No Mourn I Thee!

I love reading reviews, & I especially love reading reviews that disagree with my opinion. I think they round out my views, because often someone hates a part of a movie, a book, an album, that I totally didn't notice or didn't really care about. In some cases, really good criticism causes you to think about your own criticism, in the same way that open-minded religious folk will compare & contrast different belief systems when confronted with someone else's faith.

& I am not averse to labels - sometimes they're the best way to get you in the door of the small room of understanding. So I'll describe music as "indie pop" or "post-punk" & it's fine as far as it is - although you can sometimes get into trouble with folks who hate that. Describing Pere Ubu as post-punk, for example, might make someone who knows the timeline correctly note that, actually, Pere Ubu began before punk. But in that case, it's not necessarily a chronological description, it's about a sound... But never mind.

Yet I am just as liable as everyone else to be put off by specific labels - labels which are like warning signs about thoughts or ideas I don't agree with. A book I was really interested in reading, which apparently has been getting decent reviews, was described in a negative review as being funded by a "neoconservative think tank." It turns out this is true, the author got a grant from a neocon group. I immediately began to lose interest. Then I started to think about what this made me think about the author - did I believe this person was so weak-willed & greedy that he'd produce whatever the right-wing group wanted him to produce? Did I imagine it always happens this way, money trumping free thought?

I certainly believe every human being has his or her price, & that it's always embarrassingly low. But my point in bringing up criticism is this: if I can read different opinions & not be swayed away from my own, why couldn't I read something from someone who had no affiliation with a deluded money pit but who took the cash offered him? Even if he were corruptible, I'd at least have some information to consider. (& this person is a scholar, not a right-wing blowhard who's better known for being on television or on the corporate dole.)

It may be because he is in fact a scholar with some well-received books under his belt. I personally can't stand what can best be described as the Jerry Springer school of heated debate - it's just too sad to hear someone talk about what they think about the government or god or society without really having any information to back up their idiotic assertions.

I experienced a great bad example of this on the recent 30 Days episode about same sex parenting. A retardedly religious woman opposed the gayness of the two obviously good parent gay men, & neither side bothered to ask her just why homosexuality offended her so. They took it as read that her religion opposed man-on-man action (& though she was a Mormon, she could easily point to the Bible's anti-gay stance) & she just said she opposed it. It was a waste of a very long hour.

A simple chat with anyone who's actually studied the Bible would've made her look like a fool for blindly parroting homophobe talking points. & the same goes for the gay men - their "live & let live" attitude is relativistic quicksand. A slight change of the wind in our nation & their kids are taken away & they're locked up in camps to "cure" their gayness. They may be buoyed by gay liberation's astonishing successes in the last decade, but they haven't really paid attention to how tenuous freedom is. You think they'd know better.

Ah well. What's that? You think I am writing all this to avoid making my show for tomorrow, which is about avoidance? Nonsense! You're only saying that because you don't agree with me. Say! Who funds you?

Link Cookies, a pram

Say! This is a Thursday. Do you have anything Thursdayish to tell me? All you ever do is stare at those schematics. It gives you a vaguely vacant look, like a supermodel or a heroin addict taking a driving test. What he gave you wasn't so much criticism as a meager expression of disappointment - & could you blame him? Every time someone tries to get through your defenses, you circle your wagons. "I'm a rough draft," you say. As if that means anything outside of the newspaper trade!

We were reminiscing about growth & hitch-hiking when, out of the blue, you-know-who started asking for volunteers. I was eating a banana at my steel guitar lesson & no one seemed to be thinking of me. That's when I thought of you - all the time & energy put into the wrong receptacle. Like someone using Google to spell-check. I confess I never learned barre chords for this very reason.

I expect you're wondering why I dally, why I make conversation like this if there are hard feelings. Time to time I do think there aren't so much hard feelings as flaccid feelings. Feelings that can't get hard unless there's chemical help. You should encourage these feelings to stiffen up. It might make you feel a little more Thursdayish. Or able to conceive Thursday thoughts. It would be worth your time.

Some sample Thursday thoughts:

- Christ in a bucket called fish, will this day ever end?
- Of all the Thursdays in the world, why did this Thursday have to be the last day I am allowed to work here?
- This morning... This morning is not good enough.
- Did the Vikings leave more than their teeth marks on the coast of Scotland? Why or why not?
- It's only a fire on the porch. Go back to bed.
- Did you leave the OH MY GOD HAVE A LOOK AT THIS DISTURBING SLOW MOVING POLICE CAR!

I look forward to next Thursday. Although not for the same reasons you think I do. Do I?

Whither Avoidance?

Was Bartleby a shirker? An essay by Tommy Titmouse, age five.

