Self Help Radio 041217: Blondes

(Original, not-as-disturbing image here.)

It's turns out that radio shows about blondes do have more fun!  Well, at least I had some fun.  Stereotypes were reaffirmed & simultaneously dismantled, attitudes were ultimately unaffected, peroxide bottles were left scattered in the hall.  & the other radio shows!  They started treating Self Help Radio differently, assuming the poor thing was a little dumb, but also kinda hitting the show, too.  Very disturbing.  & confusing!  Who knew radio show had libidos?

(Note to self: a radio show about libidos might be fun.)

In any event, Self Help Radio is glad its hair is going grey.  Going grey?!?  You're not even fifteen years old!  Silly thing.

The show, in all its golden glory, is now available at the Self Help Radio website.  The songs played on the show are below.  Now say it with me, "You don't have to be blonde to like this show, but it helps!"  Great!  Let's crochet that onto a knitted pillow.

(part one)

"The Blue Eyed Blonde Next Door" George Formby _The Ukelele Man_
"Peroxide Blond" Hank Penny _Crazy Rhythm: The Standard Transcriptions_
"Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes" Ray Smith _Rockin' Little Angel: The Sun Years, Plus_
"Long Blond Hair, Red Rose Lips" Johnny Powers _Rockin' Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly_

"He's My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Guy" Little Pattie & The Statesmen _Hey, Beach Girls! Female Surf 'n' Drag 1961-1966_
"They Prefer Blondes" The Banshees _Back From The Grave, Volume One_
"The Girl With The Sandy Blonde Hair" Perpetuated Spirits Of Turpentine _Aliens Psychos & Wild Things Volume Fore_
"Dumb Blonde" Dolly Parton _Dolly_
"Platinum Blonde" Blondie _The Platinum Collection_

"Blonde Fever" The Diodes _Tired Of Waking Up Tired_
"I've Had It With Blondes" Cud _Elvis Belt_
"'Cause I'm A Blonde" Julie Brown _Earth Girls Are Easy OST_
"You're Not Blonde & Stupid, But Nobody's Perfect" The Bedflowers _Songs: Summer 1990_

"Blonde" The Wedding Present _Seamonsters_
"Dirty Blonde (Demo)" Summer Fiction _Himalaya_

(part two)

"Blonde Angel" Jacobites _God Save Us Poor Sinners_
"Episode Of Blonde" Elvis Costello _When I Was Cruel_

"Long Blonde" The Long Blondes _Singles_
"Leggy Blonde (feat. Rhys Darby)" Flight Of The Conchords _Flight Of The Conchords_
"Born Blonde" Hunx & His Punx _Street Punk_
"Blond Adonis" Future Bible Heroes _Memories Of Love_

"Just Because I'm Blonde" Dollyrots _Whiplash Splash_
"Big Blonde" Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs _How To Get To Heaven From Scotland_
"Down & Dusky Blonde" God Help The Girl _God Help The Girl (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)_
"Born Blonde" Wild Moccasins _Skin Collision Past_

"Sometimes A Blonde" Robyn Hitchcock _Spooked_
"My P'roxide Blond" Toby Stroud _MGM Hillbilly, Vol. 1_

Whither Blondes?

(Found here.)

Do you believe the stereotype about blondes?  Are they naïve, ditzy, downright dumb?  Do they really have more fun?  More fun than whom?  Brunettes?  Redheads?  Baldies?*  Are they innocents whom men use & ruin, or bombshells who prey on men & use their wiles to ruin the lives of others?

These questions may be asked & even more uncertainly answered on tonight's episode of Self Help Radio, which explores "blondes."  Blonde-headed women &, to be fair, also some blonde-headed men.  Who have, it's true, escaped the stigma of the stereotype unless it's combined with something else, like being a model or a sportsball player.  In any event: blondes are our focus tonight.

Invite the blondes in your life to listen!  Share you opinions on the Facebook &/or the Twitter if you're around.  & listen, of course, from 9-11pm eastern, 8-10pm central, on 93.9 fm WLXU in Kentucky & online at LCR dot org.

