8 Shows To Go!

In this space, as I plan for the last eight Self Help Radios I do on KOOP, I would like to respond to one of the so-called "good ideas" my so-called "fans" have been so-called "sending me" (uh, I guess they are really sending them to me, sorry) (I get a little too excited with the scare quotes).

In particular, the one person who suggested that to "celebrate" the countdown of shows, I cut off a finger or two for every day, until, on the last show, I am down to only one. Helpfully, they suggest it could be a mixture of fingers & toes. Or maybe an ear, eye or nostril (!) could be subtracted. They write that they don't want to "inconvenience" me.

It seems to me that digital (& other) mutilation is a piss-poor way to "celebrate" anything, unless it's to celebrate getting rid of that ugly motherfucking thumb that has been mocking you, mocking you, mocking you since you were a child. Therefore I utterly & completely reject your idea. I will simply count the shows down in this manner, go home, & cry into my hands.

But don't be dissuaded! You can send me your suggestions anytime!.

Speaking of sadness & woe, you guessed it, show number 8 is today, & it's my show about bands I like that are coming to South By South South next week. My taste is of course more on the radio than yours, so perhaps you'll have to tune in.

If it's on the radio, it'll be on 91.7 fm.
If it's on the computer live, it'll be at koop.org.
If it's no longer March 7, it'll be at selfhelpradio.net.

See you there!

Subtle Frenzy

Hello, it's Thursday. I have looked through the list of bands coming to town next week until my eyes have started to feel sad. I am amazed at three things: 1) that so many bands are coming to town next week; 2) that so many of the bands coming to town next week have really awful names; & 3) that so many bands are coming to town next week that aren't very good.

I know, taste is a subjective thing (except, you know, with things like poo - no one likes the taste of poo), but still, as someone who puts his taste on the line every week (since everything I play is chosen by me & by a robot I built in the fourth grade), I have to say, wow. I am glad I don't have to fill more than a couple of hours of programming with this lot. Ouch.

I am of course just being silly, except about the names. Here is a list of some of the worst band names you can imagine in the universe I promise (I have left out most of the metal, "world" & hiphop names, because they are required to be ridiculous &/or include bad puns):

The Airborne Toxic Event (look, we got our name from a newspaper we opened at random!)
American Bang (wait. hunh?)
An Albatross (is the article required? i bet they have gotten mad at bloggers who forgot the article!)
A Thousand Knives Of Fire (rip Gary Gygax!)
Beasts and Superbeasts (they have weird zoos in Canada)
Bedroom Walls (I guess it beats "Kitchen Cupboards" - or does it?)
Between the Buried and Me (wait. what?)
Bound Stems (aw, they live near a florist!)
Carbon/Silicon (choose damnit!)
Care Bears on Fire (it's just not funny)
Cassettes Won't Listen (it's just not weird enough)
The Chocolate Horse (sounds delicious!)
Coconut Coolouts (sounds delightful!)
Collections of Colonies of Bees (sounds dangerous!)
The Crash That Took Me (since they're from Dallas, I assume they're talking about something financial)
Does It Offend You, Yeah? (does it embarrass you? no?)
Drop Dead, Gorgeous (someone should never have given them that comma)
The Dykeenies (this seems slightly offensive. & dumb)
Earthless (shoud've gone with "pantsless")
Envy On The Coast (since "landlocked shame" was taken)
Everlovely Lightningheart + Everthus the Deadbeats (okay, they're avant-garde-ish bands, but if they can't be clever enough to think up a good name, how clever do you think their music will be?)
Ex Cocaine (Post Cocaine would have been a much better name.)

& that's just the A-Es! I'd like to continue but I have to go to a meeting.

I'll end on a positive note: My favorite band name for a metal band at SXSW? Blunt Force Trauma. I am proud to say they're local!

Whither SXSW 2008?

Hello friends. I am writing this blog with something just a little like sadness, as this is probably the last time I will get to write about Austin's yearly clusterfuck called "South By South West." I will most probably not be in this city next year so I won't get to play bands that are coming to Austin in order to edutain you about my faves. & surely that is a sadness.

