Saturday, January 24, 2026
Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: Nellie Bly Around The World
On January 25, 1890 - almost 136 years go - journalist Nellie Bly complete her journey around the world - in just over 72 days! For this anniversary, The Dickenbock Report will talk about that impressive feat & listen to music about all things "around the world."
That's tomorrow - Sunday - from noon to 1pm on XRAY FM - 91.1+107.1fm in Portland, xray dot fm everywhere. All around the world!
Friday, January 23, 2026
This Week In Self Help: January 16 18 + 20
(image found here)
Yeah that Time Magazine cover is weird isn't it. I lived through George HW Bush's presidency & could not care any fucking less about him so I am not nor will ever be curious enough to find out why he was Time's "Men Of The Year" - the truth is, he was about the least "manly" President this country has ever had, although the baby currently in the White House comes very close. I only picked the image because he was the 1990 "Men Of The Year" & 1990 played a role in this week's radio stuff I did.
A week ago - Friday January 16th - I was on The Songcircle on KBOO. I played lots of new releases. You can listen to that show on the KBOO website or on the Self Help Radio website.
Sunday January 18th on The Dickenbock Report on XRAY I played songs about x-rays because of some anniversary involving x-rays. It was just an excuse to play songs about x-rays on a station called XRAY. You can listen to that show on the XRAY website or on the Self Help Radio website.
Monday January 20th on Self Help Radio on KBOO I played lots of my favorite music from 1990. You can listen to that show on the KBOO website or on the Self Help Radio website.
Also Monday January 20th on Corporate Standardized Programming on KBOO I played lots more new releases. You can listen to that show on the KBOO website (after Self Help Radio) or on the Self Help Radio website.
Remember! Username SHR password selfhelp! It may come in handy!
Seriously though, I hope that cover upset HW Bush. He was such a dumb douchenozzle.
Remember! Username SHR password selfhelp! It may come in handy!
Seriously though, I hope that cover upset HW Bush. He was such a dumb douchenozzle.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Self Help Radio 012026: 1990
(images found at Discogs)
The time in that book when Proust ate a cookie & it made him remember his life? If that book were about me, it would be me hearing a song & its associations carrying me into the past. I have memories related to so many of the releases I played on this show. I guess the songs themselves become memories. & maybe they become over time as untrustworthy as memories.
Anyway. Here's this week's show, my birthday show, my favorite music from 1990. Some of it, anyway. There was way too much. You might know a little more about me knowing these are things I love. More than likely though if we both like them, we'll know we might have more in common.
You can listen to the show at the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website. At the latter, you may need a username+password to access. Try SHR + selfhelp. Everything I played on the show is listed below. Everything I said on the show, well, you have to listen for that.
Today I start year 58!
Self Help Radio 1990 Show
"Spoken Word" Ed's Redeeming Qualities _More Bad Times_
"Down To The Well" Pixies _Bossanova_
"Oh!" The Breeders _Pod_
"Diane (Excerpt)" Kyle MacLachlan _"Diane..." The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper_1990 cassette)
"Morality Is Vanity" Momus _Monsters Of Love: Singles 1985-90_
"The Weeping Song" Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _The Good Son_
"November Spawned A Monster" Morrissey _November Spawned A Monster_
"Never Enough" The Cure _Never Enough_
"My Finest Hour" The Sundays _Reading, Writing, & Arithmetic_
"Crawl" The Wedding Present _3 Songs_
"Do You Have To Break My Heart" The Darling Buds _Crawdaddy_
"Don't Ask Why" My Bloody Valentine _Glider_
"I Fell In Love Last Night" Heavenly _I Fell In Love Last Night_
"Forever Changed" Lou Reed & John Cale _Songs For Drella_
"One Word" Brian Eno & John Cale _Wrong Way Up_
"Telephone Thing" The Fall _Extricate_
"Out Of My Mind On Dope & Speed" Julian Cope _Skellington_
"Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" The Siddeleys _Alvin Lives (In Leeds): Anti Poll Tax Trax_
"No Blue Skies" Lloyd Cole _Lloyd Cole_
"Baby Stones" Robert Forster _Danger In The Past_
"Beatles & The Stones" The House Of Love _The House Of Love_
"Fifty-Fifty Clown" Cocteau Twins _Heaven Or Las Vegas_
"Miss Otis Regrets/Just One Of Those Things" Kirsty MacColl & The Pogues _Red Hot + Blue_
"Sweet Jane" The Blue Aeroplanes _World View Blue_
"De-Luxe" Lush _Mad Love EP_
"She's On Drugs" The Jazz Butcher _Cult Of The Basement_
Monday, January 19, 2026
Whither 1990?
a self-portrait from 1990
On my birthdays I play my favorite music from a year in my life. On the first episode of Self Help Radio that aired around the time of my birthday, I played music from the year I was born, 1968. That was in 2003. I have made it up to 1990.
