Fables being what they are - sleepy, mistrustful, metrosexual - it should come as no surprise to the modern consumer that the Great American Cheese Belt is undergoing a fashionable makeover in order to compete with the cooler (eg, chain-smoking) Overseas Cheese Markets. This documentary will show you how.
"Now THAT's what I call a gangbang!" was the way President Bush (no offense) described it to his "fuckwit pals" in the agricultural community last Thursday while touring a midwestern air pollution factory which, sources close to this reporter - but frankly closer to my wife, with whom they went to school - have confirmed, is the number one producer of air muck & filthy in all the kingdom. The President, who later consumed an entire dwarf while laughing heartily at an entire season of "30 Rock" shown simultaneously on 32 plasma TVs, praised American ingeniousness & also, for some reason, Michael Caine.
Michael Caine could not be reached for commitment.
But if you like people whose voices trail off as they get that look in their eyes that suggest unspeakable dread, you'll absolutely adore the 2008 Swarm Chili Deployment. The wonders of the space age make a slight return with this hip & ghetto fabulous way to feed everyone who believes in Jesus & who can't afford a too, too Hollywoodish high colonic. Spokespeople for the groove have been dispatched to every suburban white flight checkpoint & will report back weather permitting.
We know you've been sharing your holiday snapshots with a community of grim rueful failure, but did you know you can caption those same photos in the privacy of your own head? No more will antagonistic family members wonder what national freak of nature you're standing in front of as they count your chins & wet themselves online. A spellcheck is placed within a mouse click, but only for the lucky winners (chosen nightly) who can correct identify a local prostitute, City Council member or a relative from a series of Google Cloud Photos.
Which way, you may well ask, is the Self Help Radio way? The experts will be releasing the highly anticipated sequel to their 2005 report, What Says Hunh?, which mentions the show obliquely if at all. After the fulmination & the letters of apology to all the available media outlets, as well as the video game/pornographic novel, the results may be reviewed THIS FRIDAY & EVERY AVAILABLE FRIDAY on Self Help Radio from 4:30 to 6:00pm. Online is listened live. There is furthermore no excuse.
Next week: why do you look so sad? I don't think that's appropriate.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Leave My Husband Alone!/Waiting For The Coffee To Download
What has he ever done to you? In strange regalia, the modern radio listener approaches, all wires & field mice, to start the busiest of loafsome days. He's not a strong man - he's a tender man, a man of love, a lover not a fighter. Like tender strips of moss-flavored skin he or she makes a democracy with his her choice of music slash infotainment. I don't know why you can't just leave him alone. Like hands held for prayer or "tell it to the judge" a morning of warm woe begins for this listener, this listener who has chosen to give it all up for embarrassing, homocidal or syruply mediocre. I mean, what has he ever done to you?
Why is this? Does it make you feel like a big person to pick on someone who can't defend himself? Perhaps the next-door neighbors put flyers up for their most recent suicide pact. Do you think it'll make me want you? There's a chance a promotion at work just netted free cigarettes or free cigarette burns. I could never love someone like you. It's true, local music never was what it used to be, but the local dailies & weeklies, monthlys & yearlys are still trying to convince everyone there's something to write & read about. I want someone like him - someone who may get the shit kicked out of him by cads & bullies like you, but someone who has a heart & a brain & not what you have instead - two fists! It's important to remember the names of the roadies & bouncers, because they're the ones who'll get you drugs & backstage dawdling. Just stop it! If you doze during the live DJ set, you might get to see the club owner beat up his "partner." You'll kill him! If not, well - thank god your work is next to the plasma center. You asshole he's not fighting back!
As a child, you wanted to play "junkie & dealer," & now, as an adult, you want to play "child." So you'll hit me too? Returning phone calls may be easier than ever, especially since phones are ubiquitous as assholes with phones, but you are being frisked at the convenience store for weapons & viruses, & all you really wanted was small talk & perhaps advice on how to keep the flintlock on your musket clean. What a strong, strong man you are, picking on two people weaker than you, people who obviously DO NOT want to fight you. While you're booking the mariachi band for your own funeral, it hits you: like an embarrassing drunken Facebook photograph, you've been automatically saved & backed-up. You know the police call this assault.
Which doesn't explain your radio choices, even if it informs them. Stop it stop it stop it stop it! You'll need to see if there's a greeting card with a stranger's name in the candy aisle so you can begin sucking up again. You're killing him! You'll feel only slightly bitter, especially since you can't hear anything anyone says, & most of us are no better off than you. God damn it I said stop it why can't you stop it! But shouldn't we feel sad about it all? Oh god oh god oh god look at all this blood! Isn't there something we can at least say we'll do to make a change? Leave me alone leave me alone! Or is it really enough - the emptiness, the repetition, the callous over your heart, the radio you "listen" to? Oh my god someone help me! I believe you. Someone help me! I hope you believe you.
Why is this? Does it make you feel like a big person to pick on someone who can't defend himself? Perhaps the next-door neighbors put flyers up for their most recent suicide pact. Do you think it'll make me want you? There's a chance a promotion at work just netted free cigarettes or free cigarette burns. I could never love someone like you. It's true, local music never was what it used to be, but the local dailies & weeklies, monthlys & yearlys are still trying to convince everyone there's something to write & read about. I want someone like him - someone who may get the shit kicked out of him by cads & bullies like you, but someone who has a heart & a brain & not what you have instead - two fists! It's important to remember the names of the roadies & bouncers, because they're the ones who'll get you drugs & backstage dawdling. Just stop it! If you doze during the live DJ set, you might get to see the club owner beat up his "partner." You'll kill him! If not, well - thank god your work is next to the plasma center. You asshole he's not fighting back!
As a child, you wanted to play "junkie & dealer," & now, as an adult, you want to play "child." So you'll hit me too? Returning phone calls may be easier than ever, especially since phones are ubiquitous as assholes with phones, but you are being frisked at the convenience store for weapons & viruses, & all you really wanted was small talk & perhaps advice on how to keep the flintlock on your musket clean. What a strong, strong man you are, picking on two people weaker than you, people who obviously DO NOT want to fight you. While you're booking the mariachi band for your own funeral, it hits you: like an embarrassing drunken Facebook photograph, you've been automatically saved & backed-up. You know the police call this assault.
Which doesn't explain your radio choices, even if it informs them. Stop it stop it stop it stop it! You'll need to see if there's a greeting card with a stranger's name in the candy aisle so you can begin sucking up again. You're killing him! You'll feel only slightly bitter, especially since you can't hear anything anyone says, & most of us are no better off than you. God damn it I said stop it why can't you stop it! But shouldn't we feel sad about it all? Oh god oh god oh god look at all this blood! Isn't there something we can at least say we'll do to make a change? Leave me alone leave me alone! Or is it really enough - the emptiness, the repetition, the callous over your heart, the radio you "listen" to? Oh my god someone help me! I believe you. Someone help me! I hope you believe you.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Whither Traffic?
I take a bus. Or should I say, the bus takes me? I don't drive to work. I drive only when driving is the only way to get somewhere. Like a liquor store at 8:50pm. Or a latenight rockshow. I love to drive don't get me wrong. I just don't drive. So what do I know about traffic?
I have not trafficked drugs. I have trafficked with demons, though they were minor demons (meaning under the age of 2100 years) & they wanted drugs from me, so they went away empty-horned. My bus, which is neither really my bus nor even the same bus daily (I check the numbers), is often stuck in traffic, & the bus driver will swear like a demon. Also, there's this one driver who has horns, or she wears her hair weirdly, which could be the same. Or different.
About a year ago, I did a show about driving. Two years ago I did a show about the effects of saltpeter on the central nervous system. That show was seized by Homeland Security. I miss that show. I hear it entertains no one at Guantanamo Bay. Three years ago, I tried to do a show about steering wheels, but it revolted against me & it became a show about steering committees, & I refused to air it, instead rerunning a show I did about the great Cheese Strike during the war on sailing. That one won a Tony. Sorry, scratch that. It won a Tony The Tiger Award. Because it was grrrrrrrrrrrreat!