It reminds me of a time when I was squatting in a freebooter's flat in the port city of Port Arthur. Those were lonesome days with only the sound of the television tuned to the Game Show Network to keep me warmish. Years later, after a chilling rain, I attended the same television's funeral at a second-hand appliance store in nearby Corpus Christi & I truly remember thinking, "Thomas Worf was right, you can't go squat again." So too it shall be after this week's review.

& you shall surely see me standing outside the lovely offices of Entercom afterwards with tears streaming down my cheeks saying, "Oh God what have I done!" Then I'll be mugged by two coffee delivery boys as I am every Friday. They keep finding where I hide my money! Truly they are both mean & crafty!

But, as John Leopard Dirtypants has written in his fable "Zach & Dionne": Fuck yeah, life goes on, long after the trill & spilling is gone. So too I long for once more to trill & spill about this musical festival which nearly no one attends, & then I shall let it go, like I let go the remote of that long-ago pirate's television, dropping it in the grave prepared for it, & never thinking about it again.

Until now, you know. I had to think about it to make a point. Get it?

Preface To SXSW2008: Getting Fat On Tourist Dollars Is Fun!

In Austin, we like the tourists. They smell funny & they look funny but they seem to like this place we live in & they bring us lots of money. Mmm, money.

However, money isn't everything, & certainly that is a lesson that South By South West teaches us. Fame is also important. Also, getting people to scramble about madly from place-to-place to catch a few admittedly unsatisfying minutes of one's favorite band when they are definitely not at their best because they've been scheduled to play after a sixteen piece jam band at a venue that was a used book store recently converted to a "space" for bands only after three interns at South By South West International were dispatched to the City Codes office to offer sexual favors for anyone who could expedite the process. Yes, besides money, there's fame & desperation. Mmm, desperation.

I confess I don't spend money on "wristbands" nor do I use my considerable media muscle (ahem) to force my way into venues. But I do drink a lot of an evening & weep into my hands while no one's looking. But I also do that at other times besides South By South Ugh, so that's not important. What is important is that the city thinks you're a moderately well-off (but distant) relative & is glad you're leaving on Sunday. It completely expects you to pay for everything while you're here & that's why it doesn't mind if you throw up all over the place (like you will).

This is true for the musicians, too. I mean, come on! We're a city that doesn't even appreciate the musicians we got! So feel free to despoil our children & drink our watered-down well drinks - you're going to be racking up some debt while you're here, believe you me.

Yes, tourists reinforce Austin's self-importance, & well that should. Listen - if you didn't come twice a year now (also for the ACL thing in the fall), this damn city might actually have to get a job!

If I Were Billy Preston...

This is an embarrassing thing to discuss in what amounts to a group setting because I don't spend a whole lot of time imagining what I would do if I could be someone else or even wanting to be someone else & let's be honest here most folks who spend a lot of time imagining what they'd do if they were someone else are not really imagining what they would do but rather imagining just being that other person & doing whatever that person did because the reason you'd want to be a specific person outside of yourself is not the ineffable qualities of that person somehow applied to your condition but instead you experiencing what you have decided are amazing moments in some much famous person's life & it being you rather than the person inspiring another person like you but which isn't you which is my way of saying that since I don't really do that I probably wouldn't want to be Billy Preston as I don't really have much of a yen to reproduce much of what he did in this life except perhaps appear in the motion picture Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band if only to hang out with underrated British comedian Frankie Howerd & to also fulfill a lifelong wish to beat the living shit out of Maurice Gibb.

This doesn't mean I don't like Billy Preston or don't like the song "Will It Go Round In Circles" (I fucking love that song). Just that I wouldn't want to be him, in the same way I wouldn't want to be pretty much any musician. You're the one who brought up Billy Preston. It could easily have been Patsy Cline or Nick Cave or Holger Czukay.

Now that that's out of the way, may I remind you that you experienced a "leap day" this year, on February 29, & you won't get to do that for four more years now, but you can return to ninety delicious minutes of that day as they were celebrated on Self Help Radio simply by visiting selfhelpradio.net. I don't know this for a fact but I have it on good authority that if enough of us experience that show over & over we may also add an extra day to March!

9 Shows To Go!

It's not fair it's not fair! The year gets an extra day but I don't get an extra show! Why me Lord why me?! I finally understand the blues!

