Unsafesurfer

I am punning on a Julian Cope song I'll probably play tomorrow on the show. It's a show about surfing, although I am not above playing, for example, a song about couch surfing, which isn't at all dangerous unless you are friends with psychopaths, & snail surfing, which is something I just made up. I have no idea what the Julian Cope song is about, but it sounds comforting - "You don't have to be afraid, love, 'cause I'm a safe surfer, darling." & the song was written before there was much of an online world, too, so it can't be about computer viruses & modem condoms. (Okay, I just made up modem condoms too.)

Storm's a-brewin' in Austin town this afternoon, & I hope I get some wind & rain slapped in my face & (if I'm lucky) a giant magnolia blossom will knock the toupee off our governor's head. I just wanted to remind you that, no matter the weather, no matter how land-locked you are, you'll be surfing with Self Help Radio tomorrow in the afternoon. & all through the night, if you want. I'm easy like that. (& I'm not making that up.)

Whither's Surf's Up?

I knew this dude once who had a typical story, which surfer lore is replete with, & that story is this: some person in some career, be it bagboy or CEO, insurance agent or loan shark, finds his or her way to California or Hawaii for something like a vacation or time off, is cajoled into (or actually is interested in) surfing, & likes it so much, they give up everything to live near the beach so they can surf, surf, surf all the livelong day.

Surfing is a strange culture & it's only because I wanted to read more about it that I decided to do a show about surfing. I confess I am less interested in the twangy Dick Dale style of playing that has become known as "surf rock" (a sub-category of surf music) than in the whole attitude of people writing music about what is basically a leisure activity. There's more adrenaline, of course, which may explain why there's not such a thing as "golf music" (although a Google search turns up an Amazon page of lounge music called "golf music that swings!" implying, I guess, that famous golfers like Bing Crosby meant their music to accompany the game). There's also, of course, physically fit people in swimsuits. Craggy old men in embarrassing hats on a golf course can't compete.

Surf media, though, hasn't really interested me. I never liked the "beach blanket" movies of the 60's. As a big fan of Deadwood, I was willing to give creator David Milch's John From Cincinnati a fair shake, but it wasn't a very interesting show, although I do love me some Garret Dillahunt. It seemed to make the whole prospect of becoming a surfer a lot like becoming a junkie - you give up everything for your "fix" & live in a kind of tattooed squalor. But the songs seem to celebrate a lot more.

I'm of course just thinking out loud & certainly don't want to offend any surfers (or any junkies, for that matter), & this is just the mindset (or mind-un-set as the case may be) as I gather surf songs for Self Help Radio this week. & no, I'll probably never surf, not just because I'm afraid of jellyfishes (they sting!) but because I have a bad back & would hate to love surfing & then hurt myself so I couldn't surf again. It would be like my relationship with peanut butter cups all over again.

Preface To Surf's Up: Screw The Surf, Last Week's Show Is Up

Got it? Get it? Good!

Last week's Self Help Radio, which is about enemies, is available now for your listening pleasure at selfhelpradio.net. Which is the same link as the link for Self Help Radio. Also, it's the same link for the word "link". Can't have too many links, that's what I say. I might even link the Self Help Radio address to a link for Google while I'm at it. Who's going to stop me? The police?

Anyway, go listen. I finally finished it. I hope you didn't become my enemy because it was late.

Last Week's Self Help Radio Is On The Way!

I know, when I had to take a week off (or at least be gone the day my show was on) when Self Help Radio was on the radio, I tended to just skip the week or get someone to sub the show. But since Self Help Radio is a podcast now (but may not remain one in the future - more on that later as developing developments develop) I imagined I could come in from a long weekend, sit up & finish a new show a mere twenty-four hours late. But I couldn't. I didn't. But I will!

Yes, sir, I've been making last week's show in my head all day today & will put it together tomorrow. You heard me! Last Saturday's show will debut this Tuesday! & not only that - there'll be a new show Saturday! What do you think about that, haters? You hate it? Well, you by definition would. It seems like such an awful job title - "hater." What does that pay? Very well, you say? Good for you!

Tomorrow I'll have a Self Help Radio for you. I promise. & I hardly ever keep my promises, but this time, for you, I will. Because I don't want to disappoint the state of West Virginia. It's true.

