Whither Danger?

Danger is (& I quote) "liability or exposure to harm or injury; risk; peril; an instance or cause of peril; menace."

More than that, danger implies (& I still quote) "harm that one may encounter. Danger is the general word for liability to all kinds of injury or evil consequences, either near at hand & certain, or remote & doubtful: to be in danger of being killed."

Doesn't that sound like a radio show to you? No? What about radio personalities? Haven't you seen Play Misty For Me? No? Then go see it. You'll figure out how dangerous it is being a deejay, all alone, at night, in a radio booth, playing songs. For weirdos. Psychopathic weirdos.

Oh sure, it's more likely to be killed by a drunk driver, or in a mugging, or in a war, or in a terrorist attack, or onstage by a fortuitously thrown tomato, but why not on the radio? It can be dangerous. There's a government agency just waiting for the programmer to fail, man. To levy fines, to battle in court cases. Sure, it's not A-Team dangerous, but it's at least Perry Mason dangerous. & that dude only lost one case. Only one case! That's dangerous, man.

I'm just saying. There's a reason Self Help Radio would want to explore danger. It's a possibility.

Preface To Danger: The Most Dangerous Radio Show Of All

It was in Africa, a long time ago. I was traveling with a group of hypochondriac male prostitutes who had taken a wrong turn at Scarsdale. We had boarded a steamer to hang out with some party animal/Woodstock burnout named Kurtz at the Heart Of Darkness Bar & Grill when a Belgian waffler with a transistor radio & dead flies in his hair tuned into a frequency that is apparently only available on the equator.

I was fortunate - I had a head cold, which I always get when I have a cold head, which is the case when you sleep under an air conditioner & then wake up & go outside & it's muggy & drippy & over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So I didn't get the full dose of this radio show - it came at me muffled, like a radio show wearing mufflers, yet it still knocked me across the deck.

The prostitutes grabbed their ears & fell to the floor, writhing. They had been doing that all morning, but this time their ears were bleeding. I knew something was wrong. Summoning all the strength I could muster I began screaming the lyrics to "Macarthur Park" while simultaneously plunging my fingers deep into my ears (you know, exactly like Richard Harris). I rose with great difficulty, kicked the Belgian's spastic body out of the way, & stomped on the evil radio until it could broadcast no more.

I was safe, & other passengers, not close enough to the broadcast to actually hear it, but still suffering the damages, emerged from below deck to help me remove my fingers from my ears. No one could explain. No one, except the cragged & deaf boatswain who lit his finger to light his pipe & told us the story of the most dangerous radio show of all.

At least I like to think he did. He'd been deaf his whole life & never learned sign language, so he mainly made a lot of noise & laughed a lot. We were all very polite. He seemed to need to tell the story.

I never found out where the show came from, or even what it was called. I hope I never do. But I'm pretty sure the host was Dick Clark. Or someone who admired Dick Clark. Counting down hit records, stuff like that. Oh god. It was awful.

I Just Spent Four Hours Burying The Cat

Four hours burying the cat? Yes, he wouldn't keep still, wriggling about, howling.

Luckily the cats are fine. I just always hear high-pitched Monty Python pepperpots when I realize that I spent the whole day doing stuff & neglected this fine blog. That won't do, not with Self Help Radio back & ready to stumble. Er, rumble.

Speaking of stumbling, the first Self Help Radio on WMUL went tolerably well, although I made a ton of dumb mistakes, not the least of which is screwing up the recording of the show. (Sigh. It's like I am perpetually an awkward thirteen year old.) Since there's no recording of my first show, I put the playlist up & a mix of the music at selfhelpradio.net. I thought of leaving blank spaces so you can imagine my airbreaks - but your imagination is doubtless better than mine, so I'd hate to have to try to follow THAT.

Um, well, er, it's raining in Huntington & I just met a scary fellow named Gary at a dimly-lit Kroger while shopping for corn meal. You'll excuse me if I have nothing else to say at this particular point in time.

& don't worry! The cats are fine!

Go Time!