All right, sport. Chin up. Back straight. Knees slightly bent. Don't be a mewler, be a man! You know you have to go. You know that you'll be leaving the city some call "Austin" soon enough, & you know it would be unfair to simply do your show until the day you leave. It'd be selfish! & real men are not selfish. Well, except in bed. But you are not in bed! You are leaving a fine community radio station with dignity. Do not embarrass us.

I'll try to be strong, I will. But I am so very lonesome & sad right now. Nine shows! That's as many stories as in JD Salinger's Nine Stories! That's as many lives as a cat has! That's as many nines as were naughty when we learned about naughty number nine! That's many holes as half the holes at a miniature golf course or even the number of holes at a really small strip-mall enclosed miniature golf course where once I had drunk an entire pint of Everclear in an orange slushie & I tried to steal a kiss from JF but she swing the little plastic club & hit my elbow & the nachos went everywhere! Nine is not a good number! I am very worried about the number nine!

No. I must be strong. Think about Batman. Batman would want to vanquish a set number of villains before he retired, or, since I'm not really stopping the making of the radio shows, I'm just leaving KOOP, let's assume Batman is moving from Gotham City to, say, Metropolis, just to fuck with Superman. Surely Batman would have a set number of baddies - say, nine - he'd like to make sure were all tucked away in Arkham Asylum before he split, right? & don't I share a lot of qualities with the Batman? We're both OCD!

Yea! As the clock ticks down, you can listen to the first of the last nine Self Help Radios today, on the air at the 91.7 fm frequency, live at 4:30pm, & on the computer net at koop.org. I'll archive it later if you're way too depressed to listen.

I'm a mewler!

PS: Didn't think I could name nine Batman foes? Ha! 9. Killer Croc; 8. Riddler; 7. Clayface; 6. Penguin; 5. Scarecrow; 4. Mister Freeze; 3. Two-Face; 2. R'as Al-Ghul; 1. Joker. Wanna know how I did? Maybe there's a list of Batman enemies online?

What's So Damned Funny?

Oh, nothing really. Yesterday I subbed KOOP's novelty/comedy show, which is called "Dr. Debra's Gone Mad!" & played some silly songs & stand-up, including music by the likes of the Dead Milkmen & Tiny Tim, & stand-up by Louis CK & Michael Ian Black. Plus! Extra! Songs about cats! & a version of a Paul McCartney song you can actually stand to listen to!

You can experience the whole show in the regular place: selfhelpradio.net.

Here are two anecdotes about the show yesterday which weren't broadcast (since they happened in the studio while I was playing music).

Anecdote the first:
The Entercom studio which the corporation has graciously let us use of course still belongs to them, & a tech fellow was around taking inventory, which he ominously said was "for when you guys are done." Eep! Anyway, he brought in what appeared to be his boss around the time I was playing the Tiny Tim song. The dude, who looked a lot like Mike Farrell & was carrying a coffee cup in the way Dave Foley's character always did on News Radio, said, "Is that Tiny Tim?" I said it was. He said, "Amazing! & it's not even his hit!" As he was leaving, he said to me, "I bet you're the only person in America playing Tiny Tim on the radio right now." For some reason, I just thought, "That's what KOOP's all about."

Anecdote the second:
The last song I played was the Mike Flowers Pops's version of "1999" & a very square middle-aged guest of the next show (a news & public affairs show called "A Neighborly Conversation") said, "Who's doing this horrible version of that Prince song?" When I told her I thought the cover was better than the original, she looked at me like I had told her that her kids were stinky. Which made me think, "Isn't it odd that this person who's on KOOP doesn't appear to listen to KOOP?"

Anecdote the synthesis:
I think I kinda liked the fact that the corporate executive was both more hip & had a greater sense of humor than the grassroots community activist.

Whither The Leap Day Show?

Because it's happening on February 29.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll take a moment to answer some of the other questions you've been asking me, either by email or in my dreams. Dead people who listen to Self Help Radio & who haunt me will NOT get their questions asked, as they are usually inane & generally a waste of everyone's time. Dead people ask the dumbest motherfucking questions.

I am NOT a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. I don't know how that rumor got started but I am pretty sure I was drunk at the time.

