I Am Still Answering Your Letters!

It's Thursday - the day before my show - & so, I am answering your letters yet again. Please remember that I am an open sort of fellow who is never offended by free inquiry unless it's about my body, of which I am ashamed. So feel free to send me an email, & my address is slug at mail dot utexas dot edu.

Today's letter is from Tony, who writes me in all small letters:

i am not familiar with your show but i have a question for you. this is writing because of serious issues with the teaching of socalled science in the classroom. do you or have you ever think that it's good idea to tell lies to your children with the goverment money? if you have time to discuss this on your show i am available at the following times at the numbers below. i have spent many years researching this very issue of social import and would gladly discuss it on your show with you. thank you.

Tony will not be on my show tomorrow, alas, because his email does contain a hint of trouble, if not an entire spray can of trouble about to be opened upon the children of America like so much processed cheese spread.

Damn right, Tony, I have an issue with the teaching of socalled science in the classroom. My friend, I have a problem with the teaching of anything of the socalled variety, be it socalled math, socalled history, & especially socalled home economics, which (I have found) is neither economical nor homely.

Your concern heartens me, mainly because I see just the opposite of what you say each & every day - everyone is more concerned with that which is socalled, rather than that which is. We go to socalled work, we eat socalled lunch, we read the socalled newspaper, we make love to our socalled spouses (unless we're socalled gay, in which case we can't make love to our socalled spouses because it would destroy the institution of socalled marriage). It scares me, you know, that these things we do are socalled, but who exactly is calling them so? Is it me? Is it you?

Do write me back & we'll see about having you on the show. Or maybe we can just schedule you to be on socalled Self Help Radio, & at this point we'll have vanished into socalled irony & so be available for download on the socalled internet. There! That was easy! Thank you, Tony.

Keep those letters coming! I may even answer them!

Whither Trouble?

I have a friend, who's really not much of a friend, because this friend's kind of a critic, but not a critic in the good way, you know, nothing constructive, just a lot of sniping & grumbling, usually beginning with comments about how fat I sound on the air, & getting more personal & irrelevant as time goes by, but occasionally, when I am least expecting it, this friend'll say something that is mean & lowdown & cutting, but it turns out to be something quite apt. So this friend said to me, today, when asking me what my show's theme would be this week, & I answered, "Trouble," my friend said, "Aw, man, that's a gimme ain't it?"

What my friend meant, of course, was that it was an "easy" theme. There are bound to be millions of songs with the word "trouble" in the title, even if they don't mention trouble or talk about particular kinds of trouble. The Allmusic Guide lists 524 songs called "Trouble," & even if a lot of them are covers or repeated versions, that's surely at the most conservative fifty (50!) songs called "Trouble." There are hundreds of other songs with "trouble" in them, songs with names like "Boy Trouble," "Car Trouble," "Testicle Trouble" & "The Trouble With Tribbles." & this doesn't count songs about trouble in which "trouble" is not mentioned in the title.

My friend expected me to defend it with something like, "Au contraire, ass pirate, I picked this theme because of a particular meaning of the word 'trouble' as it applied to a recent experience of mine of great import, like quitting smoking or being beat up by the checkout person at the CVS pharmacy because I accidentally called it an Eckerd's." This friend, so used to my thin skin & my irritability to the typical lame-ass poking & prodding, expected me to bust out the etymology of the word or some alternate meaning that only I & a few other weenies who like that sort of thing would know. My friend wanted me to disagree on the more fundamental of levels, angrily, vehemently, an argument worthy of Plato or, if my friend were completely baked (as is usual), some second-generation Tarantino dialogue.

Instead, I agreed. What else could I say? I chose "trouble" as a theme precisely because it'd be simple to find songs to fit. I mean, my previous show was songs about staring. That was fucking hard. Sometimes I need a gimme. You know?

