Weekends Incommunicado

Perhaps you've read this blog. Perhaps you're someone who gives a hoodley-hoo about the radio show this blog is arguably about, or the radio show programmer who writes this blog & also does the radio show. According to Google Analytics, you are about one-quarter of a person, because that's the average number of visitors this blog gets a day. I hope you didn't have a weird accident or anything!

As a regular reader (or irregular, if there's three-fourths of you missing) of this blog, you might have previously heard that the next two weekend I will have other engagements which will keep me from my regular Saturday shows. This will also mean that I probably will not be writing in this blog on those days. Whatever shall you do? It's not like there are other, more interesting blogs out there, are there? Of course there are! I read some of them more than this blog!

This week is my Halloween show, which is about haunted houses, & I will be listening to haunted house songs all the way to Missouri, where my friend LeAndra is getting married, & usually I give away Halloween CDs to people who call in to win them during the show. I can't do that this year - WRFL has a no-giveaways policy - but I can give them away on this blog & on my Facebook page, where you should also totally "like" me.

So if you don't hear from me for a couple of days, don't worry! I'm driving to Missouri. Then driving back from Missouri. The show will go on as promised!

Unless I have a weird accident or something & am reduced to one-fourth of a person.

It's Been A Long Day; Or, I'm Exhausted

If you're the sort of person who can only read one sentence because of ADD & then has to find another blog, then let me tell you this week's episode of Self Help Radio is available for your audio enjoyment at self help radio dot net. The theme is "this or that," & there's also a new episode of my pop show, Sugar Substitute, as well. Wait, you're the sort of person who, because of your ADD, can't get this far in a paragraph. My bad.

I do have an excuse for the tardiness in putting the show up, however. Some working dudes were repairing or updating or reinstalling or doing busy work on a power line & my electricity was off for about three hours in the middle of the day. True story! I decided, after waiting two & a half hours, to take a nap, & then, as I was dozing off, I woke to the hum of refrigerator starting up.

Which is better, it's true, than being awakened from a nap, as I often am, by the tap-tapping of annoying beagles who just want to go outside to chase chipmunks.

This Week In Media Manipulation

Hey! If you're reading this right now, & "right now" is defined as "six to eight pm Eastern time," you can listen to me play electronical music on WRFL 88.1 during that time. If you're not in Lexington (where it's been a lovely autumn day), you can listen online at wrfl.fm.

If you are reading this later, & "later" is defined as "sometime between Monday night & Tuesday morning," be aware that, mere hours from now, after I've left the deejay booth cold & alone on a Monday night, I will return cold & lonesome early Tuesday morning for a new Sugar Substitute & a new Self Help Radio. Sleep? Who needs sleep?

Actually, I'm craving pizza. I'll probably eat pizza in the next forty-eight hours, Then I will fall asleep on a pizza. That's my promise to you.

Whither This Or That?

Sometimes, while I'm doing Self Help Radio shows, I think of this dude I sort of knew in Austin. He was one of those loud-mouthed know-it-alls who would call the show all the time & ask questions he knew the answers to so that he could remember the answer the second after he asked. He seemed to like my show & I was always nice to him, & he knew other deejays at the station so often showed up to talk & talk & talk. Anyway, he once sent me a list of themes he thought I should do - themes I'm sure he had plenty of ideas about it.

Now, I can be pretty snobby - & I certainly don't want to be "obvious" about themes. Still, I've picked some easy ones. But his - well, they were both extremely general & generally banal. They were things like "rain" & "cars" & "crying." It's not to say I wouldn't one day do shows with those themes - in a way, they're "gimmies," easy shows to do because of the wealth of material.

But the fellow's personality & the utter unoriginality of the themes made me sniff & say, "Oh, those themes - thank you for suggesting them - but I'm looking for more challenging topics for my show..."

The truth is, sometimes I need a "gimmie." So that explains this week's theme, "this or that." How easy to find songs with the title [insert word here] or [insert other word here]! I'll be able to sleep more this weekend.

It turns out, of course, that the more general themes have so many more songs that it's actually harder to do the shows. I've been listening to songs all day & am nowhere near done. So. I deserve it for being such a snot. A more obscure theme might be more time-consuming in the search for songs to satisfy it. But general themes - even if they're easy - I have to spend the time. I want to pick the best songs to play, don't I?