There are many reasons to leave an organization like KOOP, but among those reason, I am not leaving because I got KOOP pregnant. KOOP & I are close, but we are just friends. Sheesh. I know KOOP is kind of homely, but surely a radio station like that can do better than ME. Plus, how do you know KOOP is pregnant? Who told you?

Thank you for your cards & letters, but I am not sick with Lou Ferrigno's disease. There really isn't any such thing as Lou Ferrigno's disease. Who would name a disease after Lou Ferrigno? Wouldn't a disease like that just make you awesome?

I thank both Z & S (whose names do not begin with those initials) for their requests for upcoming themes. I like that you want me to do shows about things like "battered spouse syndrome," "kitty box odors" & "songs that rhyme the word 'serrated'," but I probably won't get to them any time soon. Also, I think you should perhaps seek mental help.

Thanks all for now. See you Friday. We'll be leaping.

Preface To The Leap Day Show: What Can We Do On Our Extra Day?

Oh goodie! Science in its infinite wisdom has given us a whole extra day this year! I've looked everywhere to see if there's a catch, but nope: it's free! They're giving it to us for free!

I haven't checked yet to see if this day is actually subtracted from the days that are normally alloted to us by the Fates, but I'm guessing it's not, since it's also tax-deductible. (I think.) Since they've decided to place the day on a Friday, & since no one has to work on any extra day added to a calendar (that's a rule), it's also like you get a three-day weekend!

I have to do my show, since it's a Friday & since my KOOP shows are dwindling, but except for that ninety-minute period, you should totally do whatever you want. I mean, wow! An extra day! Science in its infinite wisdom hasn't done anything that cool since eliminating days in the Dark Ages by switching from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People in those times (except the Russians, who, as usual, got completely fucked over by the Tsar) were so damned grateful that two more weeks of suffering, disease, hopelessness & misery were taken off their lives they agreed not to fuck with the Catholic Church until around the end of the 17th Century. & you know what? Peasants living in squalor keep their promises!

Another thing I'm almost completely certain about is this: since it's an extra day, it'll exist outside the bounds of the normal workings of the space-time continuum. & you know what that means: Klingons! Fuck yeah! Not only that, but the laws of science won't apply, & if the laws of motherfucking science don't apply, neither will the paltry human-made laws of our civilization. You can do whatever you want - just remember it resets at 12:01 on Saturday morning. & nothing will turn into a pumpkin, so pay attention to what you're doing!

I officially say to you have a happy extra day! I hope you'll have fun & do something crazy - but I have a bad feeling that you, like me, will sleep in, order a pizza, listen to the radio, rent something you have already seen but have forgotten about (& you'll say "fuck it" & watch it again), & fall asleep with your hand clutched around a bottle of cheap booze.

Oh leap day! Why must science in its infinite wisdom mock us so?

Why Do You Say Nothing About My New Socks?

For weeks you have been carping & complaining & otherwise making me feel like a pauper or a homeless person by telling me how frayed & grubby my socks are. Now that I have gone out - at great expense to my self-esteem - & gotten a new pair, you have said NOTHING. You have not even noticed them! What's the point of being such a dick & making me feel so bad if you aren't even going to notice when I make the CHANGE that you want me to make?

At this point I should make sure you know that I now have more than one pair of socks. I will add that I don't have more than two COMPLETE pairs of socks, but since you've begun ignoring my socks, I may return to my admittedly lazy habit of wearing mismatched pairs. I would like to certainly be able to explain where exactily my socks' partners have ended up, but I really don't know. There was an entire episode of CSI: Pflugerville about this, although it won't air until after the people who wrote it are allowed to write again after scabbing during the writers' strike.

I'm sick of talking about socks now. I'm going to go listen to my radio show, which is called Self Help Radio. Last Friday's show, which was not about socks (sadly) but instead was about guessing (radly) is up over at the Self Help Radio website. So even though I was there, I feel like I missed it, & if you feel that way, too, you should go listen to it.

I warn you, though. I did that show in my old socks.