Of course, that meant that I did have to stumble through some five hours of music this weekend, & more still today. So it wasn't nearly as easy as I'd hoped, which turns out to always be the case with "easy" themes. A show about the sun will always have more songs than a show about Alpha Centauri, but you still have to listen to a million songs about the sun before you find the perfect ninety minutes.

Tune in Friday - I'll have ninety perfect minutes of trouble. It's not quite the gimme my friend thought it would be, but it'll be good nonetheless.

Preface To Trouble: I Didn't See Nothin' Officer

This week, Self Help Radio is in trouble. Or is it that trouble is on the radio? I am sitting here talking to one of the students who works for me about Henry David Thoreau, while I am writing this, so instead of writing stuff & nonsense, I think I'll try to write down some of my favorite Thoreau quotes. Like this one:

I love a broad margin to my life.

But having said that, Thoreau had his own fair share of trouble in his life. First of all, he was apparently an ugly cuss. As Nathanial Hawthorne noted:

He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior.

His brother, who was also a friends, died of tetanus when they were both young men. He also spent time in jail (famously). Some might say that these troubles helped him become a better person, but then you might start sounding like some kind of creepy spiritual person who believes that suffering increases one's character. Or, as Batman once said famously:

Hunger is good for the soul.

None of this, perhaps, has anything to do with trouble, nor with why I want to do a show about trouble. Perhaps I am attracted to the negative in this world, & perhaps I like to spook the superstitious with shows that they may see as lightning rods for unhappiness. Maybe one day I'll rate my show themes & find out if there are more "minuses" than "plusses." But tomorrow I'll tell you what troubled me so that I will make a show about trouble.

Meanwhile, you can go here to listen to last Friday's show.

Staring Haiku Wrap-Up

It was uncomfortable on Self Help Radio last Friday, seeing as everyone's eyes were on me. I just couldn't help feeling exposed & scrutinized. Luckily, others felt the same - & shared their haikus with us. Here are the winners.

FOURTH PLACE: David

Cable news networks
Bloated, ego-filled train wrecks
Can’t avert my eyes!

THIRD PLACE: Julie-Ann

Don’t stare at the sun!
It’ll burn your retinas!
Look at me instead!

SECOND PLACE; Simon

Though he can’t see me
Behind the two-way mirror
I still feel his gaze

FIRST PLACE: Phyllis

Listen, friend Blinky
You can watch me all you want
But you cannot touch

This week's show is all about trouble, & you might be in trouble if you don't write a haiku for the trouble show. So do it now.

It's Okay To Stare

Today's show (which begins in less than two hours - shit, I need to pick some stuff out) has been supplemented by wonderful musics created for Self Help Radio, or at least with Self Help Radio in mind. Or maybe with Self Help Radio as an afterthought. What are they?

There's a strangely non-danceable intro from Austin's own CJ Buchanan. Since Rick Perry's reelection, he's been busy teaching the governor how to use Instant Messenger to communicate with teenagers, but he's taking time out of his busy schedule to make an intro that will have you "Staring." (Ha! I've always wanted to do that. I don't know why. It's kinda awkward. It also doesn't make any sense. Maybe if I were talking about a movie? Who knows?)

Secondly, Dallas' own the Ramonalisas recruited also Dallas' own Rahim Quazi to make a song about staring called "I Went To The Store To Buy A Box Of Bread But Returned With A Volleyball Card Collection." Or maybe it's just called "Staring." It's quite lovely. Believe it.

Thirdly, the mysterious musical duo called the Licorice Whips weigh in with a sugary tune called "Voyeurism Is The New Tattoo." While it's probably too deep a thought for me (I still haven't figured out what those posters with the cute cat attached to a branch with the big letters "HANG IN THERE!" above it means), it sure is a wonderful song.

So there are three unique reasons to listen to Self Help Radio today at 4:30 on KOOP, online at koop.org. That's too much, you don't really deserve more. But if you want more...