Wow, so, on a Friday afternoon in early May, 2008, Self Help Radio left the Austin airwaves & moved into a spare bedroom at my place. It had its fun once a week, making fake radio shows that some people called podcasts, & collected disability payments from the government. (It's not quite right in the head.) Both of us hung out, enjoyed the music, waited for my wife to get a job somewhere else, just so we could leave Austin town in search of other radio grounds.

Well. Wife got the job & we found other radio grounds. Tonight, at 8pm West Virginia time, Self Help Radio returns to the air. The space aliens who'll receive the signal in four hundred years need not worry any longer. After fourteen Earth-months, they can be satisfied that my reports from (& thus confirmations of) the dying human civilization will continue. I do it for them, you know.

The theme is "all night long." The radio station is WMUL. The show is almost ready, although it's been throwing up all morning. If you're in town, please tune in - it's 88.1 fm. If you're not, check selfhelpradio.net tomorrow or the day after - it'll be sitting there, looking a little green, but strangely happy, I'm sure, to be Self Help Radio back on the radio.

Wow! Hey!

The Slight Return Of Self Help Radio

Hello. As you may or may not know (& of course didn't care), the wheel of fortune turned & shifted the Self Help Radio family (dysfunctional though it surely is) from the giant state of Texas to the smaller & more pancreas-shaped state of West Virginia. It's an age-old story - career bureaucrat saved from his apparently lifelong career by a more ambitious & undoubtedly smarter spouse's undoubtedly smarter & more ambitious career - & Self Help Radio has been fortunate to crash-land in a town which, unlike a lot of other places in the United States, has a non-commercial radio station which, though attached to a University, allows community volunteers the opportunity to show up, get involved, & shine on the airwaves. Here in Huntington, West Virginia, that station is WMUL - which, strangely enough, doesn't call itself "THE MULE!" - & the kind college staff there are allowing Self Help Radio onto their airwaves on Tuesdays this summer from 8pm to 10pm Eastern Yippee Time.

But wait! I hear you say. I've clicked on that link & the station doesn't appear to stream. Yes, it's true. They only stream their award-winning sports coverage. But you don't have to worry - I'll continue to archive the shows as soon as it occurs to me over at selfhelpradio.net, & although I'll have to juggle the days some, I'll once again continue the daily blogging about that the themes are, incoherently & inchoately, so it won't be like I've been gone for three weeks & you didn't even notice.

Tomorrow, then, 8pm, Eastern time: Self Help Radio isn't really on "all night long," but the songs will suggest it is. Welcome the show back! Listen if you're local, download if you're not. It's a new era of the same old Self Help Radio!

Summer Vacation? Summer Hiatus!

It's not quite a vacation Self Help Radio is taking more than a forced relocation. (It never should have gotten married!) But like a vacation, it's being packed into a rented minivan & driven across the country. Unlike a vacation, it'll settle at its destination. Please drive safely & don't shoot bottle rockets at Self Help Radio on the fourth of July. No matter how much you love freedom.

Last week's episode (about lullabies) (it's also the last Self Help Radio in Austin!) is available for your drowsy enjoyment at selfhelpradio.net. Also available are a few Self Help Radio Extras (click to see what they are) & a year's worth of Self Help Radios in the Archive. Listen to them again for the first time if ever. & please don't begrudge me the silence for the next week. Truly, we'll be on the road. Again. Not necessarily making music with my friends, but you never know. Memphis is on the way!

See you (I hope) in a week or so (or so) with new Self Help Radio news (newsy)!

Preface To Lullabies: A Day Without Sleep

It's probably no surprise that a fellow who does a show called Self Help Radio doesn't sleep too well, & it's absolutely true. I am generally in bed late & out of bed early - in late because I am drinking & listening to music at all hours, up early to feed the flock, who all demand to be fed at 9am sharp or they start feasting on my eyes. But today was awful. Here's what I did today:

Up at some ungodly hour around 7am or so (after getting to bed at 3am for no good reason except I was drinking whiskey & watching an awful Vin Diesel movie) because our sick pup made a ruckus while the other two pups were taken out for their walk (not by me - if it were up to me, there would've been no walk & therefore no ruckus). We had an inspector come at 10am - we're selling the house, you know, since we're moving in a week - & although he let me doze drowsily while losing spectacularly at a very old & silly computer game a friend at work gave me I had to go across the street & hide at a neighbor's when the buyer came to check out the inspection. Will he buy? Does the house have termites? WILL THEY FIND THE BODIES? Stay tuned!

