The Zeke You Say

Whew. As you can probably see from all the empty cans crushed on the porch, as well as the definitive lack of apple pie in the house, Zeke Moonshine was over to record his show & to try to lasso the beagles while having a blood alcohol level that makes his riding home on that pony a dangerous proposition. Still, he managed to play some nice country & blues songs & to keep the cussin' to a minimum. You wanna hear? The show is available right now at self help radio dot net.

I just wish he wouldn't build a fire in the front yard. It'll be glowing like that all night long.

Way Too Many Radio Shows So I'm All Worn Out

I know I didn't say anything, but I spent a lot of time these past three days on the radio, mainly subbing other people's shows on WRFL. To wit, I did the Crunkadelic Funk show on Wednesday, covered a free-form shift as well as the awesome "classic rock" show The Belfy on Thanksgiving Day, & then covered the Friday morning shift which included one hour of surf music on WRFL Surf!, which is the funnest show on the radio. So I am a little tired & dreaming of eating every pizza in the world tonight instead of writing on this blog.

Tomorrow there'll be a new Zeke Moonshine, but I am trying to be radio-free for at least twenty-four hours. This should coincide with me being whiskey-full.

Also, it snowed last night. How awesome is that? As I luxuriated in the deepening cold, my lovely wife the Magda adds, "I hate snow." She's lucky we get to winter in Australia this year!

I also want to say that Self Help Radio is not on Twitter. That is all.

My Family, My Space

I didn't talk much about my family on this week's show, which was my annual "Dysfunctional Family Holiday" show. I probably should, next time. If there is a next time. If I still have a family then.

I should also mention that I had the most amazing teeth cleaning of my life today. The hygienist was awesome. Even though I was running on less than two hours of sleep & could barely string two words together. Or maybe because of that.

So the show is up at self help radio dot net for your listening plistening. There's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute. I don't have anything more to say about that.

I do want to mention that I deleted my myspace account. I personally like the fact that myspace lets me preview music from tons of bands, but I don't think the visitors to the Self Help Radio page went there for a "taste" of the show in the same way. Most were probably looking for playlists. Those are available elsewhere. Recently, the site's redesign - especially the fact that I was bombarded by ads for music & movies I don't like - made it difficult to visit, & it timed out a lot when I was trying to post playlists. It just didn't seem worth it, & I figured I'd kill it before it died of neglect, like some kind of tamagotchi.

My Facebook page is much more easy to keep track of & contains everything that the myspace page did. I also started a Tumblr blog a while ago just to showcase music videos & other nonsense - maybe that would appeal more to you?

Enjoy the show & the limited ways I attempt to reach out. & have a happy Thanksgiving!

A New Dentist In A New Town

I'm obsessed with teeth, with my teeth specifically, with the idea of losing my teeth. For the longest time I didn't take very good care of my teeth. I grew up poor, which may not necessarily be an excuse - I recently talked to someone here in Kentucky who grew up poor but has perfect teeth because she had parents wise enough to take advantage of whatever health care was available for low-income families - & they made their kids brush & floss. But I don't want to blame my upbringing too much - as embarrassed as I was about having awful teeth, I was much more afraid of the dentist.

I finally got my teeth fixed during college, & mostly people don't remember my awful teeth. (Some people probably do, but they probably weren't ever really my friends, & if they remember me at all, they remember an ugly fat kid with bad teeth.) I have become pretty great about visiting the dentist regularly since then. I was sad to leave my long-term dentist in Austin - he was apparently quite rough with folks, but he was always nice to me (my first dentist in Austin was, however, a douchebag) & I trusted him. The dentist in Huntington was a little smug, but otherwise pleasant. But now! There's a new dentist over the horizon!

The bad thing is that it's tomorrow morning - & my show is on quite early, so I'll have to stay up later than usual, & will probably fall asleep during the cleaning. I bet there's a bit of anxiety in my voice (more than usual) while I discuss dysfunctional families on my show tomorrow morning. It's on really early on WRFL - both online & at 88.1 fm - but I'll put it online soon enough on self help radio dot net. Also, it'll be clean. For the next six months at least.