Whither Enemies?

Yes, this week's show is about enemies. Here's what the Oxford Elephant's Dictionary says about enemies: "They say what they mean & when they say it, they're mean. Enemies are disloyal percent one-hundred thirteen!" Taking that as a cue, & refusing to attend a notoriously homo-conservative "tea-bagging" party this week, the staff & workman's compensation director of The Self Help Radio sat in their den &, over Ovaltine & mah-jongg, decided they didn't have a care in the world, at least not until sundown, when, the electricity turned off & the candles nothing but wicks, they'd have to sit in the dark & smoke their pipes (not in a homo-conservative way, you understand) until the sun came up again.

As it says in the Bibble, "Lo, & on the eighteenth day of April did a massive homo-conservative horde with teabagging yet to come descend in the dreams of every third unhappy male frog of indiscriminate gender. & the staff did cry out, O why? O why? For is there not something else on the television nor a snappy indie tune we can play in the car until the battery gasps low? & the staff did wail, & someone named Nash took out his teeth, & splendid were the controversial tire rims, which rotateth not the direction in which the car did move. & the staff shall sing out, I shall maketh a radio show against mine enemies, & it shall possibly rock."

I'm not a big fan of Bibble-prophecy, as my friends in my Bibble-study class know, but I do believe that the ancient sages & bookies who wrote the Bibble (you know the story - filled with the spirit of the Holy Odd, scribbling away on napkins while dribbling away down their shirts) knew something I didn't know, & while that almost certainly was about prostitutes & not prophecy (& anyway, we covered that a couple of weeks ago), I do know the idea of a radio show about enemies is a fine one, since frankly a person without enemies is like a Bibble-study class without porn.

Which reminds me: this week's show may be a little late, as I will be out of town from tomorrow to Sunday night. Please forgive. I'll make the show extra homo-conservative just for you. & this blog will also be silent, which is fine, because even if you are in fact reading it right now (which you aren't), it's not really here. Just you, & Bibble-porn.

Preface To Enemies: A List Of Enemies

In preparation for a show about enemies, a look over embattled protagonists throughout history is both edifying & necessary, & truly who was most embattled (not least in his own mind) than the American president who, until the last eight years, seemed like the worst possible occupant of the Oval Office, & that's Richard Nixon. Did you know he kept a list of his enemies? & don't you know if you keep a list of your enemies, it's bound to leak?

Well, I'm not worried, as I am publishing my enemies list right here, right now. No leaks necessary! Like always, I leak myself. Wait.

This is, however, a partial list, as I don't have my original list with me currently. I sent it to Kinko's to be laminated. I kept spilling soda all over it. It got a little soggy. Don't worry about the incomplete quality of this list - the rest is mainly the attendance lists of all my classes in school from first grade to twelfth. It's a big list.

These are the top eleven enemies of ME.

11. Jeff "Stickbug" Handleman. For questioning my honor in an online forum - repeatedly - when really all I wanted to find out was when the new season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent was starting.

10. Marjorie Johnson-Jones. For breaking my heart, then, because you're a perfectionist, coming back to break it again more properly. Ow. Ow.

09. Hornsby Police Chief Herman Dorsey. I'll just say this: that was my favorite thumb. You fascist!

08. Holden Caufield. Look, I know he's a fictional character. But he is my enemy all the same.

07. Camelia Morris. I didn't want to be in your stupid book club anyway. I hate you!

06. Some of my brothers, both of my sisters. If I must explain, let's talk a little about my fourth birthday, & slowly work our way up to the present, shall we?

05. Some of my mother, most of my father. You don't think I know how you've held me back? The genetic material you bequeathed me was only the start!

04. Rust. It seems like rust is always there, around the corner, on the corner, on the metal post at the corner. But I will have my revenge when I remove its precious oxygen!

03. That dog who shall not be named. You know who you are. & I know you read this blog. Or at least your owner does. Because you've got him fooled too! But not me!

02 Tim Robbins. Oh he knows why. He's just lucky he's smarter than David Schwimmer, because Schwimmer pissed me off & look what I did with his career. Hah!