It's been very hot in Austin (this week alone the temperatures are supposed to all be at 100 degrees or above) (that's some crazy small number in Celsius {which still manages to make you sweat}, I report for my Finnish fans) (correction: my hypothetical Finnish fan) so the trudge across the street caused me to do what hot weather inevitably does, which is slowly lower myself to the scalding asphalt & nap. But the wife got the dogs to drag me in, & four hours later we could return to our soon-to-be-sold home, which was all aglow with that rosy "new inspection" look.

Then the wife told me I had to call all the magic numbers to set up cable, internet, water, electricity, gas, recycling, phone, religious services, high blood pressure screenings, school lunches, drug corner locations, masseuses, bingo, shock therapy, & countless other preparations for our move next week. I started with drug corners first, & learned that my oxycontin needs will be very well met in Huntington. In any event, the afternoon passed as I spoke to more non-Americans than Americans to set up needed services in an American city. Such is life.

I had hoped to nap, but no, it was not to be. The wife had sneaked away for some reason that I didn't care enough to ask about, so I managed a little dinner-like action & managed to sleep from around 8 to 9:30, when I was awakened by two cats & three dogs discussing amongst themselves the best way to pry my succulent eyeballs out of the sockets without otherwise ruining the chewiness of the optic nerve. I managed a hazy maneuver to feed them all, chatted with a friend about email woes, watched the Daily Show & am now writing in this blog, all on roughly five & a half hours sleep in around forty-eight hours.

How dull is this? I'm going to start doing it every day! But the wife is home, so I probably should put some pants on. Ciao babe!

The Bad Blogger Is Sheepish

I know, I totally ignored this blog last week, but it was because last week's Self Help Radio was about taking turns, & I thought it was your turn to write in this blog & my turn to read it. So who didn't fulfill whose side of the bargain? I thought so. If only I had let your know it was your turn, it might've been exciting.

(You can go & listen to last week's show in the usual place. You don't even have to wait your turn. Just go!)

Self Help Radio is packing up & getting ready to leave Austin. It's a wistful moment, since the radio show was born here & grew up here (if it can truly be said to have grown up) & thought it would die here. It had a dumbass Texas attitude about it that might not play well in other states in our union - it's a little trepidatious about ending up in West Virginia, which is only the 41st largest state of the Union (Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware & little Rhode Island are smaller, but they certainly seem like most of them would be bigger, right?) & which is 37th in population, with barely two million inhabitants (if that). By contrast, Texas is the largest contiguous state (you always have to mention Alaska somewhere here), & is second in population after California. It's the exact opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies going to Hollywood. Not that I have any resemblance to Uncle Jed - yet.

What might happen? You have to stay tuned. I will have to keep you posted. It means that I will have to be a better blogger & you may have to learn to read. Luckily there are few if any reading skills for listening to the show - just download & listen. It's so easy. Do I have to spell it out for you? Oh, wait.

Whither Taking Turns?

Speaking of taking turns, since it's my turn to flee the city I've spent half my life in (as it will be your turn one day), I have moved the Self Help Radio website to a different, more commercial server. (A very good friend hosted it for me for a long, long, long time, but since I don't really imagine that I'll ever live in Austin again, I felt a little guilty with him hosting it still.) (Also, my long association with the University of Texas is coming to an end {this Friday!} & my email address is parked there. So I needed a new email address. I wonder why all of this is still in parentheses?) My new web hosting place is going to be my new email address: gary at selfhelpradio.net (just click it, you'll see; I didn't want my first email to be spam) (actually my first email was an email to me I wrote from my old address, & I insulted me - sometimes I don't even know why I bother trying to be friends with me).

It may interest you that this week's show - about taking turns - has been one of the hardest I've ever had to scrounge around for. I can do it, but if you have any ideas - songs about my turn, your turn, our turn, taking turns, etc. - email me at my new address. I know this is an understatement, but I need all the help I can get.