Howdy! It's Zeke Moonshine!

As promised, here's a Pony Express missive letting you know that this week's episode of the Zeke Moonshine Show - starring Zeke Moonshine - as well as old timey country & blues musicians like Wilmer Watts, Ken Maynard, Casey Bill Weldon, the Girls Of The Golden West, Patsy Montana, Skip James, Bukka White & much, much more - is now available for your listening pleasure at self help radio dot net.

If you're not interested, might I suggest you stare at this lovely photo of the Girls Of The Golden West until you find yourself in the mood?



Please remember, though Zeke has his own still, he starts drinking & playing records long before you get there. Bring your own!

Caps Lock On!

I'll probably be talking about this more as we get nearer to the time, but the Saturday shows I do - Dickenbock Electronics, Tags & Tricks, & The Zeke Moonshine Show - will be postponed - not preempted - while I am busy the next two Saturdays in a row.

NOT THIS SATURDAY! Tomorrow will be the Zeke Moonshine show as promised!

But the Saturday after next I'll be at a wedding in (of all places) Missouri, & then the next week - if the creek is willing & the Good Lord don't rise - the wife & I will try to attend Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity. (Actually, I want to go to that one - the wife wants to attend Stephen Colbert's March To Keep Fear Alive.)

This means that the Saturday shows, bless 'em, get pushed ahead a fortnight. Will you ever forgive me?

I'll mention it as the time draws ever so near. But tomorrow Zeke will be here. I PROMISE!

Hap-py An-ni-ver-sar-y!

The 8th Anniversary show is now up for listening & stuff at self help radio dot net! You will have to bring your own cake & party hats. I ate it all when the show aired this morning.

On the show I gave shout-outs to all the nice people who subbed over the years but can I do it also on this blog so I will be able to read about it later when I am sober? All right then!

Big thanks & much love to Little Danny, to CJ Buchanan, to Lisa & Jay who kept the show warm while I was on a winter vacation to Europe, to Art who took the helm on Tax Day 2007, to Justin whose excellent show I miss a great deal, to my apprentices who graduated into programmership after they took over my show for a day: the lovely & whip-smart Erin, the lovely & smart-alecky Stephanie, & the lovely & grizzled Gary, who I miss & whose tattoos appear regularly in my nightmares. Finally, a big thanks to Delaney, who didn't have to make a big deal of subbing SHR but did.

I don't think I missed anyone, but maybe I did. You should tell me. I calculated that I've done over four hundred Self Help Radio shows, so I hardly gave others a chance, but I should thank the nice folks who let ME sub THEIR show over the last few years too: the Jennifers &, later, Lace, for letting me sit in the sweet seat at the late, lamented Ear Candy; Scott for sharing his noisy space at Stronger Than Dirt; Jason & Joanna, for letting me babysit their baby Pot Luck before they flew the Austin nest; Andrew, whose Heliocentric Hootenanny is very much missed; Tracy & Smokehouse who did two great blues shows on different stations on the same frequency; Little Danny who trusted me twice to handle Soul Sauce; Taylor whose Queer Waves was always better when he did it instead of me or anyone else; Mark who let me dabble in the prog without being too nerdy about it; Lisa for the Clear Spot & Jay for the Lounge Show & Art for Jamaican Gold - how kind for you to trust me to do your excellent shows; & Justin for letting me sit in on the House Call as often as he did. Like I said, I miss that show a bunch.

There are others, too many, not to mention the shows I've subbed recently on WRFL for programmers I've not met yet. In most cases, I tried to follow the programmer's style & musical genre; insofar that I came anywhere near their standards of excellence, it was because I listened like a good pupil to their tutelage. Thank you all!

I may not get to sub any Austin shows ever again, but I hope that, when my sixteenth anniversary stumbles around, I'll have many different people to thank.

Happy anniversary Self Help Radio!

Whither The Counting Numbers?

As you may or may not have guessed, this is my eighth anniversary show. My first show as "Self Help Radio" (a name that took forever for me to come up with) was October 9, 2002. (I had done two or three other shows at a different timeslot, but though they were "themed," the show wasn't guaranteed the slot, & the name hadn't been attached.) By my count, I've done 402 Self Help Radios, though that doesn't mean 402 themes. If you eliminate the "regular" shows (my end-of-the-year favorites, my Christmas shows, the indiepop a to z shows, guest shows) (but you must leave in the "year" shows for my birthday, since they are a specific theme, & also the Valentine & Halloween shows, since they, too, are about specific aspects of the holiday) (I'm torn about shows dedicated to an artist, especially the ones where I play covers of the artists instead of all the artists - I'm leaving them in!)...

