Leprechaun Light

Happy rainy Huntington Halloween! You might have already celebrated by going to the Pumpkin House (who knows if it's supposed to be open today though) or today you might be going to the Health Expo (where, one notes breathlessly, there will be a "Germ City station" which "will teach good hand-washing techniques" - that's terrifying!) but the one thing you won't be doing - on Halloween - in Huntington - is going out for some old fashioned trick-or-treating. Why is that? Did you check the Tri-State trick or treat times? It was Thursday! You totally missed it!

To be fair, so did I. I didn't know that the city government could, by some sort of fiat, just say, "No children will be out on Halloween because we've deemed two days before more suitable for some inscrutable reason." What's to keep them from saying, "Thanksgiving on a Thursdays interrupts too many lives. We're moving it to Saturday between the hours of 4 & 7 pm. You're welcome, Huntington!" & what about New Year's? What if the crazy people in charge of this decide there should be two Christmases to up their present count?

It seems weird to me because they love themselves some Halloween in Huntington. Houses all decked out - there are Halloween lights everywhere (orange & black, naturally) in the same way people put up Christmas lights. Why then reschedule a portion of the day? Are they SCARED?

Anyway, if you're like me & would prefer Halloween to happen on the very day when the barriers between the world of the living & the world of the dead are at their weakest, have a happy one tonight. You can certainly listen to the award-winning(*) Halloween Self Help Radio shows at selfhelpradio.net if you need some chills. I also believe there'll be Halloween programming on WMUL, but you'll need to be in Huntington to hear in on the 88.1 frequency. What you can't do in Huntington is, you know, go around & ask for candy. All the candy was gone on Thursday.

(*) Self Help Radio has won no awards.

Awoooooooooo!

That's right, lycanthrope fans, the Self Help Radio show about werewolves is now available for listening this scary Halloween at selfhelpradio.net. It's ninety minutes worth of delights & frights for anyone who's cursed to change into a beast every full moon - & those who love them. Wait till the end before you waste any silver bullets!

I wouldn't be an amateur crypt-keeper if I didn't point out that last year's Halloween show - about witches! - is also available for listening during your Halloween rounds. I hope you're not too terribly tricked this season, so I give you two treats.

(In robot-related news, the third episode of Dickenbock Electronics also aired this morning. It's available on the Self Help Radio website, if you need a shiny, metallic place to be safe from the werewolves.)

Have a Happy Halloween!

Do You Have A Favorite Werewolf Movie, Gary?

Thank you for asking. Not really. It depends on the age I was when I saw it.

As a child, I loved comic books, & one of the thrills of comic books was crossovers. Yay! Batman is fighting with the Flash! Spider-Man is hanging out with Dr. Strange! The Teen Titans have discovered that the Freedom Fighters need to get back to Earth-X & will help them! The X-Men must team up with the Defenders to battle the Avengers who have been possessed by the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants! Whee!

So you can imagine that, as a child, my favorite werewolf movies were the ones in which the Wolf-Man had to hang out with Frankenstein's monster & Dracula. Oh boy! & when Abbott & Costello got involved, watch out!

As a teen, I remember being totally unimpressed with An American Werewolf In London & also Teen Wolf, which aren't too dissimilar if you think about it. I was, however, scared by The Howling & Wolfen. Those films rocked. They still rock. I stand by that statement even if I haven't seen them in over twenty years(!).

I never saw Jack Nicholson in Wolf - it seemed too, I don't know, made for people who are older, more middle-class than I'll ever be. I should've liked Van Helsing - it was a team-up movie - but the best werewolf film I've seen recently is probably the first Underworld, & not just for Kate whatsername in the tight bodysuit. But there have been a lot of werewolves on the screen recently - in the past three years, I see there's been Blood & Chocolate, The Lycanthrope, Skinwalkers, Benighted, Freeborn, In The Blood, & the ridiculously titled Never Cry Werewolf. I haven't seen any of these. What sort of werewolf fan am I anyway?

One who'll do a show about them tomorrow morning on WMUL - 88.1 on your fm dial! Archived soon after on selfhelpradio.net! That's what sort of werewolf fan I am!

What about you - got a favorite werewolf movie? What is it?

Whither Werewolves?

