Saturday, October 25, 2025

Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: Frankenstein!

A four-panel comic. Panel one has a person yelling "Frankenstein!!" Panel two has two characters - one Victor Frankenstein, the other the monster - Victor says "He's talking to me!" The monster says, "If you're my father, then MY name is Frankenstein!" Panel three has the two of them screaming at each other. Victor yells, "You're no son of mine!!" The monster responds, "Screw you, Dad!!" Panel four has the person from the first panel, now revealed to be a barista at a coffee shop, holding up a drink & saying, "Will somebody take this damn frappucino?"
(found here)

Portland loves Halloween. Dick Dickenbock loves Halloween. Next Friday is Halloween. Tomorrow there will be a special report on Halloween. This year Dick Dickenbock wanted to explore one of his favorite monsters from his childhood - Frankenstein's monster!

That's tomorrow, Sunday, October 26, from noon to 1pm on XRAY FM, 107.1fm & xray dot fm. If we're lucky, we'll get to hear for four thousandth time Dick Dickenbock's Boris Karloff story. Yay,

Friday, October 24, 2025

This Week In Self Help: October 17 19 + 21

A photograph of the very large statue of a pigeon in New York City.
(statue by Iván Argote, image from here)

Another week, another radio. I know that doesn't make any sense but I do these recaps every week & I feel like I should say something new instead of "here's another week of dumb radio I made." But - anyway.

Friday October 17 on The Songcircle on KBOO I played lots of new releases.
Listen at KBOO dot fm | Listen at Self Help Radio dot net

Sunday October 19 on The Dickenbock Report on XRAY I celebrated Marjorie Tallchief's birthday by playing songs about ballet.

Tuesday October 21 on Self Help Radio I made a radio show about pigeons.

Tuesday October 21 on Corporate Standardized Programming I played a lot of new releases.
Listen at KBOO dot fm (after Self Help Radio) | Listen at Self Help Radio dot net

At Self Help Radio dot net you might need the username SHR & password selfhelp to access.

Another week, another radio post. Okay, that makes more sense. Except all I post about is my radio shows!

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Self Help Radio 102125: Pigeons


A nice program about a nice bird that is generally unloved & misunderstood. Boo! to those who dislike the pigeon! They are stout & cute & make neat sounds & you know what? We domesticated them. They traveled along with us. They're our responsibility! So there! (Read more about that here.)

Anyway, enjoy all these songs about pigeons. Plus the silly interviews. The show can be listened to at the KBOO web page & at the Self Help Radio web page. For the latter, remember the username SHR & password selfhelp. Everything that happened on the show is below.

A group of pigeons is of course a flock. A group of pigeon songs is this week's show!

Self Help Radio Pigeon Show
"It Ain't No Fun To Be A Pigeon" Homer & Jethro _There's Nothing Like An Old Hippie_
"My Pigeon's Gone" Charles Calhoun _The R&B Years 1956, Vol. 1_
"Little Pigeon" Chuck Sims _That'll Flat Git It! Vol. 9: Rockabilly From The Vaults Of Decca Records_
"Homin' Pigeon" The Rhythmettes _Doo-Wop Delights, Vol. 6_

introduction & definitions

"Carrier Pigeon" The Kingston Trio _Sold Out_
"Pigeon In The Park" The Gaslight Singers _The Gaslight Singers_
"Poisoning Pigeons In The Park" Tom Lehrer _The Remains Of Tom Lehrer_
"Les Deux Pigeons" Charles Aznavour _Qui ?_
"Mi Palomita" Yma Sumac _Fuego Del Ande_

interview with Chad Mapplethorpe of Pigeon Friends

"Pigeons" Laurie Styvers _Gemini Girl: The Complete Hush Recordings_
"Passenger Pigeons" Handsome Family _Twilight_
"Eight Clay Pigeons" Ella Jenkins _Counting Games & Rhythms For The Little Ones_
"Pigeon" Cannibal Ox _The Cold Vein_
"Pigeonometry" Aesop Rock _Integrated Tech Solutions_