I was talking about my favorite bus, whose name (not coincidentally) is Tony, & how one day we were stuck in traffic, & the underpaid bus driver dude was having an acid flashback, & three giggly girls in the back were humming Shangri-Las songs out of tune, & out of order, & Tony said, "Traffic sucks!" & I was saying to myself, as I always do when a bus talks to me, "Thisisn'treal thisisn'treal thiscan'tbereal this-is-not-real." But then Tony said, "You should do a show about traffic."
Suddenly, I realized that life was a dream & the only way to be free of suffering was by following the Eightfold Path. Then I looked down, saw that I hadn't yet finished the sudoko puzzle du jour, & the acid flashback bus driver drove straight over an old VW bug to make the exit ramp. That was then, this is this coming Friday.
I have not trafficked drugs. I have trafficked with demons, though they were minor demons (meaning under the age of 2100 years) & they wanted drugs from me, so they went away empty-horned. My bus, which is neither really my bus nor even the same bus daily (I check the numbers), is often stuck in traffic, & the bus driver will swear like a demon. Also, there's this one driver who has horns, or she wears her hair weirdly, which could be the same. Or different.
About a year ago, I did a show about driving. Two years ago I did a show about the effects of saltpeter on the central nervous system. That show was seized by Homeland Security. I miss that show. I hear it entertains no one at Guantanamo Bay. Three years ago, I tried to do a show about steering wheels, but it revolted against me & it became a show about steering committees, & I refused to air it, instead rerunning a show I did about the great Cheese Strike during the war on sailing. That one won a Tony. Sorry, scratch that. It won a Tony The Tiger Award. Because it was grrrrrrrrrrrreat!
I was talking about my favorite bus, whose name (not coincidentally) is Tony, & how one day we were stuck in traffic, & the underpaid bus driver dude was having an acid flashback, & three giggly girls in the back were humming Shangri-Las songs out of tune, & out of order, & Tony said, "Traffic sucks!" & I was saying to myself, as I always do when a bus talks to me, "Thisisn'treal thisisn'treal thiscan'tbereal this-is-not-real." But then Tony said, "You should do a show about traffic."
Suddenly, I realized that life was a dream & the only way to be free of suffering was by following the Eightfold Path. Then I looked down, saw that I hadn't yet finished the sudoko puzzle du jour, & the acid flashback bus driver drove straight over an old VW bug to make the exit ramp. That was then, this is this coming Friday.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Preface To Traffic: Steve Winwood Is My Summer Romance
Self Help Radio, the most breakfast cereally of all radio shows, has its good themes & its bad themes. A show I once did about sorghum may have netted me tremendous praise from the National Sweet Sorghum Producers & Processors Association, not to mention a couple of scary people who drink sorghum beer, but since it only featured one song, the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Sorghum" (which isn't even a real song), & eighty-six minutes of me trying desperately to talk about sorghum, well, that show is widely considered the nadir of a radio program built on extremely low expectations. By contrast, the "free money" theme was well received, & only cost me four thousand dollars.
This week, our theme will be "traffic," which may or may not be annoying if you're listening in a car on I-35 getting completely fucked up on the fumes of the semi in front of you. I frankly don't care. What I do care about is that you people stop writing me & asking me if I will feature any factoids about Steve Winwood. No! No I won't! & I don't care that I once received a handjob from a priest in a confessional while he was humming "Higher Love"! I'm not proud of that. I'm not even Catholic.
I will, however, slake the thirst of you Winwoodians by telling my favorite Steve Winwood in the world. I know, everyone has their favorite Steve Winwood story, like the one about him dressing up as a priest & giving unsuspecting boys handjobs in confessionals, but this is not one of your average Steve Winwood stories. This one does not feature Jimi Hendrix or Ginger Baker or Eric Clapton or Malcolm X or Stephen Fry or Bunny Wailer or Dick Cheney or Kay Parker or Marc Chagall or Giorgio Moroder or Parker Posey or Marianne Faithfull or Lou Dobbs or Richard Hatch or Pepper Anderson or Roy Clark or Steve Ditko or Audra Lindley or Richard Hilton or Bobby Trendy or Arturo Sandoval or Rodney Allen Rippy or Dave Brock or Joe Mannix or Joe Montana or Josephine Baker or Ahmed Sékou Touré or Richard Dawson or Muff Winwood or Woody Herman or Estelle Getty or Trina Robbins or Kiki-la-Doucette or Jim Corbett or Bradley Whitford or Farrah Franklin or Mary Jane Parker or Saint Anastasia the Patrician or Steve Doocy or Casper The Friendly Ghost or William Tecumseh Sherman or Los Huracanes del Norte or Alf Landon or Barry Bonds or Ali Larter or even, now that I think of it, Steve Winwood. Yes, it's the only Steve Winwood story that I can think of that doesn't actually involve Steve Winwood. There won't be a reference to one of his songs, or one of his bands, or his mental problems, or his famous letters to Penthouse Forum, or his inability to form a complete sentence since quitting cocaine in 2004. In that sense, this is truly a great Steve Winwood story.
& that story is, frankly, too painful for me to tell right now. I will also need to ask my mother how she feels about it. So. Maybe tomorrow. Now, leave me alone, you Winwoodsuckers. There'll be no Winwood on Self Help Radio this Friday. Nor will there ever be any Winwood on Self Help Radio! I mean it!
This week, our theme will be "traffic," which may or may not be annoying if you're listening in a car on I-35 getting completely fucked up on the fumes of the semi in front of you. I frankly don't care. What I do care about is that you people stop writing me & asking me if I will feature any factoids about Steve Winwood. No! No I won't! & I don't care that I once received a handjob from a priest in a confessional while he was humming "Higher Love"! I'm not proud of that. I'm not even Catholic.
I will, however, slake the thirst of you Winwoodians by telling my favorite Steve Winwood in the world. I know, everyone has their favorite Steve Winwood story, like the one about him dressing up as a priest & giving unsuspecting boys handjobs in confessionals, but this is not one of your average Steve Winwood stories. This one does not feature Jimi Hendrix or Ginger Baker or Eric Clapton or Malcolm X or Stephen Fry or Bunny Wailer or Dick Cheney or Kay Parker or Marc Chagall or Giorgio Moroder or Parker Posey or Marianne Faithfull or Lou Dobbs or Richard Hatch or Pepper Anderson or Roy Clark or Steve Ditko or Audra Lindley or Richard Hilton or Bobby Trendy or Arturo Sandoval or Rodney Allen Rippy or Dave Brock or Joe Mannix or Joe Montana or Josephine Baker or Ahmed Sékou Touré or Richard Dawson or Muff Winwood or Woody Herman or Estelle Getty or Trina Robbins or Kiki-la-Doucette or Jim Corbett or Bradley Whitford or Farrah Franklin or Mary Jane Parker or Saint Anastasia the Patrician or Steve Doocy or Casper The Friendly Ghost or William Tecumseh Sherman or Los Huracanes del Norte or Alf Landon or Barry Bonds or Ali Larter or even, now that I think of it, Steve Winwood. Yes, it's the only Steve Winwood story that I can think of that doesn't actually involve Steve Winwood. There won't be a reference to one of his songs, or one of his bands, or his mental problems, or his famous letters to Penthouse Forum, or his inability to form a complete sentence since quitting cocaine in 2004. In that sense, this is truly a great Steve Winwood story.
& that story is, frankly, too painful for me to tell right now. I will also need to ask my mother how she feels about it. So. Maybe tomorrow. Now, leave me alone, you Winwoodsuckers. There'll be no Winwood on Self Help Radio this Friday. Nor will there ever be any Winwood on Self Help Radio! I mean it!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Learn How To Have A Good Time All The Time
Guess what happens to me today? No, I'm not going to become one of the painfully deluded lefties who have volunteered to keep Hugo Chavez's nutsack clean & smooth - & for that, you know, he may try to take me off the air - nor am I going to be getting my weekly audio accu-beating during Magic ELJ's Soul Vaccination - that guy has it in for me! - no, I am visiting a medical professional & I'm getting a blotch removed from my personality.