In re-reading Melville's seminal short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," with my little brother Timmy, I am bemused at the total inability of the titular character to understand even the minutest basics of the capitalist system. Indeed Timmy, who has only begun reading Marx's Capital, grasped the inherent dynamic between personal freedom versus market forces. Bartleby, by proclaiming with terse vapidity his opposition to any ideas of his own, comes across as a layabout, a wastrel, a slacker, & a shirker.

Can we, in these days of nation-transcendent corporate interests & transformative free trade, afford to allow the labor force to so blithely renege on what is assuredly a social contract? More information would be required, of course, & it would be helpful if perhaps Melville had provided ancillary documents, like Bartleby's resume, & perhaps commentary from previous employers. Yet if we are to believe in the maturation of the employed through incentives that only the market can provide, we must empathize with his supervisor's boundless optimism in utilizing someone who surely came with more caveats than praise. When business fails, it can rarely be said to be from the sanguinity of the owners of the means of production!

How to prevent such unhappy outcomes in the labor force? Surely a system of rewards coupled with healthy slogans, perhaps from the works of Adam Smith, would suffice for the average earner. But Bartleby was worse than a Luddite; a wooden shoe thrown into a cogwheel would be more fundamentally fixable than a stubborn dolt refusing to do his work! & unemployment is frankly too generous for the likes of Bartleby; when a hireling causes profit loss through non-cooperation, the punishment ought to be more severe.

Perhaps a critic of my polemic might say, "Didn't Bartleby suffer as you would have him do? Did he not die?" Ah, but he did so first by breaking the law (a right surely reserved only by the most international of consortiums) & then requiring a social network (ie, the police & the criminal justice system) to shelter him as he destroyed himself! As the late Charlton Heston might have said, a firing squad (in an event publicized & attended by his fellow scriveners) would have been quicker, cheaper, &, I daresay, more just.

Indeed, Bartleby was a shirker, & his sorry tale should be as a parable for all who wish the wheels of industry to run smooth & true. I rest my case.

Adds little Timmy Titmore, age three & a half: But Bartleby was cool!

Damn it Timmy!

Preface To The Avoidance Show: How Can I Get Out Of Writing In My Blog Today?

A note from Gary's mother:

To those nice people who read the increasingly ridiculous Self Help Radio blog:
Although he no longer lives at home, my son Gary is not well today. He woke up with a bad taste in his mouth & a bad outlook on life. He refused to eat his sauerkraut & sausages for breakfast & looked a little green under his gills. Even though it's been at least two decades since he's had to attend high school, he missed his bus & refused to hitchhike as I always tell him to do. Instead, he went back to his room & crawled under his covers, curled into a fetal position, & refused to tell me he loved me like he should if he really loved his mother.
Therefore he's not able to write in his blog today. He's not getting any dinner either.
Yours,
Gary's Mother

(It'll be harder to avoid writing in this tomorrow...)

That's Not My Cat!

For the sake of enjoyment, just refer to Friday's Self Help Radio Blog entry (which is below this one), & replace every reference from a "hat" to a "cat." Hilarity will most certainly ensue.

Here's an example rib-ticking entry:

I described my cat & even included a photograph in the ad in which I mentioned I had lost my hat. This looks nothing like the photograph. Granted, the photograph was in black & white, on newsprint, but, even so, here - look! - this is the picture of the cat, that is the helmet-like headgear object you are attempting to return to me

Do you see? A cat is nothing like a hat, which creates absurd incongruities which can only make one laugh!

Please note, while this works with most things that rhyme with hat (cat, rat, mat, gnat, vat, bat, DAT player), it generally doesn't work with things that rhyme with cat which are not nouns (like fat, unless you mean the animal products some gross people cook with) or even past tenses of verbs (like spat, unless you mean the thing that horse riders put on their boots). The absurdity is diminished by the incongruity. It is funnier to think of someone mistaking one thing for another thing instead of someone mistaking one thing for a quality. No one has that kind of sense of humor.

Well, you've certainly taken all the fun out of this exercise. If I were you, I'd just forget all about this & mosey over to selfhelpradio.net & listen to this past week's show, which is about whales. No more of this hat-cat-chat-drat stuff. You obviously don't have as refined a sense of humor as I had heretofore believed. Hrrummph!

That's Not My Hat!

Sir, I must object. This hat you claim to be returning to me - it's not my hat!

First of all, my hat has no ornamentation of any kind. It's just an average trilby. It doesn't have flashing lights or whirling colors or beeping noises like this hat here. It has not electronical components nor does it run on solar power, as I am assuming this hat does, with those panels on the sides. It does not have a video screen on its elongated visor, as it has no elongated visor. This, sir, is not my hat.

