Preface To SomethingTown: How Big Is A Town Supposed To Be Anyway?

I am always disappointed when I discover that there aren't clearly defined terms in a hierarchy of growth for something. Let it be said now that the same is true for "towns." As the Wikipedia says, "A town is a type of settlement ranging from a few hundred to several thousand (occasionally hundreds of thousands) inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries & is not always a matter of legal definition. Usually, a 'town' is thought of as larger than a village but smaller than a 'city,' though there are exceptions to this rule." Of course there are! But wouldn't it be easier to have this continuum:

village < town < city < metropolis < megalopolis

(Interestingly, my Safari spellcheck is not showing "megalopolis" as a misspelled word - when did THAT enter out lexicon?)

Also, what would be before village? Burg? Hamlet? Hovel?

In any event, I think it depends on where you're from - & your perception of where you're from - how you define something as a town, since the authorities have not seen fit to define it for us. For example, I grew up in Garland, Texas, which currently has a population of over two hundred thousand people & is the tenth-largest city in Texas. But compared to Dallas, it seems like a town. But Dallas is such a sprawling provincial place lacking in personality that, compared to real cities like New York or Chicago or San Francisco, it's really just a town. Which makes Garland, what? A village?

No, a suburb, which is quite an insulting term now that I think about it.

Huntington, where I now live, has around fifty thousand folks, & I'm sure many people here think it's a city, but it's not really a city. It's a town. I think virtually every large gathering of people & buildings in West Virginia is at best a town. We might have more people if we include the "metropolitan area," but we're still a bunch of towns.

Is that insulting? Would they rather be suburbs? Or, god forbid, exurbs?

I was going to add that sometimes we use the word "town" (as in saying, "I'm going down to Austin town") to show off a sense of familiarity. Like saying "London town" or "New York town." But that wouldn't figure into the mathematical equation I long for. Something like this:

Over 1 million inhabitants: metropolis
100,000 to 1 million inhabitants: city
25,000 to 100,000 inhabitants: town
5,000 to 25,000 inhabitants: township
100 to 5,000 inhabitants: village
2 - 100 inhabitants: hamlet
1 inhabitant: hermitage

It needs work. But it's a start!

Grumpage In, Grumpage Out

It's late Wednesday but I'll bet that Blogger will date this on Thursday. Agh! I am unreliable. That's what I get for watching "I Love You Man" instead of writing in my blog.

Um, well, it was a, you know, typical Wednesday thing, you know, did the show yesterday, it's now up at selfhelpradio.net for you to listen to if you wanna when you wanna. As you wanna. You wanna?

I record the show with a clever device that digitally swallows the sound via magic cords of wires & converts the show into small computer-sized bits of data which it stores on a little chip the kind of which you also find in digital cameras & androids' hearts. Well, I forgot to dump last week's shows off the chip when I dumped them on my computer, so I couldn't record "Sugar Substitute." Which makes me sad but what can you do? Other that, you know, stop making so many dumb & tiny mistakes.

That's really all I wanted to say. Is there anything else? Have a nice day!

Who Shall Survive --- Radio Show Day?!

Imagine - a world without radio!
Imagine still - a world with radio but without ears!
Conceive - a nightmare from which you cannot but awaken!
Explain - why are you waking up at 6pm?
Forget it - turn the radio on!
Make sure - you've got it tuned to 88.1 fm WMUL!
Recoil - Self Help Radio is on at 6pm!
Pay attention - you may actually learn something!
Pay more attention - this is good music you're listening to!
Don't leave - Sugar Substitute is on at 8pm!
Quake - or go to the bathroom, but make it fast!
Worry - because even when it's over, it's not over!
Check it out - it'll be online at selfhelpradio.net before you know it!
Be afraid - it happens EVERY WEEK!

Whither Nine?

Of interest primarily to eschatologists & the author of this "Self Help Radio" blog is this notice: this is post number 666.

This is peripherally related to this week's "Self Help Radio" insofar as this week's theme is the number nine (9) & the number 666 can be perceived by even slightly self-aware numerologists as 999 upside down. Please rotate your computer clockwise to confirm.