Each year - as though promised, or, more accurately threatened - it rears its awful, misshapen head - it moves like crippled death, slowly but inexorably making its ghoulish & ghastly way - fueled by Satan's fire or urged on by its own filthy, macabre motivation - dripping sickness & disease, carried along in an ill wind that it seems to generate - moving closer, closer, closer - to your radio! It's the Self Help Radio Halloween show. It's an undead delight, cold, clammy, rising only once a year, then quickly decomposing. Avoid it as if your life depended on it, but miss it at the peril of your immortal soul!

The show has a scabby, uneven history. It chose to appear when Self Help Radio was very young, but was spotty, unfocused, & the next year was haunted by ghosts & spirits of torment. But the year after that, it did not appear - perhaps because the first Tuesday in November would bring horrors unimaginable that the show could simply not measure up to.

But then! It returned in full force! The next year it brought forth vampires, & the year after that monsters! The next year was zombies, & last year, it gathered a fierce coven of witches to its side! This year, it brings werewolves - cursed creatures who must have been living in the cold, wet forests that surround Huntington - or in the backwoods of nearby Kentucky or Virginia or Pennsylvania or Ohio. Evil beasts with a taste for blood!

Sad that Halloween does not fall on a full moon - nor does Self Help Radio. Let the show be a warning, then - of the blood red eyes watching from the darkness, ready to strike when the moon is full & you are at your most vulnerable!

Preface To Werewolves: Shouldn't This Be On A Sunday Instead Of On A Monday?

Hey! Who appointed you lead cop detective of everything this blog-related anyway? Just because the clock turns itself past midnight & then goes Oh look at me I'm a brand new day la de da doesn't mean it stops being that day for people who are unlucky or drunk enough to still be awake past the late twelve o'clock hour. I know, this blog post will say "Monday, October 26" just like my computer does but I am still living in a Sunday, babe, & so you too should be reading this with a Sunday mind. & no, not a religious mind, because religions will take whatever days they can - & have you noticed, they like to take the weekend days? Isn't that convenient? No problems with the bosses that way, right? Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yeah.

As far as I am concerned, no matter how the gremlins in the computers at blogger.com tag this, this post is totally written on a Sunday. & it's the post that prefaces tomorrow's deep discussion about werewolves which will be the subject of this week's Self Help Radio which is of course this year's Special Halloween Show. & seriously, the folks in West Virginia love their Halloween. They were turning their (small by Texas standards) front yards into mock graveyards at the end of September. They also like scarecrows sitting around hay. Like this one (actual photo taken in my neighborhood I shit you not):



Maybe it will finally put Self Help Radio on the map? Or at least the GPS? We'll see.

Tomorrow. Which is Monday. It is!

Can I Sing The Praises

Interesting. That title can be read two ways without punctuation. Most folks would probably read it as a question, since it's arranged like one: Can I sing the praises? But it could also be a boast - a question answered by itself: Can I sing the praises!

I was going to talk a little about a dumbass online game I've been playing which I think is based in Germany (sometimes German pops up in boxes & captions in places that I guess are little-travelled & therefore not regularly updated). But I got shy all of a sudden. Hmm.

It's not a Facebook game - I don't play any of those Facebook games, mainly because they make me nervous. I played one game in which, when I was at the lower levels, I was constantly getting killed when I was offline. That made me sad every time I logged on. So I deleted it & I don't accept those invitations from friends when they want me to play them.

Another game I play still from time-to-time is Adventure Quest, which I did pay for (a one-time fee) to become a "guardian level player," but while the game has its moments, it's generally dull & it takes a long time with repetitive fights with the same creatures to level up. I have been playing it for a while - I even checked in on it when I was in France a couple of years ago. I forget when I started, but it may have been even before we bought our house. So that's many years.

Now with this new game, I've been playing it regularly enough that others are contacting me to join their "teams." (They aren't really teams. If I mentioned what they were, you might be able to guess the game.) Oh, & it's not World Of Witchcraft or whatever. This is a pretty small-time thing, I guess. It's only slightly role-playing-ish.

So can I sing the praises? No. No, I can't. Sorry. I've lost my nervy.

I Always Forget About You!