Second of all, & I do not mean any disrespect when I point this out, but this really shouldn't be categorized as a hat. It's more helmet-like. Not many hats cover almost the entire head, & have a chin-strap beside. Nor do have as many accesories as this device you have hear. Nor are most hats made out of polymers - usually they're cloth, or cloth & plastic. What you have there, people call those helmets. Not hats.

Third of all, I described my hat & even included a photograph in the ad in which I mentioned I had lost my hat. This looks nothing like the photograph. Granted, the photograph was in black & white, on newsprint, but, even so, here - look! - this is the picture of the hat, that is the helmet-like headgear object you are attempting to return to me. Do you see, sir, as I hold them side-by-side, that they don't really look like one another? They are in fact very different - they have virtually no commonalities.

Fourth of all, I do appreciate that you apparently came all the way from the wilds of Bastrop to return this hat to me - although how it could have gotten there I don't know, as I lost it at a restaurant in Clarksville - I confess I don't know why you imagined there would be a reward for the return of a hat. I didn't say I would give a reward, & if I did, it wouldn't be ten thousand dollars. That's all seventeen kinds of ridiculous!

& finally, sir. In spite of all you've done, even if it was for material gain, it truly was a kind gesture to try to return a stranger's hat, & although I feel I've gone out of my way to avoid making you angry, it certainly was uncalled for for you to urinate on my lawn. On my lawn chairs. On my pet puppy Wiggles. On my pet rocks. You are a bounder sir! A bounder & a cad! Which are rare traits in a good (or shall I say mediocre) samaritan.

Ah! Now that that's taken care of, I must sit, daydream about my hat, & wait till tomorrow for this week's exciting Self Help Radio episode. I hope it'll be about hats!

Ah! It's about whales! What fun! Whales love hats!

Christian Bailed

Bad pun! Went to see "The Dark Knight" at the "IMax" so couldn't write in the "Blog."

Forgive me. There'll be more nonsense tomorrow. You have my pants on it. & what is a man without his pants?

Erp.

Whither Whales?

Yes, you don't have to ask, I've never seen a whale in real life. Maybe from an airplane - I have vague memories of seeing a school of whales in the Atlantic when I was a boy on my way to Germany the first time - who knows if that really happened - but I've never even been to Sea World or some other water park. Or have I?

There's a truism in the history of life on this planet that human beings, once they came around in sufficient numbers, killed off, over time, the largest mammals. There used to be mammoths & saber-toothed tigers, of course, but also giant sloths & horses & mice for all the hell I know. Once dinosaurs were abducted by the evil space felchers from the Andromeda galaxy, mammals were all like, "This is our world now. Talk to the paw." & they got as big as they could get. & from the looks of it (ie, the fossil record) they did it quickly.

But it took us humans nearly no time (geologically speaking) to dispatch them. The last great giant mammals left are elephants, rhinos, hippos, & of course the whales. (I don't count morbidly obese Americans.) & yeah, we're killing pretty much all those off. There's no reason to point blame: we're all involved. We're blubber fuckers & we know it.

The scariest thing I've heard is that, because of all the damn boats (tankers, liners, submarines, battleships, etc) we have in the water, it's too noisy for the whales to communicate over long distances any more. Apparently, before the advent of the steam engine, a whale could start a chat in the South Pacific that could be heard in the North Atlantic. & it didn't use up arbitrary "minutes." But that's all done.

I'm totally bumming myself out. But wait, there's more! Did you know there was "an enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas... floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco & Hawaii" ? It's true!. I mean, really. What must the whales think of us? Besides being scared shitless, I mean?

The whales will be fine once we run out of oil & kill ourselves off. I just hope it happens to us before it happens to them.

Preface To Whales: 'Whale' As A Verb

We all know that "whaling" is the hunting of whales, much in the same way that monkeying around is the hunting of round monkeys. But why then does the verb "to whale" include this definition (from the Oxford English La-di-da):

1. trans. To beat, flog, thrash.

Examples:1801 G. HANGER Life II. 162 Whaleing a gentleman is but a vulgar revenge. 1884 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Huck. Finn iii, He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me.

In recent times we seem to have added the preposition "on," I guess to clarify, especially when referring to heavy metal guitar solos - "he was really whaling on that guitar, dude!"

But where did that meaning come from? Were there perverted seamen (that sounds perverted!) who would thrash the whale once its giant carcass was pulled onto the ship? Were they whale-fuckers? Does blubber feel really good when... But I've gone too far again.

