2 Shows To Go!

I am feeling especially wary about today's penultimate Self Help Radio, & I'll tell you why: it's not really under my control. You heard me. My show is programming itself. That's right! What kind of sick sci-fi nonsense is this? But the orders came from above. I don't have a say in my next-to-the-last show. I tell you, if I weren't leaving already, I'd have a bit of a huff prepared.

What is there to say? Today at 4:30pm CST, live on the 91.7 fm frequency & at koop.org is the first of two final Self Help Radio shows on KOOP. Oh boy! Yay boo! My teeth feel sad. I hope you can find it in your hearts to sacrifice any extra candy to my toothsome cause.

Come listen at 4:30! I will be paying my mortgage on the air!

Exter! Exter!

Happy Thursday. I made it back from Dallas & am working worrisomely on my next-to-last Self Help Radio. But I was thinking - hey, it's the end of April isn't it motherfucker? (Whenever I talk to myself in my head, I am extremely profane. I don't know why that is. For veracity's sake, I must write my thoughts down EXACTLY AS I HAVE THEM. If I didn't, I would be no better than [insert someone or something {like a media organization, or your lying-ass roommate in college} you think is a dissembling sack of sick], right?

If indeed it is the end of April, you selfish fucked-up douchehead, then isn't it time once again for another Self Help Radio Extra mix? Oh indeed it is. Please the Self Help Radio Extra page for a unique mix of the new sounds & the hot old sounds & the hot sounds that I don't know when they were recorded. All arranged in a single mix that makes it annoying if you don't like that one song in the middle, but convenient for listening to on iPod or burned to CD or given wrapped-up digitally as a present to your Aunt who thinks an mp3 is a brand of Soviet-era assault rifle.

Again, that's Self Help Radio Extra. I really want to say "You're welcome," but I'll wait for you to listen. Then you can tell me what you think. I'll be sitting here. Whittling. Yes, I whittle. I'm from the South. My father was a sharecropper's son. Whittling was mandatory for youngsters like me. Go, listen. Look, I'm making you a whistle.

Whither Regret?

I regret that I am in Dallas & can't write in my blog today. Wait. What?

Preface To My Penultimate Show On KOOP: Yes! I Got To Use The Word Penultimate!

I mean, how often do you get to use the word "penultimate"? Most people prefer "next to last," but not only does "penultimate" sound way cooler than "next to last," but it reminds everyone that the meaning of the word "ultimate" is "the very last." So the next time you see "Billy Joel - The Ultimate Collection," hold the record companies to their promise! No more Billy Joel collections ever!

Oh, tis a sadness to be approaching the end of my KOOP times. I feel blue. But I look forward - to other radio stations in the universe, to those pesky podcasts which, at last count, almost a few folks have downloaded. & then I look back - & it seems like KOOP is giving me the finger - wait! It's apparently just scratching its face. Whew!

There are so many wonderful stories & experiences that I had at KOOP, I am sure. I have obliterated most of them, of course, with heavy drinking & short-term memory loss incurred by a desperate need I have to impress the women by breaking beer bottles on my head. But my record number of concussions in one four-hour period surely reflects the joy given to me not only by being a part of what is truly a crazy-ass experiment in community radio, but also by the crazy-ass listeners who for whatever reason kept coming back to my show, listening, calling, calling again, still listening, calling, calling into the night, calling even when I am at home & not on the air any longer, continuing to call into the wee hours, calling, calling, hey!, I got caller ID buddy, be aware of that, you freak!

It's the penultimate time you'll get to hear me on that radio station! Pass it on! Use that word all the time until people get annoyed with you. You know you wanna. Come on!

The Podcasts Begin!

Yes, even though I was unable to be on the air on Friday (where, I am told, the noble Justin produced a fine Self Help Radio show!), I did manage to make a show, along with my pal Mike, & it is now a sweet, sweet podcast, located (as they always shall be) at selfhelpradio.net. You can listen to it & to the other installments of the Indiepop A To Z series there. & why wouldn't you? Are you too busy enjoying This Week In Science? I thought not. Wait. Are you? That's one of my podcast rivals!

I am thinking of changing my show's name to "This Week In Self Help Radio Radio." But it is really on the lowest rung of my consideration, so I probably shouldn't have mentioned it. It's right below "Getting a tattoo of Richard Dawson on my inside left thigh" & "trying heroin for the third time." I don't really have the space in my schedule for changing my radio show's name.