interview with poetry teacher Rod Farmer

"Stool Pigeon" Vic Godard & Subway Sect _What's The Matter Boy?_
"The Pigeon" Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts _Manhattan_
"Pigeon Named Crow" Nicki Jaine _Live_
"Pigeons" National Lampoon _Radio Dinner_
"Pigeons" Bill Callahan _Pigeons_

a conversation with two pigeons

"Clay Pigeons" John Prine _Fair & Square_
"Pigeons" Weird Al Yankovic & Wendy Carlos _Peter & The Wolf/Carnival Of The Animals - Part II_
"Pigeons" The Hundred In The Hands _The Hundred In The Hands_
"Inner City Pigeon" Marching Church _Telling It Like It Is_
"Carrier Pigeon" Surfer Blood _Snowdonia_

conclusion & goodbyean angry caller calls in
then conclusion & goodbye

"Stop That Pigeon" Reverend Horton Heat _Saturday Morning (Cartoons' Greatest Hits)_
"Pigeon In Your Tongue" The Mommyheads _Coming Into Beauty_
"Pigeon" Cloth _Secret Measure_

Monday, October 20, 2025

Whither Pigeons?

A pigeon on a ledge.

It's always a lot of fun to a radio show about an animal. I feel like I could do it every week but for some reason I don't do it that often - the last animal I did a Self Help Radio episode about was the snail! That was back in March. I was feeling it was perhaps time for another show about an animal.

(Gosh I don't even wanna check back to see how long it's been since I've done an episode about a bird!)

During the summer I began to be regularly approached by bold crows to beg for dog treats from me. One of them seemed quite grizzled & was braving some kids playing soccer so when he returned a few times I started calling him David Peckham. David disappeared over time but many different crows now swoop past & land next to me & wait for me to crumble something to toss to them. (The dogs are usually led away by my wife or they will lunge for the treats - & scare the birds.)

Reflecting on this, I thought, you know, I should do a show about crows. Sadly, I have already done one - way back in 2016. I was lamenting this on a dog walk - not through the park but in a neighborhood - & my wife pointed to some pigeons gathered on some wires & said, "Why not do a show about pigeons?"

That was the inspiration for this program - a show about pigeons inspired by crows.

We'll fly the coop tonight on KBOO from midnight to 2am. That's 90.7fm in town, & kboo dot fm everywhere. Dang it, I don't have a pigeon pun to end this - but I had a lot to crow about.

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Preface To Pigeons: The Mystery Of The Disappering Radio Show

Picnickers attacked by lots of pigeons
(I'm sorry, I don't remember where I found this)

As I get older, as I do more radio shows, it becomes far more likely I'll make a mistake & repeat a show. I try to make sure that doesn't happen but there's always the danger it will. This weekend as I was gathering songs for the upcoming pigeon show, I found a folder created in 2022 which was labelled "pigeons" & which had dozens of songs in it. I kinda panicked. Did I already do a pigeon show? If so, why wasn't it on my list of shows?

Of course I was grateful - I had done a lot of the work for the show three years ago! But I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell had happened. I do a lot of shows. I can't possibly remember all of them.

Luckily I keep a sort of journal & the files had all been gathered at a particular date. In 2022, closest to the date on the folder, was a Thursday - which was when I did The Dickenbock Report on Freeform Portland, I believe. The station was still closed, I was still recording the show the night before at home. I cannot for the life of me find any pigeon-related holidays or national days but apparently there was a reason for a show about pigeons on September 1, 2022.

But why didn't it happen? Because I went to see a show that night with my wife. & I wrote in my little journal that I was too tired to record & just didn't have enough time. But I did write, I might do a pigeon show one day though.

& that day will be tomorrow night! But what made me think of doing a pigeon show over three years later? I'll try to answer that tomorrow.