The whole point of this nonsense was to say something about not writing in this blog yesterday because I was being busy moving the site, which is big, you know, with all the radio shows you still haven't listened to. What's wrong with you? Now if you'll excuse me. It's my turn to find songs about taking turns - again.

We All Stopped Using Beethoven, Sure Enough

Please read this important announcement to the end to get the maximum full effect.

Saddened as I am that there are just two more Self Help Radios for the month of June, I do remember the happy days of family vacations, when little shots of guava replaced actual human contact for the screaming unhappiness which defined the day-to-day life of the robots we were assigned as parents. I do so enjoy contestants & deadlines, so continuing Self Help Radio as a podcast long past its due date proved both diligent, bohemian & disarming. Truly will sadness fill my daily bread until I can muster up the strings to just start punching away at the very bag which perhaps now rests at the bottom of the sea. Such salt & crust is a young man's whistle - I'm just an old community radio kind of guy with nonetheless hunkering down on the nevermore.

Still, survey it while you must, because although YOU have kindly forgotten SELF HELP RADIO, it falls in the forest despite the lack of repeated listenings. Please don't get defensive - you've been bust, we know, with your jumble sales & your house fires, & your repeated deployments to Iraq &/or Wal-Mart. No one here thinks any of the less of the you of the time. We just wish you'd occasionally - like in the girt old days - stop your crackling long enough for a wink & a winning smile. That'll show 'em!

This week's Self Help Radio features excerpts from the award-winning-nominated radio play "Escape From Self Help Radio." You may not want to miss it. & while you're there, try the Self Help Radio Extra. It is not named Susan & it does not have extra calories because of strip clubs.

You may go now. Further relinquishing is not allowed.

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June! (Part 2)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still June. So let's call it Self Help Radio Extra June. I am so ashamed.

Have a listen to Self Help Radio Extra & hear new & old tunes featuring the likes of the Chameleons, Vic Godard, the Bodines, the Russian Futurists, Mélanie Pain, & lots more, including my favorite: a newly discovered song by one of my favoritest band in the universe, the Virgin-Whore Complex, who released two records in the late 90's & then disappeared, to my great dismay.

Have a listen. & listen to the new Self Help Radio tomorrow, which is all about escape. You can't escape it!

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June!

Okay, it's not here yet. I know, you've been waiting all month. All last month, any way. Tonight, as I sat around gathering a month's worth of snappy tunes to share with you, suddenly, without any warning, unsuspecting, surprising, unexpected, abrupt, unannounced - well, because I wasn't watching television, listening to music, & all - out of nowhere

RAINSTORM!

So I'll do it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Whither Escape?

Why do people escape? Perhaps they're incarcerated - or about to be. (I've dabbled in bail bondsmanship & bounty hunting, it's true. I'm a close personal friend of Colt Seaver.) Maybe they're in a difficult situation - abusive spouse, abusive parents, abusive pets - & actually need to escape to save their lives. Some people just want to "get away" - escape to the islands, to the spa, to a romantic spot. But these are physical escapes. Sometimes you need to escape from your life, like with daydreaming, or listening to music in headphones, or by drinking alcohol & taking drugs. (Mmmmm.) (I was mmmming the headphones. What did you think?)

To get more sciencey, you can escape a planet's gravity to get to space (escape velocity!). To get more sciencey & chemicalish, you can be a gas or a virus escaping from a test tube. To get more grammary, something can simply disappear - a word escaping one's memory. To get more computery, you can be a key that one hits to try to navigate away from a page with cute Japanese girls on it when one's supervisor is bearing down.

Oo, oo, I missed one - you can escape something that might have happened if you hadn't been paying attention or you can escape something bad that happened with a minimum of damage - "I escaped the accident!" That one escaped me.

