Self Help Radio 113018: Magda's Birthday Show 2018

(Original image here.)

For today only, you get a birthday!  Unless of course, it's already you're birthday, but if it isn't, it is!  This is the day when Self Help Radio celebrates all birthdays by celebrating one person's birthday (Magda) by playing loads of songs about birthdays.  Even if it isn't your birthday today (it's not Magda's - hers is tomorrow), if you plan on having a birthday this year - or you've had one already - you qualify for today's extra birthday!  Wear a funny hat!  Eat a bunch of cake!  Put candles on things!  Go wild!

This birthday offer does not extend to beings who are infinite or who were created with the universe, since time didn't exist then & we can't be sure which "day" you were "born" on.  Beings from other dimensions & planets please check conversion tables to understand your birthday in Earth calendar terms.

Do I keep doing this because it makes Magda happy?  Nah, she barely knows I'm still doing this show.  But happy birthday, you!  Go listen to a show about your birthday!  & other birthdays!  Make someone buy you a present!  This is my present to you!

You can listen now at Self Help Radio's web page.  Username & password info is there.  The songs played & the interviews happening are listed below.

Did I say it?  Can I say it louder?  Happy birthday!!!

Self Help Radio's Birthday Show 2018

"Happy Birthday Magdalena (You're Getting Old)" The Birthday Band For Old People _Happy Birthday (You're Getting Old)_
"Birthday" David Weinstone Presents Music For Aardvarks & Other Mammals _Grumpy_
"Happy Birthday" Ada _Meine Zarten Pfoten_

introductions

"Happy Birthday" Alex The Seal _Alex In Wonderland_
"Happy Birthday Girl" The Equals _Equals At The Top_
"You Are Allowed 20 Birthday Parties" Patton Oswalt _Werewolves & Lollipops_
"Birthday Song" The Greeting Committee _This Is It_
"Happy Birthday" Art Paul Schlosser _Live At MarsCon 2007 & 2008_

interview with birthday party specialist David Fruchter

"C.O.O.L Party" Confidence Man _Confident Music For Confident People_
"Happy Birthday" The Bhundu Boys _True Jit_
"The Birthday Party" George Carlin _When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_
"My Birthday" The French Goodbye _VROOM!_
"Happy Birthday" Freedy Johnston _The Way I Were: 4-Track Demos 1986-1992_

interview with Fulfill A Wish Corporation CEO Perb Rochester

"Happy Birthday" JD & The Longfellows _Happy Hour Again_
"Happy Deathday" Ron Gallo _Stardust Birthday Party_
"Birthdays" George Lopez _Right Now Right Now_
"Birthday" Raymond & Scum _Suck_
"Don't Say Happy Birthday" Christopher Dale _Songs I Know The Words To_

a statement from Magda about the show

"Happy Birthday" Eddy Howard & His Orchestra _The Best Of The Mercury Years_
"Happy, Happy Birthday" Wanda Jackson _The Complete Singles As & Bs 1954-62_
"Happy Birthday" Loretta Lynn _The Honky Tonk Girl Collection_
"Happy Birthday" The Birthday Massacre _Violet_
"Birthday" Parlor Walls _Opposites_

conclusion & goodbye

"Birthday" Hard-Ons _This Is Bad Taste, Vol. 5_
"Birthday" Here Kitty Kitty _This Is Broken_
"Birthday" Crazy & The Brains _Let Me Go_
"Birthday" Snowglobe _Snowglobe_

Whither Magda's Birthday Show 2018?

(Image from here.)

My golly, I've been doing a birthday show for my wife since before she was my wife.  Since before I thought we would even get married even!  Does she appreciate them?  I have no idea.

Is this the part of the birthday post where I complain about how there aren't many good birthday songs?  Nope!  I won't even complain that there weren't as many birthday songs to be found this year as there were last year.  I was just more diligent in finding birthday songs this year.  & also I'm sort of going to cheat a little.  Since the show is a podcast & can play naughty words, I'm going to play a couple of comedy bits that I had to edit to play the first time.  They're funny.  I hate to repeat myself but this is worth it.

The biggest birthday song disappointment of the year is that there wasn't a demo version or another mix of the Beatles' "Birthday" on the giant White Album reissue.  Just a "take 2/instrumental backing track version" that's sort of enjoyable in its own way but won't make it on the show.

What I wish is that someone would recommend birthday songs!  Or write me birthday songs!  Because I might have to get a frickin' ukulele & start writing birthday songs myself!  & no one wants that.

The Birthday Show 2018 is tomorrow at noon.  Self Help Radio Dot Net.  If you have a birthday this year - or have had a birthday this year - or if it's your birthday - this show is for you.

Preface To Magda's Birthday Show 2018: Surprise Parties

It's been a while since I've spoken to my brothers - I have four of them - at least two of them I haven't seen in over two years - one of those brothers is having a birthday soon, & his wife - with whom I also haven't spoken in years - has invited me to his surprise party.

