Whither A Peculiar Show?

(This seems mean. Image from here.)

From nearly the very beginning of Self Help Radio I have not been entirely content having shows about things. I liked also to have shows about words & phrases. This is one of them.

Why peculiar? Is that a word used to describe me at one time? Perhaps - but certainly not from many of the people growing up. Too many syllables. They were content with "weird."

Nothing peculiar led me to make a show with the theme being the word peculiar. I'm pretty sure it's because of a song I'll play tonight that I discovered & really loved. It made me go down a rabbit hole of songs featuring the word peculiar. That's usually how these themes come about. I wish I had a better story!

Tonight! Midnight to 2am on 90.7fm & kboo dot fm! The first Self Help Radio of 2025! Peculiar but in a way not peculiar!

Preface To Peculiar: Is This Show Peculiar?

The image above is the Peanuts strip from January 9, 1963. It was scanned by me from the Fantagraphics collection. I chose it because, well, it uses the word peculiar. & the word peculiar is the theme of this week's show.

Which is the first show of 2025. It's not an auspicious sign of the creativity of the program this year.

But the question is asked - is this show peculiar? Or - hold on - is it trying to be peculiar? After all, there are plenty of people who like to say "I'm so weird!" but they're not really weird. Maybe Self Help Radio really wants to be peculiar but really isn't. It may be painfully normal. Or just bland.

What do I think? I think I've been doing this show so long I have no idea what I'm doing. So I let it be the show is wants to be. Or what it is in spite of what it wants to be. Anyway. The comic above is awesome. That's the only reason to look at this.

Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: George Reeves' Birthday

(image from the Wikipedia)

George Reeves - the most famous actor to play Superman until the movie in 1978 - was born on January 5, 1914 - over 110 years ago! With the new Superman movie coming this summer - as well as the new documentary about Christopher Reeve on Netflix - it seemed a good time to talk about the beloved superhero & play musical reports about the comic sensation.

Tomorrow, Sunday, January 5, on 91.1+107.1fm in Portland, online everywhere - maybe even Smallville, Kansas - at xray dot fm.

This Week In Self Help December 29 + 31

(from Poorly Drawn Lines, of course)

Boy, 2024 ended poorly. One of the worst endings of any year since 2016-2019. & to make matters worse my voice was the last voice on KBOO in 2024. I'm sure that means the station is cursed now or something. To add insult to injury, I did other shows at the end of the year too.

The Dickenbock Report celebrated the cello on International Cello Day. Not with pieces written for the cello, but with songs about the cello. Still wanna listen? Really? You can do so at the XRAY website or at the Self Help Radio website. Remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

Self Help Radio continued the neverending Indiepop A To Z series. Episode 76. Still near the beginning of the letter S. You can listen to that show at the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website. Remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

Speaking of not finishing something, I spent the month on the show Corporate Standardized Programming paying tribute to artists we lost in 2024. I made it to the middle of October. That show is appended to the Self Help Radio recording on the KBOO website, but if you'd like to hear it as a self-contained show, you can do that at the Self Help Radio website. Remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

Finally - I played music I like to dance two on the last two hours of 2024 on KBOO. The file is currently on the KBOO website - the link is right here - but since it's not the regularly scheduled show, I suspect the programmers will delete that soon enough. But if you'd like to have a New Year's Eve dance party any time of the year, you can of course listen at the Self Help Radio website. & remember: username SHR + password selfhelp.

That's how 2024 ended! I don't imagine 2025 will be any better & in fact I think it will be much, much worse but let's keep having fun on the radio, okay?

End-Of-The-Year Accounting

(original image here)

This is a boring & self-serving blog entry so feel free to stop reading right here. I actually took the time this year to keep track of all the radio I did. I'm not 100% sure it's completely accurate but it's as close as I can get. Off by a show here or an hour there probably. This is the grand total of radio I did in 2024:

193 radio shows. 98 of them live in the studio, 95 of them recorded, for a total of 295.5 hours.
(That's like 12 days of radio!)

Currently I have three shows - which I had at the beginning of the year, too, though on different stations & at least one in a different format. I ended the year with two shows in a three-hour block so perhaps they should be counted as the same show. I am not doing that tho!

This year there were:

53 episodes of Self Help Radio

52 episodes of The Dickenbock Report

51 episodes of Corporate Standardized Programming

Two episodes of Self Help Radio were repeated - the show started 2024 on Freeform Portland & is now on KBOO, but twice this year I repeated a Freeform Portland episode on KBOO. As well, one of the episodes (the one on Election Day) wasn't really an episode of Self Help Radio - it was just me playing music because I was a little too worried about the election - & it turns out my fears were justified!

One episode of The Dickenbock Report was subbed by my friend Mark. I didn't count it toward my hours on the radio but I did count it as one of my radio shows, since he gave me the recorded airbreaks & the song list & I put the show together.

Both Self Help Radio & the Dickenbock Report are theme-based but I have (in case you didn't know) repeated old SHR themes for the Dickenbock Report. Having said that, I did explore on both shows 71 unique themes this year (including four shows that were tributes to a particular artist). In addition, for both Self Help Radio & the Dickenbock Report I did two shows each about a particular year (1988+1924 respectively). For Self Help Radio, I had four episodes of Howard Gently in honor of my dear friend Russell, three Indiepop A To Z episodes, an anniversary episode where I repeat a theme (for this year, 1971), the annual birthday episode for my wife, & my end-of-the-year favorites episode.

Below I'll list all the unique themes but there's one more stat that brings the number up to 193 - shows I subbed! I subbed 37 shows this year. Mostly on KBOO, but I did a couple of XRAY & I made a fundraiser show for Freeform Portland.

Okay. The last thing. The original themes I explored this year. I alphabetized them & I indicated which ones were for the Dickenbock Report by marking them with an asterisk (*). Here you go:

The Alphabet, Arrested, Badgers*, Barns*, Belgium*, Brooms
Can't Wait, Catastrophe, Cellos*, Chaos, Chefs*, Cocktails*, Corvettes*

Dandelions, Death Valley, Delirium, Drain, Eagles, Eiffel Tower*

Falling In Love (Valentine's Day show of the year), Fudge*, Guts

Helicopters, Hiking*, Hitchhiking, Hobos, Irish Things*

Kaleidoscopes, Kazoos*, Kiss & Make Up*

Lemonade*, Libraries*, Lucy*, Loneliness

Macaroni*, Magnets, Mangos, Miami*, Newspapers*, 1924*, 1988

One More, Oysters, Pandas, Paradise, Parasites, Providence, Purpose

Quiet*, Rotten, SOS*, Sandwiches*, Scarecrows (Halloween show of the year)

Shotgun, Small Town, Skirts*, Spirals, Squirrels*, A Steady Show, Suitcases

Sunglasses, Superheroes*, Sweaters*, Telescopes, Tired, Typewriters*

& Unicorns

The artists I paid tribute to this year were Ennio Morricone, Cole Porter, & Paul Simon (on their birthdays) & John Lennon (on the anniversary of his death).

You can listen if you want to any or all these shows over at the Self Help Radio website you know.

Is that it? I think so. It's the most radio I think I've ever done in a year & while it almost certainly wasn't all that good I had a good time doing it. Eventually someone will realize how ridiculous it is that I am allowed to do it & put a stop to it but until then... I'll keep having fun.