Well, there will be haikus. I'll talk about the "male gaze." I'll also continue with the new feature I started last week at a listener's request, the Self Help Radio Self Help Minute. Finally! One minute of self help during Self Help Radio.

Tune in! You won't be sorry!

I Continue To Answer Your Letters!

It's Thursday, so it's time to see what you, dear listener, have to ask me. This email came only moments ago, from Barney. He writes:

Dear Dude,
You were on the Elk Show today and you talked alot about some benefit this weekend. I looked all over and couldnt find nothing about it. Whats the skinny?

It may seem awful strange for me to get an email which is so amazingly timed to a KOOP benefit at which I am deejaying, but I am told that that sort of serendipity happens all the time in the blogworld. Who knew?

Yes, there is a benefit this Saturday, the 1st Annual KOOP East Austin Rock Marathon, which is happening from 4pm till 1am at a cozy little space called Red's Scoot Inn, which is located at 1308 East 4th Street, at the corner of 4th & Navasota. In addition to me spinning some tunes in-between the bands, there are bands playing in-between me spinning tunes. Those bands are:

Moonlight Towers
Andrew Duplantis & The Unfaithfuls
Slowtrain
Summer Wardrobe
The Nay Says
iKill CaRS
Youngmond Grand
Crawling With Kings

There is information at koop.org, but the interesting thing is it says this about me:

Plus KOOP's own Self Help Gary selecting tunes to a "theme," between sets.

I'm sure the only theme will be to keep you entertained between sets. Although do not rule out songs about me needing a cigarette. I've written over a dozen of them since I quit smoking nine days ago. & they all rule!

The benefit should have something for everyone, so please come out. It's for a good cause. & thank you, Barney, for your timely email!

Whither Staring?

I am not good with eye contact. I don't make it, is what I mean. I generally avoid looking in people's eyes, for whatever reason. In fact, one of the benefits (of which there are many) of delicious alcohol & its delicious effect on a person is that, when quite deep in the cups, it's very easy to maintain eye contact, because if you let your eyes wander, the room may start spinning. I can easily hold someone's eyes in mine when I am way too drunk to dare look away.

Which begs the question: why a show about staring?

I think first we must recognize that a lot of staring takes place far from the object of the stare, whether across a crowded room (or club, or bar), or across the street, or from behind a curtain (or peephole, or tinted windshield), or through binoculars, or a two-way mirror, or simply in a crowd. & the object of the stare need not be another human - it could be the wall, the sun, the ground - or parts of yourself (your hands) or your entire self, if you're staring at a mirror. & the stare need not be sustained for some length of time before it become a stare. A stare is a stare. Even if it's a glance or a look. Even if it's a glazed marathon of a stare. A stare is a look is a peek is a gaze.

We're always staring, whether it's at a computer we're writing on, or a passive television that's telling us how the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives. I find I can't help but stare at people who are walking or biking or running past my house. I also find that I am more than likely to return a stare if I catch someone staring at me on the bus. I'll also return a smile, & look away, if they smile at me.

"Stare" is a fun word, & it's safe to say that not all the songs I'll play Friday will mention that word, but will mention some aspect of staring, be it looking, watching, peeping, ogling, gazing, etc. According to the OED, it's a totally German word that infiltrated the English language early on, & of course I now have the image of drunk German people staring me down during Oktoberfest. Speaking of, we have a weird game associated with staring, don't we? A "staring contest" is a kind of psychic war of wills wherein the first person to blink their eyes loses.

A show about staring I hope will celebrate this solitary practice which we all partake in in some manner or other, sometimes naughtily, sometimes innocently. It's something we do with only the voice in our heads to keep us company, because the spell is nearly always broken with questions like "What're you looking at?" & comments like "Stop staring at me!" Think of that while you're listening to the show - a stare is a personal thing, & very rarely is the stare in any way explicable outside of the one whose eyes are doing the work.

This Friday, you'll want to stare all afternoon long at Self Help Radio.