Whither Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2010?

I've been celebrating the holidays with songs about fucked-up families since 2006. This will be my fifth anniversary show. I still am not spending any of the holidays with my born-into family, although I am spending it with my chosen family, the wife & the six fuzzy children. & also - with you! I'll be subbing lots of shows on WRFL this week - including, Wednesday at 2, the Crunkadelic Funk Show; Thursday at 4, the Belfry (WRFL's classic rock show); & Friday at 8am, WRFL Surf!. The deejays involved have kindly let me sit in their places while they sit with their families for the Thanksgiving.

So you're sort of like the family I'm choosing to be with this week. You can chose not to be with me by not listening. Which you can choose not to do on the fm dial at 88.1 or by not clicking the WRFL link above. You know.

Five years of shows like this! Do I come from a broken home or what?

The Day, It Got Away

So I didn't have a chance to do the Zeke Moonshine show today. You'll have to forgive me.

I will reschedule for next week, although I *am* subbing three shows over the Thanksgiving holiday, so let's hope I'm not too frazzled.

One of the reasons the day got away is that I wasted thirty minutes waiting for take out from my favorite Chinese restaurant tonight. I was all set to be really pissed, but then it was so delicious that I forgave them.

Maybe if I make sure there's an extra-special Zeke Moonshine show next week it'll be so delicious that you'll forgive me for not being able to complete it today.

What are the shows I'm subbing next week? A funk show, a classic rock show, & a surf rock show. Why do you ask?

Really, I should be able to get Zeke Moonshine in next Saturday to do the show. It's not like his still blew up or anything.

All righty then. Thanks for being patient.

What A Situation!

I am reading (for the first time, although I did know of its existence & I think had to read portions of it in class when I was in college a million moons ago) Greil Marcus' "Lipstick Traces" & it is making me realize how much I love music all over again. Not that I forget, but often I am reminded & I swoon.

Like this:

"In Chicago, in 1957, trying to cut 'Little Village,' bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson & his white producer get into an argument over just what, exactly, constitutes a village - an argument resolved only when Williamson shouts, "Little village, motherfucker! You name it after yo' mammy if you like!" As a footnote, this explains why Williamson proceeds to take up much of the song with a discussion of what distinguishes a village from a hamlet, a town, or a city; it also explains a great deal about the evolution of the master-slave relationship. In Memphis in 1954, guitarist Scotty Moore responds to a slow, sensual early take of 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' by calling nineteen-year-old Elvis Presley a nigger; three years later in the same spot, Jerry Lee Lewis & Sam Phillips engage in an hysterical donnybrook over the question of rock 'n' roll as music of salvation or damnation. These moments explain most of American culture."

Just amazing.

Destroy All Radio

In what some might call irony, I almost destroyed my computer today while trying to save a copy of this week's episode of Self Help Radio, which was about destruction. I am sleepy, you see, & it was being very unhelpful. However, my cats explained that I couldn't write to you if I destroyed the computer, & they hid my hammer, & after a few happy pills from Mr. Xanax, I was able to put the show on the website like promised & dance naked with the unicorns in the warmth of my bathroom floor.

Self Help Radio's highly destructive show about destruction (which was entitled "Destroy!") sits precariously at self help radio dot net. Please handle with care. Don't let it out of your sight. Nothing is safe around it. But it may be enjoyable to listen to. I wouldn't know. I was in a soundproof bunker while the bomb squad spent all morning trying to defuse it.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Destroy, He Said

This radio show is not an advocate for violence in any way, shape, form or deed. This radio show simply seeking to explore the concept of "destruction" when it uses the imperative "Destroy!"

Therefore, anything destroyed during the course of the show is not the responsibility of the show. This includes (but is not limited to) musical playback devices, other equipment, personal property, impersonal property, dreams, ideals, closely-held beliefs, illusions, misconceptions, currency, fluency, animals not personally favored by the deejay, humans same, humans who are not the same, & other "things" as covered in the previously document of indemnifications as approved by both corporate & state laws & regulations.