I count 337 separate themes. Wow.

Not only that, & not counting "The War On Sailing," which I don't have good records of anyway, I also subbed or covered at least 174 other shows on four different radio stations plus podcasts.

(This of course doesn't count any radio I did prior to Self Help Radio. I deejayed lots of time on KVRX in the 1990s.)

It's been a busy eight years! & I'm not stopping any time soon! So please listen to the anniversary show - airing very early tomorrow on WRFL 88.1 fm in Lexington & all over the world on computer, & then archived later (I'll say when) at self help radio dot net. Self Help Radio is eight! Does that mean we're in second or third grade?

Preface To The Counting Numbers: The Last Preface Ever?

When I was young, I made the mistake of mispronouncing "preface" in a public situation: a dumbass debate in eighth grade history class. I pronounced it "pre-face," not "pref-iss," & remember the gentle correction by my teacher, Mrs. Lane, & the class's ridicule, in the same memory pod. I should've looked at my Mirriam-Webster. What a fool was I.

On my second blog entry, I started the idear of the "preface" to the week's theme. I had some leeway then, as I did one show a week. Not now. Now, when I should be doing a preface, I'm doing an electronica show, or a jazz show, or an old timey country/blues show. It makes the blog entry where I explain the upcoming show the same blog entry where I have to say, "Hey! Listen to the show!" I've been uncomfortable with that.

You don't care, I know. But I do. & I'm the only person who regularly reads this blog.

So, from now on, no prefaces. This is the last one. I know, this could be an internal memo, but, seriously, no one's reading this but me, the person who writes it, so who gives a fuck? I am buzzing from tonight's Dexter, I could give half a shit what some random person who's googled "buzz" & "Dexter" thinks.

But yay! I've been doing my radio show for eight years! Yay! & I'm the only one who cares! Yay! Hooray!

More Tags, Less Tricks

That doesn't make any sense, I know.

But hey! There's a new episode of Tags & Tricks, the jazz show I do, featuring such jazzy geniuses as Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, Billy Harper, Lester Bowie & more! available for you now to listen to at selfhelpradio.net. All this & Jackie Gleason gets slightly trash-talked too!

Aw, he's a big boy, he can handle it.

You should go listen! It's jazztastic!

Too much? Yeah, I know.

Done Declared

Are you telling your stories again? Did you bore and or offend someone with your constant chatter? I told you so. I told you so.

Some of those stories you tell are unwelcome, friend. People need to be receptive. You can't just start talking.

I know you want to tell the stories about the not-very-good radio station from which you so recently escaped. There's a good story or two there. Maybe. You need time to tell the story, though. Just jumping in - well, most people haven't been to that place, or been involved in non-commercial radio like that. You need to build up to the craziness, the small-mindedness, the wasted opportunities.

Oh, & recently you've been reminded of the story about the man deranged by his battles with a crooked board of directors at another tiny radio station. That's an awesome story, because it's got a main character that's both repulsive & sympathetic. But, again, you just jump to the end. You need a patient audience on your side, & their attention & interest.

I know the stories you want to tell. They can be very entertaining & thought-provoking, & some of the characters are colorful & comical.

You should get a blog!

Yay! Hooray! A Brand New Show Today!

While it's nowhere as interesting as an actual carnival, Self Help Radio's show this week is the next best thing: ninety minutes of songs about carnivals! True, there are no rides, but there are also no carnies trying to grift you, neither. So close your eyes, relax, go to... Wait, open your eyes. Now, go find the show at self help radio dot net - it should be at the top of the page - download it, & then, on whatever device you're playing it (it won't work on turntables, but you can try!), start the show - NOW you can close your eyes, relax, & imagine you're in a slightly squalid, previously abandoned lot near the highway, now occupied with creaky motorized rides, creepy people calling for you to try your luck at "games of chance" that seem a little dishonest, & the smell of the port-o-potties fighting with the smell of overly fried food.

Yay! Hooray! You're in a carnival in your head!