I know, I know. You're like, "What? Isn't it your blotches that make you who you are?" Oh, I agree. But it turns out that this blotch may be pre-cantakerous. I'm just too young for that. So my metaphysician is doing a personality adjustment, & removing a small portion of my charm, simply because it was looking a little discolored & it was causing people to doubt my charisma. Imagine! They were thinking I was a painfully deluded leftie who couldn't wait to volunteer to shave & shampoo Hugo Chavez's ballsack! That blotch has got to go.
I believe it was Tim Magazine (or was it Newweek?) that reported that graphic, amusing descriptions of your fucked-up sexuality is the new sarcasm, but this blotch (I am told) sits somewhere between sweetly-faked honesty & the organ that generates a "hunh, life doesn't suck so bad right now" feeling when someone tells me they like my show. I may find these feelings lacking afterward, but I could retain as much as 90% of both. I just wish the blotch were sitting on top of my sleepiness. I'd say, cut it all out!
I hope I will be well enough tomorrow to expound upon a show about traffic, but if not, I'll double-team you on Wednesday. Just remember, I might be a little different. But at least I won't be sacrificing my intergrity & morality just because another blowhard dictator is paying lip service to some ideals I may believe. Yay!
I know, I know. You're like, "What? Isn't it your blotches that make you who you are?" Oh, I agree. But it turns out that this blotch may be pre-cantakerous. I'm just too young for that. So my metaphysician is doing a personality adjustment, & removing a small portion of my charm, simply because it was looking a little discolored & it was causing people to doubt my charisma. Imagine! They were thinking I was a painfully deluded leftie who couldn't wait to volunteer to shave & shampoo Hugo Chavez's ballsack! That blotch has got to go.
I believe it was Tim Magazine (or was it Newweek?) that reported that graphic, amusing descriptions of your fucked-up sexuality is the new sarcasm, but this blotch (I am told) sits somewhere between sweetly-faked honesty & the organ that generates a "hunh, life doesn't suck so bad right now" feeling when someone tells me they like my show. I may find these feelings lacking afterward, but I could retain as much as 90% of both. I just wish the blotch were sitting on top of my sleepiness. I'd say, cut it all out!
I hope I will be well enough tomorrow to expound upon a show about traffic, but if not, I'll double-team you on Wednesday. Just remember, I might be a little different. But at least I won't be sacrificing my intergrity & morality just because another blowhard dictator is paying lip service to some ideals I may believe. Yay!
Friday, June 08, 2007
Trigger Harpy
I am feeling negative. Stop me feeling negative. It would be nice for my negativity to have an outlet today. An AC outlet, please. Direct current is too direct for me. Doesn't it know? Jokes about one's sexuality are the new sarcasm.
However, there is no outlet for me. I have given away my show today to a pixie from the Northeast. He will leave hair all over my pillow & drink all my soy cheese. Worst of all, he will prove more exciting than my own show, so I'll have to spend the evening drinking toasts to my inadequacy. Then, of course, I'll get arrested for mowing the lawn at 4am. It'll be my 36th birthday all over again.
The goodest news is that I'll be seeing Patton Oswalt on Sunday. He'll make me have funnies. The other goodest news is that I'll be back next week with a special heartfelt Self Help Radio which will touch the hearts of all the children & their friends in the Travis County Monsterplex, now surrounded by the George W Bush Memorial Moat, & this very special Self Help Radio will be all about traffic.
Traffic! You know what it is, but you don't know what causes it. Also, you sometimes see people in traffic who are apparently having sex. What's up with that? How are they having sex in traffic & you couldn't get laid if you owned a yacht & your face cleared up? We won't be talking about that, actually. Nor will we be making fun of people with really black circles under their eyes. They don't deserve it, & they're still stuck in traffic.
Have a good weekend! Listen to KOOP! Don't get incarcerated!
However, there is no outlet for me. I have given away my show today to a pixie from the Northeast. He will leave hair all over my pillow & drink all my soy cheese. Worst of all, he will prove more exciting than my own show, so I'll have to spend the evening drinking toasts to my inadequacy. Then, of course, I'll get arrested for mowing the lawn at 4am. It'll be my 36th birthday all over again.
The goodest news is that I'll be seeing Patton Oswalt on Sunday. He'll make me have funnies. The other goodest news is that I'll be back next week with a special heartfelt Self Help Radio which will touch the hearts of all the children & their friends in the Travis County Monsterplex, now surrounded by the George W Bush Memorial Moat, & this very special Self Help Radio will be all about traffic.
Traffic! You know what it is, but you don't know what causes it. Also, you sometimes see people in traffic who are apparently having sex. What's up with that? How are they having sex in traffic & you couldn't get laid if you owned a yacht & your face cleared up? We won't be talking about that, actually. Nor will we be making fun of people with really black circles under their eyes. They don't deserve it, & they're still stuck in traffic.
Have a good weekend! Listen to KOOP! Don't get incarcerated!
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Online Toffee Makers Revolt
I've been taking a lot of online "tests" that ask questions like "Are You A Homosexual In Your Own Pants?" & "Which Character On Law & Odor Are You Most Like?" & "How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up, Coma Boy?" They're a great way to wile away the time if you're afraid of the work you must do to satisfy the demon lords, but I was most excited recently to discover this particular survey, which has since mysteriously disappeared, as if I dreamed it & it never existed on the Interweb ever. I'll reproduce what I remember:
HOW MANY BRAINS CAN YOU USE TO COLONIZE GLIESE 581C?
This test determines whether you, unlike your roommate, have enough brains to colonize an Earth-like planet before supper. All responses will be considered final. You cannot go to the bathroom. While taking this test, humming is encouraged.
1) I know what boys like.
a) Boys like me.
b) Boys, like me.
c) Boys like meets.
d) Boys like meat.
3) Given three sides of a four-sided triangle, you can compute the fifth side:
a) On Star Trek.
b) On Star Wars.
c) In your dreams.
d) In your underwear.
7) Recent science indicates that RC Cola never really existed. That means that:
a) I've never been loved.
b) Sixteen dead blackbirds are all I have to show for my college education.
c) George Orwell was an a-hole.
d) The delicious taste of Flapdoodle is responsible.
8) Two trendy people live in Austin. They automatically:
a) Think anything they're told is good is good.
b) Think anything they're told is good is good.
c) Think anything they're told is good is good.
d) Think anything they're told is good is good.
10) I like mayonnaise...
a) In Springtime.
b) On long drives.
c) With news of dead Playboy centerfolds.
d) On long sandwiches.
12) A carpet is to a lizard as a picture of you in high school is to:
a) Mile High Stadium, Denver, Colorado
b) A caterpillar
c) Mud
d) Whistling
13) Which of the following is generally known as a gerund?
a) Not this one.
b) Unh-unh.
c) Not even close.
d) Wrong
17) I have never really felt love.
a) Boo fucking hoo.
b) Have a little something to drink, pardner.
c) Take back what you said about Avril Lavigne.
d) Two words: hooker party!
21) Finish this sentence to form the punchline of a famous Milton Berle joke: I can't go to the theatre tonight, sugar tits, as I am sitting on the toilet because of _______
a) Screaming Shits
b) Pulsating Piles
c) Rocketing Rectum Disorder
d) Lonesomeness
24) Which famous Hollywood United States Walt Disney President is best known for drinking his own semen every morning before running the world?
a) Dick Cheney
b) Ronald Reagan (the Gay One)
c) Ronald Reagan (the Straight One)
d) George Bush (either one)
26) This survey is attempting to help you access parts of your mind you didn't think were active because you believe nonsense like astrology & "The Secret" & people who get you high & say dumb shit like "Dude, we only use 90% of our brains - what would it be like if we used ALL ONE HUNDRED PERCENT." When you realize how incredibly much you've wasted your life, what will you most likely do?
a) Go on pretty much the same way.
b) Become your parents.
c) Kill yourself.
d) Kill as many people as possible before you're caught.