Preface to Staring: What?

I find this amusing. I didn't write a preface to staring today because I've been staring at the election results all night.

Also, it's officially a week since I quit smoking. Never quit smoking during an election. That's my advice to you.

Not that I've buckled - it's just been hard.

Tomorrow: why a show about staring?

Party Haiku Wrap-Up

My apprentice Erin's most excellent "Party" show is available now for listening in a podcast-sized mp3 file or two over on the Self Help Radio homepage. It's especially fun because I have a party horn. I like to blow the party horn.

Erin also solicited for haikus for the show, & so, here are her haikus she solicited:

FOURTH PLACE: Mishaal

The keg is floated
and we're all out of whippets
so let's get naked

THIRD PLACE: Leslie

Good wine and hookahs
unabashed hedonism
now that's a party

SECOND PLACE: Kevin

Top-notch party
Morning dew covers the stranger
Naked on the front lawn

(Please note: this haiku is NOT in the standard style. It therefore shouldn't have won second place. I have filed a protest with the International Committee for Haiku Regulation. Erin will be hearing from my lawyer!)

FIRST PLACE: Wendy

and then he took me
kisses in a dark hallway
our private party

Congrats to all the winners, including the sneaky one. This week's theme is "staring." Stare at this page until you feel compelled to write a haiku.

Self Help Radio Today! Parties!

Today on Self Help Radio:

* Self-satisfied radio personality "Self Help" Gary cedes content control to his apprentice, "Erin" (last name unknown). Rumors about the transfer of control abound, not the least of which is that Gary has apparently "quit smoking" & "needs a little time to freak out."

* Erin's choice of show theme: "parties." Discussion on the street is that Erin's been to every "it" party that's been hosted this season. Many famous political figures & local celebrities are afraid Erin was at a particular party wherein a playful partygoer took a lot of pictures with her cell phone. Governor Rick Perry, a regular attendee of "it" parties, has particularly been waiting for incriminating photos to come out before Tuesday's election (if they don't, he won't have to come out before Tuesday's election). Does Erin have these photos? Will she reveal secrets on today's show?

* For the seven-hundred-&-fourth show in a row, haikus will be read. Nearly two thousand Austinites per decade enter the famous Self Help Radio haiku contest & this Friday's show is no different. In that, there's a contest, & haikus. The Self Help Radio web site has a page about the haiku contest, if you care. No link, though. Find it yourself.

* Surprises? Would it be a surprise if you knew there'd be surprises? Or are you so jaded that expecting a surprise would only make you feel there's no surprise, so a surprise would truly surprise you? If so, I'm surprised you feel that way. If not, well, no surprise there. But it could be surprising if there were a surprise today on Self Help Radio & you in turn felt truly surprised. So if there's a surprise, I'm not telling. It would spoil the surprise.

Self Help Radio, 4:30 to 6:00 pm today on 91.7 fm KOOP Austin. Theme: parties. Live online at KOOP.org.

I Answer Your Letters - Again!

Ah yes, it's Thursday, so it's time once again to dip into the Self Help Radio eMailbag & look what you, the devoted listener - or you, the misguided stalker - or you, the person to whom I owe money - have written to me, the minor programmer at the small though amazing community radio station.

This letter comes from Maureen, who says she lives "a block or two over." But from whom? From everyone? Maureen is a transdimensional freak! She writes:

Gary,
As someone who's watched your career on radio since you went on that student station back in the 90's, I have to laugh when you mention you have a girlfriend. First I've seen you. Second who'd want to be your girlfriend. Third it's not nice to lie, altho you lie all the time and are proud of it. Forth I think it's time you told the truth about your sexuality and your lies.

Wow, that's an intense email. Maureen, since you live close to me, I'll assume you hear me sobbing right now. I am sobbing miserably because - how else can I put this? - you hit the nail on the head. You see, not only am I an abject failure as a blogger, I am also a liar whose sexuality - which is to say, whose absence of sexuality - I've dedicated my life to obfuscating, if not out & out distorting.