Go! Listen! I am just making noises because I don't want to have to go to this meeting I'm supposed to go to! Don't let me keep you!

Sheesh.

3 Shows To Go! (Slight Return)

Yes, there are three more Self Help Radio shows on KOOP. I'm doing the last two. Today, the wonderful Justin from the House Call fills in with a show all about tools. Do tune in at 4:30 pm Austin time on the 91.7 frequency & online at koop.org. It'll be awesome!

& I'll be back for my penultimate show on KOOP next week. Have a lovely weekend!

Self Help Radio vs The World

What an amazing title! Imagine, this tiny little radio show taking on something so big & scary & full of pollution like the world! That includes you, & every animal, & every hotel, & every bottle of Coca Cola! Why would this tiny little radio show want to do something like that?

Oh it isn't. It's just being grandiose. The main mouthpiece behind Self Help Radio, that queer fellow called Gary, he - & by he I mean I - subbed KOOP's world music show World Beat on Sunday. That's all. It's now available for your listening pleasure.

Where in the world can you listen to it? I bet you know! Yes, it's over at selfhelpradio.net. Like it always is. Every damn time. Go! Enjoy! Have fun!

Whither Tools?/Whither Indiepop A To Z # 14?

This is a two tracked explanation of the two Self Help Radio shows which will happen this week. Please do not adjust your browser. Everything is working exactly as planned. Take it away!

I am allowing the young Justin to handle Self Help Radio this week because a) he is able & b) I can't do it. But I can't go a whole week without a radio show. Damn my work! That would be madness. It's one of the last Self Help Radios on KOOP & my work says "No! Gary's gotta be here to justify his bureaucratic existence!" I also haven't visited my never-ending Indiepop A To Z series since late last year. They're so hateful here. It seems entirely appropriate to do so now, for two reasons: 1) to do a radio show when I cannot, in the form of a podcast, & 2) to do something of general interest so as not to "compete" with the Self Help Radio show subbed by Justin. My heart is broken. His show will be listened to by the regular Austin listeners. Yet my heart is heartened (after all) because I think Justin will do a fine job hosting Self Help Radio. My podcast will be downloaded by a drunk guy in Ukraine looking for free mp3s of Cinerama songs. I have requested that he do a show around the subject of "tools." & then quickly forgotten. Why is that? But isn't Self Help Radio really radio for people like me, people who need radio primarily if it is radio prepared & created by them themselves? Because, frankly, Justin is a manly fellow, with fine muscles & strong shoulders. If not that, what is it? & frankly I am a girly boy, with too much pretty hair & a slightly womanly walk which accentuates my wide feminine hips which, in a different world, would bear beautiful children. I cannot say, I am too close to the subject matter, in the same way a koala cannot be critical of the eucalyptus, or the way a walrus cannot talk shit about the rocks on which it suns. I am a little afraid around the implements which the more masculine of my gender use to make & repair things. But I will make my podcast, & I will load my podcast. My entire life I've been a little too afraid to ask about them. I just fucking dare you to download & listen to it. I have secretly conspired therefore to have Justin educate me without exposing myself as the sissy I fear the world sees me as. I just fucking dare you! Justin will vindicate me! I just hope my daring you isn't too pushy. So you had better pay attention. I do expect people to download my silliness.

Preface To Tools/Preface To A New Podcast

What do I talk about this week? Do I talk about the excellent young Justin's doubtlessly excellent covering of Self Help Radio (he's doing a show about tools)? Or do I talk about a podcast I will be making because I can't not make something like a radio show for even one little week? Or should I just show a video of what looks like a kitten with a theremin?

Instead, I think I'll take this moment to address what many in the Self Help Radio community are calling "tax day." As someone who has never failed to pay his or her taxes every other year or so, I find myself troubled by the turncoats & pests who feel that taxes are bothersome or otherwise cumbersome to the loathsome & the winsome. Surely our Founding Brothers & Sisters, who wrote extensively on the subject, never conceived of "taxation with representational art" as unfit for projects & protests! It's right there in the Constitution! Article you know, Section of course!