Is Self Help Radio an "escape"? It is for me. I escape there every week. Sometimes I'm actually confined there, so I have to also escape FROM Self Help Radio. Which is why of course I will have produced the hit serial "Escape From Self Help Radio" to be broadcast in the past during the time when there were hit serials (I will have had gotten Republic Serials to produce it, & hopefully I will have cajoled hit serial star Buster Crabbe to have starred in it) once I invent a time machine. The script is aces, though. Or was. Or will be. Damn. I can't get this time travel lingo correct.

In any event, whatever you're trying to escape from, I hope Self Help Radio is your port in a storm this week. In any event, it will have nothing to do with Journey's Escape. Which is fine. I stopped believing a lot time ago.

Preface To Escape: I Am No Steve McQueen

Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. It's so blatantly obvious that I can even bold & italicize the word "that" (which was capitalized for effect) & it doesn't even begin to convey the idiocy of the comparison. Viz. Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. But what makes you such an expert on Steve McQueen? Here are some disturbing facts about Steve McQueen that might make you a little more humble when you're poo-pooing a person jokingly comparing himself to the star of The Great Escape, among other films:

1. He died from mesothelioma. Know what that is? Do you? Well, it's not a cool way to die. He died from exposure to asbestos! Compare that to how David Carradine died. Okay, well, that's just humiliating. Never mind.

2. He was supposed to be at the Polanski home the night Manson's robots killed Sharon Tate & the others there. In fact, it's said he was at the top of Manson's list of celebrities who were supposed to die to bring on Manson's dumbass race war. Okay, that's kinda cool. I mean, to be marked for death by Charles Manson, that's the kind of celebrity that, in this day & age, is reserved for status moments like being shot in the face by the Vice President.

3. As he was dying, he visited the Reagans (just about to be installed as King & Queenly of America) & they apparently got Billy Graham to get him to accept Jesus into his heart. Wow, talk about wiping away a lifetime of cool!

That last one is a cheap shot, because I am really nothing at all in any way like Steve McQueen. Morrissey, for example, would never put a giant poster of me up in his home. I don't even know if there is a giant poster of me available, whereas there are millions of McQueen. Furthermore, the one time in my life I've ridden a motorcycle, all I got was a sunburn & some heat exhaustion. Also, I've never been in the movies & never kissed Ali McGraw. (Both might happen, though. Also: both probably won't.)

Why can't I escape these ridiculous comparisons that I myself invent on my blog between me & famous dead celebrities? It is a problem I suppose I have to live with.

What Is This "Self Help Radio Summer Vacation" Anyway?

I know, you've gone to the Self Help Radio website to download this week's show, which is about knocking, & you were perusing the upcoming themes & you looked down the list & you were like, "What the hell? What's the theme in three weeks? The first week of July? July fourth? What about a show about flags? Or fireworks? Or the Declaration of Independence? That's a show I'd want to hear? What's up?"

Well, what was threatened last year is coming true this one: the Self Help Radio Party Van is leaving Austin for good. We'll be leaving in July & it'll take a few days to get there, set up shop, unpack the CDs & stuff, & get my bearings. I expect the moving to a completely different part of the country will undo or otherwise unloose whatever bearings I may still have, so I am giving myself a month to go through the process of "getting" the "bearings." Maybe it won't take as long. Maybe I will go through Self Help Radio Withdrawal. Maybe there'll be only a week off. But. I've never moved so far away before. I think a month is just right.

Now stop worrying. You'll be fine. Go listen to last week's show. Go. Go!

Oops I'm running late!

Yeah, I'm a weasel. I've been too busy during my last weeks at work to steal time to write in this blog.

Wait. What? Last weeks at work?

Yes, it's true. I am leaving my job in two American weeks (compare them with other country's weeks - you'll see the difference) (spoiler alert: we work more) to leave the city of Austin behind & embark on a strange new journey - which will of course take Self Help Radio - to... where?

It's really quite underwhelming. I'm a little embarrassed about even trying to create some suspense about it. But I will. More information to come. Just rest assured that, for at least the month of June, Self Help Radio will continue to produce a radio show that virtually NO ONE will listen to, out of spite or out of ignorance, & then will take a break while the offices relocate.

This week? Knocking. How can you miss that? It's the one skill you have! The rest, well. You have to lie about them on your resume!

Whither Knocking?