01 My greatest enemy is imaginary. It might even be imagination itself. Mocking me. Taunting me. & it hates you, too.

If you want to be on my enemies list, drop me a line. It's certainly more fun than being on my friends list!

Glenrothes One-Way

It's another Monday, so there's another Self Help Radio which happened over the weekend. Did you miss it? Why or what not?

A few years ago, when I was coffee-maker & lookout for a rogue pizza parlor in Garland, Texas, I knew this dude who never bathed, never brushed his teeth, never washed his clothes - he was kind of like a college boy who's gone Rastafari - he's tell me, "I am the incarnation of death, pleasure & pain." He boasted that he went "on the hunt" in red light districts - but frankly, though Garland, Texas, at the time had a thriving rogue pizza industry, we didn't have any red light districts. The Baptists wouldn't let us.

So he meets this girlie he calls "Doll." She says, "The media image of beauty has left many men & women broken. Some become anorexic or bulimic, while others turn to plastic surgery in search of the perfect look." Doll therefore complimented her creepy beau by claiming to be "the incarnation of those whom suffer from cosmetic surgery addiction & have died as a result of it." She stapled skin to her skin so it would look like her skin was falling off. I don't really know whose skin she stapled to her own skin. I didn't get close enough to find out.

They're both my friends on Facebook now. I have nothing to say to them. So I recommended this week's Self Help Radio.

Synonyms for Nonsense

Babble. Blather. Blatherskite. Gabble. Gibberish. Jabber. Jabberwocky. Twaddle. Balderdash. Bunkum. Claptrap. Drivel. Piffle. Poppycock. Rigmarole. Tommyrot. Applesauce. Baloney. Horse feathers. Bilge. Hooey. Malarkey. Bull. Bunk. Folly. Foolishness. Hogwash. Hot air. Jive. Mumbo jumbo. Rubbish. Trash. Tripe. Blarney. Moonshine. Bosh. Guff. Codswallop. Flapdoodle. Hokum. Gobbledygook. Monkey business. Shenanigans. Hanky-panky. Eyewash. Phooey.

Nonsense!

Whither Upstairs/Downstairs?

The surface area of Lake Michigan is 22,400 square miles. The surface area of Lake Victoria is 26,600 square miles. The surface area of Lake Ray Hubbard is 35.5 square miles, which is pretty big if you live in Rockwall County, Texas, & your idea of really big is a super-sized burger & fries. But you know what these lakes don't have that many houses do? An upstairs. A downstairs.

Downstairs can be the first floor, but it's more ominous if it's the cellar. Or worse, the dungeon. Same with upstairs. From a cellar, upstairs is the first floor. But the coolest upstairs is an attic. Some might say, "What about a penthouse?" No! An attic! Hopefully an attic in Paris. Where a young poet can starve to death! The only person who starves to death in a penthouse is an Oliver Douglas type, & it's really only his soul that's starving to death. Lisa makes sure he has a sandwich every once in a while.

So like most directions, upstairs/downstairs is relative. It's not a very good idea to keep a relative in your attic or basement. This includes animals, although I've met some cats who'd probably enjoy a dingy attic &/or basement, especially if there's cable. Animals love stairs, by the way. If even to just hang out upon them. They understand upstairs & downstairs.

My brain, now that I think about it, is divided into upstairs & downstairs, although that's a little personal, so I'll stop here.

Preface To Upstairs Downstairs: I've Actually Never Seen The British Miniseries "Upstairs Downstairs"

The British television series Upstairs Downstairs was shown in the early 70's & has become a beloved program for those who keep track of such things. According to the Internet Movie Database:

The series follows the lives of both the family & the servants in the London townhouse at 165 Eaton Place. Richard Bellamy, the head of the household, is a member of Parliament, & his wife a member of the titled aristocracy. Belowstairs, Hudson, the Scottish butler directs & guides the other servants about their tasks & (sometimes) their proper place. Real-life events from 1903-1930 are incorporated into the stories of the Bellamy household.

Sounds delightful. I've never seen it.

