities_

Whither Magda's Birthday Show 2014?

I'll do a show tomorrow celebrating not only my wife's birthday, but all birthdays in general.  It's on tomorrow from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm, & archived later at Self Help Radio dot net for those of you sleeping off all the food you eat today.

But here, for you, is a Tex Avery Thanksgiving cartoon!  Enjoy & have a wonderful day!

Preface To Magda's Birthday Show 2014: So Many Birthdays Later

The Magda in the "Magda's Birthday Show 2014" is my wife.  Yes, that's her real name.

As I mentioned in last year's blog about this annual event: "I am contractually obligated by a deal I made before my marriage with my wife's lawyer to celebrate my wife's birthday on the air every year on the closest date to the actual birthday date (December 1)."

Who signs contracts like that?  It's worse than working for Clear Channel!

I have also complained about the fact that, since I don't repeat shows, I'm probably going to run out of birthday songs before too long.  I wish people who listen to my show would write birthday songs for the show.  A few musicians I know, I have begged for them to do so.  But they understand that it's simply not worth it - they get very little out of being on my dumb radio show, while I of course derive all the benefit from their talent.

Do you know any selfless but extremely talented musicians who want to write a birthday song for the show?  It helps also if they don't know that no one really listens to the show.

I'm thinking of having a "classic" set or two during the show next year, to re-play some of the songs that I've previously played.  But I have enough for another show this year.  Maybe for two years.  If more people would make more birthday songs!

This will be the tenth or maybe the eleventh birthday show I've done for my Magda, with the only "repeats" being covers of the a popular song, like the Beatles' "Birthday."

There are actually a lot more birthday songs than I could ever play, but a lot of them just suck.  They're really awful.  They share that trait with Christmas songs.  You could probably play unique Christmas recordings for 24 hours a day for 365 days & never have to repeat one.  Birthday songs might fill a week.  Or maybe a day.  Two days.  But most of the songs of that day (as with the Christmas songs for the year) would be awful.

Check back with me in 2016.  I should be pretty desperate then.

Pogo Birthday Special

In honor of a show about birthdays, here's the entire Pogo Birthday Special from 1969.  Apparently, Walt Kelly hated this after it was done, & I confess I haven't watched it all yet, but I didn't know anyone had actually tried to made a Pogo cartoon.  Let's watch it & talk about it tomorrow!

Ice Bombs!

What do you believe?  What don't you believe?  It seems like some people take the things that they take on faith very seriously.

Like, I used to work in a building called Batts Hall at the University of Texas at Austin.  There was a prankster who, about once a month, wrote, in the building's only elevator, in Sharpie, sometimes large but usually rather small, on the inside elevator door, this budding graffiti artist would write, "Jesus was gay."

As someone who doesn't really believe in anything supernatural, I was not in the least offended.  Of course, this was in the 1990s, when calling someone gay was considered an insult.  When I told my ex-sister-in-law Julie a few years ago that her husband at the time (& my brother) Steve told me when I was in seventh grade that she thought that I was gay, she apologized to me profusely & said she never had.  She believed that I thought she had insulted me.

The point of this story is that, however strong your faith is, it seems like a three-word sentence written in magic marker on the inside of an elevator door would be the least of your worries.  But every time I saw that, I could be certain that the next time I used the elevator, someone would have taken another magic marker (or a pen, or a nail) to violently scratch that little bit of graffiti out.

I'm sure that person who wrote it - who had to arrive before me, probably for an early class, since I had to be there at eight - checked on his or her work afterwards, & was probably amused as hell.

If you think that someone having an opinion about your deity/holy person/prophet is offense - well, I don't know why you're here -  but in case you are, ignore the next paragraph & please don't try to scratch my blog out with magic marker or a nail - you'll just hurt your monitor!

But if you're not offended - & in fact find things every shade of delightful - you may enjoy the Tumblr blog Christian Nightmares, from which I got the above image.  I recommend it for fun & information.

Also - "The Coming Ice Bombs?"