29) The number of bumper stickers I have on my car in no way reflects my crippling insecurity.
a) False
b) What?
c) They're funny!
d) I wish I had a car.
34) The number of divorces in the United States keeps rising. Why do you think that is?
a) Just write it down.
b) Seriously, we can't figure it out.
c) It's not one of these answers, though.
d) So this question won't count.
37) To answer this question, you'll need to think logically. Gert has five frisbees. All five frisbees are weighted down with Gert's tears. Gert's girlfriend of seven years, Nan, left him last night for a window washer. Gert wants to throw all five frisbees on the tops of the roofs of the five friends who knew about Nan's treachery but didn't tell Gert. Gert has been drinking for the past seventeen hours. The neighborhood in which Gert's friends live has seventy-four houses. Assuming the wind is light & breezy from the southeast, & the frisbees are flying at only 75% of their potential, & Gert sees one-hundred & forty-eight houses, whose windows will Gert NOT break?
a) The Nelsons
b) That Sex Offender With The White Van
c) Old Mister Woods
d) The Kaiser
40) Life on another planet will most probably be either much less complex or much more complex than human life. We're just saying. It's not like you're going to meet a Klingon or something. It's going to be algae or a being nearly Godlike that thinks you are algae.
a) I hope we meet the algae.
b) I believe Jesus wouldn't do that to me.
c) I'm so alone.
d) Leave me alone.
Postscript: The score I received on the "test" said:
You are ready, willing & able to colonize another planet. You think clearly, you are able to solve complex problems, & you believe it when people tell you things like this. You'll make a great guinea pig when we start shooting people in the general direction of that planet. Contact NASA right away. Go on. Do it.
Guess what! I am going to Gliese 581C! Yay!
HOW MANY BRAINS CAN YOU USE TO COLONIZE GLIESE 581C?
This test determines whether you, unlike your roommate, have enough brains to colonize an Earth-like planet before supper. All responses will be considered final. You cannot go to the bathroom. While taking this test, humming is encouraged.
1) I know what boys like.
a) Boys like me.
b) Boys, like me.
c) Boys like meets.
d) Boys like meat.
3) Given three sides of a four-sided triangle, you can compute the fifth side:
a) On Star Trek.
b) On Star Wars.
c) In your dreams.
d) In your underwear.
7) Recent science indicates that RC Cola never really existed. That means that:
a) I've never been loved.
b) Sixteen dead blackbirds are all I have to show for my college education.
c) George Orwell was an a-hole.
d) The delicious taste of Flapdoodle is responsible.
8) Two trendy people live in Austin. They automatically:
a) Think anything they're told is good is good.
b) Think anything they're told is good is good.
c) Think anything they're told is good is good.
d) Think anything they're told is good is good.
10) I like mayonnaise...
a) In Springtime.
b) On long drives.
c) With news of dead Playboy centerfolds.
d) On long sandwiches.
12) A carpet is to a lizard as a picture of you in high school is to:
a) Mile High Stadium, Denver, Colorado
b) A caterpillar
c) Mud
d) Whistling
13) Which of the following is generally known as a gerund?
a) Not this one.
b) Unh-unh.
c) Not even close.
d) Wrong
17) I have never really felt love.
a) Boo fucking hoo.
b) Have a little something to drink, pardner.
c) Take back what you said about Avril Lavigne.
d) Two words: hooker party!
21) Finish this sentence to form the punchline of a famous Milton Berle joke: I can't go to the theatre tonight, sugar tits, as I am sitting on the toilet because of _______
a) Screaming Shits
b) Pulsating Piles
c) Rocketing Rectum Disorder
d) Lonesomeness
24) Which famous Hollywood United States Walt Disney President is best known for drinking his own semen every morning before running the world?
a) Dick Cheney
b) Ronald Reagan (the Gay One)
c) Ronald Reagan (the Straight One)
d) George Bush (either one)
26) This survey is attempting to help you access parts of your mind you didn't think were active because you believe nonsense like astrology & "The Secret" & people who get you high & say dumb shit like "Dude, we only use 90% of our brains - what would it be like if we used ALL ONE HUNDRED PERCENT." When you realize how incredibly much you've wasted your life, what will you most likely do?
a) Go on pretty much the same way.
b) Become your parents.
c) Kill yourself.
d) Kill as many people as possible before you're caught.
29) The number of bumper stickers I have on my car in no way reflects my crippling insecurity.
a) False
b) What?
c) They're funny!
d) I wish I had a car.
34) The number of divorces in the United States keeps rising. Why do you think that is?
a) Just write it down.
b) Seriously, we can't figure it out.
c) It's not one of these answers, though.
d) So this question won't count.
37) To answer this question, you'll need to think logically. Gert has five frisbees. All five frisbees are weighted down with Gert's tears. Gert's girlfriend of seven years, Nan, left him last night for a window washer. Gert wants to throw all five frisbees on the tops of the roofs of the five friends who knew about Nan's treachery but didn't tell Gert. Gert has been drinking for the past seventeen hours. The neighborhood in which Gert's friends live has seventy-four houses. Assuming the wind is light & breezy from the southeast, & the frisbees are flying at only 75% of their potential, & Gert sees one-hundred & forty-eight houses, whose windows will Gert NOT break?
a) The Nelsons
b) That Sex Offender With The White Van
c) Old Mister Woods
d) The Kaiser
40) Life on another planet will most probably be either much less complex or much more complex than human life. We're just saying. It's not like you're going to meet a Klingon or something. It's going to be algae or a being nearly Godlike that thinks you are algae.
a) I hope we meet the algae.
b) I believe Jesus wouldn't do that to me.
c) I'm so alone.
d) Leave me alone.
Postscript: The score I received on the "test" said:
You are ready, willing & able to colonize another planet. You think clearly, you are able to solve complex problems, & you believe it when people tell you things like this. You'll make a great guinea pig when we start shooting people in the general direction of that planet. Contact NASA right away. Go on. Do it.
Guess what! I am going to Gliese 581C! Yay!
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Whither Ken's Last Ever Summer Invasion Extravagander 2007?
I first met Ken Lastever at a Hollywood Dachsund Party hosted by Carl Reiner. Both of us had been brought there because of a deep, abiding fear of John Locke. Also, two very different judges - the Honorable Nelson Motherfucker of Garland, Texas, & the Right Justified Honorable Elvis Twinkie of Brooklyn, New York - had sentenced us to Hollywood for youthful indiscretions which the two learned justices hoped we could turn in lucrative careers. We failed, however, & after an abortive attempt to drown Robin Williams in a punch bowl filled with his own ego & unfunniness, we fled, hoping never to see each other again.
Years after that, but before now, I ran into Ken Extravaganza at a Bush Election campaign fundraiser. It was four hundred million dollars a plate, but Ken had had a plate pre-installed in his head, & he was showing it off to the faith-based-inclined. I had been attempting to make a bong out of a Bible when none other than Karl Rove came by & showed me which of the epistles made better rolling papers & the man himself, Laura Bush, came running into the gala event like a cat at a rocking chair fire. Using soothing words & a hand pump, Ken was able to calm the crowd & insert post-hypnotic commands into their brain, which would make them feel something akin to joy when they saw draft dodgers clear brush. This, like many things Ken did, would backfire later, & he testified his regret at the Cindy Sheehan murder trial in Dimension X a few months later.