10 Shows To Go!

Ten things to expect from the last ten episodes of Self Help Radio on KOOP:

1) More nudity.
2) Security has increased, so there will be fewer folks wandering into the studio, staring intently at Gary, & then breaking into a rage & just hitting him, hitting him, hitting him.
3) For guests, we've added a new fruit to the fruit basket: kiwi!
4) Gary has recently begun dealing with his crippling halitosis problem, so it should be easier to listen to Self Help Radio close up.
5) That thing where there's some sort of theme, & then there's a lot of music played vaguely, often tenuously, based on the theme? Yeah, that's not going to change. Sorry.
6) An extra laugh will be added to each episode. If you can't find your extra laugh, please talk to your radio provider.
7) It's dissertation season, so (as usual) there are dozens of academic treatises written about Self Help Radio & the damage it does not only to individual psyches, but also to the fabric of the space-time continuum. For the first time, at least half of those dissertations will be written in Chinese!
8) Annoying child character introduced in last season to be written out of the show entirely.
9) Up to 43% more discomfort per half hour.
10) The role of Gary to be played in the last three episodes by Corey Flintoff.

You don't want to miss the final ten episodes on KOOP! Listen online or listen to it live! Today at 4:30pm Austin time!

Zippo Says

It's very weird that a lot of folks are surprised by my outside volunteer work, like my tremendous support for the International Crusade For Holy Relics. They note that I, for example, own three Shrouds Of Turin, enough pieces of the cross they crucified Jesus on to make a full set of three, seventeen nails for nailing up a savior, & a whole photo album of polaroids that Martha & Mary took the day of the event, but the important thing is I don't disrespect these holy relics by selling them on eBay. That's just tacky.

I also enjoy mentoring kids in the natural sciences, where I often help them with their science experiments. You can guess which have been influenced by me - Crystal Meth: Friend Or Foe is of course one of my upcoming themes.

Oh, & of course, I donate a lot of my time to being high school mascots at sporting events. Have a look at where I get most of my costumes. Awesome.

I like to read short stories online, too. & worry about the destruction of the planet.

Of course, I also spend a great deal of time just getting old, & one of things that happens when you get old is that people you love & admire also get old. & they sometimes die before you. & sometimes you wish you could have a radio show every damn day of the week so you could give them a going-away they really deserve. So I say goodbye to Jim Jones, whose guitar work illuminated some of the best so-called "post punk" (even when it was before punk) in the world, with Pere Ubu. I'll find a way to say goodbye, Jim. I promise.

Whither Guessing?

The two doctors met in the room, one a resident at the hospital, the other a specialist called in for this very case. The patient in the room was on the verge of death.

"Can we treat him?" the first doctor asked.

"I guess," the other said.

"You guess?!" the resident said, exasperated. "Aren't you a world renowned expert on communicable diseases?"

"I guess," the expert said.

"There you go, guessing again!" his companion yelled. "There can be no guessing when it comes to a patient's life! You want this patient to survive, don't you?"

"I guess," the expert repeated.

"What the hell?!" This doctor was clearly terribly angry. "You don't feel strongly enough about your own patient to want to fight for his life?! Have you not heard of the Hippocratic Oath?"

"I guess not," the expert said, staring at the patient & apparently not affected by his companion's temper.

"It doesn't sound like you've even been to college!" the doctor thundered. "You are a fraud, sir! A scoundrel! You are a quack & you should not be allowed to practice medicine in this hospital!"

The other doctor seemed unmoved, oblivious to the other doctor's clenched fists, beads of sweat on his brow, & heavy breathing. After a moment, the resident said, "You will let me talk to you in this way?"

The specialist said, "I guess."

The first doctor threw his hands in the air & stormed out of the room, swearing & waving his arms in a frantic way. After a moment, noticing he was alone, the expert pulled up a chair & sat next to the patient, who was looking miserable indeed.

"Ah, there you are, doctor," a man said, entering the room. He held a folder which he offered to the specialist. "Here's the test results," he said. "It was exactly what you thought it was, which is incredible, since we wouldn't normally have run those tests. I have to ask, though: how did you know that he had such a rare condition?"

"I guessed," the doctor said.