In other words, listen at your own risk.

That's tomorrow morning on Self Help Radio, live too early for your own good on 88.1 fm wrfl dot fm or archived sooner than you'd think on self help radio dot net.

This also applies to this week's episode of Sugar Substitute, but that show's safe for the entire family.

Whither Destroy?

Also, why not "Whither Destruction"? That sounds better.

Whether it's destroying you enjoy or just plain destruction, boy is Self Help Radio the show for you!

I mean, Evelyn Waugh might have said, "Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct & to refrain from destruction" (& I'm pretty sure he did) (it's true! his name was Evelyn & he was a dude!) (but I think to keep from being beaten up he pronounced it "eve-a-lynn" not "ev-a-lyn") but then Pablo Picasso said, "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction" & then IT WAS ON.

I actually don't know if the two of them even knew each other, although Picasso was alive the entire time Waugh was. Though Waugh was only alive a fraction of the life of Picasso. How much? Waugh lived 62 years, Picasso 91 (!) years. That means that Waugh lived about 7/10ths the amount of life Picasso did. In years. He might have lived more in, say, alcohol, but I really doubt it.

Anyway, the Marquis De Sade, who is often called in to break ties like this, said, "Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates." & De Sade took a lot of men out on dates, so he knew something about mandates.

That's a horrible joke, but I was destroying your perception of my ability to tell a joke & it worked!

Expect Self Help Radio to be like that this week!

Jazz In The Brain Pan

There was another flash! of jazz in the Self Help Radio universe today as the fifth episode of Tags & Tricks magically appeared, after I played a bunch of songs & talked very little. Seriously, it's a nice show today featuring such artists as Sonny Criss, Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, & Joe McPhee, & many more. I kinda played really long songs today, so there are fewer artists than I regular play, but I more than make up for it by the amazingness of the music.

Where's all that jazz? It's where every radio show I do ends up, at self help radio dot net. Didn't you know? Well, you do now.

Lazy & Amazing

She snaps her fingers, & wishes she had had the prerequisite typing lessons. But as the supervisor passes, she fakes it, she hunts & pecks.

It reminds her of her ridiculously codependent cat, who only enjoys eating if she is petting her. Seriously. She had had obese cats who will eat everything left out for them within minutes, but this cat - let me tell you, a feast could have been laid out by the most preeminent caterers in Europe & she would only have deigned to begin mastication once a sympathetic hand brushed against her fur.

What the fuck?

She never thought she'd join her cat on what she believed was the 13th level of unhappiness. Because even if her cat, at state zero (0), believed that she was happy (which was not state zero [0]), there was some other element that increased pleasure beyond happiness (state zero [0]), which existed when someone pet her, which must've been amplified when she ate, which was why she was petting her while she ate.

There were, she believe, twelve levels of unhappiness greater than that delusional level of happiness she - & her cats - lived at.

She sighs to herself, & says, later, on her blog, "Getting a job in 2010 - what're you gonna do?"

Her cat is insulted, but, luckily, is not allowed to have a blog.

Wings In Stereo

See, there are two wings, so they're in stereo - get it?

Not only that, but archived Self Help Radio shows (starting with this one) are stereo now. It also helps that I record it in stereo. I have this nifty device (as seen on televisions Law &/or Order) but it only records in mono. I use something else now, that captures the station's stereo output. So it's real stereo. Not that fake 1950s shit. Christ, that stereo was bullshit. Anyway, the files are larger but I had heard some grumbles from one or two porpoises so I thought, what the hell.

The show - & this week's episode of Sugar Substitute, which is also in stereo - is at self help radio dot net. The theme is wings, & the show may well reveal to you the secret of flight. If, you know, it was still a secret & not something humans as well as birds & insects & mammals like bats & some fish do all the damn time.

Our Overweight Sexist Media

Self Help Radio takes wing tomorrow by featuring a show about wings!