God, it feels so good to tell the truth. Having to pay a woman to be my "girlfriend" (not to mention having to pay three cats & two dogs to be my "pets") was really causing a lot of financial distress. Because of my minor celebrity status, I have been putting off the expensive surgery that I've wanted since 1994, which is basically a sexuality implant. Back then, of course, it was dangerous, but ironically, my years of subterfuge & deception let me wait out the technology - & now, not only is a sexuality transplant surgery actually quite safe & affordable, but it's also now available in two flavors - homosexual & bisexual. My choices ten years ago were nowhere near this amazing.

Also, I can finally quit pretending I'm a smoker. God that was embarrassing. Especially to my lungs.

Thank you, Maureen. I feel so good now I want to have a party. So listen to Self Help Radio tomorrow, & party with me. & the rest of Austin. & if you'd like to send me an email (not you, Maureen - the rest of Austin), you can click here to send it!

Whither Parties?

This week's show, as advertized on television & in the national print media, will have as its carefully-chosen theme "Parties." While November is hardly known as the month for parties, it might make a lot of sense, this choice of a theme, once it's explained. Unfortunately, I don't know why this subject is the theme for Friday's show. I don't know because I didn't choose it. My apprentice, Erin, did.

KOOP has a six-month training process for interested folks who want to get involved in Austin's best radio station. One aspect of the training is apprenticeship. At the beginning of the current training cycle, Erin was assigned to my show. She's been a lot of fun & only occasionally does she show up completely coked up & demanding her own dressing room. Since she's been so great, I thought, hey, give her a day. Let her choose the music & talk the talk for a day. Take a day off. Find something more interesting to do, like giving blood or quitting smoking.

So you'll have to ask Erin why the subject is parties, because I don't know & I haven't asked her. Partially because I really never know why I come up with the themes I do, so I don't want her to have to lie to me. & partly because, not knowing what's she's thinking, I can speculate:

1) She's a party girl. Duh.

2) It's a complicated pun based on the fact that it's election season, & elections are choices of candidates between "parties."

3) She went to a marvellous Halloween party this weekend, dressed, as she was on my show, as Barney the Purple Dinosaur, & everyone was there, & she had such a good time, & this show is just her playing all the great songs she heard at the party & oh my god she's going to tell us all about it.

4) She went to a dreadful party recently, one of a long list of mundane, criminally dull parties where she had to stand around & listen to the same old people talk & watch the same old drunkards embarrass themselves, & that was that, that's the last boring motherfucking party she's going to go to, & this show will be a searing indictment of the Austin "party culture" which wastes time, money, good booze & lives.

5) She's recently committed a crime & she's now the "guilty party." Or maybe she thinks my show is a crime & she's now "party" to the illegal act.

6) She knows I never get invited to parties & so she's totally taunting me - as someone who goes to all the great parties - & will reduce me, on the air, to tears.

Which is it? Is it all of them? None of them? Three of them? You'll have to listen Friday to find out.

Halloween Show!

Hey all!

Last Friday's Halloween show has been digitized & put online just in time for Halloween night. Please visit:

http://www.selfhelpradio.net/archive.html

It's at the top of the page. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Haiku Wrap-Up

I am sorry to say that I probably won't have my Halloween show (from last Friday) digitized by tomorrow night. Alas! A couple of listeners called to ask, since (apparently) my voice is scary & will frighten children. I recommend another show, perhaps? Or maybe last year's Halloween show?

But the ghouls chose to write haikus for the Halloween show, & here are the four winners:

FOURTH PLACE: Eleanor Reynolds

I guess I must be
What people call a monster
Since I have green fur

THIRD PLACE: Paul

On this Halloween
Don’t dress as something fiendish
You’ll look too normal

SECOND PLACE: Cecelia

Just like Godzilla
I hate models of Tokyo
I want to stomp them.