A terrible dilemma is upon me. Oh wait. I might have used that word (dilemma) wrongly. Let me check the Economist's Guide To Common Solecisms:

This is not just any old awkwardness, it is one with horns, being, properly, a form of argument (the horned syllogism) in which you find yourself committed to accept one of two propositions each of which contradicts your original contention. Thus a dilemma offers the choice between two alternatives, each with equally nasty consequences.

Oh. Then it's not really a dilemma. The original contention, one supposes, is that I am doing a show about "knocking." See, I've been listening to all these songs all week about "knocking" &, well, as one might imagine, there are a WHOLE F-ING LOT OF THEM which are simply about the process of banging one's fist on a door, or moving the device on the door that makes a similar (though kinder to your fist) sound, to indicate that one is visiting someone else's home or place of business or building. So I was thinking, hey, maybe I should restrict the content of the show to that particular aspect of knocking & not the various other meanings, like being "knocked up," or the phrase "don't knock it." Neither of those alternative have nasty consequences, because, frankly, how can a bunch of songs on Self Help Radio be nasty?

Until I do a show about nastiness, that is.

I still haven't decided. But I know now it's not a dilemma. Just a sort of self-serving problem that I can wrestle with while drinking a little too much whiskey while listening to songs I've gather. Um. So. Never mind.

Preface To Knocking: There Are No Jokes About Knockers In This Blog Entry

I don't think I'll play any songs about "knockers" (if there are any) this week on the KNOCK show. I confess I haven't heard the term since I was a kid. Funnily enough, watching The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin, a British sit-com from the 70s, last night, I did hear breasts referred to as "knockers." Crazy how these things happen.

The term "knockers" referring to breasts (some people say "women's breasts," but for the purposes of this discussion that seems redundant) is supposed to be fairly old though it became popular with army folk in the 40s. It was a "safe" euphemism for breasts for a while, coming into its own probably around the time of Laugh-In & dying out (more or less) by the beginning of the 80's. But no one really knows where it comes from.

One person on the www.phrases.org.uk message board added this: "A little site called LondonSlang.com asserts that the term orignates in London. It doesn't give any other explanation but it is listed along with the term 'knocking shop' for brothel. I'm not sure whether knocking shop is used here in the US, but it seems like it might be a clue to the phrase's origin." But I'm not at all convinced about that, though English speakers have used the word "knock" to mean "have sex," leading to a pregnant woman being "knocked up."

A "knocker" is properly one of two things: one who knocks, &/or a device on a door used to knock on it. Therefore one might imagine that calling a pair of breasts "knockers" would be related to this. On the same discussion list mentioned above, one shrewd poster pointed out that most doors only have a single knocker, so why would a pair of breasts be like a knocker? Someone suggested the motion of the knocker, but then the knocker isn't so much about its motion as it is about its sound, & most breasts I've had the experience to know are rather quiet. On the plus side, one correspondent pointed out that door knockers tend to be breast level - though I seem to remember them being more chin level - & I'm a fairly tall fellow.

I just don't know, & since the term is considered slang at best & vulgar at worst, most respectable etymologists won't bother with it. & the great Urban Dictionary doesn't care about word origins.

See? Not a single joke about knockers. Just information. That's the Self Help Radio way!

There Was An Accident This Weekend

Actually, several. All on Self Help Radio. Sucked into a musical maelstrom so you could live your weekend accident-free. Do listen. It'll make you safer.

Also, if you book your face on that face-the-book place, you can become a fan of Self Help Radio. I'll try to snazz the place up.

& May's Self Help Radio Extra? Ack, I'll work on it. Maybe have it by tomorrow. Promise!

Accident Waiting To Happen

This means two things:

1) The accident show is waiting to happen, & happen it will, accidentally on purpose tomorrow in the afternoon at selfhelpradio.net!

2) I resigned from my job today. I'll expand more later, not because you care, because I know you don't, but because it will affect Self Help Radio, which may have to take a few weeks off during the summer. More on that later.

Be careful, though - there'll be an accident tomorrow. But specifically on Self Help Radio. If it's not related to Self Help Radio, that accident is NOT MY FAULT!