While I rightly admire Ken for his radios, I am at loggerheads when it comes to his shows. Or maybe it's the other way around. However, he did cure me of the brain hiccups, & though he has not promised to meet me in the People's Court to settle our bills, the assistant pastor at the church by the bus stop to which I am constantly late has let me know that he thinks it would be the organic thing to do to let Ken Radio steal ninety minutes of Self Help Radio this week while I sit in the corner & really, really think about my life, & how much of it I've really enjoyed, & how little of it I have left, especially if I lose my left eye.
So I ceded one week to Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, the Summer 2007 Invasion Tour. & like all those Democrats who voted to give George Bush a war, I will regret it & it will hurt my chances to be president. But only for my Block Association.
Years after that, but before now, I ran into Ken Extravaganza at a Bush Election campaign fundraiser. It was four hundred million dollars a plate, but Ken had had a plate pre-installed in his head, & he was showing it off to the faith-based-inclined. I had been attempting to make a bong out of a Bible when none other than Karl Rove came by & showed me which of the epistles made better rolling papers & the man himself, Laura Bush, came running into the gala event like a cat at a rocking chair fire. Using soothing words & a hand pump, Ken was able to calm the crowd & insert post-hypnotic commands into their brain, which would make them feel something akin to joy when they saw draft dodgers clear brush. This, like many things Ken did, would backfire later, & he testified his regret at the Cindy Sheehan murder trial in Dimension X a few months later.
While I rightly admire Ken for his radios, I am at loggerheads when it comes to his shows. Or maybe it's the other way around. However, he did cure me of the brain hiccups, & though he has not promised to meet me in the People's Court to settle our bills, the assistant pastor at the church by the bus stop to which I am constantly late has let me know that he thinks it would be the organic thing to do to let Ken Radio steal ninety minutes of Self Help Radio this week while I sit in the corner & really, really think about my life, & how much of it I've really enjoyed, & how little of it I have left, especially if I lose my left eye.
So I ceded one week to Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, the Summer 2007 Invasion Tour. & like all those Democrats who voted to give George Bush a war, I will regret it & it will hurt my chances to be president. But only for my Block Association.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Preface To Ken's Last Summer Radio Invasion Extravaganza: Embedding Secret Words In Plaintext
After forty-three years of stand-up, I decided to enjoy the leisure of a more supine comic. It coincided with the tenth anniversary of my third anniversary of forgetting that I was in medical school. Which is one of the main reasons I didn't need to be around this week. It's not just the loneliness of the applause - or the long-winded runner - or the man who has the "cleaning" job of scraping the fake blood off the wall on television crime shows - though all those things did contribute. Sometime in the past. When you still cared.
The years go by, & your blessings are counting on you. You're the main authority on the subject matter of shit that's been happening to you. Unless you are being filmed, in which case there'll be lots of footage. & not just footage. Headage. Breastage. Torsoage. Hipsage. It's the age of the bodyage.
I wish I could tell you more about Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, but we've only known each other for a short time. I'll meditate on it tonight, & tomorrow, I'll throw all caution to the wind & make up several lies & one important truth. Like I am the president of Venezuela!
The years go by, & your blessings are counting on you. You're the main authority on the subject matter of shit that's been happening to you. Unless you are being filmed, in which case there'll be lots of footage. & not just footage. Headage. Breastage. Torsoage. Hipsage. It's the age of the bodyage.
I wish I could tell you more about Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, but we've only known each other for a short time. I'll meditate on it tonight, & tomorrow, I'll throw all caution to the wind & make up several lies & one important truth. Like I am the president of Venezuela!
Monday, June 04, 2007
My Name, Your Newspaper
It's happened to almost all of us almost once: local notoreity in the local news magazine. (Some of the rest of us appear on local children's shows when we are local children.) (The rest of the some of us appear on a pederast's blog accidentally because we're standing next to the child at the beach where the pederast is secretly taking pictures with his patented "towel-phone" (tm).) It just so happens I've appeared in the local rag holding a mop & pail for my middle school's "Clean Up The Filthy Mouths Of The Unbelievers" event, where we went to local non-Christian churches (of which there weren't a lot, so we ended up outside of Catholic schools) & we did minor custodial work on their front steps, at which places our Youth Minister, Pastor Demon, screamed if there was press present. Interestingly, one of the kindly old friars who worked at one school always gave me a couple of bucks for my work; since it was sinful money, I spent it on porn.
Anyway, this is just to say that ONCE AGAIN, I don't appear at all in the newspapers. Why is that? Certainly not for lack of photogenic qualities. I'd suggest a conspiracy, but I am afraid of the sort of people that attracts. Besides, I know the reason why. I'm too edgy. Too cool. Too mediocre at what I do. Too forgettable. & that's just something they can't get past. They're looking for real newsertainment - all I can give them is enternews. & their figure of speech department is cash poor at the moment.
Speaking of, how long does it take you to eat a muffin? I have discovered that, in a morning where there are lots of muffins, I can normally finish, say, half a muffin in a little under thirty seconds. But give me a whole muffin (after the half muffin), & I'll nibble on the whole muffin for hours. That means that I spent five hours on a muffin & a half today. For fuck's sake! That's newsworthy!
But ring the village bells & call home the village whores, I am announcing that last Friday's show, which looked at popcorn in a way that no other radio show that's dealt with popcorn ever has, is now available for podcasty downloading on my site. It's at the top of the archive page. Go listen. There's a free muffin with every download!*
* If there's someone around to give you a muffin.
Anyway, this is just to say that ONCE AGAIN, I don't appear at all in the newspapers. Why is that? Certainly not for lack of photogenic qualities. I'd suggest a conspiracy, but I am afraid of the sort of people that attracts. Besides, I know the reason why. I'm too edgy. Too cool. Too mediocre at what I do. Too forgettable. & that's just something they can't get past. They're looking for real newsertainment - all I can give them is enternews. & their figure of speech department is cash poor at the moment.
Speaking of, how long does it take you to eat a muffin? I have discovered that, in a morning where there are lots of muffins, I can normally finish, say, half a muffin in a little under thirty seconds. But give me a whole muffin (after the half muffin), & I'll nibble on the whole muffin for hours. That means that I spent five hours on a muffin & a half today. For fuck's sake! That's newsworthy!
But ring the village bells & call home the village whores, I am announcing that last Friday's show, which looked at popcorn in a way that no other radio show that's dealt with popcorn ever has, is now available for podcasty downloading on my site. It's at the top of the archive page. Go listen. There's a free muffin with every download!*
* If there's someone around to give you a muffin.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Charles Nelson Reilly, RIP
Goodbye, Chuck.
Last year, for Christmas, for myself, because my girlfriend & my family don't really buy me presents, & because I don't really buy anyone but me presents, I treated myself to a seasonal gift by buying the Match Game Box Set. If they collected every episode of Match Game on DVD - all nine hundred years of it - I would be one of those people who would buy it - & watch it. For the rest of my life.
Of course part of the reason for that was Charles Nelson Reilly. So I am sad that my head has been up my ass for the past week & I didn't even notice he had left us. I also am furious that there wasn't a national day of mourning, with nothing but Charles Nelson Reilly on the television.
They better correct this mistake when Richard Dawson dies, goddamnit.
Self Help Radio, today at 4:30pm, on the air in Austin at 91.7 fm, live at koop.org (CST), archived eventually at selfhelpradio.net. It's probably safe to say I wouldn't be such a goof if I had never been exposed to - over & over throughout my childhood - Charles Nelson Reilly.
Last year, for Christmas, for myself, because my girlfriend & my family don't really buy me presents, & because I don't really buy anyone but me presents, I treated myself to a seasonal gift by buying the Match Game Box Set. If they collected every episode of Match Game on DVD - all nine hundred years of it - I would be one of those people who would buy it - & watch it. For the rest of my life.
Of course part of the reason for that was Charles Nelson Reilly. So I am sad that my head has been up my ass for the past week & I didn't even notice he had left us. I also am furious that there wasn't a national day of mourning, with nothing but Charles Nelson Reilly on the television.
They better correct this mistake when Richard Dawson dies, goddamnit.
