Saturday, July 04, 2026
Coming Up Tomorrow On The Dickenbock Report: National Bikini Day
While America celebrates a conflicted birthday, the Dickenbock Report staff worry that their pale, flabby, unsightly bodies - because sometimes it's hard to keep oneself toned while reporting the news - will be completely unprepared for the Report on July 5, which is National Bikini Day. July 5 is the anniversary of the "invention" of the bikini, so we will report on that particular bikini, & not the atoll pictured above, which got to experience a couple of nuclear explosions.
That's Sunday, June 5, from 11am to 1pm, on XRAY - 91.1+107.1fm in town, xray dot fm everywhere.
Friday, July 03, 2026
This Week In Self Help June 28 & 30 + July 2
In 2017, I took advantage of a - I don't know what you'd call it - a program? - something that they had at my first station, KVRX, in Austin, wherein they allowed alumni to come during the interim periods - usually the winter break - & deejay there. I was in Fort Worth at the time, & so I schlepped down to Austin & played on the radio for like three hours. Anyway, I found this book the kids had left out to write stuff in & discovered this wondrously sweet thing someone had written in a moment of pure vulnerability - "how do I make friends?" - & it was so much the reason so many of the people I knew at college radio came to college radio. I took a picture of it.
No idea why that came into my head. Here's this week for you.
Sunday June 28. The Dickenbock Report XRAY FM. Queen Victoria stuff. Listen here.
Tuesday June 30. Self Help Radio KBOO FM. Howard Gently Forever & Ever. Listen here. Or listen here.
Tuesday June 30. Corporate Standardized Programming KBOO FM. Music by artists we lost in early 2026. Listen here (after Self Help Radio). Or listen here.
Thursday July 2. Subbing a show on KBOO. Playing lots of new releases. Listen here.
(Still don't know how to make friends, of course.)
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Self Help Radio 063026: Howard Gently Forever & Ever
Oh man, my friend Russell would have been tickled by the Howard Gently Tarot Card I made for this blog post. Despite how shabbily & slapdash it is. He's been gone now for three years & I visit with the work he did for my show every three months & it has been such a kindness. That he did this for me & my dumb radio show. I am sad he's gone but feel so fortunate I knew him.
All right, I won't get maudlin. I'll just tell you the show features bits improvised with Russell as the Rev Dr Howard Gently paired with a song from the original show. You can listen to it now & anytime at both the KBOO website & the Self Help Radio website.
List of the happenings on the show is below. Please enjoy.
All right, I won't get maudlin. I'll just tell you the show features bits improvised with Russell as the Rev Dr Howard Gently paired with a song from the original show. You can listen to it now & anytime at both the KBOO website & the Self Help Radio website.
List of the happenings on the show is below. Please enjoy.
Self Help Radio Howard Gently Forever & Ever Show
"Six Seconds In Dallas" Russell Miles _Six Seconds In Dallas_
"I Advance Masked" Andy Summers & Robert Fripp _I Advance Masked_
Howard Gently on the theme "Masks"
"Basement Kiss (Live)" Elvis Costello & The Attractions _The Other End Of The Telescope_
Howard Gently on the theme "Basements"
"Dragonhead" Throwing Muses _Hunkpapa_
Howard Gently on the theme "Dragons"
"How I (Learned My Lesson)" X _Under The Big Black Sun_
Howard Gently on the theme "Lessons"
"1000 Stars" Big Country _The Crossing_
Howard Gently on the theme "1000"
"Working Class Hero" John Lennon _Plastic Ono Band_
Howard Gently on the theme "Heroes"
"This Flight Tonight" Joni Mitchell _Blue_
Howard Gently on the theme "Flight"
"Zebra" Ken Nordine _Wink: Ken Nordine Does Robert Shure_
Howard Gently on the theme "Zebras"
"Fiction" The Lucksmiths _Warmer Corners_
Howard Gently on the theme "Fiction"
"Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" Leonard Cohen _Songs From A Room_
Howard Gently on the theme "Nancys"
"Joe The Lion" David Bowie _"Heroes"_
Howard Gently on the theme "Lions/Anniversary Show"
"The Attack Of The Giant Ants" Blondie _Blondie_
Howard Gently on the theme "Halloween 2020"
Monday, June 29, 2026
Whither Howard Gently Forever & Ever?
That photo up there is the original photo we had of Howard Gently, the character my friend Russell portrayed for about eight years on Self Help Radio. I have no idea where it came from. Whether I found it or he did. A reverse-image-search yields only the result "a man in a bow tie from the early 20th century." The original original picture did not have Gently's mustache or his pince-nez glasses - I remember adding those. The picture is dated June 13, 2014, about two months after Russell started appearing on Self Help Radio. I think he wanted a visual of the good doctor.