To return: I am not an etymologist (or even an epidemiologist) but I do enjoy trying to figure out where words come from. Some are easy, some are not. Says the OED:

Of obscure origin. Commonly regarded as a spelling of WALE v.1, but there are difficulties of form, chronology, and meaning. (I'll say!) Perhaps orig. = to thrash with a whalebone whip

Aha! The old "whalebone whip" gambit! That may have worked in Indiana Jones & The Belly Of The Whale (or it might have been Star Wars 2: Guts On Fire) but it won't work here! Whalebone whips my blowhole.

Unfortunately, there's nothing else I can find online (other than the obligatory "origin obscure") so I'll have to make something up. That's right. I'm allowed to do that. Because I have a blog. On the internet.

Here's my explanation:

Back in the day when sailors used to hit each other, & things, with great force, they needed a word for it. "Hit" was boring & "thrash" is what the captain & other officers did to them. They had yet to invent the word "thwack," & "strike" sounded too union-y. So one day, two sailors who shall remain immortally nameless were beating the crap out of each other - some might say "whaling" on each other - when a big whale, the biggest they'd ever seen, came out of the ocean & then went back in with a big ker-splat! of its tail on the water.

"Dude," said sailor one. "Did you see that whale whaling on the water with its tail?"

"Dude!" said sailor two, "you just invented a verb!"

Sailor one was all like, "I'm so Shakespeare," & sailor two started whaling on him.

They passed the word around to their rowdy crew, & soon it was commonplace among the sea dogs of the world. In time, as they came ashore, so did the lucky word. Not so lucky, though, for our inventive sailors, though. A few weeks later, when the captain found they had spotted a whale & not called out, they were hanged.

There! You have your etymology. Now go & spread it amongst the people of this world!

Watering One's Lawn - Source Of Hope Or Regret?

It's mid July so it's time once again to check on our Drought Monitor. Oh hooray! Austin is teetering between "Extreme Drought" & "Exceptional Drought" & I spent a couple of hours watering my poor dry lawn last night. What an asshole I am! Furthermore, what a bunch of assholes live in my neighborhood! Because everyone was watering their god damned lawns last night. Didn't they know we're experiencing an Extreme Drought?

There's a lot of staring at ground & sitting on porch when one's lawn is dying or dead. The history of our lawn is a sad one. When we bought the house three years ago, we had one more tree than we currently do. Not because we chopped one down, oh no no no. The tree died. It could have died of old age (can you imagine that trees dry of old age?) or we could have not watered it enough in the Quite Awful Drought of two years ago, but however it went, it did die. & the back yard its stump still resides in is pretty much dead too. So I watered. How could I know the Drought we're having is almost Exceptional?

Here's something you never hear from people living in apartments or with their parents or in places that have no lawns: "If we install a sprinkler system, it'll increase our property value." & what will our property be worth in a world with little or no water? People will be ripping our sprinkler system out to drink the drops in the rusty pipes. Then they're break into our house to drink the water in our toilets. Property value will be for shit.

Yeah, I think about this stuff. Mainly in the day or so after I successfully finish another Self Help Radio. Did you know that this blog relates somehow to a radio show? It does! & you can hear this last week's show - it was about taxis, & not about watering the lawn - over at the Self Help Radio web site. It's easy, it's fun, & it doesn't affect the Overachieving Drought either way. Well, maybe in some ways. Don't water the lawn while you listen to it!

Gott In Himmel! Der Weekend Kommt!

From the mailbag:

My dearest Flossie,
The kaleidoscope arrived by train today and the Major and myself installed it in the pantry, whereupon (as expected) the neighborhood children came for a scamper. This was a most thoughtful gift and the Major in particular enjoys it when the children horse around, monkeyshine and otherwise jape. He says hello.
You write that your pastoral estate is currently on fire. This is certainly nothing to be ashamed of as half of the countryside is being burned to ferret out communists, socialists, union leaders, traitors, and other dissidents. A cold compress might be the ticket for these warm summer nights. Let me know if you need some extra rags, as we found another dead hobo on the porch this Monday past and we are flush with scraps of cloth at the moment.
Our plans for the late summer, like yours, have been changed by the government-mandated burnings, and so we probably will not visit Malmo to watch the heretics be whipped and thrown onto the fjords. This is a shame because you know Minnie enjoys a little cruelty now and again. It takes her mind off of her crippling syphilis. No matter, we shall find work to do on the manor. The groundsmen suggest rabbit-strangling, but I prefer duck-drowning myself, if only to pass the time.
Do let me know if you want to sit out the fire here. We're only required to burn the attic and the moat this summer, although we may get ambitious and burn the peasants' quarters if we're feeling frisky. The gratitude in their eyes makes the incredible pittance we spend on them so worth it.
Be well. Love from us!
Joe

Thanks for the nice message, Phil. Yes, Self Help Radio is preparing a podcast this week & what a remarkable one it will be. The subject is taxis & the entire show will be recorded in a taxi. Or while I am watching the hit television show "Taxi." It depends on which is cheaper. Renting the show - under five bucks. An hour & a half in a cab - whoa! Well, we'll see. Maybe I can steal a cab. Or maybe I can just call Judd Hirsch. It's not like he's working.