It's true. After I return home from my weekly radio show, I of course detox with a carrot gel enema & radiation straight to the frontal lobe, then I shower to wash the probable filth off me, & then I edit the show (taking out most of the funny stuff - I don't want it to be too good!) & put it on the Self Help Radio website. Then I go to my Facebook fan page & write an update for those lovely folks, & then I go to the Myspace page & post the playlist & update the themes. But for some reason, it's always at the end of the day when I go, "Oh fuck me like an endangered cockateel, did I forget to mention it on the blog?" I did, & I do. When I shouldn't. Really. I'm much, much more intimate with you.

Which is why, you know, more people pay attention on Facebook & Myspace.

But. This week's show - all about sliding - is now at selfhelpradio.net for you to listen to & make faces at. Also, a new Sugar Substitute. Which is like two nice things that I might have forgotten to tell you about. Luckily, though I always forget you, it's temporary, & I always remember you at last. Kiss kiss.

Can't Wait Till Tomorrow?

Well, neither can I. If I had my way, Self Help Radio would be on every day. Sure, my brain would no longer function except as an apparatus which processed songs related to "themes," & my marriage would have ended sometime after the first month, & I'd probably grow barnacles under my feet for being in front of the microphone all the time, but it would be worth it! Especially the barnacles. That'd be awesome.

As it stands, you'll have to wait till tomorrow for Self Help Radio's show about sliding. If you're really in need of a fix, scour the Self Help Radio archives to see if there's a show you haven't listened to yet. Might be. Who knows? I don't know what you're listening to. I'm delighted you want to listen to MY show. Though I think you might have questionable tastes, since you do. Just saying.

Tomorrow. 7:30am. On 88.1 fm WMUL. Archived later, of course. But wake up anyway! It tastes fresher when it's live.

Whither Sliding?

Did you ever play the game chutes & ladders when you were a kid? Did you know that it was also known as "snakes & ladders"? Does it matter to you in any case that Self Help Radio has done both a show on snakes & also one on ladders? Did you think, once hearing that factoid, that Self Help Radio in some obsessive-compulsive manner, had to therefore at some point do a show about "chutes" - which is to say, slides?

Well, you'd be wrong. It's all a coincidence. I don't possess that level of foresight nor obsession. I do, however, notice some time after the fact when I've done something that might seem like that. & when it's a cool thing to do, I totally take credit for it.

But this isn't too cool. Basing a randomly-airing set of radio shows on a toddler's game is weird enough & the fact that I might do such a thing is probably the reason children throw things at me. But the fact that they aired so far apart - "snakes" over six years ago in early October 2003, "ladders" almost two years ago in early January 2008 - makes it highly unlikely. Besides, if I were such a weirdo, wouldn't I be planning a show about "chutes" instead of "slides"? Aha! Got you! Thought you were so smart, dintcha?

Well, now that I've cleared that up, I need to go take some more medication. There are more arguments in my head I need to have & it requires all the SSRIs I can legally consume in a twelve-hour period.

Preface To Sliding: Lots Of Slides

Here. Here's seventy-four (74) pictures of playground slides: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Playground_slides. You're welcome.

Now, Less Than Ever

People are already starting to review the first decade of the 21st century. That's freaky. It's like the folks in Huntington decorating for Halloween in late September or something.

This may seem like a digression, but it isn't. Nowadays, comic books love to start over or have one-shots with the number one on them - "# 1! First issue! Collector's Item!" - but that wasn't always the case. Back in the golden & silver ages, publishers preferred continuing series (even if they were renamed) because it was not only cheaper (there were postal fees involved) but also they believed it showed comic buyers that the series was successful. As an example, when The Flash was revived in the late 50s, they numbered it from the next number of the cancelled series (# 105), which ended a decade before. Or Tales To Astonish, which became the Hulk with issue 102.

The reason to bring this up is I kinda wish it were the same with calendars. I don't like that this is just the twenty-first century after we starting counting again with Jesus' birth. It's arbitrary & dumb. So I wondered - what is the oldest calendar ever?

It might have been the Egyptian calendar. The Hindu calendar may be the oldest one still in use, but it's a lunar calendar (boo!) & it's therefore not terribly correct. It might mean the years get screwed up when counted, & I need accuracy.