But wait! Isn't the theme this week "upstairs downstairs"? It is, but it's not "Upstairs Downstairs" the television series I've never seen. It's mainly a chance to play songs about stairs, different floors (like, you know, the second floor, etc.) & the distinction between. A few songs make use of a pun on the word "story" to mean a "tale" or a "level of a house." In any event, it has nothing to do with England (except I'll play some English bands I suppose) or the aristocracy (although I do drink nasty sherry whilst I do the show) or the help in the cellar (although I am descended from peasant stock). It's just about the different floors of a house. Upstairs. Downstairs.

Yeah, yeah, I'll watch it one day. It just doesn't really have anything to do with this week's Self Help Radio.

Inverness Straightaway

This is a perfunctory persimmon to let everyone know including you that Self Help Radio had a new episode in spite of your misgivings this past weekend, & it's available where your "Self Help Radio" products are normally sold. That's right. Your grocer's freezer.

It has come to my lack of attention that certain "online help wanted boards" (for want of a better board) have been advertising under my very name for "interns" for "Slef Help Radio." (Yes, they spell it that way.) (Should I have written "Slef Help Radio" [sic]? It does make me feel a little [sic]. I am of course a non-profit or rather a no-profit, & even if my show last week was about fortune telling, I am also a non-prophet, & can tell you we won't be hiring in the future, although the job of me may be available if I don't start exercising and eating right.

Also, please accept a humble apology olive branch loaf to all Emile Zola fans whose parentage I may have disrespected in a recent screed on a serious online French novel message board. I had been harboring some negative feelings about Nana for some time, & I didn't know how strongly I felt until I started writing.

That is all.

Oh My E R

Here's a nice article about the series' finale of ER, one of my favorite television shows of all time. Fifteen years it's been on! It's hard not to think of a television show like a band, with seasons like albums, & especially a show like ER which currently has nobody in the cast who was there when it first went on the air. (Same thing with Law & Order now, too.) I guess with Carter back this season for the end it's the television show that's most like The Fall, although the Noah Wyle as Mark Smith comparison fails or so many levels, starting with a full set of teeth & sliding down.

Also, like many bands, the earlier seasons of television shows ("their first albums") are a lot better than the later seasons. There are only a few television shows that ended anywhere near the strength of their beginning, although some (like Deep Space Nine) don't find their feet right away. But the same is true for bands.

Which is my way of saying I am as sad about ER going off the air as I might be about one of my favorite bands breaking up - but a band that didn't still have all the members it had when it released its best work, & a band that I still listen to from time-to-time - & always get the new record - but that I don't expect to be wowed in the same way I was when I first heard them.

I won't get to watch the episode tonight, though, as the wife's out of town & I have to wait for her return to see it. Luckily Smallville's on! You heard me! I watch superhero television shows too! What're you gonna do about it?

Whither Fortune Telling?

Before I started writing this blog post about this week's Self Help Radio, I was writing an email to someone who is supposed to be helping me on a project but who is totally slacking & so, I kinda drifted off into a slight daze wherein I was writing this person an email & it began, in my head, "Dear Person, I know you're as busy as a weasel just outside Denver..."

I'm not sure where that came from, so I googled "weasels" & "denver" & got a couple of hits, none of which explain my simile, but which are interesting all the same.

One: The Young Weasels, a New Wave band from twenty-five years ago. Here's an interesting sentence: "The group was an opening act for many of the touring punk bands that passed through Colorado like The Teardrop Explodes, Loverboy, and in their triumphant return to Denver in 1983 The Varve." Of course, I am a huge Varve fan, if "Varve" means a sexual act that encourages you to make a noise like "varve!" But what's intriguing to me is not that Loverboy - Lovermotherfuckingboy! - would ever be considered punk, but that they're actually, non-ironically, in the same sentence as The Teardrop Explodes. Whoever wrote this wasn't just working for the weekend - the kid was hot that night.

Two: Weasels Rocky Mountain. The Colorado version of a California motorcycle enthusiast group (there's a Texas chapter, I like them because of their tag line: "A Drinking Club With a Motorcycle Problem."

Where was I? Oh yeah, weasels. As far as I know, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, or the countless other sick bastards who practiced hepatomancy didn't cut open weasels, but if they had, it wouldn't have begun to explain why, in the middle of composing an email in one's head, one would suddenly come up with a simile like the one my brain invented as I began to write this blog post. Some might say, well, Gary, that's because hepatomancy is an art, not a science, & no one gets trained in entrails-reading any more. Good riddance I say! Well, well, well, Gary, you say, would you then destroy all the Magic 8 Balls too?