FIRST PLACE: Federico

If monsters scare you
I suggest you make a change:
Don’t re-elect them

You know the drill. This week's show is about parties. You can write a haiku for that show or any other show, really, if you want. You know you want. You big baby.

I Answer Your Letters!

As an incredibly obscure & virtually unknown minor programmer on a small community radio station in Austin, Texas, you can bet I receive more mail than princesses or death-row artists. So I thought that, for a regular Thursday feature (well, it's Friday morning now, but I haven't had time to write today, & anyway, who's paying attention but me? nyah), I'd answer the mail that I receive. Feel free to write me with your pressing questions about me, my show, my meshow, my showme, or my meshowshowme. Clicking here will allow you to access my super-secret email address, which is slug at mail dot utexas dot edu. Shh!

My inaugural letter comes from Jimmy, who says he lives "on the other side of Hyde Park." Jimmy! Don't make yourself so easy to find! Here's what Jimmy writes:

Gary,
Frankly I am a mess. I tuned into your show because its called Self-Help Radio but instead you were just talking about bikinis one week and then motorcycles the next. What the hell? I need Self-Help man!!! Why cant you just have a Self-Help radio show instead or playing all that music and shit???

First of all, Jimmy, it's Self Help Radio. There's no dash between the Self & the Help. Please don't make that mistake again.

Second of all, I totally feel your pain. I understand that many folks, in desperate need for a stranger to tell them simple ways to solve their difficult life problems, often wander over to my website or my radio show expecting me to be waxing prosaic like Dr. Laura Phil. I cannot believe I have been hurting so many people by simply being ironic.

So in the near future, I will announce the Self Help Minute on Self Help Radio. It will be sixty jam-packed seconds of condensed self help which, when added to your wet brain, will be like four or five hours of those other guys, without the commercials. I will scour the self help sections of used bookstores & the self help sections of used websites to find the information that is most appropriate to your life.

Problems will be solved. Answers will be discovered. Souls will be scrubbed clean. Teeth will return to their pearly whiteness. Hair will be made firm & bouncy. Women will be loved. Men will be loved. Not necessarily in this order.

Thanks for the letter, Jimmy. My eyes are open to my listeners' needs. Watch for the Self Help Minute. It'll revolutionize the time you spend listening to the radio for an entire minute.

Then, you know, back to the music & the inane chatter.

Tomorrow: Halloween show 2006! Whoo-hoo!

Whither Monsters?

Halloween shows can be a bitch. First off, I don't like playing the same song more than once. I can't say there's a philosophy behind it, but I think I can make up one which may well be the truth, & it would sound like this:

I'm on the radio ninety minutes a week. I have a few thousand records in my collection. Most of the time, people who listen to the radio hear the same thing over & over. Why not dedicate my show to playing as much different music as possible?

In general, though, most radio - even the wonderful programs on KOOP - is generally the same thing over & over. So, on Halloween, you can usually expect the same thing over & over. Most people like this, of course. I'm just trying to be difficult.

Second off, I do a show that's themed. I pick goofy themes to challenge myself to find stuff I haven't played before, & to give myself a context so I don't repeat myself all the time. But there are limited themes to Halloween: candy, trick or treating, vampires, wolfmen & wolfwomen, Frankenstein, zombies, outer space aliens, haunted houses, being scared. I've probably just listed my themes for the next few years on Halloween (except vampires - I did those last year). Besides, even when I do regular themes (like I talked about yesterday) I don't repeat myself. So why not do the same with Halloween?

Third off, there is no third off. I think I've conveniently answered my own question to my complete satisfaction. (Now I know what Donald Rumsfeld feels like.) I picked monsters because it seemed like a viable theme. What else is there to say?

Trouble is, there are a lot of monsters, Frankenstein notwithstanding. I have songs prepared for Friday about ol' Frankie, abominable snowmen, the blob, Bigfoot & others. It's a broad, cowardly topic. I hate myself for it. But what's done is done.