The number 666 should have simply enjoyed the same associations its brethren 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 777, 888, & 999 have enjoyed since humans began to count &/or play with pocket calculators. However, the pranksters who wrote the last chapter of the Bible, called "Revelation," asserted mischievously that 666 will be the "number of the beast," to further freak out anyone who might, years after it was drunkenly written & read out loud to much mirth, take seriously something written by people who still believed the sun rotated around the earth & were centuries away from the germ theory of disease.

In modern times, the number of the beast has enjoyed popularity mainly with heavy metal bands, as it is easy to write & can be shouted even when devastatingly inebriated. When the writers of "Revelation" rejected 777 as the "number of the beast," they did the genre of heavy metal a great favor. Imagine what screaming that number would have been like - perhaps an awkward abbreviation, like that of the "www" in URLs as "dub dub dub"? It would have seriously impeded most drunken louts' ability to rock.

Some poor souls are so terrified of the number 666 that they have coined a phobia term for it: hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. It is said that even telling someone that they are hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic will trigger an attack. However, since the word is longer than most words a person will hear in his or her life (unless they are German), some specialists believe it is the length of the word & not the word's meaning that terrifies the afflicted. Most studies are of course planned to settle the issue.

This particular "Self Help Radio" blog entry, numbered 666, has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian end-time prophecy. While it is rumored that Satan himself enjoys "Self Help Radio," gullible souls who fear the power of this impotent number might well be advised that even Satan himself doesn't think that Satan exists. Therefore, a single blog entry, which will most probably not even be read by anyone outside the post's writer, has little or no power to adversely affect any reader. & certainly writing six hundred & sixty-six entries about what has been described as a wholly unremarkable radio show can be said to be a minor achievement!

Please enjoy the rest of your day free from Biblical doom-predictions & any other numerological noodling.

Preface To Nine: Up At Four-Thirty

This has been a weird morning. I was awakened by the dogs at around 4:30 am (it's hard to believe it was just an hour ago) because there were folks noisily walking down the street & the dogs needed to report that to me. I got dressed, after being all paranoid about someone trying to break into the house, & went outside to find some of our recycling strewn on the street. (I think I finally got up because I heard a car crushing a can.) I picked it up, then noticed that one of the bins was missing.

A quick word: we pay a commercial company here in Huntington to pick up the recycling. In Austin, it's part of what you get with electricity & trash pick-up. Austin does it weekly. Here, it's biweekly & some folks say (we've not experienced this) that they sometimes forget to come entirely. Also, they don't take glass. Who doesn't recycle glass? Anyway.

I assumed that, since it was a lot of aluminum cans, someone had simply taken the kit & caboodle & drove off. (In Austin, some folks on recycling day would drive up & down the street & take the aluminum out of the bins.) But something compelled me to walk down the street - it's a lovely morning, all of 60 degrees, & an almost-full moon sat in the western sky lighting the area in its gauzy way - & I found the bin on the porch of a house about seven or eight houses down.

This house is a rental & the kids who live there - & they are kids, college kids - I met only once, when our movers were trying to get the semi through our very narrow street - & they were very drunk, asking me questions like, "How old are you? Do you like to drink?" I told them that my wife & I had just moved in & that prompted them to tell me, in their drunken intensity, to NOT SIGN THE PETITION. Apparently the neighbors have been circulating a petition to get them to move - for their loud music & late-night carousing - the boys who live there apparently have a punk rock band, but from what I've heard it sounds more metal - although I of course haven't been living here long enough to see such a thing. I was mainly concerned about the movers getting the trunk out of here. (& interestingly, none of the neighbors I've talked to have seen any petition.)

Anyway, I took the bin back - it was still three-quarters full - I can only assume that it was a stupid drunken impulse on someone's part, or else it could be that the bins are from Austin & say "Austin recycles" on them. Austin is considered a very cool town, of course, in this part of the world. One kid at WMUL even told me, "That's a great city, yeah. Never been there, but I hear it's a great city."

Part of me thinks that I may end up causing a commotion if they come out & find it gone, although they're probably drunk & asleep by now. I'm sober & very, very awake. It's annoying. & I'll probably stay awake until the recycling folks come.