Self Help Radio, today at 4:30pm, on the air in Austin at 91.7 fm, live at koop.org (CST), archived eventually at selfhelpradio.net. It's probably safe to say I wouldn't be such a goof if I had never been exposed to - over & over throughout my childhood - Charles Nelson Reilly.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
When Owls Attack!
Back in the 1960's, everybody was a Marxist. It seemed to me that capers & ashtrays could be rolled into the one thing that is more intellectually satisfying. In America & Israel, I've interviewed people who thought a monkey should give birth to a man. How does it feel to be at camp like that? I find myself concerned in more belief strongly to engage in dialogue with people like you in an Irish accent. In case we've missed something.
Repeatedly, I've been brought up short. The trump card can't be argued with. In this book, my misunderstanding is to talk about this a bit. Faith said she was needed only when she wasn't in evidence. However, I come from when you do say what kind of use to support the fair questions of immediacy. What are the final stages? It tries to make the best possible sense of things.
We can't make a decision to step out. We do need to talk, probably. Take two. One way or another. Not even steven. All sort between naught & a hundred. My attempt to get there, that is to say, is that's there's an inherent improbabilty in saying exactly the same thing of any kind. You can make a probably cognitive judgment. There's a tension to the side of things. Let's live a life beside of that.
I understand what you believe; I wish I understood why. If you feel it flows, I'm very happy to take it. They're all different - how do you know this is the right one, & not the abstract of the physics? Grasping - some realize some of it. Look - it offers the narrative, the way of looking at things, to hold personally that what is good is brought to fulfillment. I would hope they'd want to dialogue with you!
Fundamentally, the world is your oyster sauce. I never said what you said was indicative of having the rest of the night to manufacture labels or never-you-minds. Qualitatively the reasoning seems to misspeak. Nevertheless. It's been what some might call a pleasure to reassuringly talk. That's enough of that.
Repeatedly, I've been brought up short. The trump card can't be argued with. In this book, my misunderstanding is to talk about this a bit. Faith said she was needed only when she wasn't in evidence. However, I come from when you do say what kind of use to support the fair questions of immediacy. What are the final stages? It tries to make the best possible sense of things.
We can't make a decision to step out. We do need to talk, probably. Take two. One way or another. Not even steven. All sort between naught & a hundred. My attempt to get there, that is to say, is that's there's an inherent improbabilty in saying exactly the same thing of any kind. You can make a probably cognitive judgment. There's a tension to the side of things. Let's live a life beside of that.
I understand what you believe; I wish I understood why. If you feel it flows, I'm very happy to take it. They're all different - how do you know this is the right one, & not the abstract of the physics? Grasping - some realize some of it. Look - it offers the narrative, the way of looking at things, to hold personally that what is good is brought to fulfillment. I would hope they'd want to dialogue with you!
Fundamentally, the world is your oyster sauce. I never said what you said was indicative of having the rest of the night to manufacture labels or never-you-minds. Qualitatively the reasoning seems to misspeak. Nevertheless. It's been what some might call a pleasure to reassuringly talk. That's enough of that.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Whither Popcorn?
This tale is told in five parts. "Chapters," you may say. If you're some kind of storyteller.
Part I: The Link
79 Versions Of Popcorn.
Part II: The Story From My Childhood.
I once knew a kid named Gus. Gus's family had a microwave oven. Mine didn't. The first time I saw a microwave oven, I was a little excited. Because I am/was a comic book geek, I knew that one got super powers from overexposure to weird rays. So I kept wanting to open the microwave oven while it was on, to expose myself to microwaves. I could have become a super hero! Gus's mom wouldn't let me.
We never ate microwave popcorn at Gus's house, though. The family never had any.
Part III: The James Brown Connection
"Popcorn" became some inexplicable idiom in the funk community. James Brown started it. Apparently it lasted for some time. It has absolutely nothing to do with the "Hot Butter" hit of the same name. I can't say for certain it's anything but a dance craze, but I warn you, I miss sexual innuendo unless it's spelled out in the same stark relief that makes Dan Savage's column Savage Love about as erotical as a photocopier. Although I am sure someone does find that erotic, & has written Dan Savage about it.
Part IV: The Weird Coincidence
I have been planning/working on this show for at least a couple of month, & I just today noticed that the Funky 16 Corners Radio website did a show last week about the James Brown Popcorn craze. I will trust that you believe, especially after you listen to my show, that I was not influenced by this one iota. You can download mp3s & dig the funky popcorn flavor here.
Part V: The Promise
I'll have lots of different songs about popcorn on Friday. I ate popcorn last night. I like popcorn. Come listen to Self Help Radio when we talk about popcorn. You freak.
Part I: The Link
79 Versions Of Popcorn.
Part II: The Story From My Childhood.
I once knew a kid named Gus. Gus's family had a microwave oven. Mine didn't. The first time I saw a microwave oven, I was a little excited. Because I am/was a comic book geek, I knew that one got super powers from overexposure to weird rays. So I kept wanting to open the microwave oven while it was on, to expose myself to microwaves. I could have become a super hero! Gus's mom wouldn't let me.
We never ate microwave popcorn at Gus's house, though. The family never had any.
Part III: The James Brown Connection
"Popcorn" became some inexplicable idiom in the funk community. James Brown started it. Apparently it lasted for some time. It has absolutely nothing to do with the "Hot Butter" hit of the same name. I can't say for certain it's anything but a dance craze, but I warn you, I miss sexual innuendo unless it's spelled out in the same stark relief that makes Dan Savage's column Savage Love about as erotical as a photocopier. Although I am sure someone does find that erotic, & has written Dan Savage about it.
Part IV: The Weird Coincidence
I have been planning/working on this show for at least a couple of month, & I just today noticed that the Funky 16 Corners Radio website did a show last week about the James Brown Popcorn craze. I will trust that you believe, especially after you listen to my show, that I was not influenced by this one iota. You can download mp3s & dig the funky popcorn flavor here.
Part V: The Promise
I'll have lots of different songs about popcorn on Friday. I ate popcorn last night. I like popcorn. Come listen to Self Help Radio when we talk about popcorn. You freak.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Preface To Popcorn: If I Ever Catch That Whoremonger Orville Redenbacher, I'll Wring His Neck!
I am in no way beholden to the popcorn board. No matter how much free popcorn they send me. Covered in delicious fake granular cheese. Or chocolate. I'm not picky. Pickles! I wonder if I could get free pickles, too! Popcorn & pickles. It's like I am a mentally ill pregnant woman.
I hope one day you will learn how to make popcorn. Meanwhile, as I vainly floss, I tell you that last week's show is up up up for your listening displeasure over at the Self Help Radio site. If you missed it, you missed a special guest appearance by David Bowie & Iman, & a chance to hear me get kicked in the teeth.
No time! No time! I must have more popcorn or I am doomed!
I hope one day you will learn how to make popcorn. Meanwhile, as I vainly floss, I tell you that last week's show is up up up for your listening displeasure over at the Self Help Radio site. If you missed it, you missed a special guest appearance by David Bowie & Iman, & a chance to hear me get kicked in the teeth.
No time! No time! I must have more popcorn or I am doomed!
Monday, May 28, 2007
The Self Help Radio Memorial Day Memorial
Memorial Day was founded in 1492 by Columbus in Columbus, Ohio, to mark his ability to sail a ship across the Appalachians. That was something to remember. Today, I remember the following things:
- I remember where I hid the cookies!
- I remember that I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow & she said I shouldn't eat cookies for two days before the appointment.
- I forget what the doctor said.
- I remember the delicious taste of cookies.
- I remember that occasionally (or maybe all the time) people die for something they call "a country."
- I remember whenever I am driving anywhere in the United States that there are lots & lots of empty spaces which are separated from the roads & the cars & the people in the cars by fences.
- I remember that that means that someone owns all of that.
- I hope that the people who are dying for this country maybe own some of that space behind the barbed wire, or else, well, it's kinda silly, you know?