The Egyptian calendar was a solar calendar, & according to the Wikipedia article, some scholars believe it started in 4242 BCE.

Just some scholars? Oh well. That's good enough for me! If the first year was 4242 BCE, then that makes this the year 6251. The second year of the fifth decade of the 63rd century. I'm not reading any "decade reviews" until eight years from now.

The 63rd century! That's fucking cool!

Happy Anniversary To Self Help Radio!

Yes, Self Help Radio turned seven years old this month, & the show today celebrated that with a theme revisited ("Around The World," first explored in November of 2002), stories about the show's creation & placement told (possibly made up?), & festival lighting in the deejay booth by gorgeous scented candles which kept nostalgia wafting gracefully in the air (though you can't hear that, you know, on the radio).

Did you miss it? No worries! It's available for your listening pleasure at selfhelpradio.net! & as an added bonus, there's a second episode of Dickenbock Electronics! It's the best seventh anniversary Self Help Radio ever had!

Dame Gay

That's a spoonerism. Though spoons are so last week. This week? Anniversary! Party! Cake! Unnecessary medical procedures!

Can you wake up early & celebrate? Self Help Radio officially turned 7 years old (old enough to drive in some Polynesian lands!) (that's probably not true) on October 9 - last Friday - but the show wasn't on the air on Friday, & there are some cultures in which people who celebrate anniversaries before their actual day are hunted down & killed by ad hoc death squads organized around the most offended elders & substitute teachers (none of that is true), so Self Help Radio's anniversary will be held as close to the day itself. At least it's a Wednesday. Self Help Radio began on a Wednesday. It may even be a sidereal anniversary. (Can someone look up sidereal? It may have been used incorrectly.)

So! Tomorrow morning at 7:30am on WMUL - 88.1 fm - & then of course on the Self Help Radio website later. But what if all the cake is gone by then? What will you do?

Also, Dickenbock Electronics is airing electronica from 6 to 7:30 am. But that's not nearly as exciting as an anniversary. An anniversary! Wow!

Whither An Around The World Seventh Anniversary Show?

Wow, seven years doing Self Help Radio. A stronger man might be able to pry himself away from such a tar pit. But not me!

Here's a funny story. I never really intended to do a show like Self Help Radio, by which I mean a weekly show organized around a particular theme. I would have preferred to simply do a freeform show like the one I did at KVRX in the 1990s, which was mainly music organized around me letting my id completely free to say things disturbing & arguably humorous. But KOOP radio at the time was a very dark, shell-shocked place, on account of the struggles for power in the late 1990s. (You can read about that from the losing side here.) This is not the place to talk about the later struggle to revitalize KOOP, something with which I was involved, but to just point out that at the time, the so-called Programming Committee, which met about three times a year, & which was chosen by the Board of Directors, had (possibly as a result of the crises) virtually no power nor authority to remove, reschedule or replace KOOP shows (the Board did that, or someone on the Board did it, & then reported to the Board at the next meeting).

I have (you might have noticed) a varied interest in music, which some call "freeform," but the people to whom I spoke at the station, some on the Programming Committee, would discount such a show added to KOOP's line-up. "We already have a free-form show," they'd say, which was true - I guess they thought they only needed one? They also had a punk rock show, an indie music show, a blues show, three country shows (grandfathered in from the old days, these programmers had always raised lots of money for the station & never been a threat), a reggae show, an experimental music show, a world music show, & two jazz shows (old & new, of course). The only thing I could have offered, if I had to, was an electronic music show, but I felt a little like a phony even proposing it - although I'm doing one now, at the time I didn't know as much about the genre & it would have become repetitive (in a bad way) fast.

What did I do? How did I fill my time those two years I waited for a show? Well, I subbed other shows, & I kept volunteering until, as the Programming Committee still had no power, the President of the Board of Directors was forced to fire a programmer who was advertising her place of business on the air, & space opened up so the Board gave me a show. It's amazing to think about it... But that's really how it happened. & I was noticed not because of my exciting show idea, but because I was a good volunteer.

Why did I stay with the Self Help Radio idea? Didn't I think that, now that I had a slot, I couldn't possibly lose it unless I ran afoul of the people in charge or broke FCC rules? I would never do the latter, but I was afraid of the former (which happened two years later - but that's another story), & another show was added the same time as mine which, though technically a jazz show, was sufficiently nestled in a sub-genre that wasn't at the time represented on the station, & was far more defensible than just "here's a freeform show dum de dum."