On Friday, four days before Halloween, you'll get to hear lots of songs about monsters, some of them imaginary & supernatural, others more down to earth. There'll also be some treats I'll give away on the show - no tricks! - but you'll got to listen to find out what.

Preface to Halloween 2006: There's A Monster In My Radio!

Recently, someone at the station who peer-evaluated my show said that, although they liked it, it seemed like my themes were "arbitrary." I liked that comment, because it's not that it seems that way. It is that way. I come up with themes at a moment's notice, sometimes, when something strikes me. For example, just today, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle & Darren Hanlon's wonderful song "(There's Not Enough Songs About) Squash" came on, & I started thinking about a show about obscure or little-celebrated sports. & that's an example that's got a reasonable beginning. Some of them are so random & inexplicable, I can't remember why or when I thought of them. (That's when I make something up.)

But there are shows that I do & have done every year since Self Help Radio began four years ago. Those shows are:

1) A Christmas show. But just one. Christmas music is fun, but too much is hard to swallow. Plus, people who do Christmas shows play all the same songs every year. Sometimes for the entire month of December. One Christmas show per year. That should be a law.

2) A "best of" [insert current year here] show. Sometimes it's hard to do, but I feel I should be trying to keep up. You know?

3) My birthday show. I was born in 1968, & three years back, on the week of my birthday, I played songs from my favorite albums from the year of my birth. The next year, it was from 1969, etc. This January, it'll be 1971.

4) A Valentine's show. I didn't get to do one this year (since KOOP had burned down & we were off the air). But I'll hopefully get to do one this next year. (The theme this year was going to be "breaking up." I don't know if I'll revisit that for 2007, or think of something else.)

5) A South By Southwest Show. As a public service. Especially if you, like me, don't really want to pay for the wristband or stand in line for all those shows.

6) An Arbor Day show. I love trees! (Okay, that's not true.)

& finally:

7) A Halloween show.

This year the theme is Monsters. I didn't want to just do a theme about Frankenstein's monster, although there are plenty of songs about him. I wanted to do a theme that talked also about humans becoming monsters. Or human who are monsters. & I take as my text for this venture this passage from John Steinbeck's East Of Eden:

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen & horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents & no one's fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishment for concealed sins.

And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face & body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted norma to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. Sometimes when we are little we imagine how it would be to have wings, but there is no reason to suppose it is the same feeling birds have. No, to a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, & that to a monster, the norm is monstrous.

Yes, don't forget! It'll inform the show Friday. More about this tomorrow.

Weekends Haiku Wrap-Up

It's eerie. I did a show about weekends last Friday, &, as if by calendaric magic, I got a Saturday & Sunday in quick succession afterwards. I tried to do a weekends show today, in the privacy of my little cubicle at work, but all I got was the promise of a Tuesday, &, if I was good, maybe even a Wednesday so just shut the fuck up & get back to work.

But nicely poetic & poetically nice folks wrote nice, poetic haikus for the show. As always, I tell you there are great rewards for writing haikus for Self Help Radio. Just ask these four fine folks:

FOURTH PLACE: Michelle

I love the weekend
Even though I'm unemployed
& I sleep all day

THIRD PLACE: John

So the week must end
We dance over its dead body
Like we have no choice.

SECOND PLACE: Pete

The weekend's too short
Make Saturday two days long
Hey! Now you're talking!

FIRST PLACE: Valerie

Swimming, drinking, rest
Dancing, partying, yard work
Movies, sports: week end.

This week's the World Famous Self Help Radio Halloween Show. This year's all about monsters. If you have a haiku in mind, do share it with us.

& what does the weekend mean to you?

I am so used to being contrary - doing a show about Tuesdays on a Friday, for example - that I am a little embarrassed that I am doing a show about the weekend as the weekend begins. Plus, if you live in Austin, the weather is gorgeous - a little too warm & humid, perhaps, to remind someone of a northern California summer day, but close enough. It will indeed be a gorgeous weekend.