- I remember that the people who own a lot of the country don't have to die for it, since they can afford to pay people to do it for them.
- I remember why I am depressed all the time.
- I remember where I hid the heroin!
- I am glad that I have a day off.
- I... Zzzzzz...
- I remember where I hid the cookies!
- I remember that I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow & she said I shouldn't eat cookies for two days before the appointment.
- I forget what the doctor said.
- I remember the delicious taste of cookies.
- I remember that occasionally (or maybe all the time) people die for something they call "a country."
- I remember whenever I am driving anywhere in the United States that there are lots & lots of empty spaces which are separated from the roads & the cars & the people in the cars by fences.
- I remember that that means that someone owns all of that.
- I hope that the people who are dying for this country maybe own some of that space behind the barbed wire, or else, well, it's kinda silly, you know?
- I remember that the people who own a lot of the country don't have to die for it, since they can afford to pay people to do it for them.
- I remember why I am depressed all the time.
- I remember where I hid the heroin!
- I am glad that I have a day off.
- I... Zzzzzz...
Friday, May 25, 2007
A Morrissey Adventure!
Hey! What if Morrissey were a pirate? Or a superhero? Or a stylish undercover cop busting heads in a corrupt town only he could clean up? Or a space-hero, fighting off invading alien hordes with two laser guns & a microphone?
Okay, none of that sounds fun at all. But I will tell you that, today on Self Help Radio, I'll be celebrating Morrissey's solo career with songs he's recorded since the Smiths fell down & hit their head & died, plus I'll be playing fabulous covers of Morrissey's solo songs by people who wish they were as fabulous as Morrissey, as well as songs that Morrissey himself has covered during his very long solo career. He's been releasing records as "Morrissey" for almost twenty years now; the Smiths existed for maybe a quarter that. Amazing.
I have a special treat for creepy Morrissey fans, available only over the Memorial Day weekend. If you go to the Self Help Radio webpage & click on the link that says Morrissey Contest, & write me an email about how much you like Morrissey, you could win a Morrissey tribute CD that I will make myself with only a sponge & a rusty spanner. (Actually, it'll be pretty much the music I play on the show - without all my blabbing in-between.) It's the way one Morrissey fan shows his love for other Morrissey fans.
So tune in, you sad bastard! I won't let you forget the songs that made your cry, or the songs that saved your life!
Okay, none of that sounds fun at all. But I will tell you that, today on Self Help Radio, I'll be celebrating Morrissey's solo career with songs he's recorded since the Smiths fell down & hit their head & died, plus I'll be playing fabulous covers of Morrissey's solo songs by people who wish they were as fabulous as Morrissey, as well as songs that Morrissey himself has covered during his very long solo career. He's been releasing records as "Morrissey" for almost twenty years now; the Smiths existed for maybe a quarter that. Amazing.
I have a special treat for creepy Morrissey fans, available only over the Memorial Day weekend. If you go to the Self Help Radio webpage & click on the link that says Morrissey Contest, & write me an email about how much you like Morrissey, you could win a Morrissey tribute CD that I will make myself with only a sponge & a rusty spanner. (Actually, it'll be pretty much the music I play on the show - without all my blabbing in-between.) It's the way one Morrissey fan shows his love for other Morrissey fans.
So tune in, you sad bastard! I won't let you forget the songs that made your cry, or the songs that saved your life!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The Flabby & The Fastidious
A moral to this story might be: do you care about your blog? Do you want it to be a good blog, full of righteousness & collectible bonus points, or would you rather your blog be a kleenex you might use to wipe away sadness & indiscretion?
Can a moral be a question? There's no question we have a problem with morals. I have no stories to tell that don't involve a fox, a man-whore & the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club Rejects. Except for this one:
A man, his man-whore, & two former members of the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club, were sitting in a bar daydreaming about the way things sometimes are, when in walked the most devastatingly beautiful fox they'd ever seen...
No, that one has a man-whore, a fox & the Glee Club rejects in it. I guess it's come to this: I'm all out of stories.
Which reminds me of a dude I used to know named Charlie Shuttle. Charlie was the hippest cat to ever hustle pool or contradict authority the old backwash of a city called Garland, Texas, had ever seen. Snap! That was the sound Charlie made when he got you in a headlock because you were messing with his girl & he'd just pop that top vertebrae out & you were crippled for life. Snap! Charlie Shuttle didn't get in trouble because his dad was Police Chief & his mom was the town drunk. So he had all his bases covered, if you know what I mean. Snap! Guess you'll think twice again, wheelchair man, before you give ol' Charlie Shuttle the stinkeye one more time. Snappity snap!
I wasn't friends with Charlie Shuttle, but I did subscribe to his magazine. He died in an electrical fire on a solar panel after falling thirteen stories from a windmill during the 1986 meltdown at the Garland nuclear reactor. Some idiot tried to save him by tossing him into a pile of coal, but a natural gas line burst & he suffocated to death. There was a sad irony, though - his parents decided to bury him on their family farm outside Granbury, but what should happen while they were digging the grave - they struck oil!
I know, I shouldn't lecture you, but sometimes you're as dense as a dense thicket. Why are we friends, anyway?
Can a moral be a question? There's no question we have a problem with morals. I have no stories to tell that don't involve a fox, a man-whore & the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club Rejects. Except for this one:
A man, his man-whore, & two former members of the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club, were sitting in a bar daydreaming about the way things sometimes are, when in walked the most devastatingly beautiful fox they'd ever seen...
No, that one has a man-whore, a fox & the Glee Club rejects in it. I guess it's come to this: I'm all out of stories.
Which reminds me of a dude I used to know named Charlie Shuttle. Charlie was the hippest cat to ever hustle pool or contradict authority the old backwash of a city called Garland, Texas, had ever seen. Snap! That was the sound Charlie made when he got you in a headlock because you were messing with his girl & he'd just pop that top vertebrae out & you were crippled for life. Snap! Charlie Shuttle didn't get in trouble because his dad was Police Chief & his mom was the town drunk. So he had all his bases covered, if you know what I mean. Snap! Guess you'll think twice again, wheelchair man, before you give ol' Charlie Shuttle the stinkeye one more time. Snappity snap!
I wasn't friends with Charlie Shuttle, but I did subscribe to his magazine. He died in an electrical fire on a solar panel after falling thirteen stories from a windmill during the 1986 meltdown at the Garland nuclear reactor. Some idiot tried to save him by tossing him into a pile of coal, but a natural gas line burst & he suffocated to death. There was a sad irony, though - his parents decided to bury him on their family farm outside Granbury, but what should happen while they were digging the grave - they struck oil!
I know, I shouldn't lecture you, but sometimes you're as dense as a dense thicket. Why are we friends, anyway?
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Whither A Show About Morrissey?
Yea, but the man is like unto a god to me. Nay, not because of his grand homosexuality nor his snarky wit. Nay, not because Wilde is on his side, while only Bowie is on mine. Yea, he simply spake what was true in my ugly, lonely, yearning little shell of a heart. In ways that no one else could, set to music, something true to dance to, did Morrissey seduce me. So I honor him completely & utterly.
I'm so glad to have grown up & am now able to say, "Oh, I don't like this," etc. Blind worship is for limited intelligences. I ignored him while his career fell apart in the mid to late 90's because he wasn't making very good music. I thrilled two years ago to his comeback, & was disappointed by his most recent record. But for the first time in my life, I'll get to see him live this Saturday. You'll get to hear music by him, covers of his solo work, & songs he's covered while solo. No! No Smiths! Stop living in the past, you Morrissey you!
Live for this Friday. Then dance with me on Saturday.
I'm so glad to have grown up & am now able to say, "Oh, I don't like this," etc. Blind worship is for limited intelligences. I ignored him while his career fell apart in the mid to late 90's because he wasn't making very good music. I thrilled two years ago to his comeback, & was disappointed by his most recent record. But for the first time in my life, I'll get to see him live this Saturday. You'll get to hear music by him, covers of his solo work, & songs he's covered while solo. No! No Smiths! Stop living in the past, you Morrissey you!