Find out what happens - & listen to some great tunes about cabs - this weekend, in the afternoon on Saturday, exclusively at selfhelpradio.net. Get it while you can - or I may keep the meter running.

Heh. Meter running. That's a hoot.

Animal Plantagenet

Everyone, I know, has a favorite aristocrat - king, queen, prince, princess, lord a-leapin' or lady dancin'. There are so damn many of them it's a wonder that, like fans of boring pop stars, a majority of you go for the same three or four nobles. Too many of you like Ethelred The Unready, if only because you can never get your shit together. Too many of you like modern kings & queens, & I am especially contemptuous of you sycophants who spend too much time worshipping at the moldy altar of the Dutch Queen Beatrix. What, do you think she will share her stash with you? Dude, I'd stick with the hookah pipe of Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz. That crazy bastard knows how to party like it's 1499! (In the year of the Hijra, of course.)

As I was saying, people show little imagination in what I like to call "aristophilia." (I just double-checked to see if I coined the word. Of course I didn't. But that article suggests that it's mainly a love affair with the rich. I mean it exclusively for those with royal blood, & also true obsessives fantasize about having sex with them, too. Even if they're dead. A good aristophile is a good necrophile. Am I right?) With so many inbred blue bloods to choose from - & you don't have to stick with modern ones (though the modern ones are particularly stupid & therefore particularly hilarious). Crack a history book. Watch one of those history channels. Watch every other British movie ever made. You'll find there's royalty aplenty for you to mock, dream about fornicating with, adding to your own lame family crest, & more.

Here's my favorite (of the moment) (I mean, who can have just one favorite regal dumbass?) (Not me!): His name is Fulk I of Anjou. Yeah, where the pears come from. He didn't do much, he wasn't all that important, & like most humans that have ever existed he never once enjoyed the extreme luxury of indoor plumbing, but his name was Fulk. FULK! I know a guy who just had a kid & I pleaded with him, please please please name the kid Fulk!

Fulk loved his name so much he gave it to his kid. His kid, while apparently noted as a poet & an artist, decided not to carry on with the name (which means the selfish shit deprived the French of the possibility of having a King Fulk!) & named his kid Geoffrey Greymantle. As utterly dorky as that name is (I will name my next D&D character just that), I have to give props to Goofball Greymantle because he named one of his sons - Fulk III! Fulk yeah!

That Fulker only had a daughter, but there was later a Fulk IV (his grandson who married like five times!) & a Fulk V (number four's son, whose wife left him to marry the King of France, but who also got to be King of Jerusalem - oh yeah, the Holy Land got a King Fulk!), not to mention a bunch of other slightly noble & non-noble Fulks. But I'm old school. I mean, I like that Fulk III was a "...plunderer, murderer, robber, & swearer of false oaths, a truly terrifying character of fiendish cruelty... filled with unbridled passion, a temper directed to extremes. Whenever he had the slightest difference with a neighbor he rushed upon his lands, ravaging, pillaging, raping, & killing; nothing could stop him, least of all the commandments of God..." - that's awesome! & I like that Fulk IV fought with his brother & twice put him in jail - my childhood would have been sweet if my brothers had been incarcerated - I think I prefer the original Fulk to them all. Otherwise where would they be? They'd be fulked, that's what.

See what fun having favorite counts & dukes & earls & pukes can be? & you're still slightly sad over Princess Di. Shame on you!

Whither Taxis?

People tell me I used to be a friendlier person. Now, they say, I seem a little closed-off, & a little sad. What gives, they ask. Who pooped in your mouth & called it salad?

Don't you think I know how I feel about the world? Don't you think I know that my weird little radio show that's not on the radio isn't like some kind of taxi without a passenger? Like a bus without one of those clumsy wheelchair ramps that take forever to deploy? Like an elevator that smells like vinegar & kills the cockroaches that crawl outside it? Like an escalator with dried ice cream caked forever into its ridges, sticking to your shoes & making you self-conscious as you stare at the pretty girl in the food court? Like a broken-down rickshaw mocking you as you walk, beaten & bruised, to the big Laotian city vowing revenge on the gangsters who robbed you, raped you & left you for dead? Like a baby carriage with a fat baby in it who's gotta be at least four & who sings like Rod Stewart? Like a dolly leaning slightly on an empty soda dispensing machine which rattles when the soda dispensing machine repairperson accidentally closes the door too fast & the noises causes him to drop fourteen dollars worth of quarters on the floor, which people inadvertently start kicking all over the place? Don't you think I know myself?