The Station Manager at the time loved the name - she was of a perverse bent anyway, & appreciated the irony, although some people to this day (those who can't, you know, just look the show up on Google or whatever) still send me life-transforming class information & the like.

The postscript is that I really, really like organizing shows around themes. I like that it helps me corral my out-of-control music collection. In the old days, I came up with my theme, like, the night before. Now I work on them for months sometimes. Though, really, the theme I'm going to revisit on Wednesday was one of my cleverest.

Preface To The Around The World Anniversary Show: Like I Promised, Extra Self Help Radio

The very first Self Help Radio went on the air in Austin completely & utterly unnoticed on October 9, 2002. I don't remember that day at all. When you think about it, we weren't even at war with Iraq yet at the time. Madness!

I probably have a tape of the show, but will not (probably) get it out & play it on this week's show. Too much of a hassle. Carrying a heavy cassette tape up to the WMUL studios & then cueing it & hoping that I didn't say anything stupid (which of course I probably did) that might offend the lovely people of Huntington, West Virginia... No, it isn't, as the Amish say, worth it.

It's pretty amazing I've been doing this for seven whole years & no one has stopped me. It does seem to suggest that our world is doomed. But I like to celebrate anniversaries because they are milestones, & as someone who couldn't walk a mile even with a rock of crystal meth in my shoe, I am happy to note that it's nice to have stones that people aren't throwing at you. (How many metaphors were mixed in that last sentence? Find out in next month's Highlights For Children!)

Speaking of treats, which we weren't, here's one: this month's Self Help Radio Extra! Huzzah! Hoorum! Guten Tag! Wie geht's? It features a clumsy but sincere mix of music by the likes of Billy Childish, Cat's Miaow, Chappaquiddick Skyline covering New Order, the Pooh Sticks namechecking everyone they love, & much, much more. It's at this link: this link here.

It's not a milestone (nor a millstone for your neck) but it will fit on one CD & you will dig it. I swear.

Something Something Columbus Ohio Something

Hey! I was totally working on a new Self Help Radio Extra today (don't click on that link! I haven't made one since July or something!) but then the wife & me went to Columbus for no apparent reason. I didn't get to see much of the town as it was shrouded in a dense green fog (that's not true) but we did manage to go to an awesome vegetarian restaurant run (apparently) by scrawny vegan women. It was so much better than pretty much any place to eat in Huntington that it was worth the tangle of highway & the dense green fog (there was no dense green fog!). For its reputation as the 16th largest city in the United States (just behind Austin), the place reminded me a little of Dallas. Not in anything except the sprawl. Obviously, the trees & the weather are nowhere near as pretty in Texas as in Columbus. Fun Columbus fact: "Columbus is located within 550 miles of half of the population of the United States." Austin can't say that.

The restaurant, by the way, is the Whole World Natural Bakery & Restaurant. I highly recommend it. I'm not sure what an unnatural bakery would be like - maybe like the canteen at Monsanto? I think a supernatural bakery would be cool - all those magical things flying around, right into your stomach. Mmmm.

I also saw a real live pumpkin patch. My first ever. Here's me & the wife being ridiculous & the pumpkin patch behind:



Tomorrow! A new Self Help Radio Extra! I promise.

The View From Glastonbury Tor

I hear it's phenomenal. Here's a picture of it. I wonder if I'll ever get to see it in-person-like.

What I can do in-person-like is a radio show (although it's not all that in-person-like, as listeners & I are connected only by sounds traveling on the airwaves) which I did do this morning which is now available at selfhelpradio.net. There are actually two shows, though I did them back-to-back without even a break for cake & tea, but they have been separated for fear of cross-contamination. Details are:

1) This week's Self Help Radio, which is about spoons; &
2) This week's Sugar Substitute, which is about pop!

Please download, listen, enjoy & then repeat.