Even if blondes don't have more fun, I think radio shows about blondes are more fun.

* Baldies isn't a slur, is it?

Preface To Blondes: One More Blonde Gary Picture

Since you must've loved the picture of blonde Gary from 1988, here's one from maybe 1995, in my office in the computer lab in Batts 232, a space which no longer exists.  (The building's still there, but they gutted it & rearranged the floors.)

There are so many things to say about this photo.

First of all, that's a fucking Quadra I believe.  Holy shit, I loved playing Civilization on that machine.

Second of all, I'm totally rocking the first-generation Talk Soup tee-shirt.  That's from the Greg Kinnear era!

Third of all, my hair is blonde not because I dyed it blond but because I had to bleach it to add some color to it, & eventually because I am lazy the color just faded.

Fourth, I clipped my nephew Josh out of this picture - I'm smiling at him - because he felt it was unflattering.  The photo was taken when he visited that summer & I was showing him my office - the lab to the right in the photo was closed, so the lights were out.

I met someone around this time in person that I had only known online & he reported to me that I looked "like a viking."

Here's A Picture Of A Twenty-Year-Old Gary With Blonde Hair

Pick one:
1) I'm Sorry.
2) You're Welcome.

& yes, as I discussed back here, my left ear is indeed pierced.  I believe I had an ankh in it.

Angular Frequency

This is a very boring post about driving.  I drive to Dallas now to volunteer at KNON more often than I ever drove to Louisville or Cincinnati which were more or less the same distance from Lexington as Dallas is from Fort Worth.  Okay, that's not true.  To get from my home to KNON takes between 45 & 55 minutes in non-rush-hour conditions while it took about seventy minutes to get from my house to the average place I went to in Louisville (say, Queen Of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant), & about ninety minutes to get to an average place I went to in Cincinnati (say, Mac's Pizza Pub).  So it's not true at all.  Dallas is far closer to Fort Worth than Cincinnati or Louisville were from Lexington.  Not that that is in conflict with the point I was going to make, it's just that I thought Dallas was as far away from me (or as close to me) as at least Louisville was when I was in Kentucky & that's kinda fucked me up for a minute.

For example, I often thought of volunteering at Louisville's low-power FM station, ArtXFM, & was thinking, Hey, if I had done that, it would have been the same as I'm doing now, driving back & forth to Dallas three times a week.  But it would've been a longer commute.  Safer, undoubtedly - except maybe in the winter, & certainly with the exception that I am not at all likely to hit a deer on I-30 in Grand Prairie, while that was always a chance on the entire drive to Louisville.  I had also, during a semester off at WRFL, thought about volunteering at WAIF in Cincinnati - I actually proposed doing Self Help Radio there - that's a story for another time - but I can't imagine driving ninety minutes each way now.

Has this ever happened to you?  Have you been about to say something & then you had the nagging feeling your facts were all wrong or at least somewhat off & so you were like, Let me check those facts, & then suddenly the fact that your facts were all wrong makes you reconsider what you were about to say?  Because that's happening to me now.  I had brunch in Dallas today (at the amazing V-Eats) & I was wondering why I didn't go more to eat vegan food in Louisville or Cincinnati.  The answer now, I see, is that because it was sometimes twice as far away.  (V-Eats, it says, is 38 miles from our Fort Worth home.)  I enjoy driving as much as the next guy (if that guy generally enjoys driving), but that was time away from our animals, & time on the road, which is always inherently unsafe.

Well.  This isn't quite the boring post about driving I was going to write.  It's more a boring post about getting waylaid in the process of writing a boring post about driving.  With links to three restaurants, which seems a little too much.  Plus, when I put my old Kentucky address into Google maps, I saw a picture of our old house, & I miss that house.  I put together six years of radio shows in that house!  My beloved dog George died in that house, & we raised Pauline from a pup in that house.  Our lovely cat Boone followed us home to that house, & I learned how to make passable vegan meals for my sweet wife in that house.  Shit, now I'm getting all sentimental.

Was this post going to be about bad drivers?  I think so.  Who cares anymore.  I am going to live in my memories for the rest of the night.  Excuse me.