People tell me that self-awareness doesn't appear to be my problem. They say, why are you so defensive? Who stuck their finger in your ass & called it macaroni?

Don't you think I know that I appear defensive around you? Don't you see that one of my coping mechanisms is to continue doing Self Help Radio no matter who listens or where it is or whatever the fuck?

People tell me that they didn't even know I was a deejay. For the record, I tell them, I've ridden in taxis less than ten times in my life. People then tell me that they've got to go. & they go.

Preface To Taxis: My Taxicab Confession

There's this guy we used to hang with who loved riding taxis & was always interested in riding different services, vehicles, etc., in different cities & countries. He was quirky but he quickly became as dull as the tourists who visit famous foreign places on package tours & come back with obligatory pictures of the Colosseum & the Eiffel Tower, since he never went anywhere except to take a taxi somewhere.

Taxi drivers didn't like him much, mostly because he didn't tip well if at all (how could he afford to? money you or I would spend on hotels & food this dumbass spent driving around!) & he also made fucked-up requests - like, he once took a New York taxi from New York to Washington DC, then took a DC cab to New York. But to be honest he wasn't a very likeable guy. He was slimy, both figuratively & literally - you always got the impression he did the very minimum he needed to not be considered filthy. Kind of "mediocre clean." No one knew why he had this love of taxis. It's like he just found something to do & pursued it. Like those dudes who pick a college major that they think their parents want them to & do it for the rest of their lives.

After awhile, the people who knew him - the people we hung around with - developed something like an allergy to this dude. By that I mean we'd get shit like hives & asthma attacks & cold sweats & stuff whenever he was around. Not only did we begin to avoid him - not answering his calls, making excuses for not seeing him, hiding behind curtains when he came by, refusing to frequent places we knew he regularly went to - I mean, none of us wanted to break out in hives! - but we eventually realized that the same thing happened whenever we were in taxis. You know? We could just sense he'd be there & we'd start to hyperventilate. So we stopped taking taxis. We opted for busses, or walking, or taking our own damn cars.

The last time we saw him was actually on the bus. The dumb fuck simply couldn't afford to take cabs any more. He was living on some kind of disability because of a work-related injury (he actually fell out of a slightly moving cab while on an errand from work) & his creepy personality, his questionable hygiene & his lack of any skills made him virtually unhireable. So there we were, trapped on the bus with him, feeling queasy but also wanting to be nice, & as the bus got on the highway (so we couldn't exit until we were in the suburbs - trapped!) he began to list his woes, & we nodded patiently, sweating a little, wondering which direction would be safest if we had to hurl. When he mentioned not being able to find a job, my girlfriend leaned forward as if she'd been hit by inspiration.

"You can't find work?" she said. "Nope," he said, kind of sniffling. "Jesus!" she said. "It's so obvious! You should be a cabbie!" He seemed weirdly gleeful as he thought about it. He even stopped talking to us, saving me from a night of scratching all over.

Later on, I said to my girlfriend, "Great! Now we can't take a taxi anymore!" She said, "We're haven't taken a taxi in months. But now we know he'll never be on the bus!"

Last I heard he was stranded in Laredo because he took some asshole there but the passenger stiffed him & now he couldn't afford the gas to get back to Austin.

Seppuku

I completely concur with this review of Self Help Radio which I found in this magic blog in my head:

Self Help Radio mixes extravagent aesthetics into everyday life, serving as a spark of excitement in an otherwise dull, suburban existence. Familiar retro influences are recalled but not imitated and result in an original and relevant radio show. However this familiarity like so much on Self Help Radio comes with a twist as five individual characters set about stamping their unique personality onto a radio show.

Though recorded at Dickenbock Studios in Austin, Self Help Radio returned to its hometown of Garland, Texas, to write Self Help Radio. With its signature down-to-earth narratives forming intelligent and sharp observations about romance and life one might get an impression of a radio show with its feet firmly on the ground. However the airbreaks aren't in a vacuum but instead are set into groups of songs that suggest the moment someone's eardrums first vibrated to pop music in their bedroom at the age of nine. With super producer Richard D Dickenbock (the Dickenbocks, Dick & the Dickenbocks, The Richard Dick Dickenbock Experience, Dick & Richard Dickenbock) at the helm Self Help Radio is moving, effortly and upwards, to those giddy stratospheres that are rightfully theirs.

What a great review! You want to hear the show they're allegedly talking about about up there? Then go listen to a show selfhelpradio.net - this past week's show is waiting for you to take it home & love it like a stepchild. Or better!