(Okay, when I start arguing with myself, it gets ugly. Just slip away. I'm sure I won't notice & if I do, I'll try to stall me. Go! Go!)

Spread Like Summer Butter

Hmm, I don't know what that means.

Here's two things though that would be sweet on bread (or salty, I guess, if I continue this increasingly uncomfortable metaphor): last week's Self Help Radio spun crazily out of control & you can listen to it without feeling the slightest bit dizzy. I encourage it.

Also, I finish March's Self Help Radio Extra if you have the gall or gumption to enjoy some nice songs mixed together without a peep from me.

I save all my peeping for the regular show.

You know what I mean.

Butter!

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission Eight

Another flirtatious email, written over ten years ago. I quoted an entire Leonard Cohen song in the email, but I have snipped it here. Please to enjoy my shabby past.

Oh yeah, the email was called "Bum & Bummer." It's nowhere near as good an email title as one that I can't share, which I just found, called "Single White Futile." That's funny!

-----

I don't have any understanding of righteous. I once had confidence, but I lost it to a confidence man. I can't believe that there are togethers, couplings, kisses, or mooning in moonlight. I'll take it under advisement.

FIRST PLAN: Unfortunately I remember everything.

SECOND PLAN: What I want has nothing to do with anyone else.

THIRD PLAN: When all else fails, I turn to art.

FOURTH PLAN: All else has failed, now I have only art.

FIFTH PLAN: Once upon a time, long ago, probably never, a small group of very sad travellers alit on an island, whereupon they remembered their feet tingling when it touched the slightly soggy dry land. They said some sad prayers to their forgetful god, & constructed a makeshift shelter. It was a sort of home, but they found they missed the sweet sounds of the sea. They found that the stars, though they moved across the sky in their usual way, abandoned the twirling & chaotic manner they had become accustomed to on the sea, & marched straight, one side of the horizon to another.

But they got used to it & stayed there.

SIXTH PLAN: When art fails, all is lost.

SEVEN PLAN: Certainty is many-tentacled, & blows bubbles. Certainly, you can love nearly everything & everyone, but self-made monsters deserve pity, not love. One should wear crazy qualifiers like oddball fashions, culled together from here & there like thrift shop shopping sprees.

EIGHTH PLAN: Honesty is a weapon. Honesty is a flower. Honesty is a mistake. Honesty is a good idea. Honesty is impossible. Honesty is inevitable. Honesty is a dog person. Honesty is a cat person. Honesty quakes. Honesty murmurs.

NINTH PLAN: Self-serving Leonard Cohen poems are just that.

TENTH PLAN: Go ahead, ask.

Whither Spinning?

First of all, my apologies for being too exhausted to make sure the link to the Bearsuit KVRX session was correct. It wasn't. It is now. Download away!

Second of all, I don't know why I feel the need to use the phrase "second of all" when I use the phrase "first of all." Oh, wait, I do. It's like when the wife starts to say something, & she says, "One, this is what I meant to say." Then she never uses the "two." I am the opposite of that. If you say, "First of all," you need to continue the list. If you say, "A," please say "B." Etc.

Third of all, there's an old hippie song that I unfortunately have too many covers of. It goes like this:

The cripple taught us how to dance, the blind man taught us how to see
The fallen angel taught us how to fly & the prisoner taught us how to be free

And now we're spinning, spinning, spinning
Spinning, spinning through this magic land
Getting back to the beginning of the end that we once had
We're seeing how tomorrow like sparkling waves of sand
Being washed by waves of laughter, guided by the master's hand

We're dancing now we have no feet
Our eyes are gone the light shines bright
Our wings are clipped and yet we soar
& love runs free forever more

Why not come dance along with me
You'll see what's not was meant to be
We'll fly through space without a care
& free our brothers from despair

Spinning, spinning, spinning, etc.

They bothered a cripple to teach them how to dance? Fucking hippies! I bet they were making fun of him the whole time. Or would that be the slackers? Yeah, afterwards, the hippies got the cripple stoned.