This of course has nothing to do with Self Help Radio, to which you really should be listening & on which I really should be working. The wife is in Pittsburgh, looking at tongues (I couldn't make such things up), so it's just me, the ever-alert pups, & that moon, slowly descending as a very long day begins.

One Day Later, Two Shows For You

Last night, a storm razed Cincinnati - rain poured into the streets of this venerable American city & washed it away as though it were a mound of crud on the filthy shoulder of America. The same storm, its voraciousness comparable only to its intensity, hammered Lexington like a coked-up roofer destroying the very domicile he was building. (Not such a great metaphor, since a storm didn't create Lexington, but I'll stick with it because I once knew a coked-up roofer who was always falling through holes he made in other people's roofs.) Then, Lexington successfully flooded & drowning, the monster storm turned its eyes eastward & saw a tiny hamlet on the Ohio River, unpretentious, unprepossessing, unpopular, & the storm opened its maw & gave out a roar. & one brave disc jockey looked into the blackened western skies & said, "No! I shall make radio tonight! I shall not let this travesty of nature keep me from mine appointed duties!" & into the sprinkly early evening he drove...

Actually, I'm pretty sure Cincinnati & Lexington are okay. & the storm took a right at Ashland. Better bourbon down that way, I hear. It was a little anticlimactic, what with the crazy radar images the neighbors were showing us. So I went & did not only a Self Help Radio (theme this week: flowers) but also the first episode of a pop show called Sugar Substitute. Both were recorded in my usual manner & are available for listening at selfhelpradio.net for those with the inclination. I'll be happy if you enjoy it.

I need to split, I feel more purple prose emerging from me, like mighty Athena clawing her way from great Zeus' head, her first battle a battle to live!

You Know What Day It Is

It's true, it's Tuesday (truesday?) & I've been gathering all the flowers I intend to play on the radio tonight for Self Help Radio's show about - well - flowers. In case I didn't tell you (& I don't read this blog either, so I'm not sure how I'd know), Self Help Radio has been moved up to 6pm due to something I said to the King Of Eight O'Clock. I'm not sure what I said (I'm usually inebriated by then), but he contacted the nice folks at WMUL & they said I had to be done by eight, so they moved Self Help Radio. That's 6 to 8pm tonight, Tuesday, August 4, at 88.1 fm WMUL, live in Huntington & all around the tri-state region. That means you, Chesapeake. I know you're listening. Don't be coy. I'll record the show & archive it as soon as I can.

But wait! The King Of Eight O'Clock is a forgiving sort, so despite his displeasure with me & his tendency to prefer trained seals as television companions for Tuesday night reality shows, he's allowed me to present, from eight to ten, a pop show called "Sugar Substitute." (Yes, I totally ripped the name off from the awesome song by Luxuriator. I hope they don't sue.) I'll archive that, too, just so you can understand later when the King Of Eight O'Clock sets his trained seals on me. [Insert joke here about how details my death will be 'fishy.'] [Wait, don't. The King Of Eight O'Clock hates puns.]

So I'd better prepare. Four hours on the radio! I'll need a shave, a nap, some oxycontin, & a sandwich. In that order.

Eastern Standard Time

So here's something I just don't understand about living more or less close to the East Coast: prime time starting at 8pm. Do the people here stay up late? Or work late? Because they sure as hell don't get up to go to work late.

As you know, I've just recently relocated to lovely West Virginia from lovely Texas. Before this, I didn't know if I'd ever leave Texas. I had a nice job, some phenomenal apron strings which kept me miserably tied to my mother, & absolutely no idea why the hell I'd leave Austin except that the summers there were getting more & more unbearable & the hill country was slowly being desertified. Also, of course, the place was filling up with northerners. Carpetbaggers! Come to steal our women! Anyway.

"Central" & "Mountain" time has prime time start at 7pm, with the nightly news at the most reasonable hour of 10pm. This meant that funny talk shows can come on at 10:30 &, if you're a kid, say, in the 1980s, you can stay up to 11:30 to watch the first half hour of Letterman before you conk out. Imagine! I would never have gotten to see the Late Show if I grew up here, not just because electricity is a recent development here (just kidding Mountain State!) but also because it was on too late! A late Late Show would have sucked for a high school kid who had to be at school at 7:15am or else there'd be no parking spaces.