It is that time again where I honor my old friend by playing his appearances on the show. We have arrived to six years ago - June on 2020, with the pandemic raging. The show at the time was airing on Freeform Portland, so KBOO listeners haven't heard these bits yet - I'm sure they weren't listening to FFP then! As always, I'm in awe of Russell's cleverness & immersion in the role. Gently is a bit of a self-important shitheel & that's what makes him funny.
It's all happening tonight, midnight to 2am, on 90.7fm in Portland, online everywhere at kboo dot fm.
Sunday, June 28, 2026
Preface To Howard Gently Forever & Ever: Last Chance To Evolve Beyond Human
This is me wondering if I have told this story here before. It is a story about my friend Russell, a person I knew for decades, & a person with whom I lived for maybe two years. He didn't like living with me, & moved out after a time. I decided to stay in the duplex we had shared, having a few more roommates until I lived there alone for my last year. During that entire time, inspired by the shenanigans of Joe Orton in the film Prick Up Your Ears, I starting pasting stuff all over one wall & had it mostly filled (I left the bottom three feet clear because my cat had a habit of tearing things I put there off) before I left the place after five years.
When I wrote a few years back on this blog about this place, I mentioned that wall. In this post you can see a composite of what the finished product looked like.
The memory I'm going to relate - about me & my friend Russell - might not be related to that wall but I could swear it is. I loved to find stuff on the street & stick it on that wall. One day I found a flyer that read "Last Chance To Evolve Beyond Human." (Yes, this was the inspiration for the bit on last week's show.) Russell & I loved weird stuff like that & we decided to attend the lecture or whatever that was coming up.
It was at the Hilton across the river, across Congress from the Austin American-Statesman building. I seem to remember it being a warm evening in autumn. Russell had a car, so he drove us. We found a place to park & we wandered into the hotel, the flyer in hand, looking for the room where the lecture was.
We found the room among the suite of rooms that had been separated by baffles/fake walls, only there was some professional meeting going on in there. We were a little confused, but as we turned, two young men dressed quite preppily approached us & asked if we were interested in the thing we came to see. We said yes, & they explained that they had lost their reservation, but would be meeting again in another place in a couple of days. This other place was not in Austin, but rather in Pflugerville (which at the time was a smaller suburb which seemed a bit of a ways away), & it was a private residence. We took the information & went home, agreeing we were probably not going to drive forty-five minutes to someone else's house at night to be amused by what might have been a cult.
Spoiler alert! It was a cult. Here, from a very old website, is the text of the flyer.
Yes, the folks were from Heaven's Gate. Just two or three years later those preppy boys we met in a hotel in Austin would be dead. Or in a comet. Or both?
What the hell does that have to do with my vandalizing a rental property thirty years ago? I could swear I pasted that Last Chance To Evolve Beyond Human flyer on my wall. I can see it in my mind's eye when I look at the wall. But! I can't find it now. Can you?
At least it gave me this memory of my dear friend Russell, now three years gone. We were goofs but not goofy enough to fall for the Heaven's Gate stuff!
When I wrote a few years back on this blog about this place, I mentioned that wall. In this post you can see a composite of what the finished product looked like.
The memory I'm going to relate - about me & my friend Russell - might not be related to that wall but I could swear it is. I loved to find stuff on the street & stick it on that wall. One day I found a flyer that read "Last Chance To Evolve Beyond Human." (Yes, this was the inspiration for the bit on last week's show.) Russell & I loved weird stuff like that & we decided to attend the lecture or whatever that was coming up.
It was at the Hilton across the river, across Congress from the Austin American-Statesman building. I seem to remember it being a warm evening in autumn. Russell had a car, so he drove us. We found a place to park & we wandered into the hotel, the flyer in hand, looking for the room where the lecture was.
We found the room among the suite of rooms that had been separated by baffles/fake walls, only there was some professional meeting going on in there. We were a little confused, but as we turned, two young men dressed quite preppily approached us & asked if we were interested in the thing we came to see. We said yes, & they explained that they had lost their reservation, but would be meeting again in another place in a couple of days. This other place was not in Austin, but rather in Pflugerville (which at the time was a smaller suburb which seemed a bit of a ways away), & it was a private residence. We took the information & went home, agreeing we were probably not going to drive forty-five minutes to someone else's house at night to be amused by what might have been a cult.
Spoiler alert! It was a cult. Here, from a very old website, is the text of the flyer.
Yes, the folks were from Heaven's Gate. Just two or three years later those preppy boys we met in a hotel in Austin would be dead. Or in a comet. Or both?
What the hell does that have to do with my vandalizing a rental property thirty years ago? I could swear I pasted that Last Chance To Evolve Beyond Human flyer on my wall. I can see it in my mind's eye when I look at the wall. But! I can't find it now. Can you?
At least it gave me this memory of my dear friend Russell, now three years gone. We were goofs but not goofy enough to fall for the Heaven's Gate stuff!