Have fun! Be careful! Thanks for listening!

Whither Carnivals?

I was just telling the wife how much I loved riding amusement park rides when I was a lad, & that's what'll always be a "carnival" to me - but that's not really what carnivals were.

Carnivals are supposed to have rides but also booths where you win stuff & then stages where freaks & magicians & odd people do odd things. If they have a main stage or places where people perform ("rings") they become a circus. Did you ever see the HBO series "Carnivàle"? That's what a carnival's supposed to be. & carnies are wiser & craftier than us regular folk.

Speaking of, a quote from this week's "The Mentalist": "There are two kinds of people, carnies & marks." That's a paraphrase.

The show happens tomorrow morning, you know, way too early for you to listen. But if you must, it's 4:30 on WRFL 88.1 fm. Sugar Substitute is on at 3. But if you're a normal person & you're asleep, I'll but it on the Self Help Radio website some time tomorrow.

Listen, or I'll get the freaks to come after you!

Preface To Carnivals: A Sweet Childhood Moment

I'm not entirely sure when this happened - I was in middle school, & it must've been seventh or eighth grade, as I don't believe my mother gave us lunch money when I was in sixth grade - but at some period of time, probably in the fall or the winter, a carnival came to Garland, Texas, & set up shop in the parking lot of the Ridgewood Shopping Center, right in front of the Minyard's. It was a small affair - maybe five or six rides, nothing fancy, & a few games in shabby wooden booths - but there was one ride, which was called "The Tilt-A-Whirl," which I just loved. If you don't know what the ride is like, this Wikipedia article shows a picture & a description. To me, the ride was somewhat like a game - it approximated merry-go-rounds, which I loved & missed a great deal* - & the trick to master was to get the car in which you sat to just spin & spin & spin**.

Every day for the week or two that the carnival was there, I would take the money I saved by skipping lunch & spend it on rides on the carnival's Tilt-A-Whirl. Tickets were a quarter, or maybe fifty cents, & in those days my mother gave my little brother & me a dollar each for lunch. (I think the school lunch was 85 cents with fifteen cents for a carton of milk or juice.) So I'd get either four or two rides - seriously, barely ten or fifteen minutes worth of fun - but it meant the world to me. The carnival was around the corner from where I lived, so I'd run there after school, ride the ride (I don't think there was ever a problem of my age or height - most probably the carnies didn't care), & then run home, dizzy & happy.

I wish I could remember my reaction when they finally packed up & went. I'm sure I've ridden Tilt-A-Whirls since, but I know I've never enjoyed them as much as that time. It may seem a lonesome memory - my little brother had no interest in going with me, & probably "told" on me to my mother, to whom I doubtless promised I'd never do it again - but many of my happiest childhood memories were just me & my mind discovering what we loved in the world.

* I talked about my love of merry-go-rounds on this page here.

** Usually the carnival was deserted so I was the only person in a car, but a couple of times I had to ride with others, & usually they made the ride more crappy. I had figured out how to get a decent spin started, but others had not. & some, of course, were scared of getting sick.

Bonus! Here's a picture of a Tilt-A-Whirl!

Okay, That Last Entry?

I changed my mind. I've posted this week's Dickenbock Electronics where it ought to be on a Saturday like this over at self help radio dot net. Moody robots all over the world would rejoice - if only they had emotion chips. But if we gave them emotion chips, what would happen next is - well, you've seen the Terminator movies. Or at the very least, Knight Rider.

Go & listen! It's ninety minutes of delicious electronica. & very little me. I was sleepy when I made the show.

This Week's Dickenbock Electronics...

...will be posted tomorrow. The day was lovely & I was lazy. Also, a little hungover. Though that's never stopped me before!

I bet you thought I was going to say it would be pre-empted for a week. That's if you thought about it at all. Which you didn't. Well, I didn't. I am delaying it temporarily. I have other things to do.

I must go shopping now. For soda & socks. I'll let you know when the show is available for your listening pleasure. Or, as the case may be, for your shunning pleasure. I understand both. Sometimes the most fun thing to do is to shun. In a sense, I am shunning now. Although "shirking" is more what I'm doing. Shirking my work. When shunning is fun.

Something like that.