Like last year, I have found so much music from that year that I love. I will undoubtedly fill up some other shows on KBOO's schedule late at night playing that leftover music. For tonight's show, I am playing music I loved in 1990 as it happened - mostly. There are a few artists that became important to me later whose work of that year means a great deal to me now. But the vast majority of the music I'll play tonight you would have found me listening to in 1990, when I was a mere 22 years old.
Music has always been important to me. It's how I process my feelings. It connects me to more memories than anything - except maybe trauma. It has been & remains my salvation. Since I was in a relationship in 1990 (albeit a one-sided one), that was the first time in my life that music took a back seat in my head & my heart. I didn't have ready access to my music either, for reasons I explained yesterday. & my "girlfriend" didn't like some of the music I liked, & was unhappy if I played it around her - so of course I didn't play it around her.
It's not that I'm saying I didn't need music in the same way as I had previously - I just didn't think I needed music in the same way as I had previously. It's a mistake that perhaps many people make. When that relationship came to its inevitable tragic end, music was there for me. In many ways, it was all I had. But that wouldn't happen until the end of 1991, so we'll save that for next year.
Please enjoy a selection of music that I truly, madly, deeply love which was released in 1990. That's tonight, midnight to 2am, on KBOO - 90.7 fm here in Portland, kboo dot fm everywhere.
& by the way, this is only the third time I've had one of these birthday shows on my actual birthday!
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Preface To 1990: My Twenty-Second Year
what I looked like in 1990
On January 20, 1990, I turned 22 years old. I should have been right about to graduate college*, but because of various things - some of which I detailed on this blog around this time last year - I had decided to take a semester off. I had gotten a twenty-hour-a-week gig at a department at the University of Texas called originally the Language Lab, but now called Liberal Arts Media Center** & would also work, when school was on, in the actual Language Lab nineteen hours a week. It was enough to live on, & I needed a rest from the hellish last six months of 1989. Again, detailed in the post linked above.
At the time, it seemed to me I had a good relationship with a woman who, time would tell, didn't really love me & perhaps never even liked me. But we spent all of our time together so codependence helped me delude myself & - importantly for the relationship - kept her around. We spent all our time together. Her parents had not allowed her to date me - though she was in college - so we weren't allowed to live together, though we basically did. I believe in the summer of 1990 she found a new place to live, & I found a room in a duplex. Since I don't want to repeat myself I'll just say I wrote about that in this blog post here. Since we lived together anyway, I gave up the rented room, & had to live for the next year & a half in a place where I couldn't keep much of my stuff & couldn't answer the phone. The things you do for one-sided love!
Thinking about that time now I note that I didn't have many friends & the people who were in my life then are either absent or peripheral to my life now. (It's really just five or six people.) I did my best to help my "girlfriend" with her schoolwork - I really would do anything for her - & I pretended that I would one day be a writer. I wrote lots of short stories, none of which were any good - & I knew that then. I didn't take any creative writing classes & I never showed them to anyone because I knew they weren't any good. I myself didn't like them.
Hunh. I don't think I've ever admitted that to myself before. I myself didn't like the things I wrote. Maybe I kept writing because I wanted to somehow prove to myself it wasn't true. You might ask when did I stop writing, & I answer is, radio. I stopped wanting to be a writer when I could be somewhat creative on the radio. But - should I have said "spoiler alert" earlier? - but spoiler alert again, that wouldn't happen for four more years.
As for my memories of other parts of my life - I'm sure I talked to my mother from time-to-time. I definitely visited my hometown of Garland once or twice a year - probably on holidays. My mother had worked at a convenience store owned by a man who I guess was her boyfriend but when they sold the store, they sort of broke up - it's a long story & if I haven't told it here, I may one day. She moved into a little one-bedroom apartment - where she would live for tweny-five years - & got a job doing food prep at a Jack In The Box. When I came home, she gave me frozen jalapeño poppers she'd stolen from the fast food place. I saw my siblings around this time but we weren't close. I often didn't have money so didn't get them presents for Christmas & usually didn't want the presents they gave me. That I have no memories of Garland or my family from that year suggests that I didn't think much of them.
Sometime a while back I was looking at some lists of bands who visited Austin in the early 90s & I was amazed how much I had missed. Much of this had to do with money & some of it had to do with my "girlfriend," who could be very unpleasant about seeing shows with bands/musicians she didn't like. I was very excited to see Lloyd Cole, for example, at this lovely venue called Liberty Lunch which doesn't exist today, but when we got there, she decided she didn't like the music. "Why would you bring me to this place?" she asked me, & made us leave***. In any event, I don't think I saw a lot of bands that year.
