Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: National Typewriter Day

June 23 is National Typewriter Day. Please help reclaim this delightful invention from the hipsters who use it now only for doggerel! Tune in to the Dickenbock Report on XRAY FM as we explore typewriters, their history, their future, their sounds. Especially their sounds. Lots of the musical reports include typewriter sounds. Because typewriters are naturally rhythmic.

Tomorrow! Sunday, June 23, noon to 1pm, on XRAY FM - 91.1+107.1fm & online at xray dot fm. Do tune in.

Yes, I'm writing this on a computer. What's your point?

This Week In Self Help (June 15 16 + 18 2024)

My cat Boone says hello?!?

Here is a late Friday reminder of the radio stuff I did this past week, shared at a time when it's guaranteed no one will see it. Which is probably for the best.

If you turned on Freeform Portland randomly this week, you might have heard an "evergreen" program I made in support of their current fundraiser. Though I am not doing a show there at the moment, I still volunteer & am glad to help. Holy shit it's playing as I am writing this! That's freaky. Anyway, you may have heard it as you listened but if you'd like to hear the show, you can find it directly here. Please make use of the username SHR & the password selfhelp to access. & if you are feeling generous & love the station as much as I & its wonderful volunteers do, perhaps think of becoming a Friend Of Freeform?

The Dickenbock Report aired at its regular time. It was a show about fudge because it was National Fudge Day. Listen to it at this link (same username/password conditions apply). Or listen to it at the XRAY web page. Or wait don't. It doesn't appear to be there. I wonder what happened. I got very little feedback about it. I was happy to find so many songs about fudge that I liked.

On Corporate Standardized Programming I played a bunch of new releases. Listen to that show here. The KBOO website is still having issues or else I'd like there too.

& finally Self Help Radio was another celebration of the wit & wisdom of the Rev Dr Howard Gently. You can listen to it here. We'll return to him in like three months. As wonderful as it is to hear my dear friend's voice & enjoy his brilliance, it does take it out of me a bit. But gosh I am so glad he made so many appearances on my show!

Self Help Radio 061824: Howard Gently Year Three

Wow! That's my friend Russell supporting Self Help Radio ten years before the show existed! Little did he know twenty-two years later he would transform into a spiritual huckster named The Rev. Dr. Howard Gently & be on that very show!

The truth is, we know so very little about how our lives would turn out. The Gary who took that picture around 1992 wasn't even on the radio yet. You could not have convinced me then that it would become the thing I'd love to do most in my life. & you would've astonished me if you told me I would lose my friend Russell when we were in our fifties. We were barely in our twenties then!

One thing I am very grateful for is that Russell played Howard Gently on my show for so many years. This week I continue playing his appearances in chronological order - appearances from January 26 to June 7, 2016, when the show aired in Lexington, Kentucky, on WRFL.

You can listen to the show now at the Self Help Radio website. You'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to access the file. It's mainly Howard Gently bits but I include a song from the original show that I think Russell would've liked. All the details are below.

More Howard Gently in three months!

Self Help Radio Howard Gently Year Three Show

"Lay Hands" Russell Miles _Six Tunes By 'Russ'_

"Black Crow" Joni Mitchell _Hejira_

Howard Gently on the theme "Crows"

"I'll Regret It All In The Morning" Richard & Linda Thompson _Hokey Pokey_

Howard Gently on the theme "Regret"

"The Great Pretender" Stan Freberg _Tip Of The Freberg: The Stan Freberg Collection 1951-1998_

Howard Gently on the theme "Pretend"

"My World Is Empty Without You" The Supremes _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 5: 1965_

Howard Gently on the theme "Emptiness"

"Me, I Disconnect From You" Tubeway Army _Replicas_

Howard Gently on the theme "Connections"

"Slow Down" Tammi Terrell _The Essential Collection_

Howard Gently on the theme "Slow Down"

"You Woke Up My Neighborhood" Billy Bragg _Don't Try This At Home_

Howard Gently's assistant Bentley on the theme "Neighborhoods"

"The Law" Leonard Cohen _Various Positions_

Howard Gently on the theme "Spiritual Laws"

"Flight Of The Bumble Bee" Harry James & His Orchestra _Swingin' The Classics_

Howard Gently on the theme "Bees"

"Laughter & Forgetting" David Sylvian _Gone To Earth_

Howard Gently on the theme "Forgetting"

"Take Me I'm Yours" Squeeze _Squeeze_

Howard Gently Calls!

"In Walked Bud" Thelonious Monk _The Complete Blue Note Recordings_

Whither Howard Gently Year Three?

That picture up there - I did something kinda weird. That's my friend Russell over thirty years ago, in front of my apartment on Avenue A in Austin, Texas. (I wrote about that place here.) He was modeling a shirt that said "Built Like A Mack Truck." I removed the words & I put a picture of Howard Gently there. That's a character that Russell wouldn't invent for another twenty years. It seems to me a very strange thing I've done. But I suspect it would've made him laugh.

Actually I don't have a lot of pictures of Russ. I don't know why that is. I guess male friends don't take many pictures of each other - or maybe it was just us.

In any event, it's been a year now since he died & once again I am returning to the interviews he improvised with me for my dumb radio show. I am playing them in chronological order because I want to experience them again & it's a way for me to be close to him now he's gone & I want to share with you how funny & smart & clever he was. He was a good friend & he flattered me to do this with me.

That's happening tonight on KBOO. Midnight to 2am. 90.7fm & kboo.fm. I have been gathering the segments all day & laughing my ass off. I'm glad I have them - but it makes me miss him more.

Preface To Howard Gently Year Three: Melba

(image from here)

This week I'll be taking some time to celebrate my dear friend & collaborator Russell whom I lost about a year ago. It's cruel that time passes, it's crueler still that that means that I'll never see nor speak to him again. But I am grateful that I convinced him to play the spiritual grifter Howard Gently on my show & that I can share those regularly. & I will, until I've gone through all of them. I miss him so much.

His character Melba Jackson gained him a small amount of fame & acclaim among the prank call cognoscente in the 1990s. But he did the character way before that. & even though I don't think I was there when he invented her, I found a tape of him & me back when we were kids which I think was the first time I heard him do that voice. Hilariously, he killed her off right away.

Hm, I thought I shared it on my show about Russell from last summer. Maybe I just didn't note it in the playlist. If you listen, remember you'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp). & let me know if it's there. I may want to share it again.