After A Week Off, I Start Answering Your Letters Again

I'm so sorry I didn't answer your letters last week, but, in accordance with the McCain-Schickelgrüber Thanksgiving Correspondence Bill of 2002, I was legally unable to answer any mail on the national day of thanks. My apologies to those of you who wrote to ask about my delicious recipe for cranberry tofurkey scramble. Maybe next year!

Today's letter comes from Taylor, who says he's an "old friend from the good old days" (even though I don't recognize the name & I've never had good days, not now, not before), & he writes:

Gary,
Good to hear you on the radio! We always thought your meth habit would lead you into a darker future - maybe working at a car dealership or something. The entire family appreciates the show, especially when it isn't on.
I gotta ask, though - what the hell do you have on the people at your radio station who give out shows? Aren't there laws against bribery or coercion? Is this something the FCC handles? Because no one in their right mind believes you got your show on its merits.

Actually, Taylor, the FCC has no rules governing the ways a person gets on the radio. My radio station, KOOP, is different than most commercial radio stations in that, unlike, say, a Clear Channel radio station, you don't have to have your blood drained & your personality re-programmed by a robot before you get a show.

But I find your slanderous comments more offensive to KOOP than to me. I feel the same way when people give my girlfriend pitying stares when they see us together. Obviously, no one out there can see the real me. Or, in your case, hear the real me. Except the radio station I love & the woman I shack up with. They both hear & see me just fine. & I'm all right with that, especially if they don't find out the other exists. Because then I would be in trouble of sitcom-like preportions.

Thanks for writing! If you'd like me to respond to an email, write me one!

Whither A Birthday Show For Magda?

Seriously, just because I have a radio show, should I be able to give my own girlfriend a special birthday show? What the fuck is up with that? What if [insert irate listener name here] wants to do a show about my girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/partner/lover/special animal friend's birthday, but they can't because they don't have a radio show? Does that seem fair?

Does this really make anyone mad, or am I simply reacting as I might react (since I am self-important & irritable) if I were listening to a radio show where the dude on the air was playing songs for his girlfriend's birthday? I dunno, but if I were the guy I am imaginging that I am writing about, I'd probably stop reading this blog right now & go read snarky comments about superhero Hostess ads of the 70s. Then I'd feel a lot better.

But wait! my more observant listener will note. Gary, didn't you already do a birthday show for your girlfriend a couple of years ago? & maybe also before that in 2002? Are you just going to play the same damn songs you played then? Didn't you once say something like, "There are so many themes that I'll never have to return to the same ones ever!"

The answers are: yes, no, & probably. There'll be a whole new slew of birthday songs for the discriminating birthday music listener. & not just songs about my girlfriend's birthday - it could be about anyone's birthday. & I'm doing it because the day happens to be her birthday. What the hell sort of boyfriend do you imagine I'd be if I didn't do a radio show for her on her birthday? Do you not want me to get laid again ever? Besides, I've been doing this "Self Help Radio" show for over four years now. You know how much I drink. I could very well be forgetting a previous theme. As I age, I'll repeat myself, like the old often do.

Sometimes to humorous effect.

Preface To Magda's Birthday Show: Who Is Magda? Why Does She Get A Show?

I'll invite you to take a little trip into the past. Nearly twenty-eight years, in fact - were you even born then? I was a mere ten years old, & had already had my heart broken & my teeth knocked out. But I am not travelling back to my past - I'd be more embarrassed than anything to meet myself - but to a past I never saw nor knew.

It's December 1st, 1978. The President of the United States is a space alien named Nell Carter, & the number one show on television is a Korean War high school comedy called "Welcome Back, M*A*S*H." In California, space aliens are slowly prying the state away from the San Andreas Fault & tipping it into the sea, causing a former governor named Reginald Reagan to promise he'll stop the aliens if he becomes President. & in a Bay Area hospital, a woman with the unlikely name of Barbara Muchlinski is giving birth to a space alien who will be called Magdalena.

Or was she? We're travelling back in time because the space alien named Magda, who happens to live with me & oftentimes makes me dinner & yells at me about my drinking, this space alien is a liar. She cannot be believed. She's told me the most ridiculous stories, from unbelievable tales about how whiskers help monkeys evolve to meeting David Bowie in Prague & helping him inflate his bicycle tires. Yes, this space alien, whom I love dearly, cannot be trusted. She is a fountain of untruth, prevarication, tall tale, fable, falsehood, statistics & damned lies.

So we travel back in time - we go to the hospital where she was supposedly born, to see for ourselves. We must do this, alas, with our imagination, since time travel is patent pending, but we can certainly trust it more than the words of the space alien I love. Because she can't tell the truth. In fact, I'm not entirely sure she's a space alien. For example, she cannot mind meld. She doesn't speak a space alien language, & she hardly ever gets collect calls from Alpha Centauri. & the ones she gets she insists are wrong numbers.