In any event, I'm deeply annoyed by the line about the "master's hand." It makes the song seem a little cultish. Like "the master" (God? Sri Rajneesh? Their roadie?) needs to keep everyone a little dizzy to make them do whatever he (or she) wants them to do. It's a hippy song made almost entirely out of hemp, but boy is it theological unsound.

I know, it's mainly an exercise in a kind of Zen koan-ish play on opposites - we see better now we're blind, we dance better now that we're amputees. But the implication is that "the master" wants it this way, & that makes him kind of a cruel fucker. Also, "what's not was meant to be"? Does that mean they've got a death wish?

The last week's been a whirlwind but I'm entirely responsible for it. Besides, it's more fun to spin because you want to, not just because your cult needs you dancing a little vertigo-go to sink their medium rare philosophies.

Me, I want a merry-go-round! Not one of these. One of these!

Preface To Spinning: Hey. This Is The 600th Blog Post!

Well, then. I don't imagine there's anything else I can add. I mean, my gosh! Six hundred spots! Who knew I had six hundred of them in me? Oh my god. Maybe that's it. Maybe I can't write anything more. Maybe all I had was six hundred posts in me (& good lord some of them {like this one} were pretty crappy) & I'll have no more. Jeez! What happens if you show up to read this blog tomorrow, & there's a giant layer of dust over this site & you're all like, "What happened? Did Gary just have something like six hundred pieces of writing in him, most of them pretty dull & hopelessly self-reflexive in a way that shows that perhaps it didn't have even one hundred blog posts in them?" Would you be sad? Would you just say, "Oh well. The next six hundred might have been absolutely dreadful"? Can I apologize in either case? God, I feel bad that I am writing this at the ass-end of a Tuesday when I totally had time at 5:30 but chose instead to play a video game. This is how I celebrate my six hundredth post! This is how I choose to celebrate what may be the last ever Self Help Radio blog post! & I'm also half-listening to this Charlie Kaufman interview & not even really thinking of what I'm writing anyway!

Oh well. Happy six hundred! For me, at least. For you - I'm sorry. I think I'll end up writing more. Sorry.

Ah! No Self Help Radio Last Week!

I'm sorry, friends, I had visitors for SXSW & was too busy to do Self Help Radio last week. I'm sure it completely ruined your weekend. Or maybe you didn't know there was a Self Help Radio that goes with this blog. I perfectly understand.

However, here are two treats for your tweets.

One is Bearsuit live at KVRX during their 3x5 event during SXSW. You can listen to that awesome session at the Self Help Radio website.

Also, later that day, Boston's One Happy Island stopped by for an acoustic set & a brief, very silly interview. That's too much fun & it's also available for listening at the Self Help Radio website.

So, you can see, a lot of stuff was happening. I only wish I could have warned you sooner.

Enjoy the live radio music! It's happiness!

It May Be Quiet Around Here This Week...

There are people coming by for SXSW - staying with me, drinking my beer, hitting me repeatedly over the head with a plastic mallet. Some of them might even be in a band which I can't WAIT to see during the festival - one of the bands I played on last week's Self Help Radio. I won't tell all until they're back in their respective countries.

So please excuse this empty blog this week. I'll stop by once or twice, but the regularly scheduled nonsense has now been moved to the real world.

A Month Of Somedays

It's the week before spring break at the University where I work, so there are lots of folks leaving. Be safe on America's highways! So many people seem to die there! (It was something like thirty-five thousand last year, although that number was down because of high oil prices.)

As far as I know, no one has died listening to me on the radio. But surely that's not a good enough reason to listen! But here's one: I keep the quality of Self Help Radio consistent so you don't have to! Warning: keeping the quality "consistent" does not necessarily imply that the quality is "good." Let the caveat be emptor.

I am sleepy because I travelled back & forth from Dallas yesterday, & luckily did not die on the highway, although the highway gave its level best. Except when we were going uphill. Then it wasn't so level. Ha ha. I slay me. But I am fully recharging tonight with a bottle of something & a bite of something else that didn't come from a bottle, unless it's a sauce or something, & I'll wake up earlyish tomorrow to deliver another non-lethal dose of Self Help Radio.

That's all for this week. Next week, though, that hasn't even begun yet.