As to my relationship with music in 1990, it was still deeply important to me, but somewhat sidelined by my relationship, which took up a lot of my energy & attention. I'll have some thoughts about that tomorrow. I did return to school for the fall semester 1990, but have very little memory of my schooling then.
What I can say is, that if you had met me that year, it would have seemed like I was in a good & stable relationship & was somewhat happy. I'm not good at happy, but I was in love & I was willing to do anything for the one I loved. I was the same with friends. I was helpful because I loved to help. But holy shit looking back now I can't believe I was ever so young. I was so young & I had read so much & learned so much & heard so much music & yet was so very fucking dumb.
Seriously, I am amazed I didn't just fall down a hole & somehow die of a stubbed toe or something.
* You know what I missed by not graduating with my 1990 class? George HW Bush gave the commencement speech. Maybe that's when my life started to go wrong.
At the time, it seemed to me I had a good relationship with a woman who, time would tell, didn't really love me & perhaps never even liked me. But we spent all of our time together so codependence helped me delude myself & - importantly for the relationship - kept her around. We spent all our time together. Her parents had not allowed her to date me - though she was in college - so we weren't allowed to live together, though we basically did. I believe in the summer of 1990 she found a new place to live, & I found a room in a duplex. Since I don't want to repeat myself I'll just say I wrote about that in this blog post here. Since we lived together anyway, I gave up the rented room, & had to live for the next year & a half in a place where I couldn't keep much of my stuff & couldn't answer the phone. The things you do for one-sided love!
Thinking about that time now I note that I didn't have many friends & the people who were in my life then are either absent or peripheral to my life now. (It's really just five or six people.) I did my best to help my "girlfriend" with her schoolwork - I really would do anything for her - & I pretended that I would one day be a writer. I wrote lots of short stories, none of which were any good - & I knew that then. I didn't take any creative writing classes & I never showed them to anyone because I knew they weren't any good. I myself didn't like them.
Hunh. I don't think I've ever admitted that to myself before. I myself didn't like the things I wrote. Maybe I kept writing because I wanted to somehow prove to myself it wasn't true. You might ask when did I stop writing, & I answer is, radio. I stopped wanting to be a writer when I could be somewhat creative on the radio. But - should I have said "spoiler alert" earlier? - but spoiler alert again, that wouldn't happen for four more years.
As for my memories of other parts of my life - I'm sure I talked to my mother from time-to-time. I definitely visited my hometown of Garland once or twice a year - probably on holidays. My mother had worked at a convenience store owned by a man who I guess was her boyfriend but when they sold the store, they sort of broke up - it's a long story & if I haven't told it here, I may one day. She moved into a little one-bedroom apartment - where she would live for tweny-five years - & got a job doing food prep at a Jack In The Box. When I came home, she gave me frozen jalapeño poppers she'd stolen from the fast food place. I saw my siblings around this time but we weren't close. I often didn't have money so didn't get them presents for Christmas & usually didn't want the presents they gave me. That I have no memories of Garland or my family from that year suggests that I didn't think much of them.
Sometime a while back I was looking at some lists of bands who visited Austin in the early 90s & I was amazed how much I had missed. Much of this had to do with money & some of it had to do with my "girlfriend," who could be very unpleasant about seeing shows with bands/musicians she didn't like. I was very excited to see Lloyd Cole, for example, at this lovely venue called Liberty Lunch which doesn't exist today, but when we got there, she decided she didn't like the music. "Why would you bring me to this place?" she asked me, & made us leave***. In any event, I don't think I saw a lot of bands that year.
As to my relationship with music in 1990, it was still deeply important to me, but somewhat sidelined by my relationship, which took up a lot of my energy & attention. I'll have some thoughts about that tomorrow. I did return to school for the fall semester 1990, but have very little memory of my schooling then.
What I can say is, that if you had met me that year, it would have seemed like I was in a good & stable relationship & was somewhat happy. I'm not good at happy, but I was in love & I was willing to do anything for the one I loved. I was the same with friends. I was helpful because I loved to help. But holy shit looking back now I can't believe I was ever so young. I was so young & I had read so much & learned so much & heard so much music & yet was so very fucking dumb.
Seriously, I am amazed I didn't just fall down a hole & somehow die of a stubbed toe or something.
* You know what I missed by not graduating with my 1990 class? George HW Bush gave the commencement speech. Maybe that's when my life started to go wrong.
** When joking about this name with my co-workers, I admitted I was sad they hadn't decided on the Center for Liberal Arts Media, so we could call the place The CLAM. As it was, they pronounced the acronym "lam-see."
*** I can't find the date for this show on any website but I did discover he returned in 1995 & for some strange reason I didn't see him then. I wonder what stopped me that time?
*** I can't find the date for this show on any website but I did discover he returned in 1995 & for some strange reason I didn't see him then. I wonder what stopped me that time?