I remember thinking it was some sort of fictional conceit, like soda machines that say "Soda Machine" in the pre-product-placement days in movies & television, that people on TV would say "News at eleven." "It's not the real world," I would think. "So the news comes on at eleven." But no. It's true! The news comes on at eleven! What's up with that?

I just don't get it. Is it a daylight savings thing? Since television culture began in New York, I suppose it started then. Damn it, I've gotta go do research now. If you know, tell me. If not - I'll look it up.

Whither Flowers?

I know, I know, I know. Most everyone who does some sort of radio show where they get to select the music (as opposed to those who have their music chosen for them by corporate computers who manipulate focus-group tests to favor artists they've poured pots of gold into) does some sort of theme show at least every once in a while. What separates Self Help Radio from the rest (I like to think) is that the show doesn't repeat itself with regularity, it doesn't usually tailor the theme to temporal situations (though there are exceptions), & it goes out of its way to avoid themes of a broad nature (like, I don't know, "love" or "cars") which anyone with an iPod & a couple of friends could do at a moment's notice. This is not to denigrate those sorts of shows, it's just not the way I want to do Self Help Radio. I want to explore themes that require a little bit of time, thought, crate-digging, finagling, desperation, tears.

So, um, why "flowers"? Isn't that one of the easy ones?

Ha ha! You misunderstand my love of arbitrary limitations! For this week on Self Help Radio, not only will the show not be a simply free-for-all about "flowers," but the songs I play will - must - have to simply be either songs called "flowers" or songs about a type of flower pluralized. So there'll be songs called "Roses" or "Daffodils" or "Violets." Them's the rules. There may be a very beautiful song called "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" but unless it's called "The Tulips," it can't be on this week's Self Help Radio.

You see? Saddling myself with preconditions that no one but me cares about - that's the Self Help Radio way.

By the way, my apologies to the nice bakery who wrote hoping I was doing a show about flour. One day, friends. One day.

Preface To Flowers: Really? Flowers? When Did You Become Like Every Other Lame "Theme" Radio Show Out There?

Wow, the title of this blog post is really hostile. It's making me defensive.

Can I answer tomorrow? I'm catching up on "Weeds" & "Nurse Jackie."

Weird. I think whoever titles these blog posts is really disappointed in me.

Successful Endeavor

This curlicue just arrived from the horn of plenty:

"Success! Last night's Self Help Radio contained very little in the way of offense nor mistaken, with the possibility of cheerleaders. Host did not embarrass self nor company except in usual ways, so let's consider upping dosage. Meanwhile, web-bots used smoke breaks to upload show to selfhelpradio.net - consider beginning smear campaign to encourage ne'er-do-well listeners. Kudos all around. Expect closer scrutiny in near future."

Imagine! Self Help Radio on the air & recorded for posterity. The corporation is happy. You'll be happy. Go listen!

Act Together

There are a couple things you should know (perhaps) about me.

One, at the moment, I am gainfully unemployed. This is not a matter of financial hardship - the wife is taking care of me in a kind of quid pro quo because I kept a roof over her head while she was getting her PhD. So I'm not looking for your sympathy. In fact, I kind of expect your envy - I hang out with my dogs & cats, listen to music, surf the internet & read all day. Occasionally I nap. It's been quite delicious.

Two, despite all that, or maybe because of that, I am woefully disorganized. I'm trying, but the time just gets away from me. Which is strange, because time seems to be moving much more slowly these days than when I had a job & looked forward to getting off work & getting stuff done before bedtime. Maybe there's a psychological explanation or condition to explain why. I dunno.

In any event, the two things I am sharing seem to work against one another, & one of the casualties is this damn blog. I need to just wake up every morning, snort some grapefruit juice, & write something here. But I put it off, I procrastinate, I put it at the bottom of my list of things to do. After nap, usually. & when I wake up, there's more pressing matters. But there aren't! I'm just lame.

I had stuff prepared for yesterday but blew it. Read a book about punk rock. Watched "True Blood." My busy life.

I want to be better. I'll try to be better. Meanwhile, enjoy the danger of Self Help Radio today, if you're in the Tri-State Area, at 8pm on 88.1 fm WMUL. Let's hope I get it recorded all properly. Sigh.

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.