Here are the following kinds of wings which probably will not be featured in song tomorrow:

1) Paul McCartney's post-Beatles back-up band.
2) A folding section, as of a double door or of a movable partition.
3) The unseen backstage area on either side of the stage of a proscenium theater.
4) A section of a large building devoted to a specific purpose
5) Either of two groups with opposing views within a larger group; a faction.
6) Any of the meanings referring to anything in the military.
7) Any of the meanings referring to anything in sports.

Here are the following kinds of wings which will most probably be featured in song tomorrow:

1) Things that help creatures or human-made devices fly.
2) Metaphorical forms of the word that means the above.

Here are as many words I can make from the word "wings" so I can win at Boggle or whatever game that is:

I, is, GI (is that allowed?), gin, win, sin, wig, gins, wins, wigs, swig, wing, wings, swing

Here is when the show is on tomorrow so you can listen:

A little too early. Seriously, it's on at like 4:30 am.

Here are three ways you can listen:

Live in Lexington on the radio, 88.1 fm.
Live anywhere on the computer at wrfl dot fm.
Archived later (sometime tomorrow) on self help radio dot net.

Here is something you might not know:

The show on before it is called Sugar Substitute & it's a pop show I do. It's also archived later because it is in fact on too damn early.

We hope you listen in one way or another!

Whither Wings?

- Wither wings, so I shall fly no more!
- Why so unhappy, friend bird?
- Did you know, my bones are hollow, & I must eat so much every day, just to fly!
- It seems so unsafe here on the ground.
- Yet you hibernate in winter! I must fly vast distances, to keep warm.
- We admire you down here. We wish we were free as you.
- Free! I am cursed by my wings to endlessly soar!
- Seriously, that sounds awesome. Not a curse at all.
- While I may have wings, there are others that have wings, too.
- Others?
- Bigger others.
- Bigger mothers, you mean.
- They swoop down at me, they want to eat me.
- Dude, it's no different down here. Bigger mothers want to eat me too.
- Maybe being bound to the land is a curse as well.
- Maybe life is a curse.
- Wither life, so I shall fly no more!
- Or you could just stand right there, something will come by & eat you soon enough.
- Is that clock right?
- Which one?
- On the bank there.
- Oh, yeah. We had to "fall back" last night, we're not on daylight savings time anymore.
- Oh dear, I'm late! I gotta jet.

How Cold Is The Metal You Love

Fellow lovers of our future robot overlords, let me beseech you, in this cold, cold times, press the coldest metal to your face, grip it tightly in frostbitten hands, lay with it, learn to prefer it to warm, imperfect flesh. Because in the process of our obsolescence, we will find our only consolation with the cold alloys of our robot paramours.

& the music they shall sing to us will be the music you can hear on Dickenbock Electronics, my (usually) every three week or so electronica showcase, a new episode of which is available for your listening pleasure at self help radio dot net.

Produced as a public service for the Committee to Replace Organics on Planet Earth, or CROPE. CROPE is pleased to announce that it now has a human on its Board Of Directors.

Go! Listen now! While you still have a choice!

The Face In The Furor

Aw, did the season start too soon for you? Here are handy tips for making sure you don't catch cold & miss out on the wonders of winter:

1) Keep it in your pants. Whatever it is, if it's not in your pants, it's colder than when it is in your pants, & when whatever it is is cold, it can lower your immune defenses, to let a dreadful cold sneak in & lay you low.

2) Eat plenty of healthy. Yes, healthy often suffers at the hands & feet of unhealthy, which is available in most stores, but surely you can find healthy wherever it is sold & consume more of it. Studies show eating a lot of healthy often keeps you well.

3) If you must exercise, make sure it's your brain. Too many famous people who once were alive & fit are now dead but did they think the right things? I'm not so sure. Reading is good, but also just pondering is worth your while.

4) Perhaps you should also be in love. While nine out of fourteen doctors find love to be distracting unless the sex is good, researchers are fixing the data to show a connection between love in your life & physical well-being. Look it up!

5) Your pets need to go for a walk. This applies mainly to dogs, who carry loads of diseases, but who, when you walk them, spread those germs outdoors & not in the confines of your lovely home.