The Best Phone Calls

Any person who's spent more than four hours on the radio - especially if those four hours are at night - will tell you that you get some interesting phone calls when you do a radio show. I can only speak as someone who's done non-commercial radio - I'm certain that there are screeners for commercial radio call-in shows who have great stories to tell, too - but the types of listener feedback one gets ranges from the sweet to the scary.

I will share one that happened this week during Sugar Substitute. If you've heard my shows - & I wouldn't expect you to have, especially if you like good radio - you may note that I do take requests. I like phone calls. I like to know someone's listening. So Tuesday morning - this would have been very early, before 4am, I get a call. It goes something like this:

"Hey, I'm sitting here trying to make love to my lady & she wants to hear something by the Magnetic Fields."

I ask if it's anything specific - mainly because I really don't think of the Magnetic Fields as "sexy." "Sad" & "romantic" do come to mind...

"I know," he says, "some of their songs are sarcastic but if there's anything you can play that will help my seal the deal..."

I promise to do what I can. I have the first disc of "69 Love Songs" & am thinking about playing something sad but lovely like "All My Little Words" when the title of the ninth track just leapt out at me. So, when I could, which was about two songs later, I played "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits."

He didn't call back. I assumed it did the trick.

Eep! New Show!

Yes, this week's episode of Self Help Radio (as well as this week's episode of Sugar Substitute) are now available for listening at self help radio dot net. Consult your local augurs for ramifications. & be good to yourself!

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 29?

This is in no wise a complaint, but I am now involved with a radio station which (rightly) reports its charts to chart-compiling authorities, but that means that, for the pleasure of doing Self Help Radio with impunity (ie, ninety minutes without requirements) I do have to fulfill the station's "playbox" directives whilst doing Sugar Substitute. This is sort of a bummer, because the previous radio station with which I was involved - well, their focus was not on music at all, & their music department was in disarray, not having had a real music director in almost a year. (&, well, the one they got was more interested in sports anyway) - so I could easily play whatever I wanted & that meant this:

When I did the Indiepop A To Z, I could "spill over" into Sugar Substitute so I tore through the list faster. But, alas! No more!

Yes, I will have to slow to a crawl again, for Sugar Substitute (which is of course new tomorrow) must needs also prominently feature new WRFL playbox material as well as my own pop choices, & there'll just be ninety minutes of Indiepop A To Z tomorrow. We're still in the Fs, but we are making a dent.

Listen! Tomorrow morning! 88.1 fm! Very early! Sugar Substitute at 3am! Self Help Radio at 4:30am! Online at wrfl.fm! Archived sometime later at selfhelpradio.net!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 29: Did I Just Plan This Because I Was On Vacation?

Maybe. But it wasn't really a vacation. I was visiting the family.

But it's true, since the "indiepop a to z" process is simply creating an alphabetical list & following it, it's not really as challenging as, you know, coming up with a theme like "serial killer sonatas" - & then having to find an ample amount of songs that cover the theme.

No, I'm not doing a show about "serial killer sonatas." There's no such thing.

I did daydream on the plane about two things. One is that I might find myself living, in a few years, on a planet without frogs & bees. That describes every other planet in our solar system, but it's a little disturbing for this particular planet.

Also, I have lately wanted to write two particular novels. ("Wanted" is a strong word.) One is a sci-fi novel about people living inside human brains. The other is a fictionalized version of some somewhat exciting stuff that happened at a radio station I used to be involved with. It occurred to me while I was trying to fall asleep on the plane ride home that I could combine the two. Beings in brains sabotaging a non-commercial radio station's pledge drive?! Now that would be gripping reading!

I actually finished a novel (reading) on the plane, Lorrie Moore's new book. It was (as expected) rather sad & amazingly funny & I wish I had more of it to read. Did I ever tell you, I wanted (a long time ago, after I read her book "Anagrams") to write her a gushy fanboy email but couldn't find an address for her online? It turns out that she teaches somewhere - the University of Wisconsin at Madison I think - & all I discovered was an office phone. So I waited until the middle of one afternoon & called her up. When a woman answered, I just quickly said "I love you!" & hung up.

The last part of that isn't true. I never called her. Long ago I stopped wanting to chat with people I admired. Somehow they're uncomfortable with my wide-eyed love of their work. They expect me to be cool or something. Like regular people do.

I've missed talking to you! Okay, I'm back now. What were we going on about?