Plumbing The Debts

Here then, for edification & edutainment, is a brief character sketch of Floyd Flapp, eminent hair economist & hermit divorcee:

Dr. Flapp was born with a PhD in Flying Buttress, Illinois, a small community which inaugurated Blood Sports Month in 1925 to take advantage of the successful importation of medieval ideas to the American midwest. Flapp's father, a winsome lass named Jerry who would attempt to use grape jelly as an auto part throughout his four-storied career, disinherited the boy when he noticed the screaming child had not been born, as had all the Flapp men & women, with a handlebar moustache. The mother followed suit, as did the hospital staff, & most of the town, until kindly Mr. Jackanape, the neighborhood interrupter, took the boy in & raised him as one of his own cats.

Flapp was unemployed during his childhood, a fact that did not escape the Internal Revenue Service, which was astonished by the boy's annual income of $40,000 a year, which was an enormous amount at the time &, for a tween, still pretty impressive. Flapp published his first self-help book before he hit puberty, which was titled "Be Rich By Being Like Me!" The book was not successful, as most people wanted to be rich but no one really wanted to be like Floyd. However, the book remains notable as the introduction was written by none other than future President of the United States Laura Ingalls Wilder.

After spending time in a tax shelter in the Maldives, Flapp taught burger flipping & fry-o-lating at several fast food chains before being asked by the faculty of Harvard University to please stop calling in the middle of the night. Flapp's next series of papers, published disrespectfully in Modern Economics & Highlights For Children, established him as virtually alone in his field in believing that the ratio of debt to earnings is proportional to the amount of hair on one's thighs (pre-shaven) minus how much money one thinks one could win on a game show selected from a list. Still, for brief window of opportunism, Flapp's crazy theories were discussed on television morning programs & in editorial pages on slow news days.

But Flapp continued to be excused from mainstream acceptability. His marriage to infamous fashion model/guerilla warrior Scam was scheduled to happen on a late-night talk show but was moved instead to a segment on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour to be shared with a Maya Angelou poetry slam report. When his wife left him shortly thereafter to become a concubine of Melvin Adenoid, the inventor of post-nasal drip, he was inconsolable. He toilet-papered the smallest church he could find in Alabama & fled the jurisdiction with a knapsack full of forty pounds of assorted coins.

Establishing a hermitage in the popular caverns in & around New Miami, Nebraska, Flapp would have been all-but-forgotten except several record albums he recorded in the mid-fifties to explain his theories were sampled by underground hip-hop & classical musicians like Humpa Humpa & the East Garland Half-String Quintet. Inexplicably smelly appearances on college & community radio followed, & a "Flapp For Vice-President" campaign attempted to get him on the ballots of every presidential ticket since 1980, when Ronald Reagan, upon meeting him, thought Flapp had been cast as President instead of him, & almost left the Republican National Convention to audition for a role on "Dallas."

Flapp is incredibly old &, by most accounts, a little weird about it. Yet his cult of personality continues to grow, & he continues to publish increasingly obscene economic treatises that are posted to blogs along with celebrity bikini photos. This may be because the treatises increasingly sound like blurbs for celebrity bikini photos. He has gone mad? Or is he speaking now exclusively in metaphor? Or does he spend a lot of time on the internet looking at paparazzi photos of celebrities in bikinis?

What's clear is that Flapp's influence may yet one day be felt, & this, above all else, is what his fans & admires most dread.

A Radio Show Happened & Nothing Exploded

Whew! There's always the chance something might explode, but nothing did. How lucky is that?

Self Help Radio's continuing coverage of the indiepop scandals (these involving bands who, when arranged alphabetically, appear to all begin with the letter E) is now available for your listening scrutiny at selfhelpradio.net. Please remember, you're not under oath.

Your robot friends might enjoy this week's episode of Dickenbock Electronics, available on the same site but with a different link, as it is a different show. Do not let your robot friends tell you any different.

As always, don't sneak up behind people & say "KA-BOOM!" It makes them think things explode more than they do.

Let's Collate!

Do you like to collate? Alphabetize? Put things into either Dewey Decimal or Library Of Congress format? (Or both?)

Do you like gathering or arranging items in their proper sequence? Do you even know what the proper sequence is? Are you interested in finding out? Can you show others how?

If not, do you mind moving the piles of things out of the way so everyone can sit down? Do you mind if someone just maybe puts at the very least the books in an upright position on the shelf? If you don't want to collate, that is.

How do you find anything, if you don't like things in their order? Some people have their own sense of order, sure, that's understandable, but that's not helpful for anyone else but you, don't you think? Do you feel judged? Don't feel judged. It was just an observation.

Some people like to collate. Let's collate.

No? Yes? Whichever, how about you just sit here & listen to a new episode of Dickenbock Electronics as well as (of course) the new Self Help Radio? They're on right now - if right now is Wednesday morning, November 11, at 6am (SHR on at 7:30am) EST in Huntington on 88.1 fm WMUL. If that's not what right now is - but it's after Wednesday morning, November 11, 9am, then you can listen at selfhelpradio.net. Now THERE'S a show that likes to collate.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 22?