6) I find alcohol to be delicious. Not so much if it's in medications, like that awful one that you take just so the alcohol in it will make you sleepy. But if that's all you can get - sometimes in the middle of the night, it is - salut!

7) Friends don't let friends get sick. If your friend is sick, you have not been a good friend & it means you probably don't respect him or her very much. Plus, that friend being sick may make you sick. Goodbye, friend!

8) Snow is more cold than soft. It does not make a nice pillow for cold winter sleepytime. Even if, in this tough economy, all you can afford to live under is a bridge. People have been known to make this mistake, or maybe it's just me.

Well! The staff & homemakers at Self Help Radio hope you enjoy this winter in the same way you didn't last year, & we hope these nine simple rules will force you to stay well all through the season & only get the flu perhaps in early spring when you least expect it.

But Did You Vote?

Sure, sure, this week's episode of Self Help Radio, which is about hunger, or being hungry, is now available for your listening pleasure at self help radio dot net, but that seems so unimportant. Don't you think? Because there's this crazy election going on! You should have voted. Did you vote?

Some people think it's foolish. Some don't care. Some think it's buying into a corrupt system. All I can say is, there's probably some truth to the negative comments. But it sure feels nice to vote. Even if it's voting against someone.

& who knows? Maybe one day we'll not get to vote anymore. You might at least want to say you did something so quaint - & desirable - once in your life.

Or maybe you'd rather listen to Self Help Radio?

Oh, You Already Know What's Important About Tomorrow

Yes! & it's not my stupid radio show. It's that you vote! Even if it seems ridiculous or hopeless, even if you haven't really cared in months, even if the media have already told you who's won - VOTE!

The choices aren't so great, I'll grant you. But at least you have something like a choice, right? One time, on KOOP, there was this inane show - it's probably still on - where the host, a simple but amiable fellow, was interviewing some high muckety-muck from Cuba during one of their "elections," & he asked him, "What's voter turnout in Cuba?" The man said proudly, "Ninety-nine percent of the population votes!" The host gosh-wowed about that & then tsk-tsked the low turnout in the United States, all the while never asking the most important question, which is: but aren't they voting for a single party? If that's the case, could there be another reason they go to the polls - perhaps because they might be punished if they don't?

Perhaps we should punish Americans if they don't vote. But then again, there is a punishment - have you seen the people who run our country? I don't think a one of us could stand to be in a room with a random sampling of any of them.

Vote! Vote! Vote! I say. It feels nice.

& if you're up early enough, listen to me tell you to vote on 88.1 WRFL fm! Don't wait to listen to it later when I archive it on self help radio dot net. It won't make any sense. But actually, you can listen to my shows any time. That'd be great.

Whither Hungry?

That sounds like something a pretentious waiter might say instead of "What can I get you?"

Billions of people in our world live in a state called hunger. Batman might have told members of the Justice League, "Hunger is good for the soul," but that just means he thinks starving children are more soulful than well-fed ones. Which is terrible logic, for both me & him. But it sucks for the Batman since he has a better reputation than I do.

Self Help Radio explores hunger this week because it realized that, about halfway through most of its shows, it could really use a snack. & not something junk food-y, like chips or nuts or whatever. A substantial amount of food, like a sandwich perhaps, or maybe one of those things that other cultures make which aren't really sandwiches but emulate sandwiches in a delicious manner, like a burrito, or a samosa, or even pizza, folded over like they do in New York. Mmmm.

Of course, Self Help Radio is also proud to explore issues of lasting import, like hunger, which has become more prevalent in this country during our Great Recession, & will probably continue to increase, since Self Help Radio expects the worst. & boy, does the worst deliver.

Self Help Radio will be full of depressing facts this week, like this one:

36.3 million people - including 13 million children - live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. This represents more than one in ten households in the United States (11.2 percent). This is an increase of 1.4 million, from 34.9, million in 2002.

Luckily, Self Help Radio will accompany these facts with awesome music to offset this gloomy information.