But this points even further to a more difficult conception of American society today in the 21st century today. Which is this: with all the consumer options we have before us, who really would choose to buy the governmental services on offer with the standard tax dollar? Very few of us, save some of the elderly without disposable income, as well as those for whom a nationwide flat tax appeals to their flat heads. Indeed, it's the crux of the material! Yet by requirement we save the embarrassment of unrequited requitedness. Quite!

I haven't got the hair nor the breadth to discuss the argument that goes on between bald Libertarians & shaggy-maned Contrarians, but you can well imagine that the hours spent on community radio alone making grand pronouncements, not to mention the money spent on shampoo & conditioner, could fill a phone book. I wanted rather to alert you, on this Taxing Tax Day, to the iambic pentameter being spent by the greatest truly minds of our or the next generation. For more information, please see a kitten possibly playing a theremin.

Man! Sudafed makes you have the coolest thoughts!

Home Sickly

A weird spring cold in Texas gave me a weird spring cold in my head so I am home today doped up on things to make me sleep & not sneeze all the time. How appropriate that the week I can't do a show, my body lets me get sick. Hurrah!

So instead of wasting time wondering what sort of nonsense I might write of a Monday, go listen to last Friday's show about gravity at selfhelpradio.net. I know you're a fan of Isaac Newton. You need not be ashamed any more.

Achoo. Groan.

3 Shows To Go!

I know, you're all planning your big "end of the show" party, like you did at the end of "M*A*S*H," "Seinfeld" & "The Big Valley." (Where I come from, "Big Valley" parties were fucking awesome!) But can I point out there are three big differences?

1) My show isn't ending. I'll continue with delicious podcasts dispensed at selfhelpadio.net. I'm just leaving KOOP. They'll be fine. I'll be fine. Nothing is ending. It's just changing.

2) You can be reminded about the podcasts by reading this blog or by sending me an email to remind you when a new show is posted. Think Hawkeye Motherfucking Pierce would have done that? Or that Kramer guy? Nope. Both of them would've used the n-word, although Alan Alda would make it seem like it was Groucho Marx using it.

3) I am only doing three more Self Help Radio shows, but there will actually be *four* more Self Help Radio shows! That's right, the dashing & handsome Justin who does the House Call before my show, will be subbing for me next week, doing a show about "tools." Ha ha! Can you imagine there being three more "M*A*S*H"s, but someone stepping in & adding a fourth? You can't! That's because we're so damn weird!

4) Did I say there were three differences? I guess I did. I don't know why I've numbered this as "4)" but I suppose it's a difference. Next week, I'll make a podcast. You heard me! So there'll be two Self Help Radio shows, one on the radio, one on the computero. Insert snarky comment about Lee Majors &/or Barbara Stanwyck here.

So tune in to Self Help Radio today at 4:30. Learn about gravity. From someone who has no gravitas at all. & who is famous for falling down all the time.

Aren't You Funny

I know, these sorts of things are just someone's opinion (I for one would have had a LOT more Mr. Show & a LOT less Saturday Night Live) but if you want to be amused, do have a look at nerve.com's 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time. It's an amusing distraction.

What would I have included that's not there? The possibilities are endless, really. For one, the Chicken Lady sketch from Kids In The Hall I would have added is not the one they pick. I like the one - which is the first Chicken Lady sketch I ever saw - with the blind date with Dave Foley. "I'm a chicken lady & I love life!" "I didn't think you meant it literally..." But so much of what they did was so absurd that it's only funny because it's so damn weird. That's awesome.

Which reminds me - League Of Gentlemen, anyone?

As for Mr Show - I have so many of those episodes memorized, it would be hard to say. But I'd leave out a couple of those dull SNL sketches for Thrill World & Druggachusetts because, frankly, they're funnier.

I can't believe they missed the single funniest SCTV sketch ever - Night School Hi-Q. Lugubrious!

& there's nothing from the Ben Stiller show? Really? I think that the "MTV Music News" sketch (I said kill Doug Szathkey!) would have been a great companion piece to the In Living Color Vanilla Ice parody. & what about Die Hard 12? Oliver Stone Land? Woody Allen's Bride of Frankenstein? Cape Munster?

Lists like this are always woefully incomplete, because tastes are different. But maybe you'll find some funny there for yourself.

Whither Gravity?