Listen to me please
Radio devotees
As I sing with ease
About the indiepop E's.
As awesome as cheese
(The opposite of fleas)
You pay no fees
To hear the indiepop E's
Did I hear you sneeze
When you looked at those trees?
Did you count one two threes
For the indiepop E's?
No assets they will seize
Get up off your knees
Everyone & everything agrees
With the indiepop E's.
Why not go to Belize
To learn the trapeze
In a stylish chemise
To hear the indiepop E's?
They're not such a tease
They're on records & CDs,
Even new-style mp3s
These indiepop E's!
We scour the seas
Your curiosity to appease
Like a cool spring breeze
The indiepop E's.
You don't need any keys
Though outside you may freeze
Don't associate with sleaze -
Hear the indiepop E's!
So have yourself some teas
It's sort of like a reprise
I give you strong guarantees
You'll love more indiepop E's!

But what rhymes with "this Wednesday at 7:30am on 88.1 WMUL"?

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 22: I Told You To Leave Jane Alone!

I may be the only person who actually looks into his or her spam folder before he or she deletes the contents, but sometimes I am glad I do. Do you recall, when spam first became a massive problem, around the turn of the century, & all the spam had weird titles like phrases spelled from refrigerator word magnets? Nowadays giving spam interesting titles is a lost art (a lot of my spam has the simple subject line "hi") (& the only person who wrote me emails titled "hi" no longer writes me emails) (though she could be my friend on Facebook - I am friends now with a person who always wrote me emails with the subject line "hey") but I did notice I got a spam today entitled "I Told You To Leave Jane Alone!"

That's rad. Did I tell you this? I was getting take-out at a place here in Huntington & when I came out, I was confronted by this very large African-American who took my hand & introduced himself. While holding my hand, he looked down at me & said, in a very soothing voice, "Your grandmother's okay." I told him, "Both of my grandmothers are dead." He said, "Yes, Susan & Elizabeth want you to know that they are all right." I didn't tell him that those weren't the names of my grandmothers, but before I could pull away, he looked at me & said, "I'm very hungry, can you help me?" So I gave him some change.

But as I went to the car, I thought to myself, "Holy spit, I don't really know the names of my grandmothers!" I was pretty sure it wasn't Elizabeth or Susan, but I didn't know. My father's mother died when he was a boy, so I never met her. My mother's mother I met a few times but she lived in Germany so all I knew her as was "Omi," which is an affectionate way of saying "Oma," which is German for grandmother.

In any event, the spam & the encounter with the hungry begging man seemed to work on the same principle: throw a name out there, hope it's common enough to get someone's attention or make you seem psychic. It's kind of bargain-basement-cold-reading type stuff.

By the way, my grandmothers' names (I have since discovered) were Eloise & Anna. Which are awesome names.

My Boring Dreams, Part 745

God I hate listening to people talk about their dreams. I don't believe they're prophetic, or full of hidden symbols, or even that they do much except possibly express painfully obvious anxieties & concerns one has.

(I knew a dude at KOOP who heard me discussing a dumb dream with someone once & he looked distressed. I don't really remember what I was discussing, but he was grave & troubled & said to me something like, "You know, Gary, it's very serious when you dream about windows {or whatever it was}." Of course, he also believed that quantum mechanics proved human being could levitate, so I didn't take him up on his offer to give me free dream therapy.)

But dreams are on my mind because - well, let me bore you.

My family used to have a convenience store, & I worked there for a while during high school, & occasionally I have dreams about it, because I spent so much time there. My dream last night (technically, this morning, as it was the last dream I had before I woke up) involved me opening the store one morning like I did on Sundays. (By the way, in the dream, I was my current age, & the store was in an advanced state of disrepair & it was filthy. That's kind of true - the people who bought the store back in 1989 tore the building down & put up a kind of mini-mall, but I went in for the first time since the late 80's a few years ago - it must've been when I was a smoker, since I was looking for American Spirits, which they didn't have - & the place was nasty. But in my dream, it was the old store, not the new one.)

I made coffee - you did that, you know, first thing - & there was a person there that I had the sense I was holding over for possibly the police or someone to pick up. Or maybe he was hiding in the store overnight & I noticed him, but somehow expected him at the same time. Anyway, as I was getting the cash drawer ready - & it was filled with weird papers that somehow had to do with my trip to Europe a couple of years ago - he started to escape, but before he did, he attempted to pour some liquid into the glass case next to the cash register, as if to destroy evidence or something. I snatched it from him in time, & when I checked it, it was nail polish remover.

He got away, & the dream ended soon after that, & I confess it was nice to see the old store, which of course I will never see again, but what I woke up wondering about is this: where in my mind was there the knowledge that there's something you can get rid of by pouring nail polish remover on it? What could it be? Is that real? Did I see it in an episode of CSI or Law & Order? That fascinates me. It might be nonsense, but it might also be my brain showing off - look what I remembered that you don't, nyah nyah nyah.

That ends this episode of my boring dreams. Remember, I'll talk about my dreams to anyone who listens - & they're guaranteed to be completely uninteresting to anyone except me & fools who imagine they mean more than they really do. (The more I think about it, maybe that industry rose up as a way for people to at least make money when people tell them their boring dreams... Hmmm...)