On our trip back in time, then, we need to examine her ridiculous claims, to prove or disprove them with the most ridiculous facts we can find. Here are some questions we'll need to ask ourselves:

- Where were space aliens usually born in the Bay Area in the late 1970s? Were they allowed to be in human-oriented hospitals?
- Was she born during an earthquake, when it would have been easy for a space alien baby to change places with a human baby? If so, is the real Magdalena Muchlinski living on the third planet around Sirius playing high-stakes poker & smoking like a chimney?
- Was her mother, Barbara, who is charming & very human, an accomplice or an unknowing vessel for space alien seed? Can we discover if her other children are aliens, or if they are hybrids?
- If we make bets in the past & win because of future knowledge, can we take the money into the future? Or does money from 1978 look like Monopoly money today?
- If we were born after 1978, can we stop our parents from meeting & see if we cease to exist? If we cease to exist, will we therefore be unable to stop our parents from meeting, & then begin to exist again? Will it become a cycle that never stops, & will those of us watching find it fucking hilarious?

Let's travel back in time, & return tomorrow, & report what we discover!

Dysfunctional Family Holiday Haiku Wrap-Up

Man, what the hell happened last week? I know it was a holday week, but I was totally lame with the whole posting on the blog thing. My bad. My really bad. I don't know what was going on.

But in addition to subbing the Lounge Show & Virtual Noise, I managed to do Self Help Radio with the usual flair & grace. & kind listeners wrote weird haikus for the show, which I will share with you now. These are the winners, from fourth place to first:

FOURTH PLACE: Buddy

Vegetarian
At the Thanksgiving dinner
Waiting for the pie.

THIRD PLACE: Louise

Mommy I’m sorry
The store took my fake ID
I can’t buy your beer

SECOND PLACE; Nancy

I was wrong to lock
My brother in the closet
From third to fifth grade

FIRST PLACE: Jesus

There’s no family
That doesn’t screw with your head
Your entire life

This week's show will be a birthday show because it happens to fall on the birthday of my beloved, whose name (really!) is Magda. So if you want to write a haiku for Magda, or a haiku for birthdays, then most assuredly you can do so by clicking here. She'll appreciate it.

Also, Friday's show - most of it - is now available on the Self Help Radio show archive page. Listen to it away from your family.

I do say "most of it" because the first few minutes didn't get recorded due to a screw up with the station's recording device. It's my fauly, really, so I should just say "user error." My apologies to completists & to the folks who made the music that you won't get to hear if you missed it live. Sigh.

Whither Dysfunctional Family Circus?

Whatever happened to those Dysfunctional Family Circus cartoons, anyway?

Oh, they're right here: http://dfc.furr.org/.

They sure were amusing the first time I saw them - but then, they weren't set up like a Mad Magazine "fill in the blank" thing - someone had hand-picked the best completely incorrect lines to put under the Bil Keane pictures. Sigh.

Those cartoons were in no way an inspiration for the show this Friday - they were just a handy name. No, the inspiration for the show is the fact that the holidays are here, & from now till the end of the year some if not all of us will have to spend time with other families. Most of the time, we don't like our families, or at the very least we don't like some of our families. I know people who get downright snarly when I say such things - I fuckin' love my family & I'd fuckin' die for them! - but I assume they're the members of the family that are the unliked ones, so they are the cause of the unhappiness, & therefore I am not writing this to them or about them. As I was saying, we who are honest with ourselves have issues with some or all of our family's members, & because of this, I thought I'd do a show about screwed-up families.

I've been wanting to do this show for a while, actually - the season just gave me an excuse. Which is ironical, because I won't be around my family during this vacation. I'll be here in town, not eating turkey, & preparing three radio shows - in addition to Self Help Radio, I'll be doing Virtual Noise (Friday at 11am) & the Lounge Show (Saturday at 10am).

Self Help Radio should be disturbing for the whole family this week. So do tune in. & if you want to hear last Friday's show, it's available at Self Help Radio archives.

Have a good holiday weekend!

Preface to 'Dysfunctional Family Circus': Hey, Wait A Second, What The Hell, You Haven't Posted Anything To This Blog In Like A Week

I know, I know.

I am in an awkward position here. I write a blog about a radio show that, though unbelievably good, no one listens to, & consequently, there's this blog that I keep which no one reads. (Actually, one person has stumbled onto it. This person did a search on Google for "Wonder Woman's bodice," & I actually referred to that as something that is yellow in my post about my yellow show. Sorry dude.) But I suppose one day some archaeologist of "community radio" might stumble upon this blog, you know, & I'd hate to think he/she (because in the future, we'll be both genders at the same time) thought I was a slacker.

& it's certainly not that I don't have anything to say. I can make shit up at the drop of a hat. I can make shit up ABOUT the drop of a hat. But it's just that I need a little time, you know, to myself, you know, naked, you know, in a pool of warm rubbing alcohol, you know, to write something of value. You know.

Yesterday totally slipped past me. Today was stolen by a medical emergency involving my girlfriend, a bike, a bum knee, a bum's knee, someone who kneed a bum, a group of people who need bums for their own nefarious political purposes, a self-important opthamologist who thought he was a kinesiologist, an oversexed duck named Elixir, & my own desire to find an easier way home than the one I currently take. Now it's late, & I'm certain I have a lot to say about a radio show about fucked-up family relationships, & it'd be topical, since the United States are fleeing home for Thanksgiving.

But instead, I'm lame. I'm sorry, Mr/Ms Archaeologist. I'm sure someone on a station with less wattage kept a really cool blog in northern California. If you can't find the link here, then, I'm sorry. That must be computer code rot.

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.