But the show is, as they say, in the can, which means I have gathered the material to make the show, & will lug it up to KOOP in a scant ninety minutes, & then I will unleash it upon anyone out there listening. I wish I could tell you something about the show to tease or tantalize, but it's going to be what you expect from me. Or is it?

I have lots of indiepop, & some old rock & roll (including Chubby Checker & Eddie Cochran). I have some silly songs from Germany, as well as entries from Japan & something in French by a band that I believe is not from France. There will doubtless be inane banter between me & my lovely apprentice, Erin, as well as me talking a whole hell of a lot about that book I mentioned earlier this week.

Oh, & no Loverboy. Thank god for that. Because I polled a small group of friends, & none of them were working for the weekend. Most of them, in fact, were slacking off for the weekend. They borrowed some money & bummed a few smokes.

Do tune in. It'll be fun. It'll (o god I can't believe I'm writing this) start your weekend off right.

Whither Weekends?

I surveyed nearly two of my friend - I mean, friends - recently about my choice of topic for this week's show, which is "weekends." I said to her - er, I mean them - why do you think I'd do a show about weekends? Their response was obvious & wrong. "Douchebag," they said (it's a pet name), "your show is on a Friday. You like to say shit on the air like, 'Your weekend starts now.' You do some kind of topical thing every now & again. What the hell do I care?"

But my mother was wrong. I mean, my friend was wrong. Friends. My friends were wrong. Because they weren't paying attention! Also, they don't read this blog. Virtually no one does. If I didn't read it to my cats, almost no one would even hear all the stuff I write here. It's really just like the poetry I wrote in high school. Except maybe I spell better now? I don't know.

Anyhoo, the point is, I'm not doing a show about weekends just because the much-beloved Self Help Radio rests on the edge between "week" & "weekend." No, there is a sentimental reason.

About four years ago last month, I got my first show on KOOP. I wasn't sure what I was going to call it, & it was temporarily occupying a place on Friday mornings (which I kind of enjoyed, but it wasn't meant to be). I had already decided to organize the show around "themes" for a couple of reasons - which I think I've already explained here - but I was also doing it against the advice of a couple of people, who said that a mildly-famous local radio host also did that. "Except," I said, "I'll play good music!" That shut 'em up. What they didn't know is that my themes would be challenging, inexplicable, utterly arbitrary - most of the time.

My very first show was a show about Friday. What a way to start it all off! Literal & appropriate. Except. I found out about getting the show just a couple of days before I was to go on the air. What? No time to prepare? Whatever shall I do?

I did what I could. I found a few Friday songs, & then, seeing as how Friday was the gateway to the weekend, I rounded it off to include some weekend songs too. That was my very first show on KOOP. As my show. Which wasn't called Self Help Radio yet. In fact, I think for some reason it was called The American Horseracing School Presents. The doctors hadn't quite figured out my meds at the time.

What's all this got to do with the price of weekends on Friday? Well, when I went to Wednesdays (where Self Help Radio stayed for three & a half years), it felt permanent. So I began my tenure there with a "Hello" show, & the award-winning run of Self Help Radio began. That was in early October 2002. Look where I am now. I have gray hairs all over my beard. Also, I've started to develop a limp. Is that natural?

Since it's the four-year anniversary month, I thought I'd sort of revisit an old theme (not really) (since I'm not doing a show about Fridays) as a kind of fourth anniversary celebration. I will have muffins made with the number four on them. Or maybe I'll defrost all those cookies I made for the Fantastic Four viewing party I had that no one came to. That's a better idea! No one will recognize the "four" logo - they're too cool to come to my parties.

So wish my a happy fourth anniversary by tuning in Friday to hear songs & talk about weekends. I promise you, after it's done, you'll get an entire weekend.