Good night!

The Carousel Show Goes Round

It does! Today's dizzy show about carousels & merry-go-rounds is not available for your listening pleasantries at the Self Help Radio website. When you're listening, try to catch the brass ring! It means you win another show about carousels & merry-go-rounds!

Also there is the most recent episode of Sugar Substitute, which is a pop show & which has enjoyable music & information about homosexuality in bedbugs. I can say no more. You just have to listen.

Brrr. It's chilly in Huntington!

Harry & The Online Degree

Once upon a time my friend Harry stole an online degree which he erroneously thought belonged to my father. My father had of course gotten his degree the old-fashioned way: he purchased it with embezzled money. But Harry didn't know that. Harry could barely form three consecutive thoughts in his head - Harry was high all the time, so his thoughts were non-consecutive. Though sometimes contiguous.

Harry didn't know that my father had an online degree in Middle Eastern Fashion Photography, one of three awarded that year by the President & the Secretary Of Waste. The other two haven't been heard from since - it was that prestigious a degree. So Harry literally ran with it. In the West Bohemia marathon, in 1992. Which of course required both a time machine - he stole the degree last Thursday - & the time to organize a marathon in the non-existent country of West Bohemia, which had to be both founded, stabilized, & finally recognized by the International Marathon Cabal.

My father, bless his drunken soul, didn't notice that the degree had been stolen until it was far too late & he had finally convinced the Saudi girlies that it was perfectly fine to be photographed without their veils because he had a license.

None of this is related to the fact that in a few short hours, new episodes of Sugar Substitute & Self Help Radio will air on WMUL, 88.1 on the fm dial here in Huntington. Not in Huntington? I'll put it up on selfhelpradio.net during the day tomorrow.

If you see Harry or my father, please, tell them: all is forgiven.

Whither Carousels?

To be honest, when I was a kid, carousels kind of bored me. I liked, you know, the weird animals in creepy colors (if it wasn't one of those that just had horses) & I thought the whole going-up-&-down thing was all right, but it moved too slowly for me, took too long for a revolution, & there were always those people standing there, watching you. Maybe one of them was a parent or a family member, but I always felt like I had to be performing a little when I went around & around. Though thinking about it now, I totally loved the metal feel. I loved the raised metal cross-hatching on the floors & the barely concealed, greasy engine in the center. I saw a freaky carousel in Belgium - I might even have a picture:



There were other insects & weird half-animal, half-machine contraptions as well. I couldn't ride it, though, as I was an adult at the time. Boo! Hiss! (Other adults were on it, but with their children. All I had was my childish girlfriend.)

No, the reason to think at all about this show is because when I was a kid my single favorite thing on the playground is the now-all-but-extinct merry-go-round. I mean the kind you could push or someone could push for you. This kind:



I have a lot of happy childhood memories but among them one of the dearest is being spun on a merry-go-round that no longer exists in a park that still does in Garland, Texas. The park is called Rick Oden Park, apparently named for a kid who died from a baseball accident there. One time - maybe more than once, & they've become one memory in my head - one of my older brothers, who was probably bored stiff & looking for chicks - he deigned to spin it for us & he did, mightily, in a manly fashion, just turning & turning & turning the merry-go-round until it was going a million miles an hour & me & my little brother (& possibly some other kid or kids) just holding on for dear life - the centrifugal force pushing us away, legs flailing off the edge, lots of screams, possibly even tears - & me loving every damn second of it. My god that was so much fun. & it never seemed to last, it just never seemed to last.

It was so much more fun when someone else spun the merry-go-round for you, like it was much more fun to have someone push you on the swings. I think my brothers - & it had to be either Ralph or Steve, since I don't remember ever going to a park with my oldest brother Eddie - couldn't have understood how much I & the other kids loved it, or they would have done it all the time, every time, until we were sick of it. Because I never got sick of it (even if a couple of times I probably got physically sick), it's obvious they didn't do it enough. & of course for that I never loved them as much as I could have loved them, & they have suffered in their lives for that lack of love.

I would gladly have pushed my nephews & nieces on any merry-go-round they chose, but by the time they came along, the merry-go-rounds were gone. At least the kind I love. I am sure carousels are still available at carnivals & places like that.

Oh heavy sigh.

Preface To Carousels: Or Should It Be Preface To Merry-Go-Rounds?

I'm assuming there's not a lot of difference - I haven't really done my weekly research yet - but I've found about three times more songs about merry-go-rounds than carousels. Not only that, but the carousel songs nearly always mention merry-go-rounds - while the merry-go-round songs almost never mention carousels. But I wanted to do a show about carousels, so, if I could have found ninety minutes worth of songs just about carousels - &, you know, half of them wouldn't be covers of the Jacques Brel song - which for all the hell I know is supposed to be translated "merry-go-round" anyway - I would have eschewed any merry-go-round songs. I couldn't, so I didn't.

I'm sure this preface could have been more interesting, but Dexter's on, so that's all I got.

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.