To be clear, she didn't call me or text me to invite me.  It was a Facebook invite & I was one of dozens invited.  I doubt I was specifically chosen, but just happened to be in her address book.

Now, I don't like surprise parties, be they for birthdays or what-not.  It's not just that I don't like to be surprised, but I also don't like the deception required to pull it off, & I don't think it's a good idea to conspire with people you barely know to deceive someone you love.

& I'm not the only one who thinks so.  Read this article.

However.  I confess.  I have thrown a surprise party.  For my girlfriend, the woman who would later become my wife.  She enjoyed it.  But I had a sense she might.  She had told me as much.  But I told her in no uncertain terms that I would not.

Then she threw a surprise party for me, for my fortieth I believe.  I was miserable.  She had made special treats but I was so upset that she had done it that I didn't get to enjoy any of them.  I remember wanting everyone to leave so I could watch the episode of The Wire that I had saved to watch that night.  It took a lot for me to pretend to be happy.  It took forever for everyone to fucking go.

Now I'm thinking the world is divided into two kinds of people & two other kinds of people.  People who enjoy & don't enjoy surprise parties thrown for them, & people who enjoy & don't enjoy throwing surprise parties.  I'm sure there's some overlap, as there are sadists who are also into masochism.  & yet, on the scale of morality, those who resist throwing surprise parties, & those who find surprise parties thrown for them repellent, these people are in the right.

It's not the reason I won't go to my brother's party, of course.  I haven't technically been invited personally, & he won't care if I'm there or not.  But if I had actually been invited, I wouldn't go.  Because I don't believe in surprise parties.

Nice Phone Calls

If you call me on my radio show on KNON, especially if you're going to tell me you like my show - even if you're trying to butter me up to play a request - you're going to make me happy.  I'm going to tell you - or I'll say on the air - that I have such damaged self-esteem that such things just totally elate me.  & it's one hundred percent true.

This morning I got a lot of nice calls, but two stood out.

One was a fellow who told me his kid was going to college & was going to be involved at his college's radio station & he told me, "I want him to do a show just like the Tuesday Morning Blend!" The funny postscript is that his kid is going to the University Of Texas At Austin so the station he was going to be be deejaying at is KVRX - where I started out.  That was cool.

The other was a woman who was definitely not my target audience.  She told me she & her husband (whose name was Gary) were retired but listened to my show every week.  She asked me questions about stuff I played.  & she was convinced that the "Gary" on the air was way too busy to answer the phone himself & didn't quite believe me when I said I was that guy.

The truth is, I spent the early part of the week bummed about bad interactions with my family.  These two calls - & the others I got today - turned my mood around.  I appreciate that.

Also I got treats from a new vegan bakery in Dallas called Sugar Fang for the wife & myself after lunch.  That too was nice.  That area of Dallas - Deep Ellum - is so strangely deserted during the day, while traffic rages all around.

Three Thousand

(This image from here.)

This blog was started (maybe even created) on Tuesday, September 12, 2006, when Self Help Radio was almost four years old.  I don't know why I created it.  I have never been very good at promoting the show, & truthfully the show's never been good enough for me or anyone to want to go on & on about it.  But maybe I thought there was someone out there who wanted to read things I wrote about the show, & maybe also I thought I had something to say about the show.  The answers have turned out to be: not so much, & not so much.

You can read that first blog entry by clicking here.

Two thousand, nine hundred, & ninety-nine entries & a little over twelve years later, here we are.  Man, I have tried so many things to make this enjoyable - a random sampling of the blog posts might find me attempting to be funny, to talk about people named Gary, to write poetry or short stories - but I guess the one thing I've done most consistently is, the day before the show, I try to explain why I've chosen that particular theme.  Also I post the show.  The two things I've done most consistently.  The rest have all been failures & abandoned as such.

One thing I wanted to do for the I think two-thousandth entry was to write a two-thousand word post with the first words of each entry.  It was amazingly tedious & nearly every one of my first posts began with the first-person pronoun "I."  So, here, this would've been the beginning of that entry:

Hi this when here's but this quick I in I we why Halloween amazingly as before hey I I do oh you what normally I I I

You can see why I stopped.  Also, you may notice when I first noticed that I stopped starting lots of paragraphs with the first-person pronoun.  I try so hard not to do that!

I really do!  Fuck.  Did it again.

One thing I did notice is that I write much more in this blog now than then.  I try to write five days a week - even when I have nothing to say or it's the end of the day & I'm like, fuck, I forgot to write in the damn blog!  Especially then, as that's more common than not.  It's why I didn't reach one thousand till 2011, but I got from 2000 to 3000 is a little under four years.  I try to have structure in my life.

Self Help Radio languishes when it's not actually on the radio, but I will keep doing it until it finds a place somewhere again on the air.  Maybe by the four-thousandth blog post.  I'll probably write that one like this one, right before I feed the animals & go to bed early because I have a different radio program to go to in the morning.

Thanks for keeping up, if you do, occasionally.  I'll try like always to make this some place interesting to spend a second or two.  But man this blog is getting old.  Is 3000 eligible for like Medicare or something?