Your Weekly Reminder, Forgetful

Beep beep beep beep! Turn on your radio at 6am tomorrow (that's October 7th) (also, that's in Huntington, West Virginia) & don't go back to sleep but tune it in to 88.1 fm which is WMUL which features two great shows starting at 6am - well, one great show starts at 6am, then there's another one at 7:30am - you understand, why be such a pest about it? - Sugar Substitute is on at 6am with Self Help Radio following at 7:30am. Wowy zowy! Don't go back to bed! Get some coffee & listen very carefully. You will grow as a person.

Beep beep beep beep! Did you go back to bed? What? You're not even IN West Virginia? Not Kentucky nor Ohio? Oops. Go back to sleep. Just WATCH THIS SPACE for announcements about when these shows will be put up on selfhelpradio.net - because they will be. Soon after they've happened. Bet on it.

Beep beep beep beep! Oh for the love of God can you turn that damn alarm off. Jeez.

Whither Spoons?

Just look at this. Just look. At this. From (of all places!) wiki.answers.com!

Q: What drugs can be used using a spoon?
A: Most drugs used intravenously that need to be transformed from powder to liquid. Most common being Heroin, Cocaine, & Speed. There are also several types of pills that may be crushed & used IV or IM including Dilaudid or Oxycontin.

Spoons! Spoons aiding & abetting drug users! Is it any wonder that the marvelous spoon is considered the least important eating utensil in the world today, lagging vastly behind the inscrutable fork & the homicidal knife? In some polls, of silverware & cutlery, even beaten by the bastard spork? Why? Why should that be?

Because of the relationship of spoons to drugs. That must be the reason!

Self Help Radio this week vindicates the spoon! The reputation of the spoon shall be rehabilitated! Soon the world shall look upon the spoon not as a junkie's helper but as the brave implement that shovels food into the mouths of us citizens & our precious children once more!

Preface To Spoons: Nothing At All About Bands With "Spoon" In Their Name

Self Help Radio has only a few rules, most of which could be regularly violated & no one would give a flying flip. But they're not. This week, there was some discussion of one of the rules that has been in place since the show began - seven years ago, & we celebrate next week! - & that rule is kinda simple: whatever the theme is, don't play bands or musicians whose names happen to be the same as the theme. (If the theme is the band, however, that rule doesn't apply. For example, a show about the Velvet Underground, which has happened in the past, could & did include a song called "Velvet Underground.") If the bands themselves have songs named after themselves, like someone of them do, that could be & has been included. But it's included because of the song, not the band.

A few people have written to ask if this week's show, the subject of which will be spoons, will include either of the bands called Spoon (from Missouri or Texas), or the Canadian band The Spoons, or old skool rap sensation Spoonie Gee, or new skool electronica producer Spoon (of Jam & Spoon), or even bands like Spoonfed Hybrid or Fischerspooner. The answer is no. None of those folks have a song about spoons - or even related to spoons - although Spoonie Gee does have a song called "Spoonin' Rap" which almost made the cut. I wish that some of the bands above had in fact written a song about spoons, but they didn't. Too bad.

Speaking of, another rule of Self Help Radio forbids (knowingly) playing different versions of the same song to pad out the playlist. This particular rule is sort of in response to a practice by an Austin radio personality who, it is safe to say, is loved & loathed in equal parts (though it's pretty easy to ignore him, since one can change a channel, unless one has to work in some place where his is the station of choice). One of the reasons for such ambivalence is that he had (assuming he might have changed this habit, as the Self Help Radio team hasn't heard his show in many, many years) a habit of playing numerous covers of a certain song in a row, playing the original version every other song. Wrap your head around this. He'd play, for example, "Day Tripper," by the Beatles. Then a cover. Then the Beatles' version again. Then another cover. Then the Beatles' version again. Then another cover. For over an hour. Sometimes for two whole hours, if his interns found him enough covers. Unbelievable. Maddening.

But some folks did like it. Not over here, which is why he hasn't been listened to for many moons in these here parts, even when these here parts were still in Austin. So the "no repetitive covers rule" was established, & it has been enforced with remarkable consistency - the idea being, if a radio show can't be filled with all different songs, it's suffering from a lack of imagination, & the theme should be altered, edited or dropped.

However, this week's show breaks that rule - sort of. It involved a blues song about a spoonful & its transformation over the years. But. Too much has already been revealed. The rules are in place. The show is taking shape. All is right with this tiny little part of the world.