Preface To Guessing: I Guess I'm Doing A Show About Guessing

Famous quotes about guessing:

"A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, famously mysterious-acting

"The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion - these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized & is associated somehow with laziness."
- Jerome S. Bruner, famously penalized for being lazy

"Who can ... guess how much industry & providence & affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, famously not good at sports

"I am sure,
Though you can guess what temperance should be,
You know not what it is."
- William Shakespeare, famously drunk

"When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been."
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, famously manly hewer/delver

"The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it - this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience."
- Henry James, famously just guessing at shit

"I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty."
- Sherlock Holmes, famously fictional ( & awesome!)

"Dancing is a wonderful training for girls, it’s the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it."
- Christopher Morley, famously predictable

I guess that's enough. For today.

Off Whitening

I love the titles of spam messages. I don't read them, although I feel a little guilty about that. That's someone's livelihood I am disrespecting! Etc.

Here are some titles from today's treasure trove of unsolicited email:

-- Pull of Huge Jackpot
What does that mean? Are they trying to convince me that their online gambling establishment is exerting some kind of force drawing me to them? I just don't feel it.

-- Watch the lust in her eyes when you whip out your 9 inch monster
It sounds like I am about to unleash a devil puppy on a perversely motivated woman who's into bestiality. I know I am something of a prude, but good lord, why would it be attractive to describe your thingie as a "monster"? Aren't monsters supposed to be scary, or, like the Elephant Man, distorted or horrible examples of humans?

-- Small |nstrumment is not a problem.
Oh, wait. Actually, I think this is an email from my girlfriend trying to make me feel better after last night. Not spam at all. Never mind.

- Buy Must Have medications at Canada based pharmacy.
"Canada based"? & why must I have them? Do Canadian pharmacies sell ecstasy? No? Then I am fine. Canadians! Feh!

- Those locker room stares will be for the right reason...
Oh, back to this. Wouldn't the "wrong reason" depend upon one's sexual orientation? Is the right reason mentioned above envy? Really?

- You can listen to last week's Self Help Radio up now at selfhelpradio.net...
I hate these worst of all. God damn radio show people pimping their second-rate non-commercial garbage. Grrrr. & this show is about "butchers"! Why not do what The Retarded Bob Dylan is doing with his show & pick simple subjects like love, hair, rain, & interns? I can abide most spam but the spam I send to myself I just loathe.

I subbed the jazz show Non-Breaking Space yesterday & should also have that show up soonish. Then I'll spam myself again. Because if I don't, who will? Me. That's who.

11 Shows To Go!

Ah, the good eleven. It never gave me any trouble until after nine.

Before anything is signed or notarized in today's self-serving blog entry, can I ask you: will you ever forgive me for forgetting you on Valentine's Day? I didn't give you hearts or candy or syphillis or even a lousy blog entry. It's not that I don't love you, baby. It's just that I am forgetful. I'm like a child, you know, before they learn spatial recognition or some such - I just don't think you exist if I can't see you. Not all the time, of course. Just when you expect something from me.

And. Now. Eleven more shows on KOOP. What can you expect? I promise you the same quality of programming you have come to expect from the Self Help Radio family of programs. I mean, I don't really imagine it could get much worse, could it? If there is a jump in quality (as if), you may attribute it to my desire to make the last programs I do for you on KOOP the best programs in the universe. But you know as well as I do that'll be a fluke.

Hey! Speaking of flukes! If you want to hear me get all jazzy like I did back in December, you can hear me sitting on the show Non-Breaking Space on Sunday at 5pm. Listen in!

& also listen today at 4:30 pm Central Standard Tamale live on the 91.7 fm frequency & on the interwebs at koop.org. A show about butchers by an ardent vegetarian. What could possibly be better?

Whither Butchers?

It is not well-known how the themes get chosen for the Self Help Radio. Since the Self Help Radio is owned by the same mega-corporation which owns the Council on Foreign Relations Gift Shop, Illuminati-Masonry & Sons, & the Church Of Scientology (Reformed), I can't really tell you or I will have broken my non-disclosure agreement & some goons would come along & beat up my bicycle, but I can tell you that I got the order to - er, I mean, I conceived the idea of a show about butchers back in the carefree days of not long ago, when all the men were slightly surreptitious & all the women were harmonizing.

That is a long & confusing way of saying this: I had no idea that my show would coincide with the sad news of the death of the most famous butcher of my generation, Sam the Butcher from The Brady Bunch, whose occupation may have rattled his senses enough for him to be attracted to the disturbingly mannish maid Alice. The actor - who appeared all over the place on the television of my childhood - was named Allan Melvin & he died last month at the young age of 84.