Here's what a weirdo Isaac Newton was: Read ten strange facts about Newton. Are they that strange? I mean, come on. It was, what, the seventeenth century? Shit was fucked up then. Everyone I've known who was able to see the world a different way than everyone else was completely batshit crazy. It makes sense that, in a world where there are a substantial number of batshit crazy folks, a handful would be brilliant. Sadly, the majority of them become religious or political. Luckily some of them become scientists.

I like that gravity is not completely understood. I like that it's a fundamentally weak force, if only because, when you explain that to astrologers, they get all vexed. (You know, "If gravity's so strong why can this little magnet counteract it so simply?") I like those drawing of gravity lines around massive objects illustrating the "space-time continuum." I love listening to the dreamers who imagine we'll beat the speed limit of light by using gravity to "bend" space. Forget all that nonsense about sin & redemption - that's just about control of your thoughts & your person. Close your eyes & imagine a gravity well dipping into a black hole drawing out incredible energies. Hell, close your eyes & imagine launching yourself into orbit on a small moon. You're a super hero in space!

Most songs about gravity are about gravity as a metaphor - either of "attraction" or of rebellion against physical laws. But there are songs, too, celebrating that batshit crazy Newton dude & what he thought up while the city of London was dying of the plague. Yay! One of the last Self Help Radio shows on the radio will be a science show!

Preface To Gravity: What Comes Up Must Not Be Discussed

Yes, it was a picture of a dog barking at Jesus. The dog is a beagle named George. Jesus is a plastic statue in a graveyard. Please stop writing me poems about it!

That's the thing: I don't really mind poems. I like them. I write them myself, in my skin, with a razor & a bottle of Softsoap. & oftentimes, yes, I write them about pictures of dogs barking at kitschy representations of old-fashioned deities. But I don't send them to anyone. I certainly wouldn't send them to you.

For example, why would anyone send this to anyone, especially me:

   You don't love me Jesus
   Because I am a hound
   So I'll continue peeing
   On your hallowed ground

But Gary, is this so bad? Yes. It's bad for two reasons. First of all, George is himself an accomplished poet (as well as an accomplished urinator), so he can write poems from his own point of view when necessary (although he prefers to write from an "everydog" perspective). He simply doesn't need you to write poems from his vantage point. Secondly, it's not a very good poem. It doesn't really capture the essence of the photograph & it doesn't really explain why the dog thinks Jesus doesn't love him. Frankly, it doesn't scan.

What about the free verse poems I'm getting? As always, the free verse is worse:

   Beagle orphaned on crisp sunny day
   Lack a day! Lackadaisical!
   Alone, alone, but wait! alone,
   with nearer my god to thee
   porcelain plastic messiah!

I know, what the fuck?!? (By the way, "lackadaisical" comes from "lackaday," smart guy. What've you been doing, reading the Word Detective or something? Sheesh.) I would have been more impressed if the writer had rhymed something with "lackadaisical."

Enough! The three or four people who read this blog read it to find out if I have gone completely off the deep end, not to hear your poetry about photographs on blogs. Now please, let me write about the topics I'll cover on my show, & leave your poetry to other radio shows that deserve them. That one about the Lake in Minnesota, for example. Write to them.

Now I've got to go & explain this to George...

Torso Pants

My month of April has gotten off to a grand start, how about yours? I am of course talking about the wildflowers! What did you think I was talking about? A hundred thousand dollar bar? Or maybe a grand piano?

I offer, for your edification, a dog in a cemetery full of wildflowers, barking at Jesus:



I should also mention that Self Help Radio started the month of April off with a show entirely about cheese. Mmm, cheese. Did you miss it? Or would you like seconds? Well, the cheese buffet is open over at selfhelpradio.net. Dig in!

4 Shows To Go!

Omigosh! We're in the final stretch! Only four shows to go!

I am going to resist listing famous foursomes - no Fantastic Four, nothing about calling birds - & instead warn you that the best is yet to come. You heard me! You might just fucking love to listen to Self Help Radio on your boring-ass ride home from your sanity-crippling job, & you may be relying on it on Fridays in the same way you used to need to visit a prostitute to be spanked for being very, very bad - but it'll soon be gone, my friend. There'll be another KOOP program. It won't be Self Help Radio.