Live for this Friday. Then dance with me on Saturday.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Preface To A Show About Morrissey: If He Cancels Again I'll Just Die!
I have this dread feeling when it comes to people whom I admire greatly that, if left alone with them, I wouldn't be able to say anything & they'd dislike me immediately. This is partially why I have become such great friends with Scott McLellan. Part of me wants to say it'd be different with Morrissey, but everyone thinks they'd have a great relationship with Morrissey. It's not like people who become friends with Elvis Costello, then come to loathe him because of his current wife. Morrissey's wife is, I'm told, very down to earth. Like June Cleaver with chest hair. She uses all parts of the tofu when she cooks it. She is, it has been widely reported, the sort of girl you'd bring home to meet mother. Not father. Mother.
I have never met Morrissey, & I won't when he comes to town this week. But I feel like I really, really know him. Not like that asshole Johnny Marr. Do I get a sense of him from the new Modest Mouse record? No! I get a Mousey feeling, but that fucker's not Modest. Why should he be? Didn't he write the music for "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"? Yes, he did. So he can call me all the names he wants. He can shit on my head when I am lying bleeding on the pavement because Morrissey kicked me in the teeth again, I DON'T CARE. He's allowed. But I still don't know him.
I used to know Morrissey, too. In his lean mean period, after he released one crappy record too many in the late 90's & was forced to turn to Bingo to make ends meet. You'll remember those days - I was afraid I had scarlet rubella, & you were daydreaming of making a reality television show where you'd be trapped on a desert island with only fifteen fifteen-year-old boys & girls & the soundtrack to "Hackers." Morrissey existed almost entirely in our heads, saved from ten years before when we were lonesome & we didn't want to believe people could take anything more seriously than we did. Morrissey disappeared, though - up the ass of the universe, I once heard you say - & you disappeared, too. You became part of Kenneth Lay's Ethics Squad & you were the number one Blowjob Researcher in Washington, DC.
Neither one of you did badly, though - Morrissey made a comeback & he's coming to town this week, & you went to the private sector & now study blowjobs for GE. I am estranged from you both. I guess, like the characters in the songs that Morrissey sings that I listen to & which I'll play on my show Friday, I got left behind.
No tears! I am not the saddest clown! Worry me not, endless past! I shall be free of you one day, if only because I plan to remove pieces of my brain one by one until I no longer remember grunge! I am prepared for collateral damage!
Tomorrow: a very long poem to Morrissey written when I was 17 & had never been kissed. Not even by Morrissey.
I have never met Morrissey, & I won't when he comes to town this week. But I feel like I really, really know him. Not like that asshole Johnny Marr. Do I get a sense of him from the new Modest Mouse record? No! I get a Mousey feeling, but that fucker's not Modest. Why should he be? Didn't he write the music for "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"? Yes, he did. So he can call me all the names he wants. He can shit on my head when I am lying bleeding on the pavement because Morrissey kicked me in the teeth again, I DON'T CARE. He's allowed. But I still don't know him.
I used to know Morrissey, too. In his lean mean period, after he released one crappy record too many in the late 90's & was forced to turn to Bingo to make ends meet. You'll remember those days - I was afraid I had scarlet rubella, & you were daydreaming of making a reality television show where you'd be trapped on a desert island with only fifteen fifteen-year-old boys & girls & the soundtrack to "Hackers." Morrissey existed almost entirely in our heads, saved from ten years before when we were lonesome & we didn't want to believe people could take anything more seriously than we did. Morrissey disappeared, though - up the ass of the universe, I once heard you say - & you disappeared, too. You became part of Kenneth Lay's Ethics Squad & you were the number one Blowjob Researcher in Washington, DC.
Neither one of you did badly, though - Morrissey made a comeback & he's coming to town this week, & you went to the private sector & now study blowjobs for GE. I am estranged from you both. I guess, like the characters in the songs that Morrissey sings that I listen to & which I'll play on my show Friday, I got left behind.
No tears! I am not the saddest clown! Worry me not, endless past! I shall be free of you one day, if only because I plan to remove pieces of my brain one by one until I no longer remember grunge! I am prepared for collateral damage!
Tomorrow: a very long poem to Morrissey written when I was 17 & had never been kissed. Not even by Morrissey.
Monday, May 21, 2007
The Campaign To Make Memorial Day A National Holiday
I was a little sleepy when I wrote this so I was doe-eyed & cute. There was gunk in my eyes. I kept yawning over words & stretching out while we were talking & making it hard for you to understand. I was thinking that, you know, being suffocated by a pillow sounds marvellous.
Because existence is a fruit cup, I am slapping some water on the face of the present time & managing to spend a little & save a lot. You may have an inky inkling where this dialogue is going: yes, we need more days off. The Europeans have it right: don't ever require anyone to work ever. 30 hour week? 30 hour fuck you! Now, where's my health insurance? I need to go to a clinic in Brussels & have my ass removed.
Aside to Scott McLellan: you have been utterly & completely forgotten by everyone but me.
I was at the lake house this weekend - I mean, the lake of fire house - I mean, the firehouse by the lake - I mean, the firehouse once visited by Veronica Lake - & I noticed that the bags under my eyes are getting a little frayed from overuse. This is why I am a champion of allowing everyone unlimited carry-on bags on flights. Or on busses. I haven't been on a bus in years. I mean one of those busses that goes from town-to-town. But just this year, I've been on a place, a city bus, a trolly, an airplane, a magic carpet, a ten-speed bicycle, a hunchback's back, a space shuttle (but I didn't fly in it or anything, duh), a convenience store conveyor belt, & a helicopter. But no bus that goes from town-to-town. Mainly because I haven't wanted to go from town-to-town.
Someone is telling me that I need to enjoy the finer things in life. What does that say about me? What does that say about what that person sees me surrounding myself with at the moment? The only sort of nice things in life? What happens if it turns out my life is nearly exactly like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, when really it's supposed to be like Law & Order: Criminal Intent?
I'm stuck in an elevator now, & there's a woman laughing at an adverisement next to me, so I'd best do what I do best: scream out the lyrics of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" in Esperanto. That makes the journey more exciting for all of us.
Because existence is a fruit cup, I am slapping some water on the face of the present time & managing to spend a little & save a lot. You may have an inky inkling where this dialogue is going: yes, we need more days off. The Europeans have it right: don't ever require anyone to work ever. 30 hour week? 30 hour fuck you! Now, where's my health insurance? I need to go to a clinic in Brussels & have my ass removed.
Aside to Scott McLellan: you have been utterly & completely forgotten by everyone but me.
I was at the lake house this weekend - I mean, the lake of fire house - I mean, the firehouse by the lake - I mean, the firehouse once visited by Veronica Lake - & I noticed that the bags under my eyes are getting a little frayed from overuse. This is why I am a champion of allowing everyone unlimited carry-on bags on flights. Or on busses. I haven't been on a bus in years. I mean one of those busses that goes from town-to-town. But just this year, I've been on a place, a city bus, a trolly, an airplane, a magic carpet, a ten-speed bicycle, a hunchback's back, a space shuttle (but I didn't fly in it or anything, duh), a convenience store conveyor belt, & a helicopter. But no bus that goes from town-to-town. Mainly because I haven't wanted to go from town-to-town.
Someone is telling me that I need to enjoy the finer things in life. What does that say about me? What does that say about what that person sees me surrounding myself with at the moment? The only sort of nice things in life? What happens if it turns out my life is nearly exactly like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, when really it's supposed to be like Law & Order: Criminal Intent?
I'm stuck in an elevator now, & there's a woman laughing at an adverisement next to me, so I'd best do what I do best: scream out the lyrics of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" in Esperanto. That makes the journey more exciting for all of us.