A Weekend Of Unattractive Hair

Confirming smart suspicions, which were all he had to go on, young Buck Disposable ventured a godawful guess about the Pants Project that, unfortunately, caused an uproar of uproarious laughter amongst his callow colleagues & kept the normally cool cucumber quiet for the rest of the colloquium.

Buck had never once in his life married any non-vertebrate - although he did once propose to his fern, & to be fair the filicophyte was looking damned sexy at the time - but he did have a bad habit of divorcing nearly every human he did marry. The amount of money he spent on his various ex-whatevers kept those wretches in plenty of fish food, but it kept Buck lean, mean & lacking steam. Witnesses & his affable biographer Notorious Rex have testified to the fact that he began his slippery slide into homicide about this time.

Buck Disposable lost the job at the Pants Project, & the Lawn/Garden Furniture Supervisor job at the Target-Mart, & Sexy Skool Lunch Koordinator gig for Unbelievably Gay Films, & finally ended up working as a Junior Stamp Counter for the United States Post Office. He was busy defacing a recently released Jesse Helms In Drag stamp when he accidentally opened up a National Rifle Association flyer - & the flyer opened up for Buck a whole new world.

Since you know the end of this story, it doesn't bear repeating, but it is the five year anniversary of that exciting slaughter today, & while the survivors & the relatives of the victims insist on digging up Buck's corpse & kicking it for seven full hours, & while his handgun advocate pals prefer to just fire into Buck's corpse repeatedly for hours after that, we here at Self Help Radio thought it would be helpful to catch up on the once infamous, but now barely famous, actors in the Buck Disposable saga - just to let you know "where are they now?"!

- Sara Meal, Buck's steady girl at the time, is still unable to play the piano without prompting.
- Postal Supervisor Clark "The Sorter" Donaldsonovich was in the hospital for a year after the shooting. Doctors told him that they couldn't remove the three bullets around his spine without killing him, which was sort of untrue; the doctors were really tired that day & Donaldsonovich was kind of an asshole. Donaldsonovich is still unable to walk, but the dude just won't shut up.
- "Grandma" Mel Thurb, Buck's hostage for the first twelve minutes & the one who held him hostage for the last twelve minutes, graduated last year from the Police Academy to become the world's oldest female cop at the age of ninety-four. The douchebags who put up those annoying billboards that say "[Insert Quality Here] - Pass It On" were about to put her face all over the country when, during her first stake out, she had a massive stroke & died.
- Newsman Rim Tussert, who covered the affair for nineteen hours, was all set to become a national news reporter for NBC when executives couldn't stop giggling over his first name, ending his career. He now mows lawns in Phoenix.
- Notorious Rex, official biographer of the bloodbath, is writing another goddamned book about it. We can barely fill a blog entry, but this guy... Sheesh.
- You'd think that little Dickie Snead would be much bigger than he was at the time, but he's still runty & smells funny. Maybe at the ten year recap. Weird.
- The fern is looking hot.

More information may or may not be available on this week's podcast of Self Help Radio, available tomorrow (Saturday the 12th), in the afternoon. Please to enjoy.

Bent Barman Blues

I am in the middle of making a new Self Help Radio Extra for your listening enjoyment. How do I do this, you might wonder? Well, if you were me, this is how you would be doing it:

You would do what you always do, which is listen to music pretty much all the time. You have heard this weird thing that people apparently do, which is put music they already like on their mp3-playing device, but you don't do that - you get stuff & you digitize it to listen to it at every possible moment - while on the bus, while napping at your desk, while walking from bus stop to nap. Your mp3-playing device is the crucible in which your radio & other mixes are made pure! So you do that for a couple of weeks. Songs that you like are stored in the back of your mind which, unfortunately, are not always immune to alcohol & its evil erasing ways, so you try to occasionally put them on a playlist for later study. You call this playlist "shrextra." You don't know why.

Then, when you've gathered a few &/or it's time to make a mix for your friends at the Self Help Radio web page, you listen to the songs anew & then you think of other songs to add in (music is a conversation, after all) & after a time you'll notice you've filled some arbitrary quota - voila! Self Help Radio Extra!

As I said, it's not done yet, but by the end of the workday, you'll see a new mix at on the Self Help Radio Extra page. Do listen & enjoy. Not that I wouldn't do it if you don't listen, but I like to think I'm doing it for you.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 15?

Do you pants ever seem to be making fun of you? Please take that question in whichever way you want as long as it's not the naughty way. Oh, also the weight-issue way. Hadn't thought of that one.

The writer of this blog is trying very hard not to refer to himself in the first person.

What? Oh crap! The Blog Annotator has invaded the Self Help Radio blog!