But even though I'm pretty sure the KOOP program that will occupy the timeslot then will be fine & you'll barely remember, weeks from now, how Self Help Radio loved you long time, I will just let you know - as a kindness, as a public service - it could be an admonition, it could be a promise, it could be a simple piece of information - I must let you know that Self Help Radio is nowhere near meeting its potential. You heard me! The best is yet to come!

You'd hate to miss it, now, wouldn't you?

So make sure you either bookmark the Self Help Radio home page or send me an email to be reminded of the podcasts. Because you will regret missing it, in the same way you regret that last glass of whiskey every night around 2:30 am. Or you'll regret it the way I regret that last glass of whiskey. It tastes so good but it hurts so bad.

If you must listen on the real radio with real radio waves, then fine: today at 4:30, a show about cheese. Delicious!

Does Humor Belong On The Radio?

Dunno, but you're not as funny as you think you are. Nor am I as funny as you wish I were. Or will be. Or may be. Or.

Once upon a time - not too long ago - seriously, it's what they call "the recent past," which is I suppose the antonym of "the near future" now that I think about it - anyway, a programmer (who may or may not have actually been a medical professional) called Dr Debra did a novelty show. She did it mainly on the interwebbing, but fortunes changed, stations caught fire, & she got an fm slot on Wednesday late mornings.

Alas! Life takes its toll! The whims & phlegms of fate sadly forced the doctor to move her practice to the untamed wilderness some have called Oklahoma. What to do? Well, some valiant KOOPers have attempted to take her place until the end of the season. & God help me, I am one.

You can listen to my sub show from yesterday at the Self Help Radio home page site thing. There are songs about medical conditions, songs about bananas, & a song about a famous Basset Hound, among other things. Ha ha! I say. Ha ha!

Will I be asked to step in again? Is there any penalty for impersonating a funny doctor? Who knows? Oh the winds & phlegms of fate!

Whither Cheese?

Seriously, you have to ask?

You've obviously never heard my radio show.

Preface To Cheese: The Rot That Changes Lives

Oh, it's true. You can smoke your own cheese. But making it? Is making your own cheese what you really want to do?

The way (not the whey, thank you) I feel about cheese is similar to the way most people who eat meat (I don't eat meat) feel about killing animals themselves. Most every meat-eating human you know could never, never, never kill a cow & process it to make themselves a burger. They just couldn't. Luckily, they can go to their local McWendy's-In-The-Whatabox King. Someone else somewhere else did the dirty work & even better, it doesn't look anything like a cow!

Similarly I with cheese. I couldn't make it. It would be hazardous to my eating of it. & I love cheese. Not all cheese types, & not all the time, but cheese as a delicious idea oh yes I love.

Hey! I might be able to make processed cheese, if all it took was mixing human-made chemicals in a test tube & then baking some possibly edible polymer. Mmm. I'd color it funky colors, too. Neon blue cheese anyone?

Damn, talking about this makes me hanker for a hunk o'cheese!

A Layman's Guide To Videos About Sleep On Youtube

I am sitting here at work trying to get some project-related stuff done & for some reason I am listening to Woody Guthrie. It's making me feel weird. Partially because it's tropical outside. Partially because it's always weird to hear someone call Jesus Christ "a working man" in a song. That dude never worked a day in his life. He lived off the trust fund his dad set up for him.

Anyway, there are three things to say today, & the first of them is to say there are three things to say. Wait. That can't be right.

The second is: if you missed last Friday's television theme song spectacular, you can hear it again (as I've been saying) in reruns (har har) over at selfhelpradio.net. I call it the TV Show but it's really just a bunch of weird covers of television themes. It's like remembering your childhood with a lot of other people's memories.

I also wanted to make sure that YOU know that after I finish my run of Self Help Radio on KOOP, I am continuing the show as a podcast. How will you know? You never come to this blog! You don't write me anymore! When was the last time you invited me over to your house for drinks & dancing? Since we're obviously not as close as we used to be, maybe you should send me an email & tell me to remind you when I post new podcasts. One lousy email. & I don't drink all your whiskey.

I swear there were three things I wanted to say. Maybe the last was me saying that there were three things but obviously I'm dumb & I forgot the last one. Or maybe I just thought it was three because it's handy to have three things to say at any given time. Oh well. Back to Woody Guthrie. Damn these dust storms!