I'm not sure if he alone would be enough to inspire a show. What did inspire the show? What moved me, a vegetarian for over twenty years, to devote ninety precious minutes to an occupation I find abhorrent? The answer may surprise you.

It was 1947, & I was a dashing young Lieutenant in His Majesty's Iraqi Occupation Army. You were the twinkie in your daddy's lunchbox. I had fallen asleep during the fifth siege of Basra that month & I had forgotten that Charlie was thick in the Bush. (Neil Bush, at that time.) Three or four members of the Greatest Generation were playing punkies off the side of the small wading pool &, with the DVD player not working, we used the discs to absent-mindedly chop tobacco & opium left outside by the Dutch Police who had visited the night before. Distracted, I almost met my end by friendly fire from an unfriendly woman who had neither asked nor told in That Man's Army. What saved me? Why did I not die?

A butcher was hacking away at some mystery meat in the shape of Dick Cheney when, due to the way Dick Cheney makes everyone's stomach churn, the butcher suddenly hurled, & his cleaver flew between me & the soldier, deflecting the bullet & making her (for whatever reason) believe that violence was not the answer. I think she decided that breakfast tacos were the answer. & I thank my lucky stars that, that day, I didn't die & I have a butcher to thank. Do you know when that happened? Or rather, when it will happen? That's right. February 15, 2143.

I celebrate that fateful day! Even if I loathe the practice! Now you know! Aren't you a nosy bastard!

Preface To Butchers: Flank Is A Funny Word

Actually, all the butcher-related words are pretty funny. "Meat." It even looks funny. How about "loin"? "Chop"? "Rashers" of "Bacon"? "Rack" of lamb? Just repeat after me: rump, round, brisket, poll, hock, ham, rump, belly & jowl. Har har har! Them's funny motherfucking words!

& everyone - except obese people - think the word "fat" is funny. Not phat, but funny.

Dude, you just ate a rump when you could've had a rack. Har har har!

I also totally love diagrams like this one - especially when they're in weird discotheque colors - which describe the names of the "parts" of the animal (in this case, the cow) that can be eaten. I guess meat-eaters will eat pretty much everything, so diagrams like this are for finicky western eyes only. Bon appetit!

Do you know if someone has done the same thing for humans? Any cannibals out there want to show us something similar? Damn! I wish I had the time to make one. Rats. I spent the day getting yelled at instead of being creative.

Why does a licensed vegetarian like myself want to do a show about butchers? Hey! Ask me tomorrow!

Love Is In The Erred

BOY what a dumbass I am. I conducted what I thought was a sweetly romantic version of KOOP's perennial favorite, the Lounge Show, this past Saturday, but due to user error (meaning ME), I screwed up the recording of it. What a maroon!

However, I have made a CD-length mix of a majority of the songs I played Saturday (no, I didn't recreate my oafish airbreaks) which is available as my Self Help Radio Extra for February. Go! Go young lovers! There is grooviness waiting for your untainted hearts!

But if you're bitter & wounded & frankly hate the whole fucking idea of Valentine's Day, you can listen to my Self Help Radio show about jealousy over at selfhelpradio.net. You can even listen to it without me. Do you think I care?

No, I'm too busy beating myself up about my stupidity.

12 Shows To Go!

What a bummer. Twelve more Self Help Radio shows on KOOP. How should I end my run in three months? I'm plum clean out of idears.

Surely you can tune in today at 4:30 as we start to nibble down the last dozen shows. Mmm, nibble. It's on the air in Austin town on the 91.7 frequency from 4:30 to 6pm, & on the online line at the same time at koop.org. You can listen all the KOOP shows that way, not just mine. Thanks to Thomas Alva Edison.

Speaking of Menlo Park, I'll be subbing the Lounge Show tomorrow morning, too. Self Help Radio will be about jealousy today, but the Lounge Show will be more romantic. It'll be about nibbling. That's not true. It'll be about romance. Because I may have only a broken heart, but I still believe in love. Or eating. Eating crumbly stuff. & love. Mmm, love.

Listen! Listen! Listen!