The writer of this blog is trying to take your attention away from the comment above. The Blog Annotator shall repeat:

The writer of this blog is trying very hard not to refer to himself in the first person.

What's wrong with that? A radio show is not a person, & sometimes (like in this case) the person who does the radio show is really only half a person. Maybe five-eighths. Whatever. The meaning is clear.

The Blog Annotator does not know about this meaning of which you speak.

Take for example one of Blogspot's "blogs of note" or whatever (which Self Help Radio has never been noted for, thanks Blogspite), Cooking With Amy. This is a site with recipes & pictures of food. A quick count yielded over forty uses of the first-person pronoun on the first page. It's a page about cooking! It's supposed to just have directions & lists of ingredients!

The Blog Annotator takes your point. However, the Blog Annotator has checked the first page of this blog & found the use of the first-person pronoun on the last week's worth of posts to number over seventy. The Blog Annotator points out that this blog is supposed to be a supplement to a weekly radio show.

You're a real douche, you know that?

You're an egotistical pansy-assed pseudo-intellectual whose browser cache hasn't been emptied in weeks.

Yeah? Well then you're a son of a virus & a pop-up viagra ad left to grow like scum on a Fox News web site nurtured by the fevered clicks of delusional assholes who daydream of ass-fucking the President while the Vice-President shoots them in the face.

.......

God nothing to say to that, Blog Masturbator?

Um. The Blog Annotator is stunned & overwhelmed by your graphic insult.

Damn right!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 15 - You'll Never Catch Me In Those Tired Shorts!

When you read about Tonga - & why wouldn't you? - you learn a lot of things that you might not ever have learned & further will never ever need to learn again. For example: Tonga and nearby Nauru have the world’s fattest populations. Also: 70% of Tongan women aged 15-85 are obese. & then: Tongan women are known for being skillful jugglers. Amazing!

Before you dismiss this as meaningless trivia, which it is, you may want to pause & reflect on how little you know about the world. Do you remember how stupid you felt at a recent gathering when someone corrected your assertion that Europe was a country? "Next to Italy, I think," you said. There was not a chance of getting laid that night & you knew it. Or what about the recent events in Columbia? Didn't you say, "I thought Columbia was that place where the two goth kids killed everyone." Sure, you let people think you were joking - nice save! - but that's only because you have a reputation for being monstrously unfunny. Don't you ever want to have sex again?

If you must learn about the world, why not start with Tonga? It's a very quiet pursuit - short of some irritating folks who may believe that "Lost" is filmed there, no one really cares about Tonga. Except, of course, the people who live there. But what's the chance you'll ever meet someone from Tonga? About as much a chance as meeting someone who's ever heard of Tonga! Just by learning a little about Tonga, you'll automatically know more than pretty much anyone. & you'll finally get to know how that feels.

You might want to stay away from this guy, though. He will most certainly know more about Tonga than you do. Not that you travel in the same circles, though - just be careful.

Tonga is only the beginning, you know. You can learn about all kinds of stuff. Some of it may actually be interesting. Then you'll know all kinds of stuff. & then - let the loving commence!

Voicemail To Voicemail

Long three day weekends are never wasted by naps. The same is true with long, boring college classes. Naps are essential components of life, even if you're not very good at them. Which some of us are not. But perhaps someone can tell us how to nap. I don't know about you, but reading that thing made me sleepy.

Something that might keep you awake is this past week's episode of Self Help Radio, which had the improbable theme of "Saturday Night." You can listen to this show here & no matter what day it is, you can turn your it into Saturday night. I can say that another way. No matter what time of day it is, you can turn it into Saturday night. I can't say it any other way.

Since I work during the week like some people I know, I often cannot commit to the napping process. This makes me all forty-two kinds of sad. I consume large qualities of caffeine which is luckily available in easy-to-urinate soda bottle flavors. I occasionally wander out from the frigidaire air conditioning into the "real world" which in the summer in Texas is about three degrees cooler (Centigrade or Fahrenheit, it makes no difference for this hyperbole) than the average temperature of Hell, & the effect is much like an accidental belly flop in a public pool. (By the way, we called those "belly busters" when I was a kid, & trying to find images or videos of that online was a bust. Instead, "belly buster" seems to be a synonym for dieting. Or a chain restaurant in California. Or both.) I try to take seconds-long cat naps at the desk which make me seem drunk & stupid. Sometimes these things help, sometimes they don't. Mostly they don't. God I am sleepy.

I can't think of anything more to say about naps. But I have run out of time to leave you voicemail. I meant to leave you voicemail so you could leave me voicemail. I wanted to ask your something. No I can't. But don't call back right now. Call me